A great lesson to help students get ready for Paper 1 Question 4 (critical thinking) from the AQA GCSE English Language exam, spec 8700. This lesson focuses on fast paced group activities and discussions based on an extract from 1984 where students actively investigate the use of the familiar and unfamiliar to create a unsettling atmosphere in the book. The session starts with a critical thinking question as a starter task and builds up to the main task through quick fire questions and a video to help students visualise and understand this world created by Orwell. The session builds towards a final written task which doubles as exam practice, allowing you to track how each individual handles this tricky question. This session allows for the opportunity to stretch and challenge your students but also comes with support structures and starter sentences to help those who need it and a peer marking plenary which allows the students to self assess and learn from each other. Hope it helps

CV writing unit, comes with PPT and workbook. I deliver the session using the ppt and workbook at underpinning, after wards the students create their own CV from scratch. Feel free to use as you need for your cohort.

This is a fantastic lesson which I have used for 10 years in my classes. This lesson focuses on the true story of Sophie Lancaster who was killed in 2007 simply for the way she dressed and for the purpose of GCSE English, has been adapted to support students with paper 2 question 5 from the AQA paper. What you will get in this resource is a full lesson powerpoint with team activities and group discussion, reading material and supporting worksheets - 10 in all, 2 videos and a link to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. The lesson breaks down the language used in an article by the Daily Mail and ends with a task where the students are to write a motivational speech about tolerance but also embeds “British Values” by looking at tolerance, discussing prejudices, equality and identity. I teach in a college of 16 - 19 year olds and a lesson like this is perfect for them as they can identify with this topic but also relate it to other aspects of life, therefore they get deeply involved in this session as there is much for them to talk about. The range of activities ranges in levels to suit your learners which also makes it easy for you to adapt this lesson depending on the level, age or sensitivity of your students. There is enough material with this resource to fill 3 hours of session time and a range of different activities to adapt to level of engagement. Within my college, I find youth workers are particularly interested in supporting this session and will join the class when I’m teaching it, others have adapted it to use in tutorials and managers have used it as an example of good practice and shared practice to Ofsted. Please note that TES preview can distort the way the resource looks and this is not a true reflection of what it looks like. Hope it helps.

This quick paced and engaging lesson is designed to get students ready for question 4, paper 1 from the AQA GCSE English Language 8700 spec. In this question students are to critically analyse a text. This lesson breaks down the question and best ways in to which to answer this tricky question by looking at Bram Stokers 'Dracula'. Dracula is a character who has been written about for decades in various ways. For this reason students can relate easily to this story and text and is the reason I have used it as the source in the lesson. This is a full 3 hour lesson filled a wide range of engaging and challenging tasks from small group discussions, story-boarding/drawing tasks to short, timed paired activities, peer marking and a self assessment plenary. This lesson comes with both support scaffolds and stretch and challenge opportunities. Hope it helps.

This is a generic GCSE English persuasive lesson which can be used with any exam board. It is designed with students mainly on the lower levels in GCSE in mind and is a lesson which is broken down bite sized fun activities to help the students achieve. This lesson focuses on introducing counter arguments into persuasive writing but underpins other skills such as research skills, proofreading, language features and reading to obtain information. All skills which are useful to have in the GCSE English exam. Feel free to adapt where necessary to suit your own learners needs. Please keep in mind that the TES preview does distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection, hope it helps.

This collection of resources was put together to encourage art students, who also had to sit Functional English, to engage and participate with English, something they are very reluctant to do. I soon recognized that due to Banksy’s fame, his themes of power, corruption, environmentalism and animal rights etc, this session worked with a wide range of students from all curriculum areas and quickly developed into a popular lesson which could be altered to suit a variety of levels. The session looks at Banksy’s work, promotes discussion, opinions and team work. The session uses videos, word banks and looks closer at an article written about him with the final task being for the students to plan and write their own piece about him. The larger aim of the session is to broaden vocabulary and to plan writing but is open for you to develop and arrange in whichever suits you and your students best, as one size does not fit all. Please keep in mind that the TES preview sometimes distorts the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

A full lesson with plenty of engaging and fun activities which helps the student prepare for Paper 1 Question 3 of AQA 8700 Spec for English Language. This lesson allows students to work in groups to discuss, plan, draw and film their own section from Graham Greene's "The Destructors". This lesson focuses on tension and danger created through sentence length and dialogue. This resource pack comes with a full power-point, script, support sheet and a video with enough material for a 3 hour session. Hope it helps.

