This is a one page chart covering present/past/future -- simple/progressive/perfect/perfect progressive forms. How each is formed is summarised, examples are given and brief explanations for each are provided. I originally made it for myself to summarise and collect together what I found in several other places. Other teachers have been pleased to receive it because it can be read quickly, but is comprehensive. It uses different colours so that it is more attractive for students. It can be printed out and laminated, or just placed in a plastic pocket, if you want students to keep it on their desks while reading or writing.

These two booklets contain homework tasks suitable for year 8 students. Although they contain broadly similar material, the higher level one has harder words in the spelling lists and more difficult questions for the other tasks. The booklets contain spelling lists, advice on how to improve spelling, comprehension passages and exercises about homophones. The documents are Microsoft Word documents so that you can alter them. For example, you might want to leave out one task or you might want to change the order of the tasks. You could also change the instructions. For instance, you may want to delete having to use spelling words in sentences to reduce marking. Alternatively, you might want to just extract a single page to use in class, or for a cover lesson. Depending upon the child, the tasks take ten to twenty minutes to do. These booklets are designed for teachers who have been instructed to set homework every week, whether it is relevant or not, and are not meant to replace the tasks we give to supplement class work.

This is a collection of 7 individual lessons that could be taught by a non-specialist. There are notes to guide the teacher, as well as the lesson plans and resources. They are designed for occasions when the Drama teacher has to be absent and somebody else is filling in. There are also 4 short scripts that are not finished. They can be read and then groups act out what happens next, or they can write the rest of the script. I have included some advice about script writing lessons. The lessons have all been used used with 11 to 14 year old students many times. The first lesson revolves around a diary entry that can be printed out or projected. The second lesson uses a picture as the stimulus material. Magic powers is the topic of the third lesson. The fourth lesson has a planning sheet and can easily be spread over two lessons. ‘Conversations from Starting Lines’ can be done with the students seated for the whole time if necessary. (Some cover teachers refuse to let the students move around.) ‘Role Reversals’ has the students consider situations from two sides. The lesson titled ‘Mime’ is about silent acting. Many times I have been forced to conduct Drama lessons in ordinary classrooms with other lessons going on next door. Silent acting is better than no acting, and this lesson has lots of ideas for it. All the lesson plans can be edited, so the teacher setting the work can change it.

It happens to the best of us: we are ill or we have to be absent from school. We have to set some work for the students to do. The problem is that most people who have to cover Drama lessons aren’t specialists and some hate what Drama lessons usually entail – students moving around and making noise. This resource is designed to help you out. The first section is five lesson outlines for a non-specialist to use. Print out the outline for the cover teacher and he/she should be able to do it without fuss. The second section is six script ideas because some teachers refuse to allow students to move around the room. Working in groups, the students write scripts that can then be rehearsed and performed when you return to the classroom. Although designed for eleven to thirteen-year-olds, several of the ideas can be adapted for younger or older students.

These two booklets contain 20 homework tasks each suitable for year 7 students. Although they contain broadly similar material, the higher level one has harder words in the spelling lists and more difficult questions for the other tasks. The booklets contain spelling lists, advice on how to improve spelling, comprehension passages and exercises about homophones and paragraphing. The documents are Microsoft Word documents so that you can alter them. For example, you might want to leave out one task or you might want to change the order of the tasks. You could also change the instructions. For instance, you may want to delete having to use spelling words in sentences to reduce marking. Alternatively, you might want to just extract a single page to use in class, or for a cover lesson. Depending upon the child, the tasks take ten to twenty minutes to do. These booklets are designed for teachers who have been instructed to set homework every week, whether it is relevant or not, and are not meant to replace the tasks we give to supplement class work.

