A recent DFCS press release;

NEW FIGURES SHOW RECORD NUMBERS OF SCHOOL STAFF

29 April 2008

- 20,100 more teachers and support staff than 12 months ago -
- Year-on-year rises in teachers per pupil in primary and secondary schools -
- Average class sizes fall -

Schools Minister Jim Knight has welcomed new figures showing the overall school workforce still growing at its highest ever level and pupil-teacher ratio continuing to improve.

Provisional statistics published today showed that the overall school workforce has grown by 20,100 over the last 12 months to 767,600 – the biggest year-on-year growth since 2005, giving schools the highest number of teachers for a generation.

Interesting use of language to describe staff in this.

"school WORKFORCE still growing"

changes into

"highest numbers of TEACHERS for a generation"

Sorry to rain on their parade, but a workforce consists of more than just teachers, and the truth is that schools do not have more teachers, they have more support staff, more office staff, more after school club staff, more breakfast club staff. That's the workforce, and that's the increase.

Just like in the previous article here - government spin again?

Spin, Spin Spin

Think back a week to before the NUT strike day. Jim Knight, Schools minister, is quoted as saying;

"I think parents are bewildered because they hear that the average teacher earns about £34,000"

Quite an interesting statement, as the maximum salary for a teacher on UPS3 is currently £34,281.00. We teachers teach averages, and we know that if there are newly qualifieds earning much less than £34k, then some teachers must be doing the impossible and earning much, much more. Surely the average should be lower - somewhere between £20k and £34k. £27k maybe?

Well, it's both a yes and no. Yes, the average salary will be £34,000 when you factor into the calculations the salary of headteachers and deputies, but No it would not be if you only count teachers pay (and remember his quote said "average teacher").

Government spin to make it sound like teachers are better off than they are? You decide!

I never knew I didn't know that!

Ever thought about how long it's going to take until the entire world has a mobile phone? No? Me neither! However, this website shows you!

Hurrah for new technology!

Well, my computer has died; the motherboard has given up the ghost. This has, obviously, left me with a few headaches (but not has many as it would have several years ago). Thanks to the rise of Web2.0 I have been able to;

• Set up IMAP mail folders on another temporary machine quickly, so that I can still access email (and in the process it means that I can quickly set up again on a new machine when I get it without losing any messages received in the meantime)
• Continue accessing the school website, moderate comments and create pages as everything is held remotely by our hosts.
• Continue to access the subscriber lists, newsletter facility, and database for another website I run as this too is held remotely at the website host

Unfortunately I am unable to;

• Use dreamweaver (for building webpages / site), flash and other design software that ran on the old machine
• Access old emails / files and folders on the old machine

However, the good news is that the old hard drive is still working, so can be fitted into a caddy and the files transferred across to a new machine once I get it. Then I will be able to reinstall all the software, and (hopefully) carry on as normal.

Homer bad, Baywatch good

I see that in Venezuela 'The Simpsons' has been taken off their TV screens because it has been deemed "inappropriate".

Nothing that funny about that I hear you say. Well no, there isn't. It's what's been put on in its place that makes me laugh.

- Baywatch!

So, no more cartoon yellow guy, just a bunch of swimsuit clad females running in slow motion along beaches instead.

And yes I can see how that would be much more suitable now.

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How sad...

"Less than half of fathers regularly read bedtime stories to their children, research has suggested.

This is the first paragraph of an article on the BBC website entitled "Dads 'don't read bedtime stories'". I made sure that my daughter had a story every night when she was young. Now, she never stops reading and is busy writing her own.

At school I try and read to the class every day. It's essential, so at the moment we're reading Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo, and also Smasher by Dick King Smith.

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Wii love iPlayer

Since well before the public launch when I was lucky enough to be able to test the iPlayer  in advance, I have loved the idea of it. Missed a great piece of TV, go to the computer and either download it or stream it for up to 7 days after broadcast. Keep it for a maximum of 30 days, but once viewed it then deletes itself after 7 days. Simple, effective, useful.

