Made by Mike Gershon – If you want to make the

[email protected]
slides whizz through
really quickly and then
press escape to choose a
starter at random do

The Starter Generator! this:

Select all slides, change
slide transition to ‘0’
seconds and uncheck the
‘advance on mouse click’
box. Start the slide show
and it should work.

Planning

Sources
• http://www.teachit.co.uk/custom_content/newsletters/newsletter_oct06.asp Visit -
• http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/teachers/starters.html http://www.teachit.co.uk/custom
• http://www.geographypages.co.uk/start.htm _content/newsletters/newsletter
• http://news.reonline.org.uk/rem_art10.php _oct06.asp
• www.independentthinking.com and go to the bit by Harry
• http://www.bristol-cyps.org.uk/teaching/secondary/science/pdf/el_starters.pdf Dodds for a good piece about
• www.teachingthinking.net making starters effective and
• http://www.geointeractive.co.uk/contribution/wordfiles/starters%20list.doc linked to learning
•http://www.lth3.k12.il.us/rhampton/mi/LessonPlanIdeas.htm
• www.teachinglinks.co.uk/Lesson%20Starters%20and%20Plenaries.doc
• Edward De Bono – How to Have Creative Ideas (Vermilion, Chatham, 2007)
• My head
• Other people’s heads
 Starters
Odd One Out List –O-Mania Show me the answer! What’s The Question? Thunks
What’s This? Questions Political Power Who am I? What’s your opinion? Interview
Press Conference Definition Match What is Citizenship? Word Fill Slogans
List Definition Pictionary Freeze Frame Bingo Sheets Hangman
Dingbats/Say what you see Homework Peer Assessment Pupil as Teacher 20 Questions A–Z
What’s being said? Or What’s being thought? Name that tune! Instructions Ridiculous Arguments
What if? Art and life Tell me three things... Scenario Get Creative
Uptown Top Ranking Empathy-builder Taboo Compare and Contrast Recipe Time
Have I Got News For You Mystery Bag True or False Fact or Opinion? What’s the topic?
Describe and Draw Just a Minute What do you know? Inside the Octagon Random Debate
Animal Madness What would win? Different Shoes What’s the Story? Flow Chart
Continuum Picture in time In the spotlight Connections Home Improvement
Have I seen you somewhere before? Get In Character Design a starter Blockbusters
Pair It Up My Word! Statement Exploration Strongest Argument Concept Map
What’s Your Reply? Draw me the answer Millionaire Analogies Sculpture
Play Doh Find the definition Genre Tree-mendous Stimulus
Prop-tastic Noun Play Solutions Uncover Uncover Variation
Redesign Silent Instructions Translate Uses Pass the Parcel
Time/Place Lapse Mystery Guest Dissonance Detectives New Inventions
Dominoes Smile Mood Creative Writing Abstract Thinking
What if poetry Performance Big Picture Summary Sentences
Arrangement Simon says Post it Celebration Key Letters
Create-a-title 10 words Venn Diagram Noises Think – Pair – Share
Goal Setting Multi-Tracking Song-Writer Jigsaw Odd One Out – Pictures
Questions you would like to ask
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Starters
List –O-Mania
e.g.

List as many...

rights/responsibilities/policy areas/taxes/items
you threw away in the last 24 hours etc...

as you can.
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Starters
What’s This?
e.g. What do you think this is?

Nilin, West Bank: A Palestinian demonstrator uses a slingshot to hurl stones at Israeli border
police during a protest against Israel's separation barrier

www.guardian.co.uk/inpictures
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Starters
Who am I?
e.g. Could be a picture

Or part of a picture

Or clues – I am an important Londoner

I am a politician
I am noted for frequent buffoonery

Could do ‘guess what’ instead for places etc.

 Questions you would like to ask
e.g.

Today we will begin studying local government.

Write down the questions you would like
answered.

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Starters
 List Definition
e.g.

