This is a PowerPoint lesson to help students learn speech writing. Starter: Watching and discussing a speech as an example. Objectives: Learn to write a speech and apply persuasive language techniques. Reminder: What is Question 5 about? Tips: Top tips for speeches. I got my students to copy this down and show me that they’ve had a go at using these tips later in the writing activity. Reading: Read the extract of a speech as a class. I then split my class up into groups and allocated each of them one of the highlighted language examples. I then gave them a few minutes to discuss the questions and answer them before feeding back to the rest of the class. List activity: I gave my students about 10 - 15 minutes to brainstorm and reflect on these lists. It was inspired by Sarah Kay’s TED talk, which is linked in the lesson. Writing: Write a speech. Students can choose an examples from the board of their own. They must try to include the persuasive features on the board as well as using the tips mentioned at the beginning of the lesson.

This lesson focuses on the language question of paper 2. Starter: Write an acrostic poem for the word ‘HOME’. Objectives: Revising language features and how it can be used to persuade in non-fiction texts. Students identify a personal target for the lesson. Revision: What we did last lesson (Q2/What it is reminder) and summary of Q3. Language: Revising language features and writing 3 examples inspired by a slide full of images. Definitions: Discuss (maybe copy down) what is meant by rhetorical language, viewpoint and perspective. Worksheet: Identify the language features. (The following slides go through each one and have questions for class discussion.) Identify language: After the practice they were given earlier where they had to match the feature to the example, students now have to label the text themselves. Video: Watch the video on YouTube (SuperWoman) and discuss what techniques she uses to persuade people to buy her book. Example: Language response with labels. Practice Exam Question: Students write a response to the homelessness text they looked at earlier. Plenary: Did they reach their target? (The homelessness text and language response example used in this resource is adapted from the Collins guide for teaching GCSE English Language).

This lesson focuses on the summary/synthesis question for paper 2. Starter: Match the correct language to the phrase ‘Happy New Year’. Objectives: To focus on understanding what to expect from paper 2 and develop the skills needed to compare texts based on their similarities and differences. Overview of Paper 2: What to expect from each question and the exam as a whole. Comparison activity: Students are given two different crisp packets of different brands (I have included an image of each in the PowerPoint, but in practice physically gave my students empty packets from multipacks I bought at the supermarket. This went well as they could also discuss the information on the back of the packets.) In groups students list all the differences and similarities between the two brands, then write about the differences in exam style paragraphs in response to a question. Model response: An example response, highlighted strategically to show how it aligns with the criteria. I paused here to let students make notes. Discussion on 19th century texts: Students are shown personal ads from 200 years ago and today. They then discuss how communication has evolved, touching on topics like technology making conversations more accessible and popular apps like Tinder making the search for relationships fast and informal. Comparison activity: This activity allows students to practice summarising similarities between texts. They listen to ‘Hello my baby’ from 1899 (a modern cover) and ‘The Telephone Song’ from 1990. We discussed how communication has evolved since then and linked the subject back to our previous discussion. Students then practice writing a short exam response looking for similarities between the texts. Plenary: Students write down something they’ve learned and would like to learn more about on a post-it note, and stick it on the board on the way out. I’ve also included a worksheet for the second comparison activity. I encouraged students to annotate the texts and use examples from the lyrics in their responses. DISCLAIMER: I own none of the images included in this PowerPoint but used publicly accessible images I found on Google images to make the presentation more interesting.

An English activity where learners must proofread the text to add in the missing letters. They can then use those letters to figure out the answer to the puzzle. I made this for KS2 students with year 5 and year 6 students in mind to help them work on their spelling skills and encourage them to check their work. I’m still quite new at making primary school resources so please let me know if you have any suggestions or feedback, both positive and negative. :)

This resource is for a lesson focusing on the writing question (Q5) of paper 1 and looks at how to write the opening of a story. Starter: Create a character (this ties into the creative writing activity later) Objectives: To understand what to expect for the writing question and practice writing the opening of a story. Students will also set a personal target for the lesson. Video: YouTube clip of Mr. Bruff discussing how to write the opening of a story. Criteria: Understanding the mark scheme (it is simplified with questions to test understanding). Language: Introducing the acronym ARRESTED and practice using language features to describe an image (descriptive writing). Example: Paragraph summary of how the opening of a story might be structured. This is to give students an example of how to build a story and focus on the quality of their writing and not introducing lots of events. Creative Writing Task: Write a story where their character is sitting in a coffee shop and they are approached by someone. They can use the character they created earlier and the language features they wrote for the ARRESTED exercise. Plenary: Reflection on whether the students reached their targets during the lesson.