This work pack is designed for Functional skills and covers areas such as reading for information, summary writing and speaking & listening. The lesson is designed around the murder of Sophie Lancaster, who was killed for the way she dressed. This lesson touches upon issues such as equality, prejudice and British Values . Feel free to tinker with to suit the needs of your students. Please be aware that TES previews can at times distort the look of the resource and this is not true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a L2 activity based around the idea of a bucket list. This activity has 3 parts to it which include creating a list, researching activity and a writing activity. This activity has been created in order to be flexible with your teaching style and can be used as an extension, homework or form the main part of your session. It can also be amended underpin a specific topic. Please keep in mind that TES previews can distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This 31 page booklet is an excellent tool to have in your classroom. The idea came about to create a full booklet of each of the skills needed for the exam to support prolific absentees, late enrollers, to use in booster sessions and revision workshops and for students to use in their independent study and revision. This booklet looks at the skills needed for question 5 from both the AQA papers, creative and persuasive writing. The booklet walks students through tasks and activities needed for these particular questions and gives them a chance to practice their writing skills. Please be advised that the TES preview can distort the view of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a simple and fun lesson to introduce persuasive writing techniques. This session looks into the methods and techniques used by advertisers to persuade people to buy their products, it introduces writing techniques such as alliteration and rhetorical questions. The final task is a fun team activity in which each team is given a product in an envelope and they must create a advert, using the methods discussed, to sell this product. This session can be altered to include speaking and listening task or can be elaborated upon. Be advised that TES previews can distort the look of the resources and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is short and fun lesson based around the theme of music festivals. The aim of this lesson is to introduce students to the idea of writing to persuade and the mnemonic DAFOREST for writing techniques. Students have activities such as reading for information, writing to persuade and the chance to design their own music festival. TES previews often distorts the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

I have always used cheat sheets as a form of revision for my students sitting GCSE. It is essentially an extended version of an exam plan but not quite a mock exam, it’s some where in the middle. I love to use these because it promotes a sense of confidence for the students and it it a condensed version of EVERYTHING they need to know about each question of the exam. I explain it to them as an “exam blueprint”. This session is what I call a “meat and potato” type of lesson. No frills just does what it says on the tin and gives the students what they need. The session puts students into teams and takes them through a breakdown of each exam question and they copy these “cheats” onto a past exam paper. Along the way they try their hand at some of the questions, get examples of what makes a good answer and they have some independent study questions in their cheat sheet to try at home. They get to keep their “cheat sheet” for revision purposes. This has always worked and I have found that students have always got on board with this idea because they instantly see the benefit of it and it helps them feel more secure about sitting their exam. This session comes with a full powerpoint for paper 2 and student handouts with source material. Please keep in mind that TES preview can distort the look of resources but this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

I have always used cheat sheets as a form of revision for my students sitting GCSE. It is essentially an extended version of an exam plan but not quite a mock exam, it’s some where in the middle. I love to use these because it promotes a sense of confidence for the students and it it a condensed version of EVERYTHING they need to know about each question of the exam. I explain it to them as an “exam blueprint”. This session is what I call a “meat and potato” type of lesson. No frills just does what it says on the tin and gives the students what they need. The session puts students into teams and takes them through a breakdown of each exam question and they copy these “cheats” onto a past exam paper. Along the way they try their hand at some of the questions, get examples of what makes a good answer and they have some independent study questions in their cheat sheet to try at home. They get to keep their “cheat sheet” for revision purposes. This has always worked and I have found that students have always got on board with this idea because they instantly see the benefit of it and it helps them feel more secure about sitting their exam. This session comes with a full powerpoint for paper 1 and student handouts with source material. Please keep in mind that TES preview can distort the look of resources but this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a simple A4 sheet which shows a break down of each question of the AQA exam (both papers). Students can keep in a folder or fold up and keep in their pockets and use for revision. It is very useful as it reminds student of the main elements of each question, times, marks and skills the question is testing and how they need to structure their answers. This helps students to gain in confidence, promotes independent learning and active revision. Hope it helps.

Great, fun, humour filled lesson filled with interactive group activities your students will love. Tasks include: Starter game Competitive vocabulary game. Guess the celebrity game Descriptive writing task Pleanary This resource also comes with slides which can be printed and used as worksheets, slides also come with optional guidance notes on each task / activity which can act as a lesson plan if needed. I have taught this lesson for years and it has always gone down very well with students. Suitable as an introduction at GCSE or Functional Skills level to description but can also be built upon to stretch and challenge. This was created for the AQA GCSE specification but is suitable for any exam board.

A full 4 page progress assessment for Paper 1 Question 5. As controlled assessments are no longer in use with this specification I found it useful to have regular bite-sized assessments to track a learners journey and progress whilst on the GCSE course. These assessments are based on each question from the AQA exam paper and mirrors the phrasing and tasks that students will find in the real exam. It comes with planning scaffolds to help students structure and organise their ideas. It is a great way to prepare students and highlight areas of weakness and strength. Hope it helps.

