BBC Off By Heart competition

Straight from the BBC website;

"The BBC wants primary school pupils to engage with learning and reciting poetry. Every primary school in the UK can enter a child aged 7 - 11 to compete for the title of UK Poetry Recital Champion, and the chance to represent their school and region in what will be a fantastic BBC competition, shown on BBC TV in spring 2009.

You can select a child who has won a past competition or you could find a fresh school champion by holding a poetry recital competition as a class, in an after-school club, or even as a whole school. Exciting new resources, including an inspirational collection of poems to choose from and tips on how to include poetry in your lessons, are available - just click on the Teachers Notes link on the right.

There is also a selection of video recitals featuring famous faces from TV, poetry experts and actors reciting poems from the shortlist. Take a look and get inspired.

All you need to do is encourage each child to select one of the poems to learn by heart and recite it in front of their peers - as part of a school assembly or a lesson - whatever works for you.

Then, complete the registration form with your details indicating that you'd like a child from your school to take part NO LATER THAN 19TH DECEMBER 2008.

The child you've chosen will go on to attend a BBC poetry workshop in Jan/Feb 09. They'll take place in lots of locations around the country and there may be one near your school.

These exciting poetry workshops will also include a solo poetry recitation in front of a panel of judges to find our 12 UK finalists. The 12 pupils representing each region will then be invited to the grand finale, filmed for BBC TV, to compete for the title of UK Poetry Recital Champion.

If you have any queries please contact us at offbyheart@bbc.co.uk"

Quietly announced

With everything else going on in the world at the moment, this news item seems to have slipped through quietly;

The Sats tests could end next year, Schools Secretary Ed Balls has hinted.
They may be replaced by assessments tailored to the ability of each child, he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.
The national tests are taken by about one million children aged seven, 11 and 14 across England each May, but this year's marking was a "fiasco", he said.
A five-year contract with ETS Europe was scrapped after it failed to get papers marked in time, and the next contract will be for one year only.
"The current system is not set in stone," said Mr Balls.
"We are looking currently at a way in which we could assess progress child by child with individual level tests where the tests would be chosen in a way which was right for the child, rather than everybody doing the same test on the same day.
"For 2009, we are going to do the same kind of tests as in previous years before the problems with ETS, but for the long term I am really keen to get this right, to listen."
The new exams would still be marked externally, Mr Balls added, at least for children leaving primary school.

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ETS no more

Was there really any other outcome to the complete mess that this years SATs marking has been? Quote from Ed Balls;

"Let's...get things sorted for next year so we do not see a repeat of the shambles that we have seen from ETS in recent weeks."

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Your views on Dyslexia

A website for teachers, parents, young people and others with an interest in dyslexia is being launched today by Sir Jim Rose as part of his review into how children with dyslexia learn best.

Sir Jim is asking for personal accounts and experiences as well as details of published research to help inform his development of recommendations to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. The website will also contain regular updates and information about the review.

You can email your thoughts to dyslexia.jimrose@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk

Fines for the SATs fiasco

ETS - the company handed a 5 year contract to mark SATs papers, is to face fines of up to "tens of millions" according to the exams watchdog.
Apparently this Tuesday will see the KS2 results completed - over a week later than they should have been.

Good News

I had some good news at the weekend. One of my wifes work colleagues has a daughter who goes to a school that I briefly taught at (and that almost drove me out of teaching forever). It seems that the physco-head-from-hell (my pet name for the boss there) has retired.

Maybe now the children will be able to enjoy their childhood, and maybe the staff can actually teach without the fear of receiving the green folder "summoning sheet" to face the head.

Sandwiches or Salads?

Apparently, more children in primary schools are eating school dinners following Jamie Olivers healthy meals campaign.
Mmmm, not so sure about this. If I look around the dining room of the school there seem to be a lot more sandwich boxes in there than there used to be.

Must be my eyes playing tricks on me then I guess.

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• Young pupils tuck in to school dinners

The fiasco continues

Hot on the heels of being told that the KS2 and KS3 SATs results will not be delivered on time (as had been predicted by the markers themselves weeks ago), we're now being told to expect many mistakes in the test results that will eventually reach us.
So the tests that government places so much value on - the ones that they use to assess the ability of both school and child - are so inaccurate this year that we will have to look through each one in great detail to find the mistakes that have been made. And yet still these results will help Ofsted decide if we are good, satisfactory or failing.

