This is a unit of work that I created for use with Years 3, 4, 5 & 6. It spans six sessions, although it can run for A LOT longer if desired! Although I am a musician, it requires no musical knowhow whatsoever to teach! I was very conscious of this as I was sharing the resource with teachers who lacked confidence in their musical knowledge and skills. This unit focuses predominately on listening, appraisal and understanding, but there are also opportunities for composition and performance included. KS2 Music Attainment Targets Covered: • Pupils should be taught to listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory. • Appreciate and understand a wide range of high quality music drawn from a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians. • Develop an understanding of the history of music. There are also optional links to Science within each lesson, which enable you to cover the statutory requirements for teaching sound: • Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating. • Recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear. • Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it. • Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it. • Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases. As a Maths Specialist I also couldn’t resist throwing in a few sorting opportunities in the form of Venn and Carroll diagrams! Overview • The topic starts with an informal baseline assessment and ends with an informal end of unit assessment. • Each session focuses on a specific family of the orchestra. • Pupils enter the classroom each session to an example of music featuring that particular family, giving them the opportunity to appraise music and develop their own taste. • Pupils learn what each orchestral instrument is called, what it sounds like and how it produces sound. • Pupils become familiar with the terms pitch, timbre, vibration, dynamics and tempo. • Children conduct research and learn through activities; however, notes are included for classrooms where ICT/books are not readily available or where pupils lack sufficient research skills. • Activities are fun and active - with low entry and high ceiling for differentiation. • A wode range of activities, e.g. rapping, sorting, poster making, ‘Happy Families’, interactive whiteboard games, mind-maps and guessing games. • Very little marking is required, as the activities lend themselves to being carried out in a group and outcomes can often be photographed or filmed for evidence. Planning, powerpoint and all paper resources are included. I hope you enjoy!

This PowerPoint is for a unit of work that took a week with my Year 6 class and looked at the features of discussion texts. Persuasive techniques are also revised. The texts are taken from The National Literacy Strategy ‘Argument Unit’. Children read and analyse a persuasive text ‘Should mobile phones be banned in schools?’ as a class and come to define the key features of discursive writing. Pupils then analyse a different text based on the circus and highlight the key features that they have previously identified. Pupils then prepare for a debate. Taking the story of the Pied Piper, pupils are assigned roles and have to prepare a persuasive speech to argue their point of the debate. We then hold debate and discuss the value of debates in real life. Pupils finish the week with two lessons to write a piece of discursive writing on whether pupils should be able to write on laptops in schools. Pupils are provided with the arguments for and against, but must do the rest of the work on their own. This then forms an assessment piece. National Curriculum Links: Year 5 & 6 Programmes of Study discuss and evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, considering the impact on the reader plan their writing by: identifying the audience for and purpose of the writing, selecting the appropriate form and using other similar writing as models for their own. Through debate the pupils also hone their speaking and listening skills and this also provides a good opportunity for assessment.

I first used this resource with more able Year 6 pupils, who were working towards the then Level 6 SATs test. The maths curriculum has changed since then, but this resource is still very relevant to the statutory requirements of the Year 6 and Year 7 programmes of study. The resource includes nine multi-part questions and a pupil self-assessment table at the bottom. It is great way of analysing pupils’ strengths and weaknesses at the start of a topic and I like to repeat the activity at the end of the topic to see progress and set the next steps. Alternatively, it can just be used as a worksheet or one off activity to consolidate learning. Resource is provided as both a PDF and a Word document if you would like to adapt it at all.

This resource is comprised of 22 ready-to-go 'Always, sometimes, never?' investigations. A really easy option for lesson starters, morning tasks mental maths sessions, revision, homework, displays, or early finishers' task. Pupils are presented with a statements and have to determine whether it is true all of the time, some of the time or never. Most importantly, they need to support their decision with enough examples to convince others. This is great revision of lots of mathematical ideas, including properties of shape, properties of number and algebra and develops pupils ability to reason and justify. All of the activities have been tried and tested with my Y6 class and some Y4 pupils too. I would say they are most useful for upper KS2 pupils but could be used lower down. I found them particularly helpful as quick revision activities for SATs.

A whopping 69 ready to go activities - many of which can be easily adapted to use again. All of the activities are based on the number aspect of maths and have been tried and tested with my own class. There are a mixed or closed questions, mysteries, open-ended investigations, quick quizzes and worded problems. These are ideal for starter or mental maths activities - great for revision. Some of the more open-ended activities ended up spanning a whole lesson with my class as they took them off in different directions and made links with other areas of mathematics. I used them with Y6 but they could also be suitable for Y5 pupils. Mathematical ideas covered include: - Calculation with all four operations (mental and written methods). - Negative numbers. - Problems involving inverses. - Properties of number: factors, primes, square numbers, multiples, product, odd, even. - Place value - including decimals and rounding.

