Welcome to Our New Resource Line – Wake Up and Work!

These have been specially created as a new resource line for Years 1 to 6 to provide you with easy-to-use morning work all in one place, taking elements from our most popular resources and streamlining them all into one place to be as accessible as possible. Each week is a separate file, designed to be opened and used as daily morning work for that week. 

Years 2 to 6 follow the same structure: 

• Day 1 = spelling  

• Day 2 = Maths in Minutes 

• Day 3 = Rise and Read 

• Day 4 = Rapid Arithmetic 

• Day 5 = ‘I wonder…’ philosophical wider-thinking question to promote oracy, self-expression and discussion 
  

The spelling activity shows 3 words from the National Curriculum’s word list for that year group, with each word’s class and an accessible definition. Pupils must write each word three times, then write a sentence using the word. After completion, there are then challenge activities such as drawing a picture to show each word or writing another sentence using a punctuation or grammar feature from that year group, thereby drawing on other skills. 

Maths in Minutes and Rapid Arithmetic are outlined in further detail here. 

Rise and Read is outlined in further detail here. 

The ‘I wonder…’ activity is an open-ended question for pupils to consider their reaction to and think about how to articulate their response, with an image used to support understanding. Examples include ‘what colour, object and sound represents happiness?’, ‘is it better to be kind or honest?’ and ‘are zoos good or bad for animals?’. There is no right or wrong response; instead, pupils could write an answer to share with a partner or the class. Discussing responses gives an opportunity for oracy and can often get passionate as pupils articulate their feelings! 

Year 1 follows a slightly difference structure: 

• Day 1 = writing, with progression across the year 

• Day 2 = Maths in Minutes 

• Day 3 = reading, with progression across the year 

• Day 4 = Rapid Arithmetic 

• Day 5 = ‘I wonder…’ open-ended philosophical wider-thinking question to promote oracy, self-expression and discussion 

The writing activity for the summer term is to write a sentence for a photo stimulus, with prompts about what this could include. Earlier in the year, this activity would match pupils’ development and would be more accessible, such as writing words to match images or identifying words that use a particular phoneme. 

Maths in Minutes and Rapid Arithmetic are outlined in further detail here. 

The reading activity for the summer term is use the photo from the writing task and answer two questions about it. Responses could be written or expressed verbally. 

The ‘I wonder…’ activity is explained above. 

The versions now available are for two weeks’ worth of work in the summer term. As such, they lift from the summer iterations of three resources: Maths in Minutes; Rise and Read; and Rapid Arithmetic. 

 Browse Wake Up and Work Resources

Browse Wake Up and Work Resources

Why should you use Wake Up and Work, though? 

• They ensure your pupils are daily exposed to elements of the core curriculum (spelling, maths, reading and arithmetic) across the week. 

• They promote retrieval practice as they are recapping elements that have already been taught, thereby strengthening the understanding of these concepts (further information about retrieval practice can be found on our blog here). 

• They are designed to be displayed on an interactive whiteboard so that the work can be frozen to free you up to deal with all those morning jobs such as the register, speaking to children or briefing teaching assistants while pupils independently carry out their task – equally, these can be printed out for pupils to complete individually if preferred. 

• Each day has answers provided, so you do not have to work them out yourself! These are on a separate page that can be displayed to give pupils the chance to self-mark and identify their own areas for development. 

• The order of core curriculum area being drawn upon is the same for all year groups, meaning pupils will quickly become familiar with their morning routine. 

• Each page has a footer with the day you are on and whether it is the question or the answer page, meaning easy navigation within the document! 

• The tasks can be used in whatever order that works for the needs of you and your class. 

• It can be used for a whole range of teaching opportunities beyond morning work, such as intervention, breakfast club, tutoring, supply teachers or home learning. 

• The resources that have been used (Maths in Minutes, Rise and Read; and Rapid Arithmetic) are all linked to from the WUAW description, so you can investigate a resource further if you or your pupils particularly enjoyed using it. 

• The bright sunshine colours used throughout will help your children Wake Up and Work, ready for their day of learning! 

A set for the autumn term for each year group will be released in August, ready for use in September for morning work that include Maths in Minutes, Rise and Read and Rapid Arithmetic questions from the autumn iterations of these resources.  

In the meantime, we would love to hear your feedback, suggestions and ideas for how these could be improved even further – please submit these to hello@classroomsecrets.co.uk. We would also love to hear how your class find these resources! 

Browse Wake Up and Work Resources