Students produce the front page of a newspaper acting as sub-editors. The stories, the photos and the basic layout are provided. They have to choose which stories to use, which parts of those stories to use and which photos to use. They also have to write the headlines and the captions. Intended to be used at the end of a unit on news, this resource challenges students to select what is newsworthy and to realise what can’t be printed. Remove the teachers notes at the start of the file, load it onto the network (or individual computers) and then the students can copy and paste text and photos into the provided front page layout. They have to choose which is the most important story to feature on the front page. I have used this resource with mixed ability year seven classes. With less support, it also challenges year eight students. The resource contains teachers’ notes, instructions for students, a front page template, news stories to choose from and pictures to use. The students should not use other pictures or add extra text (except headlines and captions).

Based around the theme of journeys, this is a unit of work to encourage independent work. Each student is given a task sheet and the other resources are made available. Working at their own pace, students complete the tasks individually. The teacher is left free to help individual students, or work with pairs. Students are motivated because they have choice (within limits). The unit is suitable for year 7 or lower ability year 8 classes. The approach taken in this unit is unusual: give the students what you want them to learn and how they are to go about it and they just get on with it. Students complete the work and show it to the teacher. The teacher recommends improvements (unless it is near perfect) and the student goes away and makes them. However, lessons can always start with whole class teaching about things such as diary entries, which come up in the unit, if the teacher feels this is necessary. As well, if the teacher finds that a majority of the students are struggling with one particular skill or task, the whole class can be stopped and taught what is needed. Differentiation comes through choice of task, support given by the teacher, some limited choice of text, and outcome. The documents are Microsoft Word files so that they can be changed. Tasks can be altered or added. For example, I add completing a punctuation task on the computer -- the particular one depends on the student. The unit focuses on reading and writing skills. Each task has an objective. The unit lasts two to three weeks. One possible use of the unit is for students who are absent for long periods of time. They can complete the work indepedently.

This unit is designed for KS 3 students to get them used to reading 19th century literature. There are three stories ('The Monkey's Paw', 'The Adopted Son' and 'Tony Kytes: Arch-Deceiver') for the students to read (texts of these are included in Word format so they can be printed or projected). There is a presentation about story openings looking at the first few sentences to see what they suggest about a story. The vocabulary exercise about 'The Monkey's Paw' encourages students to work out the meaning of words from context. The presentation about contractions revises what contractions are and then looks at ones that are used in 'Tony Kytes ...'. 'The Adopted Son' is accompanied by a vocabulary exercise and an activity about structure. There is also a presentation about rural life in 19th century England because many students don't understand how different it was to modern urban life. Designed to be used in years eight or nine, the resources are aimed at helping students cope with unfamiliar texts so that they don't get put off by 19th writing in the Language Paper 2 for AQA.

This is a play suitable for KS 3. It can be read in English lessons or acted out in Drama. It has fifteen speaking parts and a large number of non-speaking optional parts. The play centres around a girl who isn't coping with her family breakup and the things she does in response. A performance of the play takes approximately forty minutes.

This resource is a further thirty-two literacy Do Nows I have used with year 7, 8 and 9 English classes. (Please see the ones I have published for free here.) There are four copies on each page so they can be printed, cut up and handed out at the beginning of each lesson. Topics include homophones, continue the story from a starting sentence, argue for or against a statement, unscrambling literary terminology before writing examples, guessing the meaning of words from context, finding alternative words to build vocabulary, and improving sentences that have problems with them. Instructions for the students are on each exercise and they get on and do them in silence with no teacher intervention. The files are Word documents so you can edit them.

Six resources to aid teaching persuasive writing and speaking suitable for secondary school students. Persuasive techniques: This PowerPoint file asks students to identify fourteen different techniques in examples. It is to be used after the students know what the techniques are to reinforce learning. Persuasive techniques checklist: The Word file is a list of fifteen different persuasive techiques to print and give out to students. They can use it as an aid when reading persuasive writing or as checklist to evaluate their own writing. I have used this list with 11 to 16 year olds. Persuasive speaking lesson idea: This is a lesson outline that I have used many times. It starts with arguing in role in small groups. The senario is then changed so they make short individual speeches. The final activity is persuading the teacher to give one of them 50p. Stop Your Children Playing Video Games: This is an article that argues parents should stop their children playing games. It is deliberately provocative. It uses persuasive techniques excessively. It excites students because gaming is a topic close to their hearts. Cryonics: This is a leaflet that tries to persuade the reader to get their body frozen when they die. The facts in the text are true – companies in Britain are offering the service – but the names have been changed. Students find the topic interesting. Debate Topics: This PowerPoint presentation is a list of twenty topics to promote discussion in the class. The file can be changed so you can leave out topics you don’t think are suitable for your class or add others. I have used all the resources in this bundle many times and so have revised and refined them. They are not meant to replace your teaching. They are designed to supplement it and save you work. All the resources are editable so you can change them. For example, you many want to ‘rule of three’ to ‘pattern of three’.

