Five free critical thinking lessons on fake news and misinformation. Each one is built around a real claim that was printed as true and later fell apart. Each lesson takes 45 minutes to an hour, stands alone, and works in tutor time, PSHE or citizenship. The five claims Who Paid for the Science? A 1967 review blamed fat, not sugar, for heart disease. The sugar industry paid for it. Complete Safety. Thalidomide, sold in the 1950s as safe in pregnancy, and the US official who refused to approve it. Doctors’ Orders. “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”, set against a study of 40,000 British doctors. No Real Evidence. Leaded petrol, approved in 1926 because nobody had proved it was harmful. It’s All Vegetable. Crisco, sold as healthier than butter, and a 1990 experiment on what it did to cholesterol. How each lesson works The claim. It appears as a recreated newspaper front page. Students stand on a line from 0 to 10 to show how much they believe it. Five questions to ask of any headline: Who is saying it? Who gains if I believe it? Who paid for it? What is the evidence? Has it been tested, and by whom? The same five come back in every lesson. The evidence, one card at a time over four rounds: an advert, a document, a graph and a scientist. After each card, students log it on their evidence sheet, note which question it answers, and move on the line. The graph card has three maths questions, with the answers on the next slide. The front page. Students write the front page the paper should have printed, using at least two cards and one number. Another group marks it against three checks. Then the verdict goes up, with the one question that would have caught the claim. What you get Five PowerPoint decks, 19 slides each, with a teacher slide, editable charts, and the sources on the last slide. An 18-page printable PDF: a one-page guide, a poster of the five questions, the front page writing sheet, and for each lesson a teacher page with timings and answers, four evidence cards and a student evidence sheet. Good to know Every quote and number is real, and each teacher page lists its sources. Lesson 2 covers thalidomide and lesson 3 covers smoking, so keep the discussion on the claims and the evidence. Lessons 1 and 5 are about how food was marketed, not what anyone should eat. This is Volume One. For Year 10 to Year 13, and it works in Year 9. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time lessons are in this shop.

Everything for World Mental Health Day 2026, which falls on Saturday 10 October: an assembly for the Friday before, a week of activities for the week after, and a full PSHE lesson on what to say when a friend is struggling. Free and ready to run. The assembly Eleven slides for the Friday before. They explain World Mental Health Day and the 2026 theme, “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change”, and what is happening the following week. One slide is for your named member of staff and reporting route, so every student knows who to talk to. The week: choose one option Five themed lunchtimes, one for each of the Five Ways to Wellbeing, such as Tea and Talk and Laps at Lunch. The pack includes a day-by-day plan (what happens, what you need, who runs it), a shopping list and the common problems to plan for. A Wall of Words, filled with anonymous cards through the week. It needs a wall, one photocopy and five minutes at the end of each day. Start with this one if your school has not marked the day before. The card template is included, with guidance on what to take down and what to pass to your safeguarding lead. The PSHE lesson: When a Friend Tells You They Are Struggling An 18-slide lesson for tutor time or PSHE. Students sort eight real replies into helped, did not help and it depends. They learn four things that help (notice, ask twice, listen, stay) and compare two versions of the same conversation. Then eight station cards go up around the room. Pairs rewrite each reply on a strip, and another pair marks it. Nobody is asked about their own week, and the exit slip is private. What you get An 11-slide assembly. An 18-slide PSHE lesson. A ten-page printable PDF: a one-page teacher guide with a timeline, the plans and printables for both week options, and the lesson guide with response cards, station cards and rewrite strips. Before you start Tell your safeguarding lead before the assembly, and make sure anyone running a lunchtime or reading the wall knows who to pass a disclosure to. The date and theme change each year, and the guide shows which line to update. For Year 7 to Year 11. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time resources are in this shop.

