Guidance for students on how to write an introduction for an essay in English. Examples of effective (and less effective) introductions to spark discussion amongst students on what they need to include.

Notes on the language, structure and context of Checking Out Me History by John Agard.

Notes on the poem Exposure by Wilfred Owen and an accompanying worksheet for students.

A challenging lesson covering the key techniques in Act 1 Scene 1, including: incantation, iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter, rhyming couplets, antimetabole, pathetic fallacy and foreboding.

An analysis of the language and structure of the poem Nettles by Vernon Scannell.

A range of quotes on Sheila to help students plan an answer to the response, ‘How does Priestley use language and structure to show Sheila’s journey towards social responsibility?’

A series of lessons to help students answer the question, ‘How does Shakespeare use language and structure to present conflict in Romeo and Juliet?’ Focuses on the prologue, Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 3 Scene 1 with the key ideas from the historical context and example analytical paragraphs.

5 lessons to help students plan a piece of imaginative writing. Includes an introduction to the skills needed, help with planning their story, effective openings, character description and varied sentence starters. Also includes model examples of imaginative writing. Writing to explore, imagine or entertain.

An end of term project that allows students to design a themed cafe that they will create the branding and marketing for. They will need to consider their use of descriptive writing techniques for their menu items, persuasive writing in their advert and writing to inform for an article for the local newspaper. Finally, they need to bring everything together to create a pitch for their cafe to win £1,000,000 funding!

Notes on the language and structure of the poem Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland and an accompanying worksheet.

Notes on the language and structure of Charge of the Light Brigade suitable for a Year 11 class.

A comprehensive lesson on the poem Island Man by Grace Nicholls. Perfect for distance learning, it includes discussion prompts, comprehension questions and examples analytical paragraph responses that can be marked and improved by students.

A series of lessons on the historical context of Much Ado About Nothing, the presentation of Claudio and Benedick, how Shakespeare presents the two main female characters, an example analytical paragraph and a plan for students to write their own response to the question, ‘How does Shakespeare present a contrast between Hero and Beatrice in Act 1?’

A comprehensive analysis of the language and structure of Follower by Seanus Heaney, including an example analytical paragraph and a paragraph plan for students to write their own response to the question, ‘How does Heaney present the relationship between father and son?’

A discussion based introduction to the poem Half-Caste by John Agard, including video clips from YouTube and differentiated questions to analyse the poem.

An introduction to the idea of ‘Genius Hour’ in which students take time to come up with thier own driving questions for a project on a topic of their choice. They are then expected to conduct their own research and present their findings to the class in a format of their own choice.

A range of questions for students to help them consider what we learn about the characters in Act 1 of An Inspector Calls before the Inspector arrives. Includes questions on Priestley’s view, context and different characters. Answers included on the second slide.

A Challenge Literacy Skills Booklet to follow on from the Literacy Skills Booklet. Includes tasks on 13 different skills including: main and subordinate clauses, adjectival clauses, adverbial clauses, conjunctions, word types and sentence types. Each activity includes revision tasks, opportunities for practice, links to extracts to young adult fiction and space for peer assessment.

A resource to inspire students to create their own examples of performance poetry, with video clips from Afra Atiq, Harry Barker and Sarah Kay.

A series of 5 lessons based around the short Pixar film, ‘Piper’. Skills that are covered include: engaging openings, similes, metaphors, building tension and varying sentence starters. Students work through the skills whilst adding a paragraph of their own writing every lesson using ‘Piper’ as a writing stimulus.