Shakespeare Day this year has the added thrill of marking 400 years since the Bard’s death [or 452 since his birth!]. To help you mark the anniversary, here’s a ‘Where’s Will?’ competition with quotes, student fill in sheets and an answer sheet. Set up the competition school wide, departmentally or as a class activity to get students reading quotes and finding where the action is set. The competition is really easy – its merit is exposure – participants have to find the posters, read a quote and be alert to where the action is set. At the very least they’ll have heard of a few more plays. This activity is easy enough for upper primary pupils. That’s just one activity. On the quotes PP you have a template you can send to students and colleagues on which they can write their favourite Shakespeare quotes [even if it is from the play they are currently studying] to display around the school. Primary pupils could display insults they've generated. Each subsequent slide can be printed [on coloured A3?] to make a display for the classroom or to boost the display around the school. Longer term, there is the set of starter quotes that could introduce students to Shakespeare’s language, as a Shakespeare ‘quote of the half-term’, or for 6 lessons in April… the idea is to get students to think about both the literal and figurative meaning of memorable lines, as well as expose them to a wider range of plays. The ‘fill-in’ version allows you to set the whole task as a one off lesson activity or a self-mark homework. For anyone who has missed the lesson, quotes and answers are available as a paper version too. The Teachers' Guide also provides useful links and ideas. Enjoy a super Shakespeare Day!

5 weeks worth of daily spelling activities and self-mark tests! These are the 100 words the DfE claims primary pupils should be able to spell in 5/6 – of course older pupils could do with a bit of revision too. They are divided into groups of five as 'week 1' etc. with a test at the end of each week. Standard practice, but here’s the difference… Being dyslexic myself, I’ve written the words out in a way that makes learning them easier for others with a similar condition – by looking for patterns and words within words – without being a problem to good spellers. Use as a weekly homework, a fill-in starter while you call the register or an occasional filler for a quick worker. At the end of the list there’s a revision opportunity and words to find in a string of letters along with some unscrambling to do. Some y3-4 words are revisited in the last lists and tests. Tests are also designed to promote proof-reading skills, with 'you be the teacher' adding fun to the process - red pens work wonders here and cut your workload to quick checking , rather than marking. Work is set out for ease of printing/photocopying and teacher’s answers are on the last pages of each set – print or project as suits. A PP gives end of list answers to the strings and unscrambles. Y5&6 have an additional task – words to fill into a script, similar to SATs tests. If you do these with older students, just do remember to remove the ‘year’ label with each test.

The advantage of this ‘jigsaw’ way of preparing students to write an essay answer is that they will write much more, it will be well thought through and weaker students will benefit from working collaboratively, while more able students will spark each other. It can work with any text with a bit of tweaking and the resource can be adapted to suit your class. This work will cover several lessons, with the lesson PP giving clear instructions. The written guide gives the teacher the steps to follow as well as sharing friendly advice born of experience. The 'Methods' sheet lists the methods if required and the checklist helps students make sure their essays meet the criteria for top marks. A 'Targets'PP facilitates your marking and feedback to students. A print version of the targets enables you to give a set to each student if you don't think writing out their own target warrants the time.

The culmination of the series focuses on question A6 following a similar pattern as before. It begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, first on the PP, then with written texts. First, to give students confidence, two short texts from speeches on immigration. This keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided.

A word of the week is a great way to start a lesson and kids love using the new word, but don't think you can't use this resource if you haven't been doing the weekly words - simply print out each slide sans the WOW heading and display them in the classroom or put them on a 'help-desk' and turn the task into a Thesaurus lesson. The wordsearch is not one of those mindless exercises that have brought the genre into disrepute: here students need to find the WoW from the definition and list the words that need to be found. The favourite trick of highlighting anything that looks like a word has been thwarted by there being lots of words that aren't on the list - students lose a mark if they have highlighted an irrelevant word. Alternatively [or for another day] there's a spelling test. Answers make both tasks easy self-mark tasks.

Ideal task for World Space Week! Cover it! Descriptive writing, photo prompt, differentiated w/s, all printed, suits non-specialist. Sometimes you need a class just to get on with it, or you're supplying cover at short notice for a non-specialist - this series covers those times when it needs to be plain and simple on paper, but nonetheless needs to be worthwhile and relevant. In this task students have a picture and have to write a story inspired by it. There are 3 different levels - the simplest provides a frame and even some words to trace for those who can't write legibly and need help coming up with ideas. The next level up has just the prompts and the most able are challenged to go further with some story openings to inspire their creativity. The topic of this exercise is SPACE.

Because students work on paper and answers can be printed off so that no computer is needed, this differentiated work is ideal to set as last minute cover . The first set of tasks is linking words with their opposites, choosing from words provided, so that no cumbersome dictionaries are needed, though they can be used if desired. For those who finish that, there is a crossword puzzle. This contains clues from across the ability range, encouraging different abilities to work together and extending mid-ability students.

Ideal for a last minute cover lesson, this task has a separate SEN version of the lesson, but also tasks get more demanding as they go, enabling non-specialist to use differentiation by work covered. Beginning with couplet descriptive sketches choosing words from a box, writing focuses of visual the auditory descriptions. Examples are given throughout, with quoted extracts to stimulate ideas. As a bonus, two extra photographs can be used to repeat the final written task at a later date as exam practice or to provide variety.

