This resource is comprised of 22 ready-to-go 'Always, sometimes, never?' investigations. A really easy option for lesson starters, morning tasks mental maths sessions, revision, homework, displays, or early finishers' task. Pupils are presented with a statements and have to determine whether it is true all of the time, some of the time or never. Most importantly, they need to support their decision with enough examples to convince others. This is great revision of lots of mathematical ideas, including properties of shape, properties of number and algebra and develops pupils ability to reason and justify. All of the activities have been tried and tested with my Y6 class and some Y4 pupils too. I would say they are most useful for upper KS2 pupils but could be used lower down. I found them particularly helpful as quick revision activities for SATs.

I first used this resource with more able Year 6 pupils, who were working towards the then Level 6 SATs test. The maths curriculum has changed since then, but this resource is still very relevant to the statutory requirements of the Year 6 and Year 7 programmes of study. The resource includes nine multi-part questions and a pupil self-assessment table at the bottom. It is great way of analysing pupils’ strengths and weaknesses at the start of a topic and I like to repeat the activity at the end of the topic to see progress and set the next steps. Alternatively, it can just be used as a worksheet or one off activity to consolidate learning. Resource is provided as both a PDF and a Word document if you would like to adapt it at all.

A set of nine mini-investigations that can be set up at different stations for pupils to move around and experiment. Idea for use: Laminate the instruction cards and set them up on tables with the required equipment. Provide groups with an A3 print out of the recording sheet to jot down notes as they carousel around the activities, or provide individual sheets at A4 size either during or after carrying out the mini-investigations. Files are provided in Word format as well as PDF for easy editing if necessary. The tasks are designed to link really well with the Year 4 Programme of Study for Science, but I did this with a Y3/4/5/6 mix class (!) and they all seemed to get a lot out of it. There was lots of discussion in the room and it was great to hear pupils practising the vocabulary of sound (e.g. vibrate, medium, volume, source). Would work well as a revision activity, baseline assessment for starting the topic, or as a Science Week activity. Year 4 ScienceProgramme of Study Sound Pupils should be taught to: • identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating • recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear • find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it • find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it • recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases

A whopping 69 ready to go activities - many of which can be easily adapted to use again. All of the activities are based on the number aspect of maths and have been tried and tested with my own class. There are a mixed or closed questions, mysteries, open-ended investigations, quick quizzes and worded problems. These are ideal for starter or mental maths activities - great for revision. Some of the more open-ended activities ended up spanning a whole lesson with my class as they took them off in different directions and made links with other areas of mathematics. I used them with Y6 but they could also be suitable for Y5 pupils. Mathematical ideas covered include: - Calculation with all four operations (mental and written methods). - Negative numbers. - Problems involving inverses. - Properties of number: factors, primes, square numbers, multiples, product, odd, even. - Place value - including decimals and rounding.

A sheet of questions to give to pupils when they enter Year 6 or Year 5 in September (or at the end of the previous year) to assess strengths and weakness and to inform planning. Comes with answer sheet and assessment tracker. Mathematics Covered: Read, write and order numbers to 3dp. Order mixed set of numbers to 3dp. Use tables to work with decimals. Use multiplication facts to devise square numbers to 12 x 12. Explain place value to 3dp. Add and subtract decimals to 3dp. Multiply and divide decimals by 10/100 and integers to 1000. Compare fraction by cancelling common factors. Work out simple % of whole numbers.

This is a power point I made for a presentation I did to a group of Y6 Parents at the start of the year. The aim was to education the parents on the kind of questions they should be asking their children when reading with them at home and the kind of comments they should encourage their children to write in their reading journals. The model of reading on, between, behind and beyond the lines is used to link to the reading AFs and make them more accessible. The Powerpoint also includes examples of past Y6 SATs paper questions to give parents an idea of what their children will be faced with. There are activities throughout, which giving parents the opportunity to try asking, answering and marking reading comprehension questions. It also gives an example of a film clip to demonstrate to parents that they can help develop their child's reading comprehension skills when watching a film or TV programme, not just when reading. I worked through the powerpoint with my Y6 class and this was a great idea as both the Parents and children were then 'reading from the same page' (pardon the pun!). This powerpoint would work well with Parents of pupils from age 7-11. It could also be used equally well as a staff CPD session.

This display was used in a corridor between two Year 6 classrooms and was a real talking point amongst the pupils. It includes famous groups and duos that they will most probably be familiar with and descriptions of different types of relationships. It also has prompt questions to get pupils thinking and talking about their own relationships. Would also work well on display in the classroom, a quiet space or assembly hall. The pictures and questions could also be used as a prompt for discussing relationships during Circle Time or assembly.

