This engaging resource fuses poetry and persuasive writing together in a stretch and challenge lesson based around the work of John Cooper Clarke. The idea for this lesson was born from Functional Skills and works well with a wide range of students from various disciplines (eg: Childcare, Music etc) and is easy to adapt to any level. This lesson allows students to have their own opinion and feel confident enough to build their opinion into a well formed piece of persuasive writing, which uses the skills the examiners are looking for. The lesson includes a full power-point with guidance notes, a video and article / worksheet. Tasks include a fun "free writing" starter, fun drawing task, break down of the exam question, team/paired and individual tasks, peer assessment and a self assessment plenary. The session will be lively, engaging and full of exploration and learning. Hope it helps

A fantastic bite sized assessment for paper 1 question 3 from the AQA GCSE English Language. This lesson allows for the student to take ownership over their own learning with lots of group work and discussions which are facilitated but not lead by the teacher. The lesson is designed to take all students at all levels through the assessment step by step, allowing students to support one another and to build the confidence to come to their own conclusions and answers. The lesson ends with a quick timed bite sized assessment, which is similar in look and feel to the exam question which allows the teacher to track each students progress on each individual exam question. Hope it helps

Bright, eye-catching handout / support booklet with confidence building / inspirational quotes and handy guides to language features to support those who struggle and to stretch and challenge the more able. I used this resource in my class as a casual resource left out on students desks, allowing them to choose to use it or not. This was a great success with both student and inspector as it both supports and allows for independence over learning. Can be used with any exam board.

A full 4 page progress assessment for Paper 1 Question 5. As controlled assessments are no longer in use with this specification I found it useful to have regular bite-sized assessments to track a learners journey and progress whilst on the GCSE course. These assessments are based on each question from the AQA exam paper and mirrors the phrasing and tasks that students will find in the real exam. It comes with planning scaffolds to help students structure and organise their ideas. It is a great way to prepare students and highlight areas of weakness and strength. Hope it helps.

An introduction lesson to Identifying bias and writers view points centring around the Marvel Universe. The lesson is designed to focus on Paper 2 Question 3 of the GCSE English language exam for AQA, but it can also be adapted for L2 Functional Skills. The lesson includes a film quiz starter, useful scaffolds and plenty of short, snappy group and paired activities. It is designed to reach students of all abilities and includes a short analytical thinking task to stretch and challenge more able students to develop thought out answers. This is a fun lesson which many of my classes have enjoyed. Hope it helps.

A fantastic full lesson based on The Forever 27 Club comes with 6 resources which included articles, worksheets, full power point with guidance notes, quiz, music clips and independent study. This lesson covers the essential skills needed for Paper 2 Question 3 and also allows time to cover some deeper social issues which some of your students may have experience with, such as body image, gender stereotypes and substance abuse. This lesson enables the students to look at a piece of non fiction and identify language techniques used to influence the readers. It is a fun and fully interactive quick paced lesson where the students investigate language but also learn about two of the most influential musicians of our time and how their personal issue are still issues we face today. The lesson aims to walk students through the process of piecing together a final answer, based on their investigations, which would be expected in the final exam. The lesson ends with a student self assessment plenary called "The Hand of Truth" and optional independent study. Although the source used in this lesson is not from the 19th century it does still instil the skills a student will need to answer this question. Further examples of older sources can also be found in my shop which will be significantly useful when teaching paper 2. This lesson is designed for a 3 hour session but is easily adaptable to suit your own timetable. Hope it helps.

