This page offers a range of FREE teaching resources for my books. If you would like more information about them, please contact me using the form on my contact page here.

Vita and the Gladiator

A teacher’s pack for Vita and the Gladiator is available free of charge from the Chicken House Schools’ Hub here

Read an excerpt of Vita and the Gladiator here

Watch a short video about the inspirations for the book here

Read Ally’s Glorious Guide to Roman Gladiators on the Imagining History blog here

Read Ally’s Books for Topics classroom resource on exploring the theme of Roman justice here

The Queen’s Fool

Chapter-by-chapter teaching notes for The Queen’s Fool are available free of charge from the Chicken House Books Schools’ Hub here.

Read an excerpt of The Queen’s Fool here.

Listen to Ally read an excerpt and answer children’s questions about the book for the Tales by Mail podcast here.

A series of short videos about Ally and her work are available on the Chicken House Books Schools’ Hub.

The Buried Crown

A teachers’ pack for The Buried Crown, including information on author inspirations, key themes and a range of classroom activities and discussion topics is available free of charge here: Buried Crown Teachers’ Notes

Chapter-by-chapter teaching notes are also available free of charge from the Chicken House Books Schools’ Hub.

Read an excerpt of The Buried Crown here.

A Just Imagine story starter for The Buried Crown is available here.

 Black Powder

Read an excerpt of Black Powder here.

Watch a short video about the story here.

See how the book cover image was created here.

A teachers’ pack for Black Powder, including information on author inspirations, key themes and a range of classroom activities and discussion topics is available here: Black Powder Teachers’ Notes

Chapter-by-chapter teaching notes are also available free of charge from the Chicken House Books Schools’ Hub.

More on the historical background

Find out more about the dark and dangerous world of the Gunpowder Plot with these fact sheets:

Fact Sheet 1: gunpowder-plot-confidential-10-facts-about-guy-fawkes

Fact Sheet 2: gunpowder-plot-confidential-fascinating-facts-about-the-gunpowder-plot

Fact Sheet 3: gunpowder-plot-confidential-religious-background

Fact Sheet 4: gunpowder-plot-confidential-i-spy

Black Powder Activity Sheets

Design a wanted poster: black-powder-activity-sheet-1-design-a-wanted-poster

Write a letter: black-powder-activity-sheet-2-write-a-letter

Write a news story: black-powder-activity-sheet-3-write-a-news-story