A quick true or false quiz for form time. You read out a fact that sounds strange, and the class votes true or false with a show of hands. One click then reveals the answer and the reason behind it. It takes about five minutes and there is nothing to prepare. How it works Put a fact on the board and read it out without giving anything away. Before you click, ask two or three students why they voted the way they did, because the arguing is the fun part. The answer and a one-line explanation appear together, so you are never left trying to remember why octopuses have three hearts. The facts are a mix of true and false. Some of the false ones are things plenty of adults still believe, like the Great Wall of China being visible from space. Those are the ones that split the room. What you get A 12-slide PowerPoint with ten facts, each revealed on a click, and a final slide that asks students to find a fact of their own for next time. A two-page PDF: a one-page teacher guide, and ten more facts with their answers for when the slides run out. Good to know It works as an everyday settling routine, or as something to reach for when the register finishes early. Once students start bringing in their own facts, ask them to check each one before it goes on the board. That way they get used to asking whether something is true before they pass it on. It suits Year 7 to 9 best and works with Year 10 and 11 too. Made by The Pastoral Guide, a secondary form tutor. More free form time activities are in this shop.

A printable one-to-five mood scale for checking in with a student who finds it hard to say how they are feeling. They point to the number that feels closest to today, and the conversation starts from there. The scale runs from “really struggling” to “having a great day”, with a line underneath saying there is no wrong answer. Pointing takes away the hardest part of a check-in, which is finding the first words. How to use it Show the scale and ask which number feels closest to today. If they want to say more, ask gently what is behind the number. If they would rather not, that is fine. Use the same scale again on another day. Over a few weeks, a student can see their own number move. What you get A two-page PDF: a one-page teacher guide, and the scale itself on a full A4 page. Print it once and laminate it, and it will last for years. Good to know It works well at the start or the end of a one-to-one, and alongside conversation starter cards. If anything a student tells you worries you, pass it on through your school’s safeguarding procedure as usual. It suits Year 7 to 9 best and works with older students too. Made by The Pastoral Guide, a secondary form tutor. More free wellbeing resources are in this shop, including 24 printable conversation starter cards.

A week of short critical thinking starters for form time. Each morning, a claim that was once printed as true goes up as a recreated newspaper front page. The form argues about it, looks at the evidence, and then finds out what really happened. It takes about ten minutes a morning, with nothing to print. The five claims Monday: fat, not sugar, is the real danger to your heart. The 1967 review behind it was paid for by the sugar industry. Tuesday: a new sleeping pill is safe for mothers-to-be. The pill was thalidomide. Wednesday: more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. Thursday: there is no real evidence that leaded petrol is dangerous. Friday: Crisco, a new factory-made fat, is healthier than butter. How each morning runs Each story has four slides. The front page goes up first. Next the claim appears on its own, and students put their hands up for agree or disagree while two or three say why. Then the evidence goes up, a graph or a document with its source, and you ask the form what it shows before you say anything yourself. The last slide is the verdict, stamped BUSTED, with the one question that would have caught it. What you get A 23-slide PowerPoint, with the graphs as real charts you can check. A two-page PDF: the teacher guide, and a page on the five stories with what the evidence shows and where it came from. Good to know Tuesday’s story is about thalidomide and Wednesday’s is about smoking. The guide asks you to keep both on the claims and the evidence, and never to ask about home. Every quote on a front page and every number on a graph is real and sourced. If your form enjoys it, Question the Headline in this shop turns each story into a full tutor time lesson with evidence cards. Written for Year 10 to 13, and it works in Year 9. Made by The Pastoral Guide, a secondary form tutor.

