This is a carousel activity for teaching the context of Animal Farm - a quick-fire summary of dictatorships, Stalin, Trotsky, Communism, Orwell's beliefs etc. I've used this with Set 1 and Set 5 with a bit of tweaking. I get the kids to go around in groups to answer the questions and then feedback.

An extract-based work booklet on Great Expectations, introducing KS3 pupils to the context of the Victorian era, the genre of the Bildungsroman, and exploring the themes of injustice, family, class, and money, with a final assessment on evaluating the extent to which Miss Havisham is a sympathetic character. Planned with MPAs/HPAs in mind, but can be adapted for lower sets as well. Intended originally as a remote booklet for home learning but can easily be incorporated into classroom lessons. Includes extracts, model answers, low-stakes quizzing every 5-6 lessons, and a range of activities building skills of inference, analysis, and evaluation.

Three-lesson introduction to Macbeth, taking them from the context of Shakespeare, to the context surrounding witchcraft in the Jacobean era, and then ultimately the themes to be explored as they watch the film (film not included!) Used for introducing KS4 to the play, studying for AQA GCSE Literature - easily differentiated for different abilities. Includes PPTs and worksheets.

Do you have LPA KS4 students who are theoretically ‘revising’ Macbeth except somehow they’ve managed to come out of a whole year of study and know nothing? Do you have to teach Macbeth for the first time to LPAs who have to be able to access the work at home? Well, fear not! This is basically Act 4, scene by scene (skipping 4.2), with key words, links to sparknotes for translations, gap-fill summaries, comprehension questions, the lot. Also works well for catch-up work if you have hard-working kids with attendance issues.

Lesson on analysing the presentation of Macbeth in 1.2 - PPT and support worksheet included. Originally used for HPA Y9 but easily differentiated to other abilities.

Cloze exercise for lower-ability KS3 as revision of context of Victorian England - used for unit on 'Oliver Twist'. For higher-ability, can be differentiated to get them making links about how various contextual factors might have influenced Dickens' writing.

Full lesson for a first-time teaching of ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning. This was created for a top-set but you could leave out the most challenging questions for lower sets. This can also be done over two lessons - questions in one lesson, carousel and feedback in lesson two.

A lesson analysing the character of Posner in Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys', focusing on the scene between Irwin and Posner. Includes resources for analysis.

Two lessons on analysing the presentation of the witches in 1.1 and 1.3 of Macbeth - PPT included. Originally used for HPA Y9 but easily differentiated to other abilities - builds well onto previous lesson about witchcraft & Jacobean superstition.

Do you have LPA KS4 students who are theoretically ‘revising’ Macbeth except somehow they’ve managed to come out of a whole year of study and know nothing? Do you have to teach Macbeth for the first time to LPAs who have to be able to access the work at home? Well, fear not! This is basically Act 2, scene by scene, with key words, links to sparknotes for translations, gap-fill summaries, comprehension questions, the lot. Also works well for catch-up work if you have hard-working kids with attendance issues.

Do you have LPA KS4 students who are theoretically ‘revising’ Macbeth except somehow they’ve managed to come out of a whole year of study and know nothing? Do you have to teach Macbeth for the first time to LPAs who have to be able to access the work at home? Well, fear not! This is basically Act 3, scene by scene, with key words, links to sparknotes for translations, gap-fill summaries, comprehension questions, the lot. Also works well for catch-up work if you have hard-working kids with attendance issues.

Do you have LPA KS4 students who are theoretically ‘revising’ Macbeth except somehow they’ve managed to come out of a whole year of study and know nothing? Do you have to teach Macbeth for the first time to LPAs who have to be able to access the work at home? Well, fear not! This is basically Act 1, scene by scene, with key words, links to sparknotes for translations, gap-fill summaries, comprehension questions, the lot. Also works well for catch-up work if you have hard-working kids with attendance issues.

Three fully resourced and differentiated lessons on ‘Ozymandias’ for a first time teaching. Lesson 1 - Context, content, and the big themes Lesson 2 - Structure and form (understanding meter and sonnets), looking at the form of Ozymandias as an unconventional sonnet and Shelley’s intentions Lesson 3 - Close language analysis, paragraph model This was created for a top-set Year 10 class but has support to help make it accessible for lower-ability students.