Primary Teacher UK

Earn some extra cash

Tutorhunt is a completely free service both tutors and pupils can use to locate each other. You can search for tutors, by postcode, without registering and view information about their educational background and areas of specalism. To contact them parents need to register, but this is free. So if anyone is thinking of tutoring (and I think the majority of us have thought about, if not done it) then this may be a way to earn a little (lot - considering some of the tutors local to me are trying to charge £25 an hour for KS2!) of extra cash towards Christmas!

Link: http://www.tutorhunt.com

Effective Help At Home Gains Support

Children love the element of repetition in a game or book. An essential part of the learning curve it's good to recap and gain confidence from being able to predict what happens next. Being word perfect for the entire script of Shrek II at eight years is a little scary perhaps, but one thing that tends to deter parents the most in this equation is being able to repeat or recap on the subject being taught at school. That great disconnect occurs; it's up to the teacher now or I don't want to interfere is the cry from many parents. More often it is because they lack the confidence of being able to help at home, and do not want to be judged themselves. But there is a solution to help.

The great ranges of educational games used as a teaching resource in class are now also available to parents. Spending some fun time practising the lesson content at home using similar  games to the classroom can improve the lesson retention significantly*

To get parents on board take a look at the new range of foundation and Key Stage 1 educational games available to parents (and schools) on line. 30 minutes fun time at home can work wonders to support the child, and teacher back in school.

*  National Training Laboratory USA analysed that Practising the lesson content can archive 75% of learning retention, whilst the See and Hear element archives 45%

Teachers' TV interview Ed Balls

I've been informed that on Friday 20 August at 6pm, Teachers TV will be broadcasting an exclusive first interview between new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls and leading education commentator, Mike Baker. One of the most well respected voices within education in the country, Mike will question Ed Balls on issues including whether a Brown administration means a change in policy on academies and the impact that a new divisional structure of ministries will have on education.

Ed Balls talks to Mike Baker will be available to view or download for free afterwards at www.teachers.tv.

Lessons from America

Teachers' TV have a major season coming up which is examining the many education systems that operate in America and the lessons that can be learnt in the UK from their experience. Highlights include from the ‘Education USA’ series, ‘Profiting from School’ on the interaction between business and education delivery, documentaries considering American imperialism and poverty in the States, and a one-off special, ‘Teaching with Bayley’ from the USA.

For full details visit the Teachers' TV website.

Minibus Legal Question

Thanks to Peter King, the Community Transport Implementation Officer at Hampshire County Council for the answer to this question. 

The answer is "No, but...."  The regulations do not apply to minibuses - they only to apply to cars, people carriers of up to 8 passenger seats (eg. Ford Galaxy) and vans.  The "but" is that parents will expect the same level of safety for their children when travelling by minibus as when travelling by car.  And schools have a duty of care to their children.  So there is a strong argument to use booster seats for younger children. This will raise them up so that the diagonal belt is across their shoulder and does not cut into their neck (which would cause serious injuries or death in a severe accident). 

To summarise:  the new regulations do not apply to minibuses so you are not legally obliged to use booster seats.  But to meet your duty of care I would advise that you should use boosters for young children.

One final point:  many minibuses have 'all age' or 'generation' seat belts, where the upper mounting for the diagonal belt is adjustable for height. Always make sure that this is correctly adjusted for the height of the child i.e. lower for shorter children.

Peter King
Community Transport Implementation Officer
Hampshire County Council.

EducationGuardian hails primary that gives pupils a say

Wroxham Primary School's weekly children's forum - where pupils get the chance to have their say - won praise in the Guardian's education pages this month.

The school, which encourages pupils to have a voice and even write their own end-of-term reports before the teacher adds comments, was hailed for its innovative approach to pupil participation.

Wroxham, which was in special measures in 2003, impressed Ofsted recently, too, with the lead inspector saying he wished he could bottle the ethos and judging the school 'outstanding'.