This is a mixture of worksheets and transcripts to help students analyse spoken language. I have used the resources with 11 to 17-year-olds. Features of Spontaneous Speech is a list of 19 features of spoken language with definitions and examples. There are seven short transcripts for students to annotate. Spoken versus written language is a table comparing spoken and written language. Spoken, Written and Text Language asks students to place twenty-four cards under the headings of spoken or written, and then to see which belong to text or instant messaging. The three types are compared. Talk Self-Assessment asks students to answer questions about where and when they find speaking difficult and easy. It also asks them to record and transcribe their own speech. Purposes is six transcripts of conversations to project and analyse. J transcript is the transcription of an eleven-year-old answering two questions. Small Group Assessment Sheet is a list of statements in a grid e.g. ‘Supported suggestions of others, encouraged.’ and ‘Dominated the group.’. Members of a group score each person against the statements. Talking Ranking Cards is a list of statments for students to rank about how to work in a group and respond to others e.g. ‘There should be a leader and the group should do what they say.’ and ‘Build on what the previous speaker said.’. I have included a number of transcriptions because I found that getting students to transcribe their own speech is very time consuming, and it is difficult to find published examples. All the documents are in Word format so they can be altered by you to suit your classes.

This is a script to read in class or perform. It is about the nature of language, particularly figures of speech and idiom. It is set in a school and revolves around a new student. The play can be used in Drama (it takes about twenty-five minutes to perform) or read in English, where it can used to reinforce teaching about metaphor and idiom. The resource consists of one editable word processing file: things like characters' names can be changed, or the number of characters can be reduced or increased. Just about all roles can be played by either male or female students with little alteration to the script. The play is designed for Key Stage 3 students. It is most suitable for year seven and eight pupils.

Simple in design, this presentation is simply designed to get students to look for spelling patterns in words. The first slide says: 'Each sentence has one word in it that has the same spelling pattern as a word in each of the other sentences. What is the pattern?' The following 23 slides each have several sentences on them, with one repeated set of letters in each sentence. In a small group you can make it a competition to find the pattern first. With a whole class you can get them to write down the pattern (only stay on each slide for a short time to make it competitive). This resource was originally written for a very low ability year 8 group. I have since used it with various year 7 and 8 classes. It could easily be used with younger students.

Suitable for years 8 or 9, this is a script about greed. It has five characters and can be read and performed in English lessons. I have also used it in Drama lessons. The activity sheet is designed to prepare students to answer the written exam questions for the new GCSEs. It is not GCSE level (the script is too short), but actual exam questions have been taken and slightly altered, so that the students practise writing about a script and don't see Drama as just improvisation.

Suitable for year 6 and Key Stage 3 students, this is a play about teamwork and cooperation. All the employees of a company have been sent on a team building day. However, two of the characters are less than cooperative and eventually consequences follow. The play is suitable for acting out in Drama lessons or reading in English classes. A performance takes about twenty minutes and can be done with no props. There are fourteen characters with a similar number of lines each. Although all the characters have female names, you change all of these to male names or have a mixture. Because the file is a Word document, you can easily change the names before printing. Note: All the characters are adults. You can ask the audience, or the class before they read it, why they think it is called 'Vile, Little Children'. I followed up four performances by year eight students to audiences of year seven students with workshops about cooperation and team building as part of our PSHE provision.

