Blog
Revision Party!
27th November 2013
It's that time of year again when Year 11 mock exams are fast approaching and every subject in school is getting the pupils to revise, so after seeing various twitter posts about revision parties I decided to host one myself! With a £10 budget I set off to my local supermarket in search of party essentials and it has been the best £10 I have spent in a long time!
After coming back home with paper napkins, table cloths, paper plates, hats, masks and balloons I set to work planning my 'party'. The structure of a dinner party lends itself naturally to a lesson format - starter, main, dessert and just to be really posh I added in a fish course and some party games! I wanted the party to get the pupils 'talking' about the topic so designed the starter, main and dessert and party games around this - I split the tasks in half so that students could pair up during the 'party'.
I have attached the teacher notes and the PPT used for the party and with £10 spent and about 1hr preparation time, this was one of the best lessons I've ever had! Room preparation is key with about 4/5 tables set out with 4-6 pupils on each table.
1. As the pupils came into the room , I had Kool and the Gang - Celebrate playing and I told them this was a party to celebrate all of the good stuff they know about Business and People topic.
2. For the starter, pupils had to look at the key concept on their napkin that I had pre-prepared and list as many key points/+/- as they could on the other half of the napkin with a highlighter/pen - once the time frame was up they then had to find the person in the room who had the same key term as them and compare notes - adding anything they had missed out.
3. PARTY GAME - to break the party up - I just asked/picked 2 pupils to play the game - they then chose a key concept (pre-prepared envelopes with key concepts written on pieces of paper) and then acted this out to much hilarity from the rest of the class.
4. Fish Course - using the 4 mark question on the back of one of the dinner plates pupils were given 3 minutes to complete the question, then find the person in the room with the corresponding question and compare notes.
5. YES/NO game - again to break up the party - get 2 pupils to take part - even get the pupils to be the ones who ask the questions!
6. THE MAIN COURSE - a steak of a question - big 8 mark evaluative/recommendation question for the whole group! Using the tablecloth to answer the question - working as a team and using a strategy such as 'Thinking Hats' to come to a recommendation/conclusion works every time.
7. As a plenary I got the pupils to produce a 'commemorative' plate of the occasion - mind maps/pictures/spider diagrams - listing all of the key elements of the topic as a whole.
8. Just to add another layer to the plenary, I had printed out invites to the next revision party but pupils had to list 3 areas that they wanted covered - a really good indicator for me of what needed to go over again before the exam
Pupils loved the 'party' theme and were really energetic and engaged in all the tasks - but more importantly - they were revising! And I even heard one of them singing 'Celebrate good times, c'mon' in the corridor the next day! I would say that was a party to remember!