Bonfire Night Teaching Resources: KS1, 2 & 3 Activities & Plans

Category: Lesson Ideas

Published: October 30, 2015

Many teachers will be looking for Bonfire Night teaching resources in the run up to the 5th of November. Here we have put together some of the best pages and websites with ideas for lesson plans on Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, including KS1, 2 and 3 activities, sequencing pictures and video. These resources may be useful for History or Literacy lesson planning.

Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot Resources

This is a Webanywhere post with lesson ideas and activities to help you teach the story of Guy Fawkes.
There are 5 downloadable Gunpowder plot activities – a Classroom Presentation, a Word Search, a Gunpowder Plot sequencing activity, a Writing exercise, and an Artwork activity.
The pack includes content aimed at students in the Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, and Key Stage 3. Hopefully, this means you’ll find something to adapt or use, whatever school age group you teach in Primary or early Secondary.

The Gunpowder Plot Part 1 – Stories from Parliament

A history video from Parliament.uk aimed at KS2 and 3. Using illustrations, this video describes the first part of the 1605 plot to kill King James I and destroy Parliament. You can also find Part 2 of this Assembly and Lesson plan video by clicking here.

TES Gunpowder Plot Lesson Plans

More from the Parliament Education Service, the TES website has collated some downloadable PDF worksheets and activities for those teaching children about Bonfire Night and the origin of ‘Penny for the Guy’.

Twinkl Bonfire Night Resources

A range of highly visual teaching resources on Bonfire Night, the Gunpowder Plot, and Fireworks. There are sequencing activities, PowerPoint presentations, videos, quizzes, posters and control sheets.

We hope you find these lesson resources useful! Could you or your school benefit from an online tool to manage and share teaching resources? Check out the Learn App, which allows you to create a Learning Site that fully integrates with your school website.

Website Of The Week: Mossfield Primary School

Published: April 17, 2013

Blogging in schools is becoming more and more and more popular. It’s a way for children to share their stories with others – and it’s also a way for the staff to keep parents up to date with what’s happening in school.

Mossfield Primary School, Manchester are keen bloggers – and their new School Jotter 2 website has all their latest blog posts – with pictures too. It’s an interesting read and provides an insight into the day-to-day goings-on, from Comic Relief celebrations in March, to a write up about Year 4 having a go at their own animations.


School websites now have to abide by strict Ofsted guidelines on what content they must include – and Mossfield have made sure all the relevant content is available. All presented beautifully on their colour-coded, stylish School Jotter 2 school website design.
Take a look at Mossfield Primary School’s website by clicking here.

Website Of The Week: All Saints CoE Infant School, Hessle

Published: April 9, 2013

Some of the best school websites are those that present the school clearly and simply. All Saints Church of England Infant School, based in Hessle, near Hull, have gone for such a school website.

Their School Jotter 2 design echoes their location perfectly – with the iconic Humber Bridge forming part of the header – as well as being the image for the menu on the left-hand side of the website.


As well as the website’s design being simple yet fun, the way the school have arranged the information on the website is clear and easy to find. With only four menu links on the left-hand side bar, it doesn’t take long to find all those section essential to keep Ofsted happy – policies, their prospectus and recent reports about the school.
Aside from the essential content, also included is a section called Wow Moments – which illustrates how fun the school is for pupils with pictures of lesson and play time. It’s the kind of addition to the school website content that makes it ideal for engaging more with parents.
Take a look at All Saints Church of England Infant School’s website by clicking here.

Website Of The Week: Horsted School

Published: March 18, 2013

Horsted School’s website is another example of a really simple, yet effective School Jotter website. Colourful and eye catching, the homepage – with images of the children – proudly announces ‘welcome to our new website!’
The Kent-based school’s website is as much for the pupils as it is for the parents, with fun, child-themed menu bars on the left hand side of the page. There’s a Horsted Kids’ Club too – with details of the club available from the appropriate menu bar.


Horsted School have an international school partner – and in the International section you can learn more and watch a video about Mtiya Primary School in Malawi.
School websites should echo the beliefs and ethos of the school – both in the website design and in the content. Horsted School’s School Jotter website does this perfectly – and you can see for yourself by clicking here.

School Jotter – By Those Who Love It

Category: Customer Training

Published: March 4, 2013

School Jotter is Webanywhere’s most popular product. However, the schools that benefit most from what we offer are those who use our three main primary products together: School Jotter, Learnanywhere and Learner Journey.
Cawthorne Primary School are one such school – and it has made such a difference to school life. As well as School Jotter, Cawthorne Primary School now have Learnanywhere, Webanywhere’s primary learning platform, and Learner Journey, the pupil e-portfolio system.


School Secretary Gill Buckingham told us:  “Webanywhere were recommended by our technician who had seen lots of other providers in different schools he visited. We eventually chose School Jotter, along with Learnanywhere and Student Jotter because we wanted children to liaise more between work and school.”
Now, children at Cawthorne Primary School use Learnanywhere and Learner Journey on a daily basis: To share their work with peers and parents, and to do their homework, too. School Jotter has brought more visitors to the school’s website, but Learnanywhere has improved the learning experience.  “I like it because it’s safe, and parents can look at the work their kids have done and the points they’ve earned,” Gill told us. “It has really brought the school, the parents and the children together.”
Read the full case study here.

