In an effort to halt 'how do I start' panic, this sheet was born. It contains sentence starters, a technique word-bank and when followed in order, provides a structured paragraph guide. I have this stuck to every table in my classroom. Useful for almost any unit of work with a Reading focus, it is a progression from PEE. P - Point E - Evidence T - Technique A - Analysis L - Link

Created after being inspired by an 'Of Mice and Men Revision Mat&' that I saw on TES, this mat is designed to have no obvious start/end (although it starts in the top left corner and goes clockwise) and to be one of those &';come back and see something different next time' resources. That way it&'s useful for both the teaching of the play and for exam recap. QUOTATIONS KEY: Blue - Older generation. Green - Younger generation. Red - The Inspector. Orange - Quote that summarises a character&';s guilt.

A range of essential quotations from 'Frankenstein' in a colour-coordinated A3 resource. Includes key character profiles and key themes (hence the colours, as I have mapped each quotation to a theme). This was designed out of desperation, when yet another Year 11 student asked me for a list of 'Frankenstein' quotations (as if I haven't given them many a sheet of paper and set many a 'select your own favourite quotations' homework over the years). As my 'An Inspector Calls Revision Mat' (a freebie) has been a runaway success with them, I could only conclude that they needed colours and images to survive this revision period. So the 'GCSE Frankenstein Revision Mat' was born. Good luck with your GCSE students!

A colourful visual prompt to print for your class. It has a word bank of emotions, a picture-timeline, key quotations (some chosen because of the literary techniques they demonstrate), a guide to moving towards higher-level analysis and a reminder of techniques they could be looking for. This was used throughout the unit of work, so ended up being less of a summative revision aid and more of a reminder of the week before.

A 19 Lesson SOW that explores both language and structural features in a variety of speeches (given by everyone from Obama to MLK Jr. to Emma Watson to Winston Churchill, to name a few). By the end of this SOW, students should learn to analyse figurative language, analogies, abstract nouns, anecdotes, emphatic colons, single and multi-clause sentences and phrases that signal transitions. There are also some creative writing lessons, where students get a chance to use some of these features in their own writing. All lessons are designed as 55 minute lessons. The resources are provided as pdfs (because thy print better) and as word documents, so that you can adjust them if necessary. All slides contain a ridiculous amount of colours and images, in order to make everything accessible for a variety of learners. (I am fairly fanatical about lessons being visually appealing, as well as covering interesting topics.) There are three homework tasks. There is a 'Key Vocabulary' sheet with 20 words that students can be tested on. There is also a lesson map, so you can quickly keep track of which lesson you are on and the main skills that they are working on. [Enjoy Lesson 11 - My students were completely outraged by the story of Trayvon Martin! It was the lesson that they were still talking about months later.]

A range of essential quotations from 'Romeo & Juliet' in a colour-coordinated A3 resource. Includes key character profiles and key themes (hence the colours, as I have mapped each quotation to a theme). This was designed out of desperation, when yet another Year 11 student asked me for a list of 'Romeo & Juliet' quotations (as if I haven't given them many a sheet of paper and set many a 'select your own favourite quotations' homework over the years). As my 'An Inspector Calls Revision Mat' (a freebie) has been a runaway success, I can only conclude that they need colours and images to survive this revision period. So the 'GCSE Romeo & Juliet Revision Mat' was born. Good luck with your GCSE students!

For any student who needs a bank of unseen poems to practise on, there are two poems in this Anthology from each of the 14 poets that AQA says that all students are guaranteed to be asked about. I needed something to quickly hand students, rather than have an endless series of handouts and students have gotten used to bringing it up to me, having me write a question about two of the poems/them invent their own question and off they go. (I'm praying that some of these poems come up in their exam, so the 'unseen' part is less 'unseen' - and yes, I am aware that's a long shot but I'm an optimist).

This English Language (Paper 1) Knowledge Organiser is intended to be both a revision tool and a teaching tool - if you're prepared to get them out each lesson and leave them on their desks. It contains top tips on how to analyse language and structural techniques (things that my Year 11s were struggling with but my Year 10s are absolutely smashing, now that I've figured out what prompts they need). There's timing advice, a few sentence starters to help them get going and a brief summary of what each question is actually testing them on. It also contains advise and examples for the three parts of Section B that they need to focus on: Content, Organisation and Written Accuracy. With an A-Z box of advanced vocabulary (although I ran out of space and couldn't include a word beginning with Y). Everything (because it's me) is colour-coded. I hope it helps!

