I used this with my SEND group who were in year 8, but working at KS1/2 level. We watched a clip from Youtube (Just search: Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire: Hungarian Horntail Task.) Then we worked in pairs to put the pictures in order at first, and then match the correct sentence below and stick this in. One higher ability pair had to change their sentences as an extra challenge. This became the plan of our Harry Potter diary - we were completing a topic about Dragons - so students had all the events and information, and only needed to transform this into a diary style. This topic is suitable for KS2 and KS3 pupils and is easily adapted for different ages, abilities and needs. It’s very simple just to take out the sentences either in part or altogether and ask students to create their own from scratch.

This is a revised History topic plan for the Tudors - Key skills match those taken from the New curriculum as of 2013. I’ve not included any resources because none are my own - all taken from searching TES and finding bits and pieces to match!

In celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday, here’s the play script from my class assembly whereby pupils perform a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Nice and easy to understand, and it worked a treat!

At the end of a unit of work based on various Mr. Bean clips, my KS3 SEND students watch the clip from youtube of Mr. Bean, waking up late for the dentist. Here’s the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VumrpkL6RS0 Firstly, they cut out the pictures and in pairs, put these in order and discuss the events of the clip and how we might describe this to someone who hadn’t seen it. We split the clip in half and I show them my own slow writing from the first half of the clip. Then, their independent writing task is to complete the slow write for the second half of the clip. I’ve taught this to whole classes in year 5 and 6, and to small SEND groups in year 7 and 8. It’s always a hit, and I’ve found that the slow writing technique has made a big difference to the quality of writing that we’re producing.

This is the plan - with extra cast sheet, resources list and invites - for a Roman Castleford assembly. It lasted about 15 minutes, and the kids absolutely loved it. The bits about castleford could easily be adapted so that you keep the rest about Roman britain and change it to suit your local area.

I cut up this worksheet into sections and blue tack it at points around the classroom. I then split the class into the same number of teams. Each team must send one envoy to learn as many facts about that question as they can and then report back to their team, who complete the team question sheet (last page.) Envoys are disqualified if they go more than once. A great, fast paced lesson and pupils are often so competitive that they completely forget they are learning! Builds on team skills, speaking and listening too! I go through the information at the end and award points per key piece of information. Winner gets housepoints/prize.

This is a great lesson - I’ve taught it to year 4 and 8…both worked well! Pupils have to develop their own antarctic animals that could survive in the harsh climate, so they had to think carefully about the characteristics of animals - the worksheet alongside should help guide them.

I hand out my contract to pupils in the first week of having a new class. They then write their own. We discuss the ins and outs of this, specifically thinking about WHY we have certain rules. I laminate theirs and mine and put them on the wall to be referred to whenever one of us steps out of line! There’s also a planning frame for poor writers.

Just a handy help sheet, showing 6 different women ‘who made History.’ I’ve used this as part of a discussion on ‘International Women’s Day,’ prompting students to think about: how these women faced adversity/were ahead of their time in some way what character traits and qualities they showed what it was that gave them the strength to be courageous, despite being afraid how we can use their message to find strength and courage in our daily lives.

This is a literacy unit, lasting one week, based on balanced argument. Pupils spend the first part of the week reading/evaluating sources and then put together their own balanced argument. Normally, the week would end with a big write to test the children’s skills but we had a random observation on Friday so we joint-planned the Goldilocks lesson - see extra notebook file. All three year 6 teachers received ‘outstanding’ observation feedback for Goldilocks :-) The unit mixes English and Literacy with History source skills through our Henry VIII topic. I’ve used elements of this when teaching Tudors to Year 8 pupils in History lessons.

Big write task based on writing recounts, and giving pupils options to choose from, all relating to an imaginary school trip which they’re asked to recall. Planning frame for bullet points before they begin (I usually give 10 minutes for this.) A quick, engaging topic, for any kind of independent writing. Suitable for KS2 students. Works as a baseline assessment or as an end of unit test, to see how students’ writing skills have developed independently.

