GCSE: AQA but easily adaptable Lessons: 20 Ability: High ability, as it introduces some critical theory ideas This scheme has been designed for a first read through with a top set Yr10 and 11. It makes time for reading the play; analysing characterisation and plot; and, towards the end, supports essay writing. It introduces some critical theory, borrowing from AS Level Literature. Students will apply deconstructive criticism (contrasting characters), feminist theory (assessing gender dynamics) and Marxist theory (characterisation). These are introduced as low stakes note sheets that students will keep referring back to. There is also a focus on higher level vocabulary to describe the characters.

Year Group: Year 9-11 Ability level: Grade 7-9 Video length: 13 mins In what ways is An Inspector Calls a morality play? The narration defines ‘morality play’ and introduces the key concepts. The main section of the video analyses four main points in An Inspector Calls, building a detailed essay plan. Finally, the video offers four tasks for further revision. We use this video for home learning, revision, pre-reading and cover work.

Lessons: 8 lessons (including an ‘assessment’ lesson) Ability: Designed for KS3 mid-abilities, with some differentiation for higher abilities The scheme offers students opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the context of Oliver Twist by engaging with its setting. Students will design a Victorian street based on somewhere they know and add in a Dickensian character. Time is given to the creative process and learning through oracy. The scheme offers scaffolded sentences for grammatical support and coaches them through building a piece of descriptive writing.

Topic: Much Ado About Nothing Ability: Mixed ability KS3 Number of lessons: 19 fully planned + 5 for feedback and assessment This scheme guides KS3 students through a study of Much Ado About Nothing. Lessons include Act/Scenes to read and all relevant line numbers. I have included all necessary resources which can be adapted to suit your specific school’s needs. The focus of the scheme is attitudes towards women. Students will explore this theme through structured talk and written responses. The structured talk encourages development of ideas, strong vocabulary and development of discussion skills. Students will learn how to use “Whereas” sentences as a way of explaining contrasts between characters. There are 19 lessons fully planned with resources that will take you to the start of Act 5 and preparing for an assessment. I have left those latter lessons unplanned because different schools build up to assessments in different ways.

Age Group: KS4 GCSE Lessons: 24 lessons Ability Level: Lower abilities G1-5 The scheme works through A Christmas Carol with various comprehension, vocabulary and analysis tasks along the way. The scheme builds essay writing skills slowly, with plenty of structured talk time and mindmapping. It tracks the transformation of Scrooge, assesses the role of the spirits and introduces relevant context. Vocabulary tasks are dual-coded to aid vocabulary acquisition and support EAL students. Also, it has been designed to reduce cognitive load and to be ‘dyslexia friendly’.

Designed for: KS4 GCSE Ability Level: Access, lower abilities Thank you for purchasing. This resource will improve your students’ chronological knowledge of the text and their ideas relating to Transformation. This is designed to be a “pre-homework”, so students can arrive to lesson with chronological knowledge of the text, ideas relating to Transformation and some key vocabulary prepared. It means your valuable teaching time can be focused on developing understanding rather than ‘going over the story’. Students will fill gaps and complete sentences having read short extracts from the text. Slides are simple to follow and have been designed with ease of reading in mind (pastel colours, simple fonts etc.).

GCSE Creative Writing. This sheet outlines, and offers examples of, how to plan narrative and descriptive responses. This is aimed at the higher ability students looking to use structural and linguistic features for effect. You will be able to buy the full scheme soon but this worksheet offers you the cheaper ‘backdoor’ route to more successful creative writing responses. Our students outperform the national average on the creative writing section by 10% (we’re not a private school or a grammar school!).

One lesson with resources. I created this lesson as part of a mini-scheme (see my bundles to get all at a discounted rate!) that pushes students to create more informed opinions on typical topics for their GCSE Spoken Language speeches. However, this can be used as a stand alone lesson or as a POV writing The lessons encourage class discussion and offer interesting information and perspectives on topics that seem straight forward to students: What is ‘mental health’? What can affect mental health? What is an alternative view on teenage mental health and how to deal with it? A variety of perspectives on different illnes

Lessons: Five (mini unit to support A Midsummer Night’s Dream) Ability: KS3 Our Faculty outperforms the national average for creative writing: in 2021-22, we had a P8 score of 0.83 on creative writing. The focus of the lessons is on fundamental writing skills: sentence variation, creativity and successful atmosphere. Students have time to read a WAGOLL before creating a setting and character. The tasks then build skills as they write an opening description for a novel.

Type: Revision worksheet Ability: KS4 Originally, I designed this worksheet for my highest ability Year 10 class after studying ‘mimetic models’. However, I adapted the worksheet for my Grade3/4 class. The worksheet encourages recall of quotations as well as explanation of ideas on the role of Tiny Tim, Fred, Fezziwig, Bob Cratchit and Marley.

There is a lesson that deals with the use of the N-word, which was designed using researched best practice in the US and UK and I personally consulted with a race relations charity in Manchester. It worked brilliantly with my class of diverse, mixed ability Year 8 students, opening up a mature discussion Ability: KS3 Mixed Lessons: 15 lessons, but could be stretched into 20 The lessons make time for reading the novel, dealing with the racial/gendered language and assessing male behaviours. I had pretaught some of the gender vocabulary previous to this unit. If you have not done similar work, you might want to add a little more vocabulary consolidation work in this scheme. There is plenty of low stakes character analysis work, and character comparison tasks.

Lessons: 31, including lessons for assessments Ability: KS3, KS4, low and mid ability Updated for 2023-24. The scheme guides students through their first read through of the play. The play is broken into manageable chunks over 31 lessons, alongside extract tasks that will build their knowledge of plot/character and their exam skills. There are many ‘structured talk’ tasks to encourage good vocabulary and phrasing. There are two or three blank lessons in the middle to create space and time for an assessment (e.g. we test Year 9 on their understanding of Tybalt once we have read Act 3).

CPD for new and experienced teachers.