Model Letter for progression from MPS to UPS with Comprehensive Guide to the UPS application process.
If you are planning to progress to the Upper Pay Scale, this Model Letter is an excellent template you can use and easily adapt to support your application to the Headteacher and Governing Body of your school.
This is a letter I have actively used as a Headteacher, supporting teachers who have successfully progressed to the UPS.
The letter is approximately 750 words in length and is clearly linked to the Teaching Standards.
The letter is provided in Word so it is easily editable to include your own personal experience, age-focus and school context.
I have provided this letter as a great template for teachers who have gone on to progress successfully to UPS.
The accompanying application guide is a comprehensive explanation of the UPS application process and is a great supporting resource for your letter.
Good luck in your application!
**Daily INFERENCE Reading challenges - Year 3 & 4 **
5 INFERENCE Challenge Reading texts with questions & answers.
Part of our “Literally Amazing” English resources; these are a brilliant resource for developing inference skills and confidence!
I have seen a significant and tangible improvement in the Reading Comprehension skills of my class through daily use of these.
Why use Literally Amazing Inference challenges?
Easily accessible reading content – much quicker and more accessible than a full reading book.
Engaging themes to motivate young readers.
Strong inference focus, proven to boost confidence and skills in inference.
Great extension challenges / lesson starters / homework / end of lesson tasks.
Work brilliantly for SEND learners!
Resources included:
Powerpoint with 5 INFERENCE Reading Challenge short texts with daily questions and answers.
Answer Recording Sheet.
Please look out for more themed INFERENCE texts that I hope to publish soon!
**Maths Subject Leader DEEP DIVE 100 Question KEY STAGE TWO Evaluation Tool & Action Plans **
This DEEP DIVE evaluation tool has been created by a Senior Leader in collaboration with a Maths Subject Lead.
A great resource for a Maths Subject lead to complete an efficient but thorough deep dive into the delivery of Maths, providing great evidence for an OFSTED Inspection.
The tool uses 100 probing questions focusing on the provision and delivery of Maths in Key Stage 2, relating to key National Curriculum objectives.
A brilliant tool for completing a comprehensive DEEP DIVE, assessing the quality of maths provision in Key Stage Two.
Resources provided in the Tool-Kit.
Maths Subject Leader DEEP DIVE 100 Question KEY STAGE TWO Evaluation Tool Document.
Action Plan to support and strengthen a Maths teacher working at a low degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
Action Plan to extend, challenge and best utilise a Maths Teacher working at a high degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
The document covers the following areas:
Teacher Subject Knowledge
Curriculum Planning
Teaching & Learning
Pupil’s outcomes and understanding
Support & Resources
Subject leaders could either use the toolkit to complete their own evaluation and Deep Dive of their Maths Department, or give the toolkit to their department teachers to complete a self-evaluation.
In addition, the Toolkit comes with 2 comprehensive action-plans that could be utilised by a Maths Subject lead in response to the results and findings of the Deep Dive.
Action Plan to support and strengthen a Maths teacher working at a low degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
Action Plan to extend, challenge and best utilise a Maths Teacher working at a high degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
All documents are provided in Word, so they are fully editable.
**Maths Subject Leader DEEP DIVE 100 Question KEY STAGE ONE Evaluation Tool & Action Plans **
This DEEP DIVE evaluation tool has been created by a Senior Leader in collaboration with a Maths Subject Lead.
A great resource for a Maths Subject lead to complete an efficient but thorough deep dive into the delivery of Maths, providing great evidence for an OFSTED Inspection.
The tool uses 100 probing questions focusing on the provision and delivery of Maths in Key Stage 1, relating to key National Curriculum objectives.
A brilliant tool for completing a comprehensive DEEP DIVE, assessing the quality of maths provision in Key Stage one.
Resources provided in the Tool-Kit.
Maths Subject Leader DEEP DIVE 100 Question KEY STAGE ONE Evaluation Tool Document.