A free one-hour budgeting lesson for teenagers. Groups take a job, plan a month on one wage, then deal with the things nobody planned for. It works in tutor time or PSHE, and it teaches the habit that matters most with money: working out what has to be paid before deciding what you can afford. How the lesson works Payday. It opens on payday, with a payslip. £24,000 a year sounds like £2,000 a month, but only about £1,730 actually arrives. Job cards. Each group gets a job, from apprentice mechanic to junior developer, with a monthly take-home figure and one complication. The best-paid job is not the easiest month. The budget. Groups plan the month across six things: somewhere to live, bills, food, getting around, phone and data, and savings. They fill in a budget sheet with a running “money left” column. Events. Things go wrong one slide at a time, in date order: a boiler breaks, a car needs repairing, a message arrives at eleven at night. Groups get two minutes to rebalance after each one. Use three events for a short version, or six or more for the full hour. The 27th. Groups put what is left on the table and discuss what they cut first. The lesson ends on the point that most of a budget is spent before you get any choice: rent, bills and getting to work come first. What you get A 22-slide PowerPoint, with each event on its own slide so you can stop at any point. A nine-page printable PDF: a one-page teacher guide with timings, all ten events on one page, a price list, six job cards, the budget sheet, and optional shop cards and play money. Good to know You only need pages 3 to 5. The shop cards and play money let groups walk round and pay for things, and take about twenty minutes to cut out. The lesson works without them. Prices are in pounds and wages are take-home, so the lesson does not depend on any one tax system. The guide shows how to change the prices and currency. Some students live the real version of this at home, so keep the discussion on the card in front of them. For Year 10 to Year 13, and it works in Year 9. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time lessons are in this shop.

A one-hour tutor time or PSHE lesson on procrastination, built on one simple idea: you rarely feel like doing something until you have already started it. Students do not have to take that on trust, because they test it on themselves during the lesson. How the lesson works It opens with students writing about a time they really wanted to do something, and what set it off. When you collect their answers on the board, a pattern appears. Every trigger was something that had already happened, and nobody says the motivation arrived while they were sitting doing nothing. Next you teach the order (you start, something moves, then you feel like it) and show how to shrink a task until it is too small to refuse. Then comes the experiment. Each student picks the thing they have been avoiding and shrinks it. They score how much they want to do it, work on it for five silent minutes, and score it again. Count the hands and put the numbers on the board. The last part stops the lesson turning into “just be busier”. Groups sort cards into three piles, action, motion and real rest, and a few of the cards are there to start an argument. What you get A 20-slide PowerPoint. A five-page PDF. Page one is the teacher guide, with timings for the hour and help with shrinking tasks. After that come the lesson sheet, “something to start” cards for anyone who says they are avoiding nothing, the sorting cards and the exit slips. Good to know Nothing students write is collected, read out or marked, and the slides tell them so. Some students will be putting things off because of what is happening at home, so the guide suggests staying somewhere they can find you at the end. Written for Year 10 to 13, and it works well in Year 9. Made by The Pastoral Guide, a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time lessons are in this shop.

A five-minute debate activity for form time that gets everybody on their feet. A statement goes on the board. Each student then stands somewhere on a line between an agree sign at one end of the room and a disagree sign at the other. Two or three explain why they chose their spot, and anyone who changes their mind can move. Three sets of statements The statements get more abstract as students get older, so download the set that fits your form. Year 7 to 9: “People can change.” Year 10 and 11: “If everyone in the room laughs, it was a joke.” Sixth form: “It is possible to be too honest.” They are about opinions rather than anything personal, and nobody has to explain where they are standing. What you get Three PowerPoints, one for each set, each with five statements and a final slide that asks students for a statement of their own. A four-page PDF: a one-page teacher guide, fifteen more statements (five for each set), and the agree and disagree signs. Good to know The signs can stay up all year. In a small room, run the line along one wall instead, so nobody has to move furniture. When somebody moves because of a good point, say out loud that it counts. Changing your mind in front of thirty people is hard, and they need to hear that it is a good thing. It works from Year 7 to Year 13. Made by The Pastoral Guide, a secondary form tutor. More free form time activities are in this shop.

