Plenary | Mrs Humanities

UPDATE 2 – Almost finished the interactive plenary display; KS3 have started using it and have really engaged with the choice available. They love it, particularly the social media options. Phew.

How it works – Once a pupil finishes their work and have completed any S&C tasks or available extensions they visit the board. There are a variety of choices for their next step. They can simple choose a task from the extend, assess or reflect choices or roll the dice to provide them with a plenary activity. So far pupils have only used the assess option or the Roll a Plenary board.

Just need to print a A3 version of my peer assessment guidance and signs for WWW and EBI as depsite using it several times a term they still ask the dreaded question “what does WWW and EBI mean?” like seriously you do not remember?

UPDATE 1 – Today I finally managed to find the time to make a start on the interactive plenary display. You can read more about the idea here. I’ve decided to use an Extend, Assess and Reflect set up for the plenary display along with a roll a plenary board.

So far I’ve pinned plastic wallets to the display board like in the photo below, guess you could describe it as step like.

I didn’t quite have the time today to sort and finish the display but under each heading there will be activities to extend students in their work and understanding, assess what they learnt and how they are progressing and finally activities that encourage pupils to reflect on their learning journey. In the wallet underneath the roll a plenary board will be a variety of top trumps created by my pupils to play with if there is time.

In the folders are a wide variety of plenary activities. Whilst I created a number of the print outs I also found and used these amazing resource from @misstait_85. How great are they?

Finally In the top right hand corner I will be adding a section on self and peer assessment to encourage positive and specific feedback from such assessment. Often it’s one or the other, they will get it by the end of the year I promise.

I can’t wait to start using this in class, had a little taster today when some pupils used the roll a plenary board and it actually engaged a usually rather disengaged student. Winner! Just hope it continues.

I will share the final results in due course until then have a good week.

In recent weeks I’ve found that my classes have been so caught up in the learning that we’ve not managed to complete plenary activities despite them always being present in my PowerPoints. Now I know they are not always needed but sometimes I’ve found that some pupils need the extra 5 minutes to finish off whilst others are packed away and ready to leave but I can’t change the slide because other are work. I usually just make something up on the spot like write down 5 key words from the lesson and show how they are linked or decide which LO you think you achieved today and explain why… but I’ve decided I want to get my pupils involved so have come up with the idea of an interactive plenary display. Once a pupil has finished the main tasks of the lesson and providing it’s within the last 10 minutes of the lesson, they can head over to the display and choose their plenary task.

Originally I was thinking of creating plenary dice but realised that it would be some what difficult to store them on a notice board so came up with the idea of a plenary grid. After a quick search on Google I found it wasn’t an original idea and rather than create my own from scratch I decided to use an editable version of the original roll a plenary. A great time saver.

I decided to change a number of the plenary activities to suit my classes and the techniques I use regularly within my department. This is my version of @ASTsupportAAli & @tombrush1982 great work.

I’m going to print it onto A3 paper, laminate it and pin it to the board. Alongside I will store some dice in a pot and encourage the pupils to engage with the Roll a Plenary when they are finished. Other times as a class we’ll Roll a Plenary together and all carry out the chosen task. My plan is to have copies of exit tickets, jigsaw sheets, social media style print out etc. stored on the board in plastic wallets for easy access.

Once completed I will update this post with pictures of the display and copies of the plenary print outs.

How do you finish a lesson? Do you think a plenary is always needed?