A 17 Lesson SOW that explores both broadsheet and tabloid journalism. By the end of this SOW, students should learn to write formal and sensationalised news articles (for specific audiences), with a variety of sentence structures, appropriate punctuation, paragraphs and they will know how to plan before they write. This SOW was designed for the shorter Spring Term before we headed into exam season, so there is a bigger emphasis on peer marking and success criteria, so that students are developing their independence skills. There are both ‘reading for writing’ lessons, redrafting lessons and a drama lesson thrown in there (because news reporting is fun). Many of these lessons have SPaG starters, to develop their editing skills. All lessons are designed as 55 minute lessons. All lesson ppts start with a slide breaking down the activities by the recommended time, in order to complete the lesson. The resources are provided as pdfs (if needed, in order to print better) and as word documents, so that you can adjust them if necessary. All slides contain a ridiculous amount of colours and images, in order to make everything accessible for a variety of learners. (I am fairly fanatical about lessons being visually appealing, as well as covering interesting topics.) There is a 'Key Words' sheet with basic words students must be aware of and the expectation is that students will use these words throughout. There is also a lesson map, so you can quickly keep track of which lesson you are on, the main skills that they are working on and it has some key questions to ask students during the lesson.

A range of 2-3 essential quotations from the 'Power & Conflict' section of the Anthology in a colour-coordinated A3 resource. Includes key mini-themes (hence the colours, as I have mapped each quotation to a theme). This was designed out of desperation, when yet another Year 11 student asked me for a list of anthology quotations (as if I haven't given them many a sheet of paper and set many a 'select your own favourite quotations' homework over the years). As my 'An Inspector Calls Revision Mat' (a freebie) has been a runaway success, I can only conclude that they need colours and images to survive this revision period. So the 'GCSE Power & Conflict Anthology Revision Mat' was born. Good luck with your GCSE students!

A range of essential quotations from 'Romeo & Juliet' in a colour-coordinated A3 resource. Includes key character profiles and key themes (hence the colours, as I have mapped each quotation to a theme). This was designed out of desperation, when yet another Year 11 student asked me for a list of 'Romeo & Juliet' quotations (as if I haven't given them many a sheet of paper and set many a 'select your own favourite quotations' homework over the years). As my 'An Inspector Calls Revision Mat' (a freebie) has been a runaway success, I can only conclude that they need colours and images to survive this revision period. So the 'GCSE Romeo & Juliet Revision Mat' was born. Good luck with your GCSE students!

This English Language (Paper 1) Knowledge Organiser is intended to be both a revision tool and a teaching tool - if you're prepared to get them out each lesson and leave them on their desks. This one is in doc. format, so you can add to it/change it depending on what your department approach is. (The pdf. version is cheaper.) It contains top tips on how to analyse language and structural techniques (things that my Year 11s were struggling with but my Year 10s are absolutely smashing, now that I've figured out what prompts they need). There's timing advice, a few sentence starters to help them get going and a brief summary of what each question is actually testing them on. It also contains advise and examples for the three parts of Section B that they need to focus on: Content, Organisation and Written Accuracy. With an A-Z box of advanced vocabulary (although I ran out of space and couldn't include a word beginning with Y). Everything (because it's me) is colour-coded. I hope it helps!

A range of essential quotations from 'Frankenstein' in a colour-coordinated A3 resource. Includes key character profiles and key themes (hence the colours, as I have mapped each quotation to a theme). This was designed out of desperation, when yet another Year 11 student asked me for a list of 'Frankenstein' quotations (as if I haven't given them many a sheet of paper and set many a 'select your own favourite quotations' homework over the years). As my 'An Inspector Calls Revision Mat' (a freebie) has been a runaway success, I can only conclude that they need colours and images to survive this revision period. So the 'GCSE Frankenstein Revision Mat' was born. Good luck with your GCSE students!

A 22 Lesson SOW that explores both language and structural features in a variety of poetry (everything from ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou to ‘Hope’ by Emily Dickinson). By the end of this SOW, students should learn to analyse similes, metaphors, personification, ameliorative/pejorative language, contextual factors and how to write up their ideas in PEEL/PETAL paragraphs. It is primarily designed for Year 7 or for weak Year 8 and 9 groups, to fill in a lot of the analysis gaps that I'm noticing. There are a lot of sentence starters throughout this unit, in order to help students express their ideas, and frequent extension activities. There are also some creative writing lessons, where students get a chance to write some of their own poetry. The main idea is to give students access to such a variety of poetry in order to take some of the fear factor away from unseen poetry and to really get them thinking about various themes of mistreatment and isolation. All lessons are designed as 55 minute lessons. All lesson ppts start with a slide breaking down the activities by the recommended time, in order to complete the lesson. The resources are provided as word documents, so that you can adjust them if necessary but this has been simplified by putting all of the poems into an anthology of sorts (it definitely lessened the amount of times I needed to run down to the printer). All slides contain a ridiculous amount of colours and images, in order to make everything accessible for a variety of learners. (I am fairly fanatical about lessons being visually appealing, as well as covering interesting topics.) There is a 'Key Words' sheet with basic words students must be aware of and a glossary on appropriate poems. There is also a lesson map, so you can quickly keep track of which lesson you are on and the main skills that they are working on. This map contains key questions that students should be asked during each lesson.

