I'm a published academic/educational author and poet (Unifrog, Original Plus Books, HEB Books, AQA, and Cambridge University Press). I have been an English teacher and Visiting Lecturer for 15 years and am the English Network Co-ordinator for BSME.
I'm passionate about pedagogy, particularly metacognition, and always seek to inspire a passion for English in learners of all ages.
I'm a published academic/educational author and poet (Unifrog, Original Plus Books, HEB Books, AQA, and Cambridge University Press). I have been an English teacher and Visiting Lecturer for 15 years and am the English Network Co-ordinator for BSME.
I'm passionate about pedagogy, particularly metacognition, and always seek to inspire a passion for English in learners of all ages.
A portfolio designed to gather evidence for teacher-assessed grades in response to the cancellation of exams.
Colour-coded and separated into sections for each question, it allows students to collate the best examples of their work to assist the teacher in making judgements.
Each section has a copy of the markscheme, relevant AO and example question from a past paper.
A comprehensive exploration of Tim Turnbull’s poem, featuring detailed analysis of each stanza, context, form, structural considerations, questions for futher discussion and Edexcel exam-style practise questions.
A 25-slide, detailed and engaging presentation that covers everything students need to know to successfullly write non-ficiton texts for GCSE/IGCSE, with a specific focus on argue/persuade for Edexcel IG English Language.
Slides include:
‘Do Now’ activities (adapt to your specific rubric)
‘Put yourself in the examiner’s shoes’ - explaining the role of the examiner and what they can do to stand out
A step-by-step paragraph plan
Checklist of everything students need to consider/include in their response
Examples of Edexcel IGCSE exam questions
Identiftying TAP activities
A full exemplar response with annotations
Comprehensive 42-slide presentation that guides students through how to structure and compose their IGCSE transactional writing exam responses.
The first section offers exemplar responses and encourages students to identify what makes the responses high-level. The second section guides students through how to successfully structure a piece of extended transactional writing every single time with a tried and tested essay writing plan in the form of an easy to remember six paragraph poem. The third section offers a detailed and exhaustive checklist of spelling, punctuation, grammatical and stylistic considerations for students to achieve the highest levels, enabling them to check their work against what the examiners will be looking for. The fourth section includes ten past paper Section Bs with accompanying examiners’ reports. The final section includes marking criteria and a self/peer assessment task.
A comprehensive series of slides that should last for approximately 4 hours of study, guiding students through Giuseppe by Roderick Ford.
Slides include:
Information about both Ford and historical context.
Student-led exploratory activities, such as independent, paired and group analysis.
An introduction to post-colonial literary theory.
Analysis prompt questions that promote deep thinking for each stanza.
A task where students design their own exam-style questions and a self/peer review task using the marking criteria.
Accompanying blank mind-map
A complete lesson analysing extracts from Ray Bradbury's crossover novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury's rich prose forms the basis of students' exploration of figurative techniques and their effects. The lesson encourages students to explore Bradbury's stylistic choices, such as divergence from conventional grammatical rules, with a view to understanding authorial methods.
This lesson assists students with the skills required for AQA Paper 1 GCSE English, in terms of A0s 1,2,5 and 6.
A sequence of lessons based on the premise that the Birlings and Gerald are on trial for Eva Smith’s manslaughter that encourages engagement with the play on a close textual level and improve students’ analytical skills.
The structured PPT guides students through the entire process in an emersive way, explaining their role and how to prepare their case.
There are slides for every aspect of the trial and an accompanying booklet of resources for students to use whilst they plan/deliver their address to the court.
Once the jury have deliberated, students are asked to reflect upon the process of gathering evidence and to consolidate their learning by writing an extended essay.
A detailed guide, covering everything students need to know in order to write sophisticated responses to Unseen Poetry and Of Mice and Men.
The guide includes:
How to breakdown and understand questions
Approaches to answering questions and structuring responses
Exemplar responses
Marked responses and commentaries from Edexcel
Context for OMAM
Character analysis and key quotations
Practise questions, indicative content and mark schemes
Advice on timings, planning and fluency
A host of resources to accompany the teaching of The Handmaid’s Tale at AS or A Level.
These resources are detailed, featuring salient language analysis and provide opportunities for students to apply and synthesize their knowledge of the text.
An engaging project that can be delivered as discrete lessons, a mini-scheme to accompany reading, or as a homework project. Designed to develop all core English skills for KS3 learners.
Activities include:
creating a motto
designing a house crest
creating a vision statement
writing a speech
creating spells in Snape’s class
designing a maze
becoming an effective speaker
Could also be used for upper KS2.
A complete lesson/mini-assessment with question specific mark scheme designed for students to hone the skills required for Paper 1 Question 2.
The question sheet features an extract from Northern Lights and the question focus upon micro-level language analysis of specific lines. The mark scheme has been tailored to both question and extract and exemplifies what is expected for each level. The scaffolded student response is a useful metacognitive tool, demonstrating to students how an analytical paragraph is built.
As an examiner and author of GCSE exam papers and mark schemes for PiXL and pedagogical resources for AQA and Cambridge University Press, I designed this task with the application of skills and resultant accelerated progress in mind.
Can also be used as a KS3 mini-assessment as part of a fantasy/dystopian scheme, or as resouce to aid KS5 resit students.
This 45 slide PowerPoint guides students through the revision process for the AQA GCSE Love and Relationships Poetry Anthology. It has been designed to stengthen neural pathways by linking revision notes with bespoke images for each poem.
The package includes:
A 4-page student booklet that allows students to make notes on all of the key areas of analysis for each poem as well as a comparative analysis exemplar for reference.
A comprehensive ppt linking all poems to a bespoke image, along with a fictional narrative to facilitate students’ ability to remember every poem in the cluster. In addition, there are examiner’s tips, a strategic approach to analysis using the SMILE+C method, an exemplar analysing language, student-friendly explanations of the question format and the marking assessment objectives/marking criteria, and a bonus section on approaching unseen poetry with a Grade 9 exemplar.
My students love this - I hope yours will too!