This was a mini topic that I did with a Year 5/6 class but it would work throughout Key Stage 2. It spanned two afternoon sessions and could easily be lengthened to create more of a topic. Pupils discover the key features of Aboriginal art and then go on to explore and record their own ideas before producing a final Aboriginal-style piece. Plenty of opportunity is given to evaluate their own and others work. The resource includes: Teaching plans for two lessons PowerPoint presentation (15 slides) Simple pupil planning sheet Aboriginal symbols reference sheet The topic provides good coverage of the 2013 National Curriculum for Art and Design (links are highlighted in bold on the planning). Planning and resource sheets are Word documents and fully editable. Makes for a lovely display at the end!

This was a PowerPoint presentation and handout that I put together for a staff meeting in my role as subject-leader. It introduces ideas from the Mathematics Specialist Teacher programme and aims to develop mathematical reasoning. It discusses the importance of reasoning, outlines the mathematical skills required to develop reasoning and provides ideas for activities to develop reasoning. The activities can be adapted to suit any age group and any mathematical concept. Many of the activities could also be adapted across the curriculum. They are self-differentiating, with a low entry point and high ceiling and are very quick and easy to set up. The activities are a great option for lesson starters, mental maths activities or time-fillers. The notes under each slide provide an explanation of the activity and some ideas on how it could be adapted. The handout is provided in both PDF and Microsoft Word format.

**Update: I have recently changed the skeleton file as some people fed-back that it wasn’t printing as it should as a Publisher file. It is now an A4 PDF file, but can be enlarged to A3 in order to get the same size of skeleton that I used on my display (or it could be scaled down to A5 for cute mini skeletons!) This interactive display invites the pupils to arrange the skeleton and label each bone correctly. I enlarged the skeleton, cut out each bone, laminated it and then stuck a bit of blu-tac to the back; however, if you are lucky enough to have a skeleton in school you could just label that! The display also includes questions and answers about the skeleton and bones and fun facts. I have included a picture of the finished display once it was moved to the school corridor (and, therefore, wasn’t being used interactively any more). I have changed the font to Comic Sans as the one I used isn’t often installed as standard, but each file is provided in Word as well as PDF so you can fiddle with the font and wording.

Guided reading planning for Y5/Y6 Middle to Higher ability readers based on the text ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’. Five sessions of planning are included, although in reality it could spread over a much longer period of time as I must admit that I struggled to fit it all in to five 30 minute sessions! The planning includes teacher discussion prompts (each linked to AFs) and a follow up reading activity. In my class I had four groups and ran guided reading over four days. Each group had one session with me and three independent days. The pupils followed this cycle over the four days: • Pre-reading in preparation for Book Club. • Preparing answers for Book Club. Children had a preview of some of the more complex questions and wrote their answers in their reading journals. This had the benefit of me being able to ‘pick on’ any child, but also meant I had some written evidence for all pupils every week (I was finding that some weeks I hadn’t written any notes for some pupils during the Book Club session). • Book Club with teacher. • Follow-up Task. Each group knew which day of the week was their follow-up/Book Club/prep day. On the fifth day I heard individual readers and the pupils did free reading of their own books/magazines. I sometimes used this day to catch up if we had missed a guided reading session earlier in the week.

Labels of thirteen prefixes and suffixes commonly used today, which were derived from the Ancient Greek language. Provided in PDF format and also Word so you can edit or add to. Ideas for use: Add to working wall (some could go on maths working wall) with slips of paper and challenge pupils to add words that include these suffixes and prefixes. Lesson starter - how may words with the prefix ‘geo’ or ‘tele’ can you think of in 1 minute? Use as part of a spelling lesson to introduce the concept of prefixes and suffixes and the meanings that they convey. Provide as a stimulus for pupils when writing their own Ancient Greek Myths and Legends - can they use these suffixes and prefixes to inspire their character or place names? Build on this to explore prefixes and suffixes derived from Ancient Rome or Latin. Words included (with translation): geo hex hydro mega micro octo pente phone photo poly scope techne tele

Reports should obviously be very personal to each individual child, so I am in no way suggesting that you will just cut and paste comments from this resource. However, from experience, I know that your mind can go blank after a while (particularly on the 27th report!) and it can help to have a bit of inspiration. This resource includes: Tips for report writing from my experience - particularly useful for NQTs. Lots of example statements that I have taken from previous reports I have written, grouped into categories like, ‘Poor presentation’ and ‘Struggles with friendship groups’. Examples of personal statement sections (high-achiever, middle-achiever and SEND). I have also thrown in some examples or generic statements that I wrote for core subjects (maths, reading, writing and speaking & listening) differentiated from Level 4 - Level 6. The statements might not be true to your cohort but I have included them just to give an example of the kind of generic paragraphs that you might write at the beginning of the report writing process. This allows you to cut and paste the level that best suits the child in question and then edit the paragraph to make it more accurate and personal and also to give it a better flow. The statements are all taken from real reports and are perhaps most applicable to Key Stage 2 pupils. I have included the resource in PDF version and Word version. PDF is probably the best to print as it will keep the original formatting, but I have included a Word version as this enables you to copy, paste and edit more easily. The I hope that you find this resource useful and time-saving…writing reports really is the worst!!

