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Helping Hand Shop

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Here to provide some handy resources to help with the huge amount of time that planning takes up. A variety of resources for literacy, library, English and Classics teaching. Teacher of English and Classics for 17 years with plenty of experience in secondary schools. Whole school Literacy co-ordination in 5 schools. If you are looking for something particular, please let me know and I will see if I can help you out.

Here to provide some handy resources to help with the huge amount of time that planning takes up. A variety of resources for literacy, library, English and Classics teaching. Teacher of English and Classics for 17 years with plenty of experience in secondary schools. Whole school Literacy co-ordination in 5 schools. If you are looking for something particular, please let me know and I will see if I can help you out.
Key stage 3 core spellings booklet/ prep
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Key stage 3 core spellings booklet/ prep

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KS3 core spelling booklet for prep for the year/ to use in class. The booklet goes through tricky spelling rule plus a number of other core spellings from across the curriculum: Part 1 List 1: ie/ei 3 List 2: s/c/sc/cc/xc 4 List 3: g/ge/dge 6 List 4 and 5: Double letters 7 List 6: Suffix -ing/-ed 9 List 7: Suffix -ous/-eous/-ious 10 List 8: Suffix -ence/-ance 11 List 9: Suffix -ent/-ant 12 List 9 (cont): Suffix -tion/-cion/-sion 12 List 10: Suffix -ly/-ally 13 List 10: Suffix -ful/-fil 14 Lists 11 and 12: Words that look or sound similar 15 List 13: Other common misspellings 16 Example sentences 18 About this booklet Part 1 lists all the words you are required to know, organised by spelling rule. Begin by rating your confidence on each spelling by ticking the appropriate box. This will help you identify the spelling rules you most need to focus on. You will see on your prep timetable that there is a fortnightly slot for literacy. Your teacher will tell you which lists to learn ahead of a ten-question quiz the following literacy lesson. You may also like to refer to Part 2 of this booklet to see each word used in a sentence. E.G. page 1 without practise grid List 1: ie/ei Rule: ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ Not confident Moderately confident Very confident achieve believe chief friend hierarchy hygiene medieval mischievous perceive piece receipt receive siege Rule breakers: Not confident Moderately confident Very confident foreign height leisure neighbour seize weird
KS3 Library lessons booklet
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KS3 Library lessons booklet

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This booklet takes KS3 pupils through a year’s worth of lessons in the library- enough for a lesson once a fortnight. The booklet I have created has been trialled for two years in school and works well. I have had some excellent feedback from both students and teachers who have enjoyed the variety of work within it. It begins with some work on the student’s reading history and then continues with group reading (we have 5 copies of each of the texts mentioned- you would need to edit to add your own book choices.) In my school I asked both teachers and parents to read the same book and this resulted in a book club discussion focused on key questions as generic prompts. If you download the resource and want the questions then please just email me for them. To develop this section even further I have asked my students to create ppt teasers for the books they have read to present ot the new yr7s. After this section students delve further in to the library and explore different genre sections, picking out a few books that interest them and discussing the genre. These notes are collated in the booklet. There is also a feedback section at the end. This resource is a little more expensive as it is a year’s worth of work.
Library books exploration lesson/s
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Library books exploration lesson/s

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A useful resource to use to get pupils exploring books from different genres and develop an idea of their own preferences. Lasts 2/3 lessons. (this can be used not for genres, just for books you have chosen for them to explore) Set up 5/6 books on each table (can be more or less depending on your time) from different genres as a carousel and get the pupils to look at the title, read the first page and the blurb of all on the table. Pupils choose the best one from each table and rate it. Activity leads on where they can consider their own crafting and what genre they would lean towards writing themselves. Writing frame applied for this.
IGCSE unseen poetry booklet revision, lessons or homeowrk
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IGCSE unseen poetry booklet revision, lessons or homeowrk

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Each poem follows a similar layout…Example: Poem 1: What has happened to LULU (poem on sheet) By Charles Causley What is the poem about? (space provided for answers under each question so pupils can write in booklet) Who is speaking? Why is the title significant? Find one technique and explain the impact on the reader and why you think the author uses it? How does the poet feel about the topic? Practise exam question, taken from exam paper: Explore how Causley presents the thoughts and feelings of the speaker in the poem. This is a booklet created for my GCSE class which covered 14 poems that the exam board has covered with questions to explore each poem and the exam question at the end for pupils to attempt. This has been used very successfully for a couple of years and works great as either a practise booklet prior to exams or (as I have used it) as a homework booklet for pupils to work through. It could also be used as a quick pick up for cover or a lesson, or a go to if you need some time to mark.
A Christmas Carol full teaching GCSE unit
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A Christmas Carol full teaching GCSE unit

