Supporting our community when in-person teaching isn’t possible
Supporting our community when in-person teaching isn’t possible. From the team at online learning platform and app, Quizlet. Over the past week, we’ve seen back-to-school seasons postponed in South Korea and Japan, as well as school closures here in the U.S. due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus. During these challenging and uncertain times, we know teachers want to help students learn and make progress — even if it’s not possible to be in the classroom. For the teachers and students affected by school closures, digital tools and services — video conferencing and chat like Zoom and Google Meet, online document editing through services like Google Docs and learning tools (including Quizlet!) can help make a huge difference in engaging students. We know nothing can replace the time inside of a classroom, but we hope some of these best practices for using Quizlet in a remote learning environment can be useful in the coming weeks and beyond. Simple steps to empower your students to use Quizlet for remote learning: 1. It starts with the content While students are out of the classroom and teachers aren’t able to directly monitor student learning, start by creating the study sets you want your students to study. When you create the sets, you’ll know exactly what students are studying while at home. Many teachers create all the content their students will be studying to make it easy for students to start studying ASAP, but other teachers see the value in having students create their own content. Especially for older students — middle, high school and beyond — encouraging students to create their own content can be an empowering activity and give students ownership of their learning. 2. Keep everyone organized with a class It’s simple to share sets out through Google Classroom, Remind or another LMS you use if you already have your classes set up elsewhere. We also recommend setting up a class on Quizlet, which is free and helps you keep both content and students organized in one spot. Pro tip: Create a new class on Quizlet for every class you teach — even if it’s the same subject. So, if you teach French 2 in three different periods, create a new class on Quizlet for each. Or, if you teach both Biology and Chemistry it can be overwhelming to stay organized with the sets you’re creating for students. Creating a class can be a big help. Once you create your class and add your students, they’ll be instantly notified when you add new content. You can also choose to let your students add their content or keep it so that only you have that ability. 3. Check on student learning with class progress Class Progress is part of the Quizlet Teacher subscription and gives you insight into progress your students are making as they study the content in your classes. You’ll have access to two different views: First, you can see macro trends about which terms your students are getting right most of the time, some of the time or almost never. With this view, you can choose which terms, concepts or questions to focus on in upcoming lessons or units. Second, you can see a detailed view of which students have started or completed studying on your set — and which students might need more encouragement to get through their study session. We hope taking these steps with Quizlet will help teachers and students stay connected and empower students to learn even while outside of the classroom.
Bristol primary school children kick-off Shakespeare Week celebrations
One of the world’s most historic ships, proudly docked in the European capital of graffiti, will form a stunning backdrop for a special performance of Shakespeare’s famous plays marking the launch of Shakespeare Week – the annual national celebration of Shakespeare in primary schools. Children from two Bristol primary schools will be showcasing their Shakespearian learning with a performance of The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet at Brunel’s SS Great Britain. Organised by independent charity the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, this year’s Shakespeare Week carries the theme of Art and Design. Pupils from Bannerman Road Community Academy and May Park Primary School have been taking part in a series of drama and grafitti workshops delivered by Bristol-based artists Graft and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory (STF). The initiative is part of the new Shakespeare Hub Schools project, working with creative practitioners to provide children with a great first introduction of Shakespeare, via the arts. The scheme is delivered free to schools by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and supported by Arts Council England. Jacqueline Green, head of learning and participation at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, said, “In the seven years that Shakespeare Week has been running we’ve demonstrated that making Shakespeare fun and accessible to young children has a positive impact in the development of their creativity, critical thinking and social skills. It’s clear that providing a culturally enriching first encounter of Shakespeare is benefiting children right across the country. By working with schools and cultural partners, we are supporting teachers to enthuse children with a passion for Shakespeare’s stories, language and heritage, inspiring curiosity and a desire to make discoveries of their own. All great preparation for the secondary curriculum, and their future lives.” Families too can celebrate Shakespeare. Throughout the week, there will be a number of events in libraries and cultural organisations across the country, and of course in Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. On Saturday 21 March, Shakespeare’s Birthplace will play host to a free family fun day, with activities such as an illustration workshop with Horrible Histories illustrator, Martin Brown, an animation station hosted by Ricky Martin from CBBC’s Art Ninja, and Shakespeare-inspired crafts with children’s author and illustrator, Marcia Williams. Other highlights happening throughout Shakespeare Week include: Shakespeare-themed activities in libraries across the country, including Shakespeare LEGO clubs and illustration workshops The Big Shakespeare Book Hunt in 154 communities across the country, supported by Walker Books and the National Literacy Trust Kids Zone online challenges for children to complete in school or at home including drawing comic strips, writing poetry or enjoying retellings of Shakespeare’s plays Over 150 free resources for teachers, home educators and families covering subjects across the curriculum, including new step-by-step video tutorials from popular children’s illustrators on creating portraits of Shakespeare. There are also fun activity resources for educators to develop creative skills in the classroom For more information see www.shakespeareweek.org.uk.
