The Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit is undoubtedly the most creative textbook you will have ever seen. Written by a teacher of 23 years experience and designed by a leading graphic artist to the film industry, it is presented in a highly graphic style, capturing students’ attention and communicating big issues with humour and innovation.

Since the Toolkit was published at the end of the last school year teachers, students and celebrities have been getting very excited.

‘I have never seen a textbook like this in my life and it is absolutely brilliant!’ Dr Tony Breslin, Chief Executive of the Citizenship Foundation and OFSTED inspector

‘This is a completely groundbreaking new textbook and it looks amazing… My boy loved it.’ Jarvis Cocker

‘This is the best textbook I have ever seen and I have learned more from it than from anything I have studied at school. It makes the subject come alive and makes me feel able to make a real difference to my world right now.’ Matthew, Year 10

‘The games and activities are completely original and great fun. I have never seen anything like it and now this is my favourite subject by a long way.’ Rosie, Year 10.

‘This amazing book empowers teachers and pupils alike thanks to its vibrant and dynamic approach. Its practical and experiential content provides a much needed lift to this most important area of learning.’ Richard Gerver, former headteacher of the year and author of ‘Creating Tomorrow’s Schools Today’.

Citizenship Studies has been a remarkably contentious subject to introduce to many schools, sometimes causing resistance from teachers, SMT and students alike. The Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit can take this difficult subject from the peripheries of school life and place it in the centre. Whether you teach Citizenship Studies discretely or as part of the PSHE curriculum, no other textbook has been able to make the true heart of this vibrant subject come alive in schools.

The Toolkit meets the demands of all three examining boards, can easily be adapted to suit the needs of the teacher and the students, is extremely easy to use, has hundreds of links to authentic active citizenship projects and celebrates what is most inspiring about this most progressive of subjects.

The wide range of exclusive interviews in the Toolkit is testament to the fact that the unique approach to the key skills in Citizenship Studies has captured the interest of everyone associated with the project, from Thom Yorke and Ms Dynamite to Peter Tatchell, Jon Snow, MPs from all major parties, leading activists, young active citizens, Lord Nicholas Philips, President of the Supreme Court and Sir Hugh Orde, the President of ACPO.

When taught well, Citizenship Studies raises standards not only in exam results across all subjects but in student wellbeing and the sense of community in the whole school. The Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit is the first course book wholly to embrace this inspiring opportunity.

For more reviews, a full preview, ordering and a free teachers’ guide visit www.raxcitizenship.org

The Essential Guide to the Big Issues for Every 21st Century Teacher

by Ian Gilbert

‘This book is a stunner. Writing in an entertaining, page turning style, Ian Gilbert engages the reader with some powerful ideas about learning and teaching.’ – Sara Bubb, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, London

‘In his inimitable style, laced with humour and wisdom, Ian Gilbert makes neuroscience reachable, digestible and, above all, applicable to classroom practice … It will become compulsory reading. I couldn’t put it down.’ – Sir John Jones, Presenter, Writer and Educational Consultant

Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google? is just one of the challenging, controversial and thought-provoking questions Ian Gilbert poses in his long-awaited follow up to the classic Essential Motivation in the Classroom.

It will make you re-consider everything you thought you knew about teaching and learning, such as:

• Are you simply preparing the next generation of unemployed accountants?
• What do you do for the ‘sweetcorn kids’ who come out of the education system in pretty much the same state as when they went in?
• What’s the Real Point of School?
• Exams – So Whose Bright Idea Was That?
• What will your school policy be on brain-enhancing technologies?

Book Details:

Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve got Google?
The Essential Guide to the Big Issues for Every 21st Century Teacher
Ian Gilbert
July 2010: 216×138: 228pp
Pb: 978-0-415-46833-6: £14.99
Order your copy online at www.routledge.com/9780415468336
Alternatively call 01235 400524 or fax 020 7017 6699

One way, however, is better than most…

The man-made world changes every day – and indeed over the last couple of centuries many parts of the country have changed beyond recognition.

Studying this change is, of course, an essential part of history at any level.

However, two problems arise when one starts looking at change to the landscape.

First, the concept of change can be surprisingly difficult for students to grasp intellectually. Second, it’s hard to find maps that explore change within a specific area.

And yet it remains clear that the best way of showing how an area has altered is through historical maps.

Until now, though, the problem has been finding such maps. Even when found, they can be at different scales and projections, making comparisons impossible.

The Cassini Map Teaching Set solves these problems. It gives you five 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey maps from roughly 50-year intervals going back to the early 19th century.

All can be centred on any point in England and Wales you choose. There are also five lively, informative background notes, and 12 worksheets covering a range of map and change-related skills and knowledge.

The unique advantage is that each map matches the coverage, scale and projection of the others, making comparisons quick and accurate. Maps keys and National Grid are included to help everyone find their way around.

The Cassini Map Teaching Set is supplied digitally, so you can easily share it with your colleagues in other departments.  They are ideal for a range of cross-curricular and local studies work and for comparative locations.

All we need is the post-code on which the maps are to be centred and your school’s details. Once created, the set of five maps will be available for download almost immediately.

You will get five maps, all to the same scale, all covering an area of 19km x 12km from the postcode you provide.  You also get a lifetime’s site-licence for the maps, so there’s nothing to re-order.

See an example of the maps along with a range of other information:

• Website: www.cassinimaps.co.uk/schools
• Email: schools@cassinimaps.com
• Tel: 0845 9000 174
• Fax: 01536 399 012

Do you remember your first gold star at school?  To receive one makes a pupil feel very proud and special – and they often rush home to share it excitedly with their parents.

These days it is well known that pupils of all ages love to be praised; and that rewards boost a child’s confidence and inspire them to try even harder. As a result, stickers, badges and wall charts are regularly used as motivational and behaviour management tools in the classroom.

So how do you differentiate your praise from that of your teacher colleagues?

Clearly the very fact that it is praise given by you, the Head Teacher, will add weight and importance. But at Superstickers we have come up with a way of making your praise really stand out.

Our sparkling certificate. A certificate that actually sparkles and twinkles the words: ‘Head Teacher’s Award’.

So for a special reward to show your pupils just how much you recognise their outstanding efforts, take a look at our sparkling Head Teacher certificate.

What is the difference between a quasi-sensory phenomenon and a charismatic experience or a mystical experience?

It’s a fairly fundamental question and one that students of religious studies need to understand before they get too far into the religious experience component of Religious studies AS and A2 levels.

That, of course, is only the start, for there is also the question of Channels, Sources and Occasions of Religious Experience.  There’s also the need to know about such thinkers as Rudolph Otto, William James, Sir Alistair Hardy, Richard Swinburne, as well as those hostile to religion such as Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud.

The copiable book, Religious Experience, (also available on a CD so that it can be put on the school’s learning platform) deals with all these points and many more in a way that gives the student a basic understanding and then allows, and indeed, encourages, debate beyond this point.

In short, it covers the spectrum of issues involved in Religious Experience and the theories advanced to explain them. It provides an introduction to and discussion points on these main types of religious experience and will enable students to obtain an overall grasp of the subject matter. It looks at the different kinds of religious experience and the different channels or occasions for religious experience and also discusses religious experience in the context of the major religions.

After taking in The Ongoing Significance of Religious Experience the book moves on to Problems of Religious Experience, including Empiricism, Kant, and The Logical Positivists.

The volume concludes with Discussions of Religious Experience, which ranges from private and public experiences to perception and moral attitudes.

Throughout the book are exercises/activities for the students to complete. These can form the basis for written homework or for group discussion in the classroom.

Religious Experience is available as a copiable spiral bound book or on CD Rom. The book comes with an unlimited photocopiable licence for the school, and costs £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery for either the book or CD. If you wish to buy both together the price is £26.94 plus £3.95 delivery.

You can order in four different ways. In each case please quote our reference T1672emn. Sample pages can be viewed prior to ordering on http://bit.ly/5Xt0dR

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House Mailings plc, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Rd., Corby, Northants NN17 4HH
• By fax on 01536 399 012
• By phone with a credit card or with an official school order number on 01536 399 011
• On line with a credit card at http://bit.ly/8lXyCy

The AQA Entry Level Certificate in Food Technology is a particularly interesting course as it has two possible uses.  Firstly it is a course that is particulary relevant to low ability KS4 students and to those with irregular attendance patterns, and for these students it can be highly relevant to their career path.

But it is also interesting as an introduction to the GCSE Food syllabus, acting as a way to get the students into the subject and thinking in the right way.

As a result of the extra interest in this course which has arisen from schools using it as an introduction to the GCSE Food Syllabus, we have produced a series of photocopy masters (also available on CD for storage on the school’s learning platform).