A daily goal-setting routine for form time. A prompt goes on the board starting “Today I will…”, and each student finishes it out loud with one small thing they can do before home time. You jot down two or three names, and the next morning you ask those students how it went. It takes about four minutes and there is nothing to print. Why the asking matters Saying you will do something is easy. Knowing somebody might ask about it tomorrow is what makes students actually do it. Keep it low stakes. “I didn’t” is a complete answer, and nobody has to explain a promise they did not keep. Say that on the first morning, because a form that thinks it will get into trouble will only promise to be on time. What you get A 7-slide PowerPoint: how it works, five prompts for five mornings, and a final slide that asks students to suggest a prompt of their own. The prompts include “speak to somebody I do not usually speak to” and “get something done that I have been putting off”. A one-page teacher guide with five more prompts, so you have two weeks’ worth. Good to know Answer the prompt yourself first, so nobody has to go first. The first week’s answers are usually safe ones, like tidying a desk. They get more interesting once the form has seen that nobody is in trouble for a promise they did not keep. This is Volume One, and it suits Year 7 to 11. Made by The Pastoral Guide, a secondary form tutor. Follow this shop to hear when Volume Two goes up.

Three free ten-question quizzes for form time, one for each key stage. Teams of three or four answer on a printed sheet, then swap and mark each other’s as the answers go up. It takes about fifteen minutes, and the only printing is one answer sheet per team. What each quiz covers Each quiz has six questions on a theme and four general knowledge questions. Year 7 to 9: healthy habits. How much sleep teenagers need, why the teenage body clock runs late, whether cracking your knuckles causes arthritis, and where the idea that carrots help you see in the dark came from. Year 10 and 11: how revision works. Six revision myths and facts, including rereading, testing yourself, spacing revision out, learning styles and all-nighters. Sixth form: adult life admin. Gross pay, free trials that turn into subscriptions, rental deposits, scam texts asking for your PIN, credit card minimum payments, and what APR means. Questions are a mix of fact or myth, three-option multiple choice, and written answers. How it works Each question has its own slide. Teams agree an answer and write it down. Then they swap sheets, and each answer goes up with a short explanation, which is often where the discussion starts. Run it in one go or split it across the week. The last two slides of each deck are blank, for questions of your own, and each answer sheet has two spare rows for them. What you get Three PowerPoint decks, 27 slides each: instructions, ten questions in two rounds, the answers with reasons, and two blank slides. A five-page printable PDF: a one-page teacher guide, an answer key for all 30 questions, and a team answer sheet for each key stage. This is Volume One. For Year 7 to Year 13. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free form time activities are in this shop.

A free seven-week plan for a form tutor with a new Year 7 form, with all 12 printables it uses in one download. It sets up one new routine a week for five weeks, then leaves two weeks to fix any that have not stuck. A form given thirty new rules in week one keeps none of them. The seven weeks Week 1. The Two-Minute Interview on the first morning, then The Register Reply from day two, so students learn each other’s names. Students also set a goal with By Half Term, which they look back on in week 7. Week 2. Today I Will every morning. Ask two students how yesterday’s went before you start, so they see you follow things up. Week 3. The display board goes up empty and the form fills it. Week 4. Friendships from week one often start to wobble. Have the check-in cards, the question slip and box, and the restorative sheet ready before you need them. Week 5. Two minutes of noticing each Friday, and praise postcards in the drawer. Week 6. Your first round of one-to-ones, with a record sheet showing who you have not spoken to yet and a guide to the conversation. Week 7. Finish everything started in week 1. What you get The four-page plan: the seven weeks, a print list in the order you need it, the five routines that should run without you by half term, and a sheet to fill in as you go. The twelve resources the plan uses, each with its own teacher guide: The Two-Minute Interview, The Register Reply, By Half Term, a display board pack, a small wins board, conversation starter cards, a question slip and box, a restorative sheet, a Friday noticing sheet, praise postcards, a check-in record (printable and spreadsheet), and a guide to one-to-one conversations. Three come with slides. The rest are print and go. Who it is for Form tutors, and heads of year supporting a new tutor. Best for Year 7 to Year 9, and most of it works higher up the school. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free form time resources are in this shop.