This is a slow writing task that I set as homework for SEND students in year 7 and 8, after they have completed similar slow writing activities. Great for reinforcing a range of skills, punctuation, grammar, sentence and word types and creative writing techniques. Suitable for KS2 and KS3 students, including struggling writers, LA pupils and SEND. Great as a structured end of unit piece of writing/Big Write or general independent writing. Easily differentiated further.

This is planning I created a few years ago to use with a year 5 class. We were asked to take the whole first week of term with our new classes to perform ‘getting to know you’ activities Take a look at the plan. It worked really well - it was a great week! I’ve also added the pictures we used for the wartime artwork. The kids throughly enjoyed this activity - they looked at the wartime poster and adapted them for school e.g keep calm and carry on working! These posters stayed up in class all year long. Activities are easily adapted for KS1 - KS2 pupils, and parts of this could be taken and used at KS3 in PSHE, Tutor time, Art or History.

The Breathing Space meditation is a quick way of encouraging children (or adults) to step out of auto-pilot, whereby they become aware of the thoughts and emotions that are currently driving their mood and behaviour, before harnessing the power of their attention via breath and body. It’s a super effective way of practising self-awareness and self-management, the key components of emotional intelligence and mental health. It can be used with individual children at home or with full classes in school. It’s useful whether practised every morning, as a means of resetting attitudes after break/lunch/transition or as a tool to use in the moment, when students moods/attitudes are perhaps slipping. The wording of this meditation works best I think for KS2 - KS3 though I think it’s worth trying with KS1 KS4 or adults (works a treat for me!) I’ve attached a link to the YouTube clip and the audio file, as well as the slides that I use alongside this meditation, which encourage follow-up discussion so that children are expanding their emotional vocabulary also. If you enjoy this, check out my lockdown #mindful100 project on here YouTube. Jo Steer is a former Primary/Secondary teacher, trained in Mindfulness, YogaKidz, CBT essentials & Forest School practice. She is a TES Wellbeing Columnist & works in schools delivering bespoke wellbeing workshops and upgraded PSHE. See www.skillswithfrills.com to learn more!

I developed this when working with a year 5 class, as I felt communication between school and home wasn’t good. Pupils filled this in on thursday, I checked it on friday and added any comments if necessary (usually not) and then pupils took this home on fridays for their parents. Logs then came back to me on monday and I could then deal with any issues the parents have. The aim is to improve school-home relations. Suitable for KS2 students.

My class were working through a unit based on our school community and Britain overall. I was becoming very concerned that in the political climate of Brexit, some of the students were beginning to repeat misinformed, ignorant and even bigoted opinions that they had picked up elsewhere… so I wanted them to consider immigration over time from the view of an outside observer. This worked a treat and I was especially careful to let students lead discussion, with me guiding/asking questions as needed. The information is something I’ve adapted from BBC timelines. If you have access to computers, students could do this as a research task instead. My class completed this teamwork task based on immigration to Britain over time and the attitudes that people were met with when they arrived. The opening starters really encouraged discussion and allowed us together to respond to negative ideas about immigrants. Then, students worked in groups of 4 and read each page as a group, breaking down who was coming to Britain, why and if the reaction was positive or negative. They presented this in different ways - it was quite open ended. One group presented this on a scale of a great reaction (Notting Hill carnival) to terrible (race riots) - depending on the class, you could explicitly ask for this as the open-ended nature might be too tricky for LA/SEND students. It’s also possible to differentiate if you have a weaker group by taking out some of the sheets as this is a lot of ground to cover for some. At the end, we talked about why the British reacted this way and linked this to our starter. All in all, this prompted some really interesting discuss and allowed some students to break down misconceptions of other students too. I used this with year 7 but I think this would with KS2 right up to KS5 classes if adapted slightly.

I read the Christian creation story to the class in RE. We write the order of key events on the board, and they complete the sheets (differentiated for lower, core and upper.) Suitable for KS2 children and KS3.