British teens are gearing up for a world first: an epic live and interactive chat show featuring leaders from the worlds of music, movies, sport, business and the community in general. The Youth of Today Show is being created by teenagers for teenagers and will be broadcast online on Thursday 18 March from 4-7pm.

The show, hosted by young people alongside radio and TV presenter Edith Bowman, will feature inspirational stories from young people around the country who have succeeded against the odds. Their stories of triumph over adversity show how the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow.

www.webchats.tv/chat/stars_line_up_for_marathon_youth_led

Join stars from The Wire actor Idris Elba (AKA Stringer Bell) and 2005 Apprentice winner Tim Campbell to Olympic gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes, Kidulthood actor Aml Ameen and England footballer Gareth Barry for exclusive films and interviews. They will be joined by a host of other celebrities to discuss everything from how they scored their big break to what they do at the weekends and what advice they would give their teenage selves.

Dame Kelly Holmes, Edith Bowman and their guests join us live at http://www.webchats.tv/chat/stars_line_up_for_marathon_youth_led from 4-7pm on Thursday 18th March. Could you and the pupils at the school get involved by watching or sending a question on the site?

Here are a selection of links to education-related news articles from this week:

• Scrapping the 50% university student target – A report outlines why the government target of getting 50% of people under 30 into higher education should be scrapped.
• £10m lottery money to get students playing more sport – Universities are to be given lottery money to encourage students to get involved in sport.
• Anti-gang guidance offered to schools – Schools in England are to be given new guidance on how to spot signs that children are involved in gangs.
• More schools are failing Ofsted checks – Half of schools inspected under Ofsted’s new inspection regime were found to be satisfactory or inadequate.
• News Day involves 25,000 students – The largest number of schools ever took part in this week’s News Day.
• TV fills in for History lessons – David Dimbleby believes that history programmes on television are filling in the gaps in children’s historical knowledge.
• Bringing Shakespeare to life – English teachers will be encouraged to let pupils walk around the classroom rather than reading Shakespeare’s plays while sitting at their desks.
• They can’t read, can’t write, keep time or be tidy – One of the directors of Tesco gives their verdict about school leavers.

Are these types of posts useful / interesting? I’m considering making a regular round-up of the week’s education news. Please add your thoughts in the comments…

Image – Newspaper

A survey from BBC Newsround has found that many children are kept up late at night by video games, mobile phones and televisions. An article on the BBC News site explains that:

“Newsround sent a questionnaire to 1,000 children aged between nine and 11 at schools across the UK. Most said they went to bed at 2130, but a quarter said bedtime was 2200 or later and half said they were not getting enough sleep and wanted more.

Health experts have linked a lack of sleep to problems with concentration, behaviour and school work. About half the children asked said they were staying up to play on computer games or their mobile phones or to watch television.”

Image - Dreaming Children

The article goes on to explain that:

“Scientists have linked a lack of sleep in children to problems with concentration and schoolwork. Energy levels can be lower and sleep-deprived children can be irritable or behave badly. A recent study by academics in Finland suggested a good night’s sleep could reduce hyperactivity and bad behaviour among children.”

Does this affect the children in your classroom?

Following the creation of the Teaching UK iPhone application, I decided to investigate other apps that might be useful for teachers and schools. As well as finding some wonderful new applications, I also found lots of really useful iPhone+education related sites:

• Educate 2.0 is an application for teachers, giving them access to timetables, student data, teaching strategies and elearning tools. Find out more in this Youtube video:

• World Maths Day 2010 has a dedicated application which you can use to practise your Maths skills.

• iPhone for Kids is a wonderful blog which shares ideas and advice for ‘iParents’… those parents who want to give children opportunities to use their iPhones. It shares useful applications and offers advice, much of which will also be helpful for teachers.
• The Random Activity Generator generates thousands of learning challenges for students to try. There are over 50,000 combinations of activities.