An engaging and relevant lesson which introduces critical thinking but in a real world context. This lesson focuses around Donald Trump (which my students LOVE talking about) and his comments made around his inauguration attendance figures. This is a fantastic lesson which allows students to express their opinions but also teaches them to express their opinions in a thoughtful and considered way which will suit an exam question. In a world of multimedia and free information, I find it important to teach students how to think about the information they hear and to research their opinions, but also that it is acceptable to have mixed opinions on a topic. I have tried to bring all these elements together in this introductory lesson. The lesson includes group / paired discussion, group work , independent work and videos and a fun break down of the numerical grading system using a Bee metaphor (Are you a honey / busy or queen bee?) to help encourage students to become the type of student they want to be. There are fun starter activities, aims and objectives and a dairy entry plenary. I originally designed this lesson to fill 3 hours, but it can be edited to suit your session length. I hope you find it useful, thanks.

This is a diverse resource allowing you to use / deliver in a way which suits you and your learners. It is a 9 page handout which has 2 short story examples with questions, aimed at both lower and higher ability students, and writing prompts in the form of titles and images. The aim of this resource is to help students not only create stories but to keep them short. Many of my students over the years, both teens and adults, seem to struggle on how to keep a story short, they will write themselves either in circles or into a corner and will usually fall back on lazy and typical writing techniques such as " then she woke up and it was all a dream" or " 10 years later he was…" which is why I came up with this resource. This handout comes with paired and / or individual activities and offers tips on how to avoid these typical pit holes and plenty of prompts in order to practice their story writing skills. This resource can be used either as a piece of homework, extension class activity or can be adapted to form apart of the main lesson and it can be used with any exam board for GCSE English language. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can at time distort the resource and this is not a reflection of how it looks. Hope it helps

This is a fun lesson designed to help engage the lower level students or students who are disengaged with GCSE English. The focus of this lesson is to use persuasive writing features within a review in order to help prepare students for paper 2 question 5 of the AQA English Language spec 8700 exam. This lesson uses 3 clips from the reality TV show "Worlds Worst Tenants" to develop ideas and opinions about the show to eventually be written up using DAFOREST. If you are having trouble with the video file (it is quite large but should work fine on a pen drive using VLC or windows player), I'm happy to send in an email it to you. The video contains bleeped language and use of mild curse words, however as I taught largely over 16 yr olds, this was not a problem, however you may ant to give it some consideration. Other resources include word banks, sentence starter support material and watch/obtain worksheets. There is room to expand on this lesson with basic punctuation and / or vocabulary building activities if needed. My students from GCSE and Construction Functional Skills loved this lesson. Hope it helps

This is a complete mock exam for the WJEC exam board for the GCSE English exam - component 2. It comes with both reading and writing sections and uses extracts from Bill Bryson and Fredrich Engles, who both talk about the city of Manchester. Please keep in mind that TES previews do distort the look at the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

Having taught Functional Skills English within an FE setting, I understand how difficult it can be to reach students within a curriculum area and to encourage engagement with English. Often not being specialists in those areas ourselves as English Teachers, embedding can be a challenge. My largest challenge was often with students of hair and beauty and so I devised this work pack which worked fantastically well. This pack embeds E3 and L1 English elements into areas of hair and beauty such as face shapes, hair disasters and nail art, incorporating celebrity culture. This pack builds as you move through it, looking at areas such as reading for information, proofreading, identifying correct homophones and descriptive / persuasive writing. I found with my groups that this did not need to be a taught session but rather they ran with it themselves and engaged independently with it, leaving me to act in a supportive role rather than a lead delivery role. This is down to the group and paired activities within the pack, discussion topics and the options for students to make choices and to design their own nail art. This pack encourages a positive attitude towards English and helps students to see how it can help in their chosen industry. IHope it helps.

