If you work in a church school you’ll always be looking for quotes out of the bible to match certain areas of you curriculum or assemblies you are doing.  What better way than have a complete online searchable bible.  The Bible Gateway has over 50 versions in 35 languages of the Bible on its website, all of which can be searched.

You can search by passage (Matthew 6:25-31), keywords (water) or by theme (water).  For each of these you can decide if you want to see footnotes and cross references.

Link: The Bible Gateway

On Friday I went on an ‘Aispiring to be a head in a church school’ course which was really useful.  One of the resources that was mentioned was ‘The Brick Testament‘.  This website is a collection of Bible stories acted out by Lego people. All the stories have been created by The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith (who’s not really a Rev. if his page is anything to go by!) The stories are a mixture of old and new testament stories, ideal if you wish to show the children in lessons or assemblies.  Check the story ratings though, some contain sexual content or violence which might not be appropriate for the children.

Even if you’re not going to use them it’s worth looking at just to see how good they are!

Link: http://www.thebricktestament.com

For anyone that is going to studying Hinduism over the coming term I’ve been emailed a great link to the Vivekananda, a non-profit making organisation trying to improve religious education.  The Hinduism site has the pages organised by keystage and focus on key themes in the religion.  Key stage one pages have ‘pronunciation’  incorporated in the pages hence moving the mouse over some words will produce the pronunciation, although I think that KS2 children (and teachers!) would find this just as useful. The
Glossary comes with or without sound (as some computers may have activex control which will prohibit sounds to be heard when the mouse is moved over the key words).

I had some trouble running the page in Firefox due to the ActiveX controls but it works find in Internet Explorer.

Link: Hinduism for Schools – http://www.hinduism.fsnet.co.uk/

We had a superb trip to the Liverpool Tate Gallery yesterday before going to the Year 6 Leavers Service at Liverpool Cathedral.  The children loved the modern art and we had some really interesting discussions about what ‘art’ actually is.  I wasn’t especially looking forward to the trip before hand – over 1800 Year 6 children were at the Cathedral – but it was well planned and executed so worth it.

Two things came from the trip:

1. The Tate – Fantastic place to take the children.  I thought it might be too much for them but I was wrong.  Some of the discussions that took place as we walked around were fantastic, as was the sketches that the children completed.   There is also an excellent website for the teachers with resources on many artists.  These include Constable and Kandinsky resource packs.
2. The Liverpool Cathedral – This place really caught the children’s (and mine!) attention as they walked in.  The size is phenomenal and you could easily spend a half a day there with a tour guide.  It’s a really beautiful place.  There is an online risk assessment form to save you writing one as well.

Being asked to do an assembly is the last thing that most people want on a Monday morning, but if you are don’t forget that there are lots of sites on the Internet that can help.  We have regular guests doing our assemblies from the local churches.  One, Janette Chalal, was kind enough to give me a list of some of the sites that she uses to help prepare her excellent assemblies.  Remember that I teach in a church school so the sites are predominantly Christian.

http://www.smsc.org.uk – This website supports spiritual, moral, social and cultural values across all subjects.  There is a library of downloadable resources to help with lessons.  It is also useful for finding resources online.

http://www.brf.org.uk – Barnabas.  This is Christian site with lots of ideas for assemblies.  There is a sub-site specifically for schools – http://www.barnabasinschools.org.uk/

http://www.sermons4kids.com/ – Another site focusing on the Christian religion.  This site has regularly updated assemblies as well as a wealth of resources.  I especially like the PowerPoint stories and artwork (http://www.sermons4kids.com/hmartin.htm)

http://www.request.org.uk – RE:Quest has a wealth of resources on it including a special section for KS1 with talking stories.  The site also has various links useful for RE lessons.

http://www.visual-impact-resources.co.uk/ – This site is for those that mind purchasing resources to help them.  Although not expensive a lot of the resources can be found freely on the net.  There are some well presented Bible stories for PowerPoint and 3D images for use in class with 3D glasses.

Have a look at the other posts under the RE category for more links relevant to assemblies and RE teaching.  Hopefully assemblies won’t be too much of a pain now!

In the week leading up to Remembrance Sunday we are going to be writing some poems in the Literacy lesson.  Some resources that I have found on the BBC are excellent for the older children (Upper KS2 / Lower KS3).  There are three pdf documents that you need to download – the lessson plans,  the resource photographs and the sources. Please note that these are big files and take sometime to download and print out (at least they did on my computer!).  The PDF photograph file contains links to a large version of the file – useful if you are using a interactive whiteboard. I have collated all the photographs into one file with links to make it easier (Download WW2 pictures for creative writing.pdf).  Please note that the pictures and text are all (C) BBC and have only been put together to help with the planning mentioned above.

This is fairly deep work and it certainly something for the older children, even then you’ll need to alter and annotate the planning somewhat, but the resources are very good.  The picture file is good for story writing even if you don’t use the planning.

Edit: Tia Maria in the TES NQT Forum on the TES site also suggested this site for Early Years and KS1.  Don’t want you to feel left out!

Now I actually enjoy taking assemblies and often base it on something that’s happened in the news or school during the recent past.  However I know that some people just hate it and find it really difficult to come up with ideas.  Well this assembly website will be a life saver for you.  I’ve certainly got a fair few assemblies from it.  What’s great is that they also have Primary and Secondary Rapid response assemblies for major events like the London Bombing.  Assemblies range from KS1 all the way upto KS4 and cover to a certain extent all the major faiths.  Don’t forget to use the search facility if you can’t find the topic that you want straight away.

Link: http://www.assemblies.org.uk/