Clicker, a literacy support tool from Crick Software, is currently used in over 90% of UK primary schools. It helps pupils to achieve reading and writing success and the latest version, Clicker 6, is about to be launched at BETT 2012.

A key focus for Clicker 6 is independent learning. The new Quick-Start Screen enables pupils to work on activities straight away without teacher assistance, whilst built-in support tools like the updated speech feedback and new word predictor enable them to overcome learning barriers that would previously have prevented them from putting great ideas into writing.

Clicker 6 also has new activity wizards which guide teachers through the activity creation process, automatically transforming their content into Clicker Sets, and makes tailoring these activities to pupils’ needs quicker and easier.

For further details on Clicker 6, visit Crick Software on stand F40 at BETT 2012, where you can also find out about exclusive upgrade discounts. You can also visit Crick Software’s site for more information.

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• There is no hard evidence that schools in England are slipping behind other countries, says an academic study.
• Schools which fail to improve within six years of being classed “satisfactory” should be relabelled inconsistent and pushed harder to improve, a report says.
• The qualification currently required for head teachers in England’s state schools will no longer be compulsory, the government has announced. Read the official announcement here.
• Michael Gove signalled a significant shift in approach last week when he admitted that he and his ministerial colleagues were guilty of being “behind the curve” when it came to technology in schools.
• The number of Scottish teachers has continued to fall, the latest education statistics have revealed.
• The test-run of a new primary school reading check suggests two-thirds of pupils are likely to fail it when it is introduced in England next year.
• Almost four million children in the UK do not own a book, according to a report by the National Literacy Trust.

Exams and Testing:

• The government is calling for a reform of the exam system, after inquiries were launched in England and Wales into claims of cheating. Read the response from the Department for Education here.
• More than 38,000 exam entries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were regraded after schools asked for re-marks, the exams watchdog Ofqual says.

Universities:

• Changes to university funding could reduce the number of people getting qualifications in science, technology and engineering, MPs have been told.
• Business leaders are warning that students in the UK are lagging behind in developing an international outlook needed for a globalised economy.

Other News:

• Fewer than a fifth of people think they are part of a traditional family, suggests research by a think tank.
• The lowest price for an acceptable Christmas for a low-income family with two children is £182, a study says.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 10th December - Human Rights Day
• 11th December - International Mountain Day
• 13th December - St. Lucia’s Day
• 14th December - Monkey Day
• 16th December - Boston Tea Party

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, outlines a new recruitment drive for specialist maths and science in primary schools as part of a sweeping reform of the teacher training system in England.
• Nick Clegg has said £7bn will be spent over four years improving the education of England’s poorest children.
• The part that grammar schools play in the education system of Kent has been championed by two MPs from the county.
• State schools will be told to teach the classic English novels they currently ignore in a radical overhaul of what is taught in the classroom.
• Too many children leave school unable to add, subtract and divide after being put off by “flawed” maths lessons, according to a leading examiner.
• Children as young as five will be taught by specialist subject teachers under a Government plan to give pupils the best start to their education.
• A string of big names from the arts world are urging the government to ensure cultural learning is not stripped from schools in England.
• Nearly 12,000 parents were prosecuted and 25 given prison sentences because of their children’s truancy from school last year, figures show.
• Many pupils who sat Standard Grade and Higher exams in Scotland earlier this year struggled with basic skills, according to Scotland’s exams board.
• A game of cricket during the school day can help improve pupils’ behaviour and lead to calmer classrooms, a report suggests.
• Parents in England and Northern Ireland are spending more time reading to their children for pleasure, a survey for the reading scheme Booktime suggests.
• Children whose parents frequently read with them in their first year of school are still showing the benefit when they are 15, says an international study.

Universities:

• Plans for universities in England to compete for some student places should be delayed, a Commons committee says.

Other News:

• Not putting the clocks back would help in the fight against child obesity, a study suggests.
• As many as 140,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds could have free nursery places under a scheme planned to be rolled out in England.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 14th November - World Diabetes Day
• 14th to 20th November - Global Entrepreneurship Week
• 14th to 25th November - Anti-Bullying Week
• 16th November - International Day for Tolerance
• 17th to 19th November - The Design + Technology with ICT Education Show
• 18th November - Children in Need
• 19th November - World Toilet Day
• 19th November - International Men’s Day

Here are five fantastic resources that I’ve found in my RSS subscriptions and Twitter streams this week:

1) Learning Chocolate (shared by Rosa Esteve) – This site is great for helping children to learn vocabulary related to a huge collection of different topics. Each topic has lots of different activities to help children learn and practise new words.

2) Stopover (shared by Anthony Evans) – This wonderful video could be used for lots of different Literacy activities. Could your pupils write some narration or speech? Could they write a recount of the story? Could they write a sequel / prequel for the animation? Can they think of vocabulary to describe the characters / locations etc?