Mmmm, makes you think - what rating should we give ETS, the new assessment company. Failing? Or should they just be put straight into special measures.

Btw - this "markers blog" article makes interesting reading.

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Suprised?

I read tonight that this years SATs results are going to be sent to schools late because of "administration chaos". Now I've heard of administrative delays before - but just what does administrative chaos exactly mean?
Well, apparently it means that (as of yesterday) 10% of the KS2 tests have still not been marked, and in KS3 it's even worse with more tests not yet marked.

Suprisingly, these problems are from a company that the DCSF outsourced - and no doubt it was a cut price, low figure bid that they quoted for. Well, you gets what you pays for.

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!

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."

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.

When do we install the watchtowers and minefields?

"Schools should consider "lock-ins" at lunchtime to stop pupils from buying junk food, the School Food Trust said today, but school leaders called the proposals unworkable."

So starts an article in the guardian newspaper.

I know that the Government is very keen to make sure that children eat healthier, but come on; locking the secondary school gates at lunchtime to prevent the children heading to the local chipshop. Surely that's over the top. Does no one remember what happened at one school when new healthier menus were introduced in canteens?

What will happen if a child does 'escape' at lunchtime? Will they have to pass a special breath test when they return? ('I'm sorry, you're over the chip limit. It's detention for you sonny').

It won't be long before the watchtowers will be installed, ditches dug, dogs patrolling and the no-mans land minefield installed to keep those nasty vicious junk foods away from children. Oh, what a glorious future we're heading towards.

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The Byron Review

Remember watching a programme on the TV a while ago called "Little Angels" in which unruly children were 'trained' to behave correctly thanks to clinical psychologist Dr Tanya Byron?

Well, she has been busy recently looking into the impact of new technology on children. Her report; "The Byron Review" sets out an ambitious action plan for Government, industry and families to work together to support children's safety online and to reduce access to adult video games.

You can download the full report from the Byron Review website.

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An extra super large class?

Well, following the usual Easter conferences for teachers, it seems like for the first time in many years there is a serious threat of strike action taking place within the classrooms.

Now, I'm not one for walking out of the door and closing the school because it only means the children lose out. I'd much rather down tools when it comes to reporting data back to the DCFS and let them go without some of the [unneccessary] data they love to receive.

However, most staff in school are from the union calling for strikes. I am not. My union allows me to take a moral choice. I have a worry that I'm going to end up with a class of around 120 pupils if strike days do return.

Not a thought that fills me with glee :-(

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What makes a good teacher?

At the invitation of the Cambridge Assessment agency, a group of experts gathered at Westminster to pool their research knowledge and grapple towards a definition of a "good teacher".

Professor Patricia Broadfoot, a former Professor of Education and now vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, argued persuasively that the evidence from international studies showed that "the highest quality teaching and learning comes when we have the greatest autonomy for the teacher and the learner".

The good teacher, she went on, was someone who was "left to get on with what they think their students need".

This certainly sounded like a rejection of the prescriptive approach of the national curriculum and the numeracy and literacy strategies. Professor Broadfoot went on to propose a much more child-centred approach.

While insisting she was not advocating a "soft and fluffy" style of teaching, she argued that research showed that a good teacher had to engage with "the powerfully charged emotional relationship between teacher and pupil".

So, for Professor Broadfoot, the key ingredients of good teaching included: creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and fairness in the classroom, providing opportunities for "active learning" and humour to encourage pupil engagement, making learning interesting, and explaining things clearly.

More on this here

What's going on?

"Teachers in England and Wales will get pay rises above the 2% inflation target set by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The three-year pay deal will mean increases of 2.45% in September 2008 and 2.3% in each of the following two years, says Schools Secretary Ed Balls."

So is it an above expected rise, or a paycut?

It looks good when compared to other public workers (take the nurses at 1.9%, and the police at 1.9% effective too), but when you look at the retail price index of 4.3%  the rise still leaves us 2% below that - in effect cutting salaries. Of course, the government doesn't work on the RPI, but uses the consumer price index (this excludes mortages / rents) and claims that, with the CPI being 2.1%, it's  a pay rise we're getting.

You decide who you want to believe.

