I had SO much fun with this unit of work! It helped that the TA in my class went on to become a local MP for Labour (still is as far as I can tell...). Essentially, this series of 5 lessons - which, by the way, totally went over the 5 lessons I gave myself to teach this - explores a number of different political speeches. Included in the pack are a number of transcripts - Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, Alex Ferguson's farewell speech, Bush's post-911 address to the nation and the transcripts of Clegg, Cameron and Brown from the First Televised General Election Debates (heavy stuff). I was a little tentative at teaching this to a bottom set year 9 class, but they totally got on board with the debates (they tore shreds out of Brown...) and engaged well with the controlled assessment task at the end. I know that the controlled assessments are now null and void (a shame really), but the exploration of speeches might be useful to someone out there in the teaching ether...

A simple spreadsheet that is designed to track the progress of an entire KS3 cohort from Year 7 to the end of Year 9. I have LOCKED each of the TABS of the spreadsheet using the NAME OF THE TAB itself (minus the spaces and as it appears with capital letters and numbers). This will stop any of the codes being deleted accidentally. Hope this saves people some time.

A collection of resources I have used to introduce KS3 (specifically year 7) students to poetry with a view to them writing their own anthology, and exploring an unseen poem.

There doesn't seem to be much out there for DNA, which is a shame really as it's a great text to study. Attached are ALL of the DNA resources I have created; hopefully this will give you a few different ideas and starting points. This is a mish-mash of resources from three years of teaching this text across two schools. Some organising and sifting-through is needed here.

An 84 page long booklet that provides you with the following: A thematic table A section for each poem where you can find a copy of the poem, a notes page (complete with helpful guidance), generic revision and exam questions and a response page A comparative table A copy of the mark criteria I have also included the documents I used to make this just in case you want to make a different version yourself. Enjoy, and be poetic. ALTERATION: I’ve updated the resource now - found one or two typos. Also, I’ve added in a grid that allows for a variety of themes to be “graded” in terms of how present a theme is: I’ve found this to be an engaging way of getting the students to compare. Finally, I’ve added a small section at the end about the different types of poetic forms.

PREMISE: You’ve been summoned to the gates of the Dark Forest – a haunted woodland, home to numerous fell creatures and twisted forms. The forest shifts and twists constantly, making it impossible to map. However, you and your adventuring kin will step into this shadowy land as the fate of Easter rests upon your shoulders. The Easter Bunny has been possessed! You’re job is to find him and drive out the demon. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it… Ok, so I kind of got carried away the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing and went and made myself an Easter Mission Pack. Also, as I had such success using my Christmas one, it felt like the right thing to do. I include a lot of literary characters and locations in this one too.Here's the full list: Hagrid Aragog Voldemort Dracula Frankenstein's Monster Willow (from Buffy) Treebeard The Watcher in the Water (From Lord of The Rings) The Balrog The Wall (from Game of Thrones) The Ringwraiths It all seems to fit together. Also, I include in this pack a whole-class presentation so you can do a guided creative writing lesson with a class or a large group. Either way, I am really looking forward to teaching this. You will need to encourage all Dungeon Masters to be creative in how they manage the conflict situations. This, is going to be great fun to teach... PS - with the whole class presentation, clicking the main background image acts as the link to the next slide via the "secret paths" without flagging it up to students. PPS - I've also included the first lesson - available for free elsewhere - otherwise it gets a bit complicated.

Four lessons that focus on improving your students abilities surrounding discussion and listening - somewhat lost art forms. Numerous discussion topics at group and whole class level.

A series of lessons designed to make sure students have a clear understanding of the “basics” and the “developed” skills and techniques required for EACH of the possible text types they could meet in Section B of the English Language Paper 2 exam. Because my lot were taught A Christmas Carol (and I was trying to kill two birds with one stone by revising this at the same time…), the tasks are all focused on writing within the world of Scrooge. To that end, they may require some editing on the part of the user - hence the reduced price.

My year 11s were STILL struggling with how to frame a method, so I came up with this stand alone lesson. The idea is that, having reviewed the slide where the methods are explicitly identified, the students will see that a method and a quotation are not the same thing. This was a successful lesson. UPDATE: I repeated this process with a bottom set year 10 class where I was even more specific. This was also a successful lesson, so I’ve included it.

Similar to a lesson I posted on A Christmas Carol. After a bit of a warm-up, the crux of the lesson is focused on establishing concepts then explicitly showing students HOW to identify methods - again, some still confuse quotations and methods - before pointing them at an exam question. UPDATE: I repeated this lesson a few weeks later with a different extract, but backing off a notch in terms of explicitly identifying methods.

A useful little resource that can be a starter/plenary element in your lessons. The spreadsheet generates ten randomly selected true or false statements from a bank of over 260. Each of the power and conflict poems is covered and there is the scope for you to add in your own or edit the statements that are there. I released this to my year 11s as a revision tool and they found it very useful. Additionally, I have included a blank copy of the spreadsheet so you can create your own ToF statement generator.

Need a quick lesson? Look no further. A whole lesson based around Roger McGough's "The Lake" - I know it can be found online elsewhere, but I include it here for convenience's sake. Perfect for when you need to fill that irritating cover lesson with something meaningful.

A unit designed to be taught to Year 7. It introduces them to the basics of the Media and gets them writing creatively - a Travel Brochure. Includes resources and articles.

A collection of lessons and extracts designed to teach this play to KS3 students. It'll need updating a little (I talk about Controlled Assessments), but it's a good starting point for someone looking for a way in to teach this play.

A unit of work I did not design, but these are the lessons I created to teach it. The lessons focus on The Tempest and Othello. These lessons were designed to be taught to a bottom set Year 9 class with more interest in staring out of the window than exploring the linguistic delights of the Bard. However, once I started to Story Woosh the plays, the analytical lessons became much more productive.