Great bite sized assessment created to recreated question 4 from paper 1 on the AQA GCSE English Language exam. This assessment is based from the short story "Glass, Bricks and Dust". These bite sized assessments are a perfect tool for tracking individuals progress and for gaining a clear picture of which questions a student will have the most difficulty with come exam time. Hope it helps

An engaging and relevant lesson which introduces critical thinking but in a real world context. This lesson focuses around Donald Trump (which my students LOVE talking about) and his comments made around his inauguration attendance figures. This is a fantastic lesson which allows students to express their opinions but also teaches them to express their opinions in a thoughtful and considered way which will suit an exam question. In a world of multimedia and free information, I find it important to teach students how to think about the information they hear and to research their opinions, but also that it is acceptable to have mixed opinions on a topic. I have tried to bring all these elements together in this introductory lesson. The lesson includes group / paired discussion, group work , independent work and videos and a fun break down of the numerical grading system using a Bee metaphor (Are you a honey / busy or queen bee?) to help encourage students to become the type of student they want to be. There are fun starter activities, aims and objectives and a dairy entry plenary. I originally designed this lesson to fill 3 hours, but it can be edited to suit your session length. I hope you find it useful, thanks.

A fantastic lesson full of group and paired activities to help students understand structural features. Based on the story of Jekyll and Hyde this lesson uses comic books / storyboards to help students visualise structural features as if the story were a movie. I have found that by teaching structure this visual way, the students find it easier to identify these features and therefore this question becomes less daunting. I have also incorporated a new mnemonic called ROW OF CLONES to help students remember some of the More commonly used structural features. The lesson uses peer assessment, whole group and paired activities, it is quick paced and fun to teach. Hope it helps

This is a fun lesson designed to help engage the lower level students or students who are disengaged with GCSE English. The focus of this lesson is to use persuasive writing features within a review in order to help prepare students for paper 2 question 5 of the AQA English Language spec 8700 exam. This lesson uses 3 clips from the reality TV show "Worlds Worst Tenants" to develop ideas and opinions about the show to eventually be written up using DAFOREST. If you are having trouble with the video file (it is quite large but should work fine on a pen drive using VLC or windows player), I'm happy to send in an email it to you. The video contains bleeped language and use of mild curse words, however as I taught largely over 16 yr olds, this was not a problem, however you may ant to give it some consideration. Other resources include word banks, sentence starter support material and watch/obtain worksheets. There is room to expand on this lesson with basic punctuation and / or vocabulary building activities if needed. My students from GCSE and Construction Functional Skills loved this lesson. Hope it helps

This is a mock / practice exam paper for the GCSE English Language from AQA (8700 spec). This is not an entire paper, it is a bitesized version which included some of the trickier questions that students tend to struggle with. I have used this with my students to help build confidence with some of the harder questions, track their progress on specific questions and to help get students used to exam conditions. As it is a shorter version of the exam it helps to cut down on a teachers marking load whilst also being a supportive tool for the students. This paper includes practice questions, with sample materials, for Paper 1 Question 3, Paper 2 Question 3, Paper 2 Question 4 and Paper 2 Question 5. I have also given it a more friendly look with some handy tips and advice along the way to help support the more needy or less confident in the group. Sample materials include extracts from The Help and Chocolat, A news article from 1873 and 2 speeches made by British PM's Churchill and Cameron. Hope it helps

This is a complete mock exam for paper 1 of the AQA GCSE 8700 spec. The extract is taken from Harry Potter and the lesson comes with a small starter / warm up session. The session is created for you to use in any way you wish. You may want to sit a formal practice in which there is a word document of the mock paper or have a more informal approach to the lesson in which there is a powerpoint for you to use and adjust to suit your needs. Hope it helps

I have always used cheat sheets as a form of revision for my students sitting GCSE. It is essentially an extended version of an exam plan but not quite a mock exam, it’s some where in the middle. I love to use these because it promotes a sense of confidence for the students and it it a condensed version of EVERYTHING they need to know about each question of the exam. I explain it to them as an “exam blueprint”. This session is what I call a “meat and potato” type of lesson. No frills just does what it says on the tin and gives the students what they need. The session puts students into teams and takes them through a breakdown of each exam question and they copy these “cheats” onto a past exam paper. Along the way they try their hand at some of the questions, get examples of what makes a good answer and they have some independent study questions in their cheat sheet to try at home. They get to keep their “cheat sheet” for revision purposes. This has always worked and I have found that students have always got on board with this idea because they instantly see the benefit of it and it helps them feel more secure about sitting their exam. This session comes with a full powerpoint for paper 1 and student handouts with source material. Please keep in mind that TES preview can distort the look of resources but this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a simple A4 sheet which shows a break down of each question of the AQA exam (both papers). Students can keep in a folder or fold up and keep in their pockets and use for revision. It is very useful as it reminds student of the main elements of each question, times, marks and skills the question is testing and how they need to structure their answers. This helps students to gain in confidence, promotes independent learning and active revision. Hope it helps.

