Primary Teacher UK

New resources to keep children safe online

Professor Tanya Byron has launched new set of resources to help primary schools keep children safe online.
 
Developed through funding from the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), Becta and the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) the resources have been designed to make sure all primary school employees are able to understand, tackle and teach e-safety issues to children. They include a unique learning animation aimed at young children. A full version is available at www.childnet.com/kia
 
The resources are part of a set of award-winning 'Know IT All' resources including ‘Know IT All for Parents’ which Childnet has produced, sponsored by Becta. They were developed as response to the recommendations made in the government-commissioned report by Tanya Byron, which called for  greater effort on the part of schools and government to educate and support young people in using the internet and digital technologies.

Carrot Rewards

Rewarding school children has just become much easier and more cost-effective thanks to an exciting new incentive programme, Carrot Rewards, and teachers across the country are being invited to pilot the scheme.

School Stickers is already the leader in school rewards with more than 150,000 pupils from 3000 schools currently using the MyStickers system. It uses the rewards that teachers have used for decades – stickers, cards and certificates – but saves them time, as each reward has a unique code and the onus is on the pupils to log their rewards themselves on www.mystickers.co.uk.

The new Carrot Rewards takes the scheme to the next level by making it fully interactive for teachers. Through www.carrotrewards.co.uk teachers to customise their own reward scheme and allows them to;

• Run competitions - from simple class league tables, to complex multilayered competitions
• Keep pupils engaged - with access to up to the minute leader-boards for a wide range of options including year, subject, form, class, tutor group, or any other school-specific group.
• Manage rewards – ensuring students are engaged and in contention until the last minute, and that no pupils are missed.
• Save time - Pupils log own rewards so no more reward counting
• Save money - Carrot Rewards is free to Pioneer Partners, has no set up charges, and packs start at just £25 for 1,400 stickers.

School Stickers are looking for teachers to pioneer the programme and provide feedback. All those that sign up will receive a free subscription to www.carrotrewards.co.uk, 25% off all school stickers products bought for use with this programme, and the satisfaction of knowing their opinions will be used to shape the future of this exciting new product.

Henry Shelford, CEO of School Stickers says, “Our scheme has been trusted by thousands of schools to reward pupils for good behaviour and achievement ever since it was created by a teacher in 2000.  MyStickers.co.uk has always allowed pupils to log their own rewards, so teachers don’t have to. Carrot Rewards puts teachers fully in control, enabling them to customise their very own reward schemes, and see at any time precisely how their pupils are doing. It is based on what teachers have done successfully for years but brings it into the 21st Century.”

To try www.CarrotRewards.co.uk log in as “tryme@carrotrewards.co.uk” and password “carrot”.

To try www.myStickers.co.uk you can register as a pupil for free. Test sticker codes are available at www.carrotrewards.co.uk/codes/

To sign up for the scheme, contact Henry Shelford, CEO of School Stickers, at www.schoolstickers.co.uk, henry@schoolstickers.co.uk, 0121 333 3600.

VSO needs your help

International Development charity VSO has been working through volunteers since 1958. At any one time, there are over 1500 committed individuals working across South America, Africa and Asia to achieve lasting change. Far from the gap year student organisation it once was, the charity is now focused on strategic and long-term development, with one of its core areas being Education.

Primary Teachers play a key role in supporting VSO’s commitment to making the millennium goal of `Education for All’ by 2015 a reality. VSO are providing in-service or pre-service training in teaching methodology and subject content.

Globally, access to education is improving and enrolment figures are rising fast, but there is still much to be done:

• 72 million school children are still out of school
• VSO is working to improve the quality of teaching & learning, improve school management, build capacity; to make education more inclusive for all disadvantaged and excluded children.
• Many of the teachers VSO volunteers work with have no training, so teaching skills are vital to share with them.

Julie Wilson is a VSO volunteer working as a Primary Education Adviser in Nepal. She is working to design a model classroom, which showcases teaching styles and ideas for lessons for other schools in the region to learn from.

Julie is finding that the VSO experience is a reciprocal learning process with local Nepalese colleagues, “I think VSO is not all about changing things but sitting down with other people, tweaking things, improving things, learning from each other”. She goes on to say, The model classroom I helped to develop was one of the best pieces of work I did here and it’s been the most enjoyable. It meant I could roll my sleeves up, get into classrooms and work alongside teachers. I think if I come here and try and change things – improve things and challenge things – I’ve got to understand them, and the only way to do that is to get into the classrooms and try it myself”.

Her work has been so successful there are plans to implement the strategy across the whole of Nepal.

It is incredible the impact the work done by VSO volunteers Deb Jordan and David Spinney has had on education. They both developed the Higher Diploma Programme to improve the skills of all teacher trainers in Ethiopia.  Four years on, 2,500 teacher trainers have undertaken the programme to the ultimate benefit of over one million children.

Now is the best time to volunteer as the Government has made funds available for members of public service pension schemes, including educationalists, to volunteer for up to two years with their pension paid. VSO also gives a comprehensive financial, personal and professional support with training, a small local salary, return flights, accommodation, insurance and visas.

In Scotland, thanks to a brand new Career Break Policy  written by the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Teachers’ panel, educationalists with two years continuous service can now take a career break of either between six months and two years and return to their job, or take between two to five years off, and be guaranteed a job within their local authority on their return. This will not only make it easier for experienced teachers to volunteer with VSO, it will also contribute towards Scotland’s evolving International Development framework.

