Personal reflections on the last term (Easter 2018)

Every holiday I spend some time reflecting on what has been good and difficult about the last term. That's one of the great things about teaching - we get regular breaks to take stock, refresh, and power-up ready for the next term.

Reading resilience – a structured worksheet to build up your students’ reading resilience

One of the difficulties of reading is that it's a number of different skills all intertwined. If a student isn't practised in any one of these skills comprehension can break down and they'll not understand or give up completely.

Bring the magic of short stories to your classroom

I love storytelling, I suppose that's not surprising as a teacher and a writer. As such, I try to bring stories into my classroom at every opportunity. 

AQA English Language Scheme of work – free download

Do you teach AQA English Language? Want to try something a bit different? Have a look at my paper 1, section A, scheme of work. I designed these lessons for either a year 9, 10, or a lower set year 11 class who find the texts that AQA use challenging. It could be used as …

Creative writing scheme of work (AQA English Language Paper 1 Section B)

This is a creative writing scheme of work I've developed for year 10 or 11. It's designed to prepare them for the AQA English Language Paper 1 Section B, although you could remove these parts and just use it to prepare students for a creative writing task.

Being a teacher AND realising a dream (in my case writing a novel)

Firstly, let me get something clear, I love teaching. When you've thoroughly planned a lesson, it's going well and the students are on board, there's nothing better. This is not a post (the sort you sometimes see) by people jaded with the profession about a "plan B" or "getting out while you still can". This is about being able to do something you really want to, as well as be a great teacher.

Time management for teachers

When is your work as a teacher finished?  Well, never. Teaching is never done. There is no point at which you have done everything possible, there will always be something more you can do. Add to that a desire to do the best job possible and see students succeed, and what you're left with is very little time for anything else. 

Keeping a journal as a teacher, why and how? TAKE THE 30 DAY CHALLENGE!

I challenge you to journal every day for 30 days. It takes just 10 minutes each day. Try it and see if it improves your teaching and mindset. It's easy with the outline below. #30dayjournalchallenge

New Year’s Resolutions for SPAG – Lesson on common spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes.

A great lesson for the first week back in the new year. It's a reminder of common spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes.     DOWNLOAD THE POWERPOINT HERE: New Year's Resolutions for SPAG       Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

New year’s resolutions as a teacher

In a few days 2017 will be done and we'll move forward, bright eyed and optimistic (hopefully) into 2018. I'm sure you have ideas of things you'd like to do better next year; things you'd like to start or stop in order to make 2018 better, brighter and more successful. However, new year's resolutions are very …