When teaching in a busy school your time is incredibly precious; helping that child find his lost trainers ready for his tennis match, meeting that parent to discuss how they can support their child at home over the summer, planning next term’s History lessons at the same as writing a risk assessment for a day trip to the local castle. 

As well as teaching back-to-back from 9–3.30 with a 30-minute break, time is limited and slips away very quickly. Anything that helps you save some as a teacher is like a godsend. So, I was incredibly grateful when Pearson reached out and asked me to trial their new Interactive Library.

Having used Pearson’s educational schemes in my schools in the past, I am aware of how easy their resources can be to use, and this was no exception.

It has a huge range of topics and subjects that complement the curriculum and gives you a simple search tool to quickly find the information you are looking for. I found myself using it mainly for maths lessons over the last term as I can find some companies struggle to produce interactive whiteboard games that work properly on a touch screen board. There is nothing worse than loading up an online resource to find that the children cannot use it as the software is not integrated for use in the classroom. Thankfully, this was not a worry for the material I tested, and all the games had clear instructions to support the learner’s usage.  

The children thoroughly enjoyed the activities that I incorporated into the lessons and even requested that we came back to certain games the week after playing them. A memorable lesson is always a good one!

All of the resources in the Pearson Primary Interactive Library are clear and simple to use, with many of the games having an ability level of easy, medium or hard to help you tailor your teaching sessions for your learners.

The maths challenges are a particular favourite. These are great for displaying while the children are on the way into the classroom, giving them instant energy to sit down and begin working on an answer. They also work nicely as a plenary exercise to reinforce the learning objectives. A quick and easy way to motivate the class.

Overall, I feel the Library is a great addition to support your planning or to work alongside a pre-existing scheme your school has in place. You can easily copy the resource links directly into your planning documents.  

The resources can be displayed by year group, topic or subject which is really handy, especially if you are looking to extend children above their year group. I would, however, like to see more English resources as I feel there could be a greater number of interactive activities explored but I am sure this is something which will appear over time. 

Overall, a great time-saving resource which can support any classroom and can help you deliver a well-rounded lesson.

Mr Bates Creates, the online learning hub that Ashley Bates created, is making great use of the library and has suggested to other schools they follow suit.