What do you do if a colleague is starting to suffer from stress?

The signs may be obvious: anxiety, depression, a decline in work standards, emotional behaviour, time off work. But the solution?

What you and your senior colleagues will want is to help your colleague recover, both for the well-being of your colleague and of course for the well-being of the school.

But it is sometimes quite hard to see what can be done to help the individual.

In fact there are two things that you can do – one is to look at the cause of the stress that is being felt by the individual teacher and so see if anything can be changed (not only for this teacher, but for others who may also be starting to feel stressed within their job).

The other is to offer help and support to the teacher in terms of suggesting a programme of activity that can be used to help overcome the stress.

Of course, the fact that teaching is the profession which now suffers from the third highest level of stress of any occupation in the UK does not make recovery from stress easy. But if a stress reduction programme is incorporated into the school’s work and is available for any member of staff who is feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of teaching, then it is very possible that some staff who might succumb to serious levels of stress can be helped. The resultant benefits for the teacher and the school are enormous.

By introducing the teacher suffering from stress to various techniques it is quite possible that the teacher will be able to avoid the stress turning into a serious long-term illness allowing the teacher to make rapid progress on the road to recovery.

Such an approach simply recognises that the only way out of stress is for the individual to undertake the journey of recovery him/herself. That does not mean that the stress causing factors in the school or elsewhere are ignored, but it is nevertheless essential that the individual teacher is taking the steps to start to deal with stress.

The volume thus helps school managers who don’t suffer from excessive stress to understand what their colleague under stress is going through and to see how she or he can be helped.

It deals not only with ways of reducing the levels of stress that teachers suffer from, but also offers a programme of practical help that can be offered to the teacher who is suffering from stress. The volume also includes a set of templates relating to the school’s policy on stress and a risk assessment programme.

The volume can be bought as a photocopiable ring bound book or on CD Rom.

You can see some sample pages at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/education/T1786.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1786EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 840 8

Prices

  • Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £49.95 plus £3.95 delivery
  • CD with school-wide rights: £49.95 plus £3.95 delivery
  • Both the Ring Binder and the CD £56.94 plus £3.95 delivery

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1786EMN

 

Giving Mr Gove what he wants

Of course, the problem with giving Mr Gove all he wants is that he seems to want quite a lot of things quite quickly.

So for the moment we’ve focussed on one specific want of the minister – the teaching of times tables up to 12.

We started from the premise that for children to progress with maths they not only need to be able to recall their tables, but they also need to understand what it means to multiply and divide and be able to use their tables to solve problems.

Additionally we know that if we get children to enjoy the process of learning the times tables, that will make the learning a lot faster.

Our resultant resource produced a significant improvement in children’s understanding of the times tables in the trial schools where it was used. What’s more, at the beginning 86 per cent of the children said they hated times tables and thought they were boring but at the end of the year 90 per cent said they loved them.

The Mighty Multiples Times Table Challenge is designed to appeal to all children whatever their learning style as it uses a visual, auditory and kinaesthetic approach.

Characters such as Long Jump Jim and Backstroke Brenda have their own poems and songs, with recordings on the CD as well as activities to enthuse the children about learning the times tables.

Suitable for reception children through to year 6, this resource has been produced to teach times tables by developing a clear understanding of how to use and apply the knowledge to division and word problems, and not simply learning by rote.

Integral problem-solving is included allowing children to learn to use and apply their times tables in real life situations.

The resource includes a motivational rewards system using bronze, silver, gold and platinum rewards, badges and certificates and contains everything you need – from group games to number fans and visual grouping activities to songs and poems, as well as assessment activities.

What’s more, you can get parents involved with the tips sheets that are included for use at the park, while shopping and in the car, making times tables relevant to everyday life.

Free sample pages and audio files are available on our website – www.brilliantpublications.co.uk/book/the-mighty-multiples-times-table-challenge-381

You can order these resources in any of these ways:

  • On our website
  • By phone on 01449 766629
  • By fax on 01449 767122
  • By email to orders@tradecounter.co.uk
  • By post to Brilliant Publications, c/o Trade Counter Distribution, Mendlesham Industrial Estate, Norwich Road, Mendlesham, Suffolk, IP14 5ND.

