5 Creative ways to close a lesson

The end of a lesson is just as important as the beginning, it is a chance to review what you have covered and highlight key ideas. We have some creative ideas for you to help you close your lessons in a way that leaves a lasting impression on your students.

It is only natural that there is a stronger focus on the start of a lesson than the end, but it is important to remember that the end of a lesson also plays a big part in your students' learning. At the English Classroom, we recognise that it is not always easy to close a lesson effectively so we are going to share with you our favourite methods for wrapping up a lesson. 

What is a lesson closure? 

It sounds obvious, but the key to rounding off the end of a quality lesson is more than just asking your students to close their books and clear away in time for the next activity. A great lesson closure emphasises the key areas of study and helps your students to process and even put into practice what they have learned. 

What does an effective lesson closure look like?

A strong lesson closure can help students retain the information they have learned. Of course, we want our students to ask questions or raise concerns if they don’t understand something but a strong close needs to be more than simply asking if there are any questions, the end of the lesson should be meaningful and provide context. Here are some points to consider: 

• Review the key points of the lesson
• Give students an opportunity to ask questions
• Create links to new and upcoming ideas and the next lesson
• Use this time for formative assessment and ask your students to demonstrate what they have learned. 

5 Creative lesson closure activities

1. Question time - write some reflective questions down on a sheet of paper, cut out the questions, fold them up and place them into a bowl or hat. Pass the bowl around the classroom and ask each student to draw a question to answer. Ask the students to share their answers with the class. Make sure each student gets to answer a question. 

Examples of the types of questions you might ask:

• What are you most proud of yourself for achieving in today’s lesson?
• How do you feel about today’s lesson?
• Did you have to overcome any challenges during today’s lesson?
• What did you find most interesting in today’s lesson? 
• Name one thing you learned today.

The five W’s - Have your students explain the Who, What, When, Why and Where of the day’s lesson. This can be done as a whole class activity or split them up into smaller groups and have them feedback to the class. 

Postcards to home - Students write a short postcode to home summarising what they have learned that day, including anything they may have found challenging or anything they are particularly proud of. 

Write the headlines - Ask your students to imagine they are writing “headlines” for tomorrow's newspaper that summarise what they have learned. Allow them to work in small groups or pairs and then feedback to the rest of the class. 

Thumbs up / thumbs down - End of lesson closure does not have to be difficult, it can be as simple as posing a list of questions or statements to the class as a whole, about the subject you have been teaching and asking them to identify whether these statements are true or false by raising their thumbs up or down, ask them to explain their reasoning. 

You can find more examples of creative ways to close a lesson here and here from our hand-picked resources. 

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Written by Rebecca Sparling