I provide high quality, tried and tested materials, developed over 17 years of teaching KS3-5. There is material to support G3/4 students as well as material to push for G8 and G9s.
I provide high quality, tried and tested materials, developed over 17 years of teaching KS3-5. There is material to support G3/4 students as well as material to push for G8 and G9s.
This Unit of Work has been designed as a way through the novel ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. It contains 19 lessons and is designed to exploit areas like descriptive writing, writing a summary, analyzing characters, constructing the plot, the format of a letter, how writers build tension and designing a film storyboard. It also contains two assessment opportunities on Stanley Yelnats and the significance of the title. The page numbers refer to the Bloomsbury edition.
Lesson 1: An introduction to Holes
Lesson 2: Chapters 1-3: Camp Green Lake
Lesson 3: Chapters 4-6: Impressions of Stanley Yelnats
Lesson 4: Chapters 7-9: Use of flashback in literature
Lesson 5: Creating a factfile
Lesson 6: Survival guide poster and plot quiz
Lesson 7: Chapters 10-12: Writing a letter home
Lesson 8: Chapters 13-15: The Warden
Lesson 9: Chapters 16-18: Kate Barlow’s lipstick
Lesson 10: Chapters 19-21: Building tension
Lesson 11: Chapters 22-24: Using flashbacks
Lesson 12: Chapters 25-28: Kissin’ Kate Barlow
Lesson 13: Chapters 29-30: Using pathetic fallacy
Lesson 14: Chapters 31-33: Zero’s escape
Lesson 15: Chapters 34-36: Comparing Stanley and Zero
Lesson 16: Chapters 37-39: Climbing Big Thumb
Lesson 17: Chapters 40-43: Formulating an escape plan
Lesson 18: Chapters 44- 47: Buried treasure
Lesson 19: Chapters 48-50: The End
This scheme of work is designed as a pathway through the play and an introduction to drama at KS3. It includes 16 lessons that are easy to follow and focus on aspects like staging, character development, creative writing, autism research and more. Page numbers refer to the Metheun Drama edition.
Lesson 1: Autism research
Lesson 2: Creating Chris’ voice
Lesson 3: Metaphorical and literal
Lesson 4: Siobhan as the narrator
Lesson 5: The detective genre
Lesson 6: Perceptions of Chris’ mother
Lesson 7: Perceptions of Chris’ father
Lesson 8: Stephen’s use of staging
Lesson 9: Research on why children run away from home
Lesson 10: Eidetic memories
Lesson 11: Staging Chris’ journey to London
Lesson 12: Judy and Roger
Lesson 13: Creating coping strategies
Lesson 14: The crime genre
Lesson 15: Assessment on Siobhan
This scheme of work is designed as a pathway through the play and an introduction to drama at KS3. It includes 12 lessons that are easy to follow and focus on aspects like staging, character development, creative writing, the history of the holocaust and more.
Lesson 1: elements of a fable and context
Lesson 2: narrative voice
Lesson 3: descriptive techniques
Lesson 4: vague language and inference
Lesson 5: reading between the lines
Lesson 6: character analysis of Pavel
Lesson 7: comparing Bruno and Shmuel
Lesson 8: writing analytical paragraphs
Lesson 9: Comparing Lieutenant Kotler with Nazi Germany ideology
Lesson 10: Discussing the message of the novel
Lesson 11: Designing a book cover
Lesson 12: Analysing Jackson’s use of staging
Are you teaching Myths, Legends, Fables and Fairy Tales? This unit will help you teach folktales and traditional tales, and it will save you hours of preparation! This unit of work includes 10 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, contextual information, exemplar answers, quizzes and the classical stories. The unit includes:
Lesson 1: The Norse World
Lesson 2: Analysing settings
Lesson 3: Asgard
Lesson 4: Thor, Loki and Odin
Lesson 5: Comparing Thors
Lesson 6: Loki’s children
Lesson 7: Hel
Lesson 8: Thor and The Frost Giants
Lesson 9: Ragnarok
This unit contains everything you need to revise unseen poetry for your A level exam. This unit of work includes 8 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, contextual information and exemplar material. It covers poetry eras such as: Metaphysicals, Cavaliers, Renaissance, Tudor and more modern poems. This unit of work has been designed for the AQA A-level course, but is adaptable to fit other exam board specifications. The scheme of work includes:
Lesson 1: Metaphysical revision of Donne, Marvell, Herbert and Crashaw
Lesson 2: Comparing Cavalier and Metaphysical attitudes to love
Lesson 3: How to approach an unseen poem
Lesson 4: Romantic love in Victorian and modern poetry
Lesson 5: Motherhood in modern poetry and WW2
Lesson 6: Romantic love in 3 modern poems
Lesson 7: Loss in Tudor and Renaissance poetry
Lesson 8: Analysing poems for the influence of context using Kahoot
This scheme of work is 10 lessons designed to test your students’ ability to plan and write creatively using a picture as a springboard for their imagination. It is most effective when used a few weeks before their exam. The focus is:
Lesson 1: structuring paragraphs in a WW1 trench scene
Lesson 2: using varied sentence structures in a train scene
Lesson 3: noun-verb collocation in a forest scene
Lesson 4: the effect of adjectives in an alien planet scene
Lesson 5: paragraph focus in a scene from Private Peaceful
Lesson 6: descriptive techniques in a castle scene
Lesson 7: using tense changes in a stormy sea scene
Lesson 8: individual word choice in a transport image
Lesson 9: creating backstories from AI images
Lesson 10: using a learning mat for a mountain scene
If your students find Shakespeare dull and inaccessible, this is the unit for you. The lessons are focused on staging a shipwreck, costume, props, bringing the play to life and contextually understanding Elizabethan views of slavery.
This unit includes everything you need to teach The Tempest at KS3. It includes 20 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, contextual information, exemplar material, IWB interactive resources, quizzes, activities to exploit drama and extract analysis. Page numbers refer to the Cambridge Shakespeare edition. There is a final unit assessment on the relationship between Miranda and Prospero.
Lesson 1: Elizabethan context
Lesson 2: Accessing Shakespeare’s language
Lesson 3: The plot
Lesson 4: The characters
Lesson 5: A1S1 shipwreck
Lesson 6: Analyzing the relationship between Prospero and Miranda
Lesson 7: Ariel and magic
Lesson 8: Caliban and slavery
Lesson 9: How Prospero and Miranda’s relationship changes
Lesson 10: Alonso and betrayal
Lesson 11: Gonzalo and loyalty
Lesson 12: Miranda and Ferdinand
Lesson 13: Designing a Tempest poster
Lesson 14: Nature and nurture
Lesson 15: Prospero’s plan
Lesson 16: How the characters change
Lesson 17: The epilogue
Lesson 18: Assessment planning
Lesson 19: Writing your assessment
Lesson 20: Feedback and improve
Everything you need to teach this fantastic novel! Ideally for Years 7-9, this unit has 20 lessons covering the whole of the text, focusing on writer’s use of language, evaluating a character statement and creative writing. It comes fully resourced with PowerPoints, contextual information on Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, chapter extracts and IWB activities. This is perfect for developing early English Literature essay skills. Page numbers are based on the 2004 Vintage edition. The lesson themes focus on:
Lesson 1: Autism research
Lesson 2: How to produce Chris’s style
Lesson 3: Understanding emotions
Lesson 4: Character profiles
Lesson 5: Habits and rituals
Lesson 6: The Monty Hall Problem
Lesson 7: Splitting up
Lesson 8: Chris’ mother
Lesson 9: The letters
Lesson 10: Running away research
Lesson 11: Chris runs away
Lesson 12: Eidetic memories
Lesson 13: Interpreting dreams
Lesson 14: Analysing Chris’ mother
Lesson 15: Designing a front cover
Lesson 16: Writing an extra chapter
Lesson 17: Character profiles
Lesson 18: Book reviews
Lesson 19: Describing a train journey
Lesson 20: Questions to the author
There is also an opportunity for assessment on Chris’s dad with feedback and a marking sheet.
Ideally for Year 8 or low ability Year 9, this unit of work contains 25 lessons covering the whole of the text. It focuses on writer’s use of language, how the writer uses structure, evaluating a statement and creative writing. It comes fully resourced with contextual information, Auschwitz survivor stories, chapter extracts, freeze frame cards and IWB activities. This is perfect to embed the skills needed for GCSE Literature Paper 1 preparation at KS3.
