Blood Brothers: Activity Pack for GCSE

Suitable for:
  • Edexcel
  • AQA
  • Eduqas
  • WJEC

Immerse your students in Willy Russell’s captivating tale of nature versus nurture and of class division with this engaging activity pack. The wide variety of stimulating activities, covering all aspects of the play, will enthuse all learners as they explore this modern classic. The plethora of relevant and controversial themes and topics will bring your class debates to life!

Carefully considered structure develops understanding:

  1. Build a foundation for learning and get students interested with introductory pre-reading exercises.
  2. Dig deeper with text-based activities. Every scene is explored through a range of relevant and useful tasks.
  3. Consolidate knowledge with whole-text activities focusing on: Characterisation • Relationships • Setting • Themes • Ideas and Messages • Language • Form • Structure • Context
Activities include:
  • Insightful questions
  • Stimulating reading and writing tasks
  • Pair and group work
  • Creative activities for visual and kinaesthetic learners
  • Appealing tasks based on modern media

All activities are perfectly matched to the Assessment Objectives and are accessible for your whole class – differentiation is built in.

Plus! Suggested answers are given for questions and activities.

What do teachers say about this resource? (9084)

Excellent - there are more activities than you would need for a first teaching of the play so it would be sufficient for revision too... The pre-reading activities are a strength - they look at relevant aspects of context and encourage students to think about context as something which is integral to making meaning from the text rather than a bolt-on list... The scene-by-scene activities are thorough and could be used by students who need to work independently - i.e. students working from home or used for cover, as well as being useful and saving time for a specialist to deliver in class. I also liked the references to the songs from the West End production - we use these in class to help students to learn quotations but they are rarely referenced in teaching resources...The table at the start which references the AOs is also very useful in making sure that students have had coverage of all the necessary components of the course. Including answers also means this resource could be used to provide quality cover for students in the case of staff absence or a class being taught by a non specialist... The quality is impressive.

N Selwood, HoD English & Peer Reviewer

An excellent resource for first teaching of Blood Brothers to students at the start of their GCSE course. The resources are clearly presented and engaging and cater for a range of abilities... I liked the wide range of tasks included in the resource. Students would find them really engaging and they build up skills including research, independent thinking, different styles of writing and group work... This resource supports GCSE students developing a full understanding of the play. In addition it develops their cultural capital through looking extensively at context and the influences on the playwright. Students will come away after completing this unit with broad knowledge that will enhance their approach to other texts... The layout is excellent and would support SEN students by being clear and not overly 'busy'... Overall an excellent resource,

J Whitbread, Teacher & Peer Reviewer