Primary Teacher UK

The Newspaper

'The Newspaper' ("Today's Readers, Tomorrow's Leaders") is a full newspaper published 6 times a year for children between the ages of 10 and 16.   You can order full class sets so you can actually have a lesson where you can read the newspaper!  Despite 'The Newspaper' being a children's newspaper it has all the features and layout that you would expect of a adult newspaper. 

The latest edition for September / October which I got yesterday leads with healthy school dinners.  The main sections are devoted to news in the UK and the world.  Sections also cover the latest developments in science, health, earth, pets and the ever popular sports.  A mailbag page allows children to have their say.

With each issue the website is updated for parents, pupils and teachers.  The teacher's section includes ideas on how to use the paper in literacy and citizenship.

It's an interesting read for the teacher and the pupil.  Details of how to get a subscription are available on the Newspaper website.  For £75 a year it's a great resource for upper KS2 teachers.

Over 100 new resources added to Primary Resources

A massive update to the Primary Resources website this weekend as over 100 new resources are added.  The full list of resources can be seen on the Primary Resources blog.

Class size data

Figures (opens a Adobe PDF file) revealed by the Government yesterday show that slass sizes have continued to grow at key stage 1, with some classrooms so overcrowded they are deemed illegal.  The average size of primary classes taught by one teacher was 26.3 however the proportion of key stage 1 classes with 31 or more pupils increased.  0.7% of all classes were classified as illegal.  The percentage of pupils in large primary classes stayed at 15.2%.

The data also showed that the percentage of pupils whose first language was not English increased from 11.5% last year to 12.5% this year.  The number of children entitled to free school meals has also dropped from 16.9% to 16%

Free Number Cards

I've been contacted by Nicola from www.nicolaflanagan.com about the free resources on her site.  The site features high quality, high resolution picture cards and various other teaching resources - mainly for KS1. According to the email each illustration has been exclusively commissioned for NicolaFlanagan.com.

At the moment it's mostly number cards, but they are good quality when you have downloaded and unzipped them.  I'm assuming that there will be a cost to some of these resources in the future so make the most of them now!

Greenborder Security

For the last couple of weeks I've been running an evaluation version of GreenBorder on my PC.  This piece of software has really impressed me and over the weekend I purchased a two year licence for it.  The software runs alongside a firewall and anti virus program adding a 3rd layer of protection against web based malware / spyware.

Greenborder helps protect your privacy online, provides unique identity theft protection for your files, data you enter online, and for your web transactions.  When using the software you can click on any link without fear of infecting your PC.

The only noticable difference is that when surfing the internet you have a pretty greenborder around your window.  This means that the protection is active.  Any programs that are opened via the web, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe Reader, are also protected.  At the end of the session any changes made, which haven't been authorised, are removed and your computer.  It's then back to exactly the same state it was before your started surfing.  There is an independent review of the software on the Tech Support Site.

The reason that I'm mentioning this software is that I can see it having a place in schools.  No matter what the children click on it can't affect the computer and server.  There is currently a big discount at the moment, but once that finishes there will be an educational discount available.

Link: http://www.greenborder.com

Is this planet Earth?

Bobinogs

BBC Site with lots of activities.

The Zinglers

Meet Zom, Zottle, Groldy, Omlee, Fleena, Quexler, Splink, Stolmert in this site of adventures, online stories, songs and activities.

Anti-Bullying Week

Anti-Bullying Week 20–24 November 2006

The slogan for the third Anti-Bullying Week is ‘Bullying: See it. Get Help. Stop it.’ which focuses on the importance of children and adults taking positive action to get help when they see bullying happening. Once again, the final Friday, 24 November, is Blue Friday, a non-uniform day when children, young people and adults dress in blue to demonstrate their commitment to work together to stop bullying. All children, young people and staff in schools and youth and community settings are being encouraged to take part in a range of activities, such as making anti-bullying displays,painting faces and colouring their hair.

Anti-Bullying Week Poster 06

Print off this poster for use in school.

Dogpile Searches

Fed up of searching for the same thing in different search engines?  Try Dogpile.  This search engine takes the best results from the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN) and compiles them into one search for you.

There is an option to set the filter which can be saved so that all your results are screened, including Web and Multimedia Search results, and as much explicit content removed as possible.

Link - Dogpile : http://www.dogpile.co.uk/

Online school applications

According to a YouGov poll parents have less than an hour of free time every day which makes finding the correct school a very long and tiring process.  To help councils across England now offer online school admissions, along with a host of other local services.  The mycouncil site also allows parents to see school dates, find out about holiday play schemes, report vandalism and renew your library books.

Link: http://local.direct.gov.uk/mycouncil/

P4C

I've been on part 1 of a Philosophy for Children (P4C) course today run by SAPERE and I've loved it.  I started experimenting with P4C last year with my Y6 children and they really enjoyed it.  Some things that I picked up from the course included a lot of evidence to say that P4C has a positive impact on results.  In America out of 20 well researched studies:

• 11 showed improvement in reasoning
• 3 showed improvement in comprehension
• 3 showed improvement in behaviour
• 3 showed improvement in creativity

Studies in Scotland have "provided robust evidence that regular involvement in collaborative enquiry can improve cognitive ability, critical reasoning skills, self esteem and level of participation."

I think and hope that 1 hour of P4C a week that I'm going to give the children will make a big difference to their literacy and social skills.  I'll let you know more when I've finished the second part of the course and tried out a few more of the ideas in the class.