Education News

Recently a number of Local Authorities have announced the reduction or removal of some or all of their premises services to schools. It looks like more may follow.

On top of this a recent survey assessed the challenges facing schools due to the impact of reduced budgets on school and local authority provision with almost 90% of respondents noticing a decrease in support provided by their LAs. Due to this lack of support, schools have seen a vast increase in workload for management and administrative staff whilst the traditional safety nets can no longer be relied upon.

I’ve spoken directly with a couple of hundred schools over the last year about their property issues, and it seems that school leaders, managers and administrators are concerned and permanently rushed off their feet. Coupled with the survey it looks likely the workload and stresses are likely to continue if not increase and there’s no more money to recruit additional resources. So what can be done about it? In a word – TES PropertyPrefect, the online premises management system of choice for School Business Managers/Bursars and their Heads.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to do the same work in less time or get more done in the same time whilst being on top of your game. This would have a significant impact on all concerned, after all who of us doesn’t get a little bit cranky when we’re feeling out of control and under the cosh.

TES PropertyPrefect helps you get and stay compliant as well as organised by:

Alerting you to imminent and future H&S and other premises activities so nothing is missed
Providing you with a very simple issues management system, so simple everyone can use it with email alerts for the site team
Helping you engage with both teaching and site staff without having to change behaviours
Provide you with three levels of support with the Guidance library, live software support and a Professional Technical Helpdesk service so you’re only a click away from professional help
Providing a pragmatic method of moving towards a more proactive and therefore cost effective regime for premises
Helping you budget more effectively with a finance chart graphically displaying your planned and reactive spend through the year
Spend less time preparing Governors reports with our professionally and consistently presented reports for MS Word.
In just 30 minutes through our one-to-one interactive online tour you will see clearly how TES PropertyPrefect will make your life easier as well as that of your premises staff and Head.

Book a date and time to suit you at www.propertyprefect.com/onlinedemo but be quick, there are only so many hours in the day!

By the way, so you know we’re not wasting your time, the price for a primary school is £480 per year and a secondary school is £800 per year, on a 36-month term. Since launching in March last year TES PropertyPrefect has nearly 1,300 registered school users and on any one day around half of our schools are logged in and benefitting.

Warm regards

Adam Watson
Director of TES PropertyPrefect

p.s. PropertyPrefect and TES have entered into a joint venture to help bring this popular system to every school that feels it will benefit. You can read more on our website.

Prepared by the Advisory Unit, the home of the best-selling AEGIS GIS for schools, the poster is a handy route map for students creating new AEGIS projects. The poster helps students with controlled assessments and other fieldwork activities by leading them through a trail reflecting the enquiry approach to learning that is required by examination boards.

Just click on the link www.advisory-unit.org.uk and download the poster from the Advisory Unit web site. Print as a handout and enlarge to A3 to go on the wall.

Not sure how the students will use AEGIS? There’s a QR code link on the poster to ‘how to do it’ video tutorials on the Advisory Unit web site. Any smartphone will ‘read’ the code and link to a page of YouTube videos that demonstrate GIS skills for projects.

More about AEGIS
AEGIS is the most widely used GIS for schools with a one-off purchase for installation on the school network. Once you have the program you can embed GIS in classwork for world development, local activities or regional studies or use AEGIS as a basis for collecting, processing and mapping fieldwork data. AEGIS is a valuable resource right through the school from Year 7 to A2 giving students the skills required to display and search choropleth mapping, landuse mapping, traffic and pedestrian surveys, and bar and pie charts of locational data.

Download the free poster for a handy guide to AEGIS for projects. For more information contact:

The Advisory Unit: Computers in Education
The Innovation Centre
Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB
Tel: 01707 281102
Fax; 01707 281103
Email: sales@advisory-unit.org.uk

The critically-acclaimed stage production of War Horse featured a boy’s much-loved horse, Joey, who is sold to the cavalry at the beginning of World War I.

Stephen Spielberg’s recent film adaptation of this powerful story has brought the outbreak of war into the national consciousness again.

To help your students understand the tensions in Europe which precipitated the outbreak of World War I, we’ve produced some free resources for you to download: www.boardworks.co.uk/history_744

Covering the existing tensions in Europe, the war plans of the Great Powers, and the Schlieffen Plan, our free resources summarise the key teaching points for each of these topics, engaging students in the political wranglings that led to Joey’s secondment to the battlefield.

Regards

The Boardworks History team

P.S. The interactive map in this free presentation can be used flexibly as a consolidation exercise or to introduce students to the war plans of the Great Powers. To find out more about the different ways to use Boardworks History resources, order your free sample disc today.

www.boardworks.co.uk/order-sample-disc/505

If a child is given support with the development of his/her communication skills from a very early age, it is virtually certain that the child will get better foundation stage results than would otherwise be the case.

Which is why communication and language are invariably seen as a prime area that influences development.