Robotical Ltd offer a free trial of Marty the Robot for 3 weeks
Free STEM resource: Robotical Ltd offer a free trial of Marty the Robot for 3 weeks to schools throughout the UK! The Edinburgh based tech company, Robotical, are on a mission to create classrooms ‘Where learning comes alive’ with their programmable, walking, dancing, football-playing robot named Marty. To achieve this goal they are offering 3 week free trials of the robots throughout the UK and even covering all of the shipping and collection costs! Marty is designed to deliver real-world learning and help children think differently about science, technology, engineering and maths. Free online lesson plans, cross-curricular activities and friendly staff are on hand to help teachers make their lessons more fun and engaging – sparking creativity and empowering their children to view scientific concepts in innovative, practical and immersive ways. You can programme Marty with a basic remote control, with block based languages like Scratch or with real programming languages like Python so your lessons with Marty will span across a broad range of ages and abilities. Jonathan Baxter, Deputy Head Teacher at The Flora Stevenson Primary School, said, “Having something physical to move, away from a computer screen, helps pupils better understand what happens when they input certain commands.It moves the lessons from theoretical to practical and pupils can see the interaction between software and hardware. Marty is cute and engaging which makes it easy to introduce him in the classroom. But he also demonstrates how coding can be applied in the real world as he can interact with his surroundings.” Rushil Shah, COO at GoCode Academy told us that “Marty has been a head turner with students! He works really well across all of the age groups at GoCode. The younger kids love his human features and are able to use Scratch to get up and running with Marty quickly. For the older kids they’re able to explore coding in more detail by moving onto Python and see the physical connection between hardware and software.” 15 year old student, Iona, had this to say about her experience with Marty the Robot: “Playing and learning with Marty has been great fun, and it definitely has taught me a lot about engineering and computer programming which will help me in my future career. I definitely want to do engineering at university, and Marty has just made me more determined to make this happen. I have even taught Marty to feed my dog, so I’m wondering what other household chores he could help me with, maybe he could tidy my room or wash the dishes?! ” To find out more and try Marty for free for 3 weeks simply follow this link, scan the QR code below on your smartphone’s camera, call Robotical on 0131 564 0922 or email Ben via ben@robotical.io:
QA Education named 9th top education mag in the world
QA Education has been ranked as the world’s 9th top education magazine to follow in 2020. For the second time, the school products and services guide – which also features news and views on primary and secondary education – has been named in Feedspot’s Top 15 education publications. The content reader announced the list recently, saying it contained “the Best Education Magazines from thousands of online magazines on the web ranked by relevancy, social engagement, domain authority, web traffic, freshness and social metrics”. Feedspot added: “Subscribe to these ezines because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information.” New mental health in schools title The success of QA Education magazine resulted in the release of a new mental health & wellbeing title in 2019 – Head Space, a title wholly devoted to mental health and wellbeing in schools. Helping schools to combat mental health issues, Head Space offers insights and helpful advice on how teachers can tackle mental health and anxiety within the education sector. Editor Victoria Galligan said: “We’re so pleased to be named in Feedspot’s top 15 websites – it’s not the first time the content reader has picked up on our articles. “We launched Head Space last year because pressure is constantly rising for students to perform well at school, and teachers are under stress to deliver promising results. “The UK has experienced a growth in the number of young people requiring support for stress-related issues, and it’s clear that something needs to be done to improve the state of our mental health within the education sector.” QA Education offers a free-to-view emagazine and newsletter, while a printed subscription costs just £30 annually (for six issues). View the free e-version of Head Space to discover the various ways you can plan and take action to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children and adults alike. From mindfulness and animal therapy sessions, to the benefits of sports and e-safeguarding issues, there are articles from leaders in child psychology and related fields. Head Space’s first issue contains articles from: – Beverly Smalley, education specialist at TTS Group – Dr Carolyn Drake, neuroscientist and former head teacher – Annie Akasati McAuley, SEN teacher and ordained Buddhist – Andrea Chatten, MD and lead children’s psychologist at Unravel – John Ingram, CEO of Pamoja Education – Paul James, director at Barabarani safeguarding consultancy – Karin Bjerde, head of strategic growth at Kognity intelligent textbooks – Paula Talman, founder of iSpace wellbeing curriculum
