Can a white, male, public-school judiciary be neutral?

The ever-changing world of Government and Politics demands that your resources are up to date. The new 2014 editions of the UK Topic Updates – comprehensive resources each covering a common exam topic in detail – include analysis of all the latest key events. Ensure your students have the most up-to-date information available!

Each title will answer all of your students’ key questions about the topic:

• UK Judiciary: Independent and Neutral? “Can a white, male, public-school judiciary be neutral? Is the Supreme Court really much more independent?”
• The Reform of Parliament “Reform of the Commons and Lords has become piecemeal and messy…”
• The Effect of the EU on UK Politics “The EU is under major pressure, facing major challenges.”
• Is the Prime Minister Too Powerful? “Coalition government will now form a central part of any assessment of prime ministerial power.”
• UK Elections: Time for a Change? “The rise of the SNP and UKIP have caused the most significant changes in this debate since the AV referendum.”
• UK Political Parties: Are They Good for Democracy? “Coalition government changed the traditional party balance.”

All the new editions include exam relevance tables and a timeline of events as well as recap questions, ‘things to think about’ boxes and exam advice.

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.

View full inspection copies and prices right now at http://zzed.co.uk/TopicUpdates

Price for all 6 titles is £149 (WH62/– includes photocopiable master with site licence; electronic copies available. Orders are normally dispatched in 2-5 working days. Also available individually.

ZigZag Education, Unit 3, Greenway Business Centre, Doncaster Road, Bristol BS10 5PY
t: 0117 950 3199 | f: 0117 959 1695 | WH62@zigzageducation.co.uk

Give your promotional code WH62 to get free postage!

Levels have gone and the both government and Ofsted are saying clearly that internal assessment is a matter for the school.

In one sense, this offers freedom and opportunity to schools, but time is short and energies are focused on teaching the new curriculum.

Strangely, it is the secondary sector that has reacted most strongly to the withdrawal of levels. They now expect to receive assessments on several different scales from their feeder schools, so the loss of a system with agreed ‘going rates’ has been a blow. Parents too, may soon notice that a Chelmsford Grade 3 is not the same thing as a Chichester Level 3 or a Chelsea Primary 3 score.

One of the strengths of the old system was that ongoing assessments were anchored to the national test assessment in a single system so that progress towards expectations could be monitored.

How, then, do we keep an eye on pupil progress?

Sue Hackman, the DfE’s Chief Adviser on School Standards until 2013, has created Climbing Frames – an assessment tool specifically developed for the new national curriculum. The tool helps your school to track pupil progress across both core and foundation subjects.

It also includes five pre-levels to help you monitor progress for SEN pupils.

One of the standout benefits of the system is that, as well as being able to track pupils across Key Stages 1, 2 and 3, across the new national curriculum, your school can also monitor each child’s cognitive development.

Sue has included eight thinking and learning frames. These are arranged to cover all nine years of the National Curriculum plus the five pre-levels described above, and they are tied to the priorities of the new curriculum.

Other benefits of using Climbing include:

• Fair, manageable and reliable progress tracking
• Ample sensitivity to monitor half-termly or termly progress
• Easy to share progress with colour coded overviews – a hit with parents
• Can report at individual, class, cohort and school level
• Links to knowledgeable resources for CPD expertise
• Uses print and digital for fuller, more sophisticated monitoring and reporting
• Cost-effective with hard-copy kits from only £100
• Free access to the app for the first year

Schools that purchase the hard-copy Climbing Frames before January 2015 will receive the App free for the first year.

To find out more about using the Climbing Frames assessment tool, and to place an order, please visit: http://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/climbingframeshh, email us at enquiries@imaginativeminds.co.ukm, or call us on 0121 224 7599.

What is the simplest way of seeing which maths fundamentals each child hasn’t yet grasped?

There can be little doubt that one of the most important bits of knowledge that any of us can have in the classroom is the knowledge of what each child knows.

For given that most knowledge can only be acquired through building on the knowledge we already have, we have to adjust our teaching to accommodate what is known.

Put in its simplest of terms, a child can’t learn about multiplication until the child knows about addition. The same, of course, is true throughout all of mathematics.

Which is why we have created Alfiesoft, a tool which provides valuable feedback to teachers, parents and pupils on each child’s understanding of and resultant ability in maths.

Alfiesoft offers full curriculum coverage across years 1 to 6 with ready-to-use termly tests and a facility that allows you to build your own tests as required.

It then measures progress (with or without levels according to your needs) and offers a rich resource of past papers and on-screen tests that support current curricula and specifications.

Furthermore, not only is each test completed online, but the marking and feedback is immediate. Over time the children can then take the test again to see how their understanding and knowledge has developed, an approach which of itself can be highly motivational for the children.

Additionally parents can see how their child has progressed, giving them the whole picture and the ability to identify times when their child is working hard or is being distracted by outside events.

Likewise Ofsted inspectors can see each child’s progress as they can instantly access evidence to show where each student is now and what each child needs to study next. Ofsted will then count this approach as part of the student’s independent learning.

Better still, you don’t have to take our word for this as you can have a free assessment pass which allows you to use and experiment with Alfiesoft. The free assessment pass is available on our website.

If you have any enquiries or questions please do call 08456 171 500 or email us at info@alfiesoft.com

According to figures from the Dept for Education, the average secondary school teacher has about four working days off a year due to illness. Of course this incorporates teachers who have a long time out with a serious illness as well as the 44% of teachers who are fortunate enough to go a whole year not getting ill at all.

These numbers show why the need for ready-made materials for supply teachers who cover English classes is as vital as ever. For even when something has been left from the previous lesson, there are always going to be those who finish the work rapidly, and need something else to do.

Which is why the Absent English Teacher volume of worksheets was developed.

The worksheets within the volume cover a wide range of topics and range of ability – and are all designed so that they can be used as a one-off in an emergency, or as a series of highly varied tasks over a number of days, should the absence be unexpectedly protracted.

Activities range from a study of an advert for the Stakes R Us shop (specialising as it does in anti-vampire technology) to a speech modelling persuasive/argumentative language expounding the reasons why sport should be banned in school.

Each article is followed by a wide range of questions, an extension task through which (for example) the students create a speech in support of sport, and a homework (in the case of Stakes R Us, writing the tale of a student who discovers his/her headteacher is a vampire).

The volume covers not only advertising, as in the first example cited above, but also texts in the form of playscripts, a diary, lonely hearts, science fiction, letters, memos, alternative story beginnings, confidential reports, obituaries, references etc etc.

Each lesson in the volume is printed on a single page and is simple to photocopy instantly for any class that suddenly requires the lesson.

The Absent English Teacher Worksheets collection is available from Hamilton House priced at £30.00 plus £2.95 delivery.

You can order the Absent English Teacher worksheets collection by filling in the order form and sending it by fax, email, or post (see contact details below). Alternatively, if you have a school order number, you can order by phone.

First and Best in Education, Earlstrees Court, Earlstrees Road, Corby, Northants, NN17 4HH
Telephone: 01536 399 011 Fax: 01536 399 01 Email: sales@firstandbest.co.uk