This resource has seven multi-step problems to solve. Some of the problems have two examples, so you can work through the first example as a class to develop strategies and then the pupils can have a go independently. Alternatively, let them have a go first and then demonstrate more efficient strategies. There is also a quick starter activity based on measures as this was a focus for my class at the time and some of the questions involve converting measures. The questions are provided in SMART Notebook and PowerPoint format for display on the interactive whiteboard, and in PDF and Word format as a paper resource. These were originally used in Year 4 as an end of term activity and are based on the NNS Puzzles and Problems for Years 3 & 4; however, they could be used across KS2 with different levels of support. Ideas for use: Time filler for stolen moments at the end of term. Developing problem / investigation solving. Stick the question onto a large piece of paper and solve as a group. Adult-led guided group activity/assessment opportunity. Part of a Travel Agent role play corner. Early finishers work Homework activity School work for pupils going on a long holiday during term time (if you dare!) More able or Upper KS2 pupils could devise their own problems in the same format to truly demonstrate their understanding.

This is a sheet of questions about fractions, decimals, ratios and percentages. This is perfect for the beginning of a topic to ascertain individual and collective gaps and strengths. The activity could even be given as a homework. The questions get progressively more difficult and span from Level 3 - Level 6. The sheet can be easily edited in Word format so that the levels aren’t visible to pupils. There is also a record sheet for teachers with the objectives at the top of the sheet. Teachers can use a system of ticks and crosses to fill in the boxes, but I use a highlighter to indicate the objectives achieved. I then use this to inform my planning and guided groups. At the end of the topic I give the pupils the questions again and record on the same sheet using a different highlighter so that progress is clearly visible. As well as PDF, resource is provided in Word format for easy editing.

This is a simple display that I put on the back of my classroom door. It consisted of an octopus in the middle with eight different ways of opening a sentence around it - one at each tentacle. One of my pupils drew and painted a octopus for me, but I have included an image of an octopus in the resource to save you time - just enlarge to A3. Of course, you could ditch the Octopus completely (especially for older children) and just display on the wall or laminate and add to a working wall. There is a PowerPoint to accompany the display, which is probably best if you focus on experimenting with one type of opener at a time to let it sink in! The PowerPoint is really plain and simple as it is intended to be annotated and used interactively as opposed to a presentation. Octopus picture credit: http://cliparts.co/octopus-clip-art

This resource is really useful for a fun end of term or Christmas maths or Enterprise activity related to planning a party. This is also great for honing team work skills as the pupils may have a strong difference of opinion and need to compromise. Simply choose a budget and send groups off to plan the best whole class party for their money. Pupils have to figure out whether the special offers are really that special and if the branded products are really worth the extra money. There are many ways that you could assess this activity, but I went round and talked to the children, asking them to justify why they had made certain choices. Maths Coverage Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimals, Ratio Measures Money Problem Solving Reasoning Using a calculator (if desired) I followed this up with a discussion on healthy eating: what foods do we normal eat at parties? Are there healthier alternatives? This proved to be a really interesting and extremely worthwhile activity and resulted in a healthy end of term party. As well as PDF, the resource is provided in Word format to give you the opportunity to edit.

This effective interactive display was used in a Year 4 classroom for assessment to save marking! I used it as a baseline assessment and again at the end of the unit of work and simply took a photograph of each pupil’s effort as evidence and noted down anything they may have said whilst doing the activity. Unfortunately I don’t have a photograph of this display, but here is a rough description of how I arranged it: Headings ‘soluble’ and ‘insoluble’ for pupils to organise substances such as flour, salt, rice & sand underneath. Headings ‘Reversible’ and ‘Irreversible’ for pupils to organise descriptions of different changes under, e.g. ‘freezing orange juice to make lollies’. Matching the vocabulary to the correct definition (these could also be used as flash cards as another form of assessment), e.g. dissolve, filter, sieving. Gas, solid and liquid with their properties and a simple particle diagram. I also provided the children with post-it notes and they added their own examples of gases, solids and liquids; irreversible and reversible changes; and soluble and insoluble materials to the display as the unit progressed. I mounted the text on black card and laminated it as I knew they would be handled a lot. I just put blu-tac on the back, but Velcro would be another option. My display is quite plain as I didn’t want to distract pupils when assessing them, but the display is provided in Word format as well as PDF so it can be glammed up with colour if you like. There are many ways that this display could be used. One activity that I did later on in the year was to bring out the cards and use them as headings on a giant Carroll Diagram (the assessment was for maths data handling but it was good to revise the vocabulary). Pupils placed items under headings ‘soluble’ and ‘insoluble’ and other criteria such as ‘edible’ or ‘inedible’. I also used a Venn diagram for solids and liquids and children placed food items and other items in two qiant PE hoops with an overlap in the middle. I hope you enjoy using this resource and I hope that it saves you some time!

A simple PowerPoint with addition and subtraction calculation questions that provide pupils with the opportunity to practise their written methods. For the first activity the 10 questions get progressively harder and I used this as an assessment to identify gaps and group pupils accordingly for teaching input. I repeated these questions at the end of the unit to assess progress and next steps. The second activity includes 13 questions that are grouped in three categories of difficulty. There are two further reasoning activities to consolidate the learning.

Seven sessions of planning, accompanying PowerPoint and paper resources. Each session takes around 30 minutes and are aimed at Years 5 & 6. The objectives covered are: To correctly use the common homophones – there, their, they’re and where, wear, were and we’re. To spell unstressed vowels in polysyllabic words. To spell words with common letter strings and different pronunciations. To spell words with common pronunciations but different letter strings. To explore the spelling patterns of consonants and to formulate rules. To explore the spelling patterns of consonants and to formulate rules. To explore less common prefixes and suffixes.

