A set of resources designed to engage year 11s with English Language Paper 2 Section A. I shaped the lessons around the articles written surrounding the time of Jack the Ripper, and around an article published following the Zodiac Killer sending a letter to the San Fransisco Chronicle. The class were fascinated by these articles - I had students independently going away and reading pre-19th century newspapers off their own backs! This will need to be taught delicately though - the content is graphic in nature, so be sure that your class has the necessary level of maturity to access this material without being distracted.

A simple power-point designed to be used either AFTER a class has sat the AQA English Language Paper 2 Specimen Paper 2, or as part of a walking-mock style lesson where the students mark their work immediately afterwards. It’s cheap because I’ve essentially deposited the contents of the mark criteria on to the power point in such a way that the students can use it it to peer or self-assess. The resource JUST contains the power point.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve used the opening chapter of the novel as the basis for an AQA Language Paper 1 mock exam. I’ve created an Answer paper too.

A lesson that models the process of building a high-end An Inspector Calls essay. Please note, the lesson assumes that the class has read the play and has attempted versions of the AQA English Literature questions already. Also, the lesson works best as an aspirational example: I concentrate on using sophisticated language to shape my points, and focus on integrating appropriate references. Please note I’ve deliberately left some academic “gaps” too - this model response is a high-quality response, but there are other avenues of academic insight that can be taken. Bottom line, to get the most out of this lesson, you’ll need to spend a little time going through it all first - hence the low price.

I designed this for the old AQA specification. Now that the spec is obsolete, some of you might be thinking of turning those stacks and stacks of anthologies into resources for KS3 classes (we certainly are for year 9). As a result, you may find this booklet useful. The booklet is essentially a copy of the entire anthology where on the left hand side of a double page spread you have the text, and on the right hand side you have space for notes. Each story is ended with generic questions and has TWO exam questions for revision purposes. Perfect for planning lessons when you are taking an extended period of time off. Happy reading.

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.

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.

A unit of work I put together whilst working inside a secondary school's behavioural unit. The idea was that these lessons would develop the students ability to apply a vocabulary to emotions that they may struggle to recognise, feel, express or talk about in themselves and others. By helping them with this vocabulary, the theory was that they would be better able to reintegrate into the school environment and stay there. It had mixed results, some students showed improvements, others less so. Either way, someone out there will hopefully find this useful. The materials cover the following topics: Feeling Afraid Feeling Angry Feeling Ashamed Feeling Bored Feeling Happy Feeling Helpless Feeling Lonely Feeling Loved Feeling Sad Each "feeling" has an associated wordsearch and accompanying answer sheet. Most of these also have a whole lesson attached to them - there are some anomalies. You'll need a copy of the AQA Sunlight on the Grass anthology story "Compass and Torch" too. Some feedback would be useful folks. I've moved away from this type of work but would like to return to it - be nice to know if my ideas have worked elsewhere.

Material I generated for the old AQA style creative writing controlled assessments - it still resonates with the new AQA Paper 1 Section B style questions (inspired by images). You'll need a copy of the film and you'll need to alter the Learning Outcomes (they are all set against the old AQA English Language Coursework criteria).

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.

A bit out of date now(hence the reduced price). This is a booklet that provides a copy of each of the old AQA Moonlight on the Tides poems with a series of questions and an exam question. This is a stand alone resource you can print out (It's a whopper! Loads of pages, so check your departmental print budgets) for individuals or whole classes. Might be useful as an Unseen Poetry resources for the new AQA English Literature GCSE (Just saying...)