This Back to School pack is designed to help you start the school year with confidence, whether you’re a new teacher or just need a refresher. It includes everything you need to ensure a smooth and engaging introduction to the academic year.
Here’s what you’ll find inside:
Editable PowerPoint Presentation: An easily customisable PowerPoint presentation covering essential elements such as seating plans, classroom expectations, and the meet and greet process and games. The slides can be used as is or adjusted to suit your specific needs.
Teacher’s Guide: Effective Class Introduction and Setting the Right Tone: This guide provides instructions and practical tips for creating an engaging introduction to your class, setting the right tone, and managing the classroom effectively.
Student Reflection Worksheet: A tool for students to reflect on their goals and expectations for the year.
Teacher Reflection: Questions to help you evaluate your teaching strategies and improve classroom management and environment.
Icebreaker Games: Four engaging activities—Count to 20, Alphabet Game, What If, and Family Fortunes—to help students connect and start the year on a positive note.
This resource is designed to help you feel organised and prepared for a successful start to the school year in September.
Introducing The Happy Teacher Google Sheets Planner! Ideal for teachers who love using spreadsheets, this planner retains the key features of our physical planner in a versatile digital format.
Features include:
Setup Page: **Simplifies data input for all planner sections.
Two-Week Timetable:** Conveniently plan your schedule.
Weekly Planning Pages: Quick lesson input with auto-generated entries.
Easy Navigation: Move seamlessly between sections.
To-Do List: Break down tasks by priority, status, and deadlines, with visual bar graph status updates.
Homework Trackers: Organise and track assignments.
Exam Trackers: Adapt marks and grades to monitor individual student progress.
Weekly Reflection & Habit Trackers: Manage your wellbeing effectively.
The Happy Teacher Google Sheets Planner is an innovative, efficient planning tool, perfect for teachers on the go.
Introducing The Happy Teacher Digital Planner! Enjoy the convenience and portability of our beloved physical planner in a digital format. Designed to prioritise both organisation and wellbeing, this planner is perfect for the modern teacher.
Features Include:
Hyperlinked Tabs for quick and easy navigation
Dated 2024-25: September to July
Monday-Friday Weeks
Timetable x2
Weekly Planning Pages: Up to 8 lessons, including to-do lists, self-care tracker, today’s sparkly moments, notes, and high-priority sections
Important Contacts
Teaching Highlights
Professional Development Pages
Goal Setting
Weekly Reflection Pages with positive quotations and wellbeing activities
Weekly Meeting Notes
Assessment Trackers
Homework Trackers
CPD Pages
Ideas Space
Notes Pages
Positive Quotations
Stay organised and nurture your wellbeing with The Happy Teacher Digital Planner!
Want a more detailed look at what is included? Visit The Happy Teacher Hub website.
Introducing the beloved Happy Teacher To-Do Pad, now available in digital format!
Designed to alleviate overwhelm and keep you organised, this to-do pad helps you master time management, prioritise with confidence, and smoothly navigate your workload.
You’ll receive a PNG A4 file, perfect for both printing and digital use.
Available in SIX different colour designs.
This lesson is part of a broader curriculum that guides students in creating their own campaigns by first examining various types, such as political, social, and advertising campaigns.
In this particular lesson, the focus is on political campaigns, specifically the 2024 UK General Election. Students will analyse the election campaigns of the Labour and Conservative parties, paying close attention to their websites, social media presence, and campaign posters. They will explore how these different elements are utilised to create effective and persuasive campaigns.
This CPD resource serves as a starting point to initiate discussions about establishing a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for students, with a focus on race. The PowerPoint presentation includes:
Data and insights on diversity within educational settings.
Thought-provoking discussion topics and activities related to privilege and its impact on students and teachers.
Prompts for personal reflection and department conversations, allowing teachers to assess and improve their approach to diversity
In this lesson, students will think like a writer and learn to adapt their language to align with various intentions.
Lesson includes:
*Do Now Activity: Students work in pairs to analyse the intentions of writers in various articles related to a TikTok ban.
Understanding Writer’s Intention: Explanation of the concept of writer’s intention.
Question 5 Task on AI: Students engage with a Question 5 task related to artificial intelligence.
Class Planning: Collaborative planning session for a writing task.