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This is a fully resourced Scheme of Work for the teaching of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ at GCSE. It is tried and tested and has been taught with excellent outcomes over the past ten years. It is specifically tailored for the AQA GCSE, but can be adapted for any exam board or even just used as a nice scheme of learning for lower down the school. Example lessons 1 and 2B are avaliable to download for free so you can see the type of resources you will be purchasing. I also have a number of the lessons/ resources avaliable under the title ‘A Christmas Carol’ as paid for, stand-alone, lessons should you wish to only purchase a few things. I also have a separate workbook avaliable that pupils can use for 15 mintues a day to analyse language and significant moments in the text- preview avaliable in my shop. There is a total of 24 lessons in this SOW and each lesson has a powerpoint to download and often there are accompanying worksheets/ tasks. The SOW covers analysis of a passage as well as how to respond to the longer, developed essay titles. Tasks are not all GCSE response focussed (in order to engage pupils) and there are a variety of activities such as: persuasive letter writing; debating; hot-seating of characters; obituary writing, descriptive tasks and the making of class paperchains (based on Marley’s chains of purgatory) to decorate your classroom for the festive season! Each lesson has a starter activity for the pupils to begin as they enter the room and, if you click on the Christmas tree on the first slide of every lesson, it will link you to a christmas song on youtube that you can play whilst they complete the activity/ enter and settle down to learn. Be warned, this leads to much singing, dancing and general merriment on everyone’s part! I have also included a cloze exercise (word doc) for each stave as a starter/ plenary or revision activity (with answers) for you to use with your classes. The complete scheme includes: Lesson 1- Historical context/ A03 Lesson 2- Characters and attitudes towards Christmas Lesson 2B- The characterisation of Scrooge. Lesson 3- Vocabulary and glossary Lesson 4- Analysing a passage Lesson 5+6-Writing to describe - copying Dickens’ style (used as a creative writing assessment) Lesson 7- feedback Lesson 8- Marley’s Ghost Lesson 9- The Chains of purgatory Lesson 10,11+12- The Ghost of Christmas Past Lesson 13- Stave two character discussion and debate. Lesson 14- The Ghost of Christmas Present Lesson 15- Empathy/ sympathy, social reform and the cratchitts Lesson 16-Tiny Tim biography Lesson 17-Changing impressions Lesson 18- Ignorance and Want- Dickens’ message Lesson 19- Contrast Lesson 20- The Cratchitts revisited Lesson 21- The Spirits Lesson 22- The end of it Lesson 23- Past paper questions and essay planning
Book day lesson with video and 17 dingbats
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Book day lesson with video and 17 dingbats

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To be used as a lesson asking pupils to reflect on books. Task one: consider their own book that has inspired them and share. used for display. Task two: use a link to the author’s academy to watch a video on a relevant workshop on: how to create interesting character, how to write and adevnture story or how to form the seeds of a story. You can develop this to have them writing as much as you want. Task three: 17 dingbats on popular book titles with answers. Good fun for all involved.
Half Caste independent exploration sheet
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Half Caste independent exploration sheet

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A copy of the poem with question prompts around it to allow for independent or group exploration prior to teaching. Excellent for teaching unseen poetry exploration or to set as a prep for teaching of poem next lesson. Whole task will fill a 40 minute lesson with feedback.
A Christmas Carol- The Spirits
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A Christmas Carol- The Spirits

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This is lesson 21 from my ‘A Christmas Carol teaching unit’ which covers the whole text for GCSE teaching purposes. It is based on GCSE AQA specifications, but can be adapted for any year group or exam board- page numbers will need to be edited to your copy. This lesson is a taster of what you can expect from my set of 24 lessons which can be purchased as a bundle- though I am offering a few lessons for free and a few for £1 purchase. There is also a revision/ task booklet avaliable and a revision bundle. There is a video attached to the description/ preview page so you can see the whole unit of work with the many resources avaliable should you wish to have more information. This lesson specifically focuses on The Spirits in the text; looking at how they are presented, what their purpose is and which is the most influential. There is also a complementary worksheet which allows pupils to analyse quotations about the presentation of the spirits -great to keep hold of for revision notes. N.B. The page you see in the preview for the worksheet is the first page which is a modelled response, the pupils have to complete the work for the three other spirits.)
A Christmas Carol revision/workbook tasks
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A Christmas Carol revision/workbook tasks

