Wallace & Gromit are calling on people across the UK join The BIG Breakfast from the 20th -27th April to raise thousands of pounds for sick children in hospitals and hospices by enjoying a BIG Breakfast.

Research suggests that breakfast eaters have lower stress levels and better concentration than breakfast skippers yet 1 in 4 adults in the UK admit to regularly skipping breakfast, so Wallace & Gromit’s BIG Breakfast calls on the nation to wake up to a BIG Breakfast which not only helps everyone who takes part have a brighter day but also helps raise vital funds for sick children across the UK.

Could you hold a BIG breakfast for pupils and families at your school? For more information and to register to take part, call 0845 600 1924 or visit www.wallaceandgromitsbigbreakfast.org.

Don’t forget that you can find other educational events to take part in by browsing our Teaching Events site.

Get ready for the Big Schools’ Birdwatch! Schools can take part in the upcoming Big Schools’ Birdwatch from 16-30 January 2012, helping the RSPB to monitor UK bird numbers.

Run every year, the Birdwatch is a free activity for all UK schools and youth groups (brownies, scouts etc). There are different resource packs for each age group:

• Little Schools’ Birdwatch is for 3-5 year olds
• Big Schools’ Birdwatch is for 6-11 year olds
• Really Big Schools’ Birdwatch is for 12-14 year olds.

This simple activity is for all ages and abilities; it only takes an hour to complete and is rich in curriculum links. It’s also a great way to get to know more about the wildlife visiting your school grounds. If you don’t have school grounds, don’t worry! You can still take part by visiting a local park. Teachers and group leaders can find out more at www.rspb.org.uk/schoolswatch and to register for their free resource pack. The website also has lots of other activities to accompany the Birdwatch to download, including child (and teacher) friendly bird ID pages.

Don’t forget to explore other educational events that you can can get involved in at Teaching Events.

Youth & Family Gold Challenge is a new charity challenge, specifically aimed at schools, families, youth groups and 7-15 year olds. It aims to build on the excitement of London 2012 as all of the challengers take on Olympic and Paralympic sports to raise money for charity.

Those taking part can choose from three challenges (5 Sport Challenge, Family Activity Challenge and the 2012km Challenge). By joining the challenges, schools can also win a chance to run 100m in the Olympic Stadium watched by friends, family and a cheering crowd of 20,000!

There are currently over 20,000 registrations on the site and there is currently an incentive where for every 100 registrations, a school will receive 5 places in our Olympic Stadium Parade which will follow the route of the opening ceremony, and include charities, GB Ambassadors and celebrities. Find out more on the official site.

Schools are invited to sign up for a charity world record breaking attempt for the most people signing and singing simultaneously. The event takes place on February 8, 2012 and it is being organised by SignHealth, the national healthcare charity for Deaf people.

The event is designed to raise awareness of deafness and the work of SignHealth, as well as acting as a fundraiser for the charity through sponsorship from businesses and a suggested donation of £1 for everyone taking part. Young people from all over the country and overseas will learn to sign a song, entitled ‘Sign2sing’, which has been composed especially for the event,

SignHealth, which provides health-related services for all Deaf people, will produce a DVD to show children how to sign the song, as well as a resource pack for teachers to use within the school curriculum. The event is primarily aimed at four to 11-year-olds, however other younger and older children and adults can join in if they wish. Find out more and register your school on the Sign2Sing site.

Will your school be taking part?

The Dahlicious Dress Up Day takes place on Friday 30th September and is a fun way for school children up and down the country to get creative and raise money for a fantastic cause by going to school dressed as their favourite Roald Dahl character.

From Oompa-Loompas to the BFG, The Twits, Willy Wonka, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox and all those other characters from Roald Dahl’s stories, there are plenty of characters for children to choose from. Children are asked to donate £1 to dress up and wow their friends and teachers with their costumes, masks or face paint.

The money raised will go to Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity to help fund much needed specialist nurses, support and equipment for seriously ill children with lifelong and life-limiting neurological or blood conditions.

If your school isn’t already taking part, sign up for an event pack at www.roalddahlcharity.org/schools, email schools@roalddahlcharity.org or call 01494 890465 to speak to someone about getting involved.

Don’t forget that there are also lesson ideas and resources linked to Roald Dahl’s books on my Teaching Library site.

Wrong Trousers Day is organised by Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Foundation. Money raised helps sick children in hospitals and hospices across the UK. This year’s Wrong Trousers Day is on Friday 24th June when people are encouraged to go to school or work in their ‘wrong trousers’. Everyone who takes part pays £1 for the right to be ‘wrong’ for the day.

www.wrongtrousersday.org

Thousands of people have already promised to throw aside their regular trousers and go to work sporting anything from football shorts, pyjamas, board shorts and other funny and wrong bottom halves – all in the name of charity!  If you would like to get involved in Wrong Trousers Day on Friday 24^th June, you can register for a fundraising pack at www.wrongtrousersday.org or call the hotline on 0845 600 1924 for more information.

