This full double lesson (the resources require at least 2 hours of teaching time) provides an engaging and highly-informative study of Margaret Postgate Cole's war poem 'The Falling Leaves.' Students learn to analyse the poem in terms of content, language, and structure, learn more about the context of World War I, and gain crucial skills in structuring analytical responses to texts. Included is: - Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and substantial; - Engagement quiz to learn more about the context of WWI; - Copy of poem with devices identification task and structural questions; - Analysis template with success criteria for creating well-structured responses; -Comprehensive lesson plan. There are also opportunities for group learning, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. This was originally taught to a middle-ability year 10 group, but can easily be differentiated for groups of different ages and abilities. All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation. -

Perfect for English lessons, or as part of a literacy across the curriculum scheme, the VCOP lessons aim to build students' fundamental writing skills. Engaging, differentiated, and easily adaptable, this lesson aims to improve students' skills at using varied and appropriate punctuation, following a logical learning journey to ensure that students learn in bite-size steps: - Defining punctuation marks; - Identifying varied vocabulary in humorous writing examples; - Analysing varied vocabulary in an interesting descriptive passage; - Creating their descriptive piece, using varied vocabulary; - Peer or self evaluating their varied vocabulary attempts. Resources, worksheets, and a lesson plan are provided. This resource can either be bought alone, or as part of a VCOP bundle (see resource VCOP - All lessons & scheme - vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation) for just £1 more.

Perfect for English lessons, or as part of a literacy across the curriculum scheme, the VCOP lessons aim to build students' fundamental writing skills. Engaging, differentiated, and easily adaptable, this lesson aims to improve students' skills at using varied and appropriate sentence openers, following a logical learning journey to ensure that students learn in bite-size steps: - Defining the different words that they can use to vary how they open sentences; - Identifying varied openers in humorous writing examples; - Analysing varied openings in an interesting descriptive passage; - Creating a descriptive piece, using varied sentence openers; - Peer or self evaluating the effectiveness of their varied sentence openers. Resources, worksheets, and a lesson plan are provided. This resource can either be bought alone, or as part of a VCOP bundle (see resource VCOP - All lessons & scheme - vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation) for just £1 more.

Perfect for English lessons, or as part of a literacy across the curriculum scheme, the VCOP lessons aim to build students' fundamental writing skills. Engaging, differentiated, and easily adaptable, this lesson aims to improve students' skills at using varied and appropriate connectives in their writing, following a logical learning journey to ensure that students learn in bite-size steps: - Defining connectives types; - Identifying connectives in humorous writing examples; - Analysing connectives in an interesting descriptive passage; - Creating a descriptive piece, using varied connectives; - Peer or self evaluating their writing attempts, and in particular the use of connectives Resources, worksheets, and a lesson plan are provided. This resource can either be bought alone, or as part of a VCOP bundle (see resource VCOP - All lessons & scheme - vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation) for just £1 more.

Perfect for English lessons, or as part of a literacy across the curriculum scheme, the VCOP lessons aim to build students' fundamental writing skills. Engaging, differentiated, and easily adaptable, this lesson aims to improve students' skills at using varied and appropriate vocabulary, following a logical learning journey to ensure that students learn in bite-size steps: - Defining word types; - Identifying varied vocabulary in humorous writing examples; - Analysing varied vocabulary in an interesting descriptive passage; - Creating their descriptive piece, using varied vocabulary; - Peer or self evaluating their varied vocabulary attempts. Resources, worksheets, and a lesson plan are provided. This resource can either be bought alone, or as part of a VCOP bundle (see resource VCOP - All lessons & scheme - vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation) for just £1 more.

