Busy Things summary review

Date: 11.07.2022

Average star rating: 4.3/5

Overview comments:

• Have used it for a long time even with my own children and will continue to do so

• It’s a really good programme . Well worth investing in .

• It does what it says on the tin ! Keeps children busy. I also think it gives them a sense of ownership in their learning and they delight in using it. It’s engaging

• More suited to younger pupils

• Good resource with lots of engaging features. The children love it. It is great for homework activities and short tasks; however it lacks the depth to cover all areas of the curriculum sufficiently.

How well does it match the curriculum?

• 4* It really supports coding for children in early years and helps to prepare them for the key stage one curriculum

• 5* It is fantastic!

• 4* Matches the spec and includes fun ideas

• 4* A good many resources which can be used to generate enthusiasm with children who enjoy online activities and interactive challenges. Super when used as consolidation and at times to use as overlearning tool

• 3* More suited to younger children and more games based

• 3* Its strengths are that it engages the children and covers the basics of the curriculum well. It also has some possibilities for creating your own resources. Its main weakness is that the challenge is limited, in that some of the activities are very straightforward and simple.

• 3* English activities can be a little basic with not many extension tasks. Phonics activities can be used to support LA to further develop their phonics knowledge

• 4* We have adapted our curriculum due to the changes made with new GCSE

How could it be improved to support different learners?

• 4* The games use levels that children can progress through so that means they can move at their own pace regardless of year group

• 5* Children can access different year groups and levels

• 2* Teacher has to adapt it

• 4* It seems to work well. Easily accessed by all levels and ages if activities are selected with care by teachers.

• 3* Although I like the interactivity and all children seem to enjoy it

• 3* One option would be to add difficulty levels to activities, have activities that gradually get harder or add a wider range of activities that challenge children further.

• 2* More activities with extension activities to further develop writing. More opportunities to type responses rather than just 'drag and drop' type activities

How well does it engage and motivate pupils?

• 5* The graphics are really bright and appealing and attract the attention of pupils. The music also is catchy and seems to appeal

• 5* They love it!

• 3* Students seem to enjoy the resources but it does depend on the teacher delivery to bring them to life

• 5* The children love this . Really excited by it .

• 5* They all like the engaging graphics and noises ! Can be used to compete with friends or used as a solitary activity with fast feedback. They tell me they like that they can use it at home or in spare moments

• 5* Very engaging

• 5* They love the characters and noises! They also seem to enjoy how straightforward it is to choose activities. They don't like the limited search function for activities, which uses characters but doesn't offer the option for text search.

• 5* Interactive activities, some with sounds help to engage children and ensure, even if they are not able to fully read the task they can access the activity

How well does it support planning?

• 4* It is well aligned with requirements for the computing curriculum and also helps to prepare them for the next stage

• 4* It’s easy to add it in as part of the lesson.

• 4* Very methodical resources

• 4* This links in well with EYFS planning

• 4* I use it as a bolt on. My planning needs to be very tight so I tend to use school agreed format however there are certainly good options for consolidation resources

• 4* Easy to use

• 3* The search facility isn't the greatest. It can be quite frustrating trying to find a resource. I like how easy it is to allocate work to children, though.

• 3* I can usually find activities which support some of the children in the task we are completing but not always.

What improvements could make this better value for money?

• 4* Perhaps some additional paper based resources to be used as a follow up and the use could be used as evidence as to what they pupils can do

• 4* It’s included within a package for us.

• 3* competitively priced

• 5* None it’s part of the package we have and I’m not aware it impacts on our budget so seems good value

• 4* We have it included in a different subscription

• 4* Provide more challenge for the children to extend their understanding further as some of the activities are quite limited in their scope. Perhaps add a better search function.

• 4* Seems to be good value for money but I haven't recently checked the pricing to be honest

How well does it support home use / independent learning?

• 5* Really intuitive and user friendly. Can be used on all sorts of devices and we have promoted the use of this at home for this reason

• 3* Allows discussion activities and independent task

• 4* We use this at home too

• 5* The families love it. It has given me a better option for homework tasks

• 5* Very easy for children to login at home

• 4* It's easy to access for the children and they can use it with very little support; however, at times I'd be concerned about the depth of learning.

• 4* The options to set a piece of work for children can be useful - I used this quite a lot during lock down but not as much lately

Net promoter score for this resource:

Busy Things

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