This is a fun, lively student centered lesson which revolves around team work activities and allowing the students to push their creativity and imagination. Many students struggle with imagination when it comes to question 5 and many panic, especially as it holds so many marks. This lesson uses images to inspire a range of vocabulary, language features and ideas for a storyline all within the planning of a haiku, therefore underpinning some of the essential skills needed to answer this question. This is quick paced session with a range of 10 minute activities which encourage independent learning and team work. I found that many students created a range of fantastic haiku’s which I made into a booklet for the students to take away with them. This sort of thing also scores brownie points with the managers and Ofsted but also helps to develop a sense of achievement and self confidence in English, which many students lack. It is also great for the students to know their work in English has a use other than for passing an exam and many feel pride in that. This lesson covers: planning for written work, synonyms, metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, long short sentences, imagination but can be adapted to cover much more if so desired. It ends with a peer marking assessment based on the Facebook liking system using emoticons and a chance to act like an examiner and identify language features. There is a homework task, which if desired, could be turned into a in class task other than homework. Hope it helps

This is a diverse resource allowing you to use / deliver in a way which suits you and your learners. It is a 9 page handout which has 2 short story examples with questions, aimed at both lower and higher ability students, and writing prompts in the form of titles and images. The aim of this resource is to help students not only create stories but to keep them short. Many of my students over the years, both teens and adults, seem to struggle on how to keep a story short, they will write themselves either in circles or into a corner and will usually fall back on lazy and typical writing techniques such as " then she woke up and it was all a dream" or " 10 years later he was…" which is why I came up with this resource. This handout comes with paired and / or individual activities and offers tips on how to avoid these typical pit holes and plenty of prompts in order to practice their story writing skills. This resource can be used either as a piece of homework, extension class activity or can be adapted to form apart of the main lesson and it can be used with any exam board for GCSE English language. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can at time distort the resource and this is not a reflection of how it looks. Hope it helps

This is an 8 page booklet designed to be used as independent study to help students prepare for their creative writing task in the GCSE English Language exam. This has been designed with the WJEC EDUQAS exam board in mind but will equally work with those who are studying for other exam boards. This booklet is designed to cater for different levels. We all know we have students who need explicit structure and instructions, therefore often find it difficult to create from imagination, even with prompts. Whereas we all have students who will fly on an imaginative roller coaster with the vaguest of hints. This booklet caters for both type of student. It starts with visual prompts to help coax ideas out of the least creative of students and then walks them through a planning process where they develop language features, vocabulary and short story lines. We also have writing prompts which will allow the student to use real life experiences to help inspire a story, much like the WJEC exam board will give. To turn the level up a notch we have a wide range of writing prompts using song titles. All through out the pack there are hints and tips to help students keep on track as to the skills they need to display in their writing to ensure the most marks from the examiner. This can be used in any way you feel will work best with your students. Please keep in mind that TES preview can distort the resource, this is not a reflection of how to looks. Hope it helps.

This fantastic lesson looks at question 3 from paper 1 of the AQA English Language exam - spec 8700. Using the work of Stephen King "The Body" this lesson uses power-point, paired activities, video and activity sheets to focus on how authors use Openings and Endings to convey symbolic meanings, in this case - the end of childhood and innocence. The lesson comes with plenty of paired, timed activities to help support less able students and a discussion on inference to help stretch and challenge the more able in your class. I have also introduced a mnemonic for the more commonly used structural features called ROW OF CLONES to help students learn a range of techniques authors may use in their writing which my students found incredibly useful last year. The final aim of this lesson is for the student to be able to write a full Point, Quote, Infer answer to this exam question. This resource is adaptable, will fill and hour to hour and half lesson, engaging, quick paced and comes with fun starters and plenaries. Please keep in mind that this movie is a 15 certificate and using this resource for anyone under that age maybe worth some consideration. Mild language used in the extract, however as I taught in a college, this was fine to use. Hope it helps.

This is a full lesson with 3 hours worth of resources and activities. This session breaks down and examine the comparative question A6 from paper 2 (WJEC / EDUQAS exam board) by using 2 texts which describe Manchester at different periods, Engels from 1844 and Bill Bryson from 1995. This session encourages independent / discovery learning and is filled with quick paced paired activities in which the students work together to identify and source conclusions from the text given. There is a short class discussion fore the students pool all their findings together in order to come up with a structured answer. Work sheets and support material is available to support weaker students and a starter paragraph is available to get the students into the swing of writing a prepared exam style answer. There is a start and plenary included in the session but there is also enough room for this session to be adapted any way you need it in order to suit your own students and teaching style. Please keep mind that TES previews sometimes distorts the PPT slides and this is not a reflection of how the resource looks. Hope it helps

This is a simple read and obtain worksheet based around an article talking about celebrity. It is a resource which allows room for development into areas such as bias, inference and debate. It is designed for students who struggle more than most and I found it works well with speakers of second language. Please keep in mind that TES previews can often distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a complete mock paper 2 for AQA English language 8700 based on two great disasters, 9/11 Twin towers attacks and the great fire of London in 1666. The paper uses sources which were written at the time of the disasters, an article from an American newspaper and extract from the diary of Samuel Pepys. This later extract from 1666 does not quite fit the exam spec in terms of period texts, therefore I have included a simplified version of the extracts along with the original extracts to help your students understand the text. You may want to cover some more of the difficult areas of the diary extract with your students before you set this mock if you feel the need or do some underpinning of these two events to help students put them into context. Please be aware that the TES preview can at times distort the resource and this is not always a true reflection of it’s presentation. Hope it helps.