Three quality story openers to stimulate students and create plenty of discussion, leading to improved writing opportunities! All three are semi-spooky, mysterious, thought-provoking resources that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, but are all certain to capture students' imaginations!

A superb resource for encouraging students to write in the mystery/spooky genre, with the emphasis on discussion, recording, redrafting and improving their work. This resource is more concerned with 'mystery' in its wider sense, not just that of the traditional 'Whodunnit' but more about more mysterious things that might be around us in everyday life. Included are three quality activities with story-starters, two resource sheets and two high-quality videos (approx 3 mins long). Both have the same images and original, atmospheric soundtrack which will be guaranteed to stimulate discussion. The second video has added annotations to encourage those students who are finding it difficult to engage. The videos create a wonderful whole-class introduction - close the curtains, turn up the sound on the IWB and sit back - your students will respond! If you have any questions or would like something specific creating, please get in touch!

Great writing and talking resources for upper KS2/KS3 students, offering a variety of opportunities for writing about exploring - 'Explore' - Weighing anchor in a frozen wasteland in pursuit of a distress call; 'Five Exploration Scenarios' - students need to prioritise their equipment choices for various activities; 'Something Wrong in Space' - a writing activity that could easily be turned into a piece of drama: Astronauts coming home with a massive dilemma - eight hours from earth, with six hours' worth of oxygen left...

A selection of activities (writing, discussion, D&T, Geography) for KS2, focussing on the idea of being stranded on a desert island. Resources include - Desert Story Board: - creating a story from a selection of high quality photographs, involving discussion with a partner; Five Objects for a Desert Trip: - Students choose five objects to take with them to their desert island, having to justify their choices; Living on a Desert Island: - Students have to plan their desert island and how they would organise themselves - shelter, food, water etc. Links to the 'Five Objects for a Desert Trip' above; The Tall Ship: - Open ended creative writing template about a ship that turns up after five years of isolation.

Here we have three great creative writing exercises for upper KS2-lower KS3. 'Fish, Fish, Fish': Asks students to imagine life as a fisherman and to write about a day in the life from a point-of-view perspective; 'Serenity': A beautiful image of the moon over icebergs conjures up a majesty of colour, shapes and feelings for students to describe; 'Sunset': Describe a wonderful Arctic sunset to a blind person.

A fabulous resource with lots of stunning images of the arctic, aimed at upper KS2 and KS3. Aim: Writing development. How: Using powerful imagery, combined with lots of scaffolding support - for able and less able learners, these activities will develop both verbal and written vocabulary. Included: - 'Iceberg': A descriptive writing activity with strong scaffold support to give students a clear idea of what to do when planning a piece of writing; - 'The Boat': Another descriptive writing piece with a more open-ended support sheet, designed to encourage discussion; - 'Storyboard': A set of six pictures to be cut out and rearranged to make a story, based on discussion with a partner. Blank storyboard included to stick pictures onto; - 'Lost': 'SATs' style question with a scene depicted and basic information given and students need to complete the story; - 'ICE' (Support Sheets): Two support sheets that complement all the above activities encouraging students to look and think more deeply - 'What rhetorical questions might you ask?'

A Christmas resource with a difference - looking at the events at the Western Front, 1914. Aimed at upper KS2 and KS3. Included is a sizeable resource with information, images, questions - all aimed at provoking discussion amongst students about the futility of war, the conditions the soldiers fought in and the irony involved. Included is a story-starter, putting the student in the role of an English Tommy, hearing the tones of 'Silent Night' wafting across No-Man's-Land and the story that unfolds afterwards...

Four fab resources that will have children enthused about writing as they are all connected with the festive period! 'Naughty and Nice' - Children have to choose who they would put on each list - friends not allowed! - giving three good reasons why they would do so. Aimed to encourage children to think about the wider world and some of the characters that inhabit it. This resource comes with a 'Naughty and Nice' synonym recorder to encourage language development and discourage repetition. 'Santa's Year' - fun images suggesting that Santa might have an 'ordinary' life outside of making toys! Children encouraged to think 'outside the box' and create some diary entries for Santa during the year! Complete with display-friendly pages for children's written work. 'SOS Santa' - Santa's in trouble and he needs YOUR help! What's happened to him and how can YOU help? This resource will develop children's discussion and writing skills while having fun at the same time! 'The Talking Snowman' - begins with the first part of a story about children building a snowman and then leaves them with a cliff-hanger that they have to continue.

