Grab and Go Guides

Overview Keeping students engaged can be a challenging task. One of the things my students love is playing 'escape the room' games on google forms. I will freely admit I usually help create a mood in the room with music on in the background etc, but I don't have lots of set up to do which helps between classes.  I also teach some of my classes how to make these for themselves and they sometimes create them as revision activities etc. They often share them with a time limit built in and have a bit of fun trying to make them so challenging their class mates  At the bottom, instead of the usual video, I've added a pdf of where to click to set up steps 3-9. This allows you to take it at your own pace and see it in more detail.  Equipment To create an escape the room game you don't need very much at all: 1. A source (or sources) of information. 2. Google form 3. Anything you want to help create the mood Here's a step by step guide: 1. Find your information they can w...

Data: Attitude to Learning It's that time of year when tracking and report writing are coming thick and fast. I'm currently in the process of writing 150 Year 9 reports, which is just the tip of the key stage 3 data iceberg looming on the horizon. I will do a series of posts on how I've found workarounds for things that have taken me time in the past. In this blog, it's about 'effort' grades for homework. I know not all schools require this, but if they do it can be a bit of a nightmare data gathering exercise - so here's where I recommend putting google sheets (or whichever spreadsheet creator you prefer) to work instead. At the bottom of this blog I have created a short video talking you through how I use these formula, so if visual/audio is better than words, please do scroll on down!  Prep Whenever my students do a homework I put a 1 in my mark book. This is purely a marker that they have completed the homework, not if they've done it correctly etc. ...