This is a fun starter or bell ringer to give students something to consider as they enter. Great for St Valentine’s Day. It’s editable if you want to adjust it, and it can be a 5 minute activity or longer, what ever is enough for your students. Obviously there is no write or wrong answer here, and they may not reach a decision, but I find it is good to get them thinking around questions with no answer.

The great thing about drawing is that it’s so immediate - if you have a class working on a theme for a lesson, at the end of an hour you’ve got a class display. This project always made a striking class display for something really worthwhile, and important to them. With this session the students get to think about how artists put a message across in different ways using symbolism and asks them to consider why Art at times is not always beautiful in a simple responses sheet. Included with the Powerpoint is a sheet for students to provide their thoughts and responses on this question. The powerpoint could also be run as a form time activity without the drawing element as a new way of thinking about Holocaust Memorial Day. Its editable for you to adjust if you wish to.

This has always been a great lesson that can build into a larger project. Whatever the age the students always love the idea of having a “secret formula” for creating the work, even the older ones enjoy the joke here because it really is essential guidance on composition rules. The 11 page powerpoint provides the starter and instructions for the lesson along with contextual information on Kandinsky, and again all students love the story about his revelation on his work in the dark. There is also a lesson plan with AFL questioning and the handout sheet for the responses to Kandinsky with suggested word bank to use.

I have used this approach for some time - The students benefit greatly by being able to see their progress as their work develops over a project. This approach helps to close the loop between assessment, feedback and target setting for them to be held accountable the following week with how they have met their targets. This helps the students take ownership of targets. management also like to see you charting assessment progress like this.

One of the most important part of the process of teaching is the feedback, and finding the right balance of positive feedback with targeted action points to lead improvement. This is a bank of comments I used for Photography mock exams, praising the work done and with a mind to drive improvement. Students really do appreciate the time taken with extended feedback like this, when you sit down next to them to go through their work and offer individual, personalised feedback. The bank is open to drawing comments from across the selection and to use for individual students

A guided activity for art and photography - the power point has examples of artists exploring the subject of the bed as something of personal meaning. This has a set of tasks that builds into a mini set of work - photography, drawing and painting, contextual referencing

This might be useful starting the essay in lockdown - getting the students to think for themselves and construct a discussion around their theme, and exploring the work of artists

A set of 4 essays to show students good practice in approaching the essay.

A useful little form for students to use to focus themselves on what they need to do while they complete their prep work for unit 2 A Level Art and Design

A nice starter activity for students to consider employment rights, and how they behave in the world of employment. Its an odd one out exercise to consider what is acceptable and not acceptable in the workplace, in things they may take for granted about their appearance

A useful lesson starter leading into the lesson - in the hour session planned for I used 6 minute intervals with an alarm to notify students when to stop and take a photo of the work in progress, but over longer sessions it works well too - 6 minutes per stage certainly keeps the lesson pacey, a longer session will give them more stages of development, which is great for AO2 and 3 as they can evidence review and refine and reflective thinking. Our students post on their Instagram as its quicker than having to go upload, print, cut out and stick in.

A nicely constructed essay on "Structures and Abstraction" to show students beginning the written element of their personal Investigation with a good mix of research and gallery visits to inform the personal response. The student uses quotation well to set up opportunities to comment and develop ideas further, supported by examples of their own work. Also includes the student's own photos of work seen in galleries such as the Mondrian on this cover image.

Instagram is great as a way of using something students are happy with as a method of working. I find it great as students are already familiar with it, but not necessarily as a way of working creatively. Obviously ideal for photography students but also for any of the art specifications as they can record what they do and build evidence of development of ideas. Its handy if you can get your senior management to unblock it, and this is easier obviously post 16, but it can still be used as homework if not, and you know instantly who is doing their homework and who isn't. The best thing about it is that students buy into this - they are really happy doing it, they can get likes from each other and you can comment instantly on what they have doe. Get them to set up a second account from their personal one and they're off - and it gives you a load of stuff to promote your department and school or college.

A starter activity to get them guessing looking for possible connections. This one is based on names and slide 2 has the explanations of origins. This activity has no other questions - it is really about students asking the questions with the odd clue from the teacher thrown in when they get stuck. Gets them thinking about fashion beyond the look of it.

A fun starter to engage and get students in a good mood - 10 cities in the fog for students to identify. Can use this as a starter for any subject, and it has a link with Geography obviously.

A starter activity to engage students on arrival. This is a nice one to explore the perception of alcohol and raise awareness of issues, and can prompt some useful discussions with students.

A fun starter to set students on arrival - getting them to look at layouts of city plans and make guesses as to location and culture of the place.

100 + photographs of a misty morning. Ideal as a source for painting for a landscape project - enough images for your class to choose their individual image.

A sheet of handy reminders for students writing about Art and Design

Advisory notice - this looks at a taboo subject and you'll need a class you feel secure with doing this with. This looks at works of art exploring a taboo subject of urination and includes works by Rembrandt, Brueghel as well as Piss Christ by Andres Serrano and images of women by photographer Sophy Rickett in office dress weeing in the street. It throws up some interesting questions for students to consider though about decency and human behaviour, reference Fundamental British Values, as well as it as a why artists choose it as a subject throughout the history of art