Art
Generative art piece responding to live data
Each student builds a small generative art piece in p5.js that responds to live data (mouse movement, audio input, current weather data, time of day). The piece must be defensibly generative (not just decorative) and must change visibly when the input changes. Students publish to a class gallery and write a 150-word artist's statement.
Tools: p5.js
Augmented reality public art installation
Each student designs a virtual sculpture or installation that exists at a specific real-world location (e.g. the school's main entrance, a local park, a town square). The installation must be viewable through an AR app when a viewer points their phone camera at the location. Students present by walking the class to the site and demonstrating.
Tools: Adobe Aero
Digital portfolio with embedded process video
Each student builds a digital portfolio of their term's artwork. The portfolio includes images of each piece, an embedded time-lapse video of the work in progress (filmed during studio sessions), a 200-word voice-over for each piece explaining intent and choices, and links to the source images and influences they researched.
Tools: Google Sites
Computing
Pseudocode-to-Python translation race
Students translate three pseudocode snippets into Python at their own pace, posting each translation to a Replit gallery. Quizizz tracks completion. After each round, the teacher pulls out the two most efficient and two most error-prone translations and asks the contributing students to walk through their reasoning.
Code-bug spotting on a shared Padlet
The teacher posts a piece of buggy Python code in a class Padlet. Each student posts one bug they spot with a one-line explanation of why it would cause a problem. The class scrolls all bug reports, the teacher draws out the most useful debugging strategies, and the class collaboratively fixes each bug.
Tools: Padlet
Network diagram critique on a class wall
The teacher posts a network diagram (small office LAN) on a class Padlet. Each student posts one structural critique (e.g. single point of failure, security weakness, scalability limit) with reasoning. The class scrolls, the teacher draws out the most defensible critiques, and pairs propose one architectural fix.
Tools: Padlet
Drama
Live poll on character motivation with debate
The teacher posts a key dramatic moment from a class play. Students vote on Mentimeter for the strongest interpretation of the character's motivation among three options. The class sees the spread, defends in pairs, debates, re-votes.
Tools: Mentimeter
Pairs film and post 30-second monologue performances
Each student records a 30-second target-text monologue performance and posts the video to a class Padlet column. Three classmates watch each performance and post a one-line note on a specific delivery technique (pace, pause, projection, intention). The class samples and the teacher draws out the strongest techniques.
Tools: Padlet
Class annotation of stage directions on a script
The teacher posts a single page from a play script in a shared class Doc. Each student adds suggesting-mode comments on what they would do as a director for one specific stage direction or beat. The class scrolls comments and the teacher draws out where directorial choices diverge most sharply.
Tools: Google Docs
Dt
Garment design sketches in a digital fashion app
Each student produces three garment design sketches in a digital sketching app for a chosen audience (e.g. winter sportswear for teenagers, school uniforms for primary children, festival wear). Each sketch includes annotations on fabric, function and target market.
Tools: Procreate
Phone holder design in Tinkercad
Each student designs a desk phone holder in Tinkercad with at least three distinct components (base, holder, cable channel). They export an STL file and a screenshot. The teacher reviews and selects three for 3D printing.
Tools: Tinkercad
Product brand logo design
Each student designs a logo for a fictional product brand they have specified (e.g. a sustainable trainer brand, a health-tech wearable). The logo must work in three sizes, three colour treatments and on a black-and-white print. They submit a single sheet showing all variations.
Tools: Canva, Adobe Express
English
Pair podcast on literary analysis with audio quotes and sound design
Pairs record an eight-minute podcast analysing one motif across a novel they have studied. The podcast must include three pair-recorded readings of quotes from the text, a music bed chosen to match the motif's emotional weight, and a thesis defended with at least two pieces of evidence. Pairs publish to a class podcast feed.
Tools: GarageBand
Branching narrative built in Twine, played by classmates
Each student builds a branching short story in Twine. The story has at least three decision points and four endings. Each branch must explore a different theme (loyalty, identity, fear, hope). At the end of the project the class plays each other's stories and writes a short response on which branches felt the most justified by the writer's craft.