The course structure aims to provide support to students working on the compulsory UNIT 1 – Health and Safety in Design and Technology (biscuits) and UNIT 2 – Evaluating Existing Products (bread).  Each Unit in our copiable resource covers 10 outcomes for levels 1, 2 and 3.

Unit 1 provides structured activities where students are introduced to Health and Safety in the work area, and Unit 2 is aimed at introducing the student to the process of evaluating existing product.

Each Unit is preceded by a teacher completed checklist for outcomes that require a teacher’s observation as evidence, and sheets to be handed in for assessment are clearly marked with Outcomes in a grey box.

Price £49.99 ( includes both units)

The resource is targeted at the AQA 2010 and 2011 ELC D&T Specification, and takes into consideration recent specification changes.

You can order the AQA Entry Level Certificate Food Technology (4942) Units 1 and 2 in any of these ways (quoting order number 4043):

• Online at http://tinyurl.com/355n3de
• By phone on 0117 940 6409
• By fax on 0117 940 6408
• By email (quoting a school order number) to sales@classroom-resources.co.uk
• By post to: Classroom Resources, PO Box 1489, Bristol, BS99 3QJ

Open City, the independent organisation which promotes architectural excellence, also runs education programmes for students and teachers in London.  Its website contains educational resources for both primary and secondary age groups, and in the autumn Open City will be running a nationwide eco design competition.

I quote from their promotional newsletter below:

All primary schools invited to take part in the My Green School Eco-Design competition

All primary schools in the UK are invited to receive a free copy of the My Green School Eco-Design teachers’ resource to lead in-class activities into sustainable school design for Key stage 1 & 2 students and enter designs into a UK-wide design competition in the autumn term.

Register your class in the autumn term to receive the resource which will introduce ideas and guidance for leading your class through a cross-curricular investigation into how sustainable your school building is, activity ideas and resources for exploring green design features and creative suggestions for how to help your students design a more sustainable alternative. Open-City Educators will be on hand to offer advice and guidance for activities & competition entries in-class and will confirm the deadline to receive competition entries in January.

If you’re interested in receiving the My Green School resource and entering students’ work in the competition please email rcroker@open-city.org.uk. We will be in touch in September with further details.

The Open City website is at http://www.open-city.org.uk/

1,000,001 is in, but 1,000,000 is out…  Which numbers exist in the Land of Fogg?

Or come to that, when Harry Potter is in, but Hermione Grainger is out! Who else lives in this strange land?

Selected topics in Key Stage 3 Maths covers the nth term, percentages, tessellation and probability, in each case with a mental starter, followed by a pupil activity and a plenary session.

For each of these four topics there are around 25 pages of activities and worksheets, all provided in a photocopiable format, or on CD so that they can be uploaded to the school’s learning platform.

The materials will supplement the chosen school textbook and can be used to stretch gifted and talented pupils by providing additional tasks, as well as providing stimulating materials for all abilities including SEN pupils.

Each topic contains: details of the mathematical content covered by the pack; a pupil’s target achieved/record of achievement sheet; lesson plans; worksheets (which may be used during the lessons or for homework or cover work); suitable tasks, and tests.

There are sample pages from the photocopiable book at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/maths/T1678.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1678EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 745 6

Prices

• Photocopiable book: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the book and the CD: £31.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1678EMN

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On line with a credit card at http://bit.ly/d4wHW3

If you ask a group of older reluctant readers what they like doing in their spare time, ‘watching TV’ would be pretty high up on the list. Ask them, for example, for five words to describe Homer Simpson or the final series of Big Brother and you stand a chance of getting quite a discussion going.

Television is popular. It’s fast, funny, engaging, undemanding and reflects popular culture. That’s why students watch it.

Books, on the other hand, don’t seem to have quite the same attraction for reluctant readers. Compared to TV, books rarely offer the same kind of speed, complexity and engagement as television.

After all, books are not fast, and so ‘books are boring.’ Students vote with their time.

Rather than struggling to sell the virtues of books over television, Ransom has hit upon a rather simple trick. If you want reluctant readers to read books, and if you know that they like television, then make the books more like television.

This is what we’ve done with their Trailblazers series. Attractive topics, profusely illustrated, with not too much text (the reading age is about 6-7 years). They’re full colour and very busy. Lots of pictures, lots of asides, short, and to the point.  Read the book and move on. Even the stories manage to cram four chapters into 500 words. And if that’s too slow, there’s a comic (speech bubble) version too.

The result is simple: even the most anti-book students start to read.

There are more details on the Trailblazers books at http:www.ransom.co.uk/Trailblazers.html

You can order Trailblazers:

• By fax: 05601 148 881
• By phone: 01962 862307
• By post: Ransom Publishing, Radley House, 8 St. Cross Road, Winchester, Hants SO23 9HX
• By Email: orders@ransom.co.uk

What is the most effective (and free) way of helping parents to help their children?

It is quite obvious that most parents want to help their children in any way they can – but often lack the skills or knowledge in relation to what they can most effectively do.

As a result we’ve produced a website which contains ten different sets of material available for immediate download for you to pass on to parents.

Free resources

But that’s not all. There’s also information on the same website about high quality training, and there is a whole range of free resources for use in the classroom, including such areas as initial assessment, EAL, SEN etc.  Again, all immediately available on one site.

The SEN materials include snappy lesson plans, letter sound cards, sound sheets and sounds word cards while the EAL material includes a free translation service, along with resources such as counting in 15 different languages.

In terms of assessment there is initial assessment for reception pupils, main grapheme phonics assessment and alien word decoding assessment.

You can view all the materials on the site by going to http://osiriseducational.co.uk/earlyyears/ and clicking on Online Phonics Resource, Learn More!

You’ll be asked to log in (it takes about 20 seconds) and then you’ll be able to download as much material as you like.

If you have any enquiries please call 0808 160 5 160.

I recently took my senior school choir on a short trip to Venice, and whilst there they were able to perform in a couple of churches and sing in a festival. It was all well-organised and well-prepared. After we had taken our turns, I felt safe that for the rest of the trip the choir would be able to do a spot of site-seeing. So they headed off under the supervision of other teachers while I paid ten times over the odds to have a coffee and cake in St Mark’s Square.

I always reckon that being able to relax at an appropriate moment is the key to surviving a school trip!

So my choir dutifully went off to seek adventures new, while I took my one chance to sit in the sun and escape from the daily challenges this group had presented, such as the finding of a lost passport (it wasn’t lost, my colleague had had it all the time), the cajoling, the coach sickness, (“why didn’t you tell me you were always sick on a coach?” – “I thought I might have grown out of it”) and so on.

Upon my return to the pre-designated meeting point by the Doges Palace I found a singularly happy group. In fact, a worryingly happy group.

What, I wanted to know, had they been up to.

It took them a moment to tell me, but then the story came out. They had arranged an impromptu concert, conducted themselves and had been treated to a hearty round of applause. Then they had taken round the hat and collected the money. The take was impressive!

I gave them a cursory warning, but in reality no harm had been done. And in fact the event got me thinking. Maybe we should perform outside in more informal settings. There would still be a need for a high level of rehearsal but the performance would be of a different style, and could be a really interesting experience for us all.

Back at school I told the choir of my idea, but when I said we would not be collecting for their own personal gain, they weren’t sure. Until they found out where I had in mind….Disneyland Paris for a Disney Magic Music Day.

I have to say that I have never met a pupil or student who does not want to go to Disney. It is, well, Disney. We applied, auditioned, and got our day. A few months later we headed over there and I must say it was indeed a magical experience…and the choir loved it.

It is true that some of the youngsters, on being asked by the deputy head what the best part of the trip was, spoiled the carefully arranged facade by speaking about seeing me get off Space Mountain Mission 2. That didn’t do too much for my career, I felt, but such matters can be pushed aside. As a trip, it was fabulous.

If you are interested in taking a group to Disney (whether they are instrumental, choral, dance or a marching band) then click here.

But just one word of warning. Before you get there, make sure that everyone understands. Anyone who is found singing or playing “It’s a small world” is sent back to the hotel, no questions asked. It’s safer that way. (And if you don’t know what I mean, just wait until you get there!)

For more information contact us on 01273 648 248, email sales@equity.co.uk or visit www.equityschooltravel.co.uk

Most of us send out letters to new parents, welcoming them in and stressing the need for them to label up all of their child’s belongings.

The trouble is that not all of them do it.

Of course, it is clear that some parents will never label up all their children’s clothes and possessions no matter what you say, but it is also true that the way parents are asked to complete this task affects how likely they are to do it.

In effect, the way we grab the parents’ attention affects how likely they are to label every article of clothing and any personal possessions that the child will bring to school.

To show you just what I mean I have written a message that seems to work really well – and I am very happy to forward it to you, so you can consider copying all or part of it and sending it on.