Raising Grades through Study Skills

How well a student does in an exam is generally down to two factors:

  1. how much the student knows
  2. how good the student is at reproducing that knowledge in an exam or via coursework

Self-evidently, if the student can know more, and can also become more adept at reproducing this knowledge in a meaningful way when required, then the student’s grades will go up.

However, it is a fact that although in every single subject there are many resources that cover the facts of the course, there remain few books which help students to learn and subsequently reproduce the knowledge they have.

This is where Raising Grades through Study Skills comes in. The volume, which is available either as a photocopiable master or on CD (so that it can be placed on the school’s learning platform) focuses on the ways in which students can help themselves by learning more quickly and more effectively.

22 separate methods of learning are detailed in the volume, plus details of 10 teaching methods which can be used to help develop the learning approaches. There are also a series of active learning assignments and a further 15 sections on memory and how students may enhance their own memory abilities and increase their ability to utilise the knowledge that they have learned.

Of course, most schools recognise that the benefits of a study skills programme throughout the school are overwhelming, as the natural way in which most students learn is very inefficient.

But it is quite clear that once students have been shown how to enhance their learning processes and how to ensure that they can remember and use the material they learn, the motivation and self esteem gained from rapid success that results, becomes a factor in motivating them to ever higher goals.

The activities developed in this volume need not be set up as separate lessons (although this remains an option) but can be integrated into the existing timetable.

Raising Grades through Study Skills by Tony Attwood includes all the skills that pupils will need to improve their study skills and raise grades throughout secondary school.

It is available as a photocopiable book or on CD Rom which can itself be copied or loaded onto the school’s learning platform or intranet.

Cat No: 978 1 86083 845 3 Order code: T1787emn – please quote with order.

Sample pages can be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/education/T1787.pdf

  • 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…

Make the most of tutor time!

Do you want to make the most of your time with tutor groups? Develop the thinking skills of all your students, with quick, creative and interesting activities. The tasks are accessible to all ages, with clear instructions and timings for the tutor. All handouts and answers included for quick reference in limited tutor time.

Don’t just take our word for it – independent reviewers are excited about these resources too!

  • ‘Wow! What a resource… It’s smashing! All activities are different and call on different ranges of skills. Some are numerical, some linguistic and others spatial or visual… It encourages teamwork, teambuilding and a developing understanding of individuals’ needs… an exciting and invaluable resource.’ Paul Nolan, Vertical Tutor & Independent Reviewer
  • ‘Teaches the pupils a range of valuable skills and genuinely fosters team building in a fun way… I’ve been waiting for something like this for a while.’ Rhiannon Richards, Vertical Tutor & Independent Reviewer

Designed specifically for 20-minute weekly sessions for students from Year 7 through to Year 11. Can be used as a complete scheme, or stand-alone tasks for one-off tutor sessions.

  • Tried & tested in a large secondary school with mixed-age ‘vertical’ tutor groups
  • Team-building tasks encourage interaction across age boundaries
  • Peer assessment meets AfL objectives

Tasks include: code breaking, memory games, lateral thinking, ‘General Knowledge Sums’, logic problems, ‘Word Merge’, ‘Visual–Spatial Sequencing’, ‘Pig Latin’.


A full year’s worth of tasks are available as a photocopy master with site licence (£39 per term or £99 for 3 terms). Additional electronic site licence available at 30% for PDF or 50% for PDF and Word Editable; order this for digital downloads and zero postage.

ZigZag resources are available as ‘copy masters’ or in editable format and come with a site licence, allowing you to pay once and copy as often as you need, or put on your server for multiple use.

Order online and view inspection copies at http://zigzag.at/UT01 (or email UT01@zigzageducation.co.uk for a proforma invoice). For more information on ordering from Australia and New Zealand see http://zigzag.at/UT01-International or email UT01@zigzageducation.co.uk

The most cost-effective way of reviewing and helping young people who might have dyslexia

Traditionally tests for dyslexia have been conducted by educational psychologists at a one-to-one meeting, and there’s no doubt that such an approach can give a detailed and insightful view of a young person’s issues with the written language.

However the approach can be expensive and of itself doesn’t always provide an immediate indication of what one should do next to help the individual in question.