The resource includes photographs of 51 different instruments (common orchestral instruments and school percussion instruments) with their names underneath. The resource can be used in so many different ways and - if printed on card and laminated - it is a resource that can be used time and time again! Ideas for activities and uses: Matching the instrument to its name. Sorting /ordering according to different criteria, e.g instrument families, pitch of the sound, size of the instrument… Venn Diagram sorting, e.g. wood/metal, played with a beater/played by hand… Display or working wall labels. Music trolley/cupboard labels. Stimulus for a composition - assign or have pupils choose a number of instruments to incorporate in their piece. Provide pupils with a title for a piece of music, eg. ‘The Storm’ - what instruments might you use? Baseline/end-of-unit assessment task. Listening activity: play a piece of music and have pupils pick out the instruments that they can hear from the pile. As well as PDF, the resource is provided in Word format in case you want to edit the font or use a different name for a particular instrument. Thank you for looking and I hope this resource saves you some time!

This resource looks at the three main types of sentence structure: simple, compound and complex. Opportunities are given for pupils to: Learn the features of each type of sentence structure. Use the terms noun and verb and consolidate their understanding of word classes. Use the terms main clause and subordinate clause (the idea of adult and child is given as a pictoral representation). Identify sentence structures within texts: a newspaper article and an extract from Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. Up-level sentences by adding suborindate clauses to simple sentences before, after and in the middle of the main clause. Use commas correctly the mark clauses and clarify meaning. The presentation has little activities throughout, which you could build on to structure a mini unit of work or just dip into for ten minutes at a time. It would work well as an introduction earlier down the school, revision in upper KS2/KS3 or with a guided intervention group who have gaps in their understanding. I found it particularly useful for assessing the pupil’s understanding of the vocabulary associated with sentence level and word level work.

A one off lesson planned as an addition to the Investigators IPC Unit. The lesson was designed to be fun, but had a more serious purpose of developing the pupils ability to write conclusions to scientific experiments. The lesson is based on the premise that the previous night when I got back from the staff meeting someone had eaten my chocolates - I had made a big thing the previous day about the chocolates that my colleague had bought me for helping her with her assembly. I had my suspicions about which member of staff it was but needed proof - the job of the pupils. Pupils do finger print analysis, handwriting analysis, chromatography and DNA barcode analysis to gather evidence and come to a conclusion (justified with evidence) about who stole the chocolate. I did this as a real life investigation with some very willing colleagues. Selected pupils were sent off to obtain fingerprints and alibis from the four suspects and when presented with the evidence our criminal teaching assistant did a great acting job when coming clean! Obviously you don’t need to go this far if you don’t want and you can just do the lesson as it is without basing it in your own school. Wherever possible, I have included Word versions of the files as well as PDFs so that you can customise to suit your own school if you like. This has everything you need to get going - you will just need to label four different kinds of pen, e.g. whiteboard marker, ink pen, biro & felt-tip. The resource includes a teacher lead guided group with focused questions and recording sheet. Linked to Science APP Grid. This lesson was rated outstanding by Ofsted. It can be used across KS2 and would work brilliantly as a fun lesson, observation or as part of Science Week. Enjoy!

A set of 30 cards, each featuring the name of a percussion instrument and an image of it. I printed these on card and laminated them and I have used them in many different ways; here are some examples: Sorting activities: encourage children to become more familiar with the instruments and calling them by the correct name by inviting them to sort them according to their own or pre-defined criteria, e.g. tuned/untuned, metal/wooden… Children select a card at the start of a lesson…this is the instrument they will be using (saves arguments and also prevents against six sets of cymbals crashing all lesson!) Use as labels for instruments in your music room or instrument store - great for music subject-leaders who are struggling to keep the cupboard tidy! Separate the names from the images and invite children to match the name to the correct instrument. Give children different themes for compositions and ask them to select the instruments that they think would be most suited to that theme and explain why, e.g. drums and cymbals for a storm composition.

This resource includes two sets of worksheets providing pupils with the opportunity to practise solving worded division problems and written methods for division. The first set has a Fairground theme and includes three worksheets at different levels. The second has a space theme (created to fit in with our IPC ‘Mission to Mars’ topic) and also includes three worksheets at different levels. In each set the first sheet is aimed at middle ability pupils, the second at less able pupils and the third sheet is for higher ability pupils. Answers for all six worksheets are included. All worksheets require pupils to round their answers up and down, answer multi-step problems and to use written methods of division with decimal numbers. I originally did this with my Year 6 pupils, but it would also be suitable for Year 5 and Year 7 pupils. Resource provided in PDF format and also Word format for editing.

A fun ‘Where’s Wally’ themed display with tricky ‘W’-words and matching example sentences. Pupils can refer to the display when they unsure and select the correct spelling. Word format provided, as well as PDF, for easy editing. Picture Credit - Wally and Woof pictures from http://freecoloringpages.co.uk/?r=wheres wally

I created these ‘Odd One Out’ activities as part of a maths corridor display. It was designed for use by the whole school (Foundation to Y6) and the aim was the develop reasoning and raise the profile of maths in the school. This could also be used alongside my Developing Reasoning Powerpoint as an activity for staff to try during the session. As well as PDF, resource is provided in Word format for easy editing.

These can be printed and laminated to label up resource trays for your pupils. They fit standard school trays and can of course be edited to say whatever you like! Not ground breaking, but might save you a bit of time!

This is the sales particulars that I created for a lesson on persuasive writing. It gives pupils and idea of layout and what is included in a persuasive house brochure, but can they write their own so that it is a bit more persuasive?