Get your students thinking more critically as they decode the background behind a text with this display / prompt sheet. Print and laminate.

Forget AFOREST PIE, it's random, ill-thought out, difficult to memorise and doesn't cater for all that it's meant to: don't put the onus on your students to remember Rhetorical Questions and Repetition or Anecdotes and Alliteration. So, try FAIRER APOSTLE instead for persuasive techniques. Along with a poetic devices knowledge organiser, a TAP (text-type, audience and purpose) knowledge organiser, and both a FAIRER APOSTLE and a SOAPMAPS worksheet (Similes, Onomatopoeia, Adjectives, Personification, Metaphors, Adverbs, Pathetic Fallacy, Senses). Use as knowledge organisers or poster displays

English teachers are the worst for mnemonics and acronyms. Particularly, since the likes of AFOREST PIE and MOPSA never actually cater for the needs of the students. Is that P for Personification or Pathetic Fallacy? That S, is it for Similes or Senses? Do you even know if they can remember both? Try SOAPMAPS instead. It's a far simpler approach to understanding what techniques make work more creative: Similes Onomatopoeia Adjectives Personification Metaphors Adverbs Pathetic Fallacy Senses Now the students can use the language devices to "clean-up their narrative direction".

Students, particularly those with low literacy or suffering from dyslexia, require strategies for reading. These prompts, logs, and question sheets are designed to draw out greater depth of comprehension.

Print and handout so that every student has a handy reminder of Drop Swap and Double spellings

Developed from my need to provide a helpdesk for my students, Differentiation Cards allow your hti / ebi to direct a particular student to a specific part of their analytical writing where they have an issue or weakness. Rather than you needing to dedicate time to one particular student, you can direct them to the differentiation card they need to reflect on to improve their work (automatic differentiation)... as you work your students towards self-actualisation. Now, my students have a clearer sense of what they should be achieving and I am no longer fire-fighting a forest of hands, but able to attend to the more needy. Further, Card 13 allows students to self mark or peer mark against a clear rubric. Cards 1a Structure SPaG 1b 2a Understand the question Decode the question 2b 3a Respond to the question Thinking of a personal response 3b 4a Critically analyse the text Critical Thinking - Description 4b 5a Critical Thinking - Analysis Critical Thinking - Evaluation 5b 6a RACERS - Restate Sentence Starters (RACERS) 6b 7a RACERS - Answer Sentence Starters (RACERS) 7b 8a RACERS - Cite Sentence Starters (RACERS) 8b 9a RACERS - Explain Sentence Starters (RACERS) 9b 10a RACERS - React Sentence Starters (RACERS) 10b 11a RACERS - Signify Sentence Starters (RACERS) 11b 12a RACERS - Relate Sentence Starters (RACERS) 12b 13a Reflection / Feedback 13b 14a Planning / Composing Reviewing / Improving 14b 15a Self-editing (part 1) Self-editing (part 2) 15b These are designed to printed double-sided. I have provided a title card to be stuck on a container, and then two versions of the cards themselves, to be slotted inside. I have used the "back2back colour print" version so that I can print on coloured card and ensure that none of the colours blend into each other, but are clearly distinct. I printed 10 copies of each, laminated and cut them to size so that they can be reused. Further, I have linked them to the RACERS mnemonic (see my other resources) for deep analysis development.

An Excel spreadsheet which allows you to quickly plan out your lessons to the minute - particularly useful for new teachers. This version is set up for a school with an alternate Friday structure to the rest of the week. But this can be altered with minimal fuss. Further, if you buy this and need assistance in converting it for your school, contact me and provide with the breakdown of your school day(s), and I will gladly personalise it for you.

DfES (2013) states “... absence ha[s] a statistically significant negative link to attainment.” (p.4). Anecdotally, Ofsted inspectors report they assess exercise books to uncover how schools ensure progress for students missing school. Here's my offering, a template (and 12 examples from the year)... an absence intervention sheet that doubles up as a concise way to plan a lesson. The idea is that you provide all the main lesson details and content, from objectives to a model, keywords, textual content and questions - you can even double-side print to ensure more info is available. It's essentially a Knowledge Organiser for one lesson. When your absent student returns, rather than have them do the starter, give them the printout, ask them to stick it in their books and read through. Expect them to have completed the tasks by next lesson or along with the next homework hand-in.

A handy set of worksheets for use with poetry analysis. Breaking down aspects into constituent parts for defining examples and inferring meaning.

I have been achieving great results with syllabified spelling tasks. My low literacy students are making greater strides in their confidence and are better able to retain the information. These worksheets introduce students to base words, suffixes and prefixes and then syllabifies them for ease of breaking spellings down. Also included are the KS2 National Curriculum word lists for 3-4 and 5-6 all syllabified.

These quick and easy ideas are a great and simple way of getting your students onto the task and off of their chatter. Included in several activities are extension and differentiation activities and alternatives, to best support the way you wish to use them: Includes: Crosswords Definitions Explorations Interpretation Pronunciation Register Response Syllabify Taboo Unscramble Wordsearch

Help your students get to grips with their English subject terminology with this SOLO taxonomy inspired booklet. In order to achieve higher grades, students must demonstrate their clear understanding of word classes, rhetorical devices and figurative language. By printing a copy of this booklet off for each student, you can help them take ownership for what they have and have not yet mastered the use of. Make use of it for revision, part of your assessment process or simply as a check to find out or verify what knowledge your students currently have, or where their weaknesses lie.

