Teachmeet events are becoming increasingly popular for teachers who want to share ideas and learn from each other. In July a new type of event… a ‘Learnmeet’ is taking place. Dawn Hallybone has described the event in her blog post:

“On the day children will be given an inspiration table to showcase their work. A panel of judges will ask 8 of the best tables to present their work in no more than 8 minutes, just like the Teachmeet style. There will be prizes for children and schools who take part and for those presentations that impress the judges the most.”

I’m looking forward to reading blog posts by those who are able to attend and find out about the inspirational work that is shown at the event! If you would like to get involved, read this page.

Estyn, the education and training inspectorate for Wales, has recently published a series of films for teachers showing best practice in the classroom. The videos share tried and tested ways of raising standards with all educational professionals. Each film looks at a different area of success within a provider and they feature interviews with staff, learners and parents. View the videos here.

In related news, Teachers TV (who had had over 3,500 professional development videos on their site) closed recently. However, the people who ran Teachers TV have formed a new organisation called Teachers Media. The new site aims to have the full archive of 3,500 Teachers TV videos online over the next few weeks.

After the amazing success of the PGCE Survival Guide, Tim Handley is planning to create a new guide for NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers). The guide will be crowd sourced and available as a free download or paid for (at cost, but maybe with a donation to a charity) printed version.

Do you have any tips, ideas, stories or information that could be added to the guide? You can contribute by:

• Tweeting your general tips for NQTs, including the hashtag #nqttips in your tweets (note the double t). @tomhenzley will be requesting tips around a ‘theme’ at various stages so you can also contribute to these.
• Retweeting any requests for tips, so that other educators can get involved in the project too.
• Sharing your NQT experiences, stories or tales by commenting on this blog post.
• Help with the writing of the guide by contacting Tim via his blog or by Twitter.

Find out more on the Classroom Tales blog.

Ofsted have recently launched a new site for those working in sectors who are inspected and regulated by them. The site shares good practice and supporting resources, allowing you to download useful information and watch videos to support your own work.

www.goodpractice.ofsted.gov.uk

Although there are only a few case studies in each section at the moment, they aim to add further examples in the coming months. This looks like it could be a useful resource as the sections are developed.

Headteachers from across the country are coming together at BAFTA this month to tackle the key issues facing schools in the UK. ‘HeadRoom’, hosted by education charity FILMCLUB, will be a series of forums looking at education in the UK and helping schools share knowledge in providing the best start in life for Britain’s schoolchildren.

A lead topic for the first forum on Thursday 27 January 2011 will be the Schools White Paper’s recognition of the need to free up the school day. How best can schools use these new freedoms to make a real difference to young people? What can schools do to provide a ‘rich menu of cultural experiences’ and what support do they need from Government and elsewhere? The afternoon, including contributors from the creative industries, takes place from 1pm – 5pm at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London.

Headteachers who want to get involved in the event should contact FILMCLUB Schools Support Director Sabrina Broadbent – Sabrina@filmclub.org

Many teachers are beginning to see the benefits of using QR codes in the classroom. If you’re not familiar with QR codes, they are black and white pictures (similar to the barcodes that appear on items of food etc.). When you scan the QR code with a special application (many of which are free and available for computers / smart phones / mobile devices), special messages can be revealed, contact details can be shared and (sometimes long and complicated) web addresses can be visited easily.

Here are some other examples of how teachers are using QR codes with their pupils:

• Tom Barrett has used QR codes in his classroom and has shared a number of useful suggestions for using them to help children to access a range of digital resources. He has also started an ‘Interesting Ways’ presentation, which currently has 26 suggestions for using QR codes in education. You can view the presentation here and on Ideas to Inspire.
• The pupils in David Mitchell’s class have stuck them into their Literacy books, as a way of encouraging those looking at the books to visit a copy of their work online and read the comments that had been added there!
• Kerry Turner has used QR codes in a number of ways. I was particularly impressed with the idea of printing them on sticky labels and using them to share useful sites / important information with students.
• James Michie has written a detailed account of the use of QR codes in education, which contains a number of ideas and lots of links to explore.
• Dughall has also written an interesting review of QR codes, which includes some ideas for using a related tool called Stickybits.

I have  recently created QR codes for all of my Teaching Websites, along with all of the Teaching Themes. You can download a poster which shows all of these, should you wish to use the codes to visit the sites. Download the poster here.

If you’re planning to use my Internet tutorial, Welcome to the Web, it might be useful to print the relevant code for children to enable them to access the site more easily.

Have you used QR codes in the classroom?

School trips to museums or places of cultural interest can provide that much needed stimulus and enable students to engage fully in the subject matter, and overseas trips offer an invaluable immersion in other cultures and languages.

But despite all the benefits, organising a school trip for your class can be difficult, especially a residential trip, due to the increasingly amount of administration involved. So what do you need to be aware of? And what school trip friendly destinations are available and at what cost?

To help you plan and give you some inspiration, Beth Gardner, Chief Executive for the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom and Ian Finlay the Managing Director of the Education Division at TUI Travel PLC will be taking part in a live WebTV show. They will be answering questions and offering their advice on the benefits of school trips and how to get the most out of them for students, their top destinations, and what help is available for teachers who want to take students out of the classroom but are struggling to navigate all the regulations.

This will take place tomorrow (Monday 29th November) at 13:00 GMT. Visit StudioTalk.TV to submit questions and get involved in the webTV show.

QStandards is a site which provides online storage for those taking part in teacher training, allowing them to organise and reference their documents by the QTS Standards. Documents can be shared with tutors and mentors, allowing them to comment on the work.

The site also has guidance for the QTS standards, links to other teaching sites and forums where you can communicate with others. Watch the Youtube video above to find out more.

CILT, the National Centre for Languages is running a Primary Teachers’ Project, which gives teachers a chance to spend two weeks in France, Germany or Spain next spring topping up on their language skills and picking up new teaching ideas.

Image – Arc de Triomphe

Teachers spend one week in intensive language and methodology workshops and one week on a work shadowing placement in a primary school. Funding worth up to 2,500 euros is available from the British Council and the deadline for funding applications is Friday 5th November. To find out more, visit CILT’s Primary Teachers’ Project webpage.

I’m a big fan of the FilmClub scheme and have run a successful FilmClub at my own school (including a wonderful ‘FilmClub on the road’ event where the team turned our school hall into a giant cinema screen!). The team at FilmClub have emailed me about an important event which is taking place next month. Here is some more information:

“The gap in educational achievement between children from different economic and social backgrounds has remained stubbornly constant in the UK.

Save the Children UK, FILMCLUB and the Times Educational Supplement (TES) are committed to addressing child poverty and reducing the inequality in attainment. For Save the Children UK, breaking the link between disadvantage and educational achievement is a vital part of ending child poverty. FILMCLUB is seeing early indications that its work is helping address these important issues in ways that could offer a blueprint for future approaches. For the TES, inequality is both a topical and a structural issue in education, of great importance to many of its readers.

Closing the Gap takes place at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London on 9th November 2010. The debate is followed by a complementary lunch and preview screening of award-winning film, Monsters. There will be a Q&A after the screening with the film’s British director, Gareth Edwards.

Tickets for the Closing the Gap debate are £125, but we have a concessionary rate of £75 for FILMCLUB members, charities and education professionals. Insert the discount code CTGDR when booking your place. Book your ticket for the Closing the Gap Debate at this site.

This event is also listed on my Teaching Events site, where you can find a wide range of educational events to use as part of teaching in your classroom, or for your own professional development.