The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is the second most important festival in the Chinese lunar calendar after Chinese New Year. In 2019 the festival will fall on 13 September. Each education pack contains lesson plans, an assembly plan, activities and supporting materials to introduce Chinese culture to the classroom, keep your young people engaged and look forward to next year when, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, we enter the Year of the Horse.

Focusing on China, the materials which were prepared in connection with the IOE Confucius Institute for Schools will help introduce primary school children to some of the differences and similarities between the lives and culture of people in the UK and China. Each education pack contains an array of resources for the classroom including; lesson plans, Chinese poems, assembly plans, posters and activities to keep your young people engaged throughout.

Our primary languages downloadable pack is designed for Language Assistants and other native speakers who are new to teaching languages at primary level as well as giving advice to the host schools. The pack includes guidance on how to get started, examples of best practice, specific teaching ideas and resources for use in the classroom.

This Shakespeare Lives schools’ pack has been created by the British Council in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016. The pack celebrates Shakespeare as a writer who still speaks for all people and nations, addressing big questions and themes about the human experience and what it means to be a citizen in the twenty-first century. This pack encourages teachers and pupils to engage with some of the key issues, themes and ideas in Shakespeare’s plays, and to explore the ways they remain relevant and current in our lives today, wherever we are in the world. Specially designed to encourage learning across the curriculum, the resource is split into five key themes; Leadership and Power, Family and Relationships, Identity and Equality, Fate and Destiny, Justice and Rules. Within each themed section you will find a wide range of activities for pupils aged 7-14. These can be used as starting points in individual lessons or as elements of a cross-curricular project, which could be carried out with a partner school overseas. Shakespeare’s plays have been staged many times since they were written over 400 years ago, and there are still so many different ways of interpreting his work. Each interpretation will draw out different themes and ideas. We hope you and your pupils will enjoy exploring the ones we have developed in this pack, which is available to download now.

Resources to help your school celebrate Chinese new year 2019.

The Polish Language and Culture pack helps primary teachers introduce aspects of Polish language and culture to their pupils. It contains lesson and assembly plans, factual information and resources to help pupils develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the rich language, geography and culture of Poland. The materials are designed to be flexible and adaptable for use in a variety of settings. They can be used as starting points for individual lessons and assemblies or form part of larger cross-curricular joint projects involving collaboration over a number of subjects. Your pupils can learn how to greet a friend in Polish, get creative making paper cut-outs, and find out about many aspects of Polish culture. This education pack was produced by the British Council and the Polish Cultural Institute in London in partnership with Dwie Siostry Publishing and Templar Publishing.

This education pack is designed to help teachers introduce aspects of Indonesian life, language and culture to their pupils aged 7-11. It contains ideas and activities that can be used in lessons and assemblies,factual information and resources to help your pupils develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the biodiversity, stories and culture of this fascinating country. Your pupils can learn how to greet a friend in an Indonesian language, get creative making shadow puppets, kites and telling stories, cook a traditional recipe and find out about other aspects of Indonesian culture using our wide range of classroom resources and activities. The materials are designed to be flexible and adaptable for use in a variety of settings. They can be used as starting points for individual lessons or form part of larger cross-curricular joint projects involving collaboration with a partner school over a number of subjects. Please note that the interactive elements of this resource will only work when the PDF is downloaded and not when it is opened in browser.

This template project will help you support your pupils in developing core skills, such as student leadership, personal development and collaboration, by exploring issues and solutions to protect our climate and environment. Designed to explore the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Climate Action, you will be able to use the project with a range of subjects across the curriculum, including English, citizenship and geography. NEW! BITE-SIZED ACTIVITIES FOR HOME LEARNING We also offer this resource in bite-sized activity format, perfect for home learning! 3 bite-sized Zero Waste challenges! Find out which countries produce the most waste and the recycling leaders, discover ecobricks and make your own, then take action to raise awareness. Download now!

Social enterprises trade in order to tackle social problems and improve communities, people’s life chances, or the environment. These learning resources have been designed as six lessons for pupils aged 7-14. Guided by their teachers, pupils explore examples of social enterprises started by children and adults around the world. By the end of this learning unit, pupils will have created their own social enterprise project. At the same time, they will develop a range of important core skills: citizenship, critical thinking and problem solving, creativity, imagination and innovation. An engaging way to learn about social enterprises is to get involved in running one and can improve attendance, behaviour, and enthusiasm among pupils.

Keep your students up to date with the latest news from across the Commonwealth using the First News monthly newspaper. First News is one of the leading newspapers aimed at students from ages seven to fourteen, investigating and delving into stories affecting the wider world. Each month, the newspaper will explore themes related to the environment, politics and citizenship within the Commonwealth states. The newspaper serves as an excellent source of debate within your classroom to get children engaged in the diverse world around them.