Tools: Twine
Multimedia thesis essay submitted as an interactive web page
Each student picks a contemporary global issue (gender pay gap, plastic pollution, AI in education). They build a single web page that argues a thesis. The page must include an embedded video clip with their commentary, hyperlinks to two primary sources, and an interactive thesis map (a clickable diagram showing claim, evidence, counterclaim, response). They peer-review three classmates' pages using a structured rubric.
Tools: Google Sites
Lady Macbeth across two scenes, annotated
Each student receives the texts of Act 1 Scene 5 and Act 5 Scene 1 of Macbeth in a shared Google Doc, one document per student. Using suggesting-mode comments, each student highlights three lines per scene that show Lady Macbeth's psychological arc, with a one-line note on what each line reveals. The class scrolls a master view in plenary; the teacher pulls out the cleanest before-and-after pairs and asks the contributing students to defend.
Tools: Google Docs
Two short stories, narrative voice posted to a class wall
Half the class reads Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour; the other half reads Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Each student posts to one of two columns on a class Padlet: a label for the narrative voice (intrusive, unreliable, third-limited, etc.) and one quoted line that justifies the label. The class scrolls both columns and discusses which voice is more controlled by the writer and which leaves more to the reader.
Tools: Padlet
Live polling on a poem with class debate
The class reads a poem together (e.g. Carol Ann Duffy's Education for Leisure or Jackie Kay's Old Tongue). After the read, the teacher posts a Mentimeter poll with three competing readings of the central theme. Each student commits to one. The class sees the live spread, then in pairs writes a 30-second defence of their choice. The teacher calls three pairs from each side to argue; the class re-polls at the end to see who shifted.
Tools: Mentimeter, Google Docs
Geography
360-degree virtual tour with student commentary
Each student builds a 360-degree virtual tour of a fieldwork site (could be physical visit using a 360 camera, or a remote site using existing 360 imagery). The tour has waypoints with the student's audio commentary explaining geographical features, processes and human-environment interactions. They publish to a class showcase.
Tools: Google Earth
AR story-map of a local urban regeneration project
Each student builds an AR story-map of a local urban regeneration project (e.g. a redeveloped high street, a new housing estate, a converted dock). The map has waypoints; at each waypoint a viewer points their phone camera and sees a virtual overlay of "before" imagery, current data, and the student's voice-over interpretation. Students walk the class through their map at the actual location.
Tools: Adobe Aero, Google Earth
Interactive web page comparing two contrasting climates
Each student builds an interactive web page comparing two contrasting climate zones (e.g. tropical rainforest vs hot desert, polar vs temperate). The page must include embedded interactive charts (rainfall, temperature, biodiversity), tap-to-reveal text explaining each chart, and a recommendation panel for which climate they would prefer to live in and why.
Tools: Google Sites
Coastal management decision vote
The teacher presents a real-world coastal management dilemma (e.g. should the village of Happisburgh be defended or abandoned?). Each student votes on Mentimeter for one of three options. The class sees the live spread, then in pairs writes a 30-second defence on a class Padlet. The teacher calls pairs from each side to argue. The class re-votes.
Tools: Mentimeter, Padlet
Climate evidence reliability sorting
The teacher posts ten pieces of evidence on climate change (from sources ranging from peer-reviewed papers to op-eds to social-media posts). Each student sorts each piece into one of three reliability columns on a shared Padlet (high, medium, low) with a one-line justification. The class scrolls the populated columns and the teacher highlights any piece sorted into different columns by different students.
Tools: Padlet
Migration evidence on a shared map
The teacher posts a shared Google Map. Each student is given one country pair (origin and destination) representing a real migration flow (e.g. Syria to Germany, Mexico to USA, Bangladesh to UK). They drop two pins on the map (origin and destination), label each with one push or pull factor, and post a one-line caption. The class scrolls the populated map and discusses dominant push-pull patterns.
Tools: Google Earth, Padlet
Cross-school case-study debate
UK class debates a partner school in a developing economy on a contested globalisation question (e.g. is fast fashion a net good or harm?). Each side argues from their national perspective; teacher-judges on both sides facilitate. Live, contested, peer-vs-peer.
Tools: Microsoft Teams
Live global-data collaboration with partner school
A class partners with a school in a different climate zone (e.g. UK paired with a school in southern Australia, the US Southwest, or Singapore). Both classes record local rainfall, temperature and humidity data into a shared spreadsheet for two weeks. They then video-call to compare patterns and discuss what the climate difference reveals about geographic processes.
