These spellings are based off the statutory spellings of the English National Curriculum 2014. Children in years 3&4 are expected to spell these words by the end of Year 4, and in my classroom, we try to learn and familiarise ourselves with them as much as possible. With this resource, I print, laminate and cut up these words and have them in a basket or box in the classroom. As a starter to guided reading or any English lesson really, I take out the basket and give each table 5 words to focus on. They discuss the words and the spelling patterns, along with the meaning. This way the words are familiar to them. To increase children’s use of these words, any time they use one of them in their writing, they are encouraged to underline it to show they can spell it. Thus, the spelling of my year 4s has greatly improved, thank god! This resource comes with 109 words in both yellow and black and white. Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts. Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram for more ideas :)

Dreading a dull lesson on how to create a classification key? Look no further because here your children will be super engaged by creating a classification key for different types of sweets! Included: An activity to allow children to try classify animals in pairs. & An editable Power Point which explains: What ‘classifying’ is. How to create your first question for a key. How to use a classification key. Allows children to work collaboratively by encouraging them to engage in ‘partner talk’. It encourages them to JUSTIFY their choice of groups. Heightening their reasoning skills is very important, especially in Science. I completed this lesson this week as an introduction to classification keys. Next week we will be classifying vertebrates and invertebrates. Please leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.

My most recent class assembly was based on Theseus and the Minotaur (with a twist). We had covered this story during our topic of myths https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/myths-understanding-the-features-11943412 and the children LOVED it. I wrote this play script based on the myth however we added a little twist. The minotaur is known to be a FEARSOME, UGLY creature, but in our story he turns out to be nice once people get to know him. Moral: Don’t judge a book by its cover. The play script is editable to ensure that there is enough lines for the children in your class. I have 25 and there is 25 parts. However, it is an easy script to edit and adapt. To tie it all together, we sang ‘Eye of the Tiger’ in the middle of the performance which went down a treat with the parents and the school. Masks NOT included This resource contains the script ONLY and in total the play lasted about 15 minutes. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did and please let me know how you and your class got on.

Prior to a ‘big write’, I ask the children to stick these into their books as a check list to ensure they include all of the necessary features of our chosen genre. You can add extra things on there too, such as a whole class target or focus you’ve been working on that week (e.g. similes or openers). I use it as a slight assessment tool for myself to see how my children are progressing in writing. They complete a big write at the end of our genre which is usually every 2-3 weeks. It’s a simple tool to show progression in writing as well as make use of self and peer assessment. Just edit this document to suit the needs of your class/genre in writing. I’d love to hear how you got on using them :)

There was a lot of interest on my Instagram (rebecca.the.irish.teacher) of a sample cover letter for teaching abroad, so I decided to make one. A cover letter is the school’s first impression of you as a person, professional and potential employee. Even though you may be applying for lots of jobs, ensure you make your Cover letter stands out from the crowd. Read their mission and vision, read their objectives as a school and mention these things in your cover letter and how you are going prosper and flourish in their school. For this sample cover letter, I have clicked on to a job offer on TESjobs and read their ethos, mission and vision statements. I quote from them and make my cover letter look very individual to their school in hope to make it ‘stand out’. There is no set length required for a cover letter but you need to refer to their ethos and mission statements if you want to make them believe you would like a job at their school. This product includes: A detailed cover letter that’s specific to a school’s ethos, while providing information of you as a teacher.

20 philosophical thought cards to encourage children to discuss deep ideas and justify the reasons for their choice. These cards can be used as a display, or as a lesson in itself to engage children in paired discussion. Philosophy for Children (P4C) has been proven to improve: Critical reasoning skills. Creative thinking skills. Concentration skills. Listening skills. Communication skills. Social skills. Once a week for a lesson, give it a try!

As a person who has worked in the Middle East for three years, I have started to recruit with the company I work for. This product is an example of a completed CV, which has proven successful for many candidates. Why am I selling this? When I started applying for jobs in the Middle East, I struggled to make my CV stand out. I wondered: What layout they looked for? What to include? How long should it be? How do I stand out from the hundreds of applicants? This product will take the stress out of applying for you. Just read, edit (to fit your experience) and apply! Happy job hunting!

Due to popular demand, I have created an editable CV template to use when writing your own CV for teaching abroad or at home. It includes the exact layout used and favored by recruiters and gives examples of what to write. Just read, then delete everything written in red and off you go. Happy job hunting!

A mathematical activity to engage children with converting units of measure (Christmas Theme). I have included a map of the world with different parts labelled for children to measure the distances between. Children must measure the distance between 2 different parts of the world. Then because 1cm=35 minutes, they must then calculate how long it would take to get to said part. For example: How long will it take Santa to get from house A to house B? Using your ruler, measure the distance from A to B. If it’s 7.6 cm- round to the nearest whole number which is 8cm. 1cm = 35 minutes so 35 x 8 = 280 minutes =4 hours 40 minutes Fill in the table below of your findings. This example has been done for you. Children must then fill in a table with their findings. Included also is two different design opportunities. Children can design their own Christmas jumper and Christmas cookies.