Additionally, where support with the development of communication skills incorporates a partnership between parents and yourselves then the resultant development can be even better.

In England, the funding regime for two year olds means that your staff must have the skills and knowledge to develop communication skills with these children and to work with their parents so that the progress continues at home.

It is because of the huge significance and importance of communication and language that I CAN has developed a major collection of accessible resources for Sure Start Children’s Centres.

These materials ensure that practitioners have the knowledge and skills necessary to support communication and language and to cultivate collaborative relationships with parents.

The resources describe the different elements of communication and language, and outline what good practice looks like. They also show how Sure Start Children’s Centres can empower parents so they can interact with their children to develop communication and language skills.

There is also a pack to help teams of early years practitioners to understand, reinforce and enable the development of speech, communication and language in their group or setting.

I CAN’s resources include progress checks that can be shared with parents for early identification of difficulties and to support the reporting to parents between 24 and 36 months. They also show the way in which everyday activities can be used as opportunities for enhancing communication skills.

I do hope you will consider introducing these techniques and approaches in your centre.

You can read details of all these early years resources and the benefits they bring on https://shop.ican.org.uk/catalog/2 or place an order via our order form here http://www.schools.co.uk/ICANorderform.pdf.

If you have any questions about our resources please do call 0845 225 4073 or email info@ican.org.uk

It is a fact that there are a variety of school laptops available at quite remarkable discounts at the moment.

That’s the benefit – the only downside is that there are always a limited number of the laptops available at the lower price.

But this is not the case for our current offer on the HP 630 Intel Core I3 4gb 500gb (the full name of the machine which takes up a couple of lines is given below).

It normally costs £599 but is currently on offer for £340 (after £50 cashback). Better still, the discount does NOT come at the expense of the guarantee. There’s a three year HP warranty & free carry case.

There’s also an optional extra offer for added protection: the HP/Symantec Norton Internet Security 1 User – 3 Year License – QD287, £30 for 3 years. This is an extra but even this is at a discount, for it is normally £30 for 1 year.

And in fact if you are interested you can buy this anti-virus program on its own.

The full description of the machine is the HP 630 A1F78ES Intel Core I3-370M 4GB 500GB DVDRW 15.6TFT HDMI BT CAM CARRY CASE Win 7HP with 3 Years HP Warranty (only 1 year if bought elsewhere).

In order to receive the discount, all you need to do is quote “eshot offer 22”.

There are more details at http://www.technoworld.com/HP_630_A1F78ES/62198/product.aspx and details of all the Terms and Conditions online, and there are details of the cash back on www.hpcashback.com/uk/laptop/claim/family-30/

If you have any questions please call 08444 820 111.

You can order the HP 630 in either of these ways:

By phone: 08444 820 111
By fax on: 0208 200 6777
By email at education@technoworld.com

If a child is given support with the development of his/her communication skills from a very early age, it is virtually certain that the child will get better foundation stage results than would otherwise be the case.

Which is why communication and language are invariably seen as a prime area that influences development.

Additionally, where support with the development of communication skills incorporates a partnership between parents and yourselves then the resultant development can be even better.

In England, the funding regime for two year olds means that your staff must have the skills and knowledge to develop communication skills with these children and to work with their parents so that the progress continues at home.

It is because of the huge significance and importance of communication and language that I CAN has developed a major collection of accessible resources for Sure Start Children’s Centres.

These materials ensure that practitioners have the knowledge and skills necessary to support communication and language and to cultivate collaborative relationships with parents.

The resources describe the different elements of communication and language, and outline what good practice looks like. They also show how Sure Start Children’s Centres can empower parents so they can interact with their children to develop communication and language skills.

There is also a pack to help teams of early years practitioners to understand, reinforce and enable the development of speech, communication and language in their group or setting.

I CAN’s resources include progress checks that can be shared with parents for early identification of difficulties and to support the reporting to parents between 24 and 36 months. They also show the way in which everyday activities can be used as opportunities for enhancing communication skills.

I do hope you will consider introducing these techniques and approaches in your centre.

You can read details of all these early years resources and the benefits they bring on https://shop.ican.org.uk/catalog/2 or place an order via our order form here http://www.schools.co.uk/ICANorderform.pdf.

If you have any questions about our resources please do call 0845 225 4073 or email info@ican.org.uk

Ah poor King Charles. Except if I meant, “King Charles walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off,” the contemplation of what it must be like to know that one is about to die is transformed into a ghost story of frightening, if utterly unbelievable, proportions.

Such is punctuation. What is for many school children just another silly thing that adults put into the language in order to annoy is, in fact, a vital part of clarifying meaning, allowing us to express ourselves more clearly than would otherwise be the case.

But there’s a problem. Although punctuation can be taught by giving rules and examples, what children need to do is to practise using punctuation. In fact they need to practise it a lot – without getting bored. Which is why we have created the computer program “Punctuate Plus”.

