English teaching links

Andrew Moore's English site free resources for English teachers. This resource of densely packed guides is invaluable for teachers; especially those starting out on new texts or courses who need information and a guide through. It is especially good for knowledge and understanding of A Level Language.

BBEC ENG DEPT An ever growing collection of links for teachers of English and their students. Well worth a visit.

Book Box Part of Channel 4 Learning. Features interviews with leading children's authors, poets, illustrators. Suggestions for reading with reviews and excerpts. Templates for pitching "the film of the book".

Delicious bookmarks of an English teacher A link to my many delicious bookmarks collected with teachers of English in mind. If you haven't tried delicious yet, you don't know what you are missing...or maybe you do!

The English Association

English Department, The Association of Teacher Websites

emagazine

The English Gallery A website created by an English Teacher for English teachers! It contains whole schemes of work for both KS3 and KS4. Each scheme also has high quality resources included as well as simple and clear lesson plans to guide teachers through each activity. Some schemes and resources have also been differentiated for G&T/SEN/EAL pupils.

English & Media Centre This group produce excellent mulitmedia resources packs for English and Media Studies. Their Media Studies inset days come highly recommended.

The English Language List (email discussion group for A/AS Lang.) This free resource for A Level Language teachers requires you to sign up so that you can receive emails, It could well be one of the most useful resources you find. After signing up, you will receive every email that every member sends in, so sign up under a spare email address or have a separate folder for the emails, but it is well worth it. Once you join you'll find yourself one of a band of generous collegues who ask for help and help each other through this course; sharing advice and resources freely.

The English Review from Philip Allan Updates - magazines for A/AS students.

Folens Publishers Ltd. Educational publisher of Early Years, Primary and Secondary school curriculum textbooks, classroom resources and software for both students and teaching professionals.

Geoff Barton including resources for whole school literacy. These are sets of far ranging resources for teachers and students from KS3 to KS5 and includes power points as well as handouts.

Literary Connections links, books and resources for secondary English - mainly but not exclusively for literature.

Language in Use resources for the study of language at A level. These resources from an experienced teacher of English are of excellent quality and useful for both teachers and students.

NCTE US version of NATE and of course bigger. Useful but very busy discussion lists - join and be prepared for hundreds of mails!

Reading- Rewards.Com An exciting new site to encourage private reading. Strikes me as being as motivating for pupils to use as TUTPUP . Still being developed and tweaked (creator is not a teacher but very open to suggesions for improvement and development) Suitable for top primary and lower secondary.

Teacher's Pet Text Tool for Teachers The Teacher's Pet Text Tool is a free add-on for Microsoft Word that can help you transform any text into a fun classroom activity. Developed by a teacher, here are just some of the things the tool can do: Crosswords Flashcards Bingo Cards Jumbles Gap-fill / Cloze tests

Christopher Tower Poetry Competition organised by ChristChurch, Oxford University.

Debating competition

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award

National Poetry Competition from the Poetry Society and

Newsday Can your school produce a newspaper and/or a news website in a single day?

Parliamentary Press Gallery Essay Contest for years 10 to 13.

Scriblist..com Internet collaborative writing project. Become a published author in 6 months.

The Trollope Short Story Competition for secondary students between the ages of fifteen and nineteen and based on a work of Trollope.

Write Here, Write Now writing competition for years 4 and 5.

AQA

CCEA (Northern Ireland)

Edexcel

OCR

SQA

WJEC (CBAC)

ACCAC Welsh version of the above.

Becta Schools site the agency which supports all four UK education departments in their strategic ICT developments.

Book Trust funded by the Arts Council, this simple site is easily navigable and fulfils its aim of 'bringing books and people together' by offering recommended reads for children organised by age group and reading ability, best books of the year, bestsellers and awards.

DfES not exactly entertaining, but possibly useful.

ESL Reading Free graded reading materials for English language learners

My Home Library encourage young readers to build their own collection of favourite books ..

N Ireland revised curriculum The website for the revised curriculum. Includes information on the curriculum for each Key Stage, some resources for AfL etc and digital access to the materials sent to schools.

National Curriculum online searchable, downloadable information on the new NC.

National Literacy Trust includes details about a range of initiatives: The National Reading Campaign, Reading Champions (celebrating positive role models for young male readers) and Reading is Fundamental which provides free books for children, interviews with famous readers and competitions. Children can also publish their own book reviews or participate in online writing projects.

Ofsted as above, but more so.

QCA confusing structure means you have to dig around to find essential info about SATs etc.

The Standards site a user friendly site (the best of the government's educational offering) with information on the new schemes of work.

TDA The Training and Development Agency for Schools (formerly TTA) - for trainers and trainees.

Teachernet a portal for teachers. Will take you to other .gov sites and other resources.

Year of reading organisation a site for teachers, parents, libraries, businesses etc. Includes suggestions on how to get involved.

Association of Teacher Websites loads of free resources from teacher built web sites.

English Teaching in the UK a good starting point for your research...

Online Teachers Net another teachers' portal, including jobs and curriculum links.

Schoolzone a comprehensive site for teachers, including news, information, an online staffroom and classroom resources.

