- Year groups
- KS1 to Upper KS2
- Time
- 30 min
- Group
- Whole class
- Type
- Book talk and recommendations
Why it works
Stepping into a character's shoes makes stories feel real and personal. It gets pupils talking about motives and feelings, and they want to read on to see if they were right.
What you need
- A chair to be the hot seat
- A prop or hat for the character (optional)
- The class book
How to run it
- Choose a character the class knows well from a shared story.
- Model it first: sit in the hot seat in role and answer a few questions.
- In pairs, pupils think of questions to ask the character, especially 'why' questions.
- Invite a volunteer to take the hot seat, with the teacher ready to help.
- Afterwards, talk about which answers matched the book and which surprised them.
Make it work for your class
- For younger classes, the teacher stays in the hot seat and pupils ask the questions.
- Hot-seat two characters with different views of the same event.
- Use it at a cliffhanger in the class read-aloud.