Action Plan to support and strengthen a Maths teacher working at a low degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
Action Plan to extend, challenge and best utilise a Maths Teacher working at a high degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
The document covers the following areas:
Teacher Subject Knowledge
Curriculum Planning
Teaching & Learning
Pupil’s outcomes and understanding
Support & Resources
Subject leaders could either use the toolkit to complete their own evaluation and Deep Dive of their Maths Department, or give the toolkit to their department teachers to complete a self-evaluation.
In addition, the Toolkit comes with 2 comprehensive action-plans that could be utilised by a Maths Subject lead in response to the results and findings of the Deep Dive.
Action Plan to support and strengthen a Maths teacher working at a low degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
Action Plan to extend, challenge and best utilise a Maths Teacher working at a high degree of confidence / skill-level in Maths.
All documents are provided in Word, so they are fully editable.
INTERVIEW / OBSERVATION Year 5 / 6 LESSON - OFSTED OUTSTANDING - Character writing in the style of Roald Dahl
This lesson focuses on creating FICTIONAL CHARACTERS in the style of Roald Dahl.
It could be used very effectively as a stand alone INTERVIEW LESSSON for Year 5 & 6 literacy, especially as virtually every child is familiar with the books of Roald Dahl!
The Powerpoint provides an excellent teahcing resource for building up characterisation and techniques for creating humorous and quirky characters.
Two model examples of character writing are given in the form of:
“The Drunken Doctor”
“The Angry Teacher” inspired by Roald Dahl’s book; BOY.
The children were VERY MOTIVATED during the lesson and loved creating characters with quirky mannerisms!
This was taught to a Year 5 Class, but could easily adapted for Year Six. Judged an OUTSTANDING LESSON - so is ideal for an OBSERVATION or INTERVIEW lesson.
Files included:
PPT Presentation
WAGOLL Examples - The Drunken Doctor & The Angry Teacher
Glossary - Quirky Mannerisms for a Drunken Doctor or an Angry Teacher
Editable planning & word bank sheet - Drunken Doctor
Editable planning & word bank sheet - The Angry Teacher
Model Letter for Progression from Main Pay Scale to Upper Pay Scale
If you are planning to progress to the Upper Pay Scale, this Model Letter is an excellent template you can use and easily adapt to support your application to the Headteacher and Governing Body of your school.
This is a letter I have actively used as a Headteacher, supporting teachers who have successfully progressed to the UPS.
The letter is approximately 750 words in length and is clearly linked to the Teaching Standards.
The letter is provided in Word so it is easily editable to include your own personal experience, age-focus and school context.
I have provided this letter as a great template for teachers who have gone on to progress successfully to UPS.
Good luck in your application!
Year 3 & 4 Minecraft Immersive Read and Creative Write Week Project
Highly motivating and inspiring!
Differentiated Activities
Minecraft theme will be very motivating for children.
Resouces included:
Ten Slide Illustrated & Engaging Minecraft PowerPoint
Minecraft Glossary to extend vocabulary.
3 x Differentiated Minecraft Reading Comprehension with answers.
Minecraft Critical Thinking Activity Cards.
Minecraft Creative writing prompts
The resources provided should provide a week’s worth of reading and writing activities that can be completed independently or guided by the teacher.
The creative writing opportunities could easily be extended beyond a week.
The children that I have taught have loved this as a English focus topic!
INTERVIEW / OFSTED OUTSTANDING LESSON - Years 5/6 English Reading Skills The Titanic - Maritime Investigators Reading Investigation
An inspiring lesson for developing reading skills, where pupils were tasked with an investigative reading question:
“Did the designers of the Titanic place prestige before safety?”
I taught this as an interview lesson and the children loved it! They really enjoyed the concept of being Maritime investigators and exploring the various factors behind the sinking of the Titanic.
The lesson focuses on 2 high quality extracts detailing the events of the Titanic disaster and I created a Powerpoint which includes a film clip to develop the theme of the children being maritime investigators. There is enough content here to develop this into a whole week project.
Recording sheets included with one adapted for EAL/ SEND. One extract has also been simplified to enable EAL / SEND pupils to access.