Back from BETT

Well it was a useful Saturday at Bett and I've come away with the following;
* Smart's airliner looks like a nifty piece of kit. No more blocking the board whilst writing on it.
* RM have a great looking micro laptop.
* Sherston's online  channels have potential to be awesome
* In the battle of the visualisers, Elmo were apalling at their sales talk, Geneevision wiped the floor with them (and secured an order).
* 2Simple have basic control software that even a chimp could operate. Just a shame that the lego part of it is so expensive.

Other things noticed were that Saturday is a better day to visit if you want to talk to reps at stands. There is room to move without being caught in Stampedes.

Report to me NOW!

So I see that Jin Knight, schools minister, has announced that by 2012 all schools must provide "real time reporting" on every child. Now, I have nothing against technology - in fact I love the stuff - or against reporting as it can provide a valuable insight of a childs progress, but to turn the annual report to parents, and the face to face parents evenings, into a cold digit on a computer screen is wrong.

It's fine to use the "real time" technology to access a bank account online at anytime, but children are not bank accounts. They have good weeks and bad weeks, and their results can vary because of this. Speaking to a parent about a dip in progress can reveal unkown factors distracting the child. Explaining why a child has not progressed as well as expected in a subject can reassure a parent and avoid confrontations.

Take that away, and a black digit on a screen, given out of context with no explanation can do so much more harm.

Sometimes technology is not the right thing to use. This is one of those times.

Google: UK Schools

Google, the internet search company, is entering the UK schools market - launching a website with resources and news for teachers. The free online materials show how to adapt Google Maps and Google Earth for classroom use. Google says it will support lessons in history, geography and citizenship.

League Tables

I hate these. I have never liked the idea of them, as they are so dependent on the year groups that come through each year, however I have to say that after looking on the BBC website at the results for my present school, and then comparing it with a previous school in the same authority I taught at for a short while I was pleased to see that we've done OK. I was also pleased to see that many schools in the previou deprived authority I worked in have done well - especially when their value added figures are looked at.

But it doesn't mean that I agree with them still!

Congratulations

Becta has listed the winners in this years ICT excellence awards. Well done to all succesful schools, and other places of learning.

Perks of the job

A while ago I posted that I was looking forward to receiving a shiny new w-i-d-e-s-c-r-e-e-n laptop at school. Well it has arrived. I've seen it. Briefly!

It's now been packed away until the technician is able to set the thing up to access the school network and install all the profiles onto it.

In addition to that, before I left tonight the caretaker was drilling new holes into my walls to support the new speakers that have arrived, along with a monster sub-woofer and flashy remote. I think that we might have to listen to a few Big Toe Radio Show short stories to "launch" the new speakers.

Getting noticed

My HT tells me that one of the keynote speakers at BETT in January is asking to use the school website as an example. Sounds intriguing (as an example of what I'd like to find out more though).

Too young to read

"Children are learing to read to soon"

Discuss.  A US academic has. Interesting thoughts from Professor Lilian Katz.

Reports, Stats and Lies

Don't you just love how statistics are used to say anything that you want them to?
Take the figures recently released from Ofsted about schools that have gone into special measures for whatever reason;

"The statistics show that the number of schools in special measures increased from 208 (on 31 August 2006) to 243 (on 31 December 2006). 82 schools were placed in special measures in the autumn term 2006, and 45 were removed"

Now imagine that these schools in special measures are secondary schools. Imagine as well that in those schools there are around 70 teachers. 243 x 70= 17010. Now round that figure to the nearest thousand and HEY PRESTO what do you get - that magical figure that Sir Cyril Tailor is banding about as the number of poor teachers who should be sacked.

So, let me see if I understand this correctly. If a school is failing, then by default all the teachers within it are poor teachers? I think not, Sir Squirrel. Those teachers are working their socks off to do the best that they can, in often awful conditions, with kids who quite often don't want to be at school and will do everything possible not to learn.

Yet again, someone who has not set foot into a classroom is throwing around pie in the sky ideas about how to improve education. Well, either put yourself in the classroom Sir Tufty and see what it's like, or shut up.

What teachers need is simple;

• A curriculum that does not constantly move the goalposts
• Decent pay for the hard work we do
• Respect and admiration (if NHS staff, railway staff and everyone is entitled to work in a safe environment where abuse is not tolerated, why should teachers have to put up with abusive children and parents)

Common sense wins over

It was nice to see reported in the news tonight that the government has scrapped its plans to clawback the surplus monies that schools had carefully budgeted and saved in order to invest in building improvements / ambitious projects.
The whole idea of it - to penalise careful and prudent budget management by taking back the saved money and therefore forcing schools into defecit when the unforseen problem arouse - was bizzare.