Ebbsfleet Green Primary School invites parents to unveiling of building plans
Ebbsfleet Green Primary School – a brand new setting due to open September 2020 – invites local members of the community to the unveiling of the school campus plans. The public consultation event will be held from 4-8 pm on Tuesday 25 February at the Eastgate Centre in Springhead Parkway, DA11 8AD. Held in partnership with the school’s building company Kier Construction, GDM Architects, planning consultants DHA planning and Project Managers Gen 2, the public consultation is an opportunity for families to learn about the future school and meet key team members of the Ebbsfleet Green Primary community. Refreshments will be available as well as art activities to keep the youngest attendees entertained. Built to serve the rapidly growing community in the new Ebbsfleet Garden City, Ebbsfleet Green Primary forms part of the Maritime Academy Trust; an educational charity catering for over 2600 pupils aged 3-11 across eight primary schools (seven with nurseries) based in London and Kent. Maritime Academy Trust follows an innovative entrepreneurial curriculum, designed to foster creativity and encourage pupils to adapt and succeed in the modern world, whilst ensuring excellent behaviour in every school. This consultation is the first time that the permanent buildings for the Ebbsfleet Green campus will be revealed to the public. The event will help parents understand the exciting opportunity that the new school provides for children living in the community. Parents will be able to discuss the school and Trust’s child-led learning with Head Teacher Joanne Wilkinson-Tabi and Maritime CEO Nick Osborne. Nick is also a National Leader in Education, a title earned for his ‘exceptional’ leadership as Executive Head Teacher of Millennium, Brooklands, and Timbercroft Primary Schools, a position he held prior to founding Maritime Academy Trust. Kathryn Jackman, Community Engagement Lead at Maritime Academy Trust, commented, “We are thrilled to share with the future families of Ebbsfleet Green Primary School our vision for the school and the pupils’ education – we can’t wait to see these plans become a reality. We have many more exciting events coming up which we hope North Kent residents will be able to attend, including an environmentally friendly family picnic later this year! ”
Primary academy in Manchester raises £140 for NSPCC
Pupils from Manor Green Primary Academy take part in NSPCC Number Day 2020 A primary school in Denton has raised over £140 as children donated money to dress as their favourite rock stars for the school’s NSPCC Number Day 2020. Dubbing the initiative as the Manor Green Rockstar Day, the school encouraged pupils to ditch their uniforms and take part in the maths-inspired fundraising day, helping children with their numeracy skills whilst supporting the charity. As part of the event, the children took part in several tailor-made mathematics sessions, including a ‘Battle of the Bands’ type tournament where children of the same year group went head to head in answering maths-based questions. This is the 20th year the NSPCC Number Day has taken place, and over 3,500 schools have taken part raising nearly £2 million helping protect children from harm. Head of Manor Green Primary, Tracey Thornton said: “It’s great to see so many children get involved with today’s activities and give something back to the community. “The money we have raised will enable approximately 35 children to connect with the support that they need. “As part of Focus-Trust, we pride ourselves on ‘Making the Difference’ and Manor Green certainly have played their part here.” Stuart Mycroft, Deputy Head at Manor Green, added: “This year we are really putting the focus on our new school motto – ‘Aspire. Achieve. Succeed.’ – and it’s initiatives like this that can bring this to life, giving the children new ways of working to help them all ultimately be the best they can be.” Manor Green Primary Academy operates as part of Focus Trust – a charitable multi-academy trust which is based in the North West of England with a vision of providing an engaging and challenging learning environment where the children are happy.