A free assembly calendar for the 2026 to 2027 school year, from September to July. It lists 41 awareness days and weeks worth marking in a secondary school, and 26 of them are United Nations international days, so it works for international schools as well as UK ones. What is on it Every date has the day itself, what kind of day it is (UN day, UK campaign, worldwide, or a moment in the school year), one idea for an assembly or five minutes of form time, and the value it gets students thinking about. The UN days lean towards the ones with a value behind them: the International Day of Peace, Non-Violence, Tolerance, Human Rights Day, World Day of Social Justice, the International Day of Living Together in Peace, World Environment Day and Nelson Mandela Day, among others. Alongside them are the dates most schools mark anyway, including Black History Month, World Mental Health Day, Anti-Bullying Week, Children’s Mental Health Week, Safer Internet Day, World Book Day, Neurodiversity Celebration Week and Refugee Week. Where a day falls at a weekend, the idea says whether to mark it on the Friday before or the Monday after. What you get A six page printable PDF. Pages 1 to 3 are the wall chart, one A4 page per term, for the staffroom or the pastoral office. Each row has the date, the day, the value and the matching ready-made resource from The Pastoral Guide where there is one. The last column is blank for writing in who is leading it, and the spring and summer pages have spare rows for your school’s own dates. Pages 4 to 6 are the ideas, one page per term, with a line on what to do with each day. Worth knowing Dates were checked against each organiser’s own site in September 2026. Mental Health Awareness Week, the start of exams and leaving day depend on the year, so those are marked mid-May or June; check them nearer the time. Written for Year 7 to Year 13 by a secondary form tutor. More free assemblies and form time activities are in this shop.

Free printable cards for the ten minutes before an exam: eight things to say to yourself, eight things to say to a friend who is panicking, and a slip to hand to staff when a friend needs an adult. It takes fifteen minutes of tutor time, then the cards go in a pocket or pencil case. How it works In the week before the first exam, read both sets of cards together. Each student picks one card for themselves and one they would want a friend to say to them, and cuts those two out. Then show the slip. It is for a friend who is more than nervous, and it can go to any member of staff before or during the exam, including whoever is on the door of the hall. Tell students that using it is allowed. The teacher guide explains what to do when one reaches you. After that, the cards are used in the corridor before a paper, when no teacher is there. A student who has read a line in form time is more likely to say it to a friend. Why the cards work They are short instructions and true statements, not affirmations: “One question at a time. The paper does not know how the last one went.” “Tell me one thing you know. Just one.” Each one is short enough to say in a corridor. What you get A four-page printable PDF: a one-page teacher guide, the two card pages, and the slips, four to a sheet. Print both card pages for every student, and keep spare slips in a drawer through exam season. Before you use it Exam mornings are when worries surface. The slip means a student never has to decide alone whether a friend is okay. When one reaches you, find the student before the paper if you can, and pass on anything beyond nerves to your safeguarding lead the same day. For Year 10 to Year 13. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time and wellbeing resources are in this shop.

A complete one-hour tutor time lesson on revision planning, for the term before mocks or the run-up to the real exams. It is free, with slides, a week sheet and timings. Most revision timetables do not last a week. In this lesson, each student plans the seven days ahead, then the week goes wrong three times and they fix the plan each time. What happens in the hour Starter. Two minutes of private writing: the last time you made a revision timetable, how long did it last? Four rules. Keep sessions small. Name each one, so the plan says what you will do, not just the subject. Leave one slot empty on purpose. Plan one week, not the whole term. One Monday is planned both ways on the board so students see the difference. Plan. Each student plans their next seven days on the sheet, in pencil. Interruptions. Three things go wrong: a late night and a missed alarm, someone who needs them from four until nine, and a friend who asks them to come over. After each one, students get two minutes to repair the plan. At the end, the class looks at which sessions survived all three. They are the small, named ones. Check and exit. Pairs check another student’s plan against the four rules, discuss one question, and write what they will do on Monday morning. The last slide is a two-minute Monday check-in to reuse in registration in the weeks that follow. What you get 17 PowerPoint slides. A three-page printable PDF: the lesson plan with timings against the slides, the week sheet (one per student) and the Monday check-in cards. Before you run it Some students do not have a quiet place to work or a free evening at home. The sheet is theirs and is not collected, and the empty slot means a plan can lose an evening and still work. For Year 10 to Year 13. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time lessons are in this shop.