If you would like a copy just drop me an email at enquiries@simplystuck.com and I will forward it to you. No charge and no obligation.

You can, of course, amend it to suit your school’s particular needs – but either way I do hope you will try it as we have found in the past that it can work particularly well in grabbing parental attention.

Jo Hutchinson

P.S. At Simply Stuck we provide you with information packs to give to parents. They then place the orders online or via the phone. Your school gets a credit for every pack of labels ordered – without having to collect any money or do any selling. All you do is hand out the packs.

There’s more information on www.simplystuck.com/ps.aspx

It’s the National Year of Music, the Sing Up campaign is still going strong and The Big Arts Give is making exciting plans. With so much enthusiasm for music education, now is the ideal time to be looking at enhancing your music lessons with interactive resources.

Boardworks offers one of the only comprehensive cross-specification resources on the market, covering the QCA Scheme of Work and the Programme of Study, and mapped to the GCSE specifications for three major exam boards. Our resources are interactive and engaging and will enhance your students’ enthusiasm for all topics, from the concerto to shanty time.

As teachers across the country have been telling us, “other products just don’t compare. Boardworks is quick and easy and it makes things much more interesting – it’s marvellous.”

Don’t just it take it from us, though, why not take a look for yourself? Click here to see a free sample of the product.

What do you give to students for whom English is an additional language, to those with limited attendance, or to those who need an alternative to GCSE?

KS4 students working at National Curriculum Levels 1, 2 and 3, need a course of study that is designed for them.   Nowhere is this more true than where the students have English as an additional language, where the students have limited attendance, or where the students simply need an alternative to GCSE.

AQA Entry Level Certificate Preparation for Working Life is just such a course, and comes with the added bonus that even where the course is not finished, each completed unit can be submitted for the AQA Unit Award Scheme so accreditation can still be gained.

Whilst there is a myriad of resources out there to wade through that could help you complete the course, The Teachers’ Resource Pack CD-Rom for AQA Preparation for Working Life is the first resource on the market that is written specifically to the outcomes required by the syllabus, minimizing your research time, planning workload, and administration for AQA.

Each unit has a scheme of work supporting your planning whilst offering flexibility to adjust the content. Where units need to be made specific to your students, the worksheets have been designed for you to adapt, and where this is required has been indicated in the schemes of work.

The nature of this course means that additional local resources are required, e.g. college application forms, prospectuses, work experience placements, etc. This is also highlighted in the schemes of work.

Each unit has a full set of worksheets that together form a workbook for each student.  The language used is kept simple, with key words defined for students. The worksheets have been designed for contexts where students have close guidance from staff; however the simplicity of the language means that some students may be able to move on relatively independently.

Where appropriate, the worksheets move students beyond simply meeting the outcomes for the course, providing activities that introduce and consolidate the assessed outcome. This is such a complete package that it would be ideal for use by teaching assistants overseeing specific students.

This resource is designed to gain appropriate accreditation for your students through a course that is fully grounded in practical life-skills.

Pricing

292 photocopiable masters on CD – £89.99 (£103.49 inc. VAT) – Order code 3123

Once purchased, the CD can be freely copied and networked throughout the school.

You can order the AQA Entry Level Certificate Preparation for Working in any of these ways (quoting order number 3123)

• Online at www.classroom-resources.co.uk/acatalog/AQA_ELC_Preparation_for_Working_Life__4900__CD-ROM.htmlBy phone on 0117 940 6409 By fax on 0117 940 6408 By email (quoting a school order number) to sales@classroom-resources.co.ukBy post to: Classroom Resources, PO Box 1489, Bristol, BS99 3QJ

Now that the flurry of exams is coming to a close, why not order your class set of revision guides and workbooks for your new Year 10s today instead of waiting until the new school year? That way those studying the new specifications will be able to monitor their progress straight away, and you can enjoy your summer holidays safe in the knowledge that the books will be waiting for you and your students come September.

For the new GCSE English curriculum Letts and Lonsdale have published two different revision series designed to match your Year 10s’ different study needs: GCSE Essentials provides concise coverage of all the essential content for the exams, whereas GCSE Revision Plusonly £1.95 a copy if you order before 30^th September. offers more in-depth coverage of the course and can therefore also be used as a classroom companion. What’s more, as an introductory offer all new Letts and Lonsdale GCSE English revision guides and workbooks are

GCSE Essentials is available for GCSE English Language and Literature, with GCSE Essentials Text Guides also available for studying Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. GCSE Revision Plus is available for GCSE AQA English & English Language and GCSE AQA English Literature with separate guides for Aiming for A* and an anthology companion. You can see the whole list of titles on the Letts and Lonsdale website, and even view the first 20 pages of each revision guide online: http://www.lettsandlonsdale.com/maths-english-ict/english/

Still unsure? You can receive free inspection copies of any of the new GCSE English titles. Simply visit the website to see what’s available and then contact customer services on 0844 576 8126lettseducation@harpercollins.co.uk with the list of titles you’d like to receive. or

To take advantage of the special £1.95 introductory offer simply use the code LETTS3 when you place your order on the Letts and Lonsdale website or quote P085 when you contact customer services. At RRP £5.99 for GCSE Revision Plus titles and £4.99 for GCSE Essentials it makes sense to place your order for a class set today!

Visit the Letts and Lonsdale website to find out more: http://www.lettsandlonsdale.com/maths-english-ict/english/

Drama Cover Lessons comprises 22 units of work which are photocopiable, self-contained and designed to develop the pupils skills in a meaningful way. They can be set quickly by the Drama Department and administered easily by the cover teacher, who can thus feel more comfortable with administering and supervising this subject.

The units of work are varied in length to enable different periods of time to be covered. There are practical tasks included that can be used when the pupils have a drama space to work in, but no drama teacher. There are also worksheets that reflect upon and develop practical skills which would be equally useful as one-off lessons or to support the practical work in the curriculum. These would also be ideal for those times when the drama room is not available. Some of the tasks involve working in pairs or small groups and others are for individual work.

Drama Cover Lessons is written for KS3 and gets progressively more challenging, building towards some of the requirements for GCSE. The final units can be used with GCSE groups.

You can see some sample pages at http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/drama/T1629.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1629EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 678 7

Prices

• Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £26.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1629EMN

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=458

One of the great problems that there can be with looking at new resources is the issue of quality. Publishers put out adverts saying that their materials are excellent, but the reality can occasionally be a little different.

Which is why Teaching Resources UK provides a huge selection of ready made resources specifically for form time including lesson plans, work sheets, activities, assessments, interactive games and video clips. Not only will they provide you with fun, interesting and informative activities, but they will save you hours of time sourcing or creating your own.

Within the materials there are over 100 activities for KS3 and KS4 classes. They cover a wide range of topics including the Stock Exchange, prejudice, the media, human rights, gap year volunteering, critical consumers…  Indeed some of them are detailed enough also to be of use by colleagues in schools who teach subjects such as PSHE or careers, or who handle work experience, media studies, business studies, enterprise, gap year projects etc.

So, to return to my first point, you can select as many materials as you want, and try them out for 10 days, without having to commit to buying. If you think they are a load of old tosh, then you just cancel and nothing is lost.

The key point is that at the end of the 14 day trial they drop you an email saying time’s up, and if you cancel by then, there’s nothing to pay at all. The form time materials cost £249.99 for a year which by my reckoning is around £4.60 a lesson.

You can find more details, and sign up for the free trial at http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/2010

It is easy when we talk about drugs to think exclusively about the illegal variety – cocaine, heroin, etc.

But when considering drugs education with students, it is worth also bringing into the discussions the issue of legal drugs such as caffeine, alcohol, paracetamol, tobacco, etc.

When it comes to alcohol, for example, repeated surveys show that most adults don’t know how to translate the issue of alcoholic units into the number of drinks that will take them over the allowed limit when driving.

Most adults also don’t know what the law says in relation to the consumption of alcohol by people under 18. (It is, for example, illegal to give alcohol to a child aged under five – but not for those over five).

The point is that when adults don’t know what is and isn’t legal, it is more than likely that teenagers won’t know either.

It is with this notion in mind that the Spiral Drug Education resources have been developed to help give young people accurate information about drugs and drug use, to share attitudes and to develop skills and confidence for managing drug-related situations.

There are two resources available. Spiral Drug Education 1 has been written specifically for 11-14 year olds and Spiral Drug Education for 14-18 year olds.

Both resources include a spiral bound book with around 90 pages of learning objectives (complete with materials, detailed methodology and follow ups, etc).  Photocopiable resources are also included for use in the classroom.

Spiral Education 1 contains various resources including a “which drug is it quiz”; understanding how and why young people use drugs discussion points and detailed facts regarding the different drugs available.

Spiral Education 2 contains information on the history of drugs, drugs and the law and helping teenagers to become aware of the possible consequences of their decisions through group discussion, to name a few.