With this problem in mind, the Dyslexia Centre has produced an on-line test which can be taken by pupils from the age of 8 upwards and which gives a clear idea if the individual might be dyslexic, and if so, what specific help and support should be given to the individual.

If you enter a pupil for the test you will receive a detailed written report on the individual’s understanding of the written language and a set of resources that can be used immediately with the individual.

Full details of the on-line test are available on www.dyslexia.ac The cost of a test is £49.95, including the full report and the resources that are considered relevant for the person taking the test.

The reports are written by educationalists with many years of experience in dyslexia, and our reports are widely used by schools to help judge whether students and pupils should have extra time in examinations.

You can pay on-line with a credit card, or if you wish, you can use a school order number. Details of how to make a payment in this way are given on the site.

If you have any enquiries please call the Centre on 01536 399 011 or email me at info@dyslexia.ac

Samantha Bates

Senior Administrator, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Centre

There’s no such thing as a free service

Or is there?

The old free lunch adage might be true for free lunches but when it comes to getting rid of unwanted IT equipment, there really is something free on offer.

In fact the free-ness of the offer includes not just removing unwanted IT equipment free of charge from school but also data wiping and ensuring that all disposal is environmentally friendly.

Our service runs 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. We have our own fleet of trucks that travel the country retrieving unwanted IT equipment, from computers to telecom equipment, from monitors to cables.

Of course we need more than trucks to do this, which is why our trucks come with a handy bunch of lads who will do the picking and loading at your end, and the unloading at our end.

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

We can take PC base units, CRT monitors, TFT monitors, servers, laptops, server racks, switches, telecom switches and printers.

Indeed as long as you have 30 of these items to take away, we will take away other IT equipment at the same time, such as keyboards, cabling and telecoms.

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

For more information please call 0800 840 9195 or visit our website at www.prmgreentech.com for further details of the free IT disposal and recycling service we offer.

What is the best way to promote the safe use of social media by staff

A total of 43 teachers were referred to the General Teaching Council for England in 2011 for unprofessional conduct related to the use of social media sites.

14 of these teachers were suspended and 18 were placed on probation.

As a result the NUT have recently advised all schools that they should have policies in place making it clear what teachers should and should not do in the virtual space.

Which is in fact a lot more difficult than it sounds, not least because of the fact that social media is changing day by day.

To help overcome this problem we have liaised with internet and teaching experts to create a trusted, cohesive, accessible and robust school-wide policy that provides clear distinctions between public and private use of the medium and which covers the safe and appropriate use of social media by members of staff.

The policy document is available to download online from www.iTeachingResources.com. It can be purchased as a stand-alone document and then distributed in electronic or hard copy format within a matter of minutes to all members of staff.

The resource helps educational establishments to ensure that the use of social media by staff ensuring that the usage:

  • Does not bring the school into disrepute
  • Does not bring the teacher into disrepute
  • Does not expose the school to legal liability
  • Reflects ‘safer internet’ practices
  • Minimises risks associated with the personal use of social media by professionals and
  • Reflects the school’s standard of behaviour and staff code of conduct.

The safe use code was written by teacher Tom Tolkien, a Senior Manager with extensive experience of whole school assessment, internet and e-safety as well as initiative and policy development.

The document provides practical step-by-step guides to applying recommended privacy settings on popular social networking sites, with explanations on how to determine if posts, comments, images, links and videos shared on a profile by a teacher are appropriate and transparent.

The policy also includes information for teaching staff about maintaining privacy and keeping personal information such as phone numbers and addresses private while using their own or school equipment.

Detailed guidelines regarding communication with parents and pupils cover sites like Facebook and Twitter, acceptable content for social network profiles and how to respond to initiated contact from pupils. The policy concludes with guidance on recognising exceptions and reporting abuse or cyber bullying.

The policy document for acceptable use of social media by staff in educational establishments is priced at £49.99, but you can save 5% by quoting HH12SMP when you order from www.iTeachingResources.com

or

Phone: 0113 2660880
Fax: 0113 2697889
Email: orders@iteachingresources.com
Post to: iTeachingResources, Allerton House, 75 Allerton Hill, Leeds, LS7 3QB.