A teacher demonstrates how to teach Key Stage 2 pupils about literacy and characterisation. At Stratton Primary school, deputy head teacher Sammy Saville teachers her Year 4 class about characterisation by getting them to become character detectives. Sammy creates character cases for each table, which contain a series of clues about a character. The clues maybe anything from pictures, words, and symbols to silhouettes. They are used to encourage pupils to use their imaginations and decide who is in their box. After the pupils learn how to work with the clues, they dress up as detectives, and explore their cases, and write their ideas on a worksheet. The characters they create will then be incorporated into stories. At the end of the lesson, Sammy gets the groups to feedback their ideas to the whole class.

Video Series: Lesson Starters
Release Date 2010