1)List all the words you associate with Global

Warming.

2) Now join these words together to make a

definition for Global Warming

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Starters
 Back To
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Pictionary
e.g. Give students concepts/ideas/things to draw
whilst others have to guess what they are

Alternative – short list of

concepts/ideas and Can divide group into
students have to draw in
books or on mini-whiteboard and teams to make it
then feedback their competitive
thinking/explanation.
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Starters
Freeze Frame

You are working on a farm in Africa supplying Cadbury’s with cocoa to

make chocolate. The weather is hot, the work hard and you are
paid very little. Individually/pair/group produce a freeze frame
showing the scene.

- Could adapt to all manner of scenes, or give pupils the topic area and
ask them to produce an appropriate freeze frame that other
students must then try and decipher.
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Starters
20 Questions
e.g. Teacher or pupil picks a relevant
person/place and the class have 20 yes/no
questions to discover who or what it is.
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Starters
Ridiculous Arguments
Teach the language of argument by getting
students to justify the ridiculous, such as 'Five
year olds should be allowed to drive a car'

Ridiculous?
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Starters
Tell me three things...
about the topic we are studying.
you learnt in the last lessons.
that help explain inflation.
refugees might feel.
campaigning has changed in Britain.
you think are most important to citizenship.
you would like to change in the world.
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Starters
Scenario

• Set students a scenario (perhaps covering similar

ground to the lesson) and ask them to respond in some
way...

e.g. Human rights have been suspended by the British

Government. Politicians have given party members
license to judge what is right and what is wrong.

How would this make you feel?

What would you do? (Similar to thought
experiments)
 Uptown Top Ranking

- Family
- Life
- Safety
- Movement
- Religion

Rank these human rights in order of importance. Be

prepared to justify your answer.
(Adaptable to all sorts)

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Starters
 Empathy-builder
‘Taxes for the rich will be scrapped tomorrow
and replaced with voluntary philanthropy’

- How might a millionaire feel about this?

- A person on average income?
- Someone receiving income support?

(Can adapt to loads of different situations. Emphasis remains on developing empathy)

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Starters
 Back To
Starters
Taboo
Students have to describe a key word without
using that word (it is taboo!).

(could do it in teams, pairs, whole-class)

 Back To
Starters
Compare and Contrast
What differences and similarities do you notice?

(Zimbabwe, Oct 2007)

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Starters
Recipe Time
• Access to information
• Secret Ballot
• Independent counters
• Neutral judiciary

What is this the recipe for?

Develop by asking students to write their own recipes (could start

by writing a recipe of the learning in the last lesson)
 Back To
Starters

Pound ‘buying less than a ______’.

No ______ for TV Strictly voters.

______ thrown at Bush on Iraq trip.

- All from www.bbc.co.uk 14/12/08

Answers = Euro, refunds and shoes

 Back To
Starters
Mystery Bag

Take a bag into the classroom that

contains an object which has a
connection to the lesson.
Pass it around and let the students
feel the object inside the bag.
The first person to guess
what it is could be rewarded
with a merit.
 Fact or Opinion?

Hand out newspaper article to students and ask

them to highlight facts or opinions.

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Starters

Odd One Out – Pictures Only!

 Back To
Starters
What’s the topic?
What topic might we be studying?
 Just a Minute
One pupil starts to speak about a topic. At the
first repetition, pause or mistake another
takes over - and so on until the minute is up.

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Starters
 Back To
Starters
What do you know?

(variation – ideas must be pictures instead of words)

 Inside the Octagon
8 way thinking comes from Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences. The
simplified octet is –

1) Numbers How many...

