Yesterday was my ninth visit to the annual BETT Show and I do think that I'm becoming quite efficient now in navigating the stands and picking out the new products that are: manageable and cost-effective to implement in the classroom as well as having a positive impact on the curriculum and children's education. So, in no particular order, here are some of the highlights I found: the Blue-Bot and Bee-Bot now have an audio playback feature that speaks the movements that are happening (saving adults like me getting a dry throat and making it better to use independently by children)... Continue reading

I always like making an Excel random-question generator and today I was challenged to make one for Year 6 balancing calculations. If anybody wants to use it with their children, you can download it by clicking here. Continue reading

Last week I was challenged to design an easier-to-produce method for my deputy head to produce the weekly staff bulletin, to replace the paper version (created in Word) which we've used for many years now. After asking on Twitter and doing a bit of investigating myself, I eventually opted to suggest Google Sites as a suitable alternative since it's: free, easy to design and allows for seamless embedding of Google Calendars (which we use to share: public events, staff development dates, assembly themes and much more) and linking of Google Forms (which we use for collecting feedback from lots of... Continue reading

I was recently asked to deliver a staff meeting a nearby school sharing my methods and plans for teaching primary Computing. Here's a copy of the presentation I created for it in case you find it useful in any way: Download Computing Staff Meeting Continue reading

I visited a local school to help them set up a school Twitter account this morning and thought that people might find these tips I shared with them useful, based on the system I've set up and promoted at my school, Parkfield Primary: Only have one Twitter account for the whole school. Some people like their own class teacher or department accounts but this just becomes a jumble from examples I've seen, and the 'main' account just ends up with somebody having to retweet lots of things from different accounts before/so it can appear in the main feed that's embedded... Continue reading

Whilst lying in bed the other night, I came up with a fun idea for improving children's geographical knowledge of where different places are using the classic game of 'corners'. Whenever you have a few minutes to spare - such as at the end of the day - get your children up and moving and competing against each other to see who can correctly identify different places on a map from multiple choice options, as shown in these slides which play in a random order each time. Let me know if you use them in your classroom and what your... Continue reading

Having been to BETT several times now and in this age of constrained school budgets, I went to this year’s show with the aim of hunting for products which were both value for money and which would actually have a real impact on children’s learning over a number of lessons - i.e. which aren’t expensive one-off gimmicks. With that being said, here is my list of stands that I visited which I spotted had interesting and potentially useful offerings: There seemed to be many stands selling mini programmable toys and games this year which all looked quite fun, such as:... Continue reading

Download Reception Curriculum Overview Download Year 1 Curriculum Overview Download Year 2 Curriculum Overview Download Year 3 Curriculum Overview Download Year 4 Curriculum Overview Download Year 5 Curriculum Overview Download Year 6 Curriculum Overview Continue reading

Over the years at my school, I've attempted to develop and improve photography so it becomes a seamlessly integrated aspect of daily life. Some of the strategies I use are pretty obvious to me but I figured that they might not be to others, so here are sixteen of my top tips: 1. Apply for a school Animoto account - they're free for educators and allow you to quickly and easily create slideshow montages of events such as trips out. https://animoto.com/education/classroom 2. If you're using tablets to take your photos, place a little sticker next to the lens so you... Continue reading

I've always been a huge fan of Lego - indeed I probably have nearly £2,000 worth of models on display in my collection at home (which is still growing). Over the years, I've read about, been trained in and taught a variety of brick-themed projects in school, most notably: Lego Therapy for improving social skills; Lego 10-bricks for developing maths skills; programming Lego WeDo sets for improving programming skills. What I feel that's been lacking though is actually giving children the opportunities for using Lego to build and play with in less structured, more imaginative experiences. A few days ago,... Continue reading

As the final few weeks of the autumn term now arrive, I thought I'd collate all of my festive primary computing lessons into one place for you to either deliver to your children or give you inspiration to do something similar: Years 1 and 2 use the amazing Drawing Pad app to paint Christmas themed pictures (resources here). Year 3 use Discovery Coding to program animated Christmas joke scenes (resources here). Year 4 use Google Forms to create multiple choice Christmas-themed quizzes to share with their friends (resources here). Year 5 use the shapes/drawing tools in Keynote to make Christmas... Continue reading

I find covering algorithms the trickiest part of primary Computing because they are hard to find technology-themed resources for which actually teach children about them and which improves their learning - I refuse to teach them using cooking analogies because I think this is more focused on writing instructions which should be done in English, yet beyond simply writing down arrows for a Bee-Bot to move, I've found little else online that is actually helpful. For these reasons, I've spent a while trying to carefully come up with a sequence of algorithm lessons which show clear progression between year groups,... Continue reading