Both resources are written by Julian Cohen, an ex-teacher and youth and community worker, who has worked as a drug education writer and trainer for 25 years.

The Spiral Drug Education 1 and 2 cost £49 per copy or £80 for both resources.

• On line with a credit card:
• Spiral Drug Education 1 http://tinyurl.com/2vxocwf
• Spiral Drug Education 2 http://tinyurl.com/325znkd
• Spiral Drug Education 1 and 2 http://tinyurl.com/398hwlq
• By fax on 0844 412 0973
• By post to: HIT, 3 Paramount Business Park, Wilson Road, Liverpool, L36 6AW
• By phone on 0844 412 0972 citing a school order number
• By email stuff@hit.org.uk citing a school order number

How can you engage your A Level Economics students in the daily world of economics? How can you get them to apply the principles of economics from the classroom to the commercial world? To get them using economic terminology with fluency and produce the results in the exam room?

thebusinesspodcast.co.uk will get your students using their iPods and laptops to make sense of the economic world. It will take them to the very latest news stories  about business in today’s newspapers, it will quiz them on-line about these articles, encouraging them to think about and applying business concepts, and literally talk to them about what happened in the news last week through their iPod.

Take a look at this unique service at thebusinesspodcast.co.uk, see how the contemporary on-line economics news article and weekly downloadable economics podcast together with some examination type questions will get your students engaged in the world of economics, get them discussing economic issues, and get your students speaking the language of economics – that should impress the examiner!

Go to:http://thebusinesspodcast.co.uk/ to see how it works.

Go to:http://www.thebusinesspodcast.co.uk/category/the-weekly-economics-podcast/ to see some examples of what your students could be listening to, reading and doing.

Or e mail:enquiries@thebusinesspodcast.co.uk for more information.

Schools spend vast amounts of time and money gathering data, exporting data into spreadsheets and then manipulating those spreadsheets to display the student performance information they want to share. These spreadsheets then have to be disseminated to other members of staff or groups for further interpretation and subsequent action. Often, this process has to be repeated at every assessment point in the school year and for every year group. It’s an arduous and time-consuming task.

Imagine. What would you do if all of your assessment data was immediately available to any authorized user, in a graphical user-friendly format leaving you and your colleagues to focus more on the actions that need to taken, rather than spending time collating and organising the data?

Well, Active Dashboards could be just what you are looking for!

We have worked with a number of schools to:

• Create dashboards linked directly to their school’s assessment database and other data sources. This data is read directly from their school’s MIS system, so information is always live and there is no need to export or transfer data. Data from spreadsheets and other systems, such as PARS and BROMCOM are also being displayed in dashboards.
• Use the dashboards to compare student performance throughout each key stage and against baseline data, including 2 and 3 levels of progress.
• Develop a special ‘behaviour’ dashboard which enables one of the schools we work with to see summaries of behaviour and rewards and to drill-down through those summaries to individual student issues. A ‘behaviour/rewards today’ item provides an up to the minute status display.
• Create filters for free-school meals, SEN, gifted and talented and looked after children, that enable the schools we work with to compare the progress, performance and achievement of these different groups of students, at the click of a button.
• Display attendance information in dashboards that summarise data for the whole year, or in dashboards that pull together information for an individual student.

Want to find out more?

Go online to www.dfsi.co.uk, call 01455 201 890 or email: claire@cosbyclifton.co.uk

For science students today there are two issues.

The first obviously involves learning what they are taught in the classroom and the lab.

The second involves staying in touch with scientific developments – and their implications.

It involves discussing the fact that cars driven by Google employees have been cruising the streets, gathering information on private wi-fi networks, without letting anyone know they are doing it.

It also involves the thought that there might not just be one Higgs Boson, but a whole family of the things, which would really turn our understanding of the universe upside down.

Or the fact that the only aspect of science that candidates seemed to get excited about in this year’s general election campaign was the lack of explosions in modern science classes.

Or the fact that handedness can be found in birds, bees, cats and whales – although no one quite knows why.

All of these issues are covered week after week in the New Scientist.

Which gives a good reason for buying it and holding it in your library.  Another one is that it is under half price when sold to students.

As a way of extending debate and engendering enthusiasm and excitement about science it is probably unbeatable.

There are full details of the under half-price offer at http://www.nordicsubs.co.uk/magazine.aspx?magazine=NS I do hope you will feel it is worthwhile passing this information on to your students.

Schools are about teaching and learning they are not about discipline and behaviour. But if the behaviour and discipline in school is not right, then the teaching and learning suffers as a result.

In improving schools we find that behaviour and discipline is integrated with the teaching and learning patterns of the school. The unity of approach through teaching, learning, behaviour and discipline ensures that the school removes any behavioural problems, and that behaviour and discipline is handled in a way that enhances teaching and learning.

This volume combines a wide range of research and practice into one book which includes:

• Policy statements on teaching and learning, behaviour and discipline, and parental involvement
• Information for parents on all aspects of teenage and sub-teenage behaviour
• Information for staff on linking teaching and learning with behaviour and discipline
• Methods of motivating teenagers
• Rewards and discipline
• Strategies for improving behaviour and learning.

This book is supplied as a photocopiable volume in a ring binder or on CD Rom. You may use the disk version to modify and develop the templates and policies to suit your own school needs.

A contents list and sample pages can be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/education/t1361.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1361EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 493 6

Prices

• Photocopiable report: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £31.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1361EMN

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=287

The transformation from a young person who writes a history essay because he/she has been told to do so, to a student who is genuinely interested in history and enjoys writing about it, can be slow and gradual. What we hope, however, is that by the time the student considers which universities to apply to, and then comes to sit the A level exams, the interest in history is really developing.

One way to help this process along is through encouraging the students to read the BBC History magazine, either through having a subscription copy in the sixth form common room, or through the student having his/her own copy.

The value of the magazine comes not just with the quality of the articles, but also the breadth of coverage – thus giving the students a chance to read complete pieces on topics outside of the periods that they are studying.

Recent issues, for example, have included articles ranging from how King John saved England from the French, and the 100^th anniversary of the creation of the Union of South Africa following the Boer War. There’s also been a piece on Gerrard Winstanley who led the ‘Digger’ movement in the 17th-century, and a commentary on the ways in which Robin Hood has been depicted in films, and how that reflects the attitudes of the time.

On a quite different note there’s been a piece about the way in which a member of the Hitler Youth came to play football at the highest level in England after the war, and a discussion of how history can, on occasion, be cut up for the convenience of historians. (The ancient Mediterranean world, it is suggested), is conventionally sliced into a succession of periods. Greece is archaic, classical and then Hellenistic; Rome is republican, imperial and… )

It really is a remarkable publication and one that is bound to heighten the interest of any school student who is beginning to get a deeper understanding of what “history” really means.

Subscriptions can be purchased from www.nordicsubs.co.uk/magazine.aspx?magazine=HI

In a teacher’s busy life it is often hard to find the time to come up with new ideas for workshops to stimulate your students’ acting skills. This book is the answer.

In 1984 Actors’ Lab was set up in Scotland as a drama workshop which concentrated solely on building acting skills. It was highly experimental and challenged many of the received opinions and conventions surrounding theatrical production. This book, written by a key player in Actors’ Lab and running to 104 pages, represents the distillation of many years of intense examination of acting methods and skills.

The Actors’ Lab Workshop contains 43 workshop units and is ideally suited to secondary school pupils with some acting experience. Each workshop is designed to fit into a two hour period and there are also suggestions for warm up exercises and follow up material. The book is not intended as a detailed guide on how to conduct a workshop but aims to provide a framework within which participants are free to experiment and adapt to suit their own skills and personalities.

You can see a full list of the topics and some sample pages at http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/drama/T1552.htm

Publisher’s reference: T1552EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 598 8

Prices

• Photocopiable book: £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the book and the CD: £26.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1552EMN

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=406

One way to look at this is to consider the past SATs results gained by schools in disadvantaged areas where the pupils might be expected to have difficulty with their basic skills.

This is not to say that SATs are good or bad – but rather to use them as a comparative measure.

In this way we could look at the materials those schools have been using. Then we can get quite an insight into which teaching materials work, and which don’t.

Here are the results from one group of schools, all of whom have used a particular set of materials, and all of whom are in disadvantaged areas

• St Andrew’s C of E Primary School, London: 92% of pupils achieved level 4; 29% of pupils achieved level 5.
• St Mary’s C of E Junior & Infant School, Manchester: 80% of pupils achieved level 4; 17% of pupils achieved level 5.
• Taylor Road Primary School, Leicester :95% of pupils achieved level 4; 38% of pupils achieved level 5
• Cayley Primary School, London: 84% of pupils achieved level 4; 25% of pupils achieved level 5
• Biggin Hill Primary School, Hull: 94% of pupils achieved level 4; 35% of pupils achieved level 5

All these schools used the same package of materials which develop each child’s ability to articulate his/her thinking about text and which focus on key literacy, presentational and functional devices.

