6 thinking skills starters to engage and inspire as well as inform on different approaches and aspects of Art. Great for KS 3 4 & 5 - useful for starting lesson observations, or just as a way of giving them something different

A starter and lesson follow on looking at composition, the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Section. This can extend into a set of lessons investigating composition in students' work. Great for a mix of AO1, and AO4 and incorporates some maths into the mix too. Useful for a wide range of KS2 3 4 & 5 as well as being great for a part of project work to show a good understanding of composition.

A starter activity to engage in looking for the subject matter. Useful for students to see that artists paint their mums and for them to consider why they might do this. The works for any age KS2, 3 4 and 5 Art and Design

A starter to focus students on questioning why people vandalise works of art, thinking outside the box to lead into discussion whether graffiti is art or vandalism, and how can you tell the difference.

15 inspirational posters that will challenge thinking and can also be used as lesson starters or as something to refer to should discussion points arise. I find them useful in having them around to subliminally challenge students' thinking and to get ideas from. Contains cultural aspects, big questions and ones that can be adapted to fit thematic project work. I started using discussion questions to break away from the traditional biographical writing students tend to do, and its really helpful in generating evidence of thinking and an informed, personal response for AO4

A set of 15 questions to use as display to prompt thinking, or to use as starters. These have been really useful in challenging perceptions - I originally did these for an Open Evening but they have been great to refer to in class as opportunity arises. Includes

An easy step by step guide to doing joiners with photomerge on photoshop. This is so easy for students to explore David Hockney's joiners in a really fun and active way - because they are reasonably quick to do its feasible for students to be able to explore a set of these in a lesson and generate a body of work quickly. Mixes AO 1 and 2 nicely if they start by researching what Hockney did here. Always a busy and engaging lesson

A lesson through power point for younger learners to begin to think about how they could write about painting. This is a useful starting point for looking at subject matter, approach and techniques as things to consider when gathering responses. The presentation has suggested tasks to complete through the lesson to break into chunks.

A lesson to focus on best ways to develop responses for AO4. Ideal for KS3 GCSE and A Level in taking students from initial basic responses to how they can use sources and information to develop their thinking and extend their written responses. The power point contains reference to 2 artists, prompts for thinking, an extended task with suggestions to get going with ways of sentence starters, along with aims and objectives. I have always found this lesson really useful in developing the skills needed for AO1 in a way that is based on Blooms, but less overwhelming in terms of it being so much to look at for students.

This lesson has been really useful for students to consider how to show the processes of their work so that it is clear they have made decisions with their media in the development of their work. There is a starter activity which focusses them into the notion that an unfinished piece of work can be really useful in how we understand how an artist works, and how this is useful to them - show the journey of a piece of work and the moderators will understand how they think, use their media and refine their work. Really good for AO1 2 and 3, and useful for KS3 4 and 5.

This always goes well - it gives students a systematic approach to making a seamless repeat pattern. The step by step guide on the power point comes with a starter pattern looking at repeating pattern across different cultures and then focuses on William Morris style repeating process, so a good coverage of AO1 2 and 4. Great for years 7 - 9 but can be done in a simpler version for KS2 also. Good to follow on from some observation drawing sessions on natural forms, but I've used the idea with allsorts of shapes from Cosmic to micro organisms

This is a set of 16 slides featuring 30+ images of French Emblems by Claude Paradin. I use these with the boys you can come across that are not so engaged in their Art - they really go for the style of approach and the strange combinations of images, which sets their imagination going for their own ideas. Covers AO1 really well if you have students wanting to explore this kind of work with more interesting sources. For this activity they can work directly from the images before developing theirs over a series of lessons

A starter activity for students to explore possible connections between the paintings and question what is going on in them. These starters really engage students and when done regularly they begin to catch on that they have to think outside the box and look for clues in the subject matter. Its always useful to make them think!

In 1565 Pieter Bruegel painted a series of paintings dedicated to the months of the year. He broke the cycle of the year into six stages in six paintings, two months per painting. This starter asks students to make connections between the images to spot that they about the seasons and months and this gets them looking more closely at the activity going on in the painting. Suitable for any year group as its really about looking and asking questions.

A starter activity to engage students in looking at a set of paintings on the same subject to get them to analyse how painters treat the subject in different ways and to make judgements as to their personal preferences, justified to show informed personal responses for AO4 to back up the nature of the task focussing on AO1, exploring what artists do.

A great lesson for early for creative approaches to photography. I use this in Photography but it can be used for any Art and Design where you want the student to think a bit more creatively about how they take photographs for their subject matter. I do this with the students using their phones - to get them into the mind set of using their phones more for their work. The power point shows examples of approach to use of the mirror to achieve unexpected and deceiving results, and includes a photographer as a source who they can respond to for AO1 using this approach.

A starter activity to make students consider the different forms water can take and how they might define "interesting". This can be a good addition to a project on natural form structures or just as a thinking skills starter.

This has always been a great lesson - students do not know that photography is a baby in terms of art forms at 200 years old and they are really interested in looking at the images to work out why these paintings are so different before and after the invention of photography. (before they know what the lesson is about). The power point contains 8 and 10 pre and after images to cut up for students to use in a sorting exercise and then suggest what has happened to affect painting like this. The file contains brief notes to explain the main differences, which the students can then expand on in their own responses. This is great contextual stuff for Photography students but also for any Art students if you want an interesting art history, contextual lesson hitting AO1 by giving them a real understanding and background knowledge behind Impressionism

I've found that students fond it easier to draw from sculpture source images as they can focus on the tonal aspects without being distracted by detail. This resource consists of 36 images of hands from sculpture by Rodin, Michelangelo and Bernini. It leads into suggested drawing approaches students can then adopt from direct from observation, or from photos of their own and classmates hands. These images allow students to focus on essentials of drawing - large scale charcoal drawings look really good from these, and give students confidence. This is great for any project on the figure and hits AO1 as well as AO3

A really useful prompt sheet for students at GCSE and A Level to use as a guide for what to consider when starting to wrote about a piece of Art rather than just write biographical detail