The Natural History Museum has just launched new learning resources to support school visits to Cocoon, the interactive visitor experience at the heart of the new Darwin Centre. There are pre and post-visit sections introducing students to an activity which they gather information for as they go round the Cocoon experience. They can be used in the classroom or set as homework.

Back at school, students follow up their visit by presenting what they found out to their class. There are separate activities for Key Stages 3 and 4, and for post-16 students.

• KS3 – ‘How do Scientists study Biodiversity at NHM?’ Pupils take on the role of a News reporter, radio show presenter or scientist to communicate what they learn about research This is supported by free booklets for pupils to use whilst in Cocoon.
• KS4 – Careers activity where pupils take on the role of an interviewer or interviewee for a post working as a Scientist at NHM.
• Post-16 – Expedition plan activity where pupils find out more about Leishmaniasis or Malaria in preparation for writing an expedition plan

To access the resources go to www.nhm.ac.uk/a-day-in-the-life. To find out more about visiting the Natural History Museum with school or college students go to http://www.nhm.ac.uk/education.

Year Dot is a documentary which followed the paths of 15 young people over one year, as they pursue their goals across a range of subjects. Their stories give an insight into their respective fields: Business Management, English, Politics, Performing Arts and P.E, to name a few. They also document the journey taken in transforming a school time passion into a full-blown career.

Alongside these academic insights, the documentary provides an intimate portrayal of some difficult and relevant social subjects. The community engagement of these individuals is also inspiring, making the videos a valuable resource for opening up social issues in the classroom, and bringing curriculum subjects like PSHE and citizenship to life.

www.yeardot.co.uk/resources

The Year Dot site allows you to search for video resources and catch up clips linked to different areas of the curriculum.

Tony Crowley has created a number of career education publications which can be used by primary schools and younger secondary school pupils. They are freely downloadable and aim to support the government’s plans to bring certain aspects of careers education into primary schools.

The resources contain games, group activities, quizzes, questionnaires and worksheets. One of these documents is embedded below and the others can be downloaded here.

A conference, aimed at helping to ease the transition between primary and secondary schools has been organised for 25th February in Manchester. The event aims to give practical ideas of how to ease transition, disseminate findings from a three year project and help staff to share experiences.

More details can be found in the PDF embedded below.

For further information, visit www.dep.org.uk.

Succeeding with Science is an extremely useful site for primary and secondary Science teachers with lots of free downloadable resources and online magazines.

www.succeedingwithscience.com

The latest edition of the primary magazine, For Teachers By Teachers, is a twice yearly, free online magazine which encourages and supports science teaching in the primary classroom. Building on our previous online resource, Once Upon a Time in Cumbria, the current edition focuses on a local research project that helps Year 6 pupils to identify the events and innovations that can cause communities to change.

Along with a PowerPoint Presentation describing how Cumbria has changed over time, FTBT provides comprehensive notes and lesson plans enabling teachers to undertake projects about their own local area with their classes.

The Art Classroom is a wonderful blog about art and design in secondary schools. It is run by David Dunlop and shows the day to day workings of an art classroom.

There are lots of examples of student work, as well as unit plans and ideas for other schools to try. Take a look and leave some comments about the work that is shared.

A couple of new resources have been recently added to the site, which are for use by pupils aged 11 and over. I would be interested in people’s feedback about having this material on the site. Teaching Ideas was originally called ‘Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers’, but over the years, it’s become known as simply ‘Teaching Ideas’.

I’m more than happy to keep adding secondary content… it makes the site useful for even more teachers, and it also gives primary teachers more resources for their more able pupils. I’m a primary teacher, so I need other secondary teachers to contribute their material in order to further develop this aspect of the site though! What do you think? Let me know…