Because of the way hexagons tessellate (love that word) you can group together key words or ideas and ask students to justify the connections between ideas. They are great for assessing understanding or trying to make sense of connections between ideas. I always keep a bag of hexagons handy for summarising or making sense of complex ideas. I don’t recommend buying a Hexagon cutter - they are quite expensive, the hexagons are quite small, and are fine for cutting out the odd one or two, but if you want to make more, cutters can take a while. I suggest using my hexagon template for making them in bulk. Just cut out the strips then chop off the corners.

I have adapted the PiXL personal learning checklist (PLC) so that the statements are student-friendly questions and the tick boxes have been enlarged for students to prove that they understand the concept by filling the box with diagrams or descriptions. I get students to fill this in as they go through the topic to check understanding and use the answers to self-mark them before they do the end of topic test. SEN or absent students can get a copy of the answers to annotate. Check out my account for other topics.

Lesson plan which includes benchmarking (finding out what students know on a topic at the start), reflection and SMSC.

Please find attached this month's Student Revision Toolbox. This is a list of non-subject specific ideas for student revision. It is currently at 67 ideas. I usually send this out every month, depending on how busy I am! I hope you find them useful Pete :-)

A learning progression mat for students on non-Ohmic Resistance. A bit like a lesson plan for students to follow to encourage independent learning. Includes lesson objectives, success criteria, key words, choice of activities, resources etc. Editable .ppt version or .JPEG

A learning progression mat for students on Atomic Structure. A bit like a lesson plan for students to follow to encourage independent learning. Includes lesson objectives, success criteria, key words, choice of activities, resources etc. Editable .ppt version or .JPEG

Digital homework menu for students to choose from a range of different ways of presenting their interpretation of the learning objectives. Editable version for you to make your own.

A2 Biology Photosynthesis - written as a list of reactions and then again as a silly story for students to draw as a cartoon or just memorise. Using this technique I have had students be able to memorise and then recite every part of photosynthesis in under an hour. It takes a bit of a leap of faith to try it, but it has worked well for me. Let me know if you need any help. Pete