Let's hope that it doesn't reappear in the future in a typical governmental stealth move.

The Primary Review

Primary school children and their parents are suffering from "deep anxiety" about modern life, according to a study of education in England.

The Cambridge-based Primary Review's first interim report says concern about Sats tests is causing stress and distorting the curriculum.

More about the contents of the review here.

Hang on a minute

Have teachers, Teaching assistants and all others who work in schools just been praised by no less than the Prime Minister? He was speaking today (Saturday 29th) and is quoted as saying;

"I think we've moved our schools from being below average to being above average. We've now got to make them world class."

I think that is indeed a message of praise for the hard work and effort that school staff have been putting in. I'm going to lie down now - I feel faint.

Access Denied

How reliant is a school on technology? Quite a lot judging by today. At just after 1pm, the school lost connectivity to the Internet. The result of this became apparent quickly;

1. No access to the internet in classes for lessons
2. Users trying to log onto the Active Directory could not log on
3. Users logged onto the AD could not access files / folders / programs
4. The school office was unable to access email / internet / centrally held files

In other words - everything ground to a halt. And we had no control over the solution. It was something that had to be dealt with remotely.

Cyberbullying

Schools are being told to stop the rise in cyberbullying by pupils. For children being bullied, gone are the days when they could get home, shut the door and escape. Now it can be 24/7 with text messages, emails, IM, and websites all invading homes to keep the bullying going. DirectGov has a website full of information about cyberbullying, and tips about how to deal with it.

No boys allowed

I'm in the process of setting up an afterschool ICT club at the moment. We've had details of Computer Clubs 4 Girls (CC4G) - free to all state schools. I gave out the details to the upper school classes today, and of the 24 Y6 girls who are eligible 24 of them jumped at the chance!

So - looks like I'm about to start a weekly girls only ICT club

Techno Fitness

For a while now the arcades have had the interactive dance games. Jump on the right squares at the right time to make the proper dance moves. And of course the playstation has had a dance mat add-on to make their games more fun.

Well now it's moved over to the classrooms. Dance Revolution is changing PE in some schools. Take a child who hates PE, put the mat in front of them ,along with the rest of the class, a big screen at the front, and suddenly there's competition to be number one on the display. See a video of it action.

Similarly, the Wii (the best new games console in years) has plans for Wii fitness next year - a mat and sensor that can help you with your fitness levels in another fun way, like their Wii sports has done.

We're getting closer that virtual age when there will never be the need to step out of the house for anything...ever...

SID's a no-show

Oh no - bad news. SID's busy. He can't come to school this term. We'll have to wait until the autumn before zapping the traffic with laser speed readers.
Shame.

A visit by SID?

I've been given the task of planning the geography topic for a local traffic study around school. It's been the usual stuff so far - look at photos of the area, look at the parking, see when it gets busy, do a traffic survey, suggest improvements to the traffic flow, etc

However, I've also contacted the local bus company and the local council to see if they'll send someone in to school for the children to interrogate, sorry question!, over their transport policies.

Well, the council have contacted me and said that they might be able to send SID. SID is a speed indication device. Imagine the children standing with the laser gun, pointing it at the passing cars and shaming the drivers into slowing down. I really hope that SID can visit.

Sats back

I received a phone call today from my previous school. The science SATs had just arrived.
1/3 of them achieved a level 5, and the rest a level 4. Not bad. Must get a card to send to the school to congratulate them all.

Well done Kids :-)

Oh to be Scottish

I see that the SNP has announced it's plans to reduce class sizes yet again in Scottish Schools. What a forward thinking party. Big classes don't work - overcrowded classes definately don't work - so making a class smaller, giving each child more "quality time" with their teacher has to be a good thing.

So, what is the reaction in England? Will the temporary Prime Minister in waiting do the same thing, being Scottish of course? Don't be silly. This is England. Smaller classes would mean spending money on more teachers to make the classes smaller, so instead there will be a review of the Literacy and Numeracy teaching (no doubt the findings will say that we're not teaching the kids hard enough).

Brilliant! Keep the classes big, and then blame the quality of teaching as the reason for the lack of improvement. It's win - win for the government.

Support Staff ARE worth it

The government has begun moves towards drawing up a framework for pay and conditions for the 300,000 teaching assistants and other support staff. The development follows pressure from unions representing non-teaching staff and head teachers.

