Primary Teacher UK

Christmas Time

Well it's nearly Christmas and once again I'm here thinking how fast this year has gone.  I've been thinking about the year and here are my 10 major 'things' from the year in no particular order:

1. Coming out of Special Measures
2. Spending 3 weeks in the most beautiful National Parks in America
3. Being Acting Deputy Head for a term
4. Moving house to lovely Northwich
5. Watching part of the roof / ceiling fall in!
6. Getting the SATs results back this year!
7. Watching this site continue to grow
8. Getting back onto my Bike since moving to Northwich
9. Going into Special Measures
10. Finding Panama Hatties - the most fantastic Mexican restaurant.

As it's Christmas I'm going to be having a short break.  Thank you to all those that have contributed to the site over the year and all those that have read anything published on it.  Have a very merry Christmas and a Happy new year.

Regular posts will resume on 2nd January 2007!  See you all then.

2006 Education Round-Up

BBC education correspondent Mike Baker has nominated his education gaffes and disasters of 2006 on the BBC website.  It's fun reading, my highlight being the lumpy custard and tapioca award for the school that put up a notice advising that, as it could no longer sell unhealthy items at lunchtime, pupils should ensure they bought their fizzy drinks and chocolate snacks at break-time, as this was not yet covered by the new restrictions.

For the full awards check out the BBC website.

http://www.primary-teaching-resources.co.uk

Shelley, who runs a primary resources ebay shop (http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Primary-Teaching-Resources) has emailed me to let me know that she has opened a new dedicated website at www.primary-teaching-resources.co.uk to sell her resources.

If you visit her new site and register, which doesn't cost anything, you have the chance to download some free resources, including alphabet fans, decimal digit cards and estimating strips.

Shelley's ebay shop will continue to function as normal.

Welsh Primary School Results online

Performance data on all Welsh primary schools is now available online from the Welsh National Pupil Database website.  However unlike England there is a separate page for each school.  The figures are based on teachers' assessments of their pupils - just like it should be in England! 

Conclusion: Overwight children opt out...!

Earlier in the year all my year 6 children had their height taken and where asked if they could be weighed in order to help reduce the obesity in children under 11 by 2010.  As I mentioned in the original post the letters we gave out had an option for the children to tick if they did not want their weight or height measured.   Well it seems like all those children that have an issue with their weight didn't get weighed!

Only 48% of children starting and finishing primary school have been weighed in the last year - despite the original plan to weigh every child.  The figures revealed by the Association of Public Health Observatories said:

"There is anecdotal evidence of higher rates of opting out of the measurement process among heavier children, which is supported by the findings of this analysis. This means the figures obtained from the NCOD are likely systematically to underestimate the prevalence of overweight and obesity."

Why on earth did we give children the opportunity to opt out?  What a complete waste of money!  My conclusion from the results is that the 52% who didn't want to be weighed felt like they had a weight problem.

More play in Scottish Primary Schools

Children in Scotland starting school in August next year are going to be learning more through play rather than formal classes.    They will using more techniques traditionally used in nursery school.  According to the BBC the 'aim of the changes is to bring Scotland closer to the approach taken in Scandinavia, where children start school at the age of seven but still go on to achieve high academic standards.'  According to Scottish Education Minister Hugh Henry:

"One of the things I am particularly concerned about is the tendency in Scotland to start the formal education process at too young an age.  I want to see more of a gradual transition from the nursery years into primary education.  We need to move away from the concept of teaching where pupils are given worksheets and are instructed, to a process where children can develop on their own through purposeful play."

More information is available in the Herald.

Quo Mapping

I've mentioned different mapping software before but I thought that I'd bring Quo to your attention as it's free and could be useful when studying the UK or local area.  The main software is totally free and it includes an Ordanance Survey mini-scale map of the UK.  I have the software running at the moment (mainly for my own personal use) but I can see potential uses in the primary and secondary classroom.

Google Earth still has many advantages (especially when looking on a world wide scale) but the speed and ability to purchase specific locations in detail, such as the 40km x 40km location with your school in or comparative location could be very useful.  Even without purcahsing any maps being able to plan routes, measure distances and add pictures and text to the maps could help children identify locations with in the UK.

Link: http://www.mapyx.com/

Edit:  Just read a post on the Google site saying they have purchased Endoxon, an Internet mapping solutions company based in Lucerne, Switzerland.  The post continues by saying that they hope that by having a dedicated team in Europe they can bring a distinctively European focus to their Maps.  Updated aerial photographs maybe?

Timelines

Every time we cover a history topic we end up making a time-line with the children.  It's essential to give them a perspective on when the topic happened.  Timeline Helps is a website, written by a homeschooling group, which has more information about time-lines than you ever thought you could know!

The site looks at different types of time-lines (wall, portable and notebook), games and resources, colouring and figure tips.  There are also various resources on the site, some which you need to purchase, others which you can download for free.

It's a certainly given me a few ideas for our next topic.

Link: http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/TimelineHelps/

Free resources from www.primaryclassroomresources.co.uk

Larissa (Poppy1978 for those that use the TES forums), in anticipation of her new site (http://www.primaryclassroomresources.co.uk/) launching, is offering people one free resource from the ones listed below:

1. Early Years help mat
2. Simple money loop cards
3. ch words loop cards
4. Word Wall Spelling Pack
5. Pupil self evaluation sheets
6. Literacy and Numeracy fans

To claim a free resource, email Larissa on primaryclassroomresources@googlemail.com with the resource you would like - she will then send you your resource and add you to her mailing list to keep you updated on the new site and special offers.

The resources that Larissa are going to be selling on her site can currently be bought from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Primary-Classroom-Resources.

Playground Games

I've been noticing on playground duty recently the lack of games the children seem to play.  There's always the obligatory football and netball match going on and a few chasing games, but other than that not much.  There also seems to be an increasing number of children who just stand around bored or walk around with me.  When asked to go and play they say they've got no-one to play with or don't know any games to play.

With this is mind I've started teaching them a few games that I used to play - Blocky 1,2,3 and Lobbers to name a few.  (Did anyone else play these games?)  While researching this and other games I came across Playground Fun - a site dedicated to playground games.  So if you're not sure of the rules of a game or want a few more ideas for the children at playtime visit this site.

Remember playing is part of the fun -  join in with the children! :)

Link: http://www.playgroundfun.org.uk/default.aspx