As a head of year, I get my tutors to do 'Thunks Thursday&' - get the students thinking about issues outside the box and thinking of the bigger picture. ~Instructions included for fun creative thinking!

Powerpoint and accompanying notes for an assembly given last year. (The last slide needs to be adapted to suit you). Shows how other countries celebrate Christmas and how we do here. Traditional values too.

A detailed lesson plan sheet I have been using for about 4 years. Had good feedback from OfSted about the format when they observed me last year. This one is part filled in so you can see how I use it, but feel free to adapt.

A detailed lesson plan pro forma I use, which I have filled in with a lesson plan for fabric paint practical with key stage 3. (I used this with year 8).

This sheet activity is a cover godsend! It's also really fun to make a hide and find game from it... I place the equipment around the room, print the names and uses out, cut them up and hide them aroud the room, and the students have to find each part, draw the equipment in and fill in any info they can about each item. Also good as a Kims Game style game... hide them to see what they can remember!

Really detailed lesson plan about Quality Control and how it can be used to assess, guide and develop practical work. I used this last academic year and gained an outstanding judgement. Theory, practical and interactive elements. A few risks but a fun, engaging lesson. Make sure you have lots of newspaper and seelotape ready in advance!

I print out one booklet per student when we start the GCSE controlled assessment, and then mark, re-mark and update as we go on. For your own use, it is easy to use for assessment; you can circle/ underline what they are getting their marks for in each section. Good space to write corrections and suggested improvements in each section. Students can use this for self assessment and target setting.

Industrial processes. Natural fibres to fabric. Synthetic fibres (differentiated). Yarns. I used these to introduce some of the ideas to my year 9 students. Also works well as revision for year 11.

The kids love this! I have one for every class. I am doing AQA, but this could easily be updated for the other exam boards. The students can take charge of their coloured squares, or you can after marking. I use coloured circle stickers, but the students could colour in the gaps if you'd prefer.

Tries this with my low ability year 7 class as a plenary to test what they understood about using a template to cut fabric. Worked quite well.

I use this all the time to get my students to consider aesthetic, cost, customer, environment, size, safety, function and materials. Really handy for product analysis, making sure they have labelled everything in design work, and also for covering these key points when writing their design specifications.

VERY handy fashion figures for students to trace/ copy when developing their confidence at drawing people to illustrate their design work.

Lesson plan on practical machine embroidery. I used this with a middle set 2 class when I was observed. The focus of my obs was deployment of GTP to aid and assist with the extension of practical abilities. Includes all gumph with it. Enjoy!

Good to set as a homework at the end of a unit of work, or perhaps a quick starter task…

A little pop-quiz style test I created to use as a revision tool with my year 10 class before their mock GCSE's. We are studying AQA, but it can be suited to OCR and perhaps Edexcell too. It includes theory and design quesitons.

Two quick activities you could try with your forms or classes to help build the team ethos. One to help learn names, the other to build trust and support. 'Name calling' and 'mine field'.

Questions that your students can answer following practical fabric testing. This could work in a variety of ways... I cut the questions up into strips, folded them up, and the students picked one each from a bingo roller! You could hand it out as a pop quiz, or get students to ask each other. You could put them on the board and do as a whole class activity.

A very simple sheet that I use with year 7 to get them understanding the differnces between fabric construction methods.

A quick patchwork sheet (good for a plenary) which tests the students knowledge and understanding on this machine technique. It is quite basic for my class... feel free to differentiate

Odd one out- inspires creative thinking, allows students to group and understand trends in textiles Waterproofing- allows students to link fabric finishes to names and fill in the blanks Random words- anagrams from art and textiles words to get students in the right frame of mind

An easy to mark test with theory and design questions included. Feel free to adapt.