Click here to view the embedded video.

3) Fungooms (shared by Sites4Primary) – This is a lovely site for young children, with funny characters, simple games, music, stories and more. I’m sure that lots of older children (and adults) will like it too!

4) Oxford Owl (shared by Peter Richardson) – This site is an amazing resource for teachers, parents and children. There are lots of ideas to help you support children’s reading, along with free resources and e-books. The Kids’ Barn section also has lots of games and online reading activities.

5) Knoword (shared by Tim Rylands) – This addictive game can be used to reinforce and extend language… clues are given and you have to enter the matching word within the time limit given. Could you play this in your classroom?

Which of these resources is your favourite?

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• A head teachers’ union is to ballot members for what would be its first ever strike, in a dispute over reductions to their pensions.
• Schools in England which join together in federations improve teaching as well as pupils’ happiness, a watchdog says.
• The government faces a backlash from teachers for repeatedly talking down schools’ achievements, the leader of a headteachers’ union has warned.
• Children at boys or girls-only schools are more likely to end up sexist and are not necessarily better educated, psychologists have found.
• The total funding available for the Pupil Premium is set to double and will rise to £1.25bn in 2012-13.
• Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard has told a committee of MSPs that if more is not done to protect lesser taught languages now they will be gone forever.
• Summer schools for pupils at risk of “going off the rails” are being promised by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Read the announcement from the DFE here.
• The UK is falling behind international rivals because one-in-five children “learn nothing” throughout their secondary education, according to the head of Britain’s top private schools’ group.
• Children’s grasp of history is under threat as schools cut the amount of lesson time devoted to the subject, ministers were warned today.
• A landmark schools project that has been credited with helping children dramatically improve their literacy skills has been abandoned because of cutbacks, head teachers have claimed.

Higher Education:

• A survey suggests more than half of young people do not think higher education is good value and are choosing to study at home to save money.
• Enrolments for colleges in England have slowed in the wake of the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, principals say.
• The number of overseas students coming to the UK has risen dramatically in the past five years.
• The coalition government’s drive for a market in higher education could damage social mobility, universities say.
• The number of students awarded first-class degrees has soared by more than a third in just five years, figures show, prompting claims that the traditional university grading system is becoming “meaningless”.
• The National Union of Students Wales wants clarity on how universities are spending collected library fines.
• Scotland’s Labour leader Iain Gray has accused Education Secretary Mike Russell of having a “hit list” of college and university closures.

Teacher Recruitment:

• The Department for Education has launched a consultation on proposals to allow schools to more easily appoint talented and experienced teachers from other countries around the world.
• Up to 95% of new qualified teachers are unable to secure full time jobs according to a DUP assembly member.

Other News:

• Thousands of disadvantaged two year olds, and those living in care, stand to benefit from an extra year of free early education, under Government plans announced this week.
• The Government has announced a trial to offer vouchers for parenting classes to mothers and fathers of children under five.
• Private tutors are the latest group of professionals to be targeted in a crackdown on tax-dodging as HM Revenue & Customs said it was beginning to win the battle against avoidance, evasion and fraud.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 7th September to 23rd October - Rugby World Cup 2011
• 17th September to 2nd October - British Food Fortnight
• 25th September - International Rabbit Day
• 26th September - European Day of Languages
• 27th September - World Tourism Day
• 29th to 30th September - Rosh Hashanah
• 30th September - The Dahlicious Dress Up Day

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• All schools are now able to vary their school day to benefit their pupils, according to this report from the Department for Education.
• Education Secretary Michael Gove has suggested some schools judged to be “outstanding” do not deserve the accolade.
• David Cameron has launched an attack on “coasting” schools in relatively affluent areas which are failing to improve standards.
• Children can lose up to half of their marks in end of year tests after being taught by a poor teacher, research suggests.
• Teachers in England may be using health and safety concerns as an excuse for not organising practical experiments and trips, a committee of MPs warns.
• Some schools in England are “acting illegally or unscrupulously” by excluding pupils by unofficial means, a Centre for Social Justice report says.
• Three head teachers and two former heads have joined a working party to look at ways of improving attainment among pupils in Scotland’s schools.
• Scotland’s education system needs more flexibility so teachers can do their jobs better, a major review has said.
• Children at a significant minority of Welsh primary schools are not learning enough through a flagship policy to raise standards, inspectors have said.
• Members of a Welsh teaching union have voted for a one-day strike next month over plans to change their pensions.
• Primary school class sizes are still among the biggest in the developed world, despite a 50 per cent rise in the amount of money spent on education under Labour.
• A secondary school in West Yorkshire has removed mirrors from its toilets to try to stop pupils applying make-up.
• A school is being sued for £20,000 by someone who slipped on a sweet wrapper in a carpeted corridor while another faces a lawsuit from a parent who tripped during a sports day fun run at a primary school.