Tools: Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams
Real-time fieldwork data sharing across countries
Two classes (UK and a partner country) conduct similar fieldwork (e.g. high-street pedestrian counts, river-channel measurements at equivalent sites) and share data live to a joint spreadsheet over a video call. Both classes interpret the cross-country data together; each team writes a one-line interpretation of the other team's findings.
Tools: Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams
History
Digital timeline with embedded oral history audio
Each student builds a digital timeline of a 20th-century event by interviewing a family member or community member who lived through it (or watching an existing oral history recording). The timeline has at least eight events; each event has embedded student-recorded audio of the interview clip alongside textual context.
Tools: Sutori
Immersive 3D museum room curating a period
Each student builds a navigable 3D museum room curating a chosen historical period (e.g. medieval England, the Industrial Revolution, the inter-war period). The room contains at least six exhibit objects (real images placed in 3D space) with interpretive text the visitor reveals on tap. Visitors navigate freely through the room.
Tools: CoSpaces
Twine narrative through primary sources
Each student builds a Twine branching narrative based on primary sources from a chosen historical event (e.g. the Munich Crisis, the Suez Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis). The reader makes decisions at key moments; each decision branch reveals a different primary source the reader must interpret to continue. There must be at least three decision points and four endings.
Tools: Twine
Source-reliability vote with debate
The teacher posts a single primary source (e.g. a propaganda poster, a witness account, a speech extract). Students vote on Mentimeter for how reliable they think it is on a five-point scale. The class sees the spread, then in pairs writes a 30-second defence. The teacher calls one pair from each end of the spread to argue. The class re-votes.
Tools: Mentimeter
Causation factor weights on a shared diagram
Each student gets their own Jamboard frame with five named factors that contributed to a historical event (e.g. for the outbreak of WWI: militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism, the assassination). They drag each factor onto a 1-to-5 weight scale on the frame, justifying with a one-line note. The class scrolls all thirty frames and the teacher highlights factors that students weighted very differently.
Tools: Jamboard
Historians' interpretations comparison
The teacher posts three short extracts from different historians on the same event (e.g. the causes of the First World War as analysed by Fischer, Joll and Clark). Each student picks the interpretation they find most convincing and posts to a shared Padlet column with a two-sentence justification. The class scrolls the columns and the teacher draws out the contested points.
Tools: Padlet
Live joint research on a shared event
A class partners with a class in a country directly involved in a chosen historical event (e.g. partition of India 1947 with an Indian school; the Gold Rush 1849 with a US school). Together they build a shared web page combining sources, photos and oral history from both countries. Each side contributes content; the other side responds and integrates.
Tools: Google Sites, Microsoft Teams
Cross-cultural source analysis with partner school
A class is paired with a partner-school class in another country (e.g. UK class paired with a German class for a topic on WWII; UK class paired with a US class for a topic on the Cold War). Both classes annotate the same primary source on a shared Doc, with each student tagging their nationality. The classes then debate where their national perspectives diverge.
Tools: Google Docs, Microsoft Teams
Real-time historical-debate competition
A class hosts a live debate competition on a contested historical question (e.g. who was responsible for the start of WWI?) with a partner school in a different country. Two teams of three argue different interpretations; native-school peers argue alternative interpretations. Teacher-judges on both sides give feedback; the class watches and votes on the strongest case.
Tools: Microsoft Teams
Maths
Generative geometric pattern in p5.js from a maths rule
Each student picks a mathematical rule (e.g. fractal recursion, modular arithmetic, polar coordinates, the Fibonacci spiral) and writes a small p5.js program that renders a generative pattern based on the rule. They publish to a class gallery and write a 100-word artist's statement explaining the maths.
Tools: p5.js
Interactive Desmos visualisation responding to slider input
Each student builds an interactive Desmos graph that visualises a function family (e.g. quadratics y = ax^2 + bx + c). They add sliders for each coefficient, label what each slider changes about the graph, and write a 100-word commentary explaining how the family transforms. They publish the link to a class gallery.
Tools: Desmos
Real climate data dashboard with interactive charts
Each student builds an interactive dashboard analysing real climate data (drawing from publicly available temperature, sea-level or carbon dioxide records over the past 50 years). The dashboard must include at least three interactive charts (one with a time slider, one with category filter, one with regression overlay) and a short interpretation panel. They publish to a class showcase.
