A series of lessons and resources designed for a top set year 8 class. The extracts are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. The focus was to take a group of year 8 students who are used to using the PEE structure and get them to write a concept focused response. I’ve included the model responses we built as a class, as well as the model response the students were provided.

This is quite possibly, the coolest thing I've ever tried out. The premise is as follows: a debate between two students (or teams) where four referees observe. The referees score what they see and a winner is announced at the end. Now add in entrance music a la pro-wrestlers (think the Rocky Theme, We Will Rock You etc.) and run it on an open evening and I promise you this - you will have EVERY parent in at some point to see what is going on. I've run this at SIX parents evenings now and the same thing happens every time - all of the kids rock up to watch. I set it last time round where the Deputy Head took on the winner of the students (a year 9 girl). They packed the place out to see who won . The debate topic "Batman vs Superman" (serious stuff this). Needless to say, she wiped the floor with him (in a totally professional way). You'll need to be the promoter/commentator/ring side referee - this can be exhilarating and exhausting! Try it.

After teaching content related to AMND, we had changed direction and ended up doing some creative writing. These lessons build on some top end creative skills.

A series of lessons that can easily be expanded out to around 12-13 lessons that do the following: Establish an understanding of the plot over 4 lessons Gets the students to act out the plot via story whooshes (you will need a summary of the play to do this - I use a copy of the play with summaries of each page and get the kids to read certain key parts of the dialogue out loud) Explore language and structure as methods Build on the ability to analyse extracts Develop a contextual understanding Rather pleased with these to be honest. Hopefully you guys will feel the same too. PS - I've chucked in a load more stuff too. Extract Analysis 3 was a lesson where I received "GOOD" for my observation. There is also a Creative Writing Lesson that may prove useful too.

A bank of lessons and extracts that introduce Key Stage 3 to a variety of different 19th Century Literature texts. Designed with a top set year 8 class in mind. Draws heavily from the AQA material - look at this as either a time-saver or a starting point. ADDITION: These lessons are intentionally “light” in terms of their content - the main aim of this unit was to get the students to read the extracts and to ask questions about them. As a result, the lessons I’ve built contain gaps that allow me to react to the needs of the kids. If your intention is to purchase these lessons, please recognise that you will need to fill these gaps yourself. The lessons were only ever intended as a starting point.

My third lesson. This is designed to be a lesson where I as the teacher give less and the students give more of their own ideas - the group is reluctant to communicate. As a result, it is less "idea heavy" and far more task focused - you'll get a lot of markable material out of this.

A thematic exploration of Violence within Othello - focusing specifically on Act 4. Also, the power point starts with a little revision of characters and quotations from across the play. I found this a fun lesson.

A useful little tool. It allows you to RAGB(red, amber, green, blue) your students understanding/annotations of the 15 Power and Conflict poems in the AQA anthology. Also, it provides you with a poem by poem breakdown of your classes understanding/quality of annotations so you can see where the gaps are all the clearer. The spreadsheet is set up for a class of up to 40, but the coding can easily be altered to allow for a whole year group.

Does exactly what it says. This spreadsheet will create one random comparative question for and will generate a new one every time you double-click a cell and press enter. A word of caution in that you cannot retrieve the old question. But, this is very useful for revision and or cover lessons. I’ve left room for you to add in your own question stems and you can manipulate the poetry lists too. I’ve left some instructions on the relevant tab. Hope you find this useful.

I used a similar approach with the Paris Anthology section and my class found it to be very useful. The issue they were having focused on incorporating enough AO1 terminology appropriately. This lesson is designed to talk them through an approach to an essay question, starting with the poetic voice, moving on to selecting relevant areas and then placing each level of language as a different starting point before exploring ideas across the language levels. It seemed to work… Hope others find this useful as a starting point.