2) Words Where does the word come from..
3) People Who...
4) Feelings What emotions...
5) Nature How does the environment affect...
6) Actions What do people do...
7) Sounds What songs have been written about it...
8) Sights What images represent...
(from http://www.independentthinking.co.uk/Cool+Stuff/8Way+Thinking/default.aspx)

Two ideas – i) Ask students to come up with questions around a

topic/key word from each ‘angle’.
ii) Use the octet to frame your own starter questions.
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Starters
 Animal Madness
- Think of five ways you could make a duck/horse/cow joyful

- If zebras/flies/otters ruled the world what would we see?

- Explain five differences between a cat/dog/ox and a

kettle/desk/jumper

- And five similarities

- What animal would make the best politician/judge/police

officer? Why?
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 Back To
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What would win?
Choose any two items...

A fence and a tree

A dolphin and a snake

Harry Potter and Richard Branson

Then...ask why!
 Different Shoes

Ask students to change their shoes...

‘If Brad Pitt was put in charge of the school, what

would change?’

‘If Dawn French was doing your coursework, what

would she focus on?’
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Starters
 What’s the Story?
• Give pupils cards with words or pictures on
and ask them to sequence this to tell a story
(or could put words/pictures on board).

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Starters
 Back To
Starters
Flow Chart
Prime Minister

MPs

Voters

Fill in the gaps!

 Continuum

Make a continuum in the room with strongly for

and strongly against at either end. As students
come in tell them the proposition and that they
must justify the position on the continuum they
choose.

(variation – pupils line up randomly. They discuss with their neighbour only and then move accordingly. Continues until the continuum
is fully drawn)

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Starters
 Have I seen you somewhere before?
Give students key word card sort and ask them
to place in piles of –

1)I know you

2)I think I’ve seen you somewhere before
3)We’ve never met!

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Starters
 Home Improvement

How can _______________ be improved?

Why would your changes be an improvement?
Who for?
How long would they last?

(Can relate to previous learning in the topic. Suitable for wide range i.e. British political system, laws on terror,
local government, school council etc.)

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Starters
 Back To
Starters

My Word!

Students are given (or choose) a word related to

the topic. They must stand up and point to
someone in the class who must then give the
meaning. That person then chooses the next
person to pose a word.
 Back To
Starters
Statement Exploration
“Everybody has rights yet they cannot be seen
and belong to nobody”

In pairs explore this statement.

What does it mean?
Can you explain it
to someone else?
 Strongest
Argument

Which of the following arguments is the best piece of evidence that taxes are spent
effectively?

A) The National Audit Office checks all government income and expenditure.
B) Voters can throw out governments they think spend money inefficiently.
C) Most people get along OK in Britain, so the money must be being used
effectively.
D) Taxes aren’t as high as in Europe yet we still have very good public services.

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(reveal: Do you think taxes are spent effectively) Starters
 What’s Your Reply? Reply

Use a controversial statement and ask students

in pairs to come up with a reply.

e.g.
“All teachers should be allowed to teach
whatever they want”

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Starters
 Redesign

e.g. How would you redesign the Houses of

Parliament?

Develop by - Setting parameters i.e. how could you redesign this to make
it more effective/easier to use/more affecting?

Giving a physical object and some materials for redesign

Back To Giving more abstract briefs – how would you redesign

Starters democracy/the horror genre/multiplication?
 Back To
Starters
Summary
Ask students to provide a summary of what they learnt last
lesson or across the unit. Develop by asking for different styles,
i.e. a newspaper report, 60-second news-flash, mime
 Sentences

Cut up a sentence (or two) related to the topic and hand out the
parts to students. They then have to arrange themselves so as to
spell out the sentence correctly.

Develop by using texts related to the topic and asking them to

compose a paragraph.

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Starters
 Back To
Starters
Key Letters
Teacher shouts out a letter and student(s) must respond with a
key word related to the current topic that begins with that
letter. Could target specific groups of students or make it
competitive (with no writing allowed).
 Back To
Starters
Noises
Play a noise and ask students to respond to it or
work out its relevance to the lesson/unit.

http://www.grsites.com/sounds/

http://sounds.bl.uk/

http://collections.iwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.00g007