Competition

WebWrite in conjunction with Primary-Teacher-UK are pleased to announce their first competition.

First prize is a full years subscription to a WebWrite powered site (includes all hosting, technical help etc.) .  WebWrite enables you to put your school news, term dates, special announcements, school events, photos and much more onto the internet in a professional, logical manner so that all school users have instant access to the most up to date information on activities and news. With the cost of webwrite being £1.00 per child per year your prize could be up to the value of £1000.

Runners Up: There will also be two runner up prizes of half-price subscription to WebWrite if you wish.

All Entries: Have the option to take out a WebWrite subscription at 10% less the standard price.

How do you win these fantastic prizes? 

Simply send an email with the SUBJECT: WebWrite Competition to competition@primary-teacher-uk.co.uk, with the answer to this simple question:

What does the WWW stand for in an internet address?

1. World Wide Web
2. Where Was Wally?
3. Why Wear Wool?

Please include with your answer:

• What would be the most important aspect or facility of a school website system for you.
• Your name / position
• Your school name / address
• Contact details (school number)

Full terms and conditions of the competition are available by clicking read more at the bottom of this post.

Closing date for all entries is 11.59pm on the 8th April.  All entries will be printed out and put into a hat.  First prize plus two runners up will be picked from a hat on the 9th April and announced on this site.

If you have a question you can be assured someone else will want to know the same thing so leave a comment below and we'll get back to you. 

Good luck!

Computers in Year 3 Homes in Aston

Researchers in Birmingham have just received an extension on a project to install computers in the homes of primary and secondary pupils.  The recent extension will see a computer with internet access being installed in the homes of all Year 3 children linked to three schools in Aston (the 16th poorest area in Britain) and some Year 7 pupils.

According to the researcher:

This will enable the schools to ignore the digital divide for these pupils and begin to assess there real educational value. Maybe by Year 4 they will be typing with all ten fingers…at once!

It's interesting to note that the researcher estimates that at least 10 people will use each computer:

Each family seems to consist of at least five children, two parents , two grandparents and some nephews and nieces who live either next door or across the road. For whatever reason computers didn’t seem to rate highly in their lives even though they had high aspirations for their children when it comes to education. You also had the problem of home language versus English language. When the kids get home they are faced with their home language for communication and entertainment.

With money constantly be put into ICT in school is this the way forward?  Should the money we spend on computers in school be more useful being spent on home computers?

Teachers' TV 1 Year old!

Taken from the NGFL site, with my comments added!:

Launched a year ago this week, Teachers' TV is seen as a major resource (I've never used it - have you?) for schools staff in the UK.

In this time, more than 1,000 programmes have been filmed in more than 2,000 schools across the country. The latest figures suggest that one in four teachers now watches regularly. (Love to see these figures - a recent thread on the TES site didn't suggest this!)

A special anniversary section features highlights from the past year, including 'Whiteboard top tips', one of the most popular programmes. Click on the link for the streaming video about how to overcome ''whiteboard phobia''.  (Forget Neighbours tonight - Whiteboard top tips it is for me!)

Catch the highlights of 2005 on 'Best of Teachers' TV, or search the video catalogue online featuring more than 800 programmes. (At a cost of 18 million!)

What a waste of money!  Please feel free to disagree with me if you want...

A Grange Hill Movie!

Not neccessaily primary school related but definitely something I'm sure all teachers watched: According to Time Out some of our favourite characters from Grange Hill are set to make a return to the big screen in a movie.    Speaking to the Daily Mirror Phil Redmond the creator said, "I have been thinking about the idea for two years. I'm writing the script now and should be ready to start shooting in spring 2007 for an autumn release.  I will be filming in and around Merseyside and I'll look at where some of the old characters are now and what happened to them."

I can't imagine that this will ever go ahead after watching Grange Hill reunited last year, but I'm sure it would be fun!  It's just a pity that Michael Sheard, who played Mr Bronson, died last year.