Suitable for Key Stage 3 and year 6 classes, this is a script about someone taking revenge for being teased about having red hair, though the majority of characters don't know it until the end. A series of things go wrong for a group of teenagers staying in a holiday house one night and it is eventually revealed who is responsible and why. The script is suitable for acting out in Drama lessons or reading in English classes. A performance takes about twenty minutes. There are twelve parts. Although all the characters are female, there is no reason they can't all be male or a mixture. Because the file is a word document, you can easily change the names before you print it. The script can also be used to introduce a unit on bullying. It addresses the issue of calling people with red hair 'ginger', behaviour that many of my students think is 'just a bit of fun'. It also raises the issue of how people react to finding out someone else is gay.

Set in a space station on Mars, this play is a mystery. Why has communication been lost with Earth? Why is there an air leak? What is killing the crew? A performance (or reading), lasting approximately twenty-five minutes, answers all these, and other, questions. It is fast-paced with a high body count. There are two main parts with eleven other roles. All parts can be played by male or female actors and things like character names can be changed easily because the file is a Microsoft Word file. I have used a mixture of mainly Key Stage 3 students when performing it -- a significant challenge for them and so year 10 students could benefit from trying it in Drama lessons. Alternatively, it is very suitable to be read by year eight (or better year seven) students in English classes. (Because it is a Word file you could enlarge the font and project it for the class to read without even the cost of photocopying -- I suggest changing the page orientation to landscape.) Minimal props and minimal set only are needed to perform this script successfully.

There are two versions of a list of tips to help students write convincing plays that can be acted. The simplest version (10 tips) is designed for upper primary and lower secondary students. The harder version (13 tips) is designed for middle secondary students. There is also a checklist for the 10 tips so that after students have started writing, they can check they are following the advice. All the files are Word documents so they can be edited if you desire. The tips and checklist have been used with many classes and refined in the light of the way they reacted. The tips are suitable for English classes and Drama lessons.

This is a stage play for 11 to 14 year olds. It is about someone getting revenge for having been bullied at school. The victim invites ‘friends’ to what they think will be a school reunion ten years after they have left. She then kills several of them before leaving the others to die. (All death occur offstage or after the lights go down.) Performances of the script last for just over 20 minutes. The play has one scene and needed no backdrops or scenery. There are two props: a stuffed toy and a rope to tie people up with. (I originally tried plastic ties but these took too long to get on and off.) It can be read as a script in English, read and performed in Drama, or performed as part of a PHSE programme looking at bullying. There are nine characters. The file is a Word document so that the names of the characters can be changed to those of the actors to make it easier to rehearse.

These resources teach students about sentence structure and grammar so they can use a greater variety of sentences in their own writing. Students analyse sentences and then write their own. I have used the resources with 11 to 15-year-olds. Sentence Structure teaches the parts of sentence and sentence patterns. It starts by defining ‘subject’ and ‘verb’. Students write sentences using the subject + verb pattern. Objects, complements and adverbials are introduced one at a time, and students write sentences using various patterns. Beginning Sentences in Different Ways shows how many sentences begin with subject + verb. It then has the students experiment with other ways to start, for example, using a prepositional phrase or a subordinate clause. This activity works best if the students have already written something they can improve. Building Better Sentences begins with students writing three simple sentences. They then add prepositional phrases of reason and place, adjectives, a relative clause, a prepositional phrase of time, an appositive, a strong verb, and make other changes. All of the terminology is explained with examples. Practising changing sentences so deliberately gets the students to understand how they can very their own sentences. Finite and Non-Finite Verbs teaches the students to distinguish between the two so they can tell whether something is a phrase or a clause. How can we rearrange words in a sentence? The students are given 5 words. They see how many ways they can put them together so that they make sense. Seven possibilities are then given. This is repeated for another five words. The students enjoy the game aspects of this activity. Major and Minor Sentences teaches them to recognise which is which. A definition of a sentence is given before students are asked to judge examples, holding up fingers to show which they think each is. (This allows the teacher to see who understands.) There is a competition where students wager points on their answers. This resource also deals with the rule that some primary school teachers still drum into pupils that you can’t start a sentence with ‘because’.