A planning overview for a year in a P7 or year 6 class. Planning is broken down into terms, it does not include resources but will help you organise your topics and meet all your targets. The maths planning was given by the head of maths for our school. Hope it saves you some time :)

A series of differentiated sentence building activities focused on word class. These include articles, adjectives, verbs, nouns, subjects, adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. The aim of the activity is to encourage children to see patterns in word classes and how they are organised within a sentence. This can be completed as self directed learning, in pairs, as an* assessment* or a homework. For my lower ability students I often print example sentences jumbled up and ask the children to sort the words into the correct classes using the table. For my* higher ability* I have let them take a sentence from a book, create table and then ask them to continue the pattern creating their own sentences. It is a great way to let the children play with words. They have even came in handy when creating plans for stories. Enjoy!

This includes a lesson graded ‘outstanding’ during our school Ofsted visit and is aimed at Nursery or Reception children. It includes a detailed lesson plan with youtube links and instructions on how to link table top activities to the theme. The lesson details Teaching Standards it meets and strands such as ‘understanding the world’ in the EYFS. The carpet activity is 2 children at a time (completed over 2-3 days). Play dough, straw and Lego bricks. Try and build a structure and test which is strongest. Use hairdryer to illustrate effect of wind and blowing. (In line with weather theme of the week). This will also clarify tomorrows story ‘The 3 little pigs’, and help them understand why two of the pigs houses have blown down. The story will be a theme during the whole week and presented differently each day to try and reach all types of learners and needs required by the pupils. Individual assessment conducted as activity occurs. Top tip, be sure to pause and narrate/ask questions during youtube clips so children are forced to think more. Enjoy!

I tend to put these at the end of certain topics or units or work but I have given them to colleagues who use them at the front of the book or to inform parents evening. They include year 1 targets for literacy and maths. I’ve also left a blank template for lesson specific tables. I really recommend children using their own hands for thumbs up, down, sideways as self assessment t the end of lesson first so they can understand the concept. My kids found this easy to grasp and fun. Enjoy :)

A fun little powerpoint with very cheesy St. Patrick’s Day jokes. I would use this with the kids in my class as well as a whole school assembly. Appropriate for year 2 and above :)

This is a simple page where the pupil is asked to sort and record a range of words which can later be used in their own writing. I love this activity as it has a range of uses: can be sent as a homework to teach the child how to use it independently with their own writing or reading, it can encourage children to take ownership over their work or to read a teachers comments more purposefully. I often hightlight an opener in a pupil’s work and they feel proud enough to record it in their word bank for later use. Most importantly, generally I use this as an assessment task throughout the term helping me to see if a child has misunderstood a term or has a repetitive spelling problem with a pattern. Enjoy!

Lesson plan and worksheets to help you teach rhyming couplets. The lesson is introductory and lasts 60 minutes. There are 3 differentiated activities and an example poem for the class to read and discuss together. I used this for an observation and received an outstanding. Unfortunately I used an overhead projector and wrote onto a blank screen with a smartboard pen so no slides are included, but I have highlighted where you could add you own if you wanted to. Enjoy!

3 differentiated worksheets focused solely on adding ‘es’ to create plurals. This is could be completed as a self directed task or a homework. The main aim is to help children understand the spelling patterns which require ‘es’ rather than another plural spelling. Enjoy

Includes step-by-step instructions both written and drawn as to how to create a cartoon lion. There is both a word and Powerpoint version. I’ve used activities like this regularly to improve my classes listening, confidence in art skills and get used to positional language. I have used this in RE when teaching Daniel and the Lion’s Den as well as science when studying animals. If you wish to use this as a literacy activity I have an alternative resources which is the same but altered to find word classes or focus of imperative verbs. I would use this activity throughout the keystages giving the picture step-by-step for younger ages and simply giving audible steps for older classes. Hope it saves you time :)

