I'm a KS2 teacher in a middle school. I teach both year 5 and year 6 for a range of different subjects.
These are just the resources that I feel have been the most useful to me. I started teaching 5 years ago and these are the resources that I have found useful and have been widely recognised and used across the school staff team.
I'm a KS2 teacher in a middle school. I teach both year 5 and year 6 for a range of different subjects.
These are just the resources that I feel have been the most useful to me. I started teaching 5 years ago and these are the resources that I have found useful and have been widely recognised and used across the school staff team.
This powerpoint has been used for year 6 maths intevention. The group was a mixed ability class and so is well-differentiated. You can see how two students were asked to complete a different topic/activity based on what they needed. Feel free to add more questions/change the activities as your class need.
Not only does it show how long division works (with animated questions, step-by-step) but it shows long division alongside short division so that students can see where ‘the numbers come from’. This gave them a much firmer understanding of the process/method and why they need to do what they’re doing.
It also has a ‘spot the difference’ between a long division and a short division question from a SATs paper. This will help them to distinguish between the questions in their arithmetic paper. Sometimes students are confused which method it is that they need.
Students made excellent progress and enjoyed the challenge of timing themselves when they felt confident.
Students who weren’t confident with their multiplication tables were allowed to use multiplication grids/squares to help them.
PPT and description cards for descriptive vocabulary lesson. Aim of the lesson is for children to up-level their description of characters.
Children read the vocabulary statements and match the description to a Mr Men character. Each sentence should match to one of the four characters. I printed and cut the statements, placing them into envelopes for extra ‘fun’.
Discuss in a group any vocabulary they don’t understand (use a dictionary where needed and discuss as a class).
Once the descriptions are matched to the characters, the children then write their own character description for a Mr Men character of their choice.
Character descriptions contain very high vocabulary and punctuation. This would be more suitable for UKS2 and KS3 students. This lesson has been previously used with KS1 and LKS2 also for intervention/guided reading sessions. Students thoroughly enjoy the session.
Learning objective and success criteria grids for each lesson/element of Forces topic in year 5. Glue in books to speed up marking or just use for your planning. These grids were created in accordance with NC and include all necessary teaching points. They allow for differentiation and allow a whole department to teach parallel and consistently with one another. I like to highlight uncompleted tasks in highlighter to let the student know they’ve not achieved that element. Then my response marking question relates directly to that success criteria point.
Students are fully aware of Success Criteria and the objective for that lesson which is a fantastic OFSTED point. I use these grids for science and humanities topics. They are my medium term planning as well as something the children glue in every lesson before we start out lesson. No titles needed.
This is a ‘True or False’ revision lesson for Y5 science Earth and Space. It is differentiated by outcome so students can work through as many as they can.
Students highlight true statements green.
highlight false statements in pink.
They then have to correct the false statements, explaining how they know they’re not true or correcting the information.
My students found this incredibly useful coming to the end of their Earth and Space topic. They were allowed to work in small mixed ability groups and it addressed a lot of misconceptions.
Before allowing the children to ‘correct’ false statements, I suggest talking through whether the statements are true or false. Some of them are deliberately very challenging and the students need to look carefully at the wording of the statement.
A tricky problem solving lesson that all the children enjoy and are actively engaged in.
This is an Earth and Space y5 science topic revision lesson. It recaps all the most important pieces of information for the topic. Students in my class round this incredibly useful before sitting their end of topic assessment. I suggest printing it A3 and glueing into science books.
Unit planning by lesson. These learning objective and success criteria grids cover all the learning points for history of the Ancient Maya Civilisation. Students self-assess whether they have achieved each criteria (S column) and I mark it also (T column). I use this as my medium term planning. Staff use this to ensure we are covering the same topics for consistency across year groups.
These grids are glued in their books at the start of each lesson:
no titles required
makes marking quicker and easier
makes assessment/tracking of work easier
if the student is absent, they/we can see what they have missed
teaching is sequenced/organised for consistency across the year group and each new academic year
supply teachers are given this to follow for absent staff members
The learning objective grids have dramatically changed my teaching for the better and the positive impact for students and staff is huge.
This powerpoint has comprehension questions by chapter for Street Child.