Maximise space on your school campus
Whether it is in the classroom or on the sports pitch, every inch of space matters to school leaders. Schools cannot afford to have teams washed off sports grounds due to bad weather or outdoor seating at lunchtimes made out of bounds due to rain or excessive heat. Streetspace has a range of solutions to help. Its ZONE glazed buildings are perfect to create additional indoor dining hall space and its covered canopies can create all-weather outdoor social spaces that can be used for break time and outdoor learning. Games and sports areas can benefit from dramatic increased usage when upgraded to an all-weather multi-use games area. With floodlighting to enable additional after-school activity, head teachers can achieve a four-fold increase in sports pitch use on their school campus. A key feature of the Streetspace service is listening to the needs of clients with staff able to adapt the design and build to meet the specifications required for the project. Revoe Learning Academy used the installation of its Streetspace all-weather pitch to change attitudes towards the school. The new covered MUGA – a one-piece PVC tensile membrane – is a flagship feature and has helped parents and pupils to develop a new-found pride in the school. OneSchool Global’s Maidstone school campus installed a covered canopy to boost social space for students at lunch and break time, but have discovered a wealth of other uses with outdoor learning, choir performances and even whole school outdoor assemblies a regular feature no matter the weather. Reading Blue Coat School installed a covered canopy to upgrade cycle parking as part of a strategy to boost its green agenda. To further develop students’ pride in the school Streetspace created a series of smart glass entry spaces and roofs for the majority of buildings on site. To find out more about the company’s range of sun shelters, glass canopies and covered walkways visit www.streetspacegroup.co.uk or call 01227 200404. Case studies Reading Blue Coat: https://bit.ly/38c6H9y Revoe Learning Academy: https://bit.ly/361uFD2 Park High School: https://bit.ly/2RtXPW2 OneSchool Global: https://bit.ly/2ucn1Za
Raising child self-esteem takes patience
Andrea Chatten, the founder of mental health service Unravel, is the Lead Children’s Emotional & Behavioural Psychologist and author of The Blinks novels. Here, she discusses raising child self-esteem and its effect on behaviour… I have always been fascinated in children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. Starting out as a teacher, I recognised that, although it was my role to educate them in maths, English and the ten plus subjects that they needed to be taught, but these children needed more. I felt passionate and committed to help these children understand some of the difficult and complex feelings that they were experiencing, and which hugely affected their well-being. No matter how clever they had the potential to be, unless they received lots of emotional understanding and different ways of doing things, these kids could miss out on the most important thing we want for children – happiness. When I became a parent I found myself challenged with the level of responsibility and pressure to ensure that my children did not become as emotionally vulnerable as some of the children who I had worked with for many years. Parenting was by far the most difficult job that I had done as it was the most important. Don’t get me wrong the love and commitment I had for my class really wasn’t much different to what I felt for my own children but this role was about me helping my children evolve from the blank canvas that they were born as. As parents, carers and teachers, we are fundamental in how our child’s canvas develops. How much colour is present? How much grey? How the colours are dispersed, how bright those colours are and more importantly how appealing the final product is within our culture. Raising children with good self-esteem takes patience, huge, regular bundles of patience, as children translate patience into love. Patience means being gentle. Patience makes us listen more actively. Patience means we find time in this crazy fast world to stop and just be in the moment with our children. This love then becomes locked away inside of children and activates a core message that runs through them like a stick of rock. In order for children to develop a good level of self-esteem the message needs to be positive – “I am ok. I’m not perfect, I have faults but I am ok. I am worthy of love.” Reading this may make you feel pressured as it is your job and you, like every champion of the children in your care has made mistakes. You too just need to be ok, not perfect, you have flaws and bad days too. I had to have a serious word with myself when both my children were small. Coping day to day with sleep deprivation, a hungry breastfeeding baby and a toddler was tough. Some