Many newly qualified teachers will find the prospect of starting to teach for the first time in a classroom very daunting, and finding the time to plan daily lessons in advance extremely difficult. In order to help teachers spend less time planning, and more time teaching their pupils, many companies have created online teaching resources in the form of worksheets, quizzes, games, lesson plans, and Power Point presentations, around individual subject areas, that fit in perfectly with the UK curriculum.
Ready-made, easy-to-use and fast to download assembly plans, covering many different areas of the curriculum can be quickly and easily found on the internet. So long as you’ve got the basic software installed on your computer at home or at school, you can find, download, open and print out as many copies of the resources as you need to. If you’ve a class of 25-30 pupils, and need 30 copies of a worksheet or revision paper, then web-based teaching packs are ideal. Most good quality online resources will be available as PDFs (Portable Document Format) which will generally work on any computer. If you’re simply printing out multiple sheets of questions, then black and white copies will suffice, and remember full colour laser printing can be more expensive to process, so save colour copies for special projects or assemblies.
With many NQTs starting their very first teaching positions around September, when the new school terms begin, there is precious little time for them to become familiar with their new schools, pupils, or to garner tips from more experienced teaching staff. Turning to the internet for help is a good start, and once you’ve found and bookmarked a range of high quality web sites with relevant resources for your age groups then you can go back and refer to them time and time again. There are some great online teaching resources available these days to help you start your teaching career. From assembly plans geared around specific term-time activities, celebrations and holidays, to form time ideas, including lesson ideas for PSHE, WRL, careers, citizenship and enterprise classes there are many helpful and time-saving materials easily downloadable from dedicated education websites.
PSHE teaching resources used in the UK cover everything from tricky social subjects such as teenage pregnancy and drug abuse to healthy eating and relationships. And subjects like citizenship offer readymade teaching materials about diversity, human rights, the media and democracy. If you’re stuck for an idea on how to approach a Key Stage 4 lesson about politics, simply search for teaching ideas and resources online to find some brilliant starting points, or complete lessons, and, for example, help students understand more about how the European parliament operates, and what their MEP does.
