I did this with year 4 in the final week before christmas holidays. They loved it! It was very structured groupwork - pupils in country teams researching how christmas is celebrated in their country, then presented this at the end. Our main learning outcome was to develop teamwork skills and we did this through a structured approach. But we also worked on our research and writing skills, creativity, speaking, listening and confidence. The kids were really fascinated by the different cultures and customs from around the world too.

This is a fantastic lesson that I’ve used many times as part of a skill-based curriculum. The topic here is ‘Time’ and this lesson takes students on a journey through time and space, through the ‘Cosmic Calendar’. This topic and the clips included are super engaging and thought-provoking. I’ve had some brilliant lessons following this structure (including tricky classes!) The lesson begins with a clip and brief discussion, relating to how we (the average person) spends our time - e.g. 1 of every 5 minutes on social media. Eeeeek! Students are then given questions for the quiz ahead and have a few moments to look at this as a team - the idea is that they work together to note down and recall specific pieces of information… but I don’t tell them this! We then watch a clip - link included - of Neil DeGrasse Tyson presenting ‘The Cosmic Calendar’ as students jot down notes. Following this, there’s the quiz which they answer in teams. We then peer assess answers, before uncovering how the winning teams managed to remember the info (this is where we discuss team strategies!) After a little discussion - lots of opportunities for SMSC - we have an independent sketching plenary which allows students to demonstrate understanding of this complex concept at its base level. I’ve taught this lesson as a single hour with year 7 students, but I’ve also extended it as a teamwork project in two or three lessons, with students presenting their own alternative version of the Cosmic Calendar. It’s easy to differentiate as low down as year 5 students and as high as year 11, with only a few tweaks! Whether your goal is to learn about Science, Time and Space; to build up note-taking skills in Literacy; or to work on teamwork/retention skills, this lesson is an engaging way of doing them all.