This is a highly-effective tool for implementing a vocabulary and comprehension element to school-wide 'literacy across the curriculum' initiatives. Not only does it encourage students and teachers to focus upon fully understanding key words in each of their subjects, but it provides the school with a clear and concise measuring device for gauging students' vocabulary and comprehension improvements. Students first sit the baseline test in each subject - a booklet that tests their complete knowledge of whichever subject-specific terms they need to learn in the next assessment period. Examples of the tasks they are asked to complete are: - Spelling the word; - Defining the word; - Giving an example of the word in a sentence; - Self-evaluating their understanding of the word; - Selecting what type of word it is; - Thinking of synonyms for the word, and more. They are given a score for their performance in the tasks. Upon completion of the teaching unit, students complete the 'End-Point' booklet, completing the same tasks. The two scores (from the baseline and the end-point) are recorded into the tracker document, (10 sheets are provided for different departments) which automatically calculates baseline and end-point percentages, and percentage increase or decrease. It also colour codes red or green dependent upon student performance. This gives the user a clear measure of the effectiveness of the literacy scheme across the school - perfect for performance management, reporting to OFSTED, and school improvement.

These handy help-sheets have been employed by Media Studies teachers and teachers of literacy across the curriculum in order to build students' vocabularies, and assist their Media Studies analysis. There are help-sheets for each of the main concepts of Media: - Representations - Audience - Media Language and Forms - Institutions Each help-sheet defines what the key concept is (and gives examples), details the key terms and ideas to consider when looking at this area, and offers key questions for students to contemplate and kick-start their analysis. There is also a short example of analysis for each key concept in order to model some of the language, in addition to a variety of other hints and tips. These help-sheets have also been blown up to A3 or A2 size to become engaging and interactive media classroom or literacy across the curriculum posters.

This visual and highly engaging set of resources is designed to enable students to use imaginative and original persuasive devices in their own writing. Through following the interesting learning journey, students are given the opportunity to: - Define each persuasive device; - Identify these in existing persuasive texts; - Analyse their effect in a longer persuasive text; - Create their own persuasive device-filled piece, using a jointly-created success criteria based upon their analysis task; - Peer assess each other's persuasive writing attempts. All resources are provided, including: - Visual PowerPoint presentation; - Definitions cards (they just need printing and cutting out) - Analysis worksheet; - Lesson outline for teachers and learning support to follow. Note: All pictures licensed for creative use - authors and sources labelled on the final slide of the presentation.

Template for you to create your own Pointless games - whatever subject or topic you are teaching! Based on the popular game show 'Pointless', this resource is perfect for use as a starter activity, plenary, or revision tool. Editable, so that you can change to any other topic or change the questions/answers. Containing almost 30 slides of sound clips, engaging visuals, and suitably challenging questions, this resource is effective at both promoting engagement and enhancing learning. There are several built-in rounds of questions to build students' understanding in your topics, including: - Identifying terms from definitions - Anagrams of key terms round - Recalling the highest level knowledge. The nature of the game ensures that this resource can challenge students of all levels. NOTE: You can buy this resource alone, or in a bundle of 8 Pointless games, for only £1 more!

This writing resource is perfect for use in literacy/writing lessons across the curriculum. Bright, colourful, and realistic, this resource enriches students' writing experiences whilst enabling them to showcase the skills and knowledge that they have picked up throughout their learning. This lesson is also available as a part of a larger multi-media writing template bundle from TandLGuru that includes: Facebook page template, email template, messenger template, tabloid template, broadsheet template, and a postcard template. Most are easily editable and visually stimulating for students.

This checklist provides teachers with a clear yet effective tool for planning engaging starter activities. (A full CPD on Engaging Starters, including this resource, a full visually-engaging presentation, and further resources is also available from TandLGuru.) It breaks down the four key components of 'Meaningful Engaged Learning:' - Environment; - Motivation; - Experience; - Meaning. This gives teachers and support staff a clear platform upon which they can devise and facilitate truly inspiring, motivating, differentiated, and relevant starter activities, and hence promote student engagement in learning.

This CPD session is designed to enable teachers and learning support to facilitate highly engaging and motivating lesson openings. The session is interactive, rooted in educational theory, and contains video/collaborative resources to encourage staff participation. Participants learn to: - Understand the key features of meaningful engaged learning; - Identify and analyse these features in video examples of lesson starters; - Discuss/evaluate these concepts with regards to their own practices/settings; - Design, plan, and implement their own engaging lesson starters, using the provided handy prompts and planning materials; Provided in this pack is: - Visually-engaging presentation with embedded videos. - Engaging Starters checklist; - Planning sheet for engaging starters; -Teacher/Trainer guidance. NB: Internet connection needed for embedded videos. Bibliography/further reading on last slide.