days I was not the best Mum. As I had only ever worked with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, it seemed so easy to mess up children and damage their self-esteem. Please let me reassure you now it isn’t that easy. Long term damage to self-esteem develops over time. Not from a bad day here and there, though how we re-engage with our child afterwards is essential. Apologies and explanations mean we take responsibility for negative actions and don’t leave them with the child. It also means that we model real emotions and make mistakes a normal part of being human. If we don’t re-connect emotionally afterwards, that can make children feel like it is their fault and they aren’t good enough. It is this internal dialogue that can begin the spiral of low self-esteem. Children’s self-esteem starts with us. We have to find as many ways to show children that we not only love them but like them. Also, it is essential that if our children have pushed us into going off them, that this stage is only ever temporary and we the adults get back on them as soon as possible. Children are highly sensitive to this emotional withdrawal and that too fosters low self-esteem. Raising children with good self-esteem is not difficult if we practise positive interactions and keep reflecting throughout the process. None us are perfect but with love, patience, and emotional warmth our children’s canvases can be bright, colourful and most of all happy. Top tips to help support your child’s emotional well-being 1. Get in sync – emotional connection is key. It is normal to disconnect with our children, life is demanding. However, when children don’t feel positively connected to us, it impacts on their well-being which is often communicated by negative behaviours 2. Communicate as much as possible from as early as possible. Talking with each other is how we learn, and problem solve, and it starts younger than we once thought. If you want to be having meaningful conversations with your teenager’s start being open and honest when they are two or three. 3. Listen to what your children tell you – they will teach us. It can be difficult hearing hurtful things from our children, but they are telling us what they need. Don’t hear what they say actively listen. 4. Avoid general praise – be specific. Avoid using words like good and bad with kids. This can negatively impact on identity and well-being. Instead reward and praise the action, progress or value. They are less likely to reject this kind of praise and it fosters healthier self-esteem 5. Keep reflecting. The only difference between a positive parent and a negative parent is reflection. It certainly won’t stop us making mistakes, but we might make fewer mistakes and certainly not keep making the same ones! 6. Help children to name and claim emotions. Our emotions are designed to keep us alive. We must acknowledge them otherwise the brain will turn the volume up on them meaning we feel emotions much more intensely. Once we name them our brain relaxes in the hope, we will then do
A third of education professionals suffer from Sunday night fear
A third of education professionals suffer from Sunday night fear, with a further one in three calling in sick because of it but nearly three-quarters feel better once they’re ‘over the hump’ The latest survey from the UK’s leading independent job board, CV-Library, reveals that over a third (34%) of education professionals suffer from Sunday night fear; with 33.9% admitting that they’ve called in sick because they were too worried to go to work. The study, which surveyed 2,000 British professionals, finds that education professionals think that Mondays and Tuesdays are the worst days of the working week; with only 10.2% of respondents choosing either as their favourite day. Unsurprisingly, Friday emerged as the industry’s favourite day of the working week, with 51% voting it number one. In fact, nearly three-quarters (72%) of education professionals regularly get that ‘Friday feeling’ as the week draws to a close. Lee Biggins, CEO and founder of CV-Library commented: “If your employees suffer from Sunday night fear on a regular basis then it’s time to evaluate your company culture. Employees that feel stressed are often less productive, less efficient and, as the data shows, are far more likely to ‘pull a sickie’. In addition to this, 72% of education workers said they feel better about the week once Wednesday is done and they’re ‘over the hump’. Biggins continues: “It’s important to encourage managers to discuss workloads with any staff members that appear to be struggling; and offer support where possible. By encouraging employees to foster a healthy work-life balance, you’ll be future-proofing your business by attracting and retaining the best professionals in your industry. However, if you neglect to look after your staff, you may find it difficult to expand your operations and reach your company goals.”