The pipe, the wheels, the imagination.

From telescopes to combine harvesters: it is the award winning pipe pieces with wheels

The manipulation of objects is a hugely beneficial activity for children, and indeed is something that they find enjoyable and engrossing.

Hand-eye coordination and judgement are both developed as children move from trying approaches at random to realising that, with a bit of planning, they could get much further.

It was our awareness of the need for exciting construction materials for children to experiment with that was at the centre of our thinking when we developed Pipe Pieces with Wheels.

Quite simply, we offer 100 pipe pieces that can all be joined together in whichever way the children want.

All told there are four shapes in four colours. They slot together, twist and turn, and can be used to create a lawnmower man, a moon walker, a robot dog, a quad bike, a road sweeper, two people on wheels locked in a dance….

In short, wherever the imagination goes, the child can try to create it.

We were thrilled with our development of the idea, and it wasn’t just us; the judges at the 2014 Primary Awards recently gave “Pipe Pieces with Wheels” classroom pack their silver awards.

Pipe Pieces can be used to help children aged five to nine to understand three dimensional building much more readily as they twist and turn pieces to explore 3D spaces, stability and movement.

As one of the judges said, I would definitely buy this product; it really fired up the children’s imagination. Children of all ages really enjoyed playing with these, and staff thought the storage bag and bright primary colours were great.

Guarantee

If you’re not completely happy with your order we offer a no quibble, money back guarantee.

Delivery

Most UK orders over £35 benefit from a free delivery service. For orders under £35 there is a £2.99 delivery charge.

For Northern Ireland, the Isles of Scilly, the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man it’s £7 delivery. If you are lucky enough to be living in the Channel Islands the delivery charge is £12.45 irrespective of the size of the order.

You can order in any of these ways:

  • On our website
  • By email to info@ss-services.co.uk
  • By phone on 01789 765323
  • By fax to 01789 765469
  • By post to S & S Services, Units 4-8 Tything Road, Arden Forest Industrial Estate, Alcester, Warwickshire, B49 6EP

How best to teach; how best to learn

When it comes to teaching not all methods are equally effective. The same is true of learning. But which methods are best?

Recently the focus in terms of methods of teaching has been on the technology used to deliver the lesson.

And yet there is a huge amount of evidence to suggest that it is not the technology that makes one method of teaching better than another.

Rather, it is the method of teaching itself. Technology can make a difference, but it is not the prime difference.

What’s more, while a change in the method of teaching used to teach any specific subject or topic can have a benefit – that benefit won’t be maximised unless the students also get some help in understanding the best methods of learning that they ought to be using.

To put this another way, it is possible to deliver a lecture to a class using your voice on its own or your voice plus a diagram drawn on a chalkboard, displays on a whiteboard, a video, or anything else.

But the fact remains that whatever technical additions are used it is still a lecture.

Which is fine as long as the lecture is the best method of teaching the subject that you have in mind. If it isn’t, then the effectiveness of the lesson will still be dependent on the effectiveness of the lecture as a method of teaching.

Now, of course, most of the time we don’t lecture in class because we all know that lectures are fairly ineffective ways of teaching. But that still raises the question: what are the most effective ways of teaching?

And as we ask that question, we also have to ask, what implication does this have for the various methods of learning that the students then adopt?

These are the questions posed and answered by “Methods of Teaching”. The book has articles which can be shared with teaching colleagues, policy statements on methods of teaching, a review of methods of learning, and 22 articles on methods of learning that can, over time, be provided to students to help them organise their own learning.

There are also eight active learning assignments for the students plus a series of articles on memory which will explain how teaching and learning can be organised in such a way that the topics and issues under consideration will be retained in the memory for years to come.

The latest edition of “Methods of Teaching” is probably the most powerful book on teaching and learning available today. It is available both as a photocopy master and on CD (so that it can be put on the school’s learning platform or printed out from the disk).

Cat No: 978 1 86083 830 9 Order code: T1784emn – please quote with order.

Sample pages can be viewed at http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/education/T1784.pdf

  • Photocopiable book, £29.95 plus £3.95 delivery
  • CD with school-wide rights: £29.95 plus £3.95 delivery
  • Both the book and the CD £36.94 plus £3.95 delivery
  • Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report…