Primary Teacher UK

How do you have time?

A few people have emailed me to ask how I am able to update this site so often. I'm a teacher that was brought up on computers. I wasn't brought up on a Spectrum but a real computer with a real computer language - BBC BASIC on an Acorn Electron (sorry speccy fans!).  Due to this upbringing I do virtually all my planning and school work is on the computer. With my summer job being webpage designer I spend a lot of time on them.  This blog is like a hobby for me. Some people like swimming, or model building - I like running a a blog! I also strongly believe in sharing of knowledge between teachers and this is my little contribution towards it.

Those updates that I do away from home are done using my PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and my mobile phone. Take for example this entry - I am currently sitting in Manchester Airport's Terminal 1 waiting for my wife to arrive back from Oslo in Norway. She's been over there for the last week being a critical friend in a Norwegan primary school.  More about that later in the week though. Using a program called Mo:Blog I can then write my entry and then link to Primary Teacher UK and upload it via my mobile phone.

Norman Conquest

Thankyou to Dorothy Strange who has contacted me today with a link to a great site on the Norman Conquest.  Did you know that yesterday was the actual day of the invasion in 1066? Taken from the website:

The sights and sounds of the Norman Invasion unfold before your eyes, brought to life by interactive animated maps and 360° panoramas of the battlescene, news headlines, interactive Norman and Saxon soldiers and 11th century soundbites. Comprehensive encyclopedic entries and 'scandal' have been unearthed by Osprey's expert authors to form the historical background for this event, whilst our recommended reading will supplement your knowledge of the period.

Essential Norman Conquest provides a day-by-day reconstruction of the days between William's landing at Pevensey and his victory at Hastings, and a dazzling combination of dynamic visuals and narrative bring the last successful invasion of England to life as never before.

  Link: http://www.essentialnormanconquest.com/.

Number of primary pupils in illegally large classes rises

Well our school isn't part of these illegal class size statistics - are you? I say lets introduce the same law for 7-11 year olds as well!

More primary school children are being taught in illegally large classes, according to new figures.

Link: Number of primary pupils in illegally large classes rises.

Here's one I made earlier...

Over my time as a teacher on the net I have come across many sites that allow you to create your own resources for use in the classroom. Here are a few examples of ones that I use fairly regulary.

You can create your own crosswords to complete online or print off at Eclipse Crossword or Crossword Compiler. Create your own wordsearches at DiscoverySchool.com. Maybe you just fancy some plain worksheets again at DiscoverySchool.com.   Star Tower on the other hand contains literacy activities for children to complete (kid's entrance) and for teachers to create (adult's entrance). Look out for Starpunc (punctuation), Word drop (cloze) and Owl (sequencing).

If you fancy some quizzes with the children then try Quia. This is a directory of thousands of online games and quizzes in more than 40 subject areas. There are templates for creating twelve different types of online games and quizzes. Quiz administration and reporting tools and free teacher home pages. Hot Potatoes is a simple program to download that lets you create your own interactive online activities such as multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and cloze exercises.

Finally for now FunBrain.com. This allows you to play a wordsearch created by Funbrain, or create your own puzzles to print off or complete online. Choose your own level by selecting the number and length of words to find.

If you have any more please feel free to add them to list by commenting below.

Schools in special measures have a year to improve or close

This is sure to put a number of committed teachers and headteachers hackles up again!  Having worked in a number of special measures schools before and working in one currently I know what hard work it is to get out of special measures.  Putting the pressure on a school to be out of special measures within a year though could prove too much for some.   As Lynn Travis, a delegate from Stalybridge and Hyde Labour party and chair of governors at Stamford high school said:

"Perhaps in one year you could see the potential to turn around but you can't actually turn around a failing school. It's tough decision - about staff, curriculum, what's the best for young people. What they need to do is recognise that no one can wave a magic wand and turn it around in a year."

Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:

"What she [Ms Kelly] said is unrealistic. All schools have been turned around have known they had more than a year to do it in. They haven't gone for cosmetic measures but long-term change. There is no magic wand."

Link: Kelly defends special measures policy.

Rollercoasters and Marking

Little Miss Teacher has just saved me a chunk of marking by putting up a link to some marking ladders on her website.  I read her blog entry as I was planning my story writing week in the style of Jacqeline Wilson and managed to find a marking ladder for that exact topic.  Thank's Debs.

The Primary resources blog also has two new links to help you teach forces using rollercoasters.  I like both of the links provided, it's just a pity that the graphics of the Discovery Channel game can't be linked with vast amount of variables that can be changed in the Funderstanding game.

I love these sites - trying to make the cars roll off the end of the track! :) There is a very simple version of forces in action on the BBC Science Clips website.

For those of us that like the real thing check out Coasters 2K.  This site has programs that allow you to download rollercoaster tracks and ride them in your own home!

I've not put the links available from LittleMissTeacher and Primary Resources on this site.  Take a few seconds and check out their blogs to get the links then save them in your bookmarks.

Painting classroom raises results

I guess it depends what colour you paint the classroom! We have a grey staffroom and that's not very motivating! :)

Relatively cheap school refurbishments can improve pupils' achievement, research suggests.

Link: Painting classroom raises results.

What do you think of school junk food ban?

More discussion on the banning of junk food in the news today.  The guardian is reporting that to ban junk food will be too expensive and prove counter productive.  It seems the students are already rebelling at Queensbury Upper school in Dunstable.  They removed the unhealthy snacks from the  vending machines and replaced them with organic crisps and healthy snacks.   Pupils "voted with their feet" and did not buy them leading to a compromise with machines without fizzy drinks, but with brand-name snacks.  Totally contradictory to this article the BBC also report that pupils in a pilot menu in Camden took to the new regime of salads, fresh fruit, meat and fish so much so that it is being rolled out across the borough as we speak.

Dyslexia a Myth?

Although this is fairly old news I was discussing it was a friend over the weekend and thought that I’d bring it to your attention in case they hadn’t read it. At the start of September Julian Elliott wrote in the Times Educational Supplement that Dyslexia was largely an "emotional construct."

RE Resources

Just a quick link to Christian Aid who have a variety of resources on the website.  Year 6 came across the site today while looking for prayers for our harvest festival.  They have a variety of resources and ideas which can be used in school.  Have a look at their Learn Schools section for more information.