What makes an effective plenary?
An effective plenary can significantly enhance students' learning by providing an opportunity to consolidate and reflect on the material covered during the lesson. According to Ofsted, a 'good' plenary should:
- Review and consolidate the learning objectives of the lesson.
- Involve all students and encourage active participation.
- Allow students to reflect on their learning, understand what they have achieved, and identify any areas they found challenging.
- Provide an opportunity for assessment, allowing teachers to check understanding and progress and plan future lessons accordingly.
- Be flexible and responsive, adapting to the needs and responses of the students.
- Encourage students to think about the next steps and how they will apply what they have learned.
- Be engaging and interactive, using varied techniques to keep students interested and involved.
Plenary ideas to use in your classroom
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Memory game. Students collaboratively write all the keywords from your lesson on the board. They then have two minutes to remember them all. Remove the words from the board. How many words can students remember? Encourage students to work in groups if you prefer.
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Quiz master. Select a popular game show or quiz format (Blockbusters, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Trivial Pursuit, bingo, etc.) and ask students to test each other with questions they have written.
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Visualising. Ask students to create a visual summary of the lesson – a mind map, a flowchart, a Venn diagram, a timeline, an infographic, etc.
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Teacher challenge. Get students to compose three questions to ask you.
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Five features. Ask students to summarise the lesson in five sentences or five (key) words.
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Word mats. Students create a word mat based on the lesson.
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Card questions. Students write a list of questions based on today’s lesson (with the answers on the reverse of the card) to ask themselves as a starter at the beginning of the next lesson.
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Emoji exits. Using emojis, students reflect on the lesson in terms of their understanding/learning. Happy? Sad? Bored? Confused? Ask for an explanation to accompany the emoji/s.
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Just a minute. Can students talk convincingly on the topic of today’s lesson for a minute without hesitation, repetition or deviation?
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Reflection cards. Use the Reflection mat cards to get students to review their learning, with no planning!
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In the news. Students summarise their learning in the style of three newspaper headlines.
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Hot seat. Ask a dramatically gifted/willing student to take on the role of someone/something they’ve been learning about. The rest of the class should ask questions, and they should reply in role.
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If this is the answer, what’s the question? Give students a selection of answers; they have to write the questions based on the learning from today’s lesson.
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Word tennis. In pairs, give the students one of the key themes or words from the lesson to start. They then need to bounce connected words between each other to show their understanding.
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Traffic lights. Students draw a set of traffic lights. Green is for ‘Go – and I can help other students’, amber is ‘I am almost there’ and red is for ‘Stop – I need more help’.
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Class expert. Appoint 3–5 class experts at the beginning of the lesson to take responsibility for recapping the learning. This works particularly well when you are expecting a class visitor.
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Lesson recipe. Students should write a recipe or menu (start, main, dessert) to reflect their learning from today’s lesson.
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Paper fun. Create a fortune teller, origami creature or even a simple paper plane. Ask students to write down a series of notes, keywords or questions on the different sides of the paper to reflect their learning.
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Bunting or washing lines. Give students five minutes to collaborate to create a set of flags or notes on a washing line to reflect what they’ve learnt. This doubles up as a useful starter for the next lesson – can they explain what is written on the flags?
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What would you do differently next time? Ask students to take a minute to reflect.
Download these 20 plenary ideas in a handy PDF format to keep for later or share with colleagues.
