1)This flexible pack consists of a six slide PowerPoint with clear wording and attractive graphics. It explains what the hallmarks of descriptive and narrative writing are and suggests ten key features that students might include. It also works well for teaching descriptive writing…the slideshow covers core shared key areas for both writing style and makes it clear that narratives develop plot and character a bit more, whereas descriptions focus on zooming in on details and have simpler plots. The slideshow has a heavy emphasis on the common core of descriptive techniques ideal for all types of composition. This ‘slide of key techniques’ can be printed out and given to students as a reference reminder sheet as they write their stories. 2) The second file consists of an ‘image grid’ of various scenes from a horror tale…approaching the house, entering, what’s inside, what is encountered and so on. This could easily work as a descriptive writing activity as well. The image grids work on A4 or A3 Students are set a task to write their own pieces, choosing from option she in the image grid to encourage them to create detailed and developed paragraphed prose. The images are great differentiators as the weaker kids can scaffold their answers with them whilst more able students can use more images and develop them into more detailed narrations with developed narrative voice and description. Also fun to use!

Students of all ages love these, so, as term approaches, treat yourself to my fairground- themed story grid! It works so well and you will be amazed at how much writing previously reluctant scribes can produce.. You need to colour print out the boards then, to recycle them, do get them laminated. Game rules: Split students up into pairs or no more than three. Brighter students can do this independently, but it's more fun in pairs. You need two dice per card. Ebay sell really good cheap foam ones. All the squares show close up details of aspects of a fairground. One child is on the red numbers side and the other one the green. They throw dice to get two numbers, such as 1, 6. Look up 1 and 6 on the board. Where the numbers coincide is your 'focus square'. They then have to write between 3-4 descriptive sentences for that square. They have to link , so they produce, between them, a single continuous piece of paragraphed description. between each other's squares. They will need about 6 focus squares, which means three paragraphs each. Boys get really competitive over besting each other, and soon a really good bit of writing emerges. The aim of the game is that they help each other come up with good words and imagery for each square, but, together, on a single page of paper, they co-author theor masterpiece. They are not allowed to swap squares. Some are harder than others - for example, the text squares ask students to incorporate that phrase into their paragraph. Others are abstract, such as a black hole - good for forcing unimaginative kids to think in abstract and symbolic ways! This works well with my slideshow tips for good narrative writing, also available in my shop. Once the students have done their timed mini descriptive pieces, get them t read out their work to each other. You will see a huge differentiated range. It teaches students loads of skills, from improving their grammar and vocabulary to teamwork, from speaking and listening skills and boosting confidence to creating textual cohesion and good links between paragraphs. It's also lots of fun to play!

Here is another really good pack which offers an extra set of focus tasks plus good overview points and deeper analysis. Ideal for extending the more able whilst covering the key areas as well.

Thorough and clear revision pack for the play with overviews, scene and Act summaries, points on staging and focus questions.

Funky mat I designed with entertaining cartoons and colourful images of the key marks that children need to now. I am happy for this to be shared on a school licence so that lessons can have the file on the screen. You can print these out, laminate them and give them to the students. You can set them a homework of learning all the marks, or writing their own sentences. I also find this helps a great deal if you have booked the I.T room for the students to do a continuous writing task - if in doubt, they just log on and pull out my learning mat file, then start to work out the punctuation for themselves. Time efficient!

Ideal resource for extending your most able students, this presentation covers a range of the more challenging questions in the novel...who or what is the 'lord of the flies' and what is the contextual background to the reference, the idea of original sin and how Golding explores this in the story and the religious symbols in the book. Packed with interesting images to maintain student interest!

A good 12 slide presentation which covers the main aspects of this great persuasive genre, offers students a useful range of technical terms to master and gives them a range of examples. Great to help revise GCSE English Language writing skills, from AQA board to Edquas board. Also ideal for A level English Language and Media Studies students studying text varieties for their exam or coursework.

Ideal learning resource to help students consolidate their understanding of the poems. Contains differentiated questions, interesting contextual background information and a range of useful technical terminology. All fifteen anthology poems are covered in detail, making this an ideal purchase for revision sessions and for follow-up homework tasks, or for a takeaway resource pack for the students to work through as revision at home. That’s great value, as many resources charge several pounds for just one poem. It is a handy resource as the questions essentially revise key concepts with the students. The poetic terms can also form the basis of a useful revision test. The background of each poet, their contextual significance, focus work on key lines and useful ‘higher tier’ terms are all included. Each poem benefits from a series of probing study questions. Also included is a detailed glossary of poetic terminology, including less well known and more advanced terms,- ideal for helping your students gain sharper definition and precision in their poem analysis.

A really flexible pack. Aimed mainly atcovering the Paper 3 skills for IGCSE Language students, but much of this pack would work with other Language GCSE courses too, such as the AQA syllabus. Simply add in some images to help focus the kids on this aspect of the AQA exam. The theory is the same. I have also used this pack with able year 8 and 9 students seeking extension activities to help improve their writing skills. It also works with children aiming for Common Entrance exams and ensures that they are confident with the two different types of creative compositions. Packed with 'meme-like' cartoons, quotations from famous writers and checklists of terms to keep bored boys and fidgety girls on task!

This PowerPoint covers the whole poem in great textual detail. I have a blank slide of the poem and have then close-annotated a second slide copy of the poem which enables students to add in more key terms and suggested effects. The slideshow covers lots of advanced poetic terms, such as allusion and oxymorons, colurful and allusion. Ideal to use with AQA students as a practice comparison with 'War Photographer', or as a stand alone analysis task for able GCSE or year nines.

Useful ready-to-use 10 slide PowerPoint which is easy to customise with your own ideas and tasks, maybe even film clips. It introduces the contextual history to the play, particularly James' reign and the threat of treason. It also explores James' interest in and fear of witchcraft, then moves to introducing the first two scenes. The slides contain many extension questions to stretch and challenge your students and, hopefully,get them thinking and asking you questions.

This is a great learning pack for this complex A level topic. on Language and Gender, exploring the biases for and against the sexes as expressed in writing. This resource also goes well with my other packs on gender bias within speech. It might also work with able year 11 students as extension or as a pshe activity. The slideshow is a thorough introduction to the topic and the pack includes four files of focus texts which students work through. The texts are very funny and are sure to stretch and involve your learners. In addition, the slideshow has answer section at the end so there is also a plenary. Up to three double lessons of work here, with easy opportunities for extension work following on from it.

A very carefully crafted pack which is accessible to a wide range of student ages and abilities. The pack revises and develops knowledge of poetic terminology and gets students to explore different verses of the poem in focus groups. Ideal way to encourage students to focus in on a stanza, make notes, discuss and present findings. Good for GCSE poetry students as there is a poetic terms glossary and the poem could be used as timed practice or compared to another in the Anthology, such as 'Bayonet Charge' or another's animal poem for the unseen option. The pack is a useful planning springboard for a first essay on the poem. There are six groups for each of the six stanzas, and a range of good varied group questions for each group, so every student can contribute.