• Children are being forced to study science “second hand” as schools dump traditional experiments in favour of teaching from textbooks, MPs warned today.
• Six-year-olds in England will face a new reading test next summer, after trials this year.
• Children as young as seven can help teach each other to read and do maths, research suggests.

Behaviour:

• Nearly half of parents of secondary school children say corporal punishment such as the cane or slipper should be reintroduced, a survey suggests. Ministers say they have no plans to bring back the cane.
• More than 20,000 under-11s were punished for racist and homophobic behaviour in schools last year, according to research.
• Schoolchildren as young as seven are taking knives and other weapons into the classroom, research has revealed.

Universities:

• Pushy parents are increasingly intervening to make sure sons and daughters win places at leading universities, it has emerged.
• Ucas proposes that from 2016 pupils should apply to university once they have received their A-level results.
• Students at 67 leading UK universities could face disruption to courses from October, as lecturers vote for action over planned changes to their pensions.

Other News:

• Parents in the UK feel powerless before the consumer pressures on their children, suggests international research into family life.
• Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz in the classic US sitcom Happy Days, has been appointed an honorary OBE for his educational work on dyslexia in the UK.
• Four years after Unicef sparked national soul-searching with analysis showing child well-being in the UK at the bottom of a league of developed nations, the organisation has attempted to explain the problem.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 7th September to 23rd October – Rugby World Cup 2011
• 17th September to 2nd October - British Food Fortnight
• 19th September - Talk Like a Pirate Day
• 21st to 22nd September - Scottish Learning Festival
• 21st September - Peace Day
• 22nd September - World Car Free Day

Over the summer holidays, I set up a new site to add my existing collection of Teaching Websites. The Teaching Library is a place to find free lesson ideas, activities and resources linked to popular children’s books. The lesson ideas are all organised by subject and there are also related videos and other material which can be used in the classroom.

www.teachinglibrary.co.uk

The site has been extremely well received so far and I’ve had lots of positive comments from teachers and authors! If you have any book suggestions or relevant lesson ideas / resources, please get in touch. You can also use the ‘Add a Book‘ form on the site to help the site to grow. Thanks!

I hope that the new site is useful to you.

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Schools are “queuing up” to complain about the quality of marking in this year’s key stage 2 Sats, which is making a “mockery” of the efforts of teachers and pupils, according to a headteachers’ union.
• The decision by teachers in the moderate ATL union to go on strike last week could inspire thousands of heads to take to the picket line, a heads’ leader has claimed.
• Almost a hundred infants are so badly behaved they have to be sent to “sin bin” schools designed to cater for unruly teenagers, new figures reveal.
• The government is publishing new guidelines for parents and teachers in England which it hopes will mean more children go on school trips. However, teaching unions have criticised the plans, which you can read online here.
• In an article in this week’s TES, the mayor of London calls for a significant increase in the number of training places available for would-be classics teachers.
• A vocational version of the International Baccalaureate is being trialled, but there are fears for its prospects.
• Schools in England are being given financial incentives by the government to use certain phonics materials to teach reading, MPs have said.
• MPs have criticised government plans to test pupils on their reading ability at the age of six, warning that it will put children off reading for pleasure. Literacy experts have also written to the education secretary, pleading with him to do a U-turn on the plan.

• The number of pupils in England eating school lunches has risen for the third year running, data suggests.
• In the last month, 97 schools became academies – the equivalent of more than four opening every school day.
• Schools are being given the top rankings by Ofsted inspectors for good management rather than the standard of teaching, claims the outgoing head of the watchdog.

Universities:

• Record numbers of students face missing out on university as higher education applications top 700,000 for the first time.
• High-attaining comprehensive school students are significantly less likely to attend top universities than their independent school rivals with the same grades, new research has revealed.

Other News:

• All two-year-olds will be given a compulsory “progress check” under Government plans to identify children failing to develop properly at a young age.
• Three brothers from Greater Manchester are travelling to school in a rather unusual way – by unicycle.
• A pre-school in Stockholm says its goal is to free children from social expectations based on their sex.
• A school in South Yorkshire is hosting a 17-hour Harry Potter viewing marathon.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 2nd July to 24th July - Tour de France
• 4th to 10th July - Move It Week
• 11th July - World Population Day
• 14th July - Bastille Day

