Here is everything you need for a fun media project - get your students making a montage. This is aimed at yr9s who will be doing a Media GCSE, so gives them a flavour of projects to come and is ideal for the end of the year. Although most will want to film, it is possible to deliver a montage on Power Point, so all skill and interest levels are accommodated. There are 6 lessons with instruction slides, links to lots of clips showing montages as well as tutorials for use at home. The note to the teacher guides you through the scheme and the montage outline gives students their instructions and due dates [you fill those in]. As well as a project review sheet to flag up problems, there is a self- and peer- assessment sheet for when the montages are done.

A word of the week is a great way to start a lesson and kids love using the new word, but don't think you can't use this resource if you haven't been doing the weekly words - simply print out each slide sans the WOW heading and display them in the classroom or put them on a 'help-desk' and turn the task into a Thesaurus lesson. The wordsearch is not one of those mindless exercises that have brought the genre into disrepute: here students need to find the WoW from the definition and list the words that need to be found. The favourite trick of highlighting anything that looks like a word has been thwarted by there being lots of words that aren't on the list - students lose a mark if they have highlighted an irrelevant word. Alternatively [or for another day] there's a spelling test. Answers make both tasks easy self-mark tasks.

It might not seem like much if you don’t follow the links, but this is the portal to the world of unseen poetry! This booklet will save you and your students hours of trawling the Internet. My thanks to Caro Evans, my colleague and friend who asked me to compile this list and selected the poems- we decided that the most logical way to prepare for the unseen element of the exam was to look at other poems by the studied poets, to give students an idea of the context of the time and an ability to write about form and structure. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I’ve searched for information online and given you the links - so this works best as an e-book, where links can be easily copied and pasted. So this is something you can use for your own preparation and planning of unseen poetry - along with the sheet of possible comparison questions- or can mail to your students so that they can do their own exploring. There’s such a lot of treasure here to discover - Enjoy!

Ideal task for World Space Week! Cover it! Descriptive writing, photo prompt, differentiated w/s, all printed, suits non-specialist. Sometimes you need a class just to get on with it, or you're supplying cover at short notice for a non-specialist - this series covers those times when it needs to be plain and simple on paper, but nonetheless needs to be worthwhile and relevant. In this task students have a picture and have to write a story inspired by it. There are 3 different levels - the simplest provides a frame and even some words to trace for those who can't write legibly and need help coming up with ideas. The next level up has just the prompts and the most able are challenged to go further with some story openings to inspire their creativity. The topic of this exercise is SPACE.

The focus on this resource is AO1. First an exam type test which follows the style of the AO1 questions in both papers - the point is to focus attention on the skill of finding explicit and implicit information, as well as to show how tasks become progressively more demanding. This can be set as a previous hwk or a lesson starter. Remind students to be aware of time constraints, but allow time for reading. The answers to these questions are given on the PP. Next the focus is on the summary question, using 'AQA-87002-Q2-FI-TS GCSE P2 teaching synthesis' and making it accessible to students with explanations of quotes from AQA's directive. This gives students confidence in the instructions you give them. The sample answer comes from the same directive, with an explanation of the implications of the choice of approach.

As these 4 terms, denotation/connotation; explicit/implicit, come up throughout KS3 & 4, it is worth taking time to ensure that weaker students understand them. Included are the 'notes' students will be making from the power point, with key words written in a 'join the dots' font for the slow and those whose handwriting is illegible. This lesson can be used with any topic where the terms feature in lessons, or as a stand-alone literacy task.

• You will need the specimen paper for Unseen Poetry – p10 & 11, AQA/AQA-77121-SQP.PDF- for each student. • The Power Point will give students a strategy to follow for this paper – annotating the specimen paper, then writing the key ‘steps’ of the strategy is a good way of ensuring students engage with the strategy, but a handout has been made for revision. Some suggested questions can be used by you as a guide for setting essays or given to students for their own revision.

This resource focuses on AQA’s English Paper 2. Help your students ‘cast a spell’ on exams by making sure they know the criteria each question is judged on, the time available to answer questions and have a strategy for approaching each task - all summarised on this mat/poster [A4 or A3 printout]. The PP serves either as a quick class quiz to make sure they’ve taken note of the information - could be a quick starter for every lesson focusing on one question at a time - or as the answers to the question handout, which in turn could be a quick test, plenary or homework. If you’re handing back mock exams, this is a timely reminder of what you were looking for: useful for corrections. Otherwise, revision for the next exam!

Help your students ‘cast a spell’ on exams by making sure they know the criteria each question is judged on, the time available to answer questions and have a strategy for approaching each task - all summarised on this mat/poster [A4 or A3 printout]. The PP serves either as a quick class quiz to make sure they’ve taken note of the information - could be a quick starter for every lesson focusing on one question at a time - or as the answers to the question handout, which in turn could be a quick test, plenary or homework. If you’re handing back mock exams, this is a timely reminder of what you were looking for: useful for corrections. Otherwise, revision for the next exam!