The program contains three types of exercises: a punctuation quiz set against the clock, a ‘shoot’ the missing punctuation mark game, and exercises within the ‘learn about punctuation’ section. The activities can be varied by selecting specific type or types of punctuation you want to look at, and dyslexic students will appreciate the text-speech feature. This is an excellent teaching resource, especially when used with an interactive whiteboard.

There is more than enough content to ensure that children are not presented with the same question twice, and you can also add your own questions.

There is more information at http://www.xavier-educational-software.co.uk/punctuatemx.shtml and there’s a link on the page to a free evaluation version of the software.

Three types of licences are available (single payment):

Single user £25
Basic site £99 – up to 25 users
Full site £250 – unlimited users
You can order:

By post: Xavier Software, 34 Tan y Bwlch Road, Llanllechid, Bangor, LL57 3HU
By fax: 01536 399012
By email: xavier@xes.org.uk
On line at: http://www.xavier-educational-software.co.uk/punctuatemx.shtml
If you have any questions please call 07895076062 or email xavier@xes.org.uk

The observation has often been made that foundation stage results in settings where children are given support, encouragement and help in terms of communication and language are invariably significantly better than those of children who do not get such early support.

What’s more, as this support continues, the risk of school exclusions is decreased, children’s understanding improves, and ultimately educational achievement improves – all through the child experiencing the right type of interaction in terms of communication and language at an early age.

As you know, the importance of communication and language is reflected in the EYFS framework which also highlights the partnership between parents and your children’s centres and PVI settings.

And thus we have the answer to our question at the top of the page. The most effective way of improving outcomes in early years education involves improving communication skills and extending the partnership with parents.

It is because of the huge significance and importance of communication and language, as well as partnership with parents, that I CAN has developed a major collection of accessible resources on this topic which will ensure that early years practitioners have the knowledge and skills necessary to cultivate collaborative relationships with children and with their parents.

These resources describe the different elements of communication and language and show what good practice looks like. There is also a pack to support teams of early years practitioners to understand, reinforce and enable the development of speech, communication and language.

These resources from I CAN also have progress checks for early years practitioners to share with parents for early identification of difficulties and to respond to the recommendation to report to parents between 24 and 36 months.

As a result you can direct all early years practitioners towards resources to develop the skills and knowledge to lay a sound foundation for communication and language, build partnerships with parents and improve the long term outcomes for children.

You can read details of all these early years resources and the benefits they bring on https://shop.ican.org.uk/catalog/2 or place an order via our order form here http://www.schools.co.uk/ICANorderform.pdf. The resources are all written by specialist speech and language therapists and teachers who have worked across the UK with LAs, settings and practitioners.

If you have any questions about our resources please do call 0845 225 4073 or email info@ican.org.uk

Cross curricular teaching creates an exciting learning environment in which to engage pupils. The Art Department is ideally placed for this as art is a diverse subject, allowing teachers easily to make connections across subjects and to be as creative as they wish in their delivery.

This KS3 book contains over 40 project sheets and links art to seven different subject areas. Within the Art, RE and Citizenship section, for example, there are projects which encourage pupils to consider what makes a good citizen, faiths and communities, the architecture of Gaudi and other design ideas. Project sheets can be printed out onto A3 paper for pupils to use as required.

By using skill and knowledge acquired in other subjects and building upon them within the art environment pupils have enormous scope to express themselves through the use of a variety of materials.

Cross Curricular Art is available as a black and white copiable book with an accompanying CD. Project sheets can be printed out onto A3 paper for pupils to use as required.

ISBN: 978 1 86083 799 9
Price: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery.

You can order in four different ways. In each case please quote our reference T1765emn. Sample pages and a contents list can be viewed prior to ordering on http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/art/SamplesT1765.pdf

By post to First and Best, Hamilton House Mailings plc, Earlstrees Ct, Earlstrees Rd, Corby, Northants NN17 4HH

By fax on 01536 399 012

By phone with a credit card or with an official school order number on 01536 399 011

On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=741

This 88 page study guide will enable students to analyse, explain and make judgements about events, developments and interpretations relating to Henry VII’s reign as required by all the examination boards. It provides a synthesis of the published work on the reign of Henry VII and thus provides GCE students with a comprehensive description and explanation of Henry’s reign as well as an introduction to the various historical debates to which the period 1485 to 1509 has given rise. Invaluable guidance on how to approach key questions is included in each section of the book.

The Reign of Henry VII 1485 – 1509 by John Goode. A contents list and sample pages can be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/history/T1696.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1696EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 716 6

Prices

Photocopiable report: £21.99 plus £3.95 delivery
CD with school-wide rights: £21.99 plus £3.95 delivery
Both the Ring Binder and the CD £28.98 plus £3.95 delivery
Prices include VAT.
You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1696emn

By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
By fax to 01536 399 012
On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=521