Lesson 1: Context
Lesson 2: Boyne’s narrative style
Lesson 3: Exploring sibling relationships
Lesson 4: Descriptive writing
Lesson 5: The importance of Bruno’s father
Lesson 6: Good and evil
Lesson 7: Pavel as a symbol of Jewish struggles
Lesson 8: Uniforms
Lesson 9: Exploring
Lesson 10: Friendships
Lesson 11: Bruno and Shmuel
Lesson 12: Shmuel’s background
Lesson 13: Using inference
Lesson 14: Writing a TV script
Lesson 15: Lieutenant Kotler
Lesson 16: Radicalization and the Hitler Youth
Lesson 17: Bruno’s mother
Lesson 18: Bruno’s world
Lesson 19: Writing the ending
Lesson 20: Poetic justice
Lesson 21: The end
Lesson 22: Interview with John Boyne
Lesson 23: Planning your assessment
Lesson 24: Writing your assessment
Lesson 25: Feedback and improve
Everything you need to teach Science Fiction at KS3. This unit of work includes 14 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, quizzes, stories and a descriptive assessment . It is geared towards boys, with extracts from Ray Bradbury, Mars missions and The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This is useful as an early introduction to the skills needed for English Language GCSE Paper 1.
Lesson 1: Introduction to Science Fiction
Lesson 2: The rise of Artificial Intelligence
Lesson 3-4: A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
Lesson 5: Colonising Mars
Lesson 6: Write a Mars Speech
Lesson 7: All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
Lesson 8: Designing a Science Fiction Trailer
Lesson 9: The Time Machine by HG Wells
Lesson 10: Virus and future pandemics
Lesson 11: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Lesson 12: The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
Lesson 13: Writing a Doctor Who script for TV
Lesson 14: Describing an alien planet from Star Wars
This unit contains everything you need to teach dystopian Fiction at KS3 in an engaging and dynamic way. It includes 9 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, extracts, short stories, quizzes and assessment opportunities. This unit works well with a boy heavy group interested in texts like Brave New World, Hunger Games and War of the Worlds. There is an assessment opportunity at the end of the unit for the students to analyse an extract from Children of Men. This is supported with essay frames and exemplar answers.
Lesson 1: Dystopias in Literature
Lesson 2: Comparing dystopian worlds
Lesson 3: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Lesson 4: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins
Lesson 5: The Red Weed from War of the Worlds
Lesson 6: 1984 by George Orwell
Lesson 7: Assessment: Children of Men by PD James
Lesson 8:Writing your assessment
Lesson 9: Assessment feedback
Lesson 10: Dystopia quiz
A unit of work dedicated to poetry that explores the natural world. It includes 19 lessons with activities to help students comment on the effect of language techniques, comparison and contextual research opportunities on the British poets. It is fully resourced with fun facts, quizzes, support notes, essay frames and creative writing opportunities. The lessons cover a range of subjects such as poetic techniques, rhythm and rhyme in conjunction with with poems by: Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Lord Tennyson, William Blake and many more.
Lesson 1: Poetic techniques
Lesson 2: Poetic techniques review
Lesson 3: How poets use rhythm
Lesson 4: The Eagle by Tennyson
Lesson 5: The Jaguar by Ted Hughes
Lesson 6: The Tyger by William Blake
Lesson 7: The Hyena by Edwin Morgan
Lesson 8: View of a Pig by Ted Hughes
Lesson 9: Sonnet by John Clare
Lesson 10: Spring by Hopkins
Lesson 11: Daffodils by William Wordsworth
Lesson 12: Inversnaid by Hopkins
Lesson 13: Little Trotty Wagtail by John Clare
Lesson 14: Seamus Heaney research
Lesson 15: Death of a Naturalist by Heaney
Lesson 16: Blackberry Picking by Heaney
Lesson 17: Planning your assessment
Lesson 18: Writing your assessment
Lesson 19: Assessment feedback
Are you looking to teach Gothic Horror at KS3, but don’t want to spend hours preparing? Then you have come to the right place!
Develop greater understanding of the conventions of Gothic literature and the horror genre
Analyze how famous authors of Gothic literature used characterization, description, and various literary devices that are consistent with the horror genre
The texts covered are extracts and short stories from: Twilight, Great Expectations, The Werewolf, The Evil Priest, The Woman in Black, Tell Tale Heart and more
Please note, for "The Darker Side of St Ives" lesson you will need to buy a copy of Shanty Baba’s CD, which is available online.