This package of materials – the SfA Year Six Teaching Package – consists of eleven units that work in this area through five important text genres:

• Recount
• Non-chronological report
• Persuasion
• Balanced report
• Story.

The Writing Support materials in the package include text for deconstruction, photocopiable posters to support writing and planning materials.

The background to the schools including their Ofsted reports can be found on the Success for All website at www.successforall.org.uk/ofsted.shtml

The three manuals that make up this package are available for £59.99. A half day training is required to achieve the most from these materials.

There are more details at www.successforall.org.uk/satscosts.shtml

You can order the materials

• By post: Success for All, Jarodale House, 7 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham, NG7 6LB
• On the phone: (with a school order number) 0115 956 0363
• By fax: 0115 956 0366

There are two points about The Outward Bound Trust that tend to attract teachers, when thinking about education outside the classroom.

The first is the quality – both of the experiences that they have on offer as well as the outstanding quality of instruction. The second is financial assistance. Being a charity, they have Outward Bound^® bursaries available. This means students can benefit from an Outward Bound residential, irrespective of their financial circumstances.

In fact they now have over £2 million worth of bursaries to give out to support participants each year.

Their wilderness adventures give young people the chance to raise their aspirations and gain self-belief and ambition. They strive to offer extraordinary experiences in the UK’s most inspirational locations, whilst encouraging young people to become successful learners, effective contributors, confident individuals and responsible citizens.

Thanks to The Trust’s bursary scheme, their latest offer includes the following competitive rates for the Adventure & Challenge course:

Prices shown are based on a group of twelve students and two staff members, for groups of up to 36 students.

The reduced price would be subject to completion of a bursary application form, to establish suitability for funding.

The total cost of the course is inclusive of food, accommodation and fully comprehensive insurance.

If you would like to find out more about how The Outward Bound Trust can work with your school, please contact them on 01931 740000, email enquiries@outwardbound.org.uk or visit their informative website www.outwardbound.org.uk

One of the biggest problems with handling a special needs department is keeping up to date with all the special needs that one can encounter.

Of course we all know that Tourette’s Syndrome exists, but quite possibly our knowledge of the Syndrome is sketchy.  That’s fine, until suddenly we find that there is a pupil or student suffering from the Syndrome, and colleagues are asking for guidance and support.

The same can be true for everything from Asperger’s Syndrome to dyscalculia from dysgraphia to obsessive compulsive disorder.  The issue is not just to know what the condition is, but how the condition can best be handled in school.

To help overcome this problem Behaviour Solutions has published “A Guide to Syndromes and Conditions” which contains details of the 17 most common but equally most often misunderstood special needs.

In each case the condition is defined in terms of the characteristics and symptoms, and then details of strategies and treatments, followed by details of useful books and websites.

The book is available from…www.behaviourmatters.com/syndromes.htm

Cost £25 plus £2 p&p for this photocopiable resource.

One of the key findings of school efficiency research has been that both in schools that are facing challenging or difficult circumstances, as well as in schools where there is a feeling that progress has slowed down, there will always be some departments which are highly effective and which are continuing to move forward.

In all schools in fact, some departments will be found to be just getting by, some might even be failing, while others are star performers.

While much of the early research into the ways in which school become more effective focussed on the whole school, subsequent research focussed on individual departments – and found that it was the departments that were able to power improvement.

It was also this research that revealed that even in schools which Ofsted found to be failing, there were always a few departments that were effective – sometime highly effective.

What they also found was that most of these departments used a particular style of organisation – a style which had nothing to do with funding or resources, and it was this style of organisation that was the key to school improvement.

In other words, while many other departments in the school were having difficulty, a few were having succeess, due to the way in which they were organised.

The analysis of these succeeding departments shows that they all use a mix of 50 key factors. They don’t use them all, but you will find a number of these factors being used in all the departments that are succeeding.

What’s more, any school, department, or teacher can implement them. No special recruitment policy is needed. No extra funds required.

The Effective Department:  ISBN: 978 1 86083 370 0; Order code: T1277emn

Sample pages can be found on http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/education/t1277.pdf

The volume is available as:

• A photocopiable book, price £15.95 plus £3.95 delivery inclusive of VAT.
• On CD, price £15.95 plus £3.95 delivery inclusive of VAT.
• Both book and CD at special price of £22.94 plus £3.95 delivery inclusive of VAT.

You can purchase the book:

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
• On the phone with a school order number at 01536 399 011
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=240

Obviously the themes behind the stories have a universal relevance, but they are set in a culture that is distant from that experienced by the children every day.

In order to help children learn the deep significance of each story, we have produced a series of DVDs known as “Fleeting Shadows” using shadow puppets, music and actors to illustrate the stories.

These can be used independently for classrooms, assemblies or as part of the “a teacher’s dozen” materials.

Fleeting Shadows Volume One covers

• Cain and Abel
• David and Saul
• Jacob and Esau
• The Disciples’ Mission (Twelve Men Went)
• Peter and John and Pentecost
• Saul on the Road to Damascus
• The Promised Land
• Jesus’ followers (Such Different Men)

This DVD links perfectly to some of the fully scripted assemblies in “a teacher’s dozen Summer Year C” assembly book.

There is more information and previews of the clips from the DVD at:
http://www.twelvebaskets.co.uk/fleeting_shadows_vol_1_dvd

Fleeting Shadows Volume Two cover

• Jairus and his Daughter
• James and John
• Ishmael and Isaac
• Hannah and Samuel
• Pentecost
• Solomon and the Two Mothers
• Gideon and the Midianites
• The Rich Young Man
• Parables of the Salt, Lamp and Mustard Seed
• Esther Saves the Jews

This DVD links perfectly to some of the fully scripted assemblies in “a teacher’s dozen Summer Year B” assembly book.

There is more information and previews of the clips from the DVD at:
http://www.twelvebaskets.co.uk/fleeting_shadows_vol_2_dvd

Ordering and pricing

JUNE SPECIAL OFFER – Buy Fleeting Shadows Volume One and Two together
Reduced Price -£23.00
Saving – £4.00
Product Code – FSSET
Offer ends 7^th July 2010

There is more information at:
www.twelvebaskets.co.uk/fleeting_shadows_1_and_2_special_offer

DVDs can also be ordered individually.
Volume one: £13.50
Volume two: £13.50
Delivery charge: £3.50 for up to 3 products.

To view all resources from twelvebaskets for primary schools and/or print off an order form visit:
http://bit.ly/aLQ9Jx

You can order

• By post to twelvebaskets limited, Hope Centre, Hope Street East, CASTLEFORD WF10 1DZ
• By fax to 01977 806141
• By email with a school order number to penny@twelvebaskets.co.uk
• By phone to 01977 806139
• On line with a school order number at www.twelvebaskets.co.uk/fleeting_shadows_1_and_2_special_offer

Students are often taught about ICT programmes but are not taught the most basic computing skill of all – typing.

Touch typing is a skill and, like holding a pencil, once bad habits set in it is very hard to stop.

But of course it goes much further than bad habits. The student who can touch type can focus on the essay he/she is writing, and when it comes to work in offices, virtually every employer these days expects every employee to be able to type rapidly and accurately. It is vital for employers to have well trained employees that are able to touch type when carrying out tasks. It is equally important that employers and schools ensure that computer networks are protected with up to date antivirus 2010 software to protect users and files against malicious internet threats. It would be a shame for documents that have been carefully touch typed to become corrupted.

In effect, touch typing helps students pass exams and helps applicants get jobs, simply because it allows the individual to focus on the message rather than the medium.

Touch typing is recognised as a basic skill across schools in Europe and the USA and the teaching of it is commonplace. However most schools in the UK don’t teach it so pupils are not able to make the most of what is expensive IT equipment.

The BCS Chartered Institute of IT (formerly the British Computer Society) is the only UK examining body that offers a Level 1 and Level 2 qualification in touch-typing.

The qualification, called ‘e-type’, costs just £29 per pupil and includes:-

• Online courseware, that pupils can use at home as well as in school, available for
  each pupil for as long as two years
• Up to three 5-minute e-type automated test attempts, which test the pupil’s speed
  and accuracy and lead to the BCS Level 1 or Level 2 certificate in touch typing
• Automatic calculation of test results
• The BCS Certificate in touch typing for successful candidates.

As an extra benefit, e-type gives your school the chance to gain Performance Points and/or contribute towards your school’s attainment targets. Click here http://tinyurl.com/35xz6jh to see its entry on the National Database of Approved Qualifications (NDAQ).

