This double lesson Powerpoint addresses two of the key skills involved in the AQA GCSE Lang and Lit Exams. The first lesson focuses on analysing the poem ‘Storm on the Island’ by Seamus Heaney (GCSE Literature), whilst the second uses the poem as inspiration for a piece of creative writing. The first lesson encourages students to think around the meanings in the poem, identifies key language techniques and shows students effective strategies to analyse the language. The second lesson then uses inspiration from the poem to walk students through the planning process before they write their own piece of description. The lesson also includes handy checklists and peer assessment lists to help students to check their own use of language and structure in their work.

This worksheet aims to address reading AO2, analysing a writer’s use of language and focuses on an extract from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Complete with 3 detailed activities, the worksheet helps students to identify language and consider its effect in writing before using similar techniques to create their own engaging piece of writing. It can be used as an engaging stand-alone, skills-based lesson or would be ideal for cover-lessons. This worksheet is a sample from a 30 page ‘KS3 Reading and Writing SKills Booklet’ also available on TES.

This worksheet aims to address Reading AO1, and helps them to develop the skills required to retrieve basic information from a text. It can be used as an engaging skills-based lesson or would be ideal for cover-lessons. This worksheet is a sample from a 30 page ‘KS3 Reading and Writing Skills Booklet,’ also available on TES.

This 29 page booklet contains a series of stand-alone activities which are designed to address the key assessment objectives for the new specification AQA GCSE exams. The booklet contains 12 reading activities and 14 writing activities, which can be used individually as engaging lesson starters, or together to create interesting and varied skills-based lessons. The activities are all designed to be fun and creative, helping KS3 students to build on their reading and writing skills, whilst also giving them a good insight into GCSE style texts and the skills needed to be successful when they reach KS4.