Every Monday students find slips of paper waiting on their desks when they arrive and I encourage them to write about something great that happened over the last seven days.

To be perfectly honest I don’t put them all in the memory jar that I keep on the shelf, I keep those that mention exceptional events, football team victories, great results in a Maths test, courage, bravery, kind actions, funny moments, etc. However I don’t let the students know that, or see me throwing them away.

The plan is to open the jar in our last lesson next June, I will have added some photos, links to work on the class blog, etc. We will spend our last lesson reminiscing about the year that’s passed and looking at what we’ve learnt and how we’ve changed.

Instead of the usual sweets and games to pass the time until the final bell of the year, we’ll spend our time thinking about learning and personal development – some of my favourite things!