Here are the issues we face: Reading for pleasure at the age of 15 is a strong factor in determining future social mobility. Indeed, it has been revealed as the most important indicator of the future success of the child. - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2013 Books in the home 'boost children's education' (Sunday Telegraph 21 May 2010 ); Reading as teenager gets you a better job (Daily Mirror, 08 Apr 2011 ); Reading for pleasure 'boosts pupils' results in maths' (Times Online, 26 Mar 2010). So, here's a scheme for whole school literacy... designed around making links between texts to provide both progression and access to multiple genres and writing types (in a single reading route). There are 15 reading routes (see Map.pdf). Students choose what they wish to read and use the Reading Logs to record their adventure (see Logs.pdf). There are two parts to the logs, i) an entire route, and ii) a log for each book read. Teachers or a nominated lead should interview students upon completion of the first few chapters (for low abilities), or the entire book, as authentication. I have included Reading-Prompts.pdf and Reading-and-Extension-Questions.pdf for students who have difficulty engaging, comprehending and reflecting on their reading. There is also Iceberg-Thinking.pdf for asking students questions about the texts they've read. These three documents were adapted by me from others work and are available for free elsewhere in my shop. I have freely bundled them here as extra useful resources to support your scheme. Certificates (Certificates.pdf) should then be printed as A5 and inserted into a cheap clipframe for presentation to the student as a mark of their achievement.

This my original data entry and feedback attempt. Now superseded... Take all the stress out of marking mock papers with your classes, with this comprehensive excel spreadsheet and MailMerge word documents. Works for Paper 1 and 2 (just save the spreadsheet with a different name). This is based upon the mark scheme and provides a breakdown of a student's current strengths and weaknesses (Q2-4 feedback is based upon the RACERS analysis mneumonic - see my other resources - particularly the Differentiation Cards) Insert Student names on the [Students] worksheet Add Q1 Marks on the [Marks] worksheet Add Q2-4 Marks on their respective worksheets and (and this is important) add a 1 in the relevant column for each marking aspect. Add Q5 Marks on the [05] worksheet for both Content and Organisation and Technical Accuracy and (and this is important) add a 1 in the relevant column for each marking aspect. To print everything for every student, use the [Student Print] worksheet and change the number in cell [A4]. To MailMerge, load the relevant word document and import the relevant worksheet, ie [MailMerge05]. When you print (and this is important), you can print all even pages with 4 pages on a single A4 (to save on pages).

I've been struggling to get my students to analyse with any effectiveness, so I'm currently trying (with some success-) the a visual approach - as an example from Journey's End (see the picture), Stanhope is talking negatively about Raleigh (talking him down). Using an interactive whiteboard, I can model answers on the word document really easily, and have been doubling up by getting the students to identify their keywords (underlining / circling) and then defining the word classes / linguistic device of those keywords, before moving onto analysis. There are instructions on the first page of the document. Most importantly, getting the students to replicate the model (red, downward arrow for negative and green, upward arrow for positive) will help them visualise what can often be a complex cognitive construction.

The mnemonic Restate / Relate Answer Cite Explain React Signify Rationale Racers represents an acronym designed to assist students in analysing texts with depth. I have tried PEE, PEEA, PEEL, and most recently AIDRWL, but found either a perpetual lack of insight or utter confusion. I have therefore continued to look for a suitable mnemonic that might be memorable and assist students in the delivery of their responses. I believe I have found that in Tantillo’s Racer (adapted here for my purposes). Adapted from Tantillo, S. (2014), Literacy and the Common Core. San Fransciso, Jossey-Bass (p.154)

If, like me, you massively need to prioritise what is critical against the urgent, important and inane, then this excel organiser is the tool for you: List your jobs in the Job List worksheet and see what you actually need to complete first. Based upon a simple algorithm, you write a short Type reference, followed by the task itself, specify whether it is important (with a y) or rank the task's importance from 1 (low) to 5 (high), and either provide a due date or select the urgency level from 1 (low) to 5 (high). The spreadsheet will do the well, providing you with a functional list and a visual grid to help your understand when you're working effectively and when you're wasting time.

Here are 16 Paper 1s that I've created for use over multiple reading age ranges. All include: Extract, Paper 1 Questions 1 to 4. Some include: Model answers.

Reign your students in with this random slow writing sentence type generator. There are now 60 randomly generateable sentences, and you can add your own if you wish. On the RndSel worksheet, double-click the cell A1 but just press [Enter] to re-randomise. Copy and paste out what you need Updated: 18/04/18.

Speed up your Language Paper feedback. I use this for all year groups (from 7 to 11) - yes, you heard that right: we're expected to test even year 7 at GCSE level. This makes me more efficient and more effective in determining marks. Take all the stress out of marking mock papers with your classes, with this comprehensive excel spreadsheet and MailMerge word documents. Works for Paper 1 and 2. This is based upon the mark scheme and provides a breakdown of a student's current strengths and weaknesses Spreadsheet for inputting student marks question by question. Two separate Mailmerge Documents to provide targeted feedback. 1) Student Worksheet: a) input Student names, b) input P1Q1 and P2Q1, c) set threshold value for expected age range target 2) P1Q2, Q3, Q4 & P2Q2, Q3 and Q4 and P1Q5 & P2Q5 (Technical Accuracy): a) input the levels (1-4) for each skills descriptor, b) where you feel this provides an incorrect mark, provide your own in column B 3) P1Q5 & P2Q5 (Content And Organisation): a) input the levels (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b) for each skills descriptor, b) where you feel this provides an incorrect mark, provide your own in column B 4) Save and close 5) Load either of the Mailmerge documents, begin Word Mailmerge and select the appropriate worksheet from the spreadsheet for either Paper 1 or Paper 2 6) Print double-sided targeted feedback for each student