Attached is a full introductory lesson created for the new BTEC Unit 7: Contemporary Scientific Issues. It is activity based, with instructions and answers, a recent case study to get students started, points for discussion, a video on the case study, explanation of terms ethical, environmental, social and economic along with reliability and validity. Gets students thinking about reliability of sources, bias, etc. Homeworks during the first few months of teaching (and tutorial sessions, if you have these) could include watching documentaries on scientific issues to broaden student’s knowledge of contemporary issues in general. You may wish to select these yourself (from Netflix, Youtube etc.) or ask the students to find 1 each for homework and bring to next lesson (to minimise your workload!) then you can decide which to watch as a class and use as a point for discussion etc. Link to video introducing Unit 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMFkvxYIVfU

Laboratory design activity that could be used for an after school STEM club, mini science project, summer project or even a class task. Aimed at school level but can be as simple or challenging as you would like to make it :) A supporting PowerPoint is attached with ideas for student instructions ie group tasks visiting laboratories, what to focus on/take notes + photos of. This can be quite hands on and you can let students measure things and do conversions, creating keys and grids in their own laboratory design plans, if you have the facility to do so.

I created and wrote this booklet and delivered a session (lasts around 45min-1 hour depending which yoga sequences and meditation you choose to do) to a cohort of stressed out trainee teachers and staff just before the Christmas break. The session was well received and had excellent feedback with several people saying they found it really helpful. The booklet starts with assessing your level of stress, looking at how you spend your week (divided into 30min sections) - this is a good opportunity to discuss and be able to visualise work-life balance. The booklet then takes you through many ideas for stress management techniques, with a couple of mini activities including a page introducing the concept of a gratitude journal and a ‘meditation challenge’. At the end are some books, apps, journal articles and contacts in case people wish to find out more.

The new year is a time when many people set resolutions or ‘intentions’, however, these can be set at any time in the year and are beneficial towards our personal growth. Inside this short booklet are ideas of intentions (what habits/things do you want to create or release?) and how to go about choosing them positively (i.e. avoid negatives such as losing weight, how about 'eating healthier foods 70% of the time?) There are also prompts and ideas for starting your own gratitude journal and plenty of things to complete to get you thinking, including how we can view our challenges in a positive light - what can we learn from them? This booklet can be easily adapted if you wish to use it with a class, assembly, project, colleagues etc.

Action plan template. Good for student interventions, tutorial activity for time management or own personal use.