Alan McKinney from SoundScalpel has kindly contributed a large collection of sound effects to Teaching Ideas. You can download these sounds and use them in your classroom for:

• Adding atmosphere to lessons,
• Assemblies,
• School performances,
• Adding sound to children’s ICT / multimedia work,
• Addition to a school website / VLE.

www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/dramasoundeffects.htm

I’ve also recently discovered www.freesfx.co.uk which has lots of free sound effects which you can also use.

www.freesfx.co.uk

What are your favourite sound effect resources? How do you use them in the classroom?

This post contains links to this week’s education related news stories:

• More academy news… Schools will not be required to consult with parents or staff before converting to academies, according to this report… A list of schools who have expressed an interest in becoming an academy was published… New data has also questioned the success of England’s academies, who might be relying more heavily on GCSE equivalents… and this report questions if parents will actually have the time to run free schools.
• The major three classroom unions have warned that the proposed pay freeze for public sector workers could lead to mass industrial action by teachers.
• An article in the Guardian suggests that abolishing the General Teaching Council could put children at risk.

Image – Open Book

• The schools minister, Nick Gibb, says that children are leaving school without a sufficient knowledge of facts. You can also read his ‘vision for schools’ which was published this week.
• It has been claimed that some Muslim parents are withdrawing children from music lessons for religious reasons.
• The BBC have collected some wonderful photographs of schools who have been supporting the World Cup through their lessons.
• In this Guardian report, a teacher describes how pupils appear to enjoy provoking teachers on a regular basis.
• Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, has launched a ‘save free school meals campaign‘ to reverse the cancellation of plans to extend free meals to a further 500,000 pupils.
• The health secretary has told the BMA conference that ‘the Jamie Oliver approach will not work in tackling public health problems like obesity and smoking’.

Image - Link

• A national competition based around the Olympics is to be launched with the aim of ‘reviving’ competitive sport in England’s schools.
• The school starting age in Northern Ireland could raise to six years old, in line with most of Europe.
• The Education Minister in Northern Ireland has stated that the future for new school buildings is bleak, unless she gets extra money.
• The BBC’s School Report Sports Day event took place, allowing pupils to make up their own reports. Was your school involved?
• The Open University has reached 20 million downloads of educational material via iTunes – a new world record.
• A Google Teacher Academy will be taking place at the end of this month, offering 50 teachers and other educators the opportunity to share their ideas and discuss the use of Google technology in the classroom. Follow some of the teachers who will be attending by following this Twitter list.

The National Centre for Early Music, a venue for concerts and festivals, also offers a varied musical outreach programme and produces many learning resources designed to widen participation in music. They have free learning resources aimed at key stages 2 to 4 which can be downloaded from their website, covering 17th century music, music and art in Saxon times, and cross-cultural musical fusion between India and renaissance Europe.

www.ncem.co.uk

They also run many projects for young people which have included collaborating with Sing Up!, jazz workshops, widening access to music for young people at risk, special needs projects, and tours bringing world class musicians to work with children in schools. Details of all their projects and resources can be found in the Teaching and Learning section of their site.

Many Year Six classes put on a performance at the end of the year to mark the end of their time at their primary school. Although the end of the academic year is still a few months away,  here are details of a new musical for those teachers who want to plan ahead!

‘Fame Idle is the story of three kids who are confused why everyone around them seem obsessed by celebrity culture and they are not. It’s a musical comedy with a moral message… “Fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.” It has a modern score and a witty script that follows Bobby, P.J. and Smudge as they discover what friendship means when faced with a chance of fame – but at what cost?’

Here is a video which highlights some photos and audio from the production:

Many schools have already put on their own performances of the musical and received extremely positive feedback. To find out more for yourself, visit www.fame-idle.co.uk.

Cyberkidz is a Dutch ‘edutainment’ site with lots of educational games, covering Maths, Literacy, Geography, Art, Music and more. The games are sorted by subject and age range, suitable for children aged 4-11.

www.cyberkidz.net

The site has recently been translated into English, so even more children are now able to take advantage of these resources.

Sing Up is a new campaign to encourage schools and communities to use singing in a range of ways. The Sing Up site states that “Every child deserves the chance to sing every day. Singing improves learning, confidence, health and social development. It has the power to change lives and help to build stronger communities.”

The organisation promotes singing as a cross-curricular tool, in line with the National Curriculum. They also provide training for teachers to lead inspirational singing activities with young people. The site has a huge collection of songs, lesson plans, games and activities which teachers can take advantage of in their classrooms.

This Youtube video gives more information about the Sing Up materials.

Here are details of two fantastic resources for those teaching Literacy / Music / History linked to the topic of Ancient Greece:

‘Heroes of Troy‘ is a music resource for school children aged 9 to 11 and offers 7 songs to learn, each linking to an episode of the Trojan War. The website is audio-based, but also includes Teachers’ Notes, words and music for the songs, backing tracks…and well-known music presenter David Grant is on hand to teach all of the songs.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/troy/

It’s intended to target a range of music objectives at Key Stage 2 but also links to the history topic Ancient Greece while offering opportunities to link music with literacy and performance.

Winged Sandals offers animated versions of different Greek myths, along with games and other online activities to try. This has always been popular with children whenever I’ve used it at school.

www.wingedsandals.com

Famous musicians and other celebrities have been getting involved in a range of activities which form part of the government’s ‘National Year of Music’.

Research shows that engaging in music is beneficial to children’s development in a number of areas, ‘including language, numeracy, social skills, physical development and emotional intelligence.’

The government is hoping to double the number of children in KS2 (aged 7-11) who are given an opportunity to learn an instrument for free by 2011.

What is your school doing as part of the ‘National Year of Music’?

Image: ‘needs to be played‘

Ideas to Inspire now has over 500 ideas! The site originally started as somewhere to host my ‘Ideas to Inspire Writing‘ presentation. Since then, Tom Barrett, Doug Belshaw, Mark Clarkson, Joe Rowing, Tony Cassidy and Noel Jenkins have kindly allowed me to add their presentations to the site, which all receive hundreds of visitors each day.

The site is expanding at an incredible rate. I try to update the RSS feed regularly, and this week over 50 new ideas have been added, with three brand new presentations! If you haven’t seen the site yet, take a look… if you haven’t contributed to one of the presentations, please get in touch the creator – their details are usually on the first or last page of each presentation.

UPDATE – There are now more than 1000 ideas to inspire on the site!

I’ve just added a fantastic new game to the Music pages of Teaching Ideas. It’s called ‘Name that Note‘ and it’s designed to test your knowledge of the musical stave. You can review the treble, alto, tenor and bass clefs and there are different levels (to match your ability!).

How many points will you score?