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

• The government has announced a £180m bursary scheme to replace the Education Maintenance Allowances which were scrapped in England last year. The London mayor also called Education Secretary Michael Gove to explain his concerns over these plans.
• Unauthorised absences in state primary and secondary schools in England fell slightly last year.
• More schools should involve pupils in the recruitment of teachers, says the children’s commissioner for England.
• Students on free school meals will get an average of £370 a year less under plans to replace axed study grants in England, a think tank has said.
• The Harvard academic Niall Ferguson has warned that too few pupils are spending too little time studying history – and what they do study lacks a sweeping narrative.
• Michael Gove has complained that GCSE English students are not reading enough Victorian literature.
• Children’s laureate Anthony Browne has become the latest critic of the proposed campaign by Education secretary Michael Gove that children as young as 11 should be reading 50 books a year.
• Charity Teach First is to place trainee teachers in England’s most challenging primary schools for the first time.
• Truancy in England’s state primary schools reached record levels last year, official figures show. The Guardian also has an article about why parents shouldn’t take their children out of school during term time.
• A simpler, less bureaucratic system for assessing how young children in England are developing has been recommended.
• Thousands of teenagers in England had no chance of getting the new English Baccalaureate in their GCSEs, official data shows.
• Wildlife presenter Kate Humble says walks in the country should be compulsory for UK school children.

Image – Heather Heaven

• Education charity the Sutton Trust is to oversee a new US-style endowment fund to help England’s most disadvantaged children succeed.
• Agreements allowing grandparents access to their grandchildren after parents split up are being proposed in a review of the law in England and Wales.
• A 17-year-old pupil from a Hull school has won a national engineering competition after designing a pair of jeans that double as a drum kit.
• Teachers should be trained in neuroscience and its consequences on classroom behaviour so they can cope with the growing numbers of children with severe physical and mental disorders, a Government-backed report has found.
• Becta, the government agency that promoted technology in schools, closed this week.
• Toddlers should undergo progress checks to see how well they can walk, talk and ask for help, a government-commissioned review has recommended.
• Dame Clare Tickell has published her independent review of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Watch the Youtube video below to find out more.

• A total of 41 projects are to benefit from a £10m lottery fund to get more university students playing sport.
• Education Secretary Michael Gove has said he is worried that the existing system creates incentives for schools to encourage students to take “low quality” vocational courses, to boost their places in the league tables.
• Almost half of the universities that have announced plans to charge £9,000 tuition fees are not meeting targets on widening their social mix.
• University language departments are warning that the increase in tuition fees in England could undermine their ability to recruit students.
• Scottish universities have been accused of being the worst in the UK for widening access to disadvantaged students and for drop-out rates.
• The BBC has an interesting report on The Open University, the UK’s open access university, which allows people to study from home in their own time.
• A survey has shown that two-thirds of workers in primary school and early years have received treatment for back and joint problems as a result of working in child-sized environments.
• An eight-year-old boy from Leicester has scored an A grade in A-level maths after having passed all six exam modules with the top grade.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 2nd April to 2nd May - National Pet Month
• 3rd April - Mothering Sunday
• 7th April - World Health Day

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

• The first free school has been given the green light to open in September.
• A third of families in London did not get their first choice secondary school for this autumn, statistics show.
• Working-class children are no more likely to move up the social ladder and hold a middle-class job if they attend a grammar school, rather than a comprehensive, a study has found.
• Teenagers in England should be forced to study maths and English until they have a good standard in both subjects, a key government education adviser has said.
• Tens of thousands of pupils will be sent to colleges and a new breed of technical schools from the age of 14, where they will work “business hours” and attend classes for an extra two weeks a year.
• Hundreds of thousands of young people are doing vocational courses which do not lead to university or a job, a report says.
• Ex-servicemen will be drafted into schools under Government plans to crack down on bad behaviour in the classroom.
• More universities in England could be put at risk of bankruptcy as a result of cuts and changes to funding, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.
• Pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline says it will pay off tuition fee debt of its graduate trainees when university fees rise in England.
• Some of Britain’s most deprived areas will have budgets for key services such as Sure Start cut by £100 a child next year – more than three times that suffered in richer parts of the country, analysis shows.
• Reading standards among children are in sharp decline as pupils increasingly opt for easy books in school and the home, according to a report.

Image – Child Reading

• A charity that gives free books to children in England has been told it will have a 50% cut in funding, two months after fears over its future sparked a political “U-turn” row.
• Actress Joanna Lumley has claimed that British children are being brought up with “slack” morals.
• A third of young adults in the UK think buying something on a credit card does not count as spending money, a survey suggests.
• Despite exam stress, a long stint in education is good for people’s blood pressure, according to researchers in the US.
• This BBC report explores the issue of plagiarism after revelations of famous people who have copied chunks of other people’s work in their own.
• Historian David Starkey sparked chaos in the classroom as part of Jamie Oliver’s new Dream School series by branding a pupil “fat”.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 28th February to 13th March - Fairtrade Fortnight 2011
• 1st to 3rd March - Tenner 2011
• 8th March - International Women’s Day
• 8th March - Shrove Tuesday
• 9th March - World Read Aloud Day
• 9th March - No Smoking Day
• 9th March - Ash Wednesday