Oxfam Water Week is a new UK-wide initiative that gives pupils the opportunity to learn about global issues, develop their skills and values as active global citizens, and make a difference to the world. Water Week benefits pupils, schools, communities and people living in poverty.

Aimed at key stage 2 and key stage 3 pupils, Oxfam Water Week helps young people learn about global water issues, encourages them to think about how they can make a difference and helps them to act through fundraising and campaigning activities.

The Oxfam Education team, along with teachers, have created a wealth of free teaching resources, specially designed to meet curriculum requirements in geography and citizenship. These resources include lesson plans, worksheets, a DVD of video clips and interactive games. They will also send you a free toolkit packed with teaching, fundraising and campagning ideas!

Oxfam Water Week is from 11-17 July in England and Wales and from 13-19 June in Scotland. To get involved, visit http://www.oxfam.org.uk/waterweek.

Red Nose Day is back on Friday 18th March and the Comic Relief team are asking everyone to do something funny for money. The charity helps to transform the lives of poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged people across the UK and Africa. From restoring the sight of children in Africa to giving isolated older people in the UK the support they need to enjoy their lives – the money raised can do all this and much, much more.

For schools, there are free primary and secondary fundraising resource packs which are stuffed with everything you could possibly need to get the whole school fundraising and motivated about why it’s so important.

The packs include stickers, posters, activities and learning materials and they are free to order from the Red Nose Day shop.

Teaching in the UK may have its difficulties, but fortunately Maoist strikes are not one of them. For volunteer teachers from UK charity Our Sansar, teaching in Nepal has thrown up considerable challenges, not least of which has been the closure of the schools by a countrywide shutdown. But with the schools now open again, they have been experiencing the challenges and rewards of teaching in one of the world’s poorest countries.

For the next year, Bethan Pink from Richmond and John Buckley from Twickenham will be teaching and organising interschool activities for disadvantaged students in and around Hetauda, a city in Nepal’s green but impoverished south. They will also be working with the local schools to establish education programs for street children.

‘The scenery is very beautiful and the family [we’re staying with] has been lovely to us,’ says Bethan, who previously taught at Lancasterian Primary School, London. ‘There are so many ideas I have for improving the running of the school, such as trying to change the attitude to time keeping; trying to make the classrooms nicer places to be by sweeping the floors, putting up cheerful displays and removing dangerous obstacles; trying to influence the teachers to use more interactive approaches to teaching…We’ll see what can be done with all these ideas.’

Bethan and John arrived in Nepal in late April and are currently based at Shree Kamala Lower Secondary School. Both are experienced professionals who will bring valuable skills to a school that currently has just 9 teachers for over 330 pupils.

The school day has 7 periods and the teachers swap between classrooms to teach their specialist subject. ‘Lessons are quite dull to be honest,’ adds Bethan. ‘[They] rely heavily on call and repeat. I would like to try and have an impact on this.

Adapting to the severe lack of resources, Bethan says that she has been making simple things at home and improvising with whatever is around her.
‘The school has a small library that looks quite cheery,’ she continues. ‘Otherwise classrooms are very bare with only desks and a chalkboard. The library has a copy of an EKTA scheme of learning for English, called Harmony, but they have only 1 copy of each book and with no photocopier, it’s pretty hard to use for the classes. Other text books which are quite inadequate are being used.’

Our Sansar will be sending another experienced teacher to Kathmandu in June and hopes to be able to send a further 7 to schools in Janakpur, Kathmandu and Hetauda before the end of the year. The project will help 50 street children and over 3000 school children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Would you like to be involved in future projects? To find out more, visit www.oursansar.org.

World leaders have promised that all children will have a primary education by 2015 but with only 5 years left to go, there are still 75 million children missing out on an education completely.

1Goal, organized by the Global Campaign for Education, aims to get more children around the world a school place. The theme for 2010 is ’1GOAL’ to link in with the World Cup in South Africa.

www.sendmyfriend.org

There are three simple steps for schools to get involved:

• Make a gigantic 1GOAL supporter scarf,
• Hold a 1GOAL event (or assembly) in your school,
• Make it count! – by sending the scarf to the Prime Minister and adding the number of 1GOAL supporters in your school to the online Scoreboard.

Watch a Youtube video about the project below:

Find out more, and discover lots of useful teaching resources, at the Send My Friend website.