Real classroom lesson ideas that sit in Passive Replace, grouped by subject. Plus a few anti-examples to sharpen your placement.
By Andy Perryer, Director of Education Innovation37 lessonsReviewed September 2026
Passive Replace sits at the Passive row and the Replace column of the PICRAT grid. Students are watching, listening or reading, and the technology is doing a job that a book, a board or the teacher's voice could have done.
It is the cell people are quickest to apologise for, and they should not. Year 7 watch a documentary clip on the Black Death before a significance debate. Year 9 watch a worked-solutions video on Pythagoras before practice in books. Year 1 hear the parable of the lost sheep told from illustrated slides. Each is a sensible way to get knowledge into the room before students do something with it.
The question PICRAT asks is whether you chose this cell or ended up in it. If a lesson stays here for the full hour, every week, that is worth noticing. The nearest moves are to Passive Amplify, where the technology adds something to the watching, or to Interactive Replace, where students respond.
Students read a one-page introduction to Käthe Kollwitz that the teacher drafted with Copilot and checked line by line, then look at two of her War woodcuts with that background in mind.
Grade 6 watch a ten-minute tutorial on the board that builds a draw-a-square program with a repeat block, then predict in their books what other loops would draw.
The teacher runs an animated PowerPoint that follows one web page request from a school laptop to a server and back, while Grade 7 label a network diagram in their books.
Before their own puppetry work, Grade 7 watch Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler's TED talk, where the puppeteers show how breath and small movements make the War Horse puppet seem alive.
The class watches Michael Rosen perform his poem Chocolate Cake on his YouTube channel, with the teacher replaying short sections so children can hear how he uses pace, pauses and voices.
Students follow a teacher-written model letter arguing for a longer lunch break, shown a paragraph at a time on PowerPoint slides, and log each persuasive device in a table in their books.
Grade 6 watch Rodrigo Blaas's animated short Alma twice on the board and collect setting details in their books before writing their own eerie openings.
Grade 7 meet Blake's 'A Poison Tree' one stanza per slide, writing a prediction in their books before each reveal, and end by explaining how the growing tree stands for the speaker's hidden anger.
The teacher talks through a PowerPoint of eight photographs taken around the school, from a drying puddle to a misted window, and children copy and label the cycle in their books.
The teacher plays a 12-minute section of a documentary podcast episode on daily life in Lagos through the classroom speakers while Grade 7 take notes under set headings.
The teacher plays a vetted clip on waterfalls and meanders from YouTube on the board, pausing after each landform while Grade 8 take notes, then they draw an annotated oxbow lake sequence.
Grade 6 watch an eight-minute documentary clip on the Black Death on the board, take structured notes and write a paragraph on the change that mattered most.
Grade 7 follow a teacher-led slide story of the steam engine from Newcomen's mine pump of 1712 to Watt's rotary engine of the 1780s, noting each problem and its fix, then explain why mills could leave the riverbank.
Students read down a teacher-built Sutori timeline of fourteen Industrial Revolution events, answer the questions set at four checkpoints in their books, then rebuild the turning points from memory.
Grade 8 watch a twelve-minute documentary extract on the Anglo-German naval race, taking notes under three headings, and write a paragraph on whether it made war more likely.
The teacher recaps militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism and the Sarajevo assassination on six slides, and Grade 8 summarise and rank the causes in their books.
Grade 3 watch a short animation of a chocolate bar split into halves, quarters and eighths, drawing each stage in their books, and write their first fraction family.
Grade 4 follow the teacher's worked example of an L-shaped garden, 12 m by 9 m with a corner cut out, drawn in Microsoft Whiteboard on the board, copy it into their books, then answer six textbook questions.
The teacher narrates five worked examples of multiplying fractions on a PowerPoint that students follow on their iPads, trying a matching question in their books after each one.
Before their first circumference lesson, students read a teacher-built Sutori story on how mathematicians closed in on pi, then answer five questions in their books.
The teacher plays a 12-minute worked-solutions video on Pythagoras' theorem on the board, pausing between problems while Grade 8 copy the working, before they practise in their books.
The teacher plays a five-minute section of a slow-speech podcast for German learners twice through the classroom speakers, and Grade 7 answer six questions in their books.
Grade 7 read a 250-word French text on a Lyon teenager's daily routine on their iPads, then answer comprehension questions and find the reflexive verbs in their books.
The teacher plays a five-minute vlog made for Spanish learners, in which a teenager in Madrid describes her weekend, twice on the board while Grade 8 complete a listening worksheet.
The teacher shows a short animation on how the heart and lungs respond to exercise, students copy the key terms, and then each learns to find and count their own pulse.
The teacher tells the parable of the lost sheep from Luke 15 using eight illustrated slides, and the class then talks about how the shepherd felt and why the story matters to Christians.
The teacher drags photographs of twelve everyday materials, from a brick to the bubbles in a fizzy drink, into three columns on the board after Grade 3 have each decided solid, liquid or gas on mini whiteboards.
Grade 7 follow a teacher-led slide story of Joseph Priestley's and Jan Ingenhousz's experiments, predicting each result in their books before it is revealed, and end by building the word equation from what the experiments showed.
Grade 7 open the cells and microscopy knowledge organiser as a view-only Google Doc, cover the definitions and test themselves on 15 keywords before a written exit ticket.
Open Generate, pick a subject and an age range, and you will get a full 3x3 matrix of nine lesson ideas in under a minute. Passive Replace is one of the nine.