A sheet of handy reminders for students writing about Art and Design

A fun starter to engage and get students in a good mood - 10 cities in the fog for students to identify. Can use this as a starter for any subject, and it has a link with Geography obviously.

A starter activity to get them guessing looking for possible connections. This one is based on names and slide 2 has the explanations of origins. This activity has no other questions - it is really about students asking the questions with the odd clue from the teacher thrown in when they get stuck. Gets them thinking about fashion beyond the look of it.

A starter activity to engage students on arrival. This is a nice one to explore the perception of alcohol and raise awareness of issues, and can prompt some useful discussions with students.

A starter activity to engage on entry. Really useful not only for students to look at the works but also to through up conversations on the nature of prison and law and order

A really simple starter - a discussion generator. They can decide on their own criteria for how to measure "best" - cheapest, most robust, most versatile etc.

7 starter activities to generate discussion around the same question, exploring aspects of design, cost, performance etc - students decide what defines "best" for them

A starter for a Photography, Art or any lesson where you want students to challenge and question what they think they see, and make them consider why a photograph may be altered. Engages the students on entry and asks them to choose 3 images where there has been argument over whether they are true or not.

A useful lesson starter leading into the lesson - in the hour session planned for I used 6 minute intervals with an alarm to notify students when to stop and take a photo of the work in progress, but over longer sessions it works well too - 6 minutes per stage certainly keeps the lesson pacey, a longer session will give them more stages of development, which is great for AO2 and 3 as they can evidence review and refine and reflective thinking. Our students post on their Instagram as its quicker than having to go upload, print, cut out and stick in.

A nice starter activity for students to consider employment rights, and how they behave in the world of employment. Its an odd one out exercise to consider what is acceptable and not acceptable in the workplace, in things they may take for granted about their appearance

An easy step by step guide to doing joiners with photomerge on photoshop. This is so easy for students to explore David Hockney's joiners in a really fun and active way - because they are reasonably quick to do its feasible for students to be able to explore a set of these in a lesson and generate a body of work quickly. Mixes AO 1 and 2 nicely if they start by researching what Hockney did here. Always a busy and engaging lesson

A lesson through power point for younger learners to begin to think about how they could write about painting. This is a useful starting point for looking at subject matter, approach and techniques as things to consider when gathering responses. The presentation has suggested tasks to complete through the lesson to break into chunks.

This is a set of 16 slides featuring 30+ images of French Emblems by Claude Paradin. I use these with the boys you can come across that are not so engaged in their Art - they really go for the style of approach and the strange combinations of images, which sets their imagination going for their own ideas. Covers AO1 really well if you have students wanting to explore this kind of work with more interesting sources. For this activity they can work directly from the images before developing theirs over a series of lessons

A set of 15 questions to use as display to prompt thinking, or to use as starters. These have been really useful in challenging perceptions - I originally did these for an Open Evening but they have been great to refer to in class as opportunity arises. Includes

A starter and lesson follow on looking at composition, the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Section. This can extend into a set of lessons investigating composition in students' work. Great for a mix of AO1, and AO4 and incorporates some maths into the mix too. Useful for a wide range of KS2 3 4 & 5 as well as being great for a part of project work to show a good understanding of composition.

A starter activity - engages students in looking for connections and questioning what they see in what the differences and similarities are in the city views, which are real and which are false - leading into discussions on what the artists are attempting to do. Ideal for KS3, 4 and 5 as a starter for any lesson where you want them thinking as soon as they come in.

Written as an artist's statement about their work this provides year 1 A Level Art and Design with a really good example of how to write the essay that accompanies the Personal Investigation.

A collection of Matisse quotes to start the week with - will last a term. Great for a start of a discussion or just to have up on the board. There's also a set of quotes by Lucien Freud to do a Friday Freud

A fun starter activity which encourages students to think outside the box in exploring connections between images as well as widening their appreciation of where names come from, and the enduring qualities involved in the nature of our culture. This is suitable for GCSE and A Level Art and Design groups, but could equally be used in an English lesson, or other subjects as a thinking skills exercise which could lead into independent research.

A fun starter activity to encourage students to think outside the box in making links between works and learning. A 5 -10 minute starter good for GCSE and A level students which develops thinking for AO1.