This resource is designed for revision workshops and focuses on structural features to be used for question 3 of the AQA GCSE English exam, however it can be altered to suit an alternative exam board. As the exam draws closer I find spending a half hour at the end of each session as a “quickie workshop” very useful and have developed these short, sharp revision activities. To teach structural features I use the mnemonic “ROW OF CLONES” ( available in the powerpoint) to help with some of the more common structural features used. This quickie workshop uses an extract from Chocolat in order to practice identifying structural features, this can be a individual or group activity depending on the needs of your class. It can also be used as homework. Please note that TES previews distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This mini mock is targeting question 1 - 3 of paper 1 of the WJEC exam board. The extract is taken from Animal farm. As you hit revision season and start to assess students weak areas, I find mini mocks such as these quite useful. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can distort the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This resource is designed especially for seminar sessions or revision workshops around the exam period. It can be altered as an entire lesson if needs be. I like to spend the last half hour of my lessons as “quickie workshops” where I focus on one question from the exam at a time or set these tasks as homework. This quickie workshop looks at the older text about the working conditions on children in the mines. You can run this as individual or group session depending on the needs of your learners. Please be aware that TES previews can distort the look of a resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a complete mock exam for the WJEC exam board for the GCSE English exam - component 2. It comes with both reading and writing sections and uses extracts from Bill Bryson and Fredrich Engles, who both talk about the city of Manchester. Please keep in mind that TES previews do distort the look at the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

Tracking, individual targets and positive / developed and exam driven feedback all seem to be high priority for Ofsted and can be a daunting task to aim to fulfill. It required mass amount of regular , time consuming marking which is difficult to do on top of a full teaching timetable. I have found that by condensing all that down on to one handy sheet helps to make this task more manageable. This feedback sheet is designed to be used with the AQA exam board but can be used and altered in a way to suit you and / or the exam board you are using . I use this sheet once a term and stick it in the students folders so they have a regular feedback on their progress. It has gone down very well with management and Ofsted inspectors. The feedback sheet includes: Where they started - initial assessment scores - to show distance traveled. Where they aim to be - exam target Score for each question on the exam, including SPAG - I personally do 1 - 2 questions per term to show regular progress and tracking throughout the course. Space for written feedback and space for student feedback - to show student input into their own learning. Space for written feedback on overall behaviour and attendance per term. overall mock paper scores. I have found that by making all these areas fit on one sheet very useful in managing my time and feedback but also for the students to know they are on a journey and to have ownership of their learning. Be advised the TES previews do often distort the look of resources and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

As the exam dates creep closer, we enter mock exam season. I found that as the exam is still quite new it was difficult to find a wide range of practice papers to use which the students hadn’t already sat. Therefore I have created a full mock of paper 2, with reading and writing sections, based around the topic child labour which is a topic which may crop up in the live exam. This resource comes with a full powerpoint which can be used as an informal mock or altered into something more formal looking if desired. I like to make my mock exams as friendly as possible as many of my students do not enjoy mocks or have anxiety regarding exams. Having the mock on powerpoint helps to put my students at ease whilst also building their confidence in exam conditions. Another benefit to having my mocks on powerpoints is so I can break down the questions to my weaker/ more challenging students or run bite sized mocks, whilst for my higher achieving students I can use the powerpoint to help students practice their timings for exam questions. I’m also required to run workshops and hold drop in sessions outside of regular class time for which these mock paper powerpoints are very useful. The texts featured in this resource are a speech to parliament in 1840’s regarding the conditions of child labour and a 2018 article from The Guardian about human trafficked children. Please be aware that the TES preview can at times distort the look of a resource and this is not a true reflection which is why I have included screenshots of the powerpoint to help you get an idea of what it contains. Hope it helps.