I completed my PGCE at The Institute of Education in 2011, staying in London to start my career at a primary school in Hackney. I taught across KS2 in four years, while also co-ordinating Spanish and Science and receiving brilliant CPD training across a range of specialisms. In 2016 I moved to Lancashire, where I have been supply teacher for a range of local schools. I love creating engaging & purposeful resources to bring education to life and to give teachers their weekends back!
I completed my PGCE at The Institute of Education in 2011, staying in London to start my career at a primary school in Hackney. I taught across KS2 in four years, while also co-ordinating Spanish and Science and receiving brilliant CPD training across a range of specialisms. In 2016 I moved to Lancashire, where I have been supply teacher for a range of local schools. I love creating engaging & purposeful resources to bring education to life and to give teachers their weekends back!
Are your class studying the Ancient Greeks? Here's a lesson activity, focusing on Ancient Greek architecture, which gets children to research various facts about different buildings (e.g. stadiums, housing). This would be a great cross-curricular activity, as children could use ICT to research the answers. Worksheet could be completed in pairs, or for a shorter lesson, different groups could each focus on a particular architecture type.
I’ve used this lesson every Autumn to engage children into the Literacy skills needed to write a good instruction text, by linking it to how to use sparklers safely on bonfire night. This pack includes a Notebook and Powerpoint presentation for one lesson, and differentiated worksheets for pupils to plan their instructions before independently writing them up into their books.
Suitable for KS2 - and do get a health and safety check before demonstrating with a real life sparkler. I did, and it amazed the kids and really energised their writing!
UPDATE 02/11/2018 - RESOURCE NOW INCLUDES PRESENTATION IN POWERPOINT FORMAT!
Here is a lesson presentation and writing plan based on Teacher's TV 'spooky graveyard' short film. I enjoyed using this English/Literacy across all KS2 classes to develop children's descriptive writing (setting, atmosphere) in the form of a recount. This is especially good to use around Halloween time!
Resource includes lesson presentation (Notebook) and planning sheet.
A bundle of Literacy recount lessons based on famous Christmas adverts from the last few years (e.g. John Lewis, Sainsburys).
Children really engage with these as they have seen them at home, because they are emotive or funny, and because they are so well made - like a mini film!
UPDATED 05/11/2020 TO INCLUDE THE 2019 WAITROSE JOHN LEWIS ADVERT
A collection of six reading comprehension activities using real life newspaper articles. Each contains a copy of a newspaper article suitable for KS2 (new species of spider / Pangaea / blizzard / Remembrance Day / St Andrews Day/ Hedgehog preservation / Fifa Poppies) and questions that I have made myself to test their comprehension of the articles.
03/07/16 - UPDATED TO INCLUDE MOUNTAIN REPTILE ARTICLE
This resource is a class assembly that I did with my Year 3 and 4 classes about our cross-curricular topic for the term: Light.
To make the script I split the class into five groups, and gave each group a question to research with helpful bullet points. They went away and did this over a lesson, making the notes from which I made a class assembly script! The script can easily be adapted to change children's names or to add or take away parts. The script also includes visual activities or objects that groups can be showing to support their part of the assembly.
Group topics include:
What is light?
Sources of light
Darkness
Shadows
Reflections
It is designed to be an informative assembly, but fun and easily for an audience to follow. Enjoy!
Having taught in an East London primary school, it was great to see Stratford change right in front of our eyes when the Olympic site and surrounding parkland was changed. Therefore, I wanted to use this experience in the teaching of human geography - comparing how East London changed before to after the 2012 Olympic Games through different photographs.
I hope this resource can be enjoyed by classes all over the country - not just in London!
I used these lessons at the end of our Rocks topic in Science with my Year 3 class, but they were also used by Year 6 at their end of Evolution and Inheritance, so they are easily adaptable!
The resource consists of a notebook of two lessons; one focusing on fossils, and the other on famous British fossil hunter Mary Anning. I used the latter lesson during a school inspection, and it went down well both with the visitor and the class!
The lessons focus on develop children's understanding of fossils, how they link to rocks, and how fossil hunting is still important today. Luckily, at the time, Tiger stocked cheap fossil digging kits, so I bought some for the class to try in a third lesson and it was brilliant! I've seen them in other shops since and I'm sure they're available on the internet - photos are included of the children delicately chipping and brushing away.
This lesson gets children to investigate rocks practically - either in or outside of the classroom!
It involves them comparing rocks by their size, shape, texture, durability, and many other factors, while also extending to thinking about why rocks are different.
This is a cross-curricular lesson which links nicely with Maths, as it requires children to sort different rocks using a Venn Diagram. Included is a lesson presentation notebook and a worksheet and photographs from when I continued this lesson outside of the classroom on Hampstead Heath!
Easily adaptable for a range of KS2 classes. Enjoy!
A pack of engaging Science lessons (made by a school Science co-ordinator) put together in one handy bundle linking to forces and motion.
I love making Science as interesting, informative and hands-on as possible for children in order to develop their understanding of various concepts.
