3 Lessons taken from the old(er) version of the AQA English Language specification (the one where S&L counted towards the grades). I know it counts for nothing now, but it still needs to be done. These three lessons prepare a class to give a presentation OR take part in a discussion about a selected item they would save from the imaginatively named Room 202. Enjoy.

I had SO much fun with this unit of work! It helped that the TA in my class went on to become a local MP for Labour (still is as far as I can tell...). Essentially, this series of 5 lessons - which, by the way, totally went over the 5 lessons I gave myself to teach this - explores a number of different political speeches. Included in the pack are a number of transcripts - Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, Alex Ferguson's farewell speech, Bush's post-911 address to the nation and the transcripts of Clegg, Cameron and Brown from the First Televised General Election Debates (heavy stuff). I was a little tentative at teaching this to a bottom set year 9 class, but they totally got on board with the debates (they tore shreds out of Brown...) and engaged well with the controlled assessment task at the end. I know that the controlled assessments are now null and void (a shame really), but the exploration of speeches might be useful to someone out there in the teaching ether...

A simple spreadsheet that is designed to track the progress of an entire KS3 cohort from Year 7 to the end of Year 9. I have LOCKED each of the TABS of the spreadsheet using the NAME OF THE TAB itself (minus the spaces and as it appears with capital letters and numbers). This will stop any of the codes being deleted accidentally. Hope this saves people some time.

A collection of resources I have used to introduce KS3 (specifically year 7) students to poetry with a view to them writing their own anthology, and exploring an unseen poem.

There doesn't seem to be much out there for DNA, which is a shame really as it's a great text to study. Attached are ALL of the DNA resources I have created; hopefully this will give you a few different ideas and starting points. This is a mish-mash of resources from three years of teaching this text across two schools. Some organising and sifting-through is needed here.

An 84 page long booklet that provides you with the following: A thematic table A section for each poem where you can find a copy of the poem, a notes page (complete with helpful guidance), generic revision and exam questions and a response page A comparative table A copy of the mark criteria I have also included the documents I used to make this just in case you want to make a different version yourself. Enjoy, and be poetic. ALTERATION: I’ve updated the resource now - found one or two typos. Also, I’ve added in a grid that allows for a variety of themes to be “graded” in terms of how present a theme is: I’ve found this to be an engaging way of getting the students to compare. Finally, I’ve added a small section at the end about the different types of poetic forms.

PREMISE: You’ve been summoned to the gates of the Dark Forest – a haunted woodland, home to numerous fell creatures and twisted forms. The forest shifts and twists constantly, making it impossible to map. However, you and your adventuring kin will step into this shadowy land as the fate of Easter rests upon your shoulders. The Easter Bunny has been possessed! You’re job is to find him and drive out the demon. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it… Ok, so I kind of got carried away the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing and went and made myself an Easter Mission Pack. Also, as I had such success using my Christmas one, it felt like the right thing to do. I include a lot of literary characters and locations in this one too.Here's the full list: Hagrid Aragog Voldemort Dracula Frankenstein's Monster Willow (from Buffy) Treebeard The Watcher in the Water (From Lord of The Rings) The Balrog The Wall (from Game of Thrones) The Ringwraiths It all seems to fit together. Also, I include in this pack a whole-class presentation so you can do a guided creative writing lesson with a class or a large group. Either way, I am really looking forward to teaching this. You will need to encourage all Dungeon Masters to be creative in how they manage the conflict situations. This, is going to be great fun to teach... PS - with the whole class presentation, clicking the main background image acts as the link to the next slide via the "secret paths" without flagging it up to students. PPS - I've also included the first lesson - available for free elsewhere - otherwise it gets a bit complicated.

Four lessons that focus on improving your students abilities surrounding discussion and listening - somewhat lost art forms. Numerous discussion topics at group and whole class level.

A series of lessons designed to make sure students have a clear understanding of the “basics” and the “developed” skills and techniques required for EACH of the possible text types they could meet in Section B of the English Language Paper 2 exam. Because my lot were taught A Christmas Carol (and I was trying to kill two birds with one stone by revising this at the same time…), the tasks are all focused on writing within the world of Scrooge. To that end, they may require some editing on the part of the user - hence the reduced price.

A variation on a selection of lessons that I sell elsewhere. Here, the center piece is a 26 page printable workbook that runs in tandem with the power-point lessons - ideal for a Summer Term 2 unit of work where you are reluctant to give the students a new work book, and working on paper is problematic. The text is Anil (from the old Sunlight on the Grass Anthology) and there is about 12 lessons worth of material here.

