What is it?

This is a collection of lesson starters and resources for key stage 3 (S1- 3) English. The videos can be used to inspire speaking and listening tasks with pupils. They are presented here as one full-length version and as a collection of clips, to help you pick which ones you want to use.

Getting started

For drama, there are three starters on monologues, two on performing them and one on writing them. The first one on performance looks at gestures, and features actor Prunella Scales, who helps a student to workshop her monologue, and then offers advice. In the second one, on voice, a drama student is told how to emphasise the right words and phrases of his speech, so that its meaning isn’t lost on the audience. The third programme, Writing a Monologue: Crush can be shown in secondary English as an example of a comic script.

Taking it further

In 2 Media Stories: The Advert and The Soap, key professionals involved in the creation of a TV advertisement and the BBC soap opera Holby City, which is set in a hospital, explain in detail how and why key decisions were taken during their production. In The Advertisement, creative director Nick Gill of Bartle Boyle Hegarty talks about how the agency created an advert for jeans manufacturer Levi Strauss, while in the Holby City story, script editorwriter Stephanie Jones talks about the Elstree studio they share with EastEnders and how they made the two top floors of their own offices into the hospital setting.

Where to find it

www.tes.co.ukdrama-media.