Includes a document with 3 double sided a4 sheets which I laminated and worksheet which I use as a resource for KS1 and KS2 children struggling to add detail to their writing. These include images and suggestions for the ‘who, what, how, where, why’ parts of a sentence. There are blank spaces at the bottom of each table where a child or TA could write any extra ideas they have. They then take these ideas and use them on the activity sheet. This first column of this sheet is to be stuck in their book and the others to be cut to create flaps. Under each you ask the child to write a sentence, adding/stretching it each time. For example under ‘Who?’ The child may write ‘The small granny,’ then under then next flap ‘What?’ the child may write 'The small granny stretched her hand etc. until a detail sentence is formed. The third sheet which I laminated was a self-assessment to check they had included each in their sentence and as they others can also be used permanently in your literacy display. I found this great to send home with spellings as they also force the child to practice their phonics and handwriting. My kids also loved writing some silly sentences with them. Enjoy!

Powerpoint introducing some mythological creatures and brief revision on thesaurus. The main point of the lesson is to create a short non-fiction texts about one mythological creature. It includes a powerpoint and 2 worksheets. My children had a lot of fun with this and followed up with two more lessons collating their non-fiction pages into a book for the younger classes. It also made a great display and linked to the book we were about to begin reading and led to more detailed creative writing later. Enjoy!

Very simple writing stimulus for the Roal Dahl story of BFG. I have used this for my writing moderation from year 2 to 6. It can also be a very simple homework for the kids.

Includes step-by-step instructions both written and drawn as to how to create a cartoon lion. There is both a word and Powerpoint version of instruction, and a separate word document set up as worksheets including answer pages. There are 4 main ways to teach word classes with this resource: An oral task with kids to help them understand the use of bossy verbs with them unaware of what the are meant to be drawing. A set of instructions in which they must find bossy verbs. A set of instructions in which they must find bossy verbs and adjectives. A set of instructions in which they must find bossy verbs, adjectives and nouns. I’ve used activities like this regularly to improve my classes listening, confidence in art skills and get used to positional language. I have used it for cross-curriculuum learning in RE when teaching Daniel and the Lion’s Den as well as science when studying animals. Hope it saves you time :)

A list of phonics games which can be played as class starters or main group lessons. Really helped me fill time during my PGCE/NQT.

Simple board game consisting of ks1 tricky words. I’ve used this in so many different ways; you can divide kids up into colours and in turns ask them read all of the words in that colour. you can play as a normal board game with dice you can play with HA children not just reading the word but putting it into a sentence you can make it a guided reading or literacy lesson by asking the children to write a sentence using the word they land on I have even used this as an assessment lesson in year 2 when I first got to know my class, it allowed me to find out where they were but also have fun with them. Enjoy

Simple and fun games divided by the sounds in each phase. I gave these to my TA’s to use in small groups. We began by simply saying the sounds, laterwe added in saying a word with the sound, the writing the sound/word and eventually with HA children would work in pairs to draw a picture of a word with the sound and their partner would segment the word. I even used them as ‘fun’ assessment at the beginning of a term. Enjoy!

Fun board game for learning new vocabulary and recognising words which have a silent ‘h’. Lesson plan included to give you ideas and explain how to play. I would recomend printing the game on a3 and laminating, this got me my first ‘outstanding’ in lesson and kids really love learning the new words! Enjoy!

A really fun, interactive quiz is aimed at older children or to be used as an assembly on this special day. It’s got a range of information, photos and interesting facts. Everyone should learn a little more about Saint Patrick’s history and how celebrating him has changed over the years. There are 3 rounds; 1. Saint Patrick Facts 2. True or False 3. Saint Patrick’s Day Hope this activity saves you some time :)

Fun quiz with 4 rounds short rounds; 1. Lock down facts 2. Name That Celebrity 3.Happy Lock down Stories 4.Photo Challenge. You can play this on zoom with your children, one round per day or all in one go. You could also use this a welcome back in assembly or with your class. It’s a fun, positive way to talk to the children about how our world has dealt with the current virus. It was made for 5 primary use but is definitely suitable for secondary also. Enjoy :)

Cut and laminate this chart to display at the front of your class. Children will quickly learn what noise level you expect within specific lessons. Great evidence of clear clear expectations within lesson observations.