The BCS offers separate courseware products for children and for adults and so the qualification could also benefit staff as well as pupils.

For more information on the e-type qualification go to www.bcs.org/e-type

To sign up for a free trial, email enquiries@typeandtest.com and add e-type Free Trial in the subject line.

Recording your students on a regular basis does one thing more than any other: it heightens the profile of your department within the school.

What’s more the student’s enthusiasm for the music they create is increased, and the CDs can be used as fundraisers. Meanwhile Ofsted will accept them as evidence of work and the whole event is great PR for the school.

But…

Organising the recording can be really problematic – even if you have your own recording studio.

It’s not just the case of getting everyone rehearsed, it is also the fact that you have to act as recording engineer, producer and mixer of the final recording, and you have to ensure that the CD cases reflect well on your work.

The results can be great, but the whole process is extremely tiring.

It was to help overcome this problem that SonicWorks was set up. Our aim is to make the whole event a much more relaxed, more enjoyable affair, and to allow you to have a significant recording made as often as you wish.

In fact we do this, whether you have your own recording studio or not – because we can bring our own recording system along to the school.

We supply all the equipment and personnel needed to make the recording, we produce the CD, and the CD case with its illustrations. In fact we can do everything you want us to do, short of creating the music.

Best of all, the recording day is free of charge. What we do is produce the finished CD, the CD case and then the school can buy as many copies as it wants.

So you can establish how many copies are wanted for the governors, the school archive and how many parents want to buy the CD before placing your order.

The cost of the CDs themselves fall the more you order, so, for example, 100 CDs will cost £6.80 each plus VAT while 300 will cost £4.80 each plus VAT.

For more information please take a look at www.schoolrecording.co.uk/cd_recording.pdf or give us a call on 01925 230626

Environmentally friendly; free data wiping.

When you have IT equipment that is no longer needed there are three fundamental issues you need to consider:

• COST. Firstly, and most obviously, you’ll want to have it removed free of charge from your school.

• ENVIRONMENT.  Secondly, you’ll want to be assured that it is going to be treated in the most environmentally friendly way possible, in keeping with your school’s sustainable education programme.

• DATA. Thirdly, but still very importantly, you must be assured that all the data on the drives will be wiped to the highest standards possible.

This is exactly what PRM Green Technologies does. Indeed we do it not just with computers but also screens, printers and other equipment too.

What’s more, we clean out all the data from the drives, and then all the equipment is then recycled within the UK – all without any charge.

We can take PC base units, CRT monitors, TFT monitors, servers, laptops, server racks, switches, telecom switches and printers, and as long as you have 30 of these items we will take away other IT equipment such as keyboards, cabling telecoms.

At the end of the process we issue you with free certification evidence so you can see that the correct procedures were complied with.

The only requirements we have are that you have at least 30 items for collection and that they are all gathered together in one easily accessible place for our driver to pick up.

For more information please call our freephone number: 0800 840 9195 or fill in the form by clicking here www.prmgreentech.com/contact.htm

None of us particularly likes taking a gamble on ordering worksheets, etc, without really knowing what we are going to get.

The occasional sample page can help – but really it is much better if the whole product is available on inspection.

So we’ve produced ready made resources, lesson plans, work sheets, activities, assessments, interactive games and video clips for PSHE KS3 and KS4.

And then we have made them available free of charge on the website.  You can download these resources immediately, free of charge and try them out for 14 days.   Then if you don’t want to use them you just drop us a line saying so.  If you want to keep using them, then there is no need to do anything else – we’ll just drop you an invoice.

The teaching resources help schools to promote the wellbeing of pupils and provide relationship and drug education lesson plans and ideas.

Worksheets deal with subjects such as personal identity, healthy lifestyles, risk, relationships and diversity. The PSHE teacher guidance will also help you teach issues such as drug, alcohol and tobacco use and misuse, diet and the balance between work, leisure and exercise.

Topics covered within the PSHE KS3 and KS4 teaching resources include:

• Alcohol, a series of lessons looking at the effects and consequences of alcohol and alcohol abuse
• Drugs, (students take part in a ‘TV chat show’ style discussion about how drugs affect lives)
• Teenage pregnancy, (topics range from stereotyping teenage mothers through to exploring the social impacts of teenage pregnancy)
• Healthy eating.

In the Relationships module we focus on relationships of all different sorts and on the emotion of love itself.  In the Cannabis section we explore the links between cannabis use and mental health issues, this module is topical and grabs the students’ attention.

When dealing with financial capability, activities are based on personal finance concepts and are designed for use during form periods and tutorials as well as in PSHE lessons.

You can find more details and sign up for the free trial at http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/2010

If you are looking for ideas and activities for form periods we’ve produced a huge selection of ready made resources specifically for form time including lesson plans, work sheets, activities, assessments, interactive games and video clips. Not only will they provide you with fun, interesting and informative activities, but they will save you hours of time sourcing or creating your own.

Within the materials there are over 100 activities for KS3 and KS4 classes. They cover a wide range of topics including the Stock Exchange, prejudice, the media, human rights, gap year volunteering, critical consumers…  Indeed some of them are detailed enough also to be of use by colleagues in schools who teach subjects such as PSHE or careers, or who handle work experience, media studies, business studies, enterprise, gap year projects etc.

However what none of us particularly likes doing is taking a gamble on ordering worksheets etc without really knowing what we are going to get.  The occasional sample page can help – but really it is much better if the whole product is available on inspection.

So we have made our resources available free of charge on the website. You can download these resources immediately, free of charge and try them out for 14 days.   Then if you don’t want to use them you just drop us a line saying so.  If you want to keep using them, then there is no need to do anything else – we’ll just drop you an invoice.

You can find more details, and sign up for the free trial at http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/2010

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD) refer to a range of problem behaviours associated with poor attention span. Research which was reported at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Liverpool, showed that even now, many years after the acceptance of ADHD as a real problem that can affect many children, the majority of teachers have little understanding of the genetic origins of ADHD, with only about 7 per cent agreeing that it was a genetic disorder.

Furthermore, the vast majority of teachers still have only limited training in dealing with ADHD. And indeed while it is one thing to provide support for ADHD students within the special needs environment in the school it is another to raise general teacher awareness about ADHD and to provide the resources necessary to help teachers to do something about it.

ADHD, as a genetic disorder (like dyslexia or dyscalculia), cannot be “cured” but one can foster ways of overcoming the problem.  The issue of medication will remain one for the parents and doctors, but ADHD pupils can be helped enormously through multi-sensory teaching approaches.

What’s more, these teaching approaches can be used not just in special needs classes, but as a way of engaging with the young people in all lessons in the school.

The book, ADD: Practical Activities in School, comes in photocopiable form or as a CD so that you can share it with colleagues in the school (it can be put on the school’s learning platform so all can access it).  It goes into details as to what ADD is and how it can be recognised, through daily work with ADD children and the specific issues that relate to ADD from impulsiveness to homework, from rewards to specific activities such as sport and the arts.

ISBN: 978 1 86083 145 4; Publisher reference no T995EMN
Sample pages can be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/attentiondeficit/T995.pdf

Prices

• Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £15.95. plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £15.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £22.94 plus £3.95 deliveryPrices include VAT.

You can purchase the book…

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH By fax to 01536 399 012 By phone with a school order number on 01536 399 011 On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=125

Perfect the Past Tense for GCSE French is a resource which will give your students structured practice in a complex grammatical area which is vital to their success at GCSE.

It comprises a pack of photocopiable worksheets which will guide them step by step through the rules and uses of the perfect tense and help them to gain a ‘C’ or above at GCSE level. Explanations are clearly illustrated with plenty of examples to work through, and answers are included at the back of the book. Most of the exercises are designed to be worked through on an individual basis but there are also a couple of games which can be played in small groups.

Perfect the Past Tense has been designed and written by French teachers and tested in class where it proved to be immensely beneficial.

Sample pages can be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/modlang/T1675.pdf

ISBN: 978 1 86083 730 2; Order code: T1675emn

The volume is available as…

• Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £26.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the book or CD…

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH On the phone with a school order number at 01536 399 011 By fax to 01536 399 012 On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=34&products_id=492

One of the problems with asking GCSE students to work on a case study is that it can well be the first time they have ever had to do this.   Thus they are not only coming to terms with art as a subject, but also the issue of presenting research.

Diffiuclties can arise as students are called on to present work due to lack of confidence and a lack of the necessary skills for the successful completion of work.

To help overcome this problem Pam Bradshaw has produced Presenting Research: Art and Design GCSE and GNVQ.

It starts by examining what a case study is and how to research, structure and present a comprehensive and successful piece of work.

It goes on to work through four separate examples with workpacks on a painter (Van Gogh), a designer (Vivienne Westwood), an art discipline (African masks) and an art movement (Pop Art).