I recently discovered/realised that YouTube didn't exist when I started working in school - I'm sure it was blocked by our web filter for its first couple of years too. How things have changed over the past decade though - the site is now the place to go to for watching video clips online. Movie trailers, music videos, TV clips, unboxing and reviews are all hugely popular and every brand and organisation near enough has a YouTube presence to engage with its current and potential future audience/customers. In the primary school where I work, YouTube can only be used by... Continue reading

I've recently recorded some videos for my school's website aimed at parents, explaining how our children use bar modelling to solve maths calculations - see here. To make the videos flow easily, convey the correct mathematical steps/terminology, be about three minutes long each and look professional, I used a few tricks that I thought I'd share in case others wanted to do similar at their school. First, I collated the questions that I wanted to record on the videos. This included sequencing them in order of difficulty and having a go myself at slowly working out the answers to check... Continue reading

With bar modelling becoming an increasingly popular way of solving maths word problems, I set myself the challenge a few months back to create an Excel spreadsheet that would randomly generate different types of bar modelling questions along with suggested bar model designs, their answers and a printable worksheet. I would greatly appreciate any feedback - please try it out with your children and let me know of any bugs they might find so I can fix them. You may also be interested in these bar modelling explanation videos that I recorded with children at my school too. Download Bar... Continue reading

One of my targets this academic year has been to set up a pupil group I've christened the 'Technology Team' at my school - several Year 6 children with whom I could do a variety of computing-themed enrichment activities. They are not 'Digital Leaders' - as I teach every class Computing myself and am quite confident that my lessons cover a curriculum that is comprehensive enough, I felt that they were not needed in my school. Instead, I would focus on doing extra tasks with the Technology Team which are slightly more creative than I'd do in a normal lesson... Continue reading

This is tenth year now that I've been making a slideshow for our leaving Year 6 class using either PhotoStory or now Movie Maker - http://www.parkfieldprimary.com/parkfield/leavers-videos.html. I've always used Believe as the soundtrack, but this year I'm using a different piece of music. I canvased opinion on Twitter and came up with this shortlist from which I got the Year 6 pupils to vote for their 'favourite'. I'll share their choice when I publish the video in July, but in the meantime, here are all the suggestions I had to help inspire you create one for your school: On My... Continue reading

I've spent many, many hours this weekend working in Excel to create a random maths question generator. You just choose which questions and their levels to include in your activity and it automatically produces you a slide of random questions and their answers - perfect to use as an activity to start the day off or to use as a warm up activity in a maths lesson. Please download it, use it with your class and send me a comment about what you think of it! Download Random Maths Question Generator Continue reading

2DIY game design Typing skills Emoji Typing lists Showbie introduction Internet research skills Word processed documents Painting skills Control programming activities E-book creation Technology uses iPad components E-safety rules mind map QR codes Discovery Coding E-safety fridge magnet Online media players Image searching Image editing Composing music Continue reading

Here is my list of all the companies and products that caught my attention when I visited this year's BETT Show on the newly-named 'Purple Saturday': Virtual Reality appeared to be this year's buzz-concept with Google, Discovery Education and Class VR all offering solutions to help integrate them into purposeful classroom contexts, although personally I am yet to be convinced how the cost and amount of equipment needed (remembering that 1-1 devices is a requirement) can not be significant barriers when Google Streeview offers a similar service with much less hassle for free considering the frequency with which most teachers... Continue reading

Download Reception Curriculum Overview Download Year 1 Curriculum Overview Download Year 2 Curriculum Overview Download Year 3 Curriculum Overview Download Year 4 Curriculum Overview Download Year 5 Curriculum Overview Download Year 6 Curriculum Overview Continue reading

Bake! http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/topics/food http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/junior-bake-off http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/i-can-cook Make! Photos of Easter eggs and bonnets last year Take! ('Extreme Reading') Photos need to be sent in by 7pm 1st March to be included in the slideshow on World Book Day. Examples of Extreme Reading: 1 2 Reception parents can send photos using Tapestry. Children can add them onto Showbie. You can also email them to shaughton@parkfield.rochdale.sch.uk Review! http://books.parkfieldprimary.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/watch/bp-book-awards-2017 How to write a review Discover! Ideas for days out - https://twitter.com/gbdaysout https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/50-things-to-do Investigate! http://www.science-sparks.com/ Download Science Investigation Planning Sheet Click here to download printable templates to make these 3D factoid books which you could... Continue reading

Click here to view all the photos. The whole school took part in an impressive day celebrating poetry today. This involved: Children reading extracts from their favourite poems in the morning assembly. Teachers and teaching assistants visiting different classes to share some of their favourite poems with them. Each class contributing to an afternoon showcase assembly (which you can watch a video of by clicking here): Reception showed a video of them performing a poem called Walking Through the Jungle (watch it here). Year 1 shared some work they had done using alliteration and an acrostic poem about The Gruffalo... Continue reading

Click here to view all the photos. Download Slideshow Continue reading

Click here to view all the photos of learning logs. Download Slideshow Continue reading