A primary lesson starter designed as a creative stimulus for developing characterisation in KS2 lessons. Six characters are presented in pairs, which are loosely associated with story types such as fairytales (a fairy and a country boy), adventure stories (a pirate and a fortune teller), and contemporary stories (a young boy and an amateur detective). There is enough ambiguity in the presentation of the characters to encourage children's imaginations to flow freely. The lesson starter provides audio and visual clues for the different characters, and music is played to suggest changes in mood and atmosphere. The visual and audio clues can be used to encourage pupils to develop their ideas about who they think the characters are, what they are like, and the kinds of stories they might feature in.

Video Series: Lesson Starters
Release Date 2010