Making the most of Purple Mash

Welcome back to a new academic year! Whether it’s inspiring your writers, extending your coders, or boosting the creativity in your children, Purple Mash has everything you need to deliver a unique experience that is simple to use and loved by all.

Our open-ended tools allow children’s creativity to flourish. Using Purple Mash, the opportunities are endless. Children can role-play being an astronaut, become a DJ, create animated stories, design multi-level games, and much more. It is easy to reinforce core skills with a range of games that give children an engaging way to practice what they are learning.

From coding, to email and online safety, Purple Mash includes everything you need to deliver the computing curriculum all in one place. Teachers are fully supported with overviews, lesson plans, tutorial videos and slideshows, which all help deliver the computing curriculum confidently.

Purple Mash comes with free home access which makes it perfect to seamlessly integrate learning at school and home. Inbuilt blogging and Display Board tools are a great way to share all the learning with the wider school community and these can be set for the whole school, class or individual groups.

Updates from 2023-2024

We are constantly adding new features to Purple Mash based on teachers' feedback and in the last academic year, we rolled out several new updates to support your teaching. Our most recent include:

Computing Scheme of Work

• New units of work were added: Unit 4.10 Artificial Intelligence, and Unit 5.9 Using External Devices
• Knowledge and Skill Key Recap Questions have been added for Years 1-6
• An Essential Knowledge Document has been added
• Declarative and Procedural Documents have been added for Years 1-6
• Learning Mats have been added for Years 1-6
• Spreadsheet lessons have been updated to match the 2Calculate refresh
• micro:bit lessons have been added for Years 3 and 4 - you can try some free here

Spelling Scheme of Work

The Purple Mash Spelling Scheme of Work was updated to ensure all resources were easy to find and clearer to see coverage.

Each week, there is a slideshow, flashcards, and a Look, Say, Write, Cover, Check worksheet that can be sent home for children to practise their spellings. There is also a quiz and dictation activity each week to use once children have had time to learn the spelling patterns.

Quizzes are self marking, and results will automatically log in the Data Dashboard, meaning teachers can easily track progress.

Tool Updates

• 2Dos and the Online Work area have been redeveloped to save teachers even more time and reduce workload. It is now quicker to set 2Dos and useful features are easier to see. Management of 2Dos is also more automated and navigation of the 2Do and online work areas have been simplified.
• Funky Platform maths game has been updated to assist in the development of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. You may also spot our new maschcot, Cody, in a starring role!
• 2Quiz has been updated to add different question types as well as the ability to add videos and images into a content screen and the ability to add teacher feedback on questions.
• 2Calculate now gives students the ability to use more formulas or the formula wizard, as well as adding sheets.

New Resources

• Videos for Creative Writing are engaging projects with videos and writing tasks for every session. They can be used daily, or spread out over a term depending on what suits your class.
  • The Mysterious Egg (ages 5 -7)
  • Mystery of the Dakota Diamonds (ages 7 – 9)
  • The Trouble with Tamarins (ages 7-9)
  • Catching Blueprints (ages 9-11)
• Resources on Popular Texts are supporting resources - including quizzes and writing frames - for books frequently used in the primary classroom. Books include:
  • Room On The Broom and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (KS1)
  • The Iron Man and The Egyptian Cinderella (LKS2)
  • The Explorer and The Boy in the Tower (UKS2)

With many more, and more still being added frequently.

• Typing Across the Years contains fun, short typing activities to support the teaching and learning of fundamental typing skills
• Ancient Egypt Video Lesson - a six-part video series which comes complete with a lesson plan and resources. It follows the adventure of Howard Carter and his discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb.
• White Rose Maths End of Unit Quizzes have been carefully produced by the 2Simple team and are designed to complement and work alongside White Rose Maths.

Serial Mash

Serial Mash is our online library of guided reading books and resources for ages 5-11. With a new chapter released every week of term, including fresh activities and additional resources, it has proved popular with teachers and children since it was launched way back in 2014.

With 7 different libraries, there is something for everyone:

• Diamonds (Ages 5-7)
• Emeralds (Ages 7-9)
• Sapphires (Ages 9-11)
• Fire bolts (Books to motivate and promote eager reading)
• Comets (Longer novels for ages 9-11)
• Poetry
• DK Learning (non-fiction books)

Support for Teachers:

We have a range of planning, tools, and applications to enable your teachers to make the most of using Purple Mash in schools. Purple Mash is mapped to the curriculum showing how it can be used to support and enhance teaching and learning. All our curriculum maps are now interactive, so they allow teachers to find resources for the teaching of specific objectives, whether you are in England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. These resources can then be set as a 2Do directly from the curriculum map. We have also mapped Purple Mash to the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE). Teachers can access the Purple Mash Computing Scheme of Work, Spelling Scheme of Work, and Grammar Resources quickly and easily from our dedicated teacher’s area. Both our Computing Scheme of Work and Spelling Scheme of Work include slideshows to support the teaching by including questions, hints, and tips for each weekly activity or unit. Within our Computing Scheme of Work slideshows, our education team have recently added interactive vocabulary lists that include vocabulary from the previous and current lesson(s).

We also have subject leader toolkits to help subject leaders make the most of Purple Mash within their subject, from action plans to surveys and draft policies, they include everything a subject leader needs to get started at the beginning of a new academic year. Foundation leaders can access their very own Foundation Leaders Toolkit which is designed to support you in achieving excellence whilst saving you precious time.

To support staff further, we have a variety of ways in which you can develop knowledge and confidence. Our training platform has 16 courses that can be completed at a time that suits you. These include courses covering assessment, EYFS, and online safety to name a few, and they're all included within your subscription at no additional cost.

We also run regular webinars covering several themes, all of which are recorded so you can watch them at a time that suits you once registered. You can also book a Mash Chat which is a 30-minute, 1-1 call at a time that is convenient to you, where you can chat to a member of our CPD team about anything Purple Mash related. You can also book a CPD session which can be delivered on or off-site. These are delivered by our experienced educational consultants and are tailored to fit your needs.

Other ways to keep in touch:

We are constantly finding new ways to keep in contact with our amazing community. Our social media channels and private groups are a great way of staying connected and updated with latest news. On our Facebook group, you can ask for help and hear from our community directly. We also host teacher panels which includes peeks at upcoming releases, and this is your chance to give feedback and connect with other schools. Keep an eye on social media and the webinar page on our website to register for the next Teacher Panel.

You can sign up to receive our weekly Purple Mash newsletter that keeps you updated with resources and tools that can help you, alongside sharing competition news! Remember to bookmark our blog so you can quickly access it to see our latest news.