Writing Tasks: Students practice identifying intentions in sample paragraphs and adapt model sentences to suit different intentions.
Practice paper and lessons for the reading section of AQA English Language Paper 1.
Lessons include:
Extract from The Handmaid’s Tale and exam-style questions (Q1-Q4)
Breakdown for each question
I do, We do, You do
Model paragraphs for Q2-24
Sentence stems to help students write their own analysis paragraphs
A lesson focusing on character development.
Students explore key techniques used by writers to shape convincing characters. Through analysis of a short animated film (GiveInToGiving) , students will construct a character profile for the protagonist and craft a descriptive piece of writing to bring the character to life.
The lesson also offers a writing model and success criteria to support students with their writing.
The lesson focuses on the theme of redemption through the character of Jacob Marley.
The lesson includes:
Do now activity: non-fiction article ‘Ghost stories: why the Victorians were so spookily good at them’ and questions.
Explanation of purgatory with links to Jacob Marley.
Breakdown of the AQA English Literature Paper 1 Section B
Extract analysis task
Instructions on how to write a thesis statement and model example
Model analysis paragraph and sentence starters to help students analyse theme of redemption in the extract.
A lesson focusing on how does Dickens uses setting to establish mood, character and themes.
Lesson includes:
Do now: retrieval practice (setting)
Slides focusing on the importance of setting and methods to create a vivid setting.
Quotation analysis task . Students collaborate in groups to analyse how Dickens uses the setting of Scrooge’s home to establish mood, character, and themes. Key quotations and guiding questions are provided to assist students in their analysis.
A lesson focusing on Dickens’ initial description of Scrooge.
Lesson includes:
Do Now inference task
Etymology of Scrooge’s name
Questions to help students analyse the opening description of Scrooge
Language analysis task
Independent writing task with sentence stems
AQA English Language Paper 1 Question 3 Practice.
Lesson includes:
Explanation of literary structure and techniques
Exploration and analysis tasks of a scene from the film ‘Encanto’.
Model example paragraph
Success criteria and sentence starters to help students’ written analysis of the scene
The second lesson in ‘A Christmas Carol’ SOW.
Big question: What are the typical conventions of a ghost story, and to what extent does ‘A Christmas Carol’ align with these genre expectations?
The lesson includes:
what is genre? Exploration of conventions suited to ghost stories.
questions to aid students’ analysis of the preface
read, re-read, read again the opening of the novella
analysis questions
big question revisited: indepedent writing task
First lesson for A Christmas Carol SOW.
Big Question: Who was Charles Dickens?
Lesson includes:
What is AO3? A brief exploration of AQA Assessment Objective 3
Fact sheet about Charles Dickens and questions
Activity focusing on students making connections between the novella and the context
What inspired Charles Dickens to write ‘A Christmas Carol’? Independent writing task with sentence prompts.
An introduction to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.
The lesson includes:
Big question- Who was Tennessee Williams? To what extent might the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ be an expression of his identity?
Research into Tennessee Williams (questions provided)
Inference and prediction tasks using the ‘Poker Night’ painting by Thomas Benton and synopsis
Homework task (Tennessee Williams Interview with Mike Wallace in 1958)
A lesson exploring the character Sheila Birling. The lesson includes:
questions about Sheila Birling
character tracking activity.
class discussion question and sentence starters
Big question: What are the key features of a play? What do we learn about the Birling family though the stage directions?
Lesson includes:
Retrieval practice (J.B. Priestley brain dump)
Students explore the conventions of a play
Questions to help students’ analysis of the staging and opening stage directions
Revisit the big question. Series of sentence starters to help students answer the question
Big question: How does Priestley present Mr Birling?
Lesson is based on a cold reading of the play. Lesson includes:
Retrieval practice questions
Analysis of Mr Birling’s speech in Act 1
Topic sentence practice. Students have to write topic sentences for a series of analysis paragraphs
Return to the big question
The lesson involves students writing an analysis of an extract from chapter 5. They begin by exploring ideas about code-switching to gain a better of Starr and her feelings in the extract.
Students will then look at how to write an analytical response through I do, We Do, You do. They will also look at how to use metaphors to develop their interpretations (idea inspired by Chris Curtis’ How to Teach Like a Writer).