How it works
The five roles in an ordinary moment
Starts it.
Says the thing first. Usually one person, usually once.
Joins in.
Adds to it, or repeats it somewhere else later.
Laughs.
Gives it an audience. This is the biggest group, and the one nobody counts.
Looks away.
Says nothing, does nothing, and waits for it to pass.
Steps in.
Changes what happens next, usually in a few words.
The five roles come from a study of 573 students, and have been in use since 1996.
Six lines go up on the board: somebody answers a question wrong, somebody repeats it at break, three people laugh, and by Friday the student it was about has stopped answering questions in that lesson. In pairs, students list everybody who was part of it. Most forms count two. It is eight.
Before the numbers arrive, pairs predict them: in 306 moments recorded on a playground, how often did another child step in, and how often did it stop within ten seconds when they did? The answers are 19 per cent and 57 per cent, and both are worth arguing about.
Three ways out, one of them silent. One is modelled, one is done together out loud, and then twelve minutes in pairs writing what they would really say to a moment on a card. Sheets move two tables along and get marked against three questions, the first of which is whether anybody could say it out loud in this school.
This one can land close to something already happening in your form. Do not use a real incident or a real name, and do not run it the day after one, because the student it happened to will know. Nothing students write is collected or read out, and the deck says so before anybody writes anything.
Get the lesson
Three pages to print: the answer key for you, the sheet they write on, and one set of eight moment cards. The names in the script are made up, so change any that match somebody in your year group.
The lesson slides
Eighteen slides: the moment to count, the five roles, the study to predict, the three ways out, the marking round and the exit ticket.
Download PDFTeacher resource pack
Four pages: the hour with timings against the slides, the answer key and the three studies, the sheet they write on, and eight moment cards.
DownloadNew resources go up as they are made, and Volume Two is on the way for the activities that have one. Leave your email and you will get one message when it lands, and nothing else.
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