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This ‘A Christmas Carol’ revision workbook is a 28 page booklet that uses small extracts from the text and questions to allow pupils to develop their understanding of the text and begin to form analytical responses. There are 5/6 pages of work for each stave. The first page of the booklet is a modelled response to develop high expectations for the work and the rest of the booklet has questions… please see preview for the first few pages of work from the booklet- a clear example of what to expect. Instructions for pupils: work through this booklet for the first 15 minutes of every English lesson (could also be used for homework or revision lessons). The booklet is designed to help you: Remember the events and key quotes of A Christmas Carol Develop your analysis of and response to the novel-meaning your ability to explain what quotes suggest about characters, why a character/place/event is important in the story etc. Consider context-Victorian life in 1843, and Dickens’ inspirations and intentions in writing the novel.
Library booklet creative work
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Library booklet creative work

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A library booklet which covers 20 lessons plus(a year worth) using library books/ information and resources in a way that allows pupils to respond creatively. Areas of library covered: Poetry, novels in verse, Harvard referecing system for academic texts, serialisation of novels/ dickens, graphic novels, autobiographies and biographies, crime fiction. Group reading of three books: novel in verse, Dickens of choice (Christmas Carol in this booklet but can be adapted), Crime fiction. Topics: **Poetry ** Lesson 1- Looking at poetry in the library - copying a poem of their choice and mimicking the creative style of imagery in the style of William Blake. Lesson 2+3 Blackout poetry using pupil’s favourite books. Lesson 4,5,6- Reading of a novel in verse with a book review. This can be a class reader if you want to buy one in or the pupils can explore their own in the library. For class reader I would recommend ‘The Weight of Water’ or ‘Booked.’ **Dickens/ Christmas **- this is skills based section and can be adapted using the templates in the booklet for any text being studied Lesson 7- Harvard refercing system using texts on Victorian life in the library Lesson 8- Short story carousels based Dicken’s serialisation of novels in papers. Lesson 9+10- Explore library graphic novel collection and create your own mini graphic novel of a story using templates. Advertising and biography Lesson 11- Library logo hunt. Lessons 12+13+14+15- autobiography project looking at autobiographies and biographies in the library then creating own Book cover, blurb etc for themselves. Lessons 16-20- Reading of crime/ mystery fiction: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Miss. Marple. For more modern crime/mystery fiction you could use ‘A murder most unladlike’ novels which are very popular amongst pupils at the moment.
A Christmas Carol -Characterisation of Scrooge
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A Christmas Carol -Characterisation of Scrooge

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This is lesson 2B from my ‘A Christmas Carol teaching unit’ which covers the whole text for GCSE teaching purposes. It is based on GCSE AQA specifications, but can be adapted for any year group or exam board- page numbers will need to be edited to your copy. This lesson is a taster of what you can expect from my set of 24 lessons which can be purchased as a bundle- though I am offering a few lessons for free and a few for £1 purchase. There is also a revision/ task booklet avaliable and a revision bundle. There is a video attached to the description/ preview page so you can see the whole unit of work with the many resources avaliable should you wish to have more information. This particular lesson focuses on the intial depcition of Scrooge, analysing the language used by Dickens, modelling a paragraph of writing in response to a question and then leading pupils to write their own response.
Literacy marking matrix QWC and English
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Literacy marking matrix QWC and English

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An essay or creative writing marking matrix that is developed to mark for Literacy. It focuses on 5 areas giving a total mark out of 20. Created using GCSE Language marking criteria in English and combining with the QWC across 15 academic subjects. Can be used to mark pupils literacy and provide next steps to get to the next level. Room for actions and targets.
Literacy key word prep booklet/  cross curricula Subject specific spelling booklet
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Literacy key word prep booklet/ cross curricula Subject specific spelling booklet

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A booklet created for prep/ homework to improve cross curricula Literacy. One year worth of prep. Key words provided by Head of Departments across subjects. Meant to be used weekly throughout the year. Pupils to find definitions and write them down with tests the next week and area to record their scores. Extra vocabulary lists at back for stretch and challenge. We have been using this successful for three years.
Literacy lessons and worksheets bundle
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Literacy lessons and worksheets bundle

