A starter activity to promote thinking skills for AO2 and AO3 for GCSE and A level - how artists use media, and how they review, modify and refine. This one works really well to break down barriers of not wanting to go beyond the comfort zone when developing work and shows students how artists work in ways where they change their minds when working. Ideal for a lesson involving drawing and reworking a drawing

A starter activity the promotes looking harder. This gives some extra understanding to how painters hide things, or make them less obvious and challenges them to question why which is great for AO1 and AO4, making informed responses and commenting on the work of artists in ways which help them develop ideas and understanding. It works for most age ranges as it really relies on them looking and making connections with what they can see. Great for small group work and useful for building skills in responding to works of art through comparing and contrasting approaches.

A fun starter to engage boys in particular in discussion - the points in discussion can be directed towards design, comfort, clean etc to prompt the refinement of the definition of "best"

A starter activity to generate discussion, analysis and reasoning. Leave the decision on criteria for best to the students

A fun starter to engage them as soon as they arrive and a good one to tick the equality and diversity box with opportunities to discuss gender and the way men and women tackle subject matter, challenging stereotypical view points. Really good for generating discussion with A Level and GCSE classes, and I've also used it in PSHE lessons to good effect.

A fun quiz to test knowledge and engage students in some research in finding the answers. I've used it as longer starter to a lesson and as a homework. Multiple choice format to encourage an educated guess from the students it works well with KS4 and post 16 classes.

A starter activity to engage students in looking at a set of paintings on the same subject to get them to analyse how painters treat the subject in different ways and to make judgements as to their personal preferences, justified to show informed personal responses for AO4 to back up the nature of the task focussing on AO1, exploring what artists do.

A fun starter to get students guessing as to reasons why one of these is the most popular. engages students immediately and generates thinking.

A fun little starter to engage students on entry - gets them looking at how artists work in different ways - some neat and tidy, some chaotic. It gives them a reference point of the work the artists produce with the answers. Good for a bit of background knowledge of working practices in painting.

A fun starter to any lesson or tutor time to get students thinking and looking for clues to make connections.

A starter to encourage discussion, analysis and reasoning - students can decide on their criteria for "best" - most comfortable, fashionable, fun - and can look across both men's and women's.

A starter activity which always engages students in looking for how artists create illusions in different ways and trick us in how we look. The slide has six images with explanations on slide 2. This starter can be used for any age group you are working with to look a bit harder.

A starter activity for sessions on drawing. This starter encourages students to consider new ways of drawing and promotes creative approaches to get them away from thinking drawing can only be done with dry media in a prescribed way. The power point has 7 images on slide one for students to work through and is ideal at GCSE and A Level for AO2 possibilities.

A lesson starter to encourage looking and thinking. Students love these puzzles - they will not be able to identify all the images and that helps them start to look for clues and guess, a key part of looking and questioning what they see. This is good for any age where you want a starter to engage on entry and will work well working in pairs or small groups. The slide contains 7 images of diverse images with a connection in the title.

A starter activity designed at getting students to consider and explore the ideas and concepts behind the design process and how this affects the look of the product. This is ideal for any age group but particularly good for GCSE and A Level graphics communication in particular, and will give information on which students can show an informed response.

A starter activity to engage students and help them think outside the box. I've always found that odd collections of images are of much interest to all students and helps them to try to spot connections, which develops thinking skills and the nature of the activity in making guesses throws up really interesting and unexpected ideas which helps to generate interesting discussion. Working in small groups of mixed ability helps in bringing out ideas and seeing how ideas can be explored in different ways. Suitable for any secondary stage, good for GCSE and A level as a way of processing possible ideas. This is on a power point slide with notes accompanying, and if you search for the Fatboy Slim video it acts as a clue and thinking time.

This starter activity really gets students looking and questioning. I like to make students look beyond the obvious connections and really question what they see in an image - this one works really well in giving students new ideas to explore for AO1 in asking of them what artists are doing in different ways and includes statements by the artists in terms of what the work is about for students to be able to demonstrate Informed responses. This is great for GCSE and A Level but will work with any age group in giving them opportunities to make connections and guesses around what the are seeing, and that's a key thing I think in getting to students to look more closely where they usually only register what they see at first glance.

A starter to engage the students on entry, looking for clues as to what the connection might be with a difficult fourth image which doesn't quite fit. These starters really make the students look and think and give good opportunities to look across cultures for why artists might choose the subject matter. Suitable for any age group - KS2 KS3 KS4 and KS5, and good for some background knowledge on art history AO1

A starter to engage students on entry - looking for clues for connections they can make between the images and learn a bit about Art History along the way. These starters always go down well even with the reluctant participant because they can look and suggest possible answers, and students can get new ideas on approaches for their own projects.

A starter for any lesson - an excuse to get students exploring possible connections between the paintings. The important thing is not that they get the answer but they ask questions and make suggestions - gets them thinking!