Tools: Google Sheets
Quadratic-solver race with class scoreboard
Students solve randomly-generated quadratics at their own pace through Quizizz. The live class scoreboard shows progress and accuracy. Every five minutes the teacher pauses on the two equation types causing most class-wide misses and asks two students to walk through their reasoning.
Tools: Quizizz
Geometry proof comparison on a class wall
The teacher posts a single theorem to prove (e.g. the angle subtended by a diameter is a right angle). Each student writes out their proof on their own Jamboard frame, using GeoGebra to construct supporting diagrams. They post a screenshot to a shared Padlet column. The class scrolls all proofs; the teacher highlights two structurally different valid approaches and asks the contributing students to defend.
Real-data statistical investigation on shared sheet
Each student picks a question from a posted list (e.g. is there a relationship between hours of homework and exam grade in our cohort?), and records their three closest classmates' values into a shared class spreadsheet. The class scrolls all rows; the teacher highlights distributions, anomalies and surface correlations; pairs then write a one-line interpretation.
Tools: Google Sheets
Mfl
Translation comparison on a class wall
The teacher posts a single short target-language passage (about 60 words, with two ambiguous phrases). Each student translates the full passage into English and posts to a class Padlet. The class scrolls and the teacher highlights two ambiguous phrases where students made notably different choices, asking three students to defend their decision.
Tools: Padlet
Listening comprehension with class-wide annotation
The teacher plays a 90-second target-language audio clip three times. As the class listens, each student types one observation per listen on a shared Padlet (first listen: gist; second: tone; third: inference). The teacher pauses after each listen, projects the wall, and discusses common observations and any outliers.
Tools: Padlet
Photo-card description with peer audio reactions
The teacher posts five GCSE-style photo cards. Each student records a 60-second target-language description of one card and posts the audio to a class Padlet column for that card. Three classmates listen to each student's recording and post a single-word target-language reaction (clear, slow, hesitant, fluent, etc.) as a comment. The teacher samples reactions and identifies common pronunciation patterns.
Tools: Padlet
Music
Sampled environmental sounds in a DAW
Each student records 10 environmental sounds (bell, footsteps, water, wind, traffic, school sounds, etc.) and arranges them into a 90-second piece using DAW effects (pitch shift, reverse, time-stretch, layering). The piece must follow a clear narrative arc.
Tools: GarageBand
Vocal layers with auto-pitch and harmonisation
Each student records a single melodic vocal line and uses auto-pitch correction plus a harmoniser plugin to generate three additional harmony parts. They mix the four voices into a 60-second layered vocal track. They submit individually.
Tools: GarageBand, Logic Pro
Composing with virtual orchestral instruments
Each student composes a 90-second piece using virtual orchestral instruments (strings, woodwinds, brass) plus effects (reverb, compression). The piece must use at least three instrumental voices and a clear arc. They export and submit.
Tools: GarageBand, Logic Pro, BandLab
Science
Virtual circuit lab with shared results
Each student designs and tests three circuits in a PhET circuit simulator (a series circuit with two bulbs, a parallel circuit with two bulbs, a circuit with mixed series and parallel). They post current and voltage readings into a shared class spreadsheet. The class scrolls all rows and the teacher highlights anomalies, asking the contributing student to debug their circuit.
Tools: PhET Simulations, Google Sheets
Mock-exam multi-choice debate on a wall
The teacher posts five GCSE-style multi-choice questions where the wrong answers are designed to be plausible. Each student votes on Mentimeter. The class sees the spread, then in pairs writes a 30-second defence of their answer. The teacher calls one pair from each side. The class re-votes. The teacher reveals the official answer and explains why each distractor sounds reasonable.
Tools: Mentimeter
Required-practical method comparison
The teacher names a required practical (e.g. measuring the rate of a reaction, investigating temperature change with concentration). Each student posts on a class Padlet the one method choice they would make differently from the standard mark scheme, with a one-line justification. The class scrolls and the teacher pulls out the three most defensible alternative choices for whole-class discussion.
Tools: Padlet
Lessons that look CT but are not
Useful counter-examples when you are checking your own lesson placement on the PICRAT grid.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and key stage. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.