Lesson 1: An introduction to gothic horror
Lesson 2: Creating vampires
Lesson 3: The gothic in Great Expectations
Lesson 4: The Darker Side of St Ives
Lesson 5: The Werewolf by Angela Carter
Lesson 6: Creating school ghost tales
Lesson 7: Performing your tale to the group
Lesson 8: Gerunds and adverbial phrases in The Evil Priest
Lesson 9: The Woman in Black
Lesson 10-11: Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
This unit works really well with a Year 7 or Year 8 group. They get really excited about the characters, especially The Artful Dodger! The unit consists of 17 lessons covering the whole of the play. It is fully resourced with PowerPoints, newspaper articles, character descriptions, extracts and diary entries. The page numbers refer to the Heinemann Edition by Nigel Bryant.
Lesson 1: Oliver’s feelings
Lesson 2: The workhouse
Lesson 3: Mr Bumble
Lesson 4: Oliver’s diary
Lesson 5: Apprenticeships
Lesson 6: Crime and Punishment
Lesson 7: Dodger and Fagin
Lesson 8: Writing a newspaper article
Lesson 9: Mr Brownlow
Lesson 10: Creating settings
Lesson 11: Designing Fagin’s hideout
Lesson 12: Solving the mystery
Lesson 13: Nancy
Lesson 14: The End
Lesson 15: Acting out the play
Lesson 16: Writing your assessment
Lesson 17: Assessment feedback
If your students find Shakespeare dull and inaccessible, this is the unit for you. The lessons are focused on staging a shipwreck, costume, props, bringing the play to life and contextually understanding Elizabethan views of slavery, love, revenge and violence.
This scheme of work designed as a way into Shakespeare at KS3. It includes opportunities for online research and extract analysis from the most popular plays. It is fully resourced with fun facts, quizzes and creative writing lessons. It also works well with Roland Emmerich’s 2012 ‘Anonymous’ , as the plays studied match the plays performed in the film, allowing the students to see the words come to life on the stage.
Lesson 1: Othello
Lesson 2: Othello feedback
Lesson 3: Romeo and Juliet
Lesson 4: Agony Aunt writing for Juliet
Lesson 5: Romeo and Juliet movie analysis
Lesson 6: Anthony and Cleopatra
Lesson 7: Sonnet 130
Lesson 8: Macbeth witches
Lesson 9: Iago
Lesson 10: Midsummer Night’s Dream
Lesson 11: Midsummer Night’s Dream
Lesson 12: Hamlet
Lesson 13: Richard III
Lesson 14: The Tempest
Lesson 15: Caliban
Lesson 16: Staging
Lesson 17: Henry V
Lesson 18: King Lear plot
Lesson 19: King Lear A1S1
Lesson 20: Midsummer Night’s Epilogue
This 21 lesson unit of work for Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, contains comprehension by chapter, vocabulary challenges, creative writing opportunities, the trial of Jack Will, camp planning, friend dilemmas and much more!
This literature unit is teacher and student friendly. It contains a wide variety of activities, along with open-ended questions and role plays that will enthrall your students, especially those who have just started at a new school, as Auggie overcomes the challenges students face on a daily basis.
The unit ends with an assessment evaluating Jack Will’s role as a friend and his relationship with Auggie. It is supported by extracts and important pages in the novel, so the students don’t have to trawl through 400 pages looking for a quote!
Lesson 1: First day at middle school
Lesson 2: Treacher-Collins syndrome
Lesson 3: Jack, Julian and Charlotte
Lesson 4: bullying
Lesson 5: write your own precept
Lesson 6: Halloween
Lesson 7: Via’s perspective
Lesson 8: the trial of Jack Will
Lesson 9: Summer
Lesson 10: Jack Will
Lesson 11: the parents
Lesson 12: Justin
Lesson 13: dealing with bereavement
Lesson 14: losing friendships
Lesson 15: the camping trip
Lesson 16: the fight and social acceptance
Lesson 17: the aftermath
Lesson 18: graduation
Lesson 19: prepare your assessment
Lesson 20: write your assessment
Lesson 21: assessment feedback
This unit contains everything you need to teach myths and legends at KS3, and it will save you hours of preparation! This unit of work includes 10 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, contextual information, exemplar answers, quizzes and the classical stories. The unit includes:
Lesson 1: Online research of classic fables
Lesson 2: Echo and Narcissus
Lesson 3: The Illiad
Lesson 4: The Odyssey
Lesson 5: Theseus and The Minotaur
Lesson 6: King Midas
Lesson 7: Arachne
and much more…
This unit contains everything you need to teach speech writing at KS3. It is solid foundation for AQA Paper 2 for English language and the Spoken Language module at GCSE. The students analyse speeches by Emma Watson, Muhammad Ali, Leonardo DiCaprio, John F Kennedy and more. It includes 14 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, exemplar speeches, IWB interactive resources, quizzes, activities to exploit drama and opportunities to exploit online research.