A 21 Lesson SOW that explores both autobiographies, biographies and other non-fiction writing (by everyone from Maya Angelou to Hitler's nephew, to name a couple). By the end of this SOW, students should learn to write biographies, blogs and letters, having analysed a variety of non-fiction writing. It is very much a 'reading for writing' SOW, to increase their knowledge of different writing styles. This SOW was planned for Year 9 but is scaffolded for mixed-ability classes and has activities for those working on a 4a-7a. The whole SOW was created during my 'over planning' phase, so it has all kinds of differentiated activities. All lessons are designed as 55 minute lessons. All lesson ppts start with a slide breaking down the activities by the recommended time, in order to complete the lesson. The resources are provided as pdfs (because they print better) and as word documents, so that you can adjust them if necessary. All slides contain a ridiculous amount of colours and images, in order to make everything accessible for a variety of learners. (I am fairly fanatical about lessons being visually appealing, as well as covering interesting topics.) There is a 'Key Words' sheet with basic words students must be aware of and, in lesson 10, a key vocabulary sheet with 60 words for ambitious students. There is also a lesson map, so you can quickly keep track of which lesson you are on, the main skills that they are working on and it has some key questions to ask students during the lesson.

If your school is anything like mine, your parents want homework to be set but you don’t want to have to spend a ton of time creating relevant homeworks or marking all this extra work. This homework pack is designed to be challenging, useful and something that students can mark themselves (in or outside of lessons). It’s a four-week homework pack, with three sections per homework: 1. A vocabulary section (both important and ambitious vocabulary e.g. everything from ‘conflict’ to ‘pernicious’). 2. Practise breaking down a quotation. 3. An extended writing task (mostly analysis but there’s a creative writing task too), with success criteria to aid in peer-/self-assessment.

Inspired by the format and content of knowledge organisers that I have used and seen over the years, this GCSE Knowledge Organiser covers: Key plot points. Key characters & associated words. Key themes. Contextual knowledge. The second side contains useful quotations for each character (identified because of their potential usefulness in GCSE exams, given the requirement to memorise them rather than allowing them an extract or the book or…I digress) Hopefully this will be as useful to your students as it currently is for mine.

A 19 lesson SOW that explores every poem in the ‘Power and Conflict’ section of the AQA Anthology. By the end of this SOW, students should have learned how to better analyse similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, symbolism, juxtaposition, the influence of contextual factors and how to write up their ideas in comparative PETAL paragraphs. I designed this units to do two things: Ensure I could teach every Anthology poem in a half term (NOT something I recommend but as I’d moved schools, that was all the time I had for this particular year). If you are in a similar position, this SOW should carry you through as well. Ensure that weak GCSE students could spend their time focusing on analysing a few things well, rather than trying (and failing) to understand every part of the poem. By the end of this SOW, my support group were confidently reciting quotations from the poems, analysing similes and metaphors and were able to write comparative analytical paragraphs (using the quotations that I had drilled into them). The Exit Tickets all contain recall tasks, as well as analytical tasks, as a deliberate plan to use interleaving to speed up their memory-recall. All lessons are designed as 55 minute lessons. All lesson ppts start with a slide breaking down the activities by the recommended time, in order to complete the lesson. There are, however, two without timing slides, as an indication that both are fairly content-heavy lessons (‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Checking Out Me History’) and - if you have the time - you might want to spend more than one lesson on those poems. The resources are provided as word documents, so that you can adjust them if necessary. All slides contain a ridiculous amount of colours and images, in order to make everything accessible for a variety of learners. (I am fairly fanatical about lessons being visually appealing.) And every lesson links to my Anthology Revision Mat, using the same images to aid with revision later on (so I’ve added that in here too - you don’t need to buy an extra one).

Inspired by the format and content of knowledge organisers that I have used and seen over the years, this GCSE Knowledge Organiser covers: Key plot points. Key characters & associated words. Key themes. Contextual knowledge. The second side contains useful quotations for each character (identified because of their potential usefulness in GCSE exams, given the requirement to memorise them rather than allowing them an extract or the book or…I digress) Hopefully this will be as useful to your students as it currently is for mine.

Inspired by the format and content of knowledge organisers that I have used and seen over the years, this GCSE Knowledge Organiser covers: Key plot points. Key characters & associated words. Key themes. Contextual knowledge. The second side contains useful quotations for each character (identified because of their potential usefulness in GCSE exams, given the requirement to memorise them rather than allowing them an extract or the book or…I digress) Hopefully this will be as useful to your students as it currently is for mine.

If your school is anything like mine, your parents want homework to be set but you don’t want to have to spend a ton of time creating relevant homeworks or marking all this extra work. This homework pack is designed to be challenging, useful and something that students can mark themselves (in or outside of lessons). It’s a four-week homework pack, with three sections per homework: 1. A vocabulary section (both important and ambitious vocabulary e.g. everything from ‘forfeit’ to ‘multifaceted’). 2. Practise breaking down a quotation. 3. An extended writing task (mostly analysis but there’s a creative writing task too), with success criteria to aid in peer-/self-assessment.