primary

Lesson ideas to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday

In April, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday and whilst many who reach that age like to reminisce about their lives, the whole country did just that on the queen’s special day with plenty of documentaries showing the life of our monarch in detail. The celebrations are sure to… Read More

Applying Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation in Writing

Teaching vocabulary, grammar and punctuation for better performance in the VGP key stage tests is important for league tables and inspections, but, for many children, it does little to improve spoken and written language. It’s possible, however, to teach VGP in such a way that it leads to high quality writing, while simultaneously preparing for good grammar test results. Read More

Shakespeare Teaching Ideas for Key Stage 2

The result at Collins are five plays: The Tempest, Midsummer’s Night Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Twelfth Night, rewritten in story form for younger readers. These are a great introduction to the world of Shakespeare but how can we use them effectively to help pupils immerse themselves in the rich language of Shakespeare’s world? Read More

Presenting Data – How your students can display detail

As sad as it may seem, these days no one seems to have enough time to look at things in detail, from text language to finding information, we want to know what we need to know as quickly as possible. Maths has been doing this for some time now with… Read More

Bloody Mary: Did she deserve her reputation?

This teaching activity is about reputations, what they are, how we can acquire one and how we can change or lose one. The 18th February marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Mary I, the lesser known daughter of Henry VIII and sister of Elizabeth I. History today remembers her by… Read More

Baden Powell Anniversary

On the 8th January, 75 years ago, Robert Baden Powell died. Best known for starting the scout and inspiring the girl guides movement, he was also a successful military commander. Millions of girls and boys around the world will mark the day of the anniversary of his death and these… Read More

Investigations

Investigations are more common to our work in science but they can prove invaluable in maths in helping pupils to understand mathematical reasoning. In these activities the pupils are presented with puzzles to solve and in doing so they will gain greater understanding of some key concepts. Activity One –… Read More

Healthy New Year

New Year is a time for resolutions, one of the main ones for adults being to get fitter but this kind of resolution is also important for children and in this set of activities, the pupils are encouraged to look at their lifestyles and see how they can be changed… Read More

Christmas and the Environment

Christmas time with thoughts of turkey dinners and Christmas presents rarely provides an opportunity for us to think of the environment but in these two activities, we can get children thinking about the other cost of Christmas and maybe think about how they can do something about it. Read More

Christmas Activities for Key Stage 1

Activity One: How Many Christmases Are There? Suitable for: Rec to Year 3  Learning Focus: To understand why some countries celebrate Christmas on different days To know about some of the Christmas traditions from around the world  Ask the children how many Christmases they… Read More