I'm currently the head of English and raising standards leader at a secondary school in Birmingham. I'm passionate about my subject and passionate about ensuring that the young people we serve leave education with a high competency in English.
Prior to teaching I worked in the radio industry as a presenter for 7 years and so when I became a teacher I enjoyed the opportunity to teach Media studies.
You'll find hundreds of English and Media studies resources.
I'm currently the head of English and raising standards leader at a secondary school in Birmingham. I'm passionate about my subject and passionate about ensuring that the young people we serve leave education with a high competency in English.
Prior to teaching I worked in the radio industry as a presenter for 7 years and so when I became a teacher I enjoyed the opportunity to teach Media studies.
You'll find hundreds of English and Media studies resources.
This presentation was used as part of teaching staff CPD that introduced direct instruction.
The presentation guides staff through:
what direct instruction is
the pitfalls of inquiry based learning
examples of how direct instruction may look
benefits of direct instruction
Engelmann’s direct instruction
A CPD presentation around inclusive pedagogy aimed at supporting students with MLD (mild learning difficulties)
The presentation explores the importance of inclusive pedagogy with research and with reference to Engelmann.
Strategies are suggested and explored that would help teachers to cater for these students well and encourages bias in the learning for SEND students.
An implementation task is also provided for staff whereby they implement strategies and monitor progress,
Rather than differentiation, many schools are thinking more in terms of scaffolding in the current climate.
The attached documents include:
a ppt used for CPD
a guidance document containing a range of strategies that can be used to scaffold work for children.
As many schools move in the direction of a knowledge based curriculum there has become a need in developing a more challenging and complex curriculum that builds effectively to ensure students grasp the key concepts in a given subject.
This resource has been used in staff training and covers the following areas:
Determining what it means to study each subject and why it is an important subject to study
Ascertaining what is meant by a key concept
Exploration of why students should be given the most important knowledge
Determining the key concepts and sub concepts that make up a subject
Mapping key concepts across a LTP
Justifying and articulating how students encounter each concept/sub concept and how the complexity increases as they journey through the curriculum
Exploration of the curriculum as the progression model
All content is based on educational research and researchers have been referenced.
Resources to support the development of the following questioning and higher order thinking skills and strategies:
- Blooms taxonomy
- Socratic questioning
- No hands
- Pause time
- Secret 7
- Big question
Ideal for leading departmental or whole school training on questioning strategies.
Resources included:
- CPD power point presentation on questioning strategies with tasks for staff to complete to get them thinking about their existing practice and how they could develop this
- Socratic questioning prompt sheet to support student development of their questioning of each other within lessons
- Links to Ofsted expectations
- Departmental audit template
A presentation used for staff CPD around strategies for increasing the ratio. Active engagement versus thinking. The presentation is rooted in educational research from Doug Lemov and Tom Sherrington.
The presentation:
sets out expectations of all students in our classrooms
explains the ratio spectrum with examples of actions that would place students in varying positions on the ratio graph
emphasises the importance of ‘no opt out’ with strategies for ensuring this
explores the concept of active observation and how it an be used to increase the ratio
explores how the ratio can be increased through writing, questioning and discussion simultaneously - in detail
considers the difference between formative and summative writing
incorporates a section where the CPD leader models a process for increasing the ratio through writing, questioning and discussion using the teachers as students - participants consider the question “What makes a good lesson?”
Comment back for Media studies teachers in an excel file.
The comments cover the following areas:
- Pupil effort
- Pupil homework
- Pupil classwork
- Pupil targets for improvement
A handy pack of documents and proformas for a head of department.
Included:
Deep dive documents that will be useful for inspection including work scrutiny and learning walk templates as well as Middle leader ofsted questions
- Lesson observation / learning walk document in line with latest Ofsted
Work scrutiny / pupil voice document in line with new Ofsted
An example English department vision which takes into account pupils’ reading, writing and speaking & listening
- Department report templates
- Department detention letter templates
- Departmental moderation and standardisation templates
- English department presentation policy template
- Questions to prepare of Ofsted inspection
- A template for assessing the English department against the Ofsted ‘Good’ criteria
Resources to support the development of Accelerated Reader programme and DEAR sessions which are dedicated to reading. (DEAR) In my school students read for 20 minutes daily.
Resource bundle includes:
- a presentation for staff on Accelerated reader including purpose and benefits - including educational research regarding the importance of reading
- a presentation for students on Accelerated reader and DEAR
- templates for book and library passes
- example book marks
- an example student planner page to log reading
- a presentation on reading engagement strategies
A teaching and learning handbook that outlines the following areas:
Contents
Knowledge Rich Curriculum
Planning a great lesson
The non-negotiables
Feedback and assessment
Horsforth
Extended Learning
CPD
Princilpes of instruction
Quality assurance
Teacher files
Teaching and Learning group
Comment back for English teachers in an excel file.
The comments cover the following areas:
- Pupil effort
- Pupil attitude
- Pupil homework
- Pupil classwork
- Pupil targets for improvement
Also broken down to provide comments for:
- Poetry
- Prose
Resources to support the teaching of the new specification (9-1) AQA paper 2 reading section.
Resources are fully differentiated by colour:
purple = lower ability
blue = middle ability
yellow = higher ability
Resources provide opportunity for pupil talk, provide objectives and assessment tasks. Model answers also included.
The texts used are taken from the AQA text book (turtle on the cover) but texts are also included in this bundle.
Resources to support the teaching of the new specification (9-1) AQA paper 1 reading section.
Resources are fully differentiated by colour:
purple = lower ability
blue = middle ability
yellow = higher ability
Resources provide opportunity for pupil talk, provide objectives and assessment tasks. Model answers also included.
The texts used are taken from the AQA text book (turtle on the cover) but texts are also included in this bundle.
Fully differentiated lessons to support the teaching of the new specification AQA English language paper 2 - reading and writing. Lessons are numbered for ease of use.
Differentiation by colour:
purple = lower ability
blue = middle ability
yellow = higher ability
All texts for study are included as are:
- sample exam questions
- sample responses
- medium term plans
Lessons allow students to develop skills in:
- selecting and retrieving
- synthesis
- language analysis
- comparison
- writing view points and perspectives
Fully differentiated lessons to support the teaching of the new specification AQA English language paper 1 - reading and writing. Lessons are numbered for ease of use.
Differentiation by colour:
purple = lower ability
blue = middle ability
yellow = higher ability
All texts for study are included as are:
- sample exam questions
- sample responses
- medium term plans
Lessons allow students to develop skills in:
- Listing information from texts
- Language analysis
- Structure analysis
- Evaluation - agree/disagree
- Narrative writing
- Descriptive writing