We have developed a series of resources, in partnership with The Royal Society, to enhance science learning in schools. This fourth resource in the Commonwealth Science Class series is centred on the topic of global food security and is packed with activity ideas to help your students investigate and explore the subject in more depth. Before downloading the resource, and to help you get started, we recommend you watch the accompanying video with your class: https://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/classroom-resources/list/global-food-security-how-can-we-feed-growing-population

To mark the visit of the President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto to the UK in 2015, the British Council put together some exciting resources to help you celebrate Mexico and the Spanish language in your school. These include: A colourful PowerPoint presentation about Mexico that can be used in classes or an assembly A story in Spanish and in English by the Latin American Children’s laureate Francisco Hinojosa (who is from Mexico) ‘La Peor Señora del Mundo/The Worst Woman in the World’ Two lesson ideas using the story – a writing activity and a Spanish language activity A creative activity based on the work of Mexican artist Diego Rivera.

Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas, petrol and diesel are continuously burned across the globe to generate electricity, heat buildings, drive industry and power combustion engines in various forms of transport, from cars and trucks, to tractors and ocean liners. As these fossil fuels are burned, they release a complex mixture of solid and liquid particles that are suspended in the air, as well as harmful gases. This course explores the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development – specifically Goal 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Target 11.6 on air pollution. Course materials can be used with or without an overseas partner school, and tips are provided on how best to use the included resources.

Russia is a fascinating, diverse country stretching over two continents with a rich culture and history. This education pack helps primary teachers to introduce some aspects of Russian language and culture to their pupils. It contains lessons and assembly plans, factual information and resources to help pupils develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the rich language and culture of Russia and the lives of young Russians. Your pupils can learn how to greet a friend in Russian and start to decode its unfamiliar alphabet, find out about Russia’s exciting contribution to our understanding of space and make a balloon rocket. You can also sample its rich literary heritage and get to know about daily life in Russia from some of its young people. The materials are designed to be flexible and adaptable for use in a variety of settings. They can be used as starting points for individual lessons and assemblies or form part of larger cross-curricular joint projects involving collaboration over a number of subjects. Instructions to use the PDF and activate the sound files: download and save the PDF to your computer. Open the PDF and select ‘Preferences’ from the ‘Edit’ menu. Select ‘3D and MultiMedia Options’ and tick the box ‘Enable playing of 3D content’ followed by ‘OK’. In some browsers a yellow bar at the top of the PDF page will also display providing two options: select option ‘Trust this document always’.

India is a fascinating country with an immensely rich and vibrant culture. It has a growing economy, and a history stretching back thousands of years,a diverse mix of languages and religions. This education pack is designed to help mainstream primary teachers introduce aspects of Indian language and culture to their pupils aged 7-11. It contains lesson and assembly plans, factual information and resources to help pupils improve their core skills and develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the language and culture of India. The materials are designed to be flexible and adaptable for use in a variety of settings. They can be used as starting points for individual lessons and assemblies or form part of larger cross-curricular joint projects involving collaboration with a partner school over a number of subjects. Your pupils can learn how to greet a friend in Hindi, get creative making rangoli patterns and shadow puppets, watch an animated film by an Indian film maker and find out about many other aspects of Indian culture using our wide range of classroom resources and activities.

Citizenship can be seen as being about a feeling (identity), a status (rights) and a practice (taking action). This unit explores how gender roles and expectations influence identity and rights, and aims to inspire pupils to take action to question norms and dominant masculinities to bring about greater gender equality. Sustainable Development Goal 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The learning materials that have been created may be adapted to the context of each school and the needs of specific students. Some learning activities can be left out in order to enable deeper learning through other activities. Designed as six lessons of sixty minutes each (which include core and optional activities) for pupils aged 9-13 years, the resource can be used in English, citizenship, geography, history or other subjects.

Elephants are the earth’s largest land animals, but these amazing creatures are an endangered species. There are currently at least ten African elephants for every one Asian elephant in the wild. The main reason that Asian elephant numbers to drop by 50 per cent in the last 100 years is a massive loss of habitat, and they are disappearing from areas where they once thrived. In Vietnam the number of wild elephants declined from approximately 1,000 in 1990, to fewer than 100 in 2002. The focus of this resource is on Asian elephants. It includes background information, discussion points and activities to inspire learning across the curriculum and a call to action to help protect this endangered species. The activities can be used as starting points in individual lessons or as part of a joint cross-curricular project to develop knowledge, transferable skills and reflections in your classrooms or with a partner school in your country or overseas.

Help children and teens process news sources and become informed media users and creators with our free Media Literacy pack created with editorial support from BBC Young Reporter.

Our Zero Hunger template project will help you to support the development of your pupils’ core skills, such as critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and collaboration. Zero Hunger is the second United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, focusing on the causes and potential solutions to hunger across the world.

This template project illustrates how you can support the development of your pupils’ core skills through the study of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong opportunities for all.’ You can use the project with a range of subjects across the curriculum including English, social studies, geography and languages. NEW! BITE-SIZED ACTIVITIES FOR HOME LEARNING We also offer this resource in bite-sized activity format, perfect for home learning! Learn Malala’s life story, why some children in the world don’t go to school and plan a campaign to change this with three bite-sized creative activities and challenges. Download now!