Tutor & Form Time
Our most popular secondary resource: done in just 15-25 minutes.
Perfect for a full length lesson, or for a drop-down day.
Every week we create two versions of the same VoteTopic: a full lesson of around 45 minutes, and a shorter one for tutor time, at 15-25 minutes. Most secondary schools use the shorter one - not out of preference, but because that's genuinely what fits in the time available. The activities are simplified for the time available, so pupils get a complete session, not a rushed one.
The choice is always yours: maybe there's a topic you want to dedicate more time to, or perhaps you're planning to some of the lessons for a drop-down day, to really dig deep into a topic. Every lesson we create comes in a longer format too, giving you ultimate flexibility.
Lingfield Notre Dame School
Registration. Reading. Careers. Safeguarding. Wellbeing check-ins. PSHE. Current affairs. Tutor time is where all of it is supposed to happen, in the same fifteen or twenty minutes - and pastoral time has been getting squeezed for years, not growing. With VotesforSchools, all of it is covered, at once. It's answering several of those demands in a single session, not adding a seventh thing to the list.
The Compton School
UTC Wiltshire
Question. Why are we talking about this. Activities. Vote. That's the shape of every VoteTopic, long or short, and it stays the same week after week on purpose. Schools that get the most out of tutor time report that what actually works isn't a constant stream of new activity formats, it's a structure pupils and tutors both recognise. The content changes every week. The rhythm doesn't.
Usually, yes - the 15-20 minute version is built to work in a single sitting most weeks. Some weeks, especially on topics with more to unpack, you might need two. That's genuinely expected, not a sign of bad planning: a resource covering six curriculum areas at once - PSHE, SMSC, British Values, Personal Development, Citizenship, Character Education - is occasionally going to need more than twenty minutes to do that properly, the same way a lesson worth teaching sometimes runs into the next period.
Same ground, same six frameworks, same weekly VoteTopic. The activities are simplified for the time you've got - the coverage isn't. Every tutor time lesson still ends in a real vote, and still gets mapped in your termly overview report exactly like the full lesson would.
Just whichever fits your timetable. Most secondary schools run the tutor time version exclusively. Some use the full lesson in a dedicated PSHE slot instead, or may save some longer session for dedicated drop-down days. Neither is more "correct" - they're the same VoteTopic, sized two different ways.
The lesson is fully editable, so you can trim it further yourself, or split it across a few days- most schools find the discussion and vote are the two things worth protecting if something has to give.
No fixed requirement, but many schools like to, since it means results from a topic get shared back to pupils and the new question is introduced, closing the loop while it's still fresh.
No. Every lesson arrives zero-prep with full context included, whatever the tutor's own subject background.