Head teachers have welcomed the move. John Dunford from the Association of School and College Leaders said: "A national pay structure that recognises the key role of support staff in schools is long overdue.

More on this here

A chip on their shoulder

Nicholas Negroponte.  A name you don't know. But a great man. He's the one who came up with the idea of the cheap laptop that could be used in developing countries to give them access to the digital age. How did he do it? Well, he worked with AMD, News Corp., Google, and Red Hat, (which created a Linux-based operating system for the laptop) and the choice of AMD seems to be where big problems have come from.

AMD is, of course, a chip manufacture. One of two major players in the computer chip world, the other being Intel. I imagine Intel weren't to pleased to find their rival being connected with such a great scheme so...

can you guess which company is now selling a cheap laptop (actually at below production cost) to developing countries. Yes - that's right. Intel is. Rather than work with Mr. Negroponte for the benefit of children across the world they've opted to compete and make a loss on each machine they sell.

Pointless, and as Mr. Negroponte says "they should be ashamed of themselves". Too right.

It's official - teachers are rubbish!

How do I know this? Well, it's all do with an initiative from the government. The Excellent Teacher scheme aims to boost standards in England by getting experienced teachers to coach others. The Department for Education and Skills expected 5,000 teachers to apply - but only 34 have, and just 26 qualified.

So, if only 26 teachers are good enough to become excellent teachers, then the rest of must be pretty rubbish at our jobs.

Build a movie

A free programming tool called Scratch that allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks has been launched.
The digital toolkit, developed in the US at MIT's Media Lab, allows people to blend images, sound and video as it uses a simple graphical interface that allows programs to be assembled like building blocks.

Good luck everyone

Well, today is the start of the Year 6 SATs. Good luck to all involved, and especially to "my Y6's" who, until recently, I was working with.

It's a strange thing changing jobs at Easter, I still feel like I should be working with my former class of Yr5/6, and not my "new" Yr3/4 children.

Technology revolution

I've just been watching a fascinating report on the BBC news channel about how technology is changing things in South Africa.

I was amazed when I learnt about how Intel, ubuntu (open source Linux software), and Open Office are working together to provide a free way to join the techological revolution, whereas the almighty and overseeing Microshaft are only prepared to offer (albeit heavily) subsidised) versions of their products. I know which I would opt for if I had to spend the pennies carefully.

Oh, and the "cantenna" (a wireless antenna in a tin can) is just a brilliantly simple solution to stop a wifi link spreading everywhere.

Madness goes a step further

I thought I had heard wrong when there was a news report on the radio about a new superschool in Peterborough, but no I checked and I did hear right - when it opens there will be no playground for the children that attend. Alan McMurdo, head of Peterborough's £46.4m Thomas Deacon Academy, said "I think what the public want is maximum learning."
I suggest, Mr McMurdo, that you ask the children what they'd like too. After all, it's them who'll provide the exam results that could put you out of a job if the results are low.

Happy Birthday

Happy 1st birthday to First News - the newspaper for children. I've been using this in my class, and each time the latest edition is brought in the kids clamour to be the first to read through it. They love the way that it's written.

My only gripe is the price. £1 for a paper with half the pages of a regular newpaper is a bit steep.

Another new idea

Teachers should give pupils lessons in how to cope with life and be happy, a government adviser has said. Professor Lord Richard Layard, from the London School of Economics, believes the central purpose of schools should be to teach "the secrets of happiness".

I'm sorry for being thick, but I thought the government had made it clear that schools were exam factories, there to educate the leaders of tomorrow. Or did I hear wrong??

Maths or massage

A school in Leicestershire is beginning the day by getting the pupils to give each other "peer massages" during registration periods. The idea seems to be working as the school has reported a drop in bullying. In fact, it's so successful that there are other schools in the LA that are looking to start a similar scheme too. Watch the local BBC news report about this.

Music for All

Announced today by 8 orchestras, is the idea that ALL primary children will at some point during their years in primary school have the opportunity to visit a classical concert for free.
the scheme has the backing of:

• Marin Alsop, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
• Sakari Oramo, music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
• Vladimir Jurowski from the London Philharmonic Orchestra
• Valery Gergiev, the London Symphony Orchestra's principal conductor
• Christoph von Dohnanyi, principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra
• Vasily Petrenko from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
• Daniele Gatti, music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
• Mark Elder, music director of The Halle.

