For information on schools visits, click here.

No child, no school, can be considered safe from county lines activity or the themes raised in this verse novel. Working with a fictionalised account of a real-life story provides a safe space to explore the topics raised in this book and raise awareness of how young people are being exploited by county lines gangs.

The ideas below of how to work with Crossing the Line in the classroom span a range of learning outcomes across the curriculum. Most are for group work and involve PSHE discussions and English and Drama activities. They are suggested activities, not lesson plans: teachers can choose from the resources based on what will work best for their students.

Please be aware that Crossing the Line and these resources deal with sensitive topics, which may be triggering for some students. 

You could read the poems aloud to your class or ask students to share the reading and dramatise the dialogue. You could project key poems on to the board so they can be discussing in plenary.  

For the concrete poems, try asking students to narrow their eyes to blur the words before they look at the poem, so they are blurring the words and assessing the shape first and the words second.

For a full synopsis of Crossing the Line click here.

“We loved using your resources in book club today; every single student signed up for your visit! We had a really great talk about empathy and bullying that I don’t think we’d have had otherwise ❤️” Alice Leggatt, Librarian Oaks Park High School, Sutton.

My thanks go to the teachers whose expert eyes looked over these resources, especially Kevin Cobane from UoB School, Birmingham.