I am an Assistant Headteacher at an outstanding North London primary school. Throughout all my teaching career, I have strongly believed that we make the best learning happen when we inspire pupils. The resources I publish are therefore intended to do exactly that and to offer a challenging and engaging learning experience to pupils of all abilities. I hope you will find something here that inspires you!
I am an Assistant Headteacher at an outstanding North London primary school. Throughout all my teaching career, I have strongly believed that we make the best learning happen when we inspire pupils. The resources I publish are therefore intended to do exactly that and to offer a challenging and engaging learning experience to pupils of all abilities. I hope you will find something here that inspires you!
This is a short (30-45mins) R.E lesson to teach lower KS2 children about the importance of the Eid (Eid Al Adha) festival: why the concept of sacrifice is important in Islam and what happened in the original sacrifice story that is remembered at Eid (Ibrahim and Ismael).
The presentation begins with a discussion-based starter with examples of sacrifices children will be familiar with from general life. The video (linked from YouTube) explains the story of the original story of Ibrahim and Ismael). The activity that follows is differentiated three ways: ‘1 chilli’: order the storyboard pictures and match with them the text, 2 chillies: pupils create their own pictures to accompany the story text, 3 chillies: pupils create their own text and images to narrate the story. Please note: It is an important belief in Islam that characters of religious significance should not be explicitly depicted in images - therefore the faces of the characters on the 1 chilli activity are hidden - the powerpoint reminds pupils completing the two more challenging activities to do the same with their drawings. It is worth reiterating this orally to your class. For those who complete quickly, an extra challenge is described on the powerpoint.
A complete lesson for lower KS2 to deepen understanding around the process of multiplication and the fact that it is not commutative. The lesson comprises a ‘diamond 9 starter’ that could be completed in pairs/groups. There are then some worked examples in the powerpoint using ‘Singapore bar’ representations and arrays to allow two different multiplication statements to be shown. The worksheets are differentiated 3 ways, with the ‘3 chillies’ sheet including a reasoning challenge at the end.
This resource works best when enlarged to A3 and/or printed on card rather than paper.
You then cut along the lines (or ask your TA very nicely!) to create a reasoning puzzle for your pupils.
This puzzle can be done in mixed ability pairs or set as an extension. A great way to assess your pupils’ grasp of fraction-related content near the end of a unit, I’ve found tarsia puzzles to be great for engagement - and for those who complete it, perhaps they can create their own!
These differentiated resources are ideal for lower KS2 children when you are teaching how to apply knowledge of rounding and using the inverse to check calculations. For each question, the numbers involved are represented pictorially and the line between green and yellow backgrounds helps pupils to see if they need to round up or down. Each question has these steps:
Round the two numbers to the nearest 10
Add/subtract these rounded numbers in the space below (‘estimate’)
Do the calculation using the actual numbers and see if the estimate was close
Put the three numbers in the calculation into the ‘Singapore bar’ template in the third cell (largest number in the top cell).
Do an inverse calculation to check
For the ‘2 Chillies’ resource, there is no scaffolding for the children’s calculations.
A complete lesson on reading retrieval for Y3/4 with instructions on how to get to a fairytale city as the text. The powerpoint pre-teaches tricky vocab and outlines the strategy pupils should use. There is then an example question before the pupils answer the questions themselves. The questions are differentiated 3 ways but all are retrieval questions as this is the target skill.
A complete lesson for Y3/4 in which pupils complete an assessed written piece to either begin or end a unit on nature-inspired poetry. In this lesson, pupils complete a poem with a summer theme. The resources comprise: a basic wordbank, planning template and a step-by-step powerpoint.