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 planning I created a few years ago to use with a year 5 class. We were asked to take the whole first week of term with our new classes to perform ‘getting to know you’ activities Take a look at the plan. It worked really well - it was a great week! I’ve also added the pictures we used for the wartime artwork. The kids throughly enjoyed this activity - they looked at the wartime poster and adapted them for school e.g keep calm and carry on working! These posters stayed up in class all year long. Activities are easily adapted for KS1 - KS2 pupils, and parts of this could be taken and used at KS3 in PSHE, Tutor time, Art or History.

Two sheets including maps, enabling students to study the different geographical features using an atlas, coloured and labelled the sheets. Great for KS2 or KS3 students.

This is a literacy unit, lasting one week, based on balanced argument. Pupils spend the first part of the week reading/evaluating sources and then put together their own balanced argument. Normally, the week would end with a big write to test the children’s skills but we had a random observation on Friday so we joint-planned the Goldilocks lesson - see extra notebook file. All three year 6 teachers received ‘outstanding’ observation feedback for Goldilocks :-) The unit mixes English and Literacy with History source skills through our Henry VIII topic. I’ve used elements of this when teaching Tudors to Year 8 pupils in History lessons.

I cut up this worksheet into sections and blue tack it at points around the classroom. I then split the class into the same number of teams. Each team must send one envoy to learn as many facts about that question as they can and then report back to their team, who complete the team question sheet (last page.) Envoys are disqualified if they go more than once. A great, fast paced lesson and pupils are often so competitive that they completely forget they are learning! Builds on team skills, speaking and listening too! I go through the information at the end and award points per key piece of information. Winner gets housepoints/prize.

This is a great lesson - I’ve taught it to year 4 and 8…both worked well! Pupils have to develop their own antarctic animals that could survive in the harsh climate, so they had to think carefully about the characteristics of animals - the worksheet alongside should help guide them.

I developed this when working with a year 5 class, as I felt communication between school and home wasn’t good. Pupils filled this in on thursday, I checked it on friday and added any comments if necessary (usually not) and then pupils took this home on fridays for their parents. Logs then came back to me on monday and I could then deal with any issues the parents have. The aim is to improve school-home relations. Suitable for KS2 students.

I used this with my SEND group who were in year 8, but working at KS1/2 level. We watched a clip from Youtube (Just search: Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire: Hungarian Horntail Task.) Then we worked in pairs to put the pictures in order at first, and then match the correct sentence below and stick this in. One higher ability pair had to change their sentences as an extra challenge. This became the plan of our Harry Potter diary - we were completing a topic about Dragons - so students had all the events and information, and only needed to transform this into a diary style. This topic is suitable for KS2 and KS3 pupils and is easily adapted for different ages, abilities and needs. It’s very simple just to take out the sentences either in part or altogether and ask students to create their own from scratch.

At the end of a unit of work based on various Mr. Bean clips, my KS3 SEND students watch the clip from youtube of Mr. Bean, waking up late for the dentist. Here’s the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VumrpkL6RS0 Firstly, they cut out the pictures and in pairs, put these in order and discuss the events of the clip and how we might describe this to someone who hadn’t seen it. We split the clip in half and I show them my own slow writing from the first half of the clip. Then, their independent writing task is to complete the slow write for the second half of the clip. I’ve taught this to whole classes in year 5 and 6, and to small SEND groups in year 7 and 8. It’s always a hit, and I’ve found that the slow writing technique has made a big difference to the quality of writing that we’re producing.

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.

This is a lesson that I created for all year 7 teachers upon our first meeting with students - it’s a great project to try out with KS2 or KS3 pupils. It will help you to really see who they are, how they think, what their team skills and confidence are like, across different subjects. In a nutshell: there’s a mix of speaking and listening tasks, amidst the introduction of P.M.I (plus, minus and interesting.) At the beginning of the lesson, we model a task, via the example: ‘what if money grew up on trees?’ - Pupils have to really consider the realistic positive, negative and interesting outcomes. This isn’t so much about getting the ‘right’ answers (though one laptop or ipad per group will certainly help with research), but more about engaging students in thought-provoking, curiosity-based discussion. The P.M.I topics here bring up some really interesting ideas and debate, whilst students develop their teamwork, research and presentation skills too. Included here is: ppt. slides for the full lesson, slides to hand out to groups (different scenarios for each group), a blank P.M.I grid to support note-taking and group research/ideas, an assessment grid to judge presentations and a full walkthrough of the lesson.