Their campaign, Building on Excellence:  Orchestras for the 21st century,  promises within 10 years they will:

• Aim to perform live for every child, during their time at school, free of charge
• Establish a new high-profile prize for excellence and innovation in classical music
• Make Britain the world centre for orchestral composition
• Ensure that orchestras reflect their local communities
• Double the number of people involved in community music-making
• Support UK trade missions abroad with orchestral "cultural missions".

Possible pay review?

Rumour has it that the current two year pay deal for teachers across England and Wales may be reviewed and recalculated due to the rise in inflation.
The original settlement included a section stating that if the inflation rate was to rise above 3.25% there could be a review. Inflation currently stands at 3.1%, but the headline rate is 4.8% - triggering the review.
If the School Teachers Review Body is given the go-ahead for a review, it will take fresh evidence and cover both school years from 2006-07  to 2007-08.

For the love of books

LoveReading4Kids is a website dedicated to the best in books for , well children of course!
It has been created to be the ultimate children's online independent bookstore using the experience of parents and book lovers, who want children to read great books.
They currently have a special feature on the 70th anniversary of the Carnegie prize, and the 50th anniversary of the Greenaway prize.

In addition, they have two sister sites; lovereading (for grown ups) and lovereading4schools. The latter  encourages schools to sign up, and then for every £100 parents spend on books, the school receives 5% in vouchers to build up class / library books.

Time for a takeover?

Tony Blair's privately sponsored academies are poised to take over state primary schools, it has been disclosed.

From The Independent;

The Prime Minister hopes the primary schools will then forge the kind of links that exist between leading fee-paying schools and their junior "prep" schools. Mr Blair, speaking at his monthly press conference, said the idea had been raised by the academies, which were "looking to incorporate into their set-up primary schools as well".

Some academies - including one planned to take over from Islington Green in north London (the comprehensive overlooked by the Blairs for their own children) and one of its feeder primary schools - plan to take in pupils from the age of three to 19. "This is something that is normal in the independent fee-paying sector, so one pupil often moves from one school to another," said Mr Blair. "I don't see why that shouldn't happen in the state sector."

The first link-ups between academies and primary schools will be unveiled when the Government reveals details of the first schools seeking to take advantage of the opportunity to become trust schools.

 

Modern Ways

A recording of the play Much ado about nothing at the Globe Theatre in London is available as a free download from the Department for Education and Skills. The comedy, a set text on the curriculum for younger teenagers, can be downloaded as an MP3 file, to be played back on for music players. It also includes interviews with actors and the director. This podcast project aims to deliver the play in a format that will be familiar and easy to use for the iPod generation.

And so, the new lines being placed into Shakespeare texts are to be;

• To blog or not to blog that is the question...
• Is this an iPod I see before me...
• Alas, poor windows I knew it well...
• Technicians, Experts and Geeks, lend me your skills...
• The course of an upgrade never did run smooth...
• It is the Internet, and Java is from Sun...
• Out, damned virus! out, I say...
• Now is the Windows of our discontent...

The Educationalists law

In chemistry you may come across Boyle's law, in life generally Sod's law often affects you, and Newton's laws are somewhat important too, but there is the little known law, known as the educationalists law, that affects a large proportion of the population.
Basically this law is useful for predicting what the day before a new term begins will be like.

e = ((d/w)*s)*x2/(1/a)

d = days away from school
w = weeks away from school
s = sun level
x = workload
a = anxiety constant (can be anything between 1 and 100)
e = depression level

The higher the value of e, the worse you feel! In other words, the better the weather the worse you will feel on the day before term. The more planning you have to do, the worse you will feel on the day before term, the more anxious you are the worse you will feel on the day before term... Or, to put it simply, the day before term is always the best weather day, where you have the most work to check has been completed, and you worry the most.

The NEW three R's

New guidelines on how to deal with bad behaviour in schools have come under fire, with critics saying a "softly softly" approach could backfire.

The guidelines for schools in England says teachers should praise pupils five times more than they criticise them.

How are we going to do this - a special log book where we record our praise / criticism - a display board with smiley and sad faces. Do we report this to parents at each parents evening?

"Mrs Smith, I'm pleased to say that I've praised your son 15 times for every criticism I've had to make this term"

And they recommend difficult pupils be given special prizes or letters home if they make improvements.

