These are some resources for talking about the Learning Pit and Growth Mindset. There is a PDF of lesson slides and two sets of posters that I created using inspiration from around the internet. Some pictures are taken from Google images, some from posters I created. Videos are from Youtube and Vimeo.

Great resource when learning about the Mayans. After a look at how Mayans communicated and how their number and writing system works, your class could try out this interesting activity, creating their own codices. They could write their name and a few sentences for a friend to decode.

Interesting look at imagery in Narrative Poetry using an Australian Poem, The Man from Snowy River by Banjo Patterson. Lesson Plan outlines entire teaching sequence. There are two PowerPoints. One with annotation of how I did the lesson with children, the other one plain for your use. There is also a worksheet with differentiation at the bottom of the sheet. At the end of the lesson Children will have written their own stanza describing the station mentioned in the poem.

This worksheet asks pupils to Self and Peer-Assess after completing a performance. It helps them to assess their part within the group and how they felt each of their peers performed as part of the group. A useful resource for Self and Peer assessment evidence.

To be used in conjunction with excerpts from the filmed STOMP "OUT LOUD". Most of these things can be found on YouTube just type in the heading of the section eg: STOMP OUT LOUD brooms great resource to help pupils analyse the musical elements in a piece of performance art. Asks lots of questions about rhythm, pitch and sound production. Perhaps a great beginning of the Year activity for Year 7 or 8.

This lesson plan and presentation will help children understand how to infer a character's feelings rather than just writing the emotion. It involves a fun starter for the teacher - a little bit of acting, which the children love! If you are not a fan of acting you could get away with the text at the beginning of the presentation and the discussion. Children will end up writing their own paragraph inferring what a character is feeling. Differentiated planning.

This presentation contains a full lesson with starter and plenary. Starter involves pupils listening to two pieces and colouring and drawing - leads to a discussion of the differences between impressionism and expressionism. Examples are given. Serialism is included with a description of how to fill in a serialism matrix. The matrix worksheet is provided. Some parts of filling in the matrix may need to be scaffolded by a teacher. Informative lesson material.

This resource gives all the basic resources for a project on sustainability. There is a letter inviting students to design a new school that your headteacher wants to build. There is a list of sustainable elements with prices that your students can use to design the school sustainably. There is also a criteria sheet (which was co-created by students) that they can self and peer assess as they go, and you as the teacher can use as well if you desire. This is a great fun way to assess your students understanding of sustainable design practises.

This resource is an Active Inspire Flipchart - works with older versions of Active Inspire. This resource can be used as a prompt to start students thinking about the Greeks, and what the Greeks created that we still use today. Children are given the information on 9 different Greek inventions we still use today, and are then asked to prioritise each one. Which one is the most important to them? Why? It can generate a great discussion whilst teaching children a little about the Greeks. I used it as a one off during our Greeks Topic.

I’m not kidding! 5 Presentations and two example analysis worksheets are downloadable from this one source. Presentations with plenty of examples of the composers work include: John Williams (Star Wars) James Newton Howard (The Village) Hans Zimmer (Batman) Danny Elfman (Edward Scissorhands) Alan Silvestri (Back to the Future) The two example analysis sheets contain the youtube link to the song being analysed. Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean Some links may need to be replaced to some of these pieces as the resource was created several years ago now.

This presentation and worksheet is a lesson in itself! Pupils are given the worksheet with songs and the musical elements on it - and the presentation gives basic information about 6 Musicals from the 70’s and 80’s including Phantom of the Opera, Hair, Godspell and Les Miserables. Pupils listen to each song in turn and use their worksheet to analyse each piece of music. A great fun lesson!

New! Flipchart has been replaced by a PPTX. This is a lesson I have used with children who did not work well together in groups. There is discussion about what it means to be a team, they have to define what groupwork is, and there is an exercise which will make a great display (a good reminder if it is placed in the classroom). This could be used if group work behaviour is slipping, or at the beginning of the year to re-enforce the idea of working in teams/groups.

"Find me a musical which uses a story from the Bible..." and much more! This 20 questions internet research game is a fun pupil-led activity where they will learn a surprising amount about Musical Theatre. They will discover both older and more modern musicals and some questions are much trickier than others! For extension you could ask pupils to find the 'vital statistics' of each musical as they go -ie. date of premiere, stars performing in it, where it has been performed. Answer sheet is on the second page. Happy searching!

This lesson involves the playing of "Simon Says" to understand prepositions and prepositional phrases. there is lots of discussion and class writing a list of prepositions they know. Lots of movement and partner work. The worksheets are differentiated into LA, MA, HA with extension. Lots of fun and action in this lesson!

3 Worksheets where children have to colour in the different types of Nouns up to: Blue = proper noun yellow = common noun red = pronoun green= collective noun purple = abstract noun LA sheet has first three MA sheet has collective nouns added HA sheet has abstract nouns added to that Children are asked to extend themselves by writing sentences after they finish colouring.

Informative presentation with links to listening examples for music written about 'Space". Brief information about composers and dates of works is also given. Includes: Holst Planets Kronos Quartet Sun Rings David Bowie Space Oddity Haydn The Creation Mike Oldfield Songs of Distant Earth and more... Could be used for analysis practise.

A list of the Musical Elements for Early Secondary/KS3 pupils. Terminology may differ across countries - this particular resource was created in Australia. Feel free to alter terminology where necessary.

A bit of fun for Homework or you could alter and make it a lesson or activity. Children are asked to physically demonstrate prepositions ie: running around the park sitting beside their sister hiding behind the door they are to take photographs to bring in or glue into English or homework books if necessary. Could be used to create a fun display too! I offered prizes to my class for this task and some of the results were brilliant and hilarious. Real world learning!

This activity is designed for use during Transition time from one year to another. It is a great icebreaker for the children to learn about each other, and about where things are kept in their new classroom. I used it at the beginning of the year and it was a great success. You can edit to make it appropriate for the children in your class.