A complete one-hour tutor time lesson for the week mock results come back. It works after any set of results, and it is free. Students learn to separate the facts of a result from the story they tell themselves about it. “I got a 4 in maths” is a fact. “I am just not a maths person” is a story. Each student then writes up their own result as one line of fact and one first move. What happens in the hour Card sort. Each table sorts eight things students say after results into facts and stories. Two of the cards are written to start a disagreement. Teaching. What a result tells you (what was tested, and how you did on it), what it does not (how you will do next time), and one made-up result shown both ways. A second example is done together, out loud. Their own result. On the sheet, each student writes what the result tested, where the marks went, one line of fact and one first move that takes less than an hour. Pairs check each other’s fact line for any story that has crept in. Discussion and exit slip. Two questions to discuss, a slide on what the week after results is for, and a private exit slip: what would you say to a friend who got your result? What you get 14 PowerPoint slides, each labelled with the part of the lesson it belongs to. A three-page printable PDF: the lesson plan with timings against the slides, eight sort cards to cut once, and the student sheet. Before you run it For some students, a bad result lands on top of something bigger at home. Nothing on the sheet is collected or read out, and the slides say so. Students need their result in front of them, or a rough memory of it. For Year 10 to Year 13. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time lessons are in this shop.

Free printable praise postcards for secondary schools. Teachers can give them to students, and students can send them to teachers or to each other. How it works Print a few sheets, cut them apart and keep the stack somewhere easy to reach. When someone has earned one, write who it is for, circle teacher or student, write the praise and sign it. Hand it over, or pin it to a praise wall or form room display. There is no other preparation. Praise means more when it is not rare, so use the stack often rather than saving it for big moments. What you get A printable PDF: a one-page teacher guide and six postcards, three to a page, ready to cut. Photocopy as many as you need. Where it fits It needs no lesson time. It works for a form tutor, for a head of year keeping a stack in a drawer, or as part of a form room display. Best for Year 7 to Year 11. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free form time and praise printables are in this shop.

24 free printable conversation starter cards for one-to-one or small group wellbeing check-ins. A student picks a card and you talk about what it asks. There are no wrong answers. How it works Cut the cards out once and keep them wherever you do check-ins. The student picks a card and reads it out, or hands it to you. Let the conversation go where it goes. If a card does not suit that day, pick another. One card is enough for a quick check-in, or use several for a longer chat. The same set lasts all year, and you can add your own. Why it helps The hardest part of a check-in is often the start, when a student is deciding how much to say. A card chooses the topic for you both. Over a term, students get used to talking to you, so when something important comes up, the conversation already feels familiar. What you get A printable PDF: a one-page teacher guide and 24 cards, twelve to a page. The prompts range from easy (“What is one thing that made you smile this week?”) to deeper (“What is something you need right now that you have not asked for?”). Good to know It is not a screening tool and it does not measure anything. Nothing a student says is written down. It suits Year 7 to Year 13, and anyone who runs check-ins: form tutors, heads of year and pastoral staff. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free wellbeing check-in printables are in this shop.

A complete one-hour lesson on the difference between banter and bullying, for tutor time or PSHE. It is free, with timings, an answer key and everything to print. “It was just a joke” usually ends the conversation instead of sorting it out. This lesson gives students four questions for telling a joke from something that is not, and better words to use instead. What happens in the hour Sort. Pairs sort six short moments into joke, not a joke, or cannot tell. They are not told what to look for. Reveal. The six moments turn out to be three pairs. In each pair the words barely change. What changes is who was laughing, whose nickname it was, and whether it stopped when someone asked. Four questions. From that, the class draws out four tests. Is the person it is about actually laughing? Would you say it to them with nobody else around? Could they say the same thing back to you? Did it stop the first time they asked? A joke passes all four. Better words. “It was just a joke” means two things: I did not mean to hurt you, and stop talking about it. Students write what they would say instead, once as the person who said it and once as the person it was about. Another student marks each sheet against three questions. What you get 18 PowerPoint slides: the six moments, the three pairs, the four questions, what the sentence is doing, words to use instead, the marking round and the exit ticket. A five-page printable PDF: the lesson plan with timings, a two-part answer key, the student sheet and eight moment cards. No real names are on the cards. The research behind the lesson, named in the pack: a 2020 study of what secondary students say is always off limits, and the Anti-Bullying Alliance’s Banter or Bullying toolkit. Before you run it This lesson may be close to something happening in your form. Do not use a real incident or name, and do not run it the day after one. One slide lists topics students say are off limits, including someone who has died, so check first who that might affect. Nothing students write is collected or read out, and the slides say so. For Year 7 to Year 11, and it works in sixth form. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free lessons are in this shop.

