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!
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 the perfect introduction to a half termly topic which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about the human body, skeletons of both humans and animals, food groups and digestion. This particular lessons gets children to brainstorm what they already know about animals and humans, and what they would like to find out, helpfully allowing you to adapt your planning to match their subject knowledge..
Objectives and success criteria include:
1) LI: To be able to produce facts that state my current understanding
1) LI: To be able to ask questions which would develop my understanding
Success Criteria
I can state what I already know about a given topic
I can ask questions linked to a given topic to develop my understanding
I can use a range of question starters (what, who, how, when, do...)
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.
Having taught in an East London primary school, I wanted to end the class WWII topic by linking it to their own community. East London was a huge target during the Blitz, therefore was devastated during the war, which children in the area might not realise given the infrastructure around them. However, the lesson mainly compares WWII problems with modern day life in East London - positive and negative. It gets children to examine their own community, identify what is good, and what could be improved, and what they imagine it will be like in the future. The lesson activity is continuous through the lesson; making notes about what they think Hackney is like, and then develops to the children using their notes to write a poem (using my teacher example).
Although this resource is focused on East London, it could be adapted to focus on area of London or the UK that was particularly affected by the Blitz. Resources include a Notebook lesson presentation, a worksheet for making notes, a presentation page for children to write their best copy of their poem and lots of picture resources.
This resource nicely extends children learning about World War II by comparing London's post-war infrastructure to modern day.
It compares various images from post-war to modern day (which children find particularly intriguing!) and uses engaging BBC short video clips to examine how housing infrastructure has changed since the war.
As the main activity, children will identify key London landmarks by their pictures, stick and label them in their books, read an information text about how London has changed since WWII and see if they can find any information about their landmarks, noting facts next to the relevant pictures.
The resource includes a full lesson Notebook presentation, the full information text, the images comparing post-war and modern day London, along with the activity resource sheet and instructions. Enjoy!
This lesson explains to children the importance of women during WWII - how they kept the country running while men were away fighting, taking on jobs in industries that women previously did not work in and therefore changing their role and status in society.
The notebook presentation explores how women's roles changed, their pay and what that would compare to today, and how the government used posters to encourage women into industrial work in factories and on farms.
The lesson activity is in three parts: 1) studying the posters and annotating observations towards use of colour, illustrations and text 2) Answering questions based on class discussion about women's role during WWII 3) Using the internet to explore given articles about women in WWII, understanding how it is still celebrated today
This lesson would be a good introduction to direction in either Geography or Maths. It introduces what a compass is and what it is used for, before focusing on NESW and the points in between. This could easily be demonstrated in the classroom by putting up NESW posters on each wall of your classroom, but my lesson uses a map of the counties of England to develop compass skills and direction. This is first modelled by the teacher, e.g. Cumbria is NW of North Yorkshire using the Notebook presentation, before the children have a go themselves, completing either missing compass directions or places in each statement. Suitable for KS2. Enjoy!
These three lessons, designed for KS2, help children to understand sound, how it travels, how sound can be different and what materials can block sound. The objectives are as follows:
Lesson 1 - Objective: To understand that sounds are made when objects vibrate
Success Criteria:
I can understand that sounds are made when objects vibrate.
I can compare how sounds travel through gases, liquids and solids
I can investigate how sounds travel through different objects
I can explain the results of my investigation using scientific diagrams/language
The lesson poses various questions to children throughout the notebook presentation about what sound is, how we hear, how sound might travel differently, to allow them to demonstrate their prior knowledge or ideas. It also includes useful links which help to embed given facts, mini tasks to engage the class, and best of all, a creative main activity where children investigate whether sound travels through string telephones! The differentiated plenary is a 'fill-the-gaps' activity which assesses children's understanding from the lesson.
Lesson 2 - Objective: To investigate how the pitch and volume of instruments can be changed
Success Criteria:
I can understand that sounds are made when objects vibrate.
I can explain what is meant by the 'pitch' of sound
I can explain what is meant by the 'volume' of sound
I can make predictions
I can alter the pitch and volume of various musical instruments
Children meet this objective by first recapping what they have already learnt about sound, by learning the difference between 'pitch' and 'volume' using different links in the notebook and then by investigating pitch and volume using an online BBC Bitesize activity, noting their predictions and conclusions in their books. Musical instruments could be used in the lesson as well!
Lesson 3 - LI: To investigate whether materials effect the movement of soundwaves
SC:
I can identify the properties of different materials
I understand how sound travels through solids, liquids and gases
I can make predictions
I can identify whether an experiment is a fair test
I can explain the results of an experiment
The lesson starts by recapping previous learning, before brainstorming in what scenarios we might want sound to be blocked. Children then conduct an experiment, comparing which materials would be best to block sound.
This resource helps children to consider the progression of time chronologically and the duration of different events. The lesson objective is to be able to create a daily routine using time facts
Success Criteria:
* I can order events chronologically
* I can use vocabulary linked to the time of day
* I can identify what time activities start and end
* I represent times on an analogue clock
Challenge: I can state how long activities last
The lesson starts with a discussion about what key events would be included in a daily routine, with children thinking of their own personal examples. It then moves on to a teacher model of how time would be considered in a daily routine, from the start and end times to knowing the approximate duration of activities (i.e. they would know that brushing your teeth takes 5 minutes rather than 50 minutes).
Children then independently create their own daily routine plan on the worksheet provided, which has been differentiated to challenge different learners.
This lesson would suit KS1 and LKS2 classes and is easily adaptable. 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!)
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
In this bundle are 11 of my favourite individual recount themes that I’ve used in my teaching career to develop children’s writing skills.
Each uses a brilliant animation or film resource to engage the children and each has a particular writing skill focus (e.g. description, tense, sentence structure).
I hope you enjoy using them as much as I do!
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