Here are some of the things my students have found useful in relation to whiteboard use:

• Use a blue pen rather than lots of different colours, green is often hard to see against the glare of overhead lights.

• Lots of quick drawings to represent words (see here to draw like a star!)

• A board plan – using the same areas of the board for the same tasks every lesson mean students can quickly find new vocab, or the homework etc.

• Starting the lesson in the same order every lesson gives a sense of security, everyone knows what’s coming up; what’s the day & the date? (top right), what’s the weather like? or Fun Fact of the day depending on year group (top left) – did YOU know the average man produced two swimming pools of saliva during his life? (did you want to?!!) What did we do last lesson (middle left) – a good opportunity for over learning/revision, and then what we’re going to do (top centre).

• Writing a quick lesson plan on the board & tick it off as you go along so everyone knows what we’re up to, including symbols for reading, writing, oral, etc.

• NOT using the board to make students copy great long texts

• Letting students take photos of the board ( and adding these photos to our class WhatsApp group)

• If /when you clean the board or an area of it do it properly, no half words left, and some students get bothered by the odd line, dot, smudge and focus on that at the expense of the lesson so do it well – or ask that student to be board monitor.

Do you have any more suggestions?