Activities which will suit literacy for biology, or general literacy. Or for when you need a few minutes... Brain gym, match-up, true or false, design, discussion, look and remember... I have sourced some of the basics from the net and done exercises around them. Hope it will be useful. I think this will suit years 5,6, 7.

This is a great set of typical British things, and the words for a match-up activity. It makes a great starter, but not beyond year 7. I played Splat! with my students. (Two students come up to the board, then I say an item and the first to touch it is the winner.) Then, I put them in groups and gave each group three images to mind map. Next, the groups moved round to see if anything could be added. We discussed which things they had seen/experienced and which things were a bit old-fashioned or out of date. Thanks to YourJigsawPuzzles for permission to use the montage.

A bit of colouring in fun for younger pupils.

A multiple choice quiz for students to complete. Then they make their resolutions for 2017.

Some memory exercises for pair work, a match-up activity and an exercise on personality adjectives. This powerpoint will hopefully be motivational at the start of the new year!

This is a number of great stills, which the students mind map, or think, pair, share. They need to place the pictures in context and say: Who? Where? When? What did...? Why did they...? How did s/he feel? What did they say? What happened just before? What happened afterwards? Etc...

Here is a selection of fun starters/ activities using a grid. Only one needs any preparation; you can just go with the others. Adaptable to most subject matter.

There are two lists, one taking a positive view of a Trump action, and the other, a negative take. The students match these up, then describe what the images represent. Finally, they weigh up their own opinions about Trump’s policies. This sheet could be used in a debate about Trump. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it will encourage them to find out more. Actually, I have put quite a bit of effort into this, so I hope it will be useful!

Six witches, each with an exercise. After completing the exercises, they can cut them up, jumble them, then match the right passage to the picture before sticking in their books. Just a bit of fun!

This is a list of sentences which the students have to re-phrase, using higher level language skills e.g. reported speech, conditionals and compound tenses.

Get your students involved and thinking, right from the start of the lesson! Turn the objective/title/'learn&' - however you refer to it in your school, into an interactive exercise. Fifteen suggestions. I hope you find them useful.

Here are some ideas for starter activities that require little or no preparation. They can be adapted to different subject areas.

A narrative of the famous county Durham legend, with comprehension questions and language exercises.

This is an updated version of my 2016 powerpoint, which was very popular. There are lots of activities to keep them busy and get them thinking. It would be nice to get a few reviews on this one.

This is a worksheet about the Do’s and Don’ts for going back to school. Having read the guidelines, it looks like these will be the recommendations for students. They match up image and description, then consider the questions. A chance to explore how they feel about the return to school and to think about how they will need to behave. I have prepared this for EAL but it might be useful in the mainstream classroom. The font I have used is comic sans and it is so popular, it shocks me that TES can’t preview it in comic sans!

This is a worksheet to get them thinking about adaptations we have to make during the pandemic. They match up the image and greeting. I have prepared this for EAL, but it may be useful in mainstream teaching to get them thinking and for a fun starter.

The resource consists of a power point and two handouts. This was part of a topic we did as a department entitled ‘It’s a man’s world.’ The powerpoint looks at the Brontes in terms of the struggles they had as women, rather than looking at any specific writings of theirs. The ppt starts with the famous clip of Kate Bush as Cathy. My students’ reactions to this (a class of year 9 girls) were very interesting. Links are drawn between Kate Bush and her heroine. The two handouts are : ‘Kate Bush chose Wuthering Heights’ - they read and answer the questions on the handout and ‘The Brontes as feminists’ - they answer the questions on the ppt. I hope it will be useful.

This is a ppt of 57 slides, with activities that students can complete themselves. My students have their English work, but these activities are extra. They are fun, although some lend themselves to writing tasks and where possible, a writing task has been suggested. I’m sending this to my students, in years 8 and 9. I have taken my Fifty Fun Activities ppt on here, which I uploaded for use in PHSC , adapted it and added to it quite significantly. I hope it will be useful. I would love some positive feedback; wouldn’t we all in these miserable times? Some of these activities are sourced from the net.

This is a ‘for and against’ worksheet to get them thinking in a constructive way at this very restrictive time. They read the sheet, compete the questions and carry out the four research topics. It looks a bit awry on the preview, but it is fine on download.

This power point looks at various topics that may crop up in language paper 2, section B. It focuses on the actual content (pros and cons), rather than language techniques. It is intended to make students think about where they stand on important issues. Each slide has a list of pros and cons, and a language task. I have put this ppt together bearing in mind that students are at home. It is easy for them to work through it without teacher guidance.