This resource is best suited to KS2 and features key vocabulary to help with setting up a science working wall. I have included it in Word format as well as PDF so you can edit to suit your favourite colours and fonts. It includes: Scientific skills, e.g. comparing results, using equipment. Types of scientific investigation with an example scientific question for each, e.g. observation, fair test (kids love a fair test!) Ways of presenting data with a picture of each, e.g. table, line graph. 18 scientific questions for pupils to match with the most appropriate type of enquiry. Uses: Print and laminate several copies for pupils to use as a toolkit to help with planning their investigations. Give pupils the selection of scientific questions provided and ask them to decide which type of investigation best suits each question. Similarly, give pupils scientific questions and ask them to consider what the data would look like and the most effective way to present it. Print and laminate these labels and keep them on your science working wall permanently or select a few to display as the focus of each unit. As a class, consider which scientific skills we are good at and which we need to work more on. Ask pupils to consider ‘What’s the same? What’s different?’ between different types of investigation and data presentation. Pose the scientific question for the lesson and ask pupils to rule out each type of investigation in turn until they find the best way of answering the question. Or flip this around and give the pupils a type of investigation and they must come up with a question that they would like to investigate. Hope this save a bit of time for you and also helps to keep the transferable scientific skills in the forefront of pupil’s minds whilst they enjoy exploring the subject knowledge of plants, humans, materials etc.

A set of 30 cards, each featuring the name of a percussion instrument and an image of it. I printed these on card and laminated them and I have used them in many different ways; here are some examples: Sorting activities: encourage children to become more familiar with the instruments and calling them by the correct name by inviting them to sort them according to their own or pre-defined criteria, e.g. tuned/untuned, metal/wooden… Children select a card at the start of a lesson…this is the instrument they will be using (saves arguments and also prevents against six sets of cymbals crashing all lesson!) Use as labels for instruments in your music room or instrument store - great for music subject-leaders who are struggling to keep the cupboard tidy! Separate the names from the images and invite children to match the name to the correct instrument. Give children different themes for compositions and ask them to select the instruments that they think would be most suited to that theme and explain why, e.g. drums and cymbals for a storm composition.

Guided reading planning for Y5/Y6 more able readers based on the text ‘Journey to the River Sea’. Six sessions of planning are included, although in reality it could spread over a much longer period of time if you wanted! The other files included are pictures of the Amazon used in lesson one. The planning includes teacher discussion prompts (each linked to AFs) and a follow up reading activity. In my class I had four groups and ran guided reading over four days. Each group had one session with me and three independent days. The pupils followed this cycle over the four days: Pre-reading in preparation for Book Club. Preparing answers for Book Club. Children had a preview of some of the more complex questions and wrote their answers in their reading journals. This had the benefit of me being able to ‘pick on’ any child without them being flustered, but also meant I had some written evidence for all pupils every week (I was finding that some weeks I hadn’t written any notes for some pupils during the Book Club session). Book Club with teacher. Follow-up task. Each group knew which day of the week was their follow-up/Book Club/prep day. On the fifth day I heard individual readers and the pupils did free reading of their own books/magazines. I sometimes used this day to catch up if we had missed a guided reading session earlier in the week due to special assemblies etc. (often the case!).

Guided reading planning for Y5/Y6 Middle to Higher ability readers based on the text ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’. Five sessions of planning are included, although in reality it could spread over a much longer period of time as I must admit that I struggled to fit it all in to five 30 minute sessions! The planning includes teacher discussion prompts (each linked to AFs) and a follow up reading activity. In my class I had four groups and ran guided reading over four days. Each group had one session with me and three independent days. The pupils followed this cycle over the four days: • Pre-reading in preparation for Book Club. • Preparing answers for Book Club. Children had a preview of some of the more complex questions and wrote their answers in their reading journals. This had the benefit of me being able to ‘pick on’ any child, but also meant I had some written evidence for all pupils every week (I was finding that some weeks I hadn’t written any notes for some pupils during the Book Club session). • Book Club with teacher. • Follow-up Task. Each group knew which day of the week was their follow-up/Book Club/prep day. On the fifth day I heard individual readers and the pupils did free reading of their own books/magazines. I sometimes used this day to catch up if we had missed a guided reading session earlier in the week.