This 7 page booklet id designed to help students with the reading component of their Functional Skills exam. The booklet can be used as in class resources, revision or as self study. Based on a article by Friends of the Earth, the booklet focuses on simple and easy ways we can help become more green in our every day routines and underpins purpose of text and audience questions from the exam. The questions in the booklet are a combination of low level, opinion based and exam based questions. They range from multiple choice to more structured answers asking for reasons or quotes to support . The booklet ends with an extension activity which focuses on language and writing elements of the exam and a self assessment plenary. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can at times distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This resource is developed to allow scaffolding and differentiation. I have used a review of The Hunger Games and structured questions, based on the L1 and L2 reading papers. One is a scaffolded and chunked piece of reading, breaking the review at each paragraph followed by questions, the other is a full page of reading with questions levelled slightly higher. Resources like this can help the students in class who’s reading skills need further development and are struggling with the rest of the class, whilst also supporting those progressing well in class and allowing some exam practice. Resources can be adapted to suit your cohort and student needs. Please keep in mind that the TES preview is limited, and so I have added screenshots to give you a fuller look at the resource. Hope it helps

This resource is a 5 page resource centered around the theme of UK wildlife and sustainability. Students can engage via a quiz and answer / information pages, and then move on to answer questions which are based along the style of questions on the functional skills reading paper. This resource can form a part of a larger lesson on the theme of sustainability or be used as homework or quick revision. You can adapt the resource to accommodate your own cohorts and teaching style. Please keep in mind that the TES preview is limited and can at times distort the look of the resource, and this is not always a true reflection. For this reason, I have included screen-shots of the resource. Hope it helps

This resource has been designed to be incorporated into sessions or to be used as homework or revision. Based around a news article about a female drag queen, the resource has both reading and writing practice with language and vocab focus. Tes provides a limited preview, so for this reason I have included screen-shots to help give you a better view of the material. The resource is designed to be altered to suit your own cohort or sessions. Hope it helps.

I have created 3 texts (1 being a quick quiz) around sustainability to help increase students awareness and also practice some key questions in the F/S reading exam, largely organisational and language features. I use it as a recap / reinforcement task at the start of my session, however it can be adapted to suit your own needs. Please be aware the the TES preview is a limited preview and can at times distort the look of the material. Hope it helps.

This fantastic lesson looks at question 3 from paper 1 of the AQA English Language exam - spec 8700. Using the work of Stephen King "The Body" this lesson uses power-point, paired activities, video and activity sheets to focus on how authors use Openings and Endings to convey symbolic meanings, in this case - the end of childhood and innocence. The lesson comes with plenty of paired, timed activities to help support less able students and a discussion on inference to help stretch and challenge the more able in your class. I have also introduced a mnemonic for the more commonly used structural features called ROW OF CLONES to help students learn a range of techniques authors may use in their writing which my students found incredibly useful last year. The final aim of this lesson is for the student to be able to write a full Point, Quote, Infer answer to this exam question. This resource is adaptable, will fill and hour to hour and half lesson, engaging, quick paced and comes with fun starters and plenaries. Please keep in mind that this movie is a 15 certificate and using this resource for anyone under that age maybe worth some consideration. Mild language used in the extract, however as I taught in a college, this was fine to use. Hope it helps.

A fantastic and fun, time tested resource which never fails to work with my students. This lesson looks at iconoclastic ideas and conspiracy theories (The 1st Moon Landing was faked) in order to help develop the persuasive skills needed for Paper 2 Question 5 of the 8700 spec from AQA. This lesson allows the students to formulate their ideas and opinions whilst also taking them through important planning steps required for this question. The lesson includes lots of fun games, team and paired activities, a short video and plenty of platforms for students to offer their opinions, which many students love to do :) There are opportunities to both stretch and challenge whilst also offering supportive material where needed. This lesson is a 3 hour session with all worksheets included, however it could be taught in 2 separate sessions, depending on your session time. The lesson is structured into quick 5 / 10 min activities with a final 20 min persuasive writing task at the end, it involves both peer and summative assessments along with a fun starter based on a "sheep hat" designed to encourage creativity and a "daily diary" plenary. Hope it helps

A great lesson which uses a wide range of resource types and teaching strategies to help students prepare for Paper 1 Question 3, Structure. This lesson uses the trailer and extract from the movie/book Divergent by Veronica Roth to engage students and help them look deeper into ways stories are told in order to interest a reader. To help them do this, this lesson uses a helpful mnemonic of commonly used structural features -ROW OF CLONES and focuses on repetition, opening / endings and setting. This lesson is designed for a 3 hour session, it uses team and paired work, support grids and stretch and challenge inference class discussion. Quick 5/10/15 min activities keep the lesson at a good pace and allows for information to be delivered in bite sized chunks with a short self assessment plenary. Hope it helps