We are organising an event for supply teachers in London this week – especially for those starting out in this career this term.
Tuesday, 24th August. 6.30- 8.30pm. Borough Bar, London Bridge.
There will be free drinks, kindly sponsored by Protocol, and talks from a couple of experienced supply teachers about how they found work and impressed the schools.
If you’d like to come, RSVP to our Facebook Group
We realise a number of our members want professional sound effects to put into their presentations to add a bit of spice and colour. The sound library we used to recommend has changed it’s business model, so we are pleased to recommend SoundScalpel for educational audio clips.
From jungle noises to mechanical clicks, there are thousands of studio quality sounds to choose from. As with Teachable, the clips are available to download from around £1 per file.
Please use the discount code ‘teachable’ when you get to the checkout page to claim a special 10% discount.
Thank you to all members who completed our survey over the last couple of weeks. We have got some really interesting information out of it – especially the features you would like us to add soon.
We are pleased to announce that the prize winner is Laura Breton, a primary teacher from Leeds, UK. Well done Laura, and the iPod Touch is on it’s way to you!
We heard earlier this week that the Qualification and Curriculum Development Authority is the latest Arms Length body to be culled (an £8m saving this year and over £100 the next), and the General Teaching Council will also go. Now, in a letter the Education Minister wrote to Ed Balls, more detail is revealed about other cuts.
The TDA, National College of School Leadership and Children’s Workforce Development Council will all receive a 10% cut to their budgets this year (saving £60m in total). Could these be wound down further next year? The 10% in-year cut is in line with my previous prediction, but to realise the 40% of savings next year, one or two more £150m/year quangos may have to go.
Elsewhere in the letter, there are indications that some of the pet schemes of the Labour executive will be wound down:
At Teachable, we feel the combined effect of all of these may leave the education sector reeling for a while, but in time the restructuring will probably lead to more schools seeking advice and support from non-governmental organisations. There is no reason why curriculum development, support and workforce training needs to be funded and delivered centrally.
Common sense has prevailed as England, along with the rest of the world, can now call its education ministry the Department for Education, rather than the previous DCSF.
So far the website is looking very clean, and it may sign the way to a slimming down of the plethora of websites and portals that the DCSF ran.
In an e-mail to civil servants today Michael Gove said: “In the weeks ahead, I want us to offer all schools the chance to enjoy academy-style freedoms so that heads and teachers across the country can be liberated. This will be the focus of the legislation we hope to bring forward later this month.”
So it seems we were right that Gove’s liberalism hasn’t been watered down in the new coalition education policy.
We made a bit of a spelling mistake on an email we sent out last month, and quite a few rightly picked us up on it. However, I felt a bit better after getting this letter in the post today. The Guardian obviously have fired a lot of editors…
Teachable now allows a greater range of filetypes (Flash, ActivStudio, Smart Notebook) to be uploaded, and we are hoping to capture some of the creativity these software packages allow for class resources.
We have a good range of materials for secondary science and maths, but we are particularly looking for more creative material for:
Good example of the possibilities of Flash used in class is from IBoard or Furbles for primary age , or this CellsAlive animation for A-level.
If you’re not sure what our members would find useful then have a look at our further guidelines, or email us with some samples.
Of course if Powerpoint and Word is what you are comfortable in, then teachers are definitely looking for that as well.
If you are looking for something topical to include in your science lessons, diabetes has been hitting the headlines recently.
This week it has been reported that diabetes cases have jumped by 60% in the last decade and that more young people are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
For a lesson which incorporates “how science works”, try getting your class to investigate the evidence for this rise or to look at the link between obesity and diabetes. Starting points for the search could be:
http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Guide-to-diabetes/Introduction-to-diabetes/Causes_and_Risk_Factors/
http://www.diabetes.org/food-nutrition-lifestyle/lifestyle-prevention/risk-test.jsp
For an interesting practical activity divide your class into patients and doctors, provide the group with “urine” samples (also known as cold tea!), and ask them to work out who is suffering from diabetes. Make sure you remember to add glucose to one of the urine samples first!
You can extend this activity to cover kidney disease too if you add protein to one of your samples.
It seems that modern teachers are pulled apart by on the one-hand pressure to deliver exciting, action-packed lessons to engage an attention-deficit generation, and on the other to plan and prove that is what they are doing.
A well argued point by Phil Beadle from Oasis Academy, Coulsdon, UK in his blog for the Guardian highlights this:
In general, kids mess about when they are bored. Gilbert is merely drawing teachers’ attention to the simplest answer to the difficult class: don’t bore ‘em …
But planning exciting lessons is a time-consuming activity. Vast swathes of a teacher’s time in an over-regulated education system is spent proving they are doing the job, rather than actually doing it. If [Ofsted] wants more exciting lessons, perhaps the focus should be less on top-down diktats, and more on reducing teacher workload, so that we have the time to engage, to excite and, yes, even to entertain.
The only practical solution to seems to be: get sharing those interactive lessons, along with the lesson plans, so other teachers can keep the class on track WITHOUT sacrificing their weekends in lesson preparation. Entertain, yes. Produce all the entertainment yourself – no.
By guest blogger, Allyson Taylor
I am Scottish, I have been for the last 33 years, and although I live in England now my accent will always give away my Scottish heritage. I have enjoyed the traditions of Halloween over the years and have never questioned who, what or why they are the way they are. I can hear you all now thinking, ‘why would you not wonder where the traditions came from?’ I guess I never saw them as sinister or unacceptable, just good harmless fun, so never really questioned it. But then I started to look up what it meant to write this article and was surprised that I had never been taught this before, especially as it was my Celtic ancestors that introduced these traditions to the UK.
The saints and sinners amongst you will know that Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve as it used to be known, is the night before All Saints’ Day. It stems from the ancient celebrations of the Celtic New Year and marks the beginning of winter. In Gaelic this was known as Samhain (pronounced ‘sow’inn). For the Pagans amongst you this, we are lead to believe, marks the start (or turn) of the year. 31 October being the last day of summer. After Harvest is taken in the fires are extinguished and re-lit. Well, here’s the thing. For decades I have never heard about the ancient beginnings of this time of year. Sure, the obligatory ghouls and ghosts were drawn at school, and scary stories told to each other in the playground, but it was never really clear where these traditions came from. The trick-or-treaters or ‘guisers’ as they were known in my part of the country arrived at the door dressed as fairies, spirits and in latter years Harry Potter! They told hideously bad jokes and sang out of tune and offered their flashing goodie baskets for me to fill with sweet treats. But I doubt they know that they are indulging in Pagan rituals, and I wonder if the parents actually know any of this too? Thinking back; nor was there any mention that the first bonfire nights were to celebrate Samhain. And that it had been the druids that had built huge bonfires that had a sacred significance to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic Gods. Obviously as time marched on the sacred bonfires were replaced with uses that were more sinister – poor Guy Fawkes!
So there it is. A potted history of the festival of Samhain, Or should I say Halloween. Happy guising!