Just finished this assembly with my Y5 class, it went so well and they loved it. It involves an ‘X factor’ style show where each Greek god auditions to be king of the gods, whilst telling the audience a little bit about the Ancient Greeks. It involves throwing confetti at the audience, a dance routine to music from Disney’s Hercules, and a boy dressing up as Cheryl Cole…if you want. Adapt and use as you want. Enjoy.

-The ship's log from Christopher Columbus' voyage on the Santa Maria: Use it as a model to write a ship's log of the day before they arrive on the island. -A painting of the crew on board the ship with speech bubbles and thought bubbles ready to fill out for a conversation on board the ship. -Teach or revise speech punctuation then complete an assessment of chn's use of speech punctuation (two different ones there, I did two lessons and went through problems in between). -Then teach how to write reported speech and get the chn to turn their conversations on board the ship into a part of the story.

There aren't many scripts that are suitable for a full class/school production, so I have always written my own, with my class. After "Greeks Got Talent" became so popular on here, I decided to upload my favourite production ever. My Year 5 class wrote this, with support and editing from me. It took us about an hour and ten minutes. It has 15 speaking parts and spaces where some of The Lion King songs fit in. I have not uploaded the songs, as it is a large album. We purchased them from iTunes (the Elton John stage show version) and burnt them onto a CD for the stage show (check how this is affected by copyright in your area). Amazing costumes, amazing dance routines, great jokes....my favourite ever!

Drama, discussion, art, writing - a combination of Easter activities to bring it to life. Thinking more about WHY it happened than WHAT happened.

This is a detective game where children 'examine the evidence' for Jesus' resurrection. They look at some facts about the time when He was alive, and compare them to some theories which were suggested to disprove the resurrection. You can link the resurrection to the gospel, if your chn have been taught how to find a Bible reference by looking up Matthew 28 Mark 16 Luke 24 John 20

I split The Highwayman poem up for my class to learn a section each. We mimed the story in small groups whilst one child did each part of the narration.

Three weeks of 4-5 lessons per week based on the book “One Plastic Bag” by Miranda Paul based on the true story of Isatou Ceesay, the recycling champion. Various spelling, grammar and research tasks ending in writing an explanation text.

5 lessons clearly resourced and ready to go about Ghana: WALT: locate Ghana on a map.  (a treasure hunt) WALT: identify the physical features of Ghana. WALT: explore the flora and fauna of Ghana. WALT: explore the things that Ghana produces. (two lessons) Extra objective (not resourced) WALT: compare the life of a child in Ghana and a child in the UK.

Several English lessons building up to writing own versions of the story of St. Frideswide, the Patron Saint of Oxford: -The story of St. Frideswide to tell to your class and explore together -Comic strip based on the show "Blind Date" (could also use take me out) to describe various Princes to come to try to win her hand in marriage -Sentences for improving based on the story -2 different planning formats for planning paragraph by paragraph

I did a PSHE unit (Could loosely replace the "Changes" SEAL unit) about careers and aspirations for the future - the children loved it. I also invited a friend and some of the children's parents in to talk about their career to kick-off the unit, just as a bit of inspiration. They asked the volunteers some interview questions.

I used 'The Snowman' for a multimodal texts unit, comparing the book and the film. The ideas come from the Hamilton literacy scheme but they are adapted to a bit meatier lessons. The kids enjoyed this a lot and had a good mature attitude. I really enjoyed teaching the unit.

This is an overview of a cross-curricular plan for a topic I taught entitled Bienvenido a Mexico. The matrix does not include Maths and English. The Science, RE and PE are also planned separately, but I tried to relate as much as I could across the subjects to the topic of Mexico and I sourced a variety of resources. It focuses on the history of the Aztec and Maya people and architecture. Every lesson might not be appropriate for your class, but it will at least give you a skeleton for your termly planning.

This is an overview of a cross-curricular plan for a topic I taught entitled Crime and Punishment. The matrix does not include Maths and English. The Science, RE and PE are also planned separately, but I tried to relate as much as I could across the subjects to the topics of the Tudors in Autumn 1 and The Victorians in Autumn 2. I sourced a variety of resources from videos on Vimeo and Youtube, to newspaper articles to my own made up ones. Every lesson might not be appropriate for your class, but it will at least give you a skeleton for your termly planning.

I thought this week overview might be useful for NQTs or others trying to organise their planning in a simple way. I use a medium term plan for each of my 3 topics in the year, covering objectives for the year’s curriculum (I have also uploaded these on my shop) and a weekly Maths and English plan. But I just complete one of these each week for the following week and I annotate it with school events, what things I inevitably cannot cover when other things get in the way and so on… It’s a pretty simple resource, but the format might save you some time.

This is an overview of a cross-curricular plan for a topic I taught entitled Bella Italia. The matrix does not include Maths and English. The Science, RE and PE are also planned separately, but I tried to relate as much as I could across the subjects to the topic of Italy and I sourced a variety of resources from Twinkl to newspaper articles to my own made up ones. Every lesson might not be appropriate for your class, but it will at least give you a skeleton for your termly planning.

This is a unit of work that I used with a year 3 class (you could differentiate up or down of course, I would say appropriate for years 2-5 with some tweaking). The download includes one Powerpoint presentation clearly organised for all the lessons then worksheets for most of them (some do not require one). We use WALT (we are learning to) and Success Criteria: these are also included. The Powerpoint contains a variety of edited resources collected from various places but is all finely tuned/edited as appropriate to go with the following objectives for a whole term (10-12 lessons: some can be combined to make it shorter). (1) Start KWL grid with K and W. WALT: explain what rainforests are. WALT: explain where rainforests are located. WALT: understand what the layers of the rainforest are. WALT: research the creatures that live in the different. WALT: understand how plants survive in the rainforest. WALT: compare lives in the rainforest with lives in our city. WALT: identify how the rainforest is used. (x2) WALT: investigate and compare the physical features of two different environments. WALT: explain how rainforest is being exploited and destroyed. WALT: explain ways to protect the rainforest. (12) Assessment lesson (complete a KWL grid)