A complete one-hour anti-bullying lesson about the people watching, not the person who starts it. For tutor time or PSHE. It is free, with timings, an answer key and everything to print. Most people who watch bullying do not think they are part of it. This lesson shows students that they are, then gives them the words to step in. What happens in the hour Count. A six-line story goes up: a student gives a wrong answer, someone repeats it at break, three people laugh, and by Friday the student has stopped answering questions. Pairs list everyone who was part of it. Most forms count two. The answer is eight. Five roles. The one who starts it, the one who joins in, the ones who laugh (the biggest group), the one who looks away, and the one who steps in. The roles come from a 1996 study of 573 students. Predict. In 306 playground incidents, how often did another child step in, and how often did it stop within ten seconds when they did? Pairs predict before the answers go up: 19 per cent and 57 per cent. What to say. Three ways to step in, one of them silent. One is modelled, one is done together, then pairs spend twelve minutes writing what they would say to a moment on a card. Sheets move two tables along and are marked against three questions, starting with: could anyone actually say this out loud in our school? What you get 18 PowerPoint slides: the moment to count, the five roles, the study to predict, the three ways to step in, the marking round and the exit ticket. A four-page printable PDF: the lesson plan with timings, the answer key, the student sheet and eight moment cards. The three studies, named in full in the pack: Salmivalli and others (1996) on the roles, Hawkins, Pepler and Craig (2001) on the playground, and a 2025 meta-analysis of what works. Before you run it This lesson may be close to something happening in your form. Do not use a real incident or name, and do not run it the day after one. The names in the script are made up, so change any that match a student in your year group. Nothing students write is collected or read out, and the slides say so. For Year 7 to Year 11. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free tutor time lessons are in this shop.

A free Anti-Bullying Week for a secondary school: an assembly to launch it on Monday 16 November 2026, then a themed lunchtime activity on each of the next four days. Everything to print is in the pack. The Anti-Bullying Alliance’s 2026 theme is Break the Silence. This week runs alongside it, and its focus is noticing who is on their own. The five days Monday: Odd Socks Day. Everyone wears odd socks with their uniform, launched by the assembly. Tuesday: Mix-It-Up Lunch. Students sit somewhere new, with a topic card on every table to get them talking. Wednesday: friendship bracelets. Students make two at lunchtime, keep one and give one away. Thursday: the group chat wall. A group chat goes up on the wall, and students annotate where it went wrong. Friday: a positivity tree. Students write something good about someone else and hang it on the tree. Each day stands on its own, so if one falls through, the rest of the week still works. What running it involves The assembly is ten slides: what bullying looks like, one slide for each day, and how to report something. Add your own rooms, times and reporting route before you show it. The only things to buy are embroidery thread, beads and string. Everything else prints from the pack. Odd Socks Day only needs form tutors to know about it. Each of the other days needs one member of staff for about forty minutes. What you get A 10-slide PowerPoint assembly. A 10-page printable PDF: guidance for each day, a shopping list, the bracelet method, the tree leaves, the table topic cards, the three-page group chat and the four prompts to pin around it. Before you run it A week like this can bring things to the surface. Before Monday, make sure everyone running a lunchtime knows who to pass a disclosure on to. For Year 7 to Year 11, and it works with sixth form too. Written by a secondary form tutor. More free form time, tutor time and assembly resources are in this shop.