This lesson builds on the previous two Writing lessons to look at how to get top marks. The starter opens with a discussion about how students use persuasive devices and moves on to the ‘tool box’ of persuasive techniques they have. These are basically the same whatever the exam board. A handout enables the students to glue in a list of these - and what their effect is - into their books for revision purposes. The lesson PP focuses on example extracts - sentence variation and persuasive techniques - and gives tasks through which they explore how the writing is crafted. Their homework requires them to write a short piece on the same topic as their extract in timed conditions. You could spend another lesson peer assessing work and using the checklists to look for criteria, proof reading and editing as you go.

The focus of this second lesson is writing in a way appropriate for the form, audience and purpose of the task. In the process, students are introduced to the mark scheme, do peer assessment of last lesson’s homework and get a note on strategy. Their plenary is to match extracts to text types, but as these text types are written by the same author, their challenge is to see how one person adapts their writing to the required TAP. The quick fire starter focuses on TAP appropriate openings; the lesson PP then focuses on assessment criteria angled towards TAP, giving students a checklist and a strategy as handouts; and the plenary asks students to TAP three extract. Answers will be checked in the next lesson. Although designed for the Eduquas exam, these skills are relevant for all exam boards.

Section B is often just left to students to manage as teachers focus on the reading component. But being well prepared for writing tasks can win students time and if they follow the 5 golden rules given here they can boost their scores. A starter PP shows students how important accuracy is, then the ‘how to’ lesson takes them step-by-step through from decoding the task to proof-reading. Along the way they have ‘you try’ opportunities and homework under timed conditions, which will be checked in the following lesson. There is a paper version of the starter to allow for differentiation. Although designed particularly for the Eduqas exam, the skills taught in this resource suit all exam boards.

With more and more pressure on teachers to ignore Christmas and keep working till the last day, we need something subject related to lighten the mood. All the activities are easily adaptable, you just have to fill in your subject and maybe change the examples to suit. Have some subject related topics in mind for those who need extra guidance. There are 6 tasks to choose from, suiting certain classes and subjects slightly better, some more homework oriented, others will cover several lessons, some make a perfect starter or plenary, depending on ability and age- but the task sheet explains the essence of the task, what you might need to tweak and how to make each task educational. The icons on the first slide of the PP are hyperlinked to the relevant activity, so you can guide the class into choosing which one they’d like to do [please prepare beforehand though, there are places to insert your subject etc.]. There are templates for the games and a fill-in letter to Santa for classes that need guidance. And if you really haven’t got time this Christmas, you can still use the activities later in the year, just change the icons if you want to use the PP. So, an ultra versatile, fun-learning resource adaptable to most subjects AND 6 activities for the price of 1: its a gift!

The advantage of this ‘jigsaw’ way of preparing students to write an essay answer is that they will write much more, it will be well thought through and weaker students will benefit from working collaboratively, while more able students will spark each other. It can work with any text with a bit of tweaking and the resource can be adapted to suit your class. This work will cover several lessons, with the lesson PP giving clear instructions. The written guide gives the teacher the steps to follow as well as sharing friendly advice born of experience. The 'Methods' sheet lists the methods if required and the checklist helps students make sure their essays meet the criteria for top marks. A 'Targets'PP facilitates your marking and feedback to students. A print version of the targets enables you to give a set to each student if you don't think writing out their own target warrants the time.

The culmination of the series focuses on question A6 following a similar pattern as before. It begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, first on the PP, then with written texts. First, to give students confidence, two short texts from speeches on immigration. This keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ PP when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives in the lesson PP and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. This series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper and the focus of this particular resource is question A5. Here two text are given for work in class and two more homework texts are given. All these texts will be used in the A6 lesson, but re-issued to make that a stand-alone resource too. Hwk can always be done as an extra lesson, if students are struggling particularly. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. Although this series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper, it can easily be adapted to suit the question style of other exam boards: all have retrieval questions, inference questions etc. The focus of this resource is A3 & A4. The questions are largely similar, though slightly more demanding that A1 & A2, which is why they have been done together. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. Although this series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper, it can easily be adapted to suit the question style of other exam boards: all have retrieval questions, inference questions etc. The focus of this resource is A2. A quick-fire starter gets students using the technique they need for the question on a simple visual task. The 'how to' PP looks more closely at the question's requirements and offers quick guided practise. The focus then shipts to how to formulate the gathered information into a 10mark answer. A sample answer is provided as well as a simplified, student-friendly marking memo that can be used for all the 10mark questions in this paper. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.