Scratch Year 7 Virtual Pet: 5-Lesson Unit

A complete, ready-to-teach 5-lesson Scratch unit for Year 7. Pupils build one virtual pet project that grows every lesson: sequence, loops, variables, selection, broadcasts and testing.

Teach programming with a project pupils care about. Over five 60-minute lessons, pupils build a virtual pet in Scratch that greets its owner, breathes, spins and jumps, gets hungry and bored over time, shows its mood, and runs away if it is neglected. Each lesson adds one core programming idea to the same project, so pupils see why every idea matters. This is a complete unit, not a set of lesson outlines: download it on Sunday and teach it on Monday.

Lessons

1. Meet Your Pet: sequence and events

2. Bring It to Life: iteration with repeat and forever loops

3. Pet Stats: variables, set vs change, initialisation and user input

4. Pet Moods: selection, comparison operators and Boolean OR/AND

5. Pet Rescue Project: decomposition, broadcasts, test plans and evaluation

What is included

Organised by lesson. For each lesson:

• Teaching Presentation (PowerPoint) with detailed speaker notes: explanations, questions, answers, misconceptions and timings

• Lesson Plan (Word) with 60- and 50-minute timings, full teaching notes with answers, differentiation, misconceptions and SEND strategies

• Pupil Task Sheets (Word) with clear DO THIS → CHECK steps, one action at a time, and real screenshots of the current Scratch editor

• Answer Key (PDF) with example code, accepted alternative solutions, Challenge solutions and Debug Me fixes

• Tested Scratch files (.sb3, zipped): Starter (catch-up), Support Starter, Solution, Challenge Solution and Debug Me. 24 files in total.

Also included:

• Pupil Workbook (PDF): all five lessons’ task sheets in one booklet

• Teacher Guide (PDF): unit overview, rationale, curriculum map, preparation checklist, SEND guidance, assessment and troubleshooting

• End-of-Unit Test (40 marks, Word), Mark Scheme (PDF) and Project Rubric (Developing / Secure / Extending) with a class record and pupil self- and peer-assessment

• Printable Support Cards: word mat, block reference, loop card, set/change card, if-else card, decomposition card and troubleshooting card

Built for every learner

Every lesson has Core, Support and Challenge routes, a retrieval starter, a PRIMM Predict task, a stop-and-check point and an exit ticket. Support Starter files lay the blocks out ready to snap together, reducing dragging and working-memory load. Challenge tasks develop computational thinking (nested loops, comparing algorithms, nested selection with AND, coordinating scripts with broadcasts) rather than “add more sprites”. If a pupil misses a lesson, they open that day’s Starter file and carry on.

Curriculum

Mapped statement by statement to the National Curriculum for Computing in England (KS3, and securing KS2 programming): Boolean logic, modelling state and behaviour, comparing algorithms and debugging. Also mapped to Curriculum for Excellen