Resources included:
2 x Reading Titanic Extracts
1 EAL/SEND Titanic Extract
Titanic Powerpoint
A3 Maritime Investigators Recording Sheet
A3 EAL/SEND Maritime Investigators Recording Sheet
Set of TEN A3 sized School Pupil Character Positive Behaviour Posters
A FANTASTIC set of 10 school pupil character posters to be displayed around the school to support and encourage positive behaviour.
I introduced “Stella and Andrew” to the school and the children love relating to these characters. Stella and Andrew regularly appear in school assemblies reminding the children about positive behaviour choices.
So this set of 10 A3 posters can be displayed around the school and also be used digitally in classrooms and in assemblies.
The posters are based on Stella and Andrew characters in a BLUE school uniform. However, I have also provided Stella and Andrew pictures in a RED or a GREEN uniform. You could choose different character names for your school and on the resources document I have included a link to the website to do this easily.
The posters could be edited and adapted further to include more rules and positive behaviour choices as you wish.
This has made a HUGE POSITIVE impact on whole-school behaviour in our school!
Fruits of the Spirit Collective Worship Display
A lovely display to be used for collective worship based on the Bible verses from Galatians 5 v 22-23.
Ideal for a whole school display, particularly for a Church of England School.
Link to the school’s vision and values.
An excellent display to be used for a SIAMS Inspection.
All resources provided.
Homework Heroes - Year 3 Mission Pack 1 Half Termly Maths Pack
Do you find setting homework a bit of a mission?
Do you struggle to motivate your pupils to complete homework?
Would you like a homework system that ensures a whole half term of homework is set easily and can even be marked in class, so reducing your marking workload?
Welcome to Homework heroes... it's a homework pack that:
1. Provides a whole half-term of maths homework that can be printed off as one booklet. (No more ad-hoc photocopying of worksheets!!)
2. It's super engaging for children, as it's presented using a Superheroes theme.
3. Each week, each child earns a Superhero status according to their performance in their homework, so it's very motivating.
4. Homework Heroes follows a clear structure each week, so it means your pupils will be less reliant on parental support for their homework, and there will be far fewer queries coming back to you as the teacher, asking how a homework task should be completed.
5. The "Mission Development", "Mission Explore" and "Mission Accomplished" Sections allow for differentiation, and for each child to develop in confidence and skills as they progress through their weekly homework challenge.
6. The pack includes a weekly optional investigation to enable your pupils to develop their investigative skills.
7. The homework scheme is designed to be marked in class, either directed by an adult, or through peer or self-marking, using the answer pack that is provided, so reducing your marking workload.
8. Included in the pack is an editable Mission Challenge sheet, so you can adapt and set your own homework challenges accordingly.
Resources included:
- Year 3 Mission Pack 1 Challenge Pack
- Year 3 Mission Pack 1 Challenge Answers Pack
- How to use Homework Heroes Guide
- Editable Mission Challenge PPT Sheet
Homework Heroes - Year 4 Mission Pack 1 Half Termly Maths Pack
Do you find setting homework a bit of a mission?
Do you struggle to motivate your pupils to complete homework?
Would you like a homework system that ensures a whole half term of homework is set easily and can even be marked in class, so reducing your marking workload?
Welcome to Homework heroes... it's a homework pack that:
1. Provides a whole half-term of maths homework that can be printed off as one booklet. (No more ad-hoc photocopying of worksheets!!)
2. It's super engaging for children, as it's presented using a Superheroes theme.
3. Each week, each child earns a Superhero status according to their performance in their homework, so it's very motivating.
4. Homework Heroes follows a clear structure each week, so it means your pupils will be less reliant on parental support for their homework, and there will be far fewer queries coming back to you as the teacher, asking how a homework task should be completed.
5. The "Mission Development", "Mission Explore" and "Mission Accomplished" Sections allow for differentiation, and for each child to develop in confidence and skills as they progress through their weekly homework challenge.
6. The pack includes a weekly optional investigation to enable your pupils to develop their investigative skills.
7. The homework scheme is designed to be marked in class, either directed by an adult, or through peer or self-marking, using the answer pack that is provided, so reducing your marking workload.
