A thoroughly enjoyable unit of work. Built around a work booklet and designed for that awkward half-term at the end of the year where you don’t want to give out new exercise books. The workbook contains a copy of The Norwood Builder, comprehension questions and vocabulary list, as well as a variety of activities that focus (primarily) upon creative writing skills with some language and structure based tasks. The lessons are designed to be used with the workbook. NOTE: I may upload a slightly different workbook in the future, but I will leave the original on here.

Two powerpoints (both alike in dignity…); the larger of the two covers the deconstruction of an English Language Paper 2 Section A mock exam - we go through common mistakes, areas of concern and identify how to improve on what we’ve done. I’ve provided the sources too, so you could use this as the basis of a Section A walking-talking mock; the smaller powerpoint covers speech writing, an area my lot particularly struggled with. Happy hunting…

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.

Need a quick lesson? Look no further. A whole lesson based around Roger McGough's "The Lake" - I know it can be found online elsewhere, but I include it here for convenience's sake. Perfect for when you need to fill that irritating cover lesson with something meaningful.

Attached is a spreadsheet that does an awful lot of work for you. To summarise, it does the following: Allows for easy collation of GCSE Literature marks on a paper by paper basis AND as a whole examination Allows for easy identification of various student demagraphics - EAL, PP and so on Allows you to measure progress against students best, average and last marks across both papers Works out "how many marks" until you hit target grades for individual students Colour codes grades and marks to allow for at a glance progress checks Once you buy this spreadsheet, you will not need to get another LITERATURE spreadsheet. The document contains instructions as to how to update the spreadsheet. Oh, and if you do get this, I suggest you LOCK the individual spreadsheets ASAP: the document is set up to allow you to do this and still enter the data, you just won't be able to accidentally delete any of the coding, thus removing any brain overloads that might ensue. Happy spread-sheeting!

Old IGCSE English specification resources. Someone, somewhere, might find a way to use these...somehow.

I've found another use for all that knowledge we have about the old AQA English Lit anthology (The Sunlight on The Grass anthology). I have started to turn them into English Language Paper 1 Section A Mock Exams! This is one of them. There is no mark scheme, but if you use the Paper 1 mark scheme from the AQA website you should be fine. This one uses the opening of My Polish Teacher's Tie.

Focused on the Shakespearean text vs the Conflict Poetry from the literary heritage. Very structured against the bands and pointed towards the controlled assessment.

I did this as an end of year task with my Year 7's. Essentially it is putting on a puppet show of Pyramus and Thisbe, the idea being that the students tell a modern version but using elements of Shakespearean language. Set up for SLAF 3 but easy enough to alter for SLAF 1 and 2.

A worksheet on a poem, play and piece of prose from the Neo-Classical era. The questions are to check understanding and encourage thoughtful study of the era. I would appreciate feedback.

Two worksheets on the suburban habitats. One looking at the environments, one looking at adaption of rats and foxes.

I made this sheet after marking a load of mock exam papers and getting frustrated at the inability of some foundation students to compare effectively. Oh yes, this is meant to be printed on A3 paper too! I have had success with foundation groups in terms of getting them to structure their responses.

Have had major success with this activity with a low ability Year 11 group. Concept is centered around 'A Tavern in Verona' and deals with events after the finish of the play. Students create and develop their own character. I have had un-confident and uncooperative students sustain their identified roles for 20 minutes with a video camera in their faces. Give it a whirl...

A complete powerpoint lesson exploring the way in which students can interpret the characterisation evident in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare.

Linked to the Roald Dahl 'Boy' SoW. I used these powerpoints and worksheets to differentiate for a very large middle set year 7 group. Reasonable success - the worksheets allows the top end to focus on their own development, leaving me to focus on those who were really struggling.

These lessons are to be ran in tandem with watching the 1963 versions of the film (not the modern version - the pilot is still alive!). You can insert these two lessons at any point in the SoW.

Another experiment with mixed success. Attempted with a particularly apathetic bottom set year 10 group and got some decent Band 3s - I felt they left a lot out on the field so to speak. There is a lot of scope for taking this idea and developing it - if Gove leaves off the specification (unlikely) I will be coming back for a second crack at this. If not, I will modify it for a KS3 scheme in the future. Happy trails.

Series of power points designed to help students to write their own Gothic Short Story.

A resource with simple worksheet that encourages students to read the short story 'Your Shoes' by Michele Roberts. It also builds in the Point, Evidence and Explain way of thinking. This is written as a Homework activity for higher ability sets or as a lesson for weak GCSE classes.