I used this session recently in a ungraded observation and was praised for my use of modern material in order engage students and embed English language skills but also with my collaboration with youth workers on this session. Many students don’t realise that much of what they watch on TV or in the cinema has it’s roots in a book or written form (such as a comic) . I find that by using materials the students are familiar with catches their attention and helps to quickly engage students in the session, it allows me to teach them the necessary skills they will need for the live exam. The main aim of this session is to explores structural features for paper 1 , question 4 of the AQA GCSE English exam by looking at an extract of Margret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale. We use the acronym ROW of CLONES to help students work through a piece of text and identify key structural features. Students work in groups and pairs to break down and examine the extract, they explore ideas of culture and individuality whilst also looking at the ways the Margret Atwood uses structural features to communicate atmosphere and repression to her audience. The lesson ends with a practice question, peer marking and a small self assessment plenary. This lesson is quick paced, engaging, exciting and underpins deeper issues such as human rights and human rights violations. This lesson helps to expose students to events that have and are taking place around the globe, encouraging awareness and tolerance - a key part of British Values. I collaborated with youth workers on this sessions and invited them to attend and help support group / paired activities and group discussions as they can bring another dimension to this topic, therefore encouraging cross school or college participation in English and encouraging a holistic approach to education. The lesson comes with the full extract, powerpoint of the entire lesson, worksheets and two videos, one exploring human rights and the other is the trailer for The Handmaids Tale. I teach in a 16-19 college where lessons came in 3 hour blocks therefore there is enough material for 3 hours in this resource, but it can be altered into smaller sessions depending on your timetable. Please note that TES previews an at times distort the look of the resource but this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

Having taught Functional Skills English within an FE setting, I understand how difficult it can be to reach students within a curriculum area and to encourage engagement with English. Often not being specialists in those areas ourselves as English Teachers, embedding can be a challenge. My largest challenge was often with students of hair and beauty and so I devised this work pack which worked fantastically well. This pack embeds E3 and L1 English elements into areas of hair and beauty such as face shapes, hair disasters and nail art, incorporating celebrity culture. This pack builds as you move through it, looking at areas such as reading for information, proofreading, identifying correct homophones and descriptive / persuasive writing. I found with my groups that this did not need to be a taught session but rather they ran with it themselves and engaged independently with it, leaving me to act in a supportive role rather than a lead delivery role. This is down to the group and paired activities within the pack, discussion topics and the options for students to make choices and to design their own nail art. This pack encourages a positive attitude towards English and helps students to see how it can help in their chosen industry. IHope it helps.

This 7 page booklet id designed to help students with the reading component of their Functional Skills exam. The booklet can be used as in class resources, revision or as self study. Based on a article by Friends of the Earth, the booklet focuses on simple and easy ways we can help become more green in our every day routines and underpins purpose of text and audience questions from the exam. The questions in the booklet are a combination of low level, opinion based and exam based questions. They range from multiple choice to more structured answers asking for reasons or quotes to support . The booklet ends with an extension activity which focuses on language and writing elements of the exam and a self assessment plenary. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can at times distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a generic GCSE English persuasive lesson which can be used with any exam board. It is designed with students mainly on the lower levels in GCSE in mind and is a lesson which is broken down bite sized fun activities to help the students achieve. This lesson focuses on introducing counter arguments into persuasive writing but underpins other skills such as research skills, proofreading, language features and reading to obtain information. All skills which are useful to have in the GCSE English exam. Feel free to adapt where necessary to suit your own learners needs. Please keep in mind that the TES preview does distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection, hope it helps.

A great lesson which uses a wide range of resource types and teaching strategies to help students prepare for Paper 1 Question 3, Structure. This lesson uses the trailer and extract from the movie/book Divergent by Veronica Roth to engage students and help them look deeper into ways stories are told in order to interest a reader. To help them do this, this lesson uses a helpful mnemonic of commonly used structural features -ROW OF CLONES and focuses on repetition, opening / endings and setting. This lesson is designed for a 3 hour session, it uses team and paired work, support grids and stretch and challenge inference class discussion. Quick 5/10/15 min activities keep the lesson at a good pace and allows for information to be delivered in bite sized chunks with a short self assessment plenary. Hope it helps