The questions are written in SAT style wording to help prepare children for SAT language. Questions are organised by question type (inference, prediction, vocabulary… I1, I2, P1, P2, etc.) and have a number of marks allocated per question. The majority of chapters have questions and answers as well as extensions and opportunities for cross-curricular writing.
This resource was created for PSHE and RE lessons: discussing what a role model is and any role models that children have. This has also been used to evidence and track pupil premium students, looking at how they feel they’ve performed over the year and gaining feedback directly from the student themselves.
These are marking grids for formally assessed pieces of writing. When students draft their writing, they glue this grid into their book and aim to include all of the features in the grid.
If they’ve included it, they tick the grid and underline where that feature is in their work.
When I mark their work, I traffic light the features according to whether those features are present in their work and if they’re correctly written.
Students are really enthusiastic about these and it’s a wonderful way for them to take ownership of their work. They can clearly see what is expected from them and it is great incentive to improve their writing.
I’ve included a comment box for anything they may need to improve or anything they’ve included that wasn’t asked for but it good. There is also a grading box to show the student the current level of their work.
The PPT slide fully explains how the grids work in a way students can understand. I have also included a PPT for a narrative flashback so you can see how this resource can be used in context. This does require some ‘training’ for the children to use them but once they are familiar with them, they are invaluable.
Whole topic planning learning objectives. These grids are glued into students books or used by staff to sequence their teaching of the Romans history topic. Each lesson has at least three success criteria and these are used to inform planning.
Students self-assess whether they have achieved the success criteria (S column) and I assess this also (T column).
The grids:
require no title to be written
reduce marking time substantially
show evidence of self-assessment/peer-assessment
sequence planning across year groups/departments
response questions are written to address critria not achieved allowing ‘meaningful marking’ which is an OFSTED focus point
supply staff are given this to help with their planning
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) can be removed or changed if required
Cross-curricular writing opportunities.
Both staff and students have found this beneficial. Staff approaching a new topic havea full sequenced plan of the topic.
These are learning objective and success criteria grids for year 5 RE. It shows the sequence in planning, allows you to mark quickly and effectively and it also allows children to see where they are up to in their learning and ‘where next’.
I glue a grid in their book at the start of each term. We then follow the grids each lesson, children ticking off activities as they go. They can see any topics/activities they’ve missed due to absence and it shows that both the teacher and student are aware of any missed learning points.
If a child doesn’t ‘tick off’ the success critera, I then give a support question to address that learning point. This allows for ‘meaningful marking’ which is another OFSTED focus.
This resource was used with a year 6 English class. The focus was discussing word classes and using words that can belong to two different word classes such as ‘duck’. The students then had to use that word in a sentence depending on the word class specified.
The class found it both useful and challenging. Very little printing required. SATs questions provided as a plenary/extension.
SAVES TIME, SAVES MARKING, SELF-ASSESSING, OFSTED-TICKING RESOURCE!
I create these ‘learning objective’ grids for every foundation topic that we cover in y5 and y6 in school. They are all based on our SoW and teaching sequence. Some staff choose to print it and keep it in their planner to refer to for ‘what next’, however, some staff (including myself) print these for each student and glue it in their book at the start of each objective which is great for avoiding wasting time by ‘writing titles etc’.
Each objective does not need to be completed in one lesson, some objectives may take more than one lesson to cover.
The children then mark their own work by ticking or levelling themselves (D, E or H) in the ‘S’ student column. I then mark their work in the same way in the ‘T’ teacher column. Students love this method of self-marking and I do too. I get instant feedback of how they think they’ve performed and we can see if we agree on their mark. They also have a full understanding of what they need to do to achieve their objective (great for an OFSTED visit - sorry I mentioned it).
There is also a colum with R1, R2, R3. If I feel they haven’t achieved that success criteria, they then have to complete a Response question (a fantastic idea from a colleague of mine) at the start of the next lesson.
It has cut marking time substantially, the children get meaningful feedback (response question) specifically linked to a criteria they have missed and all students are self-assessing and aware of their learning.
If you don’t choose to print, this also makes a wonderful planning prompt to refer to so you can tick off what you have covered, what is next and what you need to include in your next lesson.