7 starter activities to generate discussion around the same question, exploring aspects of design, cost, performance etc - students decide what defines "best" for them

A useful guide to writing a meaningful evaluation - prompts and examples for students to move them away from a descriptive list of what they did. Good for GCSE and A Level

A starter for a Photography, Art or any lesson where you want students to challenge and question what they think they see, and make them consider why a photograph may be altered. Engages the students on entry and asks them to choose 3 images where there has been argument over whether they are true or not.

A useful lesson starter leading into the lesson - in the hour session planned for I used 6 minute intervals with an alarm to notify students when to stop and take a photo of the work in progress, but over longer sessions it works well too - 6 minutes per stage certainly keeps the lesson pacey, a longer session will give them more stages of development, which is great for AO2 and 3 as they can evidence review and refine and reflective thinking. Our students post on their Instagram as its quicker than having to go upload, print, cut out and stick in.

A nice starter activity for students to consider employment rights, and how they behave in the world of employment. Its an odd one out exercise to consider what is acceptable and not acceptable in the workplace, in things they may take for granted about their appearance

An easy step by step guide to doing joiners with photomerge on photoshop. This is so easy for students to explore David Hockney's joiners in a really fun and active way - because they are reasonably quick to do its feasible for students to be able to explore a set of these in a lesson and generate a body of work quickly. Mixes AO 1 and 2 nicely if they start by researching what Hockney did here. Always a busy and engaging lesson

A lesson through power point for younger learners to begin to think about how they could write about painting. This is a useful starting point for looking at subject matter, approach and techniques as things to consider when gathering responses. The presentation has suggested tasks to complete through the lesson to break into chunks.

This is a set of 16 slides featuring 30+ images of French Emblems by Claude Paradin. I use these with the boys you can come across that are not so engaged in their Art - they really go for the style of approach and the strange combinations of images, which sets their imagination going for their own ideas. Covers AO1 really well if you have students wanting to explore this kind of work with more interesting sources. For this activity they can work directly from the images before developing theirs over a series of lessons

A set of 15 questions to use as display to prompt thinking, or to use as starters. These have been really useful in challenging perceptions - I originally did these for an Open Evening but they have been great to refer to in class as opportunity arises. Includes

A starter and lesson follow on looking at composition, the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Section. This can extend into a set of lessons investigating composition in students' work. Great for a mix of AO1, and AO4 and incorporates some maths into the mix too. Useful for a wide range of KS2 3 4 & 5 as well as being great for a part of project work to show a good understanding of composition.

A starter activity - engages students in looking for connections and questioning what they see in what the differences and similarities are in the city views, which are real and which are false - leading into discussions on what the artists are attempting to do. Ideal for KS3, 4 and 5 as a starter for any lesson where you want them thinking as soon as they come in.

Written as an artist's statement about their work this provides year 1 A Level Art and Design with a really good example of how to write the essay that accompanies the Personal Investigation.

A feedback sheet for internal assessment and feedback, including comment box and tick boxes for AFL.

A fun starter to engage them as soon as they arrive and a good one to tick the equality and diversity box with opportunities to discuss gender and the way men and women tackle subject matter, challenging stereotypical view points. Really good for generating discussion with A Level and GCSE classes, and I've also used it in PSHE lessons to good effect.

7 starter activities to engage and inspire students in thinking outside of the box. Great for developing thinking skills to get lessons going on a positive note

6 thinking skills starters to engage and inspire as well as inform on different approaches and aspects of Art. Great for KS 3 4 & 5 - useful for starting lesson observations, or just as a way of giving them something different

A starter to focus students on questioning why people vandalise works of art, thinking outside the box to lead into discussion whether graffiti is art or vandalism, and how can you tell the difference.

A starter activity to engage in looking for the subject matter. Useful for students to see that artists paint their mums and for them to consider why they might do this. The works for any age KS2, 3 4 and 5 Art and Design

Always an enjoyable lesson with good opportunities for discussion and the promotion of equality and diversity. It has an engaging starter requiring students to question what is actually shocking about the images they are looking at, and how opinions and values change over time. The extended tasks allows for further personal responses to develop again promoting E&D in the students exploring and sharing what they find in term of a top 10 they create. Ideal for an intervention lesson at KS3, 4 and 5, or as a lesson to widen appreciation and knowledge of Art History

A fun quiz to test knowledge and engage students in some research in finding the answers. I've used it as longer starter to a lesson and as a homework. Multiple choice format to encourage an educated guess from the students it works well with KS4 and post 16 classes.