Sourcing material for your classes can take up a large proportion of what precious little time teachers have. For this reason I have complied a resource pack of various news articles to use with Functional English or GCSE English Language students. This pack has 10 articles covering 22 pages from a wide range of news outlets such as The BBC, The Metro, The Sun, The Telegraph and many more. The articles cover a wide range of topics from Climate Change, gender identity to homophobia and looks at people such as Greta Thunberg and JK Rowling. The articles vary in length and layout to help reach students of all levels, some are individual articles regarding an individual news story, whilst other news stories have more than 1 article to show how writers create view points or potential bias when covering the news. You are free to use the resources in whichever way fits you and your students. You can create your own worksheets or use the links to project the articles onto an IWB or to show the videos attached. You can use the articles to discuss language, layout, bias, writers view points or to use as a catalyst for class debate. Please be aware that the TES preview can at time distort the look of a resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

I have created a series of writing prompts for learners of L2 functional English in response to limited past papers / mocks. I teach in an areas where learners are offered multiple resits and so need a wide range of practice materials. Tasks range from full 35 min writing tasks to starters where the learner is asked to write only the opening paragraphs. Types of question covers persuasive letter writing, formal and informal writing, report writing, online forums, letters of complaint and articles. Please keep in mind that the TES preview often distorts the look of the materials and is not always a true reflection. I hope it helps.

This resource is based around the topic of Banksy and is centered around the L1 reading paper with elements of L2 for stretch and challenge. This resource comes with 2 articles, video, powerpoint and worksheets. The session also underpins dictionary use / vocabulary meaning and inference. It has been designed to fill a 2 hour session and has a writing extension task. Please keep in mind that TES preview can give a altered view of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hoe it helps

This is a simple and fun lesson to introduce persuasive writing techniques. This session looks into the methods and techniques used by advertisers to persuade people to buy their products, it introduces writing techniques such as alliteration and rhetorical questions. The final task is a fun team activity in which each team is given a product in an envelope and they must create a advert, using the methods discussed, to sell this product. This session can be altered to include speaking and listening task or can be elaborated upon. Be advised that TES previews can distort the look of the resources and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a quick paced, fun lesson all centered around the theme of monsters in literature. The pack comes with the full lesson on powerpoint and 5 separate worksheets which include an extract from Frankenstein and an ideas board to help students who struggle to come up with ideas. This session focuses on the EDEXCEL exam, paper 1 question 5, it consolidates DAFOREST and POSHIMP acronyms for language features and introduces ROW of CLONES acronym for structural features. The session comes with a fun starter which can be achieved by all levels and progresses in difficulty, team activities, handouts and ideas boards are in place to help those who struggle. The final task is to improve on a piece of writing they completed earlier in the session. A task which is designed to show students their own progression through-out the session / in real time rather than waiting for feedback at the end or in the next session Please keep in mind that the TES preview does distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

I find teaching functional skills English , I’m getting more and more students who in fact need ESOL specialist classes. I’m not an ESOL tutor but due to the increasing demand to teach English as a second language and fill ESOL gaps in students knowledge I have developed a number of resources of common problems ESOL student have, which I have complied into a 35 page support booklet which I now give my ESOL learners. The idea is the students use this booklet to support their own self-study and English language development or I use it to set targeted and individual homework. The booklet has explainers and tasks to comeplete and ideas on how to further develop own self-study. I find it quite useful and I hope you do to. You can adapt the booklet to suit your own cohort or levels. Please be aware the the TES preview can distort the look of the resources, and this is not always a true reflection.

This is a 50 page booklet designed to help students independently revise for their exams. I also found these booklets very helpful in getting low attending students back up to speed, Ofsted loved them and my students said they found them more helpful than mock exams for revising certain questions they were less confident with. This booklet covers the underpinning skills and exam practice for paper 1 question 2, Paper 2 question 3 and paper 2 question 4. They have been grouped in this way as the skills which are being tested are the same or similar which is great for target revision. This booklet underpins inference, bias, language and exam answer structures. It also uses mini extracts from books such as War Horse and Harry potter and texts in which to compare writers views. It breaks down and explains each question, gives examples and mini tasks before allowing students to try an example exam question. It is encouraging, colourful and I hope you find it as useful as I have. Be advised that TES previews often distort the look of the resources and this is not a true reflection of how it looks. Hope it helps.

