Intro to the wonderful world of homophones. Basic intro but worksheet asks them to correct spelling and encourages pair work.

This lesson is to introduce or review parts of speech and basic linguistic devices.

Students have an antipathy toward questions about texts. Here's an exercise with NO text. As they work their way through the questions, the actual,text becomes clearer. There's no right answer, but there are logical ones. Silent start/ one sentence answers and then ....write up the story to which THESE are the questions. Pass to partner and answer. Student led lesson.

A series of slides that you can incorporate into your lesson to engender HOT. Saves time searching for suitable visual prompts.

Takes students through key castle types -asks them to decide which is better and why ? Use with labelling activity. Great for lower ability but adapt for higher.

I wrote this myself after spending lunch time duty watching crowds of students enjoying fights. Grim though it was, the poem asks a few questions. Students can then write their own version of a poem/story connected with bullying/fighting/crowd behaviour. Link with the brilliant film on youtube - Pictures now added !

A devilish way to get students discussing. Present the problem and away they go. Suits all ages, including teachers. There are, of course serious issues which stem from this problem. How well do we communicate? Can we explain succinctly? Is there logic in our thinking skills?

The old problem of the farmer/goat/cabbage and wolf brought to you in technicolor. Students work in teams or pairs to solve the problem and work out the best way to present their solution to the class. Works well as a starter for lots of objectives.

Students imagine they are Romeo/Juliet both before and after their meeting at Capulet's ball. They update their facebook according to their new feelings. Obviously this format would work for any character in any play/story. See also Hamlet and Ophelia on Facebook lesson.

Students work in pairs through this 'board game' activity, answering questions generated by the throw of a die. Use coins for counters. Adapt questions to any text/level. Student led lesson. Get them to note difficult questions. Pair less able with more able. Hours of possibilities

Lesson designed to raise awareness of sameness not difference. Useful for P4C or tutors. Raises lots of questions and gives students opportunity to reflect on how colour affects our lives.

Team building exercise based on an already extant handout. Useful for first lessons or physical, social, health and emotional education. You'll need to adapt dates etc. Links to loads of other stuff as well.

Can be adapted to other year/class groups that do not know each other. Works brilliantly as a ' cocktail party' introduction to the class. I use the library as a venue for this lesson.

A slideshow which asks students to think inside their OWN experiences and reminds them of some aspects of bullying. Use alongside the other Anti-Bullying week resources.

Basic slide show for students whether they smoke or not. Strong message for those who do.

This lesson introduces the idea of Narrative Structure.. It takes students through the various stages and asks them to identify structures in their own reading.

Allows students to discuss what ' rules' are about. Takes them through stages which they can then apply to their own experience.

Lesson allows students to reflect on the issues involving smoking/drugs/alcohol.

This introduces students to the idea of a novel. I teach Great Expectations to a low ability group and will regularly post lessons on this. The attached worksheet gets them thinking about narrative structure and you can refer to it throughout the SOW.

A set of slides providing creative writing/speaking/drama based stimuli. Can be used over KS3 and 4.