• There are lots of language applications which would be useful for MFL classes. Free French Tutor is the most popular free education app at the time of writing this, but lots of other language apps are available.
• Don’t forget that podcasts are also a wonderful teaching tool for pupils, whether you are making your own or downloading / listening to those made by others.
• I also use these applications in my own classroom occasionally:
  • Ambiance – An ‘environment enhancer’ which lets you find / download / play a wide range of audio which can be played whilst children are working, or to set the scene as part of role play / drama activities.
  • Announcer – A fun app which lets you play announcements by the voiceover man from lots of popular TV shows. Some of them are not appropriate for use in the classroom, but imagine your pupil’s surprise when they hear ‘Ladies and Gentlemen… please welcome… that’s right… fabulous’ (etc) played out occasionally through your classroom speakers when connected to an iPhone.
  
  • Memiary – We use the online version of Memiary to record five achievements every day. This app lets you record this information using your iPhone / iPod (I’m also helping to set up a version of Memiary especially for use in the classroom so look out for information about this soon!).
  • eduTecher – A wonderful tool which lets teachers find (and share) useful resources and web tools that can be used in the classroom.
• BullyingUK have an iPhone app which shares the latest advice from the site for teachers, parents and pupils.
• Many schools are now developing their own applications for teachers, parents and pupils to use. Take a look at this example from Porchester Junior school.
• EducationApps produce a selection of mobile applications for teachers and students. At present, these cover GCSE Geography and AS Level Economics.

• In the iTunes App store, remember that there is a section for Education applications. There is also a special ‘Apps for Kids’ area at the moment which is worth exploring.
• Don’t forget the ‘Interesting Ways to use an iPod Touch‘ presentation on Ideas to Inspire.
• Here’s a useful presentation which gives advice for managing the iPod Touch in the classroom. Thanks to Ian Williams for sharing this on Twitter.

• Macworld have a HUGE list of Education apps, which have all been rated and reviewed.
• John Johnston is involved in a project to use iPod Touches in the classroom. Find out more on his blog.
• Adrian Bruce has shared 16 applications that can be used to support Problem Solving. Brighthub also have a list of the Top 10 apps to use in Maths classes.
• Eric Sailers has also produced a fantastic list of apps that could be used in education:

• Claire Barnes has suggested Labyrinth and Labyrinth2 which allow you to develop levels on the website and then download them to the device. She also recommends mathemagics, brain exercise games, word games (e.g. Textropolis and Boggle) and MP3 stories which can be played using the iPod.
• Finally, here’s a wonderful concept called ‘Phone Book‘. I’m not sure when or even if it’s available to buy, but it made me smile:

UPDATE – An ‘iPod Touch Conference‘ took place recently, allowing educators to discuss the use of these devices in education. The accompanying web site has lots of useful information, videos, links and discussions which are worth exploring. One of these includes a link to Apple’s own PDF guide to using iPods and iTunes for teaching and learning. Thanks to Julian Coultas for bringing this to my attention.

UPDATE 2 – I’ve also discovered an amazing Google spreadsheet which lists useful apps for different curriculum areas.

UPDATE 3 – Since writing this post, our school has received six iPod Touches which I’m planning to use in my own classroom. I’ve posted some initial thoughts about this project in a mindmap and PrimaryPad. I would love to hear your thoughts about these.

Do you know any useful iPhone applications that can be used in the classroom? Please let us know in the comments…

The Health and Safety Executive is running a new campaign to reduce slips, trips and falls in the workplace. Throughout 2008-2009, across the Education sector in the UK, there were 948 major injuries and a further 1865 that resulted in workers having to take more than three days off work as a result of slips, trips and falls – resulting in costs in excess of £60million.

In response, the HSE has launched a new phase of its Shattered Lives campaign. As part of this, people can visit the Shattered Lives website for practical advice and guidance.

www.hse.gov.uk/shatteredlives

On the website, people can find out information on how they can easily reduce the risk of slips, trips and falls in the classroom and see what other organisations have done.  Advice ranges from how to deal with spills and other slip risks, to the importance of using ladders correctly to reduce the risk of falling from height.

