Education News

SEALSONGS is a collection of assembly songs which aims to get children engaged through the experience of making and creating music. The lyrics were written with considerable input from Year 4 and 5 pupils, so speak from children to children, and the musical backing tracks were professionally recorded.

But the resource goes further and offers teachers detailed advice on writing new lyrics, leading singing and other ways that SEALSONGS may be used in the classroom. Thus it enables teachers to give young children the positive experience of working with others in creating new songs within the SEAL framework. There is also guidance for non-specialists in how to teach songs.

The SEAL themes are:

Song 1: New beginnings
Song 2: Getting on and falling out
Song 3: Say no to bullying
Song 4: Going for goals!
Song 5: Good to be me
Song 6: Relationships
Song 7: Changes

Two further general songs – one about writing songs and one providing a Rhyme Game – are also included in the pack.

JENNY MOSLEY (Founder of Quality Circle Time) said “SEALSONGS is a wonderful gift to any adult who wants to truly help their class or school embed SEAL as a way of ‘being’ with ourselves and others. We all know that song can lift you to a different spiritual dimension – David Stoll has given us the perfect package to help even the most music-shy amongst us to engage young people in the process of creating heart-warming songs as part of a creative team….. This is an excellent resource.”

HOWARD GOODALL (National Ambassador for Singing) said “These SEALSONGS have the authentic ring of children’s ideas and feelings in every line. This, for me, makes it a valuable and empowering set of musical tools….. with excellent supporting materials and explanations.”

The SEALSONGS book and CD are now available as a download for £10 plus VAT. This price includes a licence for full use of all the material within the school, including recording new versions of the songs. The complete package is split into different files so that schools may choose which elements they wish to record or print.

Sample music can be downloaded from www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/music/SEALSONGSSamples.zip and you can purchase the book and CD on-line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=739

In my experience, one of the great problems with mental arithmetic tests (as with most kinds of formalised assessment) is that the results can be warped due to the fact that many children will do less well within an test setting than when faced with a more commonplace classroom experience.

However, we have found a way to overcome this problem – and the solution is fairly straightforward.

Obviously one key point is to make the testing programme one that relates to knowledge that we really do want the children to have. This involves having detailed feedback so that it can readily be seen where each child is regularly making the same mistake.

In this way, the fretting and concern that children might have when it comes to a mental arithmetic test is set aside, and the analysis of the results of the tests becomes a valuable educational resource in itself.

It was from this thinking that we devised our Mental Arithmetic Programme for Year 2 to Year 7.

The resources within the programme are available as photocopiable books, as PDF ebooks, as an audio CD or a combination of the PDF ebook and audio CD.

With the audio versions, questions are read to the children, they are then given the correct 5, 10 or 15 second intervals to answer the questions.

Each format contains 30 sets of teacher’s questions and answers as well as 30 photocopiable pupil sheets with prompts. The repetitive questions in each book steadily get harder over the course of a year.

Full details are available from our website – http://www.topical-resources.co.uk/numeracy (just scroll down the page).

If you’d like to talk to us about these resources please call us on 01772 863158. Alternatively drop us an email at enquiries@topical-resources.co.uk

As always, you can order in any of these ways:

Online at: http://www.topical-resources.co.uk/numeracy
By phone on: 01772 863158
By fax: 01772 866153
By email: Sales@topical-resources.co.uk
By post: Topical Resources, P.O. Box329, Broughton, Preston, Lancashire PR3 5LT

Topical Resources
P.O. Box329
Broughton
Preston
Lancashire
PR3 5LT

www.topical-resources.co.uk
sales@topical-resources.co.uk

Tel: 01772 863158

‘Production, Finance and the External Business Environment’ Pre-Release Resource Pack

As you will know, the A293 pre-release material was made available earlier this month. It’s focused on ‘A&W’ fashion retail.

To help you and your students prepare for the exam, a special resource pack is being written now, specifically for the January 2012 pre-release material!

The ZigZag Education team will be working hard to dispatch this resource pack to you by 31st January, giving you time to fully prepare your students for the exam. As well as the case study commentary, topic material, presentations, and questions, you will also receive two exam-style practice papers with mark schemes, based on the pre-release material! Pre-order your GCSE OCR A293 Resource Pack now!

Last year’s edition received excellent praise:

‘A comprehensive and well-structured resource… Covers all areas of the pre-release in sufficient depth… The questions are well devised… The glossary activities allow the student to consolidate their understanding and revise with ease… allows the teacher to use each element individually or as an entire companion to the pre-release… adheres strictly to the OCR specification.’ – L Sweetman, Head of Business & Independent Reviewer

‘Directly linked to the pre-release case study… very useful for students and really liked the way that it could be given to students to work on independently or as homework.’ – É Casey, Head of Business & Independent Reviewer

Pre-order now at http://zigzag.at/UL80 (the pack will be ready to send to by the end of January).

The GCSE OCR A293 Pre-Release Resource Pack for A&W (UL80/4511) is available as a photocopy master with site licence (£59). Also available in: easy-printing PDF files (add 30%+VAT) or PDF with editable Word files (add 50%+VAT).

Pre-order now at http://zigzag.at/UL80

ZigZag Education, Unit 3, Greenway Business Centre, Doncaster Road, Bristol BS10 5PY

t: 0117 950 3199 | f: 0117 959 1695 | businessUL80@zigzageducation.co.uk

Give your promotional code UL80 to get free postage!