The only drawback to it has been the need to either sit on a hard chair in front of a PC watching, or sat on a settee staring at a small laptop screen. Not anymore! I'm pleased to see the BBC and Nintendo have reached a deal to put the iPlayer on the Wii as a channel.

So now I'll be able to sit on a comfy sofa and catch up on a big screen. As the fast show used to say "Brilliant!"

Oh related to that - ISPs are asking the BBC to fund network improvements because the iPlayers popularity is stretching resources. Are the ISPs also going to ask 4od, Joost, Sky anytime and the host of other streaming / catchup services out there too? Or is it just sour grapes that the beeb has hit on a winning idea?

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Podcasting in school

The school website has had an experimental podcast on since July 2007. Two Y6 girls had been recording all the weeks news on my voice recorder, for me to then drop into an audacity template and save as an mp3. The file was hosted on the school website, but we had so much trouble getting iTunes to recognise the RSS feed for it.

Well, with the theft of my laptop, iPod and voice recorder everything ground to a halt just before Christmas, but we're off again now.

The school has now bought around two dozen voice recorders, and each class has nominated two "podporters" (class reporters) who will interview children and report the news from their class. The first episode is almost ready and goes out this Friday, so I 've been trying to find a suitable host on the web for the new podcasts. In the end I opted for Jellycast for two reasons;

• 1. they host the Ricky Gervais podcasts, so they are not likely to disappear suddenly with the audience he attracks
• 2. there are some other educational podcasts hosted by them, so they must be suitable for schools

You can see what podcasts we currently have available listed in their directory, and it should be growing soon. All our previous podcasts can be found on this page of the school website.

Year 9. Option time.

Four words that put the fear of God into secondary pupils.

Tonight I was at my daughters secondary school to listen to the Head and Deputy emphasise how important the choices that the students have to make are. I sat through 35 minutes of them both standing in front of a Powerpoint slide show and reading out what was written on the screen. Arghhhh Death by powerpoint. I'd only talked about this the other day, and here was another example of it. They could have printed it out and given me the sheet to read in my own time, rather than make me sit and listen to them.

Anyway, with the Powerpoint torture over, it was time to go and discuss the actual content of the lessons that she might opt for. ICT was first. What would the course contain? Well, nothing had been finalised (new course content - still writing it!) but it seems that in Years 10 and 11 they'll be learning to use excel to make spreadsheets, publisher to make posters / adverts etc, and (wait for it) using video to make multimedia content. I don't want to sound smug but my juniors are doing this now. And as for the exam paper - the example I read had some classic questions "what does multimedia mean", "what is a flash stick used for".
History seemed better than I remember it when I was at school, and her languages options (French and German) were OK too. So it seems sorted. All four options chosen. Hopefully.

Hidden Gems

I found a link tucked away at the bottom of the BBC's main news page with the words;

"Most Popular Now  Traffic to this site is currently 7% above normal"

Clicking it opens a great piece of technology. Just watch the page for a few minutes and you'll see the most popular news stories start to swap places on the top10 board. Not only that but you can see which part of the world is accessing the site, and what the traffic load is.

Plus you can click the map and see the most popular stories and traffic load for continents around the world .

Powerpoint - not just for text!

I hear people telling me that they cannot stand Powerpoint. They've been on a course and the leader has stood in front of a screen whilst text whizzes in, then read out exactly what's showing on the wall. "Death by Powerpoint" it's often referred to.
Powerpoint can do so much more, and I love using it to create animations for school plays.
At Christmas the lower school were presenting Roald Dahl's "Jack and the Beanstalk". I built the backdrop - using PP - and had growing beanstalks, falling bones, flying birds and all sorts of other delights in it. It was received very well. Parents thought it was wonderful, the kids loved it, and some people even thought we had had it made professionally (very flattering). Upper school asked for something similar for their carol concert and so had "snow" falling.
Now it seems I've given myself a great big ball and chain. Upper school have a summer concert based around Pirates and I've been asked to create the backdrop, so I'm currently working on making the illusion of a pirate ship travelling across the waves. It's a bit rough at the moment - the images need tidying up, but it looks like this so far; Download a_pirates_life_for_me.pps

B.A. lose Olympic torch?