Each workpack contains sections on contextual studies, objective description and subjective response, with worksheets on the compilation and ordering of information and its presentation.

There is also a section on both solo and group oral presentations – an area which is often a source of extreme anxiety for students. This section includes tips and exercises on research, structuring and the presentation skills required.

Presenting Research: Art and Design GCSE and GNVQ
Publisher’s reference: T1598emn       ISBN: 978 1 86083 637 4
Sample pages can be viewed on www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/art/T1598.pdf

Prices

• Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights £19.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £26.94 plus £3.95 delivery
• Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the book…

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH By phone with a credit card or school order number to 01536 399 011 By fax to 01536 399 012 On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=439

Cannabis is illegal, it can damage your health, it can damage your career prospects (because of the criminal record you can get), and it is habituative.

That’s hardly new information.

However, teenagers are still attracted to the proposition of smoking cannabis through peer pressure and a desire to rebel.

Because of its image cannabis is considered to be a young person’s thing – adults (even when they admit that they smoked or ate cannabis in their youth) often seem to be irrelevant to the discussion.

To overcome this the pack, “The Cannabis Resource,” has been developed to help make young people aware of the effects, dangers and legal status of cannabis.

The resource includes an A4 ring binder with around 80 pages of learning objectives (complete with materials, detailed methodology and follow ups, etc) and then the photocopiable resources to use in the classroom. These include such things as cannabis laws and rules, managing cannabis use, giving and getting help, etc etc.

There are also 20 learning activities focusing on what cannabis is, its effects and dangers, attitudes to cannabis, managing cannabis use, cannabis and the law, and giving and getting help with cannabis-related problems.

Also included are a CD ROM with 19 additional learning activities, printable worksheets, cannabis-related images and a PowerPoint slide show.

The Cannabis Education Resource costs £49.00 per copy. Discounts are available for 5 or more copies. For 50+ copies please call 0844 412 0972 for a special price.

• On line with a credit card at http://tinyurl.com/2wv4src
• By fax on 0844 412 0973
• By post to: HIT, 3 Paramount Business Park, Wilson Road, Liverpool, L36 6AW
• By phone on 0844 412 0972 citing a school order number
• By email stuff@hit.org.uk citing a school order number

If that sounds like a description of a book that could work with your 11 to 14 year olds who have a reading age of 6-7, then what follows is likely to strike you as rather good news.

We have a series of visually exciting books that are, for the most part, first person accounts of real life adventures. The stories move second by second and cover daring sports, stunts, missions and so on.

The aim of “321 Go!” is quite simply to take the reluctant reader to the very heart of the action.

But we then go further. Alongside the descriptions of the action there are full colour photographs to help maintain interest.

Additionally there are further points of interest such as, for example, when the student is reading about a drag race he/she can not only see how fast the vehicle is going, but there is also a “brown trouser” index to measure how scary the drive is!

In short, the word count is low and is based around high frequency words, but the action level is decidedly on the high side.

You will find more details at http://www.ransom.co.uk/321Go.html

You can order…

• By fax: 05601 148 881
• By phone: 01962 862307
• By post: Ransom Publishing, 51 Southgate Street, Winchester, Hants SO23 9EH
• By Email: orders@ransom.co.uk

On line at http://www.ransom.co.uk/321Go.html

Left to their own devices during playtimes and lunchtimes, some children will play in a very positive way. They will work together, mutually acknowledging the rules of their own games, helping and supporting each other and gaining much from the experience.

Unfortunately not all children do this. Some become isolated, some race around letting off steam and occasionally colliding with innocent by-standers, some become the victims of bullies, others become bullies.

A straightforward way to enhance positive play in the school grounds is to teach the children one game a week which they can then work on together. Some games will catch on and become continuing favourites. Others by the nature of things will fade after a few days.

But two great benefits will emerge from teaching children one game a week. Firstly the initial playing of the playground game by a group of children is always a highly rewarding experience. The sorting out of the rules, agreeing the fundamentals and, above all, working together are all fundamental to the development of the social aspect of each child’s life.

Secondly, although the suggested games will not motivate and engage all children, they will enthuse many, leaving teachers on duty a much smaller number of potentially problematic situations to deal with.

As a further benefit, extracts from the book can be given to parents so that they can encourage their children to play these games when friends come around at weekends or after school, or to give a greater structure to birthday parties.

PSHE in the Playground is a photocopiable book (also available on CD so that it can be loaded onto the school’s network) which incorporates enough games to last a full school year and includes games that are suitable for both key stage 1 and key stage 2 children. Most games can be taught to children in a matter of minutes.

Because the book is copiable only one copy needs to be purchased for the book to be used by all teachers in the school throughout the year.

An extract from PSHE in the Playground, ISBN 978 1 86083 726 5, order code T1691EMN is available at http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/primary/T1691.pdf

Prices

• Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £31.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report…

• By post from First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct, Earlstrees Rd, Corby, NN17 4HH
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On-line with a credit card at http://tinyurl.com/npqers
• By phone with a school order number or a credit card to 01536 399 011

When ordering the book please quote the reference T1791EMN

Examination questions on Thomas Wolsey and his ministry are set by OCR, Edexcel and AQA. The questions set by the examination boards require students to explain events and attitudes relating to Wolsey’s rise and ministry or to give their own view on a historical debate or interpretation.

This 40 page study guide provides a synthesis of the historical writing on Wolsey and his ministry suitable for GCE students, along with guidance on how to approach key questions. It gives a comprehensive description and explanation of events as well as introducing the various interpretations of Wolsey and his career given by both contemporaries and modern historians. Questions are posed to the students throughout the book to help them to focus on the underlying motives and reasons and draw their own conclusions rather than just memorise the bare facts.

Thomas Wolsey – The King’s Cardinal by John Goode. Sample pages can be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/history/T1636.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1636EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 707 4

Prices

• Photocopiable report: £15.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• CD with school-wide rights: £15.95 plus £3.95 delivery
• Both the Ring Binder and the CD £22.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1636emn

• By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
• By fax to 01536 399 012
• On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=463

Firstly, it is clear that those students who do well in GCSE ICT have a firm grasp of the key terminology. Without this everything else falls to pieces. So we need definitions clearly laid out and a lot of revisions of them.

Secondly, throughout the course the students need to be able to see how issues link together. From home entertainment to IT in organisations, from applications software to information handling software, from DTP to web and presentation software, from legal questions to health issues. It is a huge mix of information, which is why we need to use mindmaps for the students to see how everything fits together.

Thirdly, students need to become engaged in a wide range of interactive activities to reinforce the key issues that have been learned.

Then the students also need to be able to take in detail quickly, which means that PowerPoint presentations have to be used to bring to life issues raised in the textbook.

Fifthly we need to be able to focus on lower ability candidates, to ensure that those who might slip to a D and E are supported and raised to a C. This means special techniques are required at this stage.

And as the course progresses we need to ensure that everything is being understood. In short multiple choice tests are required at this stage.

Seventh we need to make sure that students can access the materials at all times so that they can revise as and when they want.  For this to happen we need much of the course uploaded to a VLE.

Then we will need to encourage revision with the provision of a wide range of worksheets and use of the VLE set out in the previous point.

Ninth, as we approach the exam we need plenty of exam-style questions and test-yourself activities to prepare students for their GCSE examinations.

Last (and applicable through the whole course), there need to be teaching notes so that at each stage, and without extra work, you can develop points to meet the particular needs of your class.

In fact it was with these ten points in front of us that we evolved the format of “Essential GCSE ICT for WJEC”

You can read more about the students’ book at http://www.folens.com/titles/3387/essential-gcse-ict-for-wjec-students-book and about the Teachers’ Guide at http://www.folens.com/titles/3413/essential-gcse-ict-for-wjec-teachers-guide

You can order Essential GCSE ICT for WJEC:

• Online at http://www.folens.com/titles/3387/essential-gcse-ict-for-wjec-students-book
• By phone on: 0844 576 8115
• By fax on: 0844 576 8116
• By email (quoting a school order number) to orders@folens.com
• By post to: Folens Publishers, C/o HarperCollins Distribution, Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow G64 2QT

Environmentally friendly; free data wiping.

When you have IT equipment that is no longer needed there are three fundamental issues you need to consider:

• COST. Firstly, and most obviously, you’ll want to have it removed free of charge from your school.

• ENVIRONMENT.  Secondly, you’ll want to be assured that it is going to be treated in the most environmentally friendly way possible, in keeping with your school’s sustainable education programme.

• DATA. Thirdly, but still very importantly, you must be assured that all the data on the drives will be wiped to the highest standards possible.

This is exactly what PRM Green Technologies does. Indeed we do it not just with computers but also screens, printers and other equipment too.

What’s more, we clean out all the data from the drives, and then all the equipment is then recycled within the UK – all without any charge.