Website Of The Week: Much Wenlock Primary School

Published: January 18, 2013

One the best features of Much Wenlock Primary School’s website is their Mail on Monday section. The downloadable PDF newsletter has an update of activities that have happened within the school, useful diary dates and after-school club information.
Many schools update their website regularly with news – but with Much Wenlock, parents know the website will get updated the same day every week. Brilliant for parent/school engagement!


The Shropshire school have really put a lot of effort into its clubs – and this is reflected through their website. The Club Sites section includes details of every club that pupils can get involved with (13 – quite a large number for a primary school!) Each one has its own page, with the days and times you can attend, and the kind of activities that take place.
The Kids’ Zone, too, includes plenty of content for children, from links to fun websites to help with spelling (using our Spellanywhere program) and a log-in section for Student Jotter (our pupil e-portfolio platform).
Much Wenlock Primary School’s website also has an attractive, welcoming design – and ticks all the boxes for keeping parents involved with their children, and pupils engaged with learning!
You can view Much Wenlock Primary School’s website here.

Website Of The Week: Dunsville Primary School

Published: January 11, 2013

Dunsville Primary School near Doncaster chose a bright, colourful theme for their School Jotter website. It means visitors have a fun and engaging introduction to the school. In fact, the School Jotter website is so appealing, other schools often reference it when their own School Jotter websites are being designed!


The colours and the design of the Dunsville website echoes the content of the website: basically, it’s all about the children. From the uploaded photographs of pupils’ efforts in the Children’s Work section, to a downloadable copy of their child protection proceedures, it’s clear that Dunsville has the pupils’ interests and development at heart. The Ofsted report from 2010, that can be found in the About Us section, sums this up perfectly: “The manner in which it cares for its pupils is exemplary.” The Pupil Premium section even goes one step further – and shows how much money per pupil the school receives per year.
Dunsville Primary School’s School Jotter website depicts a completely transparent, learner-focused establishment. Great when attracting new pupils!
You can view their website here.

Website Of The Week: Silver Springs Primary Academy

Published: December 21, 2012

When School Jotter 2 was launched a few months ago, it brought with it a host of new features. For the school website visitor, it also brought with it improved designs – as you can see on this week’s Website Of The Week, Silver Springs Primary Academy, Cheshire.
Silver Springs’ website is a great example of why so many schools are upgrading to School Jotter 2. A bold colour theme brings the school to life the instant you access their website – and School Jotter 2 means it’s optimised for tablet and mobile phone viewing, so people can enjoy Silver Springs on the move, too!


This is possibly one of the easiest school websites we’ve seen to navigate around. Simple menus mean you can find what you need quickly and easily. There’s plenty of content that has been pulled through from the school’s old website too, so you can look back through the archive at photographs and school performance data.
There’s a huge amount of information for parents: including accounts of what the children have been up to by each of the teachers, staff information and advice on healthy eating. And if anyone needs to find Silver Springs, the Contact page includes location information pulled through from Google Maps. Handy!
There are so many other benefits to moving to School Jotter 2, including app bolt-ons and ‘live’ page editing; Silver Springs Primary Academy’s’ website is, to the casual viewer, just the tip of the Jotter 2 iceberg. Take a look at it yourself by clicking here.

Website Of The Week: Ben Rhydding Primary School

Published: December 7, 2012

Ben Rhydding Primary School’s website has been a favourite of ours for some time – so it’s great to return to it this week and see it’s still being regularly and lovingly updated.
The design of the website strikes you first: a beautifully-created header that sums up the school perfectly, with rolling hills, the mountains familiar to locals (the school being based in up in the hills of the West Yorkshire Pennines), and bright, bold colours.


Going deeper into the website, it’s a trove of information about the school; there’s plenty of information here that parents will love – but also lots for new visitors to digest and be impressed with, if they’re considering the school for their child. There’s even information about the local area in the ‘Our Community’ section – mentioning the ‘cow and calf rocks’ which also feature in the colourful website header design.
Other information that’s great for new visitors looking for a school is the ‘Pupils’ section, with information about ‘Lunchtime Buddies’ (children who help out the lunchtime supervisors), school clubs information (Ben Rhydding boasts everything from a Girls’ Football Club to a Disco Dancing Club – we’d love to be a member of that one!) and class curriculum details.
When parents want to know the hard facts about how the school performs, they’re all there too – and under the ‘About Us’ section we’re pleased to note Ben Rhydding received a glowing report from Ofsted. We hope Ofsted loved the website too, as much as we do.
You can take a look at the Ben Rhydding Primary School website yourself, by clicking here.

Teachers Pick Technology over Text Books

Category: Open Source,VLEs

Published: November 8, 2010

A recent survey by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) has revealed that just 2% of primary school teachers believed that investing in new libraries was more important than investing in ICT for the classroom. This would seem to suggest that, as schools see their funding squeeze, many feel under pressure to spend what they have on new technology rather than traditional learning materials.
Ray Barker, director, BESA commented:  “Due to the increase in the provision and use of interactive whiteboards, pupil computers and supporting digital content, the importance of traditional library facilities is of concern, especially where banks of computers have been provided in the space that may have previously held storage for books. The growing use of eBooks and of the internet for research, is putting pressure on schools to justify expenditure on traditional books.”


Barker added: “We are now naturally experiencing a reduction in estimated ICT allocations from school budgets.  However, despite schools being faced with many financial pressures, the survey indicates schools are managing the cuts sensibly and with optimism.”
At Webanywhere we’re helping schools to stretch their ICT budgets by developing digital learning platforms that use open source technologies and creating innovative product pricing ‘bundles’ that lower the unit cost of provision.