For neurodiverse students, this is a ‘check in’ set of lists to help them stay centred, relax, know what to do next, or organise their thoughts/behaviours when beginning a task set. The first page has a list of suggestions for keeping ‘in check’, the second page is a list of questions that student could ask such as ‘how long do I have to complete this task?’ This could also be helpful for basic executive functioning assistance.

This presentation introduces pupils to the genre of advertising music. They must use their understanding of music analysis to analyse the examples given - scaffolding questions are asked. The second activity asks them to create their own advertisement for a particular product - using melody, rhythm, lyrics and basic accompaniment.

"The trees seemed to grow bigger and bigger…or were they shrinking?" A nice starting paragraph to springboard into a Fantasy story that children could write independently, for homework, or in a scaffolded way. There is a picture included and some directions to remind children to use literary devices.

A list of the Musical Elements for Early Secondary/KS3 pupils. Terminology may differ across countries - this particular resource was created in Australia. Feel free to alter terminology where necessary.

A bit of fun for Homework or you could alter and make it a lesson or activity. Children are asked to physically demonstrate prepositions ie: running around the park sitting beside their sister hiding behind the door they are to take photographs to bring in or glue into English or homework books if necessary. Could be used to create a fun display too! I offered prizes to my class for this task and some of the results were brilliant and hilarious. Real world learning!

This activity is designed for use during Transition time from one year to another. It is a great icebreaker for the children to learn about each other, and about where things are kept in their new classroom. I used it at the beginning of the year and it was a great success. You can edit to make it appropriate for the children in your class.

A great way to teach aural skills and rhythm in a fun way. Works exactly like bingo - make sure pupils have one of the two different sheets - never just do it with one sheet. First person to get 4 in a row, and stand up and shout BINGO wins. Contains Semi quavers syncopation rests noted as Z

A basic template to show children how to show both sides of an argument.

In depth presentation about the brain and music which uses university research to explain how music affects the brain. Lists the 10 most relaxing pieces of music according to research. Pupils could use these pieces as listening examples.

These are some resources for talking about the Learning Pit and Growth Mindset. There is a PDF of lesson slides and two sets of posters that I created using inspiration from around the internet. Some pictures are taken from Google images, some from posters I created. Videos are from Youtube and Vimeo.

This resource has a Word Document and PDF version of a self, peer, and teacher assessment criteria sheet for the writing genre Myths and Legends. This was co-created by a Year 6 class and could be used as a tool for self and peer assessment for the students as they create their myth and legend stories.

This lesson plan and presentation will help children understand how to infer a character's feelings rather than just writing the emotion. It involves a fun starter for the teacher - a little bit of acting, which the children love! If you are not a fan of acting you could get away with the text at the beginning of the presentation and the discussion. Children will end up writing their own paragraph inferring what a character is feeling. Differentiated planning.

To be used in conjunction with excerpts from the filmed STOMP "OUT LOUD". Most of these things can be found on YouTube just type in the heading of the section eg: STOMP OUT LOUD brooms great resource to help pupils analyse the musical elements in a piece of performance art. Asks lots of questions about rhythm, pitch and sound production. Perhaps a great beginning of the Year activity for Year 7 or 8.

Great resource when learning about the Mayans. After a look at how Mayans communicated and how their number and writing system works, your class could try out this interesting activity, creating their own codices. They could write their name and a few sentences for a friend to decode.

This worksheet asks pupils to Self and Peer-Assess after completing a performance. It helps them to assess their part within the group and how they felt each of their peers performed as part of the group. A useful resource for Self and Peer assessment evidence.

This resource is an Active Inspire Flipchart - works with older versions of Active Inspire. This resource can be used as a prompt to start students thinking about the Greeks, and what the Greeks created that we still use today. Children are given the information on 9 different Greek inventions we still use today, and are then asked to prioritise each one. Which one is the most important to them? Why? It can generate a great discussion whilst teaching children a little about the Greeks. I used it as a one off during our Greeks Topic.

Children can learn about the different rhyme schemes of Quatrains (4 line rhyming poems) using the theme of Christmas. Perfect for the last week before the Christmas holidays for creating poems to write in Christmas cards. Takes into consideration those of other faiths and suggests they could create a poem or card for another holiday. LO: to write a quatrain (four line poem) Bronze: I can write an ABAB rhyming quatrain. Silver: I can experiment with ABBA, AABB rhyme schemes. Gold: I can write poems with ABAB, ABBA, AABB and ABCB rhyme schemes.

This presentation and worksheet is a lesson in itself! Pupils are given the worksheet with songs and the musical elements on it - and the presentation gives basic information about 6 Musicals from the 70’s and 80’s including Phantom of the Opera, Hair, Godspell and Les Miserables. Pupils listen to each song in turn and use their worksheet to analyse each piece of music. A great fun lesson!

This lesson involves the playing of "Simon Says" to understand prepositions and prepositional phrases. there is lots of discussion and class writing a list of prepositions they know. Lots of movement and partner work. The worksheets are differentiated into LA, MA, HA with extension. Lots of fun and action in this lesson!

"Find me a musical which uses a story from the Bible..." and much more! This 20 questions internet research game is a fun pupil-led activity where they will learn a surprising amount about Musical Theatre. They will discover both older and more modern musicals and some questions are much trickier than others! For extension you could ask pupils to find the 'vital statistics' of each musical as they go -ie. date of premiere, stars performing in it, where it has been performed. Answer sheet is on the second page. Happy searching!