TEEM 'Teachers Evaluating Educational Materials' - worth a look if you're considering buying software or for their growing list of evaluated web sites (note, though, that sites have to pay to be evaluated)

Topmarks a very useful but increasingly unwieldy choice of teaching resources on the web.

Bloomsbury Features: beautiful, interactive Harry Potter sub site, writers' area, reviews, first chapters and a free online database of reference works.

Cambridge University Press Features: interactive English Basics exercises.

Collins Education Features: details on all Collins titles for frameworking, fiction, poetry, drama etc and a number of free downloads.

Faber and Faber Features: author interviews, eg Ishiguro, Heaney.

Harcourt Part of Heinemann, this link takes you to free resources for a variety of KS3 , 4 and 5 texts.

Harper Collins Features: author pages including Tolkein, Lessing and Woolf, extracts, author clips and reading guides for a range of books.

Heinemann Features: sample free resources, eg practice tests for years 7 and 8 and sample modules for A2 AQA specifications. Schemes of work for New Windmills novels.

Hodder Literature Features: a selection of novels for the Key Stage 3 classroom from authors such as David Almond, along with free resource material including lesson plans and photocopiable worksheets.

Longman Features: useful teaching tips and some classroom resources.

Macmillan Education

Oxford University Press Features: children's fiction section with tips for creative writing from Gillian Cross and recommended books.

Penguin Classics Features: featured articles, for example Elaine Showalter on Zola, teachers' guides (mainly Shakespeare).

Penguin Features: ebooks* such as Stone Cold and English Passengers.

Random House Features: ebooks*, Toni Morrison.

Scholastic.com: Harry Potter is the star of this Publisher's site, but it also includes the Goosebump series, with areas for teachers, kids and parents.

Virago Features: Reading guides.

Art in Time Literary history with an artistic twist.

About's Arts Index and another!

Bartleby Great Books Online a database of the classic texts.

BBC Arts Web guide try the publishers section. Handy.

Bibliomania.com a very easy to use library of classic e-texts, searchable and downloadable. Now also includes study guides.

Bookhooks illustrated book reports online.

Books Unlimited from the Guardian - really useful research starting point - includes information about authors, reviews, first chapters, top tens.

Centurions A BBC site containing information on the greatest writers, painters, architects, film-makers, designers, sculptors and poets of our century.

eserver.org vast amount of online Arts materials.

Humbul Humanities Hub aims to be UK higher and further education's first choice for accessing online humanities resources.

Heath Anthology of American Literature

ibiblio another vast e-library.

Living Words Education at the British Library.

http://www.lovereading4schools reluctant readers survey The National Literacy Trust and Lovereading4schools want your help in choosing books for reluctant readers.

Luminarium v. useful for Literary research.

National Children's Book Week Visit to find out about organising your own event or to order / download lovely resources.

National Poetry Day

19th Century British and Irish Authors a massive gateway site to all the known websites on 19th century British and Irish authors; a good starting point for anyone carrying out research into 19th century writers. Also includes links to other, earlier, writers.

Novel Guide another good place to start your literary research.

Page by page books classic (US) texts online.

The Poetry Archive Aims to be 'the world's largest and best equipped collection of poets reading their own work'. Unique recordings - and teaching materials too.

The Poetry Book Society

The Poetry Society for all things poetic: poets working in schools, INSET for teachers, resources and lesson plans and competitions.

Save the Children's Back to School Site a new site to raise awareness of displaced children around the world, and to help teachers with the citizenship component of the national curriculum, containing structured lesson plans in Art, English, Drama and PSHE.

Spark Notes from Harvard. Solid stuff for learning about a range of texts (including Shakespeare, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Beloved, Of Mice and Men, The Handmaid's Tale ...)

Thesaurus.com lots of useful info and activities for playing around with words.

Talking to .. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf.

Young Writer Magazine a platform for writers aged 18 and under, including lots of ideas, competitions etc. A useful teacher resource although aimed primarily at young people.

4literature.net a free etext library of classic texts.

faroutfiction.com A selection of free short stories aimed at 8-12 year olds.

Eduforum ICT tutorials, forums, review and more ...

Half Baked Software use this free tool to create your own educational interactive exercises. (We'll even publish them here at Teachit if you like!)

Question Tools or, use this one!

Beanbag Learning Beanbag is a free service that enables Tutors to connect with Parents without the middleman, founded by concerned parents who were having difficulty in finding Tutors.

Bright Tutors A bespoke online tutor-matching service designed to suit the specific educational requirements of the customer. An exceptionally organised service with prospects for employment as a tutor within families, schools and businesses nationwide.

First Tutors Leading web-based find-your-own tutor service and the only company in the UK which enables tutors to promote themselves through profiles for free which are then accessible to all individuals or families in search of private tuition in their local area.

Home Tutors Directory Home Tutors Directory provides listings of UK Tutors and UK Tutoring Agencies. Students can search for a private tutor for free, and find resources relating to private tuition.

The Arvon Foundation Cutting-edge creative writing courses (for both adult and student writers). Also includes information on competitions and an online writing space for under-18s.

Scribblepad A wealth of writing related articles, tips, and links. Scribblepad is broad-ranging, interesting and informative - a natural jumping-off point for budding writers.