So the Olympic torch is on its way to London as it makes it way to China ready for the games. However, there seems to be a bit of a problem with the clash of politics and sport. I read with interest that the French President is considering boycotting the games opening ceremony, and that many of the torch bearers are wondering whether they should carry the torch or not.

Well, there's no need to worry because this problem is going to go away itself. How do I know this? Simple really, the torch is making it's away across London towards the O2 arena. At the end of this journey, just send it to Heathrow and into the new joke that is Terminal 5. It will never be seen again. It will disappear into the bowels of the luggage sorting area and just vanish like everything else has before it.

Problem solved!

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It's above you

With the recent news about Jules Verne arriving safely at the ISS, I thought I'd try and find out something about the Space Station zooming around above my head. Well, this site, although not telling me much about the ISS, does show live tracking images of whereabouts it is above the Earth using google maps. It's strangely addictive and I find myself visiting to ask "Is it over me yet?"
If you want information about the International Space Station, try the Nasa ISS site

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Has Christmas come early?

"Hundreds of Ofsted inspectors are to be balloted for strike action after the break down of talks over pay.

Unison and the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said school inspections across England could be hit if the action goes ahead."

Sshhh - listen. Can you hear that. It's the sound of thousands of teachers and heads across the length and breadth of the country wishing for the perfect gift.

Go for it guys - hold out for your demands. Don't give in for anything less ;-)

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It's days like these...

...that make you realise why you became a teacher.

We were doing science - a topic of keeping warm - and I had set up an investigation to see how effective hands are at working out how warm water is;

There was a bowl of iced water for the left hand, a bowl of hot water for the right hand, and a bowl of tepid water in the middle of both.
Each child came out, put their hands into the cold/hot bowls and then plunged both into the tepid bowl. The looks on their faces was a picture - confusion / disbelief and complete shock at feeling the water being both hot and cold at the same time!
And once they had all tried out the investigation, they were superb at discussing what was happening. In the end, they did work it out, and decided that a thermometer would be much better to measure the warmth of the water.

Let's hope that tomorrow they are just as enthused.

We're back!

The school website problem has now been sorted out. Following a phone call from the new broadband consortium hosts at lunchtime, our educational address now maps to the website hosts perfectly once again. So, no excuses from staff now - they can get posting again...

...Unless of course, the entire network for the (we thought) local area goes down again. Turns out it wasn't local, or even county wide. It was only a problem that affected all schools in Derbyshire, Leicester City, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham City, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland. Nothing major there then!! As they said on their website (which no one could access to read!!);

"Due to problems with URL filtering applying incorrect policies, it was decided in the best interest of internet safety to embc schools, that the URL filtering be taken out of service.  Apologies for the inconvenience this caused as internet access was withdrawn."

Major red face!

I can't believe that I forgot to put an RSS link onto this site! I used to have a little image - but I made a bit of a typo on it, so withdrew it a while back. I had another ready, but never added it at the time.

So, [big drum roll] ladies and gentlemen please note the tiny(!!) RSS logo on the right. Simply click on it and you'll hopefully get the feed. If you can't, try putting this into your favourite feed reader;

http://www.digital-teacher.co.uk/rss.xml

Everyone Out!

I mentioned the threat of strike action from the NUT in this post a while back, well Members of the NUT in England and Wales have voted for a one-day pay strike on 24 April.

Its ballot ran three to one in favour of what would be its first national stoppage for more than 20 years. Voting was 48,217 (75%) in favour and 15,884 (25%) against on a 32% turnout.

Fooled you?

Have you seen the one about the penguins that can fly? Saw it on the news this morning and had to do a double take. It looked so real until they were soaring through the air.

Mind you, on the day when you take everything with a pinch of salt, this webpage lists ten new stories that you would have sworn were hoaxes, but worryingly they're true!