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Teachers' notes

The starting point for all sections of these guidelines is the text. Central to these guidelines is the page by page summary. This, like all the other sections, enables students to focus on the evidence. Everything in the guidelines (except, perhaps, the notes on the historical context) is based on textual evidence that is there for the students to refer to.

All page references relate to the Penguin edition. The guidelines may be used with other editions, but page references will need to be adapted accordingly.

The guidelines can be used in several different ways:

• Students can use them as an interactive resource.
• They can be printed as source material or for revision.
• Teachers can adapt the resources for different purposes, and in order to differentiate.

At any time, whichever method is chosen for a particular activity, students are able to make the relevant annotations in their copies of the novel. At all times they should be encouraged to keep going back to Barry Hines's text.

An interactive resource

If, for instance, students are researching into the character and role of Mr Farthing it is clear where the starting point will be. Whilst reading the information given, they will be able to follow links to other sections. The historical context, How the novel is written, Other adults at school and so on all contain relevant information about Farthing, so students will be able to gain insights from several different perspectives. (More able pupils will be able to do this independently; other pupils might need to be given a narrower focus.)

Printed versions

The materials are designed to be flexible. Teachers can copy and print whichever sections they wish, for use as classroom resources. The advantages of this are clear: pupils can work at their usual desk rather than at the computer; they can take the resource home; printed materials become a useful revision aid. It would be a pity if guidelines were used only in this way, however: the links between different sections allow students to bring together different strands of the novel, rather than regarding them as entirely separate.

Adapting the resources

By copying the text of any section into a word processor, the teacher can adapt them. The teacher might wish to encourage the students to search through their own copy of the novel, rather than simply read summaries. So the teacher can simply give them the introductory sections of each character, followed by the headings/page references.

A key section is How the novel is written. One way in which this section can be adapted is to copy Getting 'inside' Billy and printing it for the students. Their task is to find the quoted sections, then look for other descriptions in the novel where Hines uses similar methods. By doing this they will be learning how to investigate the author's use of metaphor, his use of short sentences, his focus on Billy's sensory space – and they will be able to link this with important questions of how Hines sustains Billy's point of view, another area for discussion in the How the novel is written section.

Throughout, there is no substitute for a close reading of the text. This is why the guidelines have been designed in the way they have: so that students are constantly sent back to the words Barry Hines wrote.