Your end of term classwork is creative, festive and worthwhile with this bumper Christmas miscellany! A huge resource that includes - - Surviving Christmas - create a guide for users; - What's Your Favourite Christmas Movie? - review - Christmas Movies Maths Activity - Data Collection/Graphs - Christmas Wishes - What would YOU choose? - Christmas Crackers - Fantasy writing genre - What's the True Meaning of Christmas? - Your Favourite Christmas Movie Script? - The Christmas Fox - Creative Writing - The Winter Road - Creative Writing - Creative Writing Planning Sheet And more!

Three challenging resources to encourage quality discussion and debate with KS3+ students. All three tackling the social issue of homelessness and the concept of Christmas being a time for giving, these resources will undoubtedly promote lively discourse in your class. Areas covered - sleeping rough and the repercussions of such, the causes of homelessness and the public perception of these issues.

Three brilliant story starts for upper KS2/3 focussing on the 'Mystery' genre. Each includes an evocative image to stir students' imaginations, encouraging discussion and writing. All three are easily differentiated by outcome or support. Included in the pack is a 'Writer's Checklist' - a resource designed for students to self-assess or peer-assess their work. Please leave feedback if you've enjoyed using my resources. Thanks!

A comprehensive activity that focusses on creating a newspaper front page, with a walk-through guide for students to follow and discuss. Also included is a sheet that explores the use of puns and alliteration in newspapers. A worksheet aimed at elementary advertising is also included, as is an A4 newspaper template.

Three writing resources based around World War 1. First, a comprehension exercise for 'In Flanders Fields'; Second, a creative writing activity based around 'Going Over the Top'; Thirdly, a more reflective piece of creative writing centring on writing a letter/postcard to loved ones at home. Designed to encourage students to consider life for the average soldier in the trenches during WW1, this pack will create much in the way of discussion, debate and reflection.

A fantastic resource to support and develop writing at KS3. Activity sheets that support student's planning and execution of their writing, ranging from sentence structure, choosing appropriate adjectives, synonyms, similes etc, to referring to senses as a method of creating breadth and depth to their writing. Also included are sheets covering character development through empathy, rhetorical questions and more. A storyboard is included for more kinaesthetic students to plan their work. The pack is completed with a comprehensive self/peer writing assessment checklist so students can identify what they have included and omitted. Please leave a short review if you've enjoyed using this work and please check out my other resources! Thanks!

A wonderfully useful set of sheets for children to use in all manner of writing styles and genres, this pack contains - - An A4 sheet of sentence starters, covering speech, using adverbs, rhetorical questions and short sentences; - An A4 sheet for children to jot down their thoughts around concepts such as useful synonyms, adjectives, similes and rhetorical questions they might use; - An A4 storyboard, split into eight sections for children to plan their work onto; - An A4 'Writing Checklist' - for children to use after their writing is done. Covering sentence choices, spelling, handwriting, grammar, punctuation and more, it is designed to be used in a self-assess or peer-assess format, this sheet makes a great support document for reminding children what they need to include in their writing. All of these sheets could be laminated as they will be used again and again and again... Please leave a review if you liked this work - and check out my other resources too!

A series of three activities designed to encourage children to think about how to organise and create reports/leaflets/brochures. - Rocket Car: As the designer of a flying car, you have to write the user manual; - Comfy Camping: Discuss and create a leaflet for successful camping; - Horned Devil: Creating a booklet about how to look after a strange creature.

A series of high-quality images designed to stimulate children's imagination and develop quality talking and writing. The four resources are varied - discussion, prioritising, fantasy story, description of a scene and description of a personal approach to a difficult situation. All set around the common theme of the desert. Included is a set of student support sheets to help provide structure and reinforcement to the writing process.

A set of five resources, with quality images aimed at stimulating discussion and conversation with children, to lead on to vocabulary development and recording. Each piece is a different genre and the whole pack comes with a peer and self-assessment activity which can be adapted for each piece of writing.