8. Included in the pack is an editable Mission Challenge Powerpoint template, so you can adapt and set your own homework challenges accordingly.
Resources included:
- Year 4 Mission Pack 1 Challenge Pack
- Year 4 Mission Pack 1 Challenge Answers Pack
- How to use Homework Heroes Guide
- Editable Mission Challenge PPT Sheet
Celebrate and reward children with this attractive set of 16 bright and colourful Milestone / Praise Postcards!
Children and parents love to receive these as a special reward!
All the postcards are set as standard postcard sizes. Simply print off as either single-sided (and add your own message on the back) or they can be printed off double-sided.
The 17 designs are:
1. Welcome to the Nursery!
2. Welcome to the Reception Class!
3. You wrote your name today!
4. You counted up to 10 today!
5. You were a great friend today!
6. You used kind words today!
7. You shared nicely today!
8. You were very brave today!
9. You played nicely today! (Dinosaur design)
10. You played nicely today!(Teddy Bear design)
11. Polite Prince!
12. Polite Princess!
13. Wonderful writing!
14. You've had a great day! (Teddy Bear and smiley face design)
15. You've had a great day!(Owl and flowers design)
16. You've had a great day!(Dinosaurs design)
17. A note from your teacher.
Great for motivating and helping children with personal development targets, and always appreciated by receiving parents.
FIVE FUN THEMED FRACTIONS, DECIMALS & PERCENTAGES POWERPOINTS!
MATHS MASTERY TYPE QUESTIONS.
THEMES INCLUDE: MINECRAFT, LEGO & MINIONS!
Great as lesson starters, or I prefer to use them at the start of the day to quickly settle a class down to work.
This pack includes 5 fun timed Power points, one for each day of the week.
All Powerpoints are set up with timings, so they self-run during register etc.
Why are they great in class?
1. They use MATHS MASTERY style questions.
2. My children love the different FUN ENGAGING themes and say "it's much more interesting to do these than normal maths sums."
3. Timed Powerpoints develop Mental Maths speed, essential for success in Assessment tests.
3. Perfect for developing positive independant working habits.
4. They are really handy to settle a class at the beginning of the day, or at the start of a lesson.
Five Powerpoints included are:
1 FLUENCY / PROBING Fractions, Decimals & Percentages Powerpoint - each slide gives the children a chance to choose either a Fluency or Probing Question to answer.
2. MINECRAFT MATHS - Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
3. MINIONS MATHS - Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
4. LEGO Maths - Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
5. LOGIC Maths - Fractions , Decimals & Percentages and designed to develop logic, reasoning and algebra skills.
Designed for a Year 5 class, but could easily be used for a Year 4 or Year 6 class and all the PPT slides can be easily edited to make the questions easier or more difficult.
A very clear 27 slide fully illustrated Powerpoint detailing all of the vocabulary and different sections of Circles.
Suitable for Upper Key Stage 2 / Lower Key Stage 3
My Year 5 class had been struggling to understand and remember all of the different parts of a Circle, but have got it now!
This Powerpoint clearly shows all the different parts of a circle including:
Centre
Circumference
Arc
Radius
Diameter
Chord
Tangent
Segment
Sector
Semi-Circle
All of the slides could also be printed off to make a ready-made display on Circles.
Recount Writing - Two Lesson Pack - Year 5 or 6
An excellent creative writing resource pack to develop recount writing skills, and worked perfectly as a cross curricular writing focus for my Rivers topic. Used over 2 lessons.
My class loved listening to the original storytelling of Chapter One of The Wind in the Willows on the video clip included in this pack. It's delightful!
If you are looking to cover some work from a classic text, this will work well too.
It really captured the children's imagination and the recounts they wrote from Mole's perspective were fabulous! The resources are designed to help the children write a recount from Mole's perspective, recounting his experiences of messing about in a boat on the river after he meets Water Rat.
Enjoy the resource pack!