Ready-to-go ideas for developing pupils’ ability to add and subtract mentally and to reason about number. These activities link strongly with the CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) approach to teaching maths. I created these activities for a research project I was conducting in school as part of my Maths Specialist Teacher qualification. They are all aimed at improving children’s mental addition and subtraction by developing a broad range of strategies and encouraging them to reason about number. We had found that children were entering KS2 with only a handful of (often cumbersome) mental strategies, e.g. partitioning into tens and units, using number bonds to ten only or counting on/back in ones, and weren’t always applying them appropriately. We used the activities with Y3 and Y4 children, but it can be used from Y2 upwards as it links very strongly with the Y2 curriculum. The resource includes differentiated activities with written descriptions and accompanying interactive whiteboard slides and paper resources where applicable. Slides were originally in SMARTboard format and this is perhaps the best software to use if you have it as the slides can be interacted with this way; however, I have also copied the slides over to a PowerPoint presentation for those without SMARTboard software. Also included is a wall display, which shows visual representations of different strategies for mental addition and subtraction. The activities can be adapted for all year groups and abilities and you will find a lot more mileage in this resource once you get started and the impact on the classes studied in terms of both their confidence and ability in mental maths was phenomenal. National Curriculum Links Pupils should partition numbers in different ways (for example, 23 = 20 + 3 and 23 = 10 + 13) to support subtraction. Recall and use addition and subtraction facts to 20 fluently, and derive and use related facts up to 100 Add and subtract numbers using concrete objects, pictorial representations, and mentally, including: a two-digit number and ones; a two-digit number and tens; two two-digit numbers; adding three one-digit numbers. Show that addition of two numbers can be done in any order (commutative) and subtraction of one number from another cannot Recognise and use the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction and use this to check calculations and solve missing number problems. Pupils practise addition and subtraction to 20 to become increasingly fluent in deriving facts such as using 3 + 7 = 10; 10 – 7 = 3 and 7 = 10 – 3 to calculate 30 + 70 = 100; 100 – 70 = 30 and 70 = 100 – 30. They check their calculations, including by adding to check subtraction and adding numbers in a different order to check addition (for example, 5 + 2 + 1 = 1 + 5 + 2 = 1 + 2 + 5). This establishes commutativity and associativity of addition.

This display was used whilst teaching the IPC ‘Brainwave’ topic to a Y6 class. It covers: The different kinds of intelligence. Interesting facts about the brain. Labels for different parts of the brain. I painted a large brain and put it in the middle of the display with the text added around it. For those that don’t have time to paint (!) I have added an image of the brain to the last page of the resource that can be scaled up to A3 or you could ask your pupils to draw one.

Originally used in my Y6 classroom, this simple and clear resource consists of eight different ways of opening sentences with an example underneath each. I laminated these and displayed them permanently on my working wall for pupils to refer to when they were struggling to vary their sentence openers - particularly in narrative writing. Could be used across KS2 - particularly if each type of opener was introduced one at a time, or challenge pupils to include a particular kind of opener in their writing for that lesson. Both PDF and Word formats included. If this resources isn’t for you then maybe take a look at my octopus opener display and PowerPoint or Sentence Openers Display Bundle.

This is a great investigation that builds so many rich mathematics connections. It is easily differentiated as the entry point is simple but more able pupils can extend right into algebra. I did this lesson with my Year 6 class, but it could be accessed by pupils across Key Stage 2. It supports the CPA approach to teaching maths as pupils realise that physically moving the ‘people’ (or rubbers, pencil sharpeners or whatever!) across the river (concrete) or using marks on paper (pictorial) really helps with this investigation. Whereas the higher ability pupils can move into the more abstract realm of writing a formula to predict how many trips are needed for x amount of people. Includes lesson plan, a PowerPoint or SMART notebook file so that question can be displayed on the interactive whiteboard and a pupil sheet also with the question on. The lesson also has a starter activity, which is unrelated to the investigation but a nice starter nonetheless!

A simple PowerPoint with addition and subtraction calculation questions that provide pupils with the opportunity to practise their written methods. For the first activity the 10 questions get progressively harder and I used this as an assessment to identify gaps and group pupils accordingly for teaching input. I repeated these questions at the end of the unit to assess progress and next steps. The second activity includes 13 questions that are grouped in three categories of difficulty. There are two further reasoning activities to consolidate the learning.

I created these ‘Odd One Out’ activities as part of a maths corridor display. It was designed for use by the whole school (Foundation to Y6) and the aim was the develop reasoning and raise the profile of maths in the school. This could also be used alongside my Developing Reasoning Powerpoint as an activity for staff to try during the session. As well as PDF, resource is provided in Word format for easy editing.