VSO are holding an Education Information Day in London on 25th July 2009 where you can come along and find out more about volunteering overseas.  For more information on this event, please go to http://www.vso.org.uk/event/22948/information-day-london

In Scotland, to find out more about volunteering, VSO will be exhibiting at the Scottish Learning Festival on 23rd and 24th September in Glasgow and running a seminar on “Bringing the world into Scottish classrooms' at 4pm on 23rd September 2009 at this event http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/slf/chooseseminars/cd25.asp. For those in Scotland you can contact us at vso.Scotland@vso.org.uk for further information.

You can also find more information on volunteering at www.vso.org.uk/primary or call +44 (0)20 8780 7500

Renewable Energy Mirrors Reflect Better Approach than Wind

By Alistair Owens http://www.keen2learn.co.uk

An essential element of our teaching resources in schools has to focus on renewable energy to achieve the goals we need to survive. As the technology advances we are seeing developments in efficiencies of equipment but also some strident considerations. It seems our quest for wind energy could be misplaced. The real salvation lies with giant mirrors. 

Professor Jack Steinberger, a Director of the CERN particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva and Noble prize winner, advised that wind energy represented an illusionary technology that will prove uneconomic and an ultimate waste of resources. “Wind is not the future” he told fellow Nobel laureates at the Royal Society.

Urging the promotion of solar thermal energy Professor Steinberger stated the world resources of fossil fuels would be depleted in 60 years. Yet 80 per cent of Europe’s energy needs could be generated in the Sahara desert. Using giant parabolic mirrors to focus heat energy to generate steam to drive conventional turbines, the power is virtually pollution free and an exhaustible supply.

Continuing to build wind farms especially offshore will be hugely expensive and need conventional back up to produce energy on windless days. But whilst wind energy is politically free the thought of energy being supplied across many country borders posses a ransom threat. Our gas supplies are becoming more reliant on the supply from Russia. The pipeline crosses other countries and we have already seen supply interruptions due to political arguments upstream. The concentration of our energy in sunnier climes could see a battle royal between the oil rich countries seeking alternatives as their current source of income dries up.

The situation is fascinating, and as the action will take place in  the next 20 – 50 years, it will be our children that will ultimately become the power masters. Strategically we need to ensure their education contains the correct focus. The solutions will be a combination of science, engineering, maths, economics and politics. The developments are highly dynamic and public opinion has yet to be fully swayed.

Professor Sir Harold Kroto a Nobel prize winner in 1996 said a new era of science education is needed.

“There’s is no point in looking for the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the future. They’re already here, and climate change is only one of them”

Professor Kroto believes the solution to renewable energy is a combination of education to attract good teachers and enthral children, and to change people’s behaviour. He has also been amassing free educational science teaching resources on his website www.geoset.info

As we plan for the future perhaps we can influence  children to take a commercial interest in science. The long run of top flight graduates being lured from vocational aspirations to move into finance could be at a cross roads. The banking crisis has reduced the potential for personal wealth at any odds. The new wealth could move to renewable energy. Now that could attract a whole new tranche of scientists to develop new ways to save the world and maybe become an energy baron.

Everyday Adventures

‘Everyday Adventures’ is a new collection of online short films and animations aimed at parents of primary school-age children being made available online. The films cover a wide range of subjects linked to children's education, including how parents can get involved with their children’s schools and the availability of extended services in schools. They’re making them available online - talking with minority groups of parents (e.g. deaf, disabled, non-English speaking) since this information isn’t always obvious to find or easy to understand.
 
They have also run a survey which found that parents across England want greater involvement in their children’s education. Over 80% of the 1,010 parents who took part in the survey by Parentline Plus, Netmums and the Advisory Centre for Education said they wanted a bigger role, with the vast majority of 6-12 year olds polled saying they ‘love it’ when their parents come into school. More than 90% also said they enjoyed it when their parents helped with homework.
 

You can find out about the videos at www.myspace.com/everydayadventures09 and also on YouTube.  Here are two examples:

Louis, a young dad who despite being deaf now plays an active role in his children’s school lives (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUsNzrILKx0); and

Jo, a mother who is bringing up her two children as well as suffering from MS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeM05fewDNw).

Pa Pa Paa Live

Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is an online video broadcasting service for schools, delivering webcasts from a rural school in Ghana to classrooms across the UK: www.papapaa.org/live
 
The aim of Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is to increase young people’s understanding of Fairtrade and the everyday lives of young people in a cocoa growing community. It provides a child-eye view of Ghanaian life available to schools on subscription.
 
Schools can watch a free webcast at www.papapaalive.org/broadcast/taster in which the children from a Fairtrade cocoa growing district in rural Ghana present their hopes and dreams for the future. It was made to celebrate International Day of the African Child on 16th June, and highlights the hope and aspirations young people in Africa have for their futures; free from poverty and full of opportunities.
 
In this webcast, the children discuss their career aspirations, mentioning professions including footballer, doctor, cocoa farmer, pastor, and journalist. They consider the lengthy training needed to become a qualified doctor and the cost of attending university. One pupil talks about moving to Accra, the capital of Ghana, while another prefers to stay in the countryside and be a cocoa farmer like his parents. One boy would like to have ten children, and intends to pay for them by becoming a pilot!
 
The students at the Ghana school are filming the webcasts themselves. Your students can ask them questions online, and then the students in Ghana can answer them in their webcast. Tune in to learn more about the lives of pupils from a school built with Fairtrade money.
 
Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is aimed at Key Stages 2 and 3, and supports teaching on fair trade, geography, PSHE, the global dimension, citizenship and ICT. It is backed up by comprehensive online teaching resources on Fairtrade and chocolate at www.papapaa.org, and a DVD and photo pack.