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A series of Literacy lessons aimed at KS3 pupils to reaffirm their KS2 Literacy teaching. 12 lessons with relevant worksheets. The first two of these lessons can be viewed/ downloaded on my shop for free to give you a taste of how they work for you in the classroom- if they work then save yourself some time and purchase the bundle… Topics covered: Sentence types and composition Clauses and phrases Tenses fullstops, capital, questions and exclamations ellipsis commas and inverted commas apostrophes colons and semi-colons hyphens and dashes parenthsis nouns and pronouns verbs and modal verbs
Poetry quiz/ poetry day
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Poetry quiz/ poetry day

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A quiz on many things poetry to be used for tutor groups or classes. Over twenty questions with rounds on: Nursery rhymes Poetic techniques General knowledge riddles
A Christmas Carol- Stave two character discussion, hot seating, persuasive speech and debate.
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A Christmas Carol- Stave two character discussion, hot seating, persuasive speech and debate.

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This is lesson 13 from my ‘A Christmas Carol teaching unit’ which covers the whole text for GCSE teaching purposes. It is based on GCSE AQA specifications, but can be adapted for any year group or exam board- page numbers will need to be edited to your copy. This lesson is a taster of what you can expect from my set of 24 lessons which can be purchased as a bundle- though I am offering a few lessons for free and a few for £1 purchase. There is also a revision/ task booklet avaliable and a revision bundle. There is a video attached to the description/ preview page so you can see the whole unit of work with the many resources avaliable should you wish to have more information. This lesson specifically focuses on the characters presented in Stave 2 (Fezziwig, Little Fan and Belle) and asks pupils to discuss which is the most influential to Scrooge’s development at this stage in the text. There are a mixture of activities with hot-seating, persuasive speech writing, debates and discussion.
A Christmas Carol- The Ghost of Christmas Present  and Dickens'  need for social reform
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A Christmas Carol- The Ghost of Christmas Present and Dickens' need for social reform

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This is lesson 15 from my ‘A Christmas Carol teaching unit’ which covers the whole text for GCSE teaching purposes. It is based on GCSE AQA specifications, but can be adapted for any year group or exam board- page numbers will need to be edited to your copy. This lesson is a taster of what you can expect from my set of 24 lessons which can be purchased as a bundle- though I am offering a few lessons for free and a few for £1 purchase. There is also a revision/ task booklet avaliable and a revision bundle. There is a video attached to the description/ preview page so you can see the whole unit of work with the many resources avaliable should you wish to have more information. This lesson specifically focuses on The Ghost of Christmas present and the presentation of the Cratchitts. It tackles the Poor Laws, Scrooge’s comments on the poor, Maltheus and the need for social reform/ what message Dickens’ is trying to convey through his novella- leading pupils to write a paragraph which considers authorial intention and context (A03)
A Christmas Carol historical context- intro to novella
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A Christmas Carol historical context- intro to novella

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This is lesson 1 from my ‘A Christmas Carol teaching unit’ which covers the whole text for GCSE teaching purposes. It is based on GCSE AQA specifications, but can be adapted for any year group or exam board- oage numbers will need to be edited to your copy. This lesson is a taster of what you can expect from my set of 24 lessons which can be purchased as a bundle- though I am offering a few lessons for free and a few for £1 purchase. There is also a revision/ task booklet avaliable and a revision bundle. There is a video attached to the description/ oreview page so you can see the whole unit of work with the many resources avaliable should you wish to have more information. This particular lesson asks pupils to recap their prior knowledge about Charles Dickens, links to a short video about Dickens’ childhood and early life and gets pupils to explore different pictures from the Victorian era to see the problems with Victorian society that led to Dickens’ pesual of social reform. Top tip: Click on the Christmas tree on the starter activity of each lesson and it will link you to a chrictmas carol/ song that can play as your pupils enter the room- a great, fun start that has a clear time limit for the starter activity to be completed- or for the class to settle down ready to learn :)
Literacy parts of speech/ word classifications
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Literacy parts of speech/ word classifications

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A fun resources with activities such as word classification matching and bingo. Used as a revision for KS3 or KS2 pupils. There is also a focus on the impact of word choices at the end where the pupils look at verbs in an extract This is one example of a number of lessons that I have which are called ‘Literacy Focus’ I have this on for free, please do purchase the others in this series for £1 if they work for your class.