The end of the year is almost here and you will soon be in a ‘handover/transition’ meeting with a fellow colleague learning about your next cohort. Often there can be a lot of information to ask of them so I’ve created a handover sheet with questions I usually ask to gain an insight into my new class. I hope you find this useful. Please leave feedback or let me know if you use it on IG: @mindfullyteaching

These are the full range of questions that could be asked of your children on the KS1 arithmetic SATs paper. You can use this resource as assessment material.

Before a day starts, it’s important we all know where each other’s mental and emotional state is. Yes including the teachers in the classroom that day. How can any of the staff members, or the children, create a safe supportive environment that breeds success and opportunity if we don’t know what each other need? Queue this resource - the needs mat. You can use this however you see fit but I like to keep my needs mat on the back of my classroom door. The children and staff members every morning place a peg on the ‘need’ that they need that day. I keep it anonymous for children as they may not want it to be declared to the whole class with their name on in glaring lights. However, staff members do keep an eye on who puts what where. Also staff members have a different coloured peg purposely so that children CAN see what we need for the day. I have teamed up with Shabnam (@miss.d.prepteacher) to add a delicious bonus to the resource. One of the options of the needs mat you can download includes a mix of essential oils for if you have or want a diffuser for your classroom. The science is there for all to see in black and white - scent has a direct link and effect upon our neural activity so to speed up the process and to add a bit of magic to the room, if the majority of the class land on a certain need then we will put that blend of oil into the diffuser for the day. Safe and natural (healing essential oils and water vapour). You can either download the resource with or without the essential oil bonus and either as a PDF or WORD doc so you can edit it all. Enjoy and please do share them with me when they’re up in your classrooms (@mindfullyteaching)

This planning template has been designed with assessment, evidence and a good standard of independent writing in mind. It can be used in both KS1 and in KS2 and is a guide to areas to be considered whilst planning for an independent written piece. Often you may get to the end of a unit of work and think ‘Crumbs! They could have used the words water, plant and beautiful so easily in this piece of writing - how did I miss that?’. We’ve all been there. If you print and jot ideas down whilst planning a unit of work first, you can ensure all the NC targets, spelling rules, TAF statements and vocabulary are included. Following this, the planning cycle should be used as a guide only and is flexible. E.g. You’re writing about Queen Elizabeth but a lot of the GPS targets you wish to include have already been taught in Autumn. So you will only need 1 GPS session to revise, apply and sentence stack to create ideas for the independent piece of writing. The cycle ensures you have a range of activities to build writing ideas from, such as: Hook Drama GPS links and more Thanks for downloading :)

I hope someone else might find these file dividers useful :) They are helping me prepare and get organised for the next academic year.