Lesson 1: Sentence structure in JFK’s speeches
Lesson 2: How to talk formally
Lesson 3: Writing a protest speech
Lesson 4: Body language with Malala Jusef
Lesson 5: Feminism with Emma Watson
Lesson 6: Equality in education
Lesson 7: Arguing for or against capital punishment
Lesson 8: Defending Derek Bentley
Lesson 9: Let him Have It!
Lesson 10: Analysing a court case speech
Lesson 11: Formal writing
Lesson 12: Planning your speech
Lesson 13:Writing your speech
Lesson 14: Presenting your speech to the class
Ideally for KS3 students, this unit of work has been designed to teach students the skills to analyse a variety of texts, and form an opinion on different topics that affect teenagers. There are 16 lessons which allow students to explore topics such as: perceptions of teenagers, graffiti, school shootings, anti social behaviour orders, gang violence, computer games and negative press coverage. It is fully resourced with ppts, articles, podcasts, storyboards and assessment opportunities.
Lesson 1: Perceptions of youth culture
Lesson 2: Is graffiti a form of art?
Lesson 3: School shootings
Lesson 4: anti social behaviour orders - do they work?
Lesson 5: gang violence
Lesson 6: the influence of computer games
Lesson 7: fighting back through charity work
Lesson 8: negative stereotypes in the press
Lesson 9: YouTube challenge
Lesson 10: writing a speech on knife or gun crime
Lesson 11: Fallout
Lesson 12: an open letter by Lennie James to stop the violence
Lesson 13: Gang violence in The Outsiders
Lesson 14: Designing an anti violence poster
Lesson 15: Writing your commentary
Lesson 16: Panorama video reward
Are you looking for a fresh and creative way to teach Romeo and Juliet? I recently studied for my Certificate for Teaching Shakespeare at the RSC in Stratford and it has revolutionized the way I teach the bard.
This unit contains everything you need to teach Romeo and Juliet at KS3 . It is focused on essay writing skills, analyzing extracts for English Literature and bringing the play to life. It includes 30 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, contextual information, exemplar essays, IWB interactive resources, quizzes, activities to exploit drama, extract analysis and opportunities for online research. Page numbers refer to the Cambridge Shakespeare edition.
Lesson 1: Writing Elizabethan context quizzes
Lesson 2: Shakespearean language
Lesson 3: The main characters
Lesson 4: Acting out the play
Lesson 5: Plot and key lines
Lesson 6: The prologue and sonnets
Lesson 7: Masculinity in A1S1
Lesson 8: Romeo’s masculinity in A1S1
Lesson 9: Our first impressions of Mercutio in A1S4
Lesson 10: Staging A1S5
Lesson 11: Courtly love in A2S2
Lesson 12: Friar Lawrence’s advice in A2S3
Lesson 13: Review of Acts 1-2
Lesson 14: Character discussion and debate
Lesson 15: The death of Mercutio in A1S1
Lesson 16: Who is to blame for Mercutio’s death?
Lesson 17: Conflict in A3S1
Lesson 18: Juliet’s growing independence in A3S2
Lesson 19: Impressions of Lord Capulet in A3S5
Lesson 20: Act 3 Review
Lesson 21: Juliet’s equivocation in A4S1
Lesson 22: Soliloquys in A4S3
Lesson 23: Staging A4S3
Lesson 24: Juliet fakes her death in A4S5
Lesson 25: The role of the Apothecary in A5S1
Lesson 25: Staging A5S3
Lesson 26: The End
Lesson 27: The Trial of Friar Lawrence
Lesson 28: How Juliet develops as a character
Lesson 29: Plan your Juliet assessment
Lesson 30: Write your Juliet assessment