I have used this resource to explain the new GCSE changes to other staff, governors, and parents. Feedback has been that it is clear, concise, and answers some of the key questions. In the document, I have addressed: - What changes have already taken place? - When do the changes take place? - How do the new grades equate to the old grades? - Why are the changes necessary? - What are the changes to the English GCSE? - What are the changes to the Maths GCSE? - How will school performance now be judged? Also attached is a visual representation of how the new GCSE grades map onto the old GCSE grades. Within the PowerPoint are a number of links to key information provided by the DfE and OFQUAL. Hope this helps!

This is a fun, engaging, and highly informative lesson/set of tasks on Wilfred Owen's war poem 'Dulce et Decorum est. This has been taught during an observation lesson where the teacher received an Outstanding judgement. It comes complete with: - Engaging and visual PowerPoint to guide students (and teacher!) through the lesson; - Colourful and thought-provoking worksheet for the main analysis task; - Lesson plan/ teacher guidance sheet, which goes through the lesson step-by-step; - Resources to enable the teacher to make 'flags' for the development task. As well as building students' knowledge of the text, they also learn crucial analysis and speaking and listening skills, in addition to using and applying key terminology. All pictures are licensed for commercial use, and image authors cited on the final slide.

This is a great resource for lesson starters, building literacy across the curriculum, plenaries, or simply for fun. Based upon the popular mobile app, this visually engaging activity is highly effective at promoting engagement and getting students thinking about words - many of whom seem to love playing the game on their phones! It is particularly useful for Literacy practitioners who are looking to expand students' vocabularies and/or raise the subject of homonyms. There are a range of challenges: Green = Beginner level Amber= Intermediate level Red = Expert level The document is easily editable, so you can also add in your own pictures and challenges. Also, all of the pictures used are licensed for commercial use, and all authors are cited.

This resource pack is comprised of: 1.) Observation & Learning Walk Performance Grid 2.) Marking and Feedback Performance Grid For use alongside lesson observations, learning walks, and book monitoring, these succinct performance grids enable observers to gauge, categorise, and feedback on teaching and learning sessions using OFSTED guidance for effective teaching. The documents provide descriptors of 'outstanding', 'good', 'requires improvement' and 'inadequate' practice within appropriately considered teaching and learning focus areas, for example: Questioning, Positive Feedback, Use of Additional Adults, etc. Schools who still grade individual teachers have noted that these are helpful aids in arriving at an overall judgement.

For use alongside book monitoring/ work scrutiny, this succinct performance grid enables observers to gauge and categorise marking and feedback using OFSTED guidance for effective feedback. The first page of the document provides descriptors of 'outstanding', 'good', 'requires improvement' and 'inadequate' feedback within appropriately considered focus areas, for example: Frequency, Constructive Feedback, Marking for Literacy, etc. Schools that already employ this tool often opt to highlight the descriptors on this page as they complete the scrutiny, thus creating a bigger picture of the strengths and areas for improvement in the feedback observed. This can also be a helpful aid in arriving at an overall judgement, should your school opt to arrive at one. The second page allows observers to further pinpoint and describe the 'www' (what went well) and 'ebi' (even better if) aspects of the feedback, to aid teacher in improving their practice.

For use alongside lesson observations and learning walks, this succinct performance grid enables observers to gauge and categorise teaching and learning sessions using OFSTED guidance for effective teaching. The first page of the document provides descriptors of 'outstanding', 'good', 'requires improvement' and 'inadequate' teaching within appropriately considered focus areas, for example: Questioning, Planning, Use of Additional Adults, etc. Schools that already employ this tool often opt to highlight the descriptors on this page as they observe, thus creating a bigger picture of the strengths and areas for improvement in the teaching and learning observed. Schools who still grade individual lessons have noted that this is a helpful aid in arriving at an overall judgement. The second page allows observers to further pinpoint and describe the 'www' (what went well) and 'ebi' (even better if) aspects of the lesson, in order to make feedback to teachers more clear.