Taught as part of a two teacher approach to a top set year 9 class. I focused on developing creative writing skills, with a particular emphasis on the structural components, whilst my partner teacher focused on the more traditional literature style approach. The Woman In Black was used as the stimulus for all elements of this unit and the climax is a GCSE English Language Paper 1 style task (not included in this pack as it is part of my school’s assessment pack). Overall, I found this unit to be really useful in challenging students to think about their creative writing in more than just a reactionary way. The nature of the structure focused questions align with my belief that it is always better to teach the Language Paper 1 Q3 question in the form of a structure-focused creative writing commentary at KS3 level. Hopefully this will provide you with a useful starting point for your own creative writing journey.

This resource was designed to be used after a class or cohort have sat the 2019 English Language paper 2. It’s set up to be used after a class has sat the exam and had their papers marked, but it wouldn’t take much modification to be used as part of a scenario where the students get the material, execute a preparatory strategy, answer the question and then peer/self mark. The material from the AQA mark scheme has been integrated into the PowerPoint, so students can get a sense of what level their response is before fine marking. I’ve done a few in this style and the students value them as revision tools too.

A PowerPoint designed to be used after students have sat the Section A of the AQA English Language Paper 1 for June 2019. It wouldn’t take much altering to be used as a mock exam itself. The slides are set up to show the model answers from the mark scheme so that students can peer/self assess and give actions and feedback.

My year 11s were STILL struggling with how to frame a method, so I came up with this stand alone lesson. The idea is that, having reviewed the slide where the methods are explicitly identified, the students will see that a method and a quotation are not the same thing. This was a successful lesson. UPDATE: I repeated this process with a bottom set year 10 class where I was even more specific. This was also a successful lesson, so I’ve included it.

Using a format that proved successful in the KS4 arena, I’ve adapted the thinking to apply to an AQA English Language P1 Q2/P2 Q3 style task that would fit for a higher ability top set KS3 class. The approach is to initially read the extract then to specifically identify concepts that relate to a language focused task, followed be explicitly identifying language based methods and incorporating into a response.

Similar to a lesson I posted on A Christmas Carol. After a bit of a warm-up, the crux of the lesson is focused on establishing concepts then explicitly showing students HOW to identify methods - again, some still confuse quotations and methods - before pointing them at an exam question. UPDATE: I repeated this lesson a few weeks later with a different extract, but backing off a notch in terms of explicitly identifying methods.

A useful little resource that can be a starter/plenary element in your lessons. The spreadsheet generates ten randomly selected true or false statements from a bank of over 260. Each of the power and conflict poems is covered and there is the scope for you to add in your own or edit the statements that are there. I released this to my year 11s as a revision tool and they found it very useful. Additionally, I have included a blank copy of the spreadsheet so you can create your own ToF statement generator.

5 Lessons and supporting resources that assist with the revision of this particular unit of the AQA English Literature Examination. I cover the following poems (my students identified these ones as the toughies): The Prelude Exposure Remains The Emigree Kamikaze Each poem has a revision style lesson (it assumes prior knowledge of the poem on the part of the student, but they also make good starting points if you are cracking through the poems at a fair old pace). Each poem also has a revision card attached - we use these as tools in their own right, and I will be creating one for each of the poems soon enough. The unit finishes on a GCSE style question where they have to compare Ozymandias to one of the poems they have studied. Hopefully you’ll find this useful.

PREMISE: You are going to enter the Castle of Terror to save Santa Clause. He has been kidnapped by the evil Necromancer, Alan. His devilish plan is to suck the Xmas spirit out of Santa, and use it to power his horde of undead. He has banded together with the Orcs and Goblins of the nearby Dark Forest. They will protect him whilst he finishes his experiments. You must hurry. The fate of Christmas rests with you… A mission pack that builds on the free D6 Dungeons and Dragons lesson I created. Print this off (delete the first slide though) for students, or set it up as a power point for the Dungeon Master. All the kids I tried it with loved it. Some of the quotes: "Voldemorts stolen my nose! Give me back my Magic Dagger!" "You are the worst re-animated corpse EVER!" "I use my Staff of Uncertainty to turn you into a Gibbon." A seriously creative lesson. Enjoy. PS - I've also added the initial lesson (Lesson 1) as a starting point for the kids - gets a bit complicated otherwise.