This differentiated quiz has 5 direct question as an easy round 1, 'connect 4' as round 2, round3 is 'odd-one-out', round 4 is 'true or false' while word-games will make round 5 slightly longer. the quiz itself will take 20-30 minutes allowing for team discussion, writing of answers and then marking, but it could easily take all lesson depending on the time you allow for the word-games: base that on the interest and ability of the class. Once the quiz has been marked there is the film story writing extension to ensure this fills a lesson, if not more. Further lessons can be spent reading each other's openings and outlines, pitching the best as S&L and then debating which should be made. Who knows, some may even be inspired to make their movies, in time for a Christmas viewing, it does happen when a group of students are keen on movie making in their own time.

Ideal as homework or cover, these self-mark worksheets each give some brief information relevant to the poem and set three tasks, for which there are answers on the second page. If done in class, students can work in groups and then peer assess other groups, giving you a bit of breathing space! Perfect for embedding poems after class exploration. A-level students needing to brush up their poetry revision pre-exams would benefit from the tasks too. Covers the 1st eight poems in the AQA anthology.

Everything you need for a dynamic revision lesson! The lesson plan sets out each step with space for you to fill in your timings. There are 36 quotes to give your students choice and variety - ideal for popping into a ‘hat’ - all with their words in alphabetical order: students have to try to recognise and reconstruct the quote. Poems are identified for those who need help. The next step is to annotate the quote with AOs 2, 3 & 5, then glue it onto A3 for another student to add AO4 texts. Next round, students add AO2, 3 & 5 to those links. Students can photograph the final product on their phones as handy ‘night before’ revision notes - and all this is explained in clear step by step instructions to the students via the Power Point, which has a clear starter, with answers, the main activity explained, a plenary and even a home work task! What’s not to like?!

The penultimate cluster of resources for this excellent novel. Activities range from PEA paragraphs, creative and autobiographical writing to report writing. Inference and analysis are the key skills practised and even spelling is covered. Teacher notes outline lesson ideas and in some cases task options to suit different class types. At least 4 lessons worth of material.

Assuming you are reading with this brilliant novel with your class in part of the lesson [the chapters are very short] there is something for five lessons, each focusing on both a chapter and a skill. Retrieval and synthesis are practised by writing a police report, while in other tasks sayings, titles, structure and implications are explored through starters, plenaries and PEAL paragraphs. Each task builds on skills visited in previous tasks so that they become familiar and increasingly independent strategies.

These resources cover chapters 18 to 21 and take a closer look at characterisation, allusion, structure and inference, making language analysis accessible to younger, less able students, boys with no former interest in literature as well as enthusiastic, more able readers. Answers enable peer and self-assessment. All the tasks are focused and succinct, assuming reading of the text will also be happening in the lesson. Some choice of activitiy is also offered for chapter 21.

A bundle in itself, this resource has 13 units to it. Teachers’ notes on each chapters resources navigate you through the exciting end of this great novel. Homework, starters, main lessons and assessments with answers cover similes, persuasive S&L as well as writing, mystery solving and taking life-lessons from literature. Activities range from debating to poster making via questions, intuitive leaps [signalled] inference and formulating an opinion. In chapter 34, for example, the starter introduces a learning question, answers to which are found during the lesson through reading the chapter and the plenary and homework address formulating an answer as an essay.

If you’ve got to this point, you know what an excellent novel this is, ideal for short reading extracts and lots of teaching opportunities. This set of resources offers teacher notes to help with planning and pacing your lessons. Tasks cover characterisation, vocabulary, imagery and structure. While tasks are aimed at younger or weaker readers in the main, the skills taught are aimed at building a profound understanding of crafting and ‘active reading’. Links are made to students’ own writing, improving writing skills from literary devices to SPaG. Throughout the series skills are revisited to inculcate them via different tasks. Answers are provided and most tasks are self-or peer assess.

Help students to see how quotes can suit a variety of questions: this enables them to choose apt quotes to memorise, saving time in the exams, or just to find quickly. This works with the 'Section B style questions - a strategy' PP. The poets focused on here are Tennyson and Coleridge, but the idea can be adapted for any texts.

After the first ‘getting to know you’ lesson, you want to get the measure of your students as well as help them get into your routines. This booklet contains 3 lessons that include self and peer assessment, SPaG, Reading and Writing tasks with answers, instructions, explanations and examples on the PP. The sections you need to mark are short, but quickly give you a sense of the student’s abilities, personality and emotional state. So don’t get tripped up by missing registers, not enough books or any of the other things that prevent a crisp start: print a set of booklets for your next y7s before the summer break and ease them into secondary school with bitesized tasks that form the basis of all KS3 tasks, but are KS2 friendly. On the back page of the booklet are handy reminders of the acronyms that students may’ve come across at primary school to help them proofread and correct their work.

There are three sets of homophones here. In each case students first get the handout and learn the homophones as homework. Later they do the relevant exercise and use the answers to mark their own or a partner's work, which can be done as a starter. The exercise tests their knowledge of the homophones, but could also be set as another day's homework - useful if you're under pressure to set homework at a busy time and need something worth doing yet easy to mark [just check peer marking if required]. In addition, because students learn best by re-visiting work, there is also a test for each of the sets of homophones, also with answers. This work is best done drip-fed over a term or two. Use the miscellaneous homophone handout as an extension exercise when needed: students can make up their own 'test' sentences using them as a guide, to test one another.