Now there's an incentive. Mess around in the autumn term, then improve in the spring and summer terms and earn two sets of prizes. Fantastic! What a great scheme. What is that going to teach children, apart from how to play a system to their advantage?

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has promised a tougher stance against disruptive pupils. "We must develop a new three Rs: rules, responsibility and respect," he told the annual conference of the NASUWT teachers' union in Belfast. And he called on parents to "set proper boundaries" to stop their children "drifting into anti-social behaviour".

Now I might be wrong here, but this sounds like he's putting responsibilty back onto the parents, and not blaming all the problems on teachers. Is this the correct response for a politician to make? I've not heard this approach is such a long time that I am having trouble believing what I think I heard.

Bad to good is great

Schools in a government pilot scheme will be paid on average £450 extra for every pupil whose national test results are two levels higher than expected.

The payment will apply to pupils' results at key stage two and key stage three in English and mathematics.

The cash incentive is being made available to all schools in the 10 authorities in England which have been chosen to pilot a package of government proposals aiming to improve pupils' academic progress, particularly among those who are under-achieving.

Teacher's rights - the law

New legal powers for teachers and schools in England to restrain and discipline unruly pupils have come into effect. The new law sets out teachers' rights to break up fights and to confiscate items like mobile phones. The changes are intended to put an end to what has become the "You can't tell me what to do" culture. This law explicitly states that teachers have the right to physically restrain and remove unruly pupils, and impose detention, including sessions outside school hours and on Saturdays.

And here is the interesting part;

Teachers will be able to discipline pupils outside school too - if they see children behaving badly on public transport, for instance.

But, who's going to try to intervene out of school and risk being attacked by a gun / knife / gang / etc

Easter Dilemna

Here's a tricky one to sort out!

• A school is awarded 'Healthy Eating' status for not allowing sweets / crisps / etc into school, and for promoting good quality school dinners...

• For an Easter activity there is the idea of decorating eggs and then rolling them. The class winners being given a prize.

• The problem? Well, looking at it from another angle, the children are being asked to destroy a healthy food (a real egg each) in order to win a chocolate egg (that the school has, kind of, banned)

You see the problem?!

Crackin' idea, Gromit

Wallace and Gromit, described by the Patent Office as "Britain's foremost inventors", are spearheading the Cracking Ideas initiative, which will invite youngsters to come up with their own inventions.
The Patent Office project for primary schools also includes a competition for Yr5 pupils - with schools being invited to send in their best inventions - with the winner to be turned into a model by the Aardman studios.
There is a serious side to the project, says the Patent Office's Miles Rees.

There has been much talk about the struggle to get youngsters interested in science - and he hopes that this will help young children to think creatively about innovation.

It will also show them the need to protect ideas - and he says there have been cases where young people have come up with brainwaves, which have then be swept up by commercial operators. Any decent ideas will be patented, he says.

You can register your school now, and the teaching resources will be put online June 4th.

Be aware that the video trailer contains lots of information, but you'll need to set aside a good 10 minutes to watch through it.

Five figure welcome

What is the education system coming to, when instead of spending funds on resources for pupils, or improvements to buildings, schools are now offering 5 figure "golden hellos" to recruit headteachers.
I know that it's problematic finding future Headteachers - I would personally never opt for that role after seeing what it did to my dad - but I didn't think it was such a problem that these incentives were required. As a leader of one teaching union has said;

...a £40,000 inducement reportedly offered by Fortismere school in Muswell Hill was the highest golden hello he had heard of thus far...

£40,000 buys a hell of a lot of resources, or pays for a shed load of building improvements.

Now they're for it

Imagine a film;

It is set in a bleak future, in which you see a teenager walking down the street and being pounced on by the state enforcers, who drag him off to a windowless cell to interogate him for no other reason than he wasn't in school. The end result of it sees the teenager being forced into hard labour for the oppressive government for years to come to pay for his crime.

Nice idea for a film? Well no, it's actually the latest government thinking. OK, so remove the part about the state enforcers, and the interogation, oh and the hard labour part, but the idea is the same;

Teenagers who drop out of school at 16 and refuse any further education will face fines or prosecution under new plans to raise the leaving age.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson said that by 2015, all youngsters in England would have to be in school or some form of training until their 18th birthday.

Enforcement action would be taken only in a minority of "hardcore" cases who had refused help, Mr Johnson stressed.