Resource pack contents:
1. Illustrated teaching Powerpoint Presentation
2. Extract from Chapter One of The Wind in the Willows
3. Video clip - Retelling of Chapter One of The Wind in The Willows
4. Summary 2 Lesson Plan
5. Recount Writing Worksheet
6. Model example of Recount of Mole's adventure on the river.
(p.s. If you experience trouble playing the video in the PPt presentation, it should work if you load it as the seperate vide file included in the resource pack.)
Behaviour Reward Chart & Poster Pack -HIGHLY MOTIVATING LEGO NINJAGO THEME!
PACK CONTENTS:
1 x Editable Behaviour Reward Chart
7 x Editable Colour-me-in Reward Posters
Designed for Years 2-6
Many of the children in my class love LEGO NINJAGO, so I created a behaviour reward chart and a set of seven colourful reward posters based on the LEGO NINJAGO theme.
The children love them and are really responding well, leading to a marked improvement in behaviour and work, because they so enjoy colouring the reward posters! I've started using mine more for academic targets as well as behaviour targets.
All the documents are editable to suit your needs.
The behaviour reward chart uses a smiley / straight face / sad face system across a week. If the child gets x amount of smileys they can colour their mini Ninjago picture for that day.
If they then have a great week, gaining x amount of smileys across the week (or colouring all their mini NINJAGO pictures) they receive a A4 reward poster which they can colour in!
The reward poster includes an editable text box where you can set behaviour reward targets or celebrate specific achievements.
I've made the posters colourful, but they can easily be edited to be a white background if you can't print too much colour!
I hope they work as well for your class as they have mine!
This set of 3 maths mastery lessons were planned and taught (Lesson 1 as an observation lesson), for a Year 5 class. The content could easily be adapted to suit a Year 4 or Year 6 class.
My class loved the MINECRAFT theme and the use of charcoal, gold, redstone, diamonds, emeralds and gold linked perfectly to our weights unit.
Included are:
- Lesson 1,2,3 Detailed Lesson Plans
- Lesson 1,2,3 Powerpoints
- Lesson 1,2,3 - Fluency, Probing and Mastery Worksheets
- Measures conversion chart
Lesson 1 focuses on converting Kg and g
Lesson 2 focuses on rounding weights to the nearest kg, 1/2 kg, 100g and 10g
Lesson 3 focuses on converting metric and imperial units of weights measures
Each lesson includes an engaging MINECRAFT themed Powerpoint that logically works through Fluency, Probing and Maths Mastery challenges.
The accompanying worksheets follow the same theme and can be printed as multiple handout sheets to save printing.
I used filled small labelled bags of sand, gravel etc to represent redstone etc for the group practical weighing activity.
The observation went brilliantly with all the pupils really engaged and so any one lesson of this mini-series on weight would be great for an observation or interview lesson.
This maths mastery lesson was planned and taught as an observation lesson for a Year 5 class. The content could easily be adapted to suit a Year 4 or Year 6 class.
My class loved the MINECRAFT theme and the use of charcoal, gold, redstone, diamonds, emeralds and gold linked perfectly to our weights unit.
This lesson focuses on conversion between Kg and g and vice versa.
It includes an engaging MINECRAFT themed Powerpoint that logically works through Fluency, Probing and Maths Mastery challenges.
The worksheets follow the same theme and can be printed as multiple handout sheets to save printing.
I used filled small labelled bags of sand, gravel etc to represent redstone etc for the group practical weighing activity.
The observation went brilliantly with all the pupils really engaged and so this would be great for an observation or interview lesson.
An excellent resource pack to support the learning of literacy and numeracy using The Gruffalo's Child.
Lots of the activities could be adapted and developed easily.
• Full Illustrated story PPT with highlighted adjectives
• Gruffalo’s Child Sort the words Activity
• Gruffalo’s Child Bingo Cards x 8
• Gruffalo’s Child Word Mat
• Gruffalo’s Child Fill in the missing word.
• Gruffalo’s Child Sort the words.
• Dictionary Definitions
• Book Review
• Doubling Powerpoint
• Halving Powerpoint