Do you think your confidence is linked to:

• Your level of insanity?
• A ‘can do’ attitude’?
• A simple, balanced and practical approach – as with all teaching and learning?
• The quality of your anorak?

The truth is, we can relate to all those answers (well maybe not the insanity one).

The perception of outdoor teaching and learning is often one of planning for hours, needing to source specialist resources, including suitable clothing for all your children, and a risk assessment as long as your arm. By the time you’ve thought of all the ‘extras’ you’ve given up on the idea.

So how can we teach outdoors more regularly without it taking an inordinate amount of planning time – thereby using our immediate school grounds more effectively and frequently?

These were the underpinning questions that have informed our outdoor learning packs:

• 100 Ideas for Outdoor Literacy Folder

• 100 Ideas for Outdoor Numeracy booklet

• Starters for Thinking Outdoors Pack.

Each offers ideas for teaching and learning outdoors in active, playful ways but in the knowledge that important literacy and numeracy objectives are being addressed. All this can take place right outside the classroom, and only basic resources are ever needed.

What better way to ensure that children enjoy the benefits of learning outdoors on a more frequent basis?

Better still, you can now buy all three packs together with our ‘OUTDOOR COMBO’ offer – all three for just £110 (plus VAT).

Invoices can be raised for UK schools – use the INVOICE button on the website.

Email: info@thinkingchild.org.uk

You can Fax an order: 01604 570773

Or simply pick up the phone 01604 491511 for a chat.

Yours sincerely

Sue Dixon
sue@thinkingchild.org.uk

 

Talk to most employers who take on young people just out of school (either for permanent jobs or for temporary employment) and the chances are you will hear some complaints.

These complaints tend to focus around the fact that “these youngsters simply don’t know what being in a job means”.

They might give as examples the fact that some teenagers think that they know everything (when from the employers point of view they know nothing), that when they have finished a job they just sit around either doing nothing or using their mobile.

Indeed one employer that we spoke to commented on a school leaver who actually checked his mobile for messages during an interview!

What Employers Want and Expect deals with the attitude of employers to employees and with the new demands that employers are placing on staff.

The book recognises that under current legislation, employers have an almost total right to dismiss employees during the early days of employment for any reason and notes that the average time people now spend in a job is only two years and four months.

The book takes the view that in order to stay in work the vast majority of young employees must help themselves by being aware of the current needs and attitudes of employers.

It is quite probably the only book which examines the attitude of employers towards young employees and advises teenagers how they can make a good impression.

The volume, which is fully copiable and so can be put on the school’s learning platform, copied to disk or photocopied, covers such issues as reliability, accuracy, punctuality, honesty, smoking, communication, written work, swearing, etc.

This edition, new for 2013, also includes warnings concerning what one can write on Facebook. As the book points out, many employers will check the Facebook pages of their employees to ensure that no one is saying anything amiss about the company that pays the wages.

It is, in fact, essential reading for everyone going into a job for the first time.

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

You can see some sample pages at http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/careers/T1798.pdf

Publisher’s reference: T1799EMN ISBN: 978 1 86083 895 8

Prices

• Photocopiable report in a 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: T1798EMN

• 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=47&products_id=198

 

What turns away parents who are contemplating sending their children to your school – before they even arrive for a look around?

There is a direct link between the number of students a school recruits and the number of hits its website gets.

There is also a link between the number of hits a school website gets and whether the website is arranged so that it can be read easily on a mobile phone or tablet.

It does, of course, cost a little more to have a website arranged this way. But, as many schools have found, if the investment results in the recruitment of just a handful of new students then it has more than paid for itself.

Over 50% of websites are now viewed via mobile devices – which means that if you have a website that can’t readily be seen on a mobile phone or a tablet, then you are going to be putting technologically advanced parents at a disadvantage.

Of course, it is never good to disadvantage anyone – but when you are not servicing the needs of these parents, then you are in danger of saying to them, “this school is not 100% in tune with modern times”.

In short, it does not present your school and its IT provision in a good light.

If your school has any other specific requirements in terms of functionality and content for a mobile web app, or indeed how the website and mobile web app can be “linked” to make content updates as easy as possible for the school, then do contact us for a no obligation discussion.

We would be delighted to discuss how mobile apps and web technology may benefit your school.

There is more information on Mobile Web App Development and also details of other services we provide at www.inco-education.co.uk

And you can call us on 01902 784 800.