This is quite possibly, the coolest thing I've ever tried out. The premise is as follows: a debate between two students (or teams) where four referees observe. The referees score what they see and a winner is announced at the end. Now add in entrance music a la pro-wrestlers (think the Rocky Theme, We Will Rock You etc.) and run it on an open evening and I promise you this - you will have EVERY parent in at some point to see what is going on. I've run this at SIX parents evenings now and the same thing happens every time - all of the kids rock up to watch. I set it last time round where the Deputy Head took on the winner of the students (a year 9 girl). They packed the place out to see who won . The debate topic "Batman vs Superman" (serious stuff this). Needless to say, she wiped the floor with him (in a totally professional way). You'll need to be the promoter/commentator/ring side referee - this can be exhilarating and exhausting! Try it.

I designed this spreadsheet to track a bunch of the elements I needed to keep an eye on within the Head of Year role. Remember, hide the columns you don’t need and write comments to keep a fuller track of details. A watered-down version of each area is available to see on the top sheet. Also, you can add/modify the menus The areas are as follows: CONTACT TRACKER: Designed to keep track of meetings and phone calls from class room teacher all the way up to governors. TARGET TRACKER: Similar to contact tracker but it allows for you to track a set of targets. I’d log the target in a comment and then enter a new target should I need to do so. OUTSIDE AGENCIES TRACKER: The original reason I set the spreadsheet up. Allows for you to see who has interactions with an agency (e.g. Early Help) and track your contact with them. BULLYING/INCIDENT TRACKER: Accounts for identification of incident, investigation and follow up. You can then log the action. TOILET/TIME OUT PASS TRACKER: Allows for you to monitor when a pass was set up and keep a check of how frequent it is used. You’ll need to copy some of the sections to expand. Not a spreadsheet for the faint hearted, but you’ll only ever need THIS spreadsheet.

A unit of work I put together whilst working inside a secondary school's behavioural unit. The idea was that these lessons would develop the students ability to apply a vocabulary to emotions that they may struggle to recognise, feel, express or talk about in themselves and others. By helping them with this vocabulary, the theory was that they would be better able to reintegrate into the school environment and stay there. It had mixed results, some students showed improvements, others less so. Either way, someone out there will hopefully find this useful. The materials cover the following topics: Feeling Afraid Feeling Angry Feeling Ashamed Feeling Bored Feeling Happy Feeling Helpless Feeling Lonely Feeling Loved Feeling Sad Each "feeling" has an associated wordsearch and accompanying answer sheet. Most of these also have a whole lesson attached to them - there are some anomalies. You'll need a copy of the AQA Sunlight on the Grass anthology story "Compass and Torch" too. Some feedback would be useful folks. I've moved away from this type of work but would like to return to it - be nice to know if my ideas have worked elsewhere.