We can take PC base units, CRT monitors, TFT monitors, servers, laptops, server racks, switches, telecom switches and printers, and as long as you have 30 of these items we will take away other IT equipment such as keyboards, cabling telecoms.

At the end of the process we issue you with free certification evidence so you can see that the correct procedures were complied with.

The only requirements we have are that you have at least 30 items for collection and that they are all gathered together in one easily accessible place for our driver to pick up.

For more information please call our freephone number: 0800 840 9195 or fill in the form by clicking here www.prmgreentech.com/contact.htm

An NFER report, commissioned by the then DfEE, to assess the use of data in teaching and learning (Research Report No 671, 2006) reached the conclusion that “School-devised systems and Excel spreadsheets are the most popular data management tools” in Primary schools.

But the question then arises, why do Primary teachers prefer these tools?

Seemingly the answers are because these systems are perceived as easy to use and produce outcomes that are easy to interpret.

The systems are also used to track individual pupils and are thought to give schools the flexibility they need to input internally generated data, such as interim assessments and targets.

This is probably still true today.  But such systems do have their limitations:

Firstly, they tend to be inflexible – if you have a class sheet but want to look at a vulnerable sub-group, it may not be quick and easy to extract that data.

Secondly, colour coding can help you to interpret the data, but it often has to be applied by hand.

Likewise a good graph can summarise a page of data and make it understandable, but you have to be quite an expert to produce anything more complex than a simple bar chart in Excel.

Which is why, once we start thinking about overall efficiency in school, the issue is not always one of having the cheapest and simplest system – especially if one then has to do extra manual work at the end to get the most important information out of the system.

The ideal, of course, is one that allows you to ask almost any question in order to analyse the behaviour or results of specific groups, such as the special needs children, summer born children, Turkish born boys, children from bi-lingual families…

In short, what can make the whole analysis and decision making process more efficient is a system where coding is automatic and graphs can be produced by pressing a button.

One company “Primary Progress Toolkit” believe that they have produced just this, and a small but growing band of schools seems to agree. When shown the Toolkit, one head who had devised a system which was good enough to be used by other local schools, said: “Yes, that’s what I would have liked my system to be, if I had the time and the skills to produce it”.

It seems to me that if you want more information from your data, without creating more work for yourself, it is worth a look.  The details are at…  www.primaryprogresstoolkit.co.uk. You can ring 01279 652183 for a demonstration.

In all history teaching there are issues that can, on occasion, be taught but not fully appreciated and understood by the students in the class.

They may know the phrase “the sun never set on the British Empire” and will understand this to mean that the Empire stretched around the world. But was the phrase really valid? Was it true that the sun never set on the Empire? And why bother to mention it? Surely there had been empires before?

Ensuring that students do understand such phraseology requires not just text but also illustration, and it is this dual requirement upon which Folens KS3 History series is built.

The key to helping the students gain this additional understanding and insight comes through an interesting use of both language and illustration on the same page.

Thus, for example, part of the section on the fall of the Empire is titled “Did the Empire Strike Back” – a resonant phrase in itself.

The text then covers the Maroons, The Flagpole War, the Easter Rising and the Boxer Rebellion over a two page spread, combining maps, text and illustration to give a unity to the concept of “uprising” throughout.

In all, the book moves from the notion of “Empire” and what it means, through the origins of the Empire, and then onto in-depth studies of America, India, Australasia and Africa.

As such it is a most comprehensive KS3 student’s book on the Rise and Fall of the British Empire.

There is more information on http://www.folens.com/titles/3392/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-british-empire-students-book – and you can see sample pages and the full contents section by clicking on the grey “Samples” tab near the top centre of the page.

You can order The Rise and Fall of the British Empire student book in any of these ways:

• Online at http://www.folens.com/titles/3392/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-british-empire-students-book
• By phone on: 0844 576 8115
• By fax on: 0844 576 8116
• By email (quoting a school order number) to orders@folens.com
• By post to: Folens Publishers, C/o HarperCollins Distribution, Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow G64 2QT

Your job is to run groups, or teach groupwork. We produce the essential materials to keep you in touch, inform your practice, and help you lead groups with confidence.

16th European Groupwork Symposium

‘Groupwork and well-being’

8th – 10th September 2010, York

Every year, the Symposium provides a forum for groupworkers, new or experienced, to meet and learn from one another.Participants comment on the warm supportive atmosphere – unlike so many conferences today. Join us at this Symposium in exploring the role of groupwork in building wellbeing.

You’ll find details of workshops and a booking form at: http://www.whitingbirch.net/cgi-bin/scribe?showinfo=ip004.

We look forward to seeing you in September.

Psychological Groupwork with Acute Psychiatric Inpatients

This book is the first to focus exclusively on acute inpatient therapeutic groupwork from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

The authors are all active groupworkers. They emphasise the need for a ‘culture of participation’, report on schemes to improve the quality of groupwork, and examine the research evidence underpinning this valuable method of intervention.

The book will interest any professional who is working to achieve excellent acute inpatient psychiatric settings .

Details of this important new book are here: http://www.whitingbirch.net/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781861771186

Groupwork: An international journal for working with groups

Special Issue: Groupwork with older people

Papers in this issue provide case studies from a range of settings and countries. If you work with older people, this issue will interest you.

For more about the journal Groupwork, go to http://www.whitingbirch.net/cgi-bin/scribe?showinfo=ip001

Please pass this email on to any colleagues who you think may be interested

David Whiting

Whiting & Birch Ltd

90 Dartmouth Road

London SE23 3HZ

England

Tel: +44(0)20-8244-2421

email enquiries@whitingbirch.net

We are an independent publisher of books and journals for the human services

One of the questions that has interested me considerably over time is how one moves away from the intense practice on individual issues in reading into incorporating them into general practice of use of the language.

It may of course just be me, but I know from experience that I can spend hours with some pupils working in sequences and get to the stage where their work really is developing. But then, when they find themselves faced with a sequencing issue in the middle of something else, much of that progress disappears.

The same sort of thing happens in all sorts of areas. They may have studied homophones – and, of course, they need more and more practice in this area. But then as we start work in other areas so the memory of the work on homophones disappears.

The answer, at least in part, seems to involve moving away from the dyslexia materials that the pupils are following and taking them into other, previously unseen, materials.

In this way the pupils can get a moment’s release from the regular work that they have to go through to overcome their disability.

Furthermore, for those pupils who are unable to undertake this sort of work because of a lack of specialist teachers and assistant teachers, it can be very helpful to have a range of resources that the pupil can work through on his/her own, to reinforce knowledge that has been gained.

For all these reasons, I rather like the Dyslexia Resource Pack which contains activities centring around syllables, compound words, root words, anagrams, synonyms, antonyms, homophones, etc. All the materials are photocopiable for use within the school.

The materials are literacy specific, and as such can be used with pupils and students in key stages 2, 3 and 4 who have problems with any of the areas covered.

You can order the Dyslexia Resource Pack in any of these ways (quoting order number 16026)

• Online at http://bit.ly/a4rMdD
• By phone on 0117 940 6409
• By fax on 0117 940 6408
• By email (quoting a school order number) to sales@classroom-resources.co.uk
• By post to: Classroom Resources, PO Box 1489, Bristol, BS99 3QJ

Each year your pupils leave school with a range of memories, but not necessarily anything concrete. Likewise, their parents take with them images of the school, and they use these when talking to friends about the school and whether they would recommend it.

It is only when the pupils take away something that is likely to stay with them for years to come that there is evidence to suggest that they retain more positive memories and that the parents have a more positive outlook on the school.

This, of course, can only be good for the school, because pupils who leave with positive memories are more likely to speak positively about the school when asked, are more likely to be receptive to requests for help and support in the future.

The most common way of providing this sort of positive memento is through the yearbook – but, as many schools have found in recent years, one yearbook is not like another. It all depends on the layout, the design, and the overall concept.

SPC’s yearbook service is designed to help each of your pupils get a beautifully printed yearbook, recording memories of friends and school life, at a price which not only achieves the benefits mentioned above, but also puts money into the school’s funds.

By having the yearbook in full colour we ensure that an extra impact is made. As a result of this approach it is not surprising that we have won the Educational Resources Award – something that reveals the high level of expertise that we have in this field.

Our aim is to pass this expertise on, by providing you with a guidebook packed full of templates and helpful ideas to make the process easy and enjoyable too.

In working on the book you can use our design software, or, if you prefer we can do the design for you. Our pricing is set to allow you to make a commission on each book, and we have discounts for larger orders.

To find out how SPC can help your school, request your sample pack – including our library of page styles – by clicking the link below or calling 0845 838 70 33

www.spc-primary.co.uk

I look forward to hearing from you.

Bill Wedge