• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Identify energy stores in everyday situations). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. Which energy store is the main one here: a drawn archery bow? (elastic potential store / kinetic store / thermal store / chemical store) → elastic potential storePrompt: Is it moving, high up, stretched, hot, a fuel or food, or atomic?
2. A ball is thrown straight up. As it rises and slows down, which store increases? (chemical / nuclear / gravitational potential / kinetic) → gravitational potentialPrompt: Its height increases while its speed decreases.
3. Energy stores: which statement is NOT true? (Energy is measured in joules (J). / Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred between stores. / Food contains energy in a chemical store. / Energy is used up when a battery goes flat.) → Energy is used up when a battery goes flat.Prompt: Is light a store or a way of transferring energy?

• Wind up a toy or stretch an elastic band and ask where the energy goes.
• Share the objective: Follow energy transfers and spot wasted energy. Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Every second, an electric fan is supplied with 500 J of energy. 450 J is transferred usefully (movement of the blades). How much energy is wasted each second, in J?
• Step 1: 500 − 450 = 50
• Step 2: So the answer is: 50 J
• Answer: 50 J
• Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

• Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
• Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

1. Every second, a phone speaker is supplied with 500 J of energy. 450 J is transferred usefully (sound). How much energy is wasted each second, in J? → 50 JPrompt: Total energy in = useful energy out + wasted energy out.
2. A car brakes and stops. Where does most of its kinetic energy go? (it disappears / the chemical store of the fuel / the car's gravitational store / the thermal store of the brakes and surroundings) → the thermal store of the brakes and surroundingsPrompt: Brakes get hot.

• Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
• Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 8 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

• Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

1. Which is a way energy is TRANSFERRED, not a store? (thermal / chemical / by electric current / kinetic) → by electric currentPrompt: Transfers move energy between stores.
2. Energy transfers: which statement is true? (An LED lamp transfers all its energy to light. / Wasted energy is destroyed. / The total energy before and after a transfer is the same. / Machines can give out more energy than they take in.) → The total energy before and after a transfer is the same.Prompt: Can energy ever be destroyed?

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/science/grade-6.