These two worksheets can expand to form a Science topic over four to five lessons.
Using their prior knowledge of materials and wind power, children independently design their own boat powered by wind either on paper or in their Science books. Existing examples could be shown.
Then, at the start of the next lesson, children would use the first worksheet in this resource to evaluate each others designs using the following criteria:
• Shape – How will this affect how it moves and balances on the water?
• Size – How will this affect how the boat floats and balances?
• Materials – Are they waterproof? How will you join them securely?
• Sail – How will it steadily stay up and move the boat forwards?
Following this, either in the same or next lesson, groups would then choose the best design or combination of design ideas from those on their table, to form a final group design of a boat with a sail.
On the second sheet in this resource, they would then work together to plan their final design, using the following criteria:
* I can consider the effect of water resistance in my boat design
* I can make a sail that will catch wind
* I can consider suitable materials to make my boat
* I can annotate my design to explain material and shape choices
Each group would draw their final boat design and list the materials needed to make it, before going on to make their boat in the following lesson, and then test them the lesson after that in a suitable outdoor location! (...we used a paddling pool!)
Simple but fun Christmas-themed word search and crossword to entertain children in the run up to Christmas. Available in PDF, Pages and Word formats!
The words to be searched are:
BAUBLE BELLS CHRISTMAS ELF HOLLY MINCE PIES PRESENTS REINDEER ROBIN SANTA SLEIGH SNOWFLAKE TINSEL TREE
The crossword clues are:
ACROSS
2) These three people followed the star to Bethlehem
3) Vegetable used to make a snowman’s nose
5) Noise that bells make
7) Decorations made by folding and cutting paper
10) Gold items from the fifth day of Christmas
11) Breed of bird associated with winter
12) Traditional Christmas tree decoration
DOWN
Type of pies eaten at Christmas
Species of animal that Rudolph is
Abbreviation of ‘Christmas’
Animal swimming on the seventh day of Christmas
Area where Santa lives
Green, spiky plant used in Christmas decorations
A range of lessons that will bring your class’ WWII topic to life, learning about everything from why the war started and who was involved, to evacuation and how events were broadcast, to the social changes brought into effect from the conflict, from the role of women to economic and industrial changes.
A simple but fun Macbeth-themed word search and crossword puzzles to help children to embed their knowledge of the Shakespeare tragedy. Available in PDF, Pages and Word formats!
All words link to the plot, including characters names, themes and places. Enjoy!
This resource is useful to use either at the start of a new term or in the middle of the academic year, to allow children to demonstrate what they believe to be their own personal academic achievements so far, and their targets.
It is presented using comic-book style speech bubbles to make it engaging. The top bubble is entitled: 'What I've Done Well So Far This Year' and the bottom: 'What I Would Like More Help With...'
I have used these in every year of my teaching, as it gives children the opportunity to demonstrate their pride, their aspirations, and the wording of 'help' rather than 'target' correctly implies that support will be given, rather than a goal being an independent task (and therefore to many, very difficult to achieve).
The resource is available in Pages, Microsoft Word and PDF format and in black and white for ease of printing and gives the children the opportunity to decorate if time allows! Enjoy!
This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach the topic Humans including Animals. This lesson focuses on the human skeleton, and includes questions to stimulate children's ideas, links to online video clips to help develop and engage children's understanding, and suggested lesson activities.
The objective and success criteria are:
LI: To understand the human skeleton
Success Criteria
I know what the human skeleton is made out of
I can explain why humans have a skeleton
I can label different parts of the human skeleton
This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about Animals including Humans. This lesson initially recaps children's understanding of human and animal skeletons, before focusing on developing their knowledge of food groups. It includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, various interactive links to engage and support, and suggested tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding.
The Lesson Objective and Success Criteria are:
LI: To know the different food groups
Success Criteria
I can explain what animals and humans need to stay healthy
I can name common food groups
I can name example foods in each group
This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about the Humans including Animals. This lesson recaps children's knowledge of the human skeleton and then moves on to focus on animal skeletons, comparing different types, identifying well known animals by their skeleton and comparing human and animal skeletons. The resource includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, links to various video clips and interactive websites to engage and support, and both group and independent tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding.
The lesson objective and success criteria include:
LI: To compare the skeletons of different animals
Success Criteria
I can use first hand observations to find out about skeletons
I can use secondary sources to find out about skeletons
I can use observations to make predictions
I can identify similarities and differences between human/animal skeletons
This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about Humans Including Animals. This resource starts by recapping children's understanding of the different food groups, before focusing on digestion. It includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, links to various video clips and interactive websites to engage and support, and both group and independent tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding using the engaging resources that I have suggested (the cover picture for this resource being the display made using one of their favourite lesson activities!)
The objective and success criteria for the lesson are:
LI: To understand the human digestive system
Success Criteria
I know what digestion is
I know why humans need to digest what they consume
I can place the digestive parts correctly in the body
I can label the basic parts of the digestive system