This is a fun lesson looking at the notion of the Earth Being flat as a means to an introduction to Paper 2 questions 7a and b from the Edexcel exam board. The session looks at two different articles on the topic and delves into how they are written and how the writer conveys a point of view. There is a break down of the exam questions and answer format to help students formulate an answer to these questions. There are team and paired activities and a short video. The session comes with a starter and plenary and 8 pages of worksheets / activities. Please be aware that the TES preview does at times distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a fast paced, engaging complete lesson designed for Level 1 and Level 2 Functional Skills. The session is based around the theme of your dream house with the aim of the session being to write a formal persuasive letter using DAFOREST language features and considering the audience your writing to. Using team / paired and individual tasks, this session allows the student to engage their imagination and design their ideal, dream house then plan and complete a formal letter inviting Architectural Digest to film a short segment for their online magazine. The session comes with support devices such as word banks, planning scaffolds and sentence starters as well as elements of stretch and challenge. This is an adaptable resource which can be amended to suit the needs of your classes. Be advised that the TES preview is not always a true reflection of the resource. Hope it helps.

Great, fun, humour filled lesson filled with interactive group activities your students will love. Tasks include: Starter game Competitive vocabulary game. Guess the celebrity game Descriptive writing task Pleanary This resource also comes with slides which can be printed and used as worksheets, slides also come with optional guidance notes on each task / activity which can act as a lesson plan if needed. I have taught this lesson for years and it has always gone down very well with students. Suitable as an introduction at GCSE or Functional Skills level to description but can also be built upon to stretch and challenge. This was created for the AQA GCSE specification but is suitable for any exam board.

This is a fantastic lesson which I have used for 10 years in my classes. This lesson focuses on the true story of Sophie Lancaster who was killed in 2007 simply for the way she dressed and for the purpose of GCSE English, has been adapted to support students with paper 2 question 5 from the AQA paper. What you will get in this resource is a full lesson powerpoint with team activities and group discussion, reading material and supporting worksheets - 10 in all, 2 videos and a link to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. The lesson breaks down the language used in an article by the Daily Mail and ends with a task where the students are to write a motivational speech about tolerance but also embeds “British Values” by looking at tolerance, discussing prejudices, equality and identity. I teach in a college of 16 - 19 year olds and a lesson like this is perfect for them as they can identify with this topic but also relate it to other aspects of life, therefore they get deeply involved in this session as there is much for them to talk about. The range of activities ranges in levels to suit your learners which also makes it easy for you to adapt this lesson depending on the level, age or sensitivity of your students. There is enough material with this resource to fill 3 hours of session time and a range of different activities to adapt to level of engagement. Within my college, I find youth workers are particularly interested in supporting this session and will join the class when I’m teaching it, others have adapted it to use in tutorials and managers have used it as an example of good practice and shared practice to Ofsted. Please note that TES preview can distort the way the resource looks and this is not a true reflection of what it looks like. Hope it helps.

Many students have already heard of some, if not all of the DAFOREST set of language features which is why I always use this resource at the start of the year. The new AQA English Language exam will expect students to be able to build and expand on this basic knowledge, however in my experience reinforcing DAFOREST with students helps to fill gaps in their knowledge and gives them the confidence to build upon their knowledge of language features. This handy poster / handout is a fun Star Wars based set of examples which is great for students to keep in their books or files for reference. Feel free to look around my shop for other resources which you may find useful in your sessions. Hope it helps

This resource is useful tool to encourage independent learning and self / group study. It can be used to reinforce learning, as a workshop or developed further in to a lead session or as homework tasks. As my sessions were quite long I found it useful to create small study groups in the classroom, using booklets to work through together, this was successful in creating confidence and independence among my students whilst also being supported and supervised. The resource uses an extract from The Kite Runner, has student reflections and self assessment tasks. The ultimate aim is for the student to be able to identify structural features and to formulate appropriate answers which will prepare them for the coming exam. Hope it helps.

A quick a simple piece of independent study / homework or extension for paper 1 question 5 from the AQA new spec for GCSE English Language. This resource is styled on the type of question the exam may ask, it can be adapted for students of other cultures who may not know or celebrate Halloween, they can write about a festival in their culture. Hope it helps