PREMISE: You are going to enter the Castle of Terror to save Santa Clause. He has been kidnapped by the evil Necromancer, Alan. His devilish plan is to suck the Xmas spirit out of Santa, and use it to power his horde of undead. He has banded together with the Orcs and Goblins of the nearby Dark Forest. They will protect him whilst he finishes his experiments. You must hurry. The fate of Christmas rests with you… A mission pack that builds on the free D6 Dungeons and Dragons lesson I created. Print this off (delete the first slide though) for students, or set it up as a power point for the Dungeon Master. All the kids I tried it with loved it. Some of the quotes: "Voldemorts stolen my nose! Give me back my Magic Dagger!" "You are the worst re-animated corpse EVER!" "I use my Staff of Uncertainty to turn you into a Gibbon." A seriously creative lesson. Enjoy. PS - I've also added the initial lesson (Lesson 1) as a starting point for the kids - gets a bit complicated otherwise.

A useful little unit that we put together to fill a 2/3 week gap. It has the students explore pre-1914 material - poetry and prose - and ends with a controlled assessment in the vein of the old AQA English style questions for the Literature paper. Might fill some other gaps out there in shorter half terms.

I wrote these lessons a while ago, but I remember getting some positive responses to the story AND the creative writing tasks. For this, you will need some of those old AQA anthologies (the one that came BEFORE Sunlight on the Grass) - one of the short stories was called "My Shoes". The content, for those who don't remember, is rather more orientated towards KS4 than KS3, but the creative writing that comes from this resonates with the kids I taught at the time. Hopefully you'll find this useful.

Attached is a spreadsheet that does an awful lot of work for you. To summarise, it does the following: Allows for easy collation of GCSE Language marks on a paper by paper basis AND as a whole examination Allows for easy identification of various student demagraphics - EAL, PP and so on Allows you to measure progress against students best, average and last marks across both papers Works out "how many marks" until you hit target grades for individual students Colour codes grades and marks to allow for at a glance progress checks Once you buy this spreadsheet, you will not need to get another LANGUAGE spreadsheet. The document contains instructions on the ARRAY tab as to how to update . Oh, and if you do get this, I suggest you LOCK the individual spreadsheets ASAP: the document is set up to allow you to do this and still enter the data, you just won't be able to accidentally delete any of the coding, thus removing any brain overloads that might ensue. I am using this at my current school and there are several other schools who are using this system with good reports. Happy spread-sheeting! PS - Yes, there is a page that reads exactly the same but for a version that caters for the AQA Literature course. The spreadsheets are different. Here's the link/address to the LITERATURE version: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/aqa-english-literature-data-collation-spreadsheet-aka-the-machine-11405407

A complete unit of work including source poems, videos and mp3 versions of poets reading their poems. Differentiated for higher, middle and lower ability classes (each lesson back ground has a slightly different colour for an easy visual guide), this is a unit of work I designed with my Head of Key Stage 3 hat on at my last school - an entire year group was successfully taught this unit. A real success.

Attached is a spreadsheet that does an awful lot of work for you. To summarise, it does the following: Allows for easy collation of GCSE Literature marks on a paper by paper basis AND as a whole examination Allows for easy identification of various student demagraphics - EAL, PP and so on Allows you to measure progress against students best, average and last marks across both papers Works out "how many marks" until you hit target grades for individual students Colour codes grades and marks to allow for at a glance progress checks Once you buy this spreadsheet, you will not need to get another LITERATURE spreadsheet. The document contains instructions as to how to update the spreadsheet. Oh, and if you do get this, I suggest you LOCK the individual spreadsheets ASAP: the document is set up to allow you to do this and still enter the data, you just won't be able to accidentally delete any of the coding, thus removing any brain overloads that might ensue. Happy spread-sheeting!

I've taught this to top set year 8 and year 9 - had more success with the year 9s to be honest, but I think this would work with year 8s further in to the year. This was a series of lessons taught over the enormous 8 week half term. Hope the resources are useful to you!

Contained within this pack is all the resources i used in my GTP year with a bottom set Year 10 GCSE group. I had mixed success bu i felt my teaching got stronger as i went through this unit. A starting point for those wondering where to start perhaps, or another way of looking at a topic thoroughly done.

Focused on the Shakespearean text vs the Conflict Poetry from the literary heritage. Very structured against the bands and pointed towards the controlled assessment.