Starters and Plenaries

Starters and Plenaries

• To be able to identify what makes a good starter

• To be able to develop successful starters to use in lessons

• To be able to understand the role of plenaries in lessons

• To be able to identify successful strategies to assess progress made by students in lessons.

Learning Objectives

What makes a successful starter?

• Should last no more than 10minutes (5minutes if lesson is less than an hour)

• Should do one of the following:– Prepare students for the new skills/techniques– Refresh students on previous learning– Help calm/excite students for your lesson

Starters - Overview

A Few Examples…The Ones That Worked For

Me

Who Would Win? And Why?

Idea on your post it note – stick it to the board when done

• Can be used to help students compare and contrast

• What/Who would win?– Could compare two pieces of work

– Different techniques for software

Who Would Win…The Link

Battleships

• Can be done as a whole class or paired activity

• Paired– Provide each player with a grid sheet and let them

have a game of the classic board game• Whole Class

– Class competes against teacher. If class sinks more ships than teacher could give a prize

• Main role is to teach students about cell references for spreadsheets

Battleships

Draw a grid like below and fill in with…

KeyWord Bingo

6 different places you would find a database

BankSchool

Doctor/AmbulancePolice

Airports

SupermarketsLibrary

AccountantsGovernment

Telemarketers

Places you find a database

• Could be used to have students put in different key words from a list and you give them the definitions (to check understanding)

• Could also potentially be used as a plenary

KeyWord/Topic Bingo

Plenaries

• Don’t want to ruin the students focus on the current task (especially in KS4)

• Run out of time

The Problems/Excuses

The Actual Role Of PlenariesTo check if students have met the learning

objectives/success criteria of the lesson

To help you plan the next lesson’s learning

Some Examples

• One minute to say as much about how to do something

• If you repeat, pause or make a mistake it moves to the next person

e.g. How to animate a picture in powerpoint

Just a Minute

The Door Queue

Its Question Time.

I will ask a question and if you get it right, you get to pack up and line up at the door

Get it wrong and you will need to sit down

• Have students assess the work of the student next to them

• Get them to suggest two good things and one thing that they would like to improve

Peer/Self Assessment

• In Word (or on paper/books) write down:

What you have learnedWhere you could use the skills from this lesson in

other subjectsHow you would improve your skills from this lessonWhen you will review your learning from this

lessonWhy you think this learning is important

4W's and a H

Dingbats

Time For School

Brainstorm

Some Final Ideas and Remarks

• The Starter Generator

• The Plenary Producer

http://pgce2010ict.wikispaces.com/

GoogleDocs/WikiSpaces

• Students enjoyed making their own starters

• Keep it simple

• Don’t use the same thing over and over (its like death by worksheet)

• Find what the group like and rotate it.

Final Thoughts