A useful little form to help year 1 A Level students focus their ideas as they begin to think about their Personal Investigation

A useful intervention or cover lesson which focusses analysis through a discussion style question on why the sea is a popular theme for painters. There is an odd one out starter to engage students from the start and a set of images for them to consider in response to the question. I find the discussion question approach much more useful than the standard art historical approach as the students can explore context and meaning through this.

A starter to encourage discussion, analysis and reasoning - students can decide on their criteria for "best" - most comfortable, fashionable, fun - and can look across both men's and women's.

2 fun activities to involve students which really engage students in a twist on Aboriginal Art approaches. This has been great with KS2 and 3 and they enjoy it because of the involvement with making the images from things personal to their journeys, routes to school or the footprint activity. A nice mix of activities to extend their responses and hits AO1 and 2 with creative responses and engagement. The resulting work can make a great class display so celebrates E &D really well.

This is a fun set of lessons for up to Year 8, working really well with KS2, but I've also used this idea with KS4 and post 16. It allows students to find about artists using similar approaches and aerial photographs to explore making an abstract painting, so covers AO1 2 and 4 nicely. Because they are looking at aerial photographs the usual worries about abstract art don't surface, and they are making something personal to themselves in what they choose as their subject matter. A nice set of lessons which they all enjoy

A starter activity which always engages students in looking for how artists create illusions in different ways and trick us in how we look. The slide has six images with explanations on slide 2. This starter can be used for any age group you are working with to look a bit harder.

A starter activity for sessions on drawing. This starter encourages students to consider new ways of drawing and promotes creative approaches to get them away from thinking drawing can only be done with dry media in a prescribed way. The power point has 7 images on slide one for students to work through and is ideal at GCSE and A Level for AO2 possibilities.

I've found that students fond it easier to draw from sculpture source images as they can focus on the tonal aspects without being distracted by detail. This resource consists of 36 images of hands from sculpture by Rodin, Michelangelo and Bernini. It leads into suggested drawing approaches students can then adopt from direct from observation, or from photos of their own and classmates hands. These images allow students to focus on essentials of drawing - large scale charcoal drawings look really good from these, and give students confidence. This is great for any project on the figure and hits AO1 as well as AO3

This has always been a great lesson - students do not know that photography is a baby in terms of art forms at 200 years old and they are really interested in looking at the images to work out why these paintings are so different before and after the invention of photography. (before they know what the lesson is about). The power point contains 8 and 10 pre and after images to cut up for students to use in a sorting exercise and then suggest what has happened to affect painting like this. The file contains brief notes to explain the main differences, which the students can then expand on in their own responses. This is great contextual stuff for Photography students but also for any Art students if you want an interesting art history, contextual lesson hitting AO1 by giving them a real understanding and background knowledge behind Impressionism

A set of 10 images across different cultures and a lesson plan to work as an intervention lesson or lessons in the development of coursework projects. It requires the careful selection of a set of media into party bags with one of the images - and works on the premise that the more constricting the rules you place on students the more creative they get and the harder they look. This is ideal for GCSE and A Level and allows for creative links with other culture's approaches and stylisations. It also hits AO2 in requiring students to explore the boundaries of working with limited random media. The lesson plan includes references to differentiation and equality and diversity as well as highlighting the opportunities through the lesson to hit the learning objectives

A great lesson for early for creative approaches to photography. I use this in Photography but it can be used for any Art and Design where you want the student to think a bit more creatively about how they take photographs for their subject matter. I do this with the students using their phones - to get them into the mind set of using their phones more for their work. The power point shows examples of approach to use of the mirror to achieve unexpected and deceiving results, and includes a photographer as a source who they can respond to for AO1 using this approach.

A lesson starter to encourage looking and thinking. Students love these puzzles - they will not be able to identify all the images and that helps them start to look for clues and guess, a key part of looking and questioning what they see. This is good for any age where you want a starter to engage on entry and will work well working in pairs or small groups. The slide contains 7 images of diverse images with a connection in the title.

8 engaging starters, some will extend into tasks for class or homework research and planning. Great for creating a culture of looking and questioning - a state of mind you want your students to be in, whatever the age.

A starter activity and extension task to use as a lesson of idea development, challenging students to be more ambitious in thinking how art can be made in unusual and sometimes quite fun ways. This can be used to focus students as they enter and will encourage curiosity in exploring the images as to how they might be done. Super for GCSE and A Level groups.

It's always good to get students to think big and challenge themselves. This lesson asks students to plan and develop ideas for working on a large scale and comes with an odd one out starter to stimulate thinking at the start of the session. The lesson is in the form of 16 page power point which I use to get ideas going for ways in which artists can work big scale and leads into tasks with learning objectives to guide the lesson. This can be used as an intervention lesson or as part of a SOW involving scale from KS3 to KS4 and 5, hitting AO1 2 and 3 nicely.

A set of 7 starters to get students thinking and engaged. Always popular with students as they can enjoying looking for clues and connections between the images, and learn some new things along the way. Suitable for primary and secondary age groups.

A collection o keep students thinking - the lessons build from a starter and are great for cover or intervention lessons. The approaches here give good integration of critical thinking with practical activities.

A nice little starter that will get students making some links with different approaches across cultures and hook up with their Geography. There is a trick one also to get them guessing. They will enjoy spotting the countries as some are easier to identify than others. Useful for links between Art and Geography, so can be used as a starter in either or in form tutor time

Instagram is great as a way of using something students are happy with as a method of working. I find it great as students are already familiar with it, but not necessarily as a way of working creatively. Obviously ideal for photography students but also for any of the art specifications as they can record what they do and build evidence of development of ideas. Its handy if you can get your senior management to unblock it, and this is easier obviously post 16, but it can still be used as homework if not, and you know instantly who is doing their homework and who isn't. The best thing about it is that students buy into this - they are really happy doing it, they can get likes from each other and you can comment instantly on what they have doe. Get them to set up a second account from their personal one and they're off - and it gives you a load of stuff to promote your department and school or college.

A really useful prompt sheet for students at GCSE and A Level to use as a guide for what to consider when starting to wrote about a piece of Art rather than just write biographical detail