Starter activities
The first five minutes, planned
A starter that pulls back last week’s lesson is worth more than one that settles the room. Each of these is one side, on the desk before the class arrives, and ends with the answers so it can be gone through from the front while the register is still open.
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- One side, printed in black and white
- Answers on the sheet, so it marks from the front
- Written per year group, not per key stage
17 resources
What you get
Retrieval, not warm-up
The questions look back at the last lesson and the last topic. That is the part that makes it stick - a puzzle to fill the first five minutes does not.
The same shape every time
Students know what to do without being told, which is the whole point of a starter: the lesson has begun before you have said anything.
All three sciences
Chemistry, biology and physics starters share one layout, so a KS3 teacher covering all three is not learning three formats or printing three ways.
In the classroom
How they get used
Step 1
Print the half term in one go
Starters are filed by year group and topic, so a term’s worth is one download and one trip to the printer rather than a scramble at 8:40.
Lesson starter
Do now · 5 min
Write the formula for…
Na₂OMgCl₂Al₂O₃CaCO₃Step 2
On the desk before they walk in
No instructions needed and nothing to project. Students sit down and start, which buys back the minutes the register usually costs.
Rapid recall · 15 questions
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Step 3
Go through it from the front
The answers are on the teacher copy, so it is checked in a minute - and what the class could not recall tells you what the lesson has to revisit.
Answer pack
1a
✓1b
✓2
✓
By qualification
Starter activities at KS3
Starter activities are a KS3 format - the KS3 page shows every resource type the library holds there.
Try a fortnight of starters
Start a 3-day free trial and print a set for whatever your Year 7, 8 or 9 class is on. The measure is whether the room settles faster.
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