Pumpkins, potions and phonics: Halloween ideas that still count as learning

There's a particular kind of energy in school during the last week of October. The clocks are about to change, the corridors are full of pumpkin drawings, and somebody has already asked whether they can come in dressed as something.

With it being the first week of September, you could argue we are a little early!! But here's a collection of Halloween ideas that are genuinely fun and still earn their place in the timetable - plus some low-prep options for the week when nobody has the energy to laminate anything.

Early years and primary

The great pumpkin investigation. One pumpkin, an afternoon, and an enormous amount of maths. How heavy is it? How far around? How many seeds do you think are inside, and who was closest? Will it float? (It will. Children find this genuinely astonishing.) Then roast the seeds, if your kitchen is willing.

Spider week. Late October is when spiders make themselves very obvious around school buildings, which makes them free teaching resources. Web-spotting in the grounds, symmetry work, counting legs, and a look at what spiders actually do for the ecosystem. Excellent for the children who are fascinated, and quietly useful for the ones who are frightened.

Build a skeleton. Skull, ribs, femur, spine. Split-pin skeletons that actually move are a reliable win, and the vocabulary sticks far better than a worksheet.

Potion station. Bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, a few drops of food colouring, and a lot of noise. Predict, observe, explain - with the prediction stage being the bit children take surprisingly seriously when there's a chance of a fizzing cauldron.

Shadow puppets. A torch, some card, and a blank wall. Where does the shadow go when you move the light? Why does it change size? A nice way into how light travels, wrapped in something that feels like a story.

Spooky writing. Creaking doors, a house nobody visits, footsteps in an empty corridor. Halloween gives even reluctant writers something to say, and adjectives arrive without anyone having to be asked for them.

Secondary

Gothic openings in English. The classic for a reason. A few paragraphs of gothic atmosphere and students are doing sophisticated work on setting, tension, and pacing without noticing they've been taught anything.

Themed problem sets in maths. The same equations, with a pumpkin on them, are measurably more popular than the same equations without one. Not deep pedagogy - just true.

Chemistry with an audience. October is the month to bring out the demonstrations. Glowing reactions, dramatic colour changes, dry ice if you have it. Follow it with the actual explanation while everyone's still paying attention.

Where Halloween came from. Samhain, All Hallows' Eve, the journey via Ireland and Scotland to America and back again as a commercial festival. Teenagers who are far too cool for pumpkins are often genuinely interested in why any of this exists.

Monologues in drama. Something creepy, something atmospheric, performed by torchlight. Half the class will overact enormously. That's fine.

MFL vocabulary with a theme. Autumn and Halloween vocabulary lands well, and gives a natural route into how other countries mark the season - Día de los Muertos in Mexico, Toussaint in France.

Whole-school ideas

• A pumpkin competition - carved, decorated, or drawn - with entries displayed along a corridor. Very little staff time, very high engagement.
• Autumn colour day instead of costumes. Orange, red, yellow, brown. No cost to families, nothing to buy, and everyone can take part.
• A charity link. Attaching a small fundraising element to whatever you're doing turns a fun afternoon into something with a bit more behind it.
• A seasonal reading display - spooky stories for every reading age, borrowed heavily from your library or the school next door.

For the week when there is nothing left in the tank

Not everything has to be planned. Five-minute options for a Friday afternoon:

• Halloween-themed would-you-rather questions as a settling activity
• A class story built one sentence at a time around the room
• Pumpkin-seed estimation in a jar, guesses on sticky notes
• Spooky-word spelling relay in teams
• Two-minute "write the scariest opening line you can" challenges, read aloud

Keeping everyone included

Not every family marks Halloween, and for some pupils the imagery is genuinely frightening rather than fun. A few small adjustments keep everyone in the room:

• Frame the whole thing as autumn or seasonal rather than specifically Halloween, so there's a version of every activity that works for pupils opting out of the spooky element.
• Ask for autumn colours rather than costumes. Nobody has to buy anything, and nobody arrives underdressed.
• Keep imagery friendly rather than frightening - goofy pumpkin faces rather than gore.
• Give a heads-up to families in advance, especially where some sensory considerations or pupils find loud, dark or unpredictable environments difficult.

Ready-made resources

If you'd rather not build anything from scratch, Tes has hand-picked collections for primary and early years and for secondary.

And a note for anyone covering a class this term: a couple of these in your back pocket will get you through an unfamiliar Friday afternoon very comfortably indeed.

NextGen Teachers works with schools across primary, secondary, SEN, college and sixth form, recruiting supply and long-term teachers, teaching assistants, and behaviour, pastoral, SEN and SEMH support staff.