Following this week’s Safer Internet Day, lots of news stories and Internet safety resources were announced. Here’s a summary of what I discovered:

• CEOP revealed a new Internet safety resource for children aged 4-7. Lee and Kim’s Adventure, Animal Magic, is an 8 minute animation which involves a brother and sister navigating the online world with the help of their trusted superhero friend SID. Here’s a promotional video to tell you more about the resource:

• There are lots of related resources for teachers, which you can download here.
• These resources share four top tips for younger children to remember:
  • People you don’t know are strangers. They’re not always who they say they are.
  • Be nice to people on the computer like you would in the playground.
  • Keep your personal information private.
  • If you ever get that ‘uh oh’ feeling, you should tell a grown-up you trust.
• There is also a music video which children can use to help them learn and remember the messages shown:

Did you discover any new Internet safety resources this week?

The new primary curriculum, which becomes statutory from September 2011, is now online. Its aims are to enable all young people to become:

• successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve,
• confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives,
• responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.

http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/new-primary-curriculum/

Through the curriculum, children should develop the skills, attitudes and dispositions that they need to become well-rounded individuals and lifelong learners. These include literacy, numeracy and ICT capability, learning and thinking skills, and personal, social and emotional skills. There are also six areas of learning:

• Understanding the arts
• Understanding English, communication and languages
• Historical, geographical and social understanding
• Mathematical understanding
• Understanding physical development, health and wellbeing
• Scientific and technological understanding

Religious education is also a statutory subject, as it is in the current curriculum. However, there will also be a statutory requirement for all children to learn a modern foreign language. Dance, drama and citizenship also become part of the statutory curriculum through the new areas of learning.

Find out more at the New Primary Curriculum site.

I have recently been sent an email about a petition to reduce excessive paperwork in schools…

“We are a Primary School in Cambridgeshire whose Head teacher outreaches to many other schools in the locality and beyond. For many years he has been involved in a mentoring/coaching role with other heads and has been appalled at the amount of teachers/head teachers who are going through emotional trauma due to the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy involved in education today. Having previously spoken to Tony Blair about the state of the education system, he has recently visited Westminster once again to voice these issues on behalf of educators everywhere.

Image – Closing

He is very concerned about the effect that this bureaucracy is having on people’s professional and personal lives, having been told by many excellent heads that it is their reason for leaving education!

The time taken away from teachers being able to teach our children and costs involved in these excesses of bureaucracy are staggering and therefore we feel it is relevant for parents to also be involved in our protest.

We have recently produced a petition REPAIR (reduce excessive paperwork and irrelevant regulations) (in schools) which has been signed in various ways over 700 times in just a few weeks – as you can see, the comments made echo our Head teachers concerns.”

If you would like to sign the petition online, visit:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/kbconcepts/signatures

A report from Ofsted claims that some schools in England are struggling to teach citizenship properly. From the BBC report…

“…in some secondary schools, pupils have “important gaps” in their knowledge. However, inspectors say lessons have improved since they were made compulsory seven years ago.

The article goes on to say that…

“Often citizenship shared a timetable slot with Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, but the time allowed was “too little to do justice to either subject”, inspectors say.”

Image – Writing Exams

However, on the positive side…

“Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert, said: “Citizenship is becoming a well established part of the school curriculum and this report highlights the ways in which schools are successfully promoting social responsibility, community involvement and political understanding.

“It is important that the good practice featured in the report is replicated more widely.”

How do you feel about the teaching of citizenship? Do your pupils have ‘important’ gaps in their knowledge? Is there too little time to do the subject justice?

A conference, aimed at helping to ease the transition between primary and secondary schools has been organised for 25th February in Manchester. The event aims to give practical ideas of how to ease transition, disseminate findings from a three year project and help staff to share experiences.

More details can be found in the PDF embedded below.

For further information, visit www.dep.org.uk.