So I put together this information guide to support teachers in carrying out a P4C lesson. This can be used as a guideline to follow before teaching a P4C lesson. Check out some of my packs with complete lessons on my store https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/philosophy-for-children-12033036

Philosophy 4 Children is being taught across the UK to teach children fundamental skills such as: critical thinking. reasoning skills. empathy. team work. In this pack, I have included: Philosophy Display Cards Philosophy lesson plan: recycling Philosophy lesson plan: friendships Philosophy Powerpoint: recycling Philosophy Powerpoint: friendships A document on how to teach philosophy. I have been teaching Philosophy lessons for a whole term now and the difference it has made in children’s problem solving skills in friendship issues, aswell as mathematical problems is amazing! We spend an hour a week on P4C and it’s the children’s favourite lesson. Some of them have come out with some cracking conclusions too: “Crying is an expression of your truest emotions. The body takes over from the mind”. I mean WOW!

6 challenge cards for children to solve upon finishing a comprehension task early or if looking to encourage them to think deeper. We have been trying to use the A.P.E (answer, prove, explain) technique for inference questions, which encourages children to PROVE their answers by looking at clues in the text/pictures. These challenge cards remind children to prove their answers.

A ONE page worksheet on inverse operations for KS2! I use this one sheet for each ability group within my Year 4 class. I differentiate through support rather than work. Yes the lower ability children may need more initial support and resources, but they are flying in confidence and in Maths ability. This sheet allows children to move on to a harder challenge every 3 questions, thus challenging each ability group at all times. Before children start their activity, they need to critically think about a statement written on the paper (work backwards and change the sign). I allow them to talk in mixed ability pairs about this statement and PROVE that it is correct/incorrect before they start their activity. By doing this, children learn to justify their own answers in Mathematics, thus having an overall better understanding for the Mathematical concepts. I have adopted this strategy for all topics and it’s proving very effective in children’s understanding. GIve it a try and be sure to let me know how it worked in your classroom.

As last week was Book Week, I planned a week’s worth of lessons based around the book ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Each day, we read a chapter of the story and then engage in lessons based on what we’ve read. As you can see from the cover image, this involves lots of chocolate!! The children absolutely adored these lessons and were so engaged in the process of melting chocolate. They needed to see which chocolate would be the best to build the Indian Prince’s palace out of by melting different types of chocolate. HINT: flakes don’t melt! Honestly, a really fun week and trust me, you’ll enjoy it too. Please check out my Instagram for more of my activities for Book Week: Rebecca.the.irish.teacher

An editable book cover hunt. Children will follow the clues on the reverse side of each book cover and hunt around the school for some hidden treasure. They must write down the names of the book covers that they come across too and aim to read at least one of them that week. Just something a bit different during Book Week to engage them with different books. For more information of activities that we did during Book Week, check out my Instagram: Rebecca.the.irish.teacher.

A complete booklet to hand out to staff outlining events for Book Week. There are ideas, timetables for the week, overviews, checklists for teachers etc. This booklet can be edited to suit your school, but also can be used directly as is to make your Book Week run successfully. This has just been used by my school and was incredibly successful. See photos on my Instagram for more details (Rebecca.the.irish.teacher).

A comprehension based on the story of ‘Who killed King Tut’. (a report) Children are encouraged to use their inference skills and comment on why the author has used a certain structure to help the reader. Children will use a range of reading skills and strategies when answering this comprehension.

This is a follow on lesson from:Non-Chronological Reports: Understanding the features. Children cannot and should not be writing their own report without first of all familiarising themselves with the text type. Having completed that step, they can then begin to think about planning their very own report. This resource includes: *4 day detailed lesson plan with a step-by-step guide on how to deliver these lessons. *Report adaption sheet for drawing their new idea to change. *Pictures to caption- this confirms children’s ability to order the report. *‘Who murdered King Tut’ text for reference. *Comprehension on the text used to ensure understanding. *Success Criteria for children to self and peer assess their report writing. *Drama ideas: such as text tennis, hot seating etc. The idea behind this week of teaching is that children are reciting/acting out the text each day, confirming their understanding of the report structure/sentence structure orally. Once children can do this, they will be able to write their very own version. They are encouraged this week to change one part of the report in order to write their very own version. For example: instead of ‘Who killed King Tut?’, it could be ‘Who killed King Thor the Viking’ children will have to adapt the report they know so well to make it their own. Now that they have a basis to go off, their report will be much more successful.

After hours of reading and PD on Pie Corbett’s Talk4Writing, I decided to plan my English lessons around his style of teaching. The idea behind it is fun filled, active and different so my children and I absolutely love it! Included: 4 day, detailed lesson plan (differentiation included). Power Point of the features of a report. ‘Who killed King Tut’ text resource (colour coded). ‘Boxing it up’ plan Report starters- which allow the children to get into the mind of writing report style sentences. Text mapping opportunities- which allow children to act out and DRAW the entire report so they can recite it, thus learning the sentence structure orally. I have put a lot of detail into the lesson plan, so it can be easily followed to apply this style of teaching to your English lessons. The idea behind it is: Week 1= Imitation Phase. In this week, children need to learn off a text to fully immerse themselves in the style of writing, structure, language etc. This is done through actions and also text mapping (drawing pictures). Only when children fully understand a text type, should they begin to write. The writing of a report will be done at the end of week 2. (This resource is only week 1). By the end of the week, your children should fully understand the features of a report, and should be able to recite the whole thing using their text map. It’s lots of fun and a fantastic scaffolding for children to understand before they write. Give it a try!