This display was used in a corridor between two Year 6 classrooms and was a real talking point amongst the pupils. It includes famous groups and duos that they will most probably be familiar with and descriptions of different types of relationships. It also has prompt questions to get pupils thinking and talking about their own relationships. Would also work well on display in the classroom, a quiet space or assembly hall. The pictures and questions could also be used as a prompt for discussing relationships during Circle Time or assembly.

This resource is best suited to KS2 and features key vocabulary to help with setting up a science working wall. I have included it in Word format as well as PDF so you can edit to suit your favourite colours and fonts. It includes: Scientific skills, e.g. comparing results, using equipment. Types of scientific investigation with an example scientific question for each, e.g. observation, fair test (kids love a fair test!) Ways of presenting data with a picture of each, e.g. table, line graph. 18 scientific questions for pupils to match with the most appropriate type of enquiry. Uses: Print and laminate several copies for pupils to use as a toolkit to help with planning their investigations. Give pupils the selection of scientific questions provided and ask them to decide which type of investigation best suits each question. Similarly, give pupils scientific questions and ask them to consider what the data would look like and the most effective way to present it. Print and laminate these labels and keep them on your science working wall permanently or select a few to display as the focus of each unit. As a class, consider which scientific skills we are good at and which we need to work more on. Ask pupils to consider ‘What’s the same? What’s different?’ between different types of investigation and data presentation. Pose the scientific question for the lesson and ask pupils to rule out each type of investigation in turn until they find the best way of answering the question. Or flip this around and give the pupils a type of investigation and they must come up with a question that they would like to investigate. Hope this save a bit of time for you and also helps to keep the transferable scientific skills in the forefront of pupil’s minds whilst they enjoy exploring the subject knowledge of plants, humans, materials etc.

A simple PowerPoint with addition and subtraction calculation questions that provide pupils with the opportunity to practise their written methods. For the first activity the 10 questions get progressively harder and I used this as an assessment to identify gaps and group pupils accordingly for teaching input. I repeated these questions at the end of the unit to assess progress and next steps. The second activity includes 13 questions that are grouped in three categories of difficulty. There are two further reasoning activities to consolidate the learning.

The resource includes photographs of 51 different instruments (common orchestral instruments and school percussion instruments) with their names underneath. The resource can be used in so many different ways and - if printed on card and laminated - it is a resource that can be used time and time again! Ideas for activities and uses: Matching the instrument to its name. Sorting /ordering according to different criteria, e.g instrument families, pitch of the sound, size of the instrument… Venn Diagram sorting, e.g. wood/metal, played with a beater/played by hand… Display or working wall labels. Music trolley/cupboard labels. Stimulus for a composition - assign or have pupils choose a number of instruments to incorporate in their piece. Provide pupils with a title for a piece of music, eg. ‘The Storm’ - what instruments might you use? Baseline/end-of-unit assessment task. Listening activity: play a piece of music and have pupils pick out the instruments that they can hear from the pile. As well as PDF, the resource is provided in Word format in case you want to edit the font or use a different name for a particular instrument. Thank you for looking and I hope this resource saves you some time!

This resource looks at the three main types of sentence structure: simple, compound and complex. Opportunities are given for pupils to: Learn the features of each type of sentence structure. Use the terms noun and verb and consolidate their understanding of word classes. Use the terms main clause and subordinate clause (the idea of adult and child is given as a pictoral representation). Identify sentence structures within texts: a newspaper article and an extract from Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. Up-level sentences by adding suborindate clauses to simple sentences before, after and in the middle of the main clause. Use commas correctly the mark clauses and clarify meaning. The presentation has little activities throughout, which you could build on to structure a mini unit of work or just dip into for ten minutes at a time. It would work well as an introduction earlier down the school, revision in upper KS2/KS3 or with a guided intervention group who have gaps in their understanding. I found it particularly useful for assessing the pupil’s understanding of the vocabulary associated with sentence level and word level work.

This is the sales particulars that I created for a lesson on persuasive writing. It gives pupils and idea of layout and what is included in a persuasive house brochure, but can they write their own so that it is a bit more persuasive?

These can be printed and laminated to label up resource trays for your pupils. They fit standard school trays and can of course be edited to say whatever you like! Not ground breaking, but might save you a bit of time!

Selection of key vocabulary originally used for Literacy working wall with a Y6 class.