Please see below for a carefully selected list of titles that we hope will appeal to education professionals teaching art across the school levels.
An Artist’s Handbook: Materials and Techniques
The Craft and Art of Clay: A Complete Potter’s Handbook
Colour: A Workshop for Artists and Designers
Printmaking: A Complete Guide to Materials and Processes
For further information (including how to place an order) please do contact us at sales@laurenceking.com, or visit www.laurenceking.com
We don’t charge for the recording and our Interactive Recording Guide shows the huge educational benefit in the project for the children, and makes planning the project really simple with everything set out for you. All you need to do is decide is what you would like to include on your CD – a performance or event, instrumental groups, whole school singing, or even just each class singing their favourite song.It’s a treasured memento to be proud of, a great showcase for the school’s talents, and an amazing day for the children. To get the free recording for your school and your free iPod Touch, all you need do is drop me an email or give me a call using the details below. Remember though, time is short, and to qualify for the free iPod, you have one week to register your interest for a recording with us between 1st October and 7th November 2014. Kind regards, Ann-Marie Lawrence Tel: 01925 321 800 |
Why over 60 per cent of secondary schools in the UK now use air travel for some of their school trips
A recent survey relating to the organisation of school trips found that over 60% of schools either regularly or occasionally use air travel for part of the journey.
At the same time four out of five schools commented that cost was always the major factor that influenced how they arranged school journeys.
Of course, it only takes a moment to see the implication: for many journeys the use of air travel for school trips can be not only a far quicker way of reaching the destination, but it can actually be more cost effective as well.
The reason for this is that school journeys offer airlines the one thing that the airlines want beyond everything else: group bookings made a long way in advance.
Indeed many schools have been amazed by the fact that their natural inclination to book the trip a long way in advance should be so attractive to airlines.
But the fact is that for schools the most common period for booking is between nine months and a year before the journey. Half the schools that completed the survey cited this as their normal booking time.
Combine that with the fact that a school party of any size is liable to attract discounts for bulk bookings and this shows exactly why schools are looking at airlines and some (although admittedly not all) airlines are responding.
If your school utilises air travel for some of its school journeys, or if you feel that parents, teachers and students would welcome the faster travel and lower costs that can accrue from making part of the journey by air, German Travel Centre’s reservation technology enables us to give you the chance to make the most of your school booking.
We book and issue our own tickets, enabling us to keep full control of your booking and ensure that your journey meets your needs.
What’s more, as we are ABTA and ATOL holders you can be assured that you and your students are fully protected (as recommended by the Health and Safety Executive for schools) should the airline fail.
Because we have so many locations to and from which we can fly, the best way to explore the possibilities is either to call one of our specialist group reservation advisors on 020 8429 2900 or email us at groups@germantravelcentre.co.uk with the details of your requirements.
You can also go to our website for more information.
To keep up to date with the latest news and offers for your group bookings:
Imagine that you have just been told you are to
teach a very weak bottom maths set this year.
In September 1986, I was asked to teach a very weak bottom set (Set 6) in Y9. I asked my HoD if I could take them off the Y9 syllabus and try to develop something more suitable for them. He said, “OK but they will have to do the same end-of-year exam as the others.
They weren’t happy. “We’re not thick!” They wanted to do the same work as Set 5.
What had I let myself in for? I needed something with impact to win their trust.
You may have met the game of “Frogs”. Imagine 5 chairs placed in a row. The middle chair is empty; two boys sit on one side and two girls on the other side. The rest of the class are told that they must move the girls to the left side and the boys to the right. They can only give two kinds of instruction: slide one place the left/right or hop over one student to an empty seat. I asked for a volunteer to give the instructions and then the others all had a go. We counted the total number of moves needed. I asked them to find the smallest number of moves needed. This was continued until every student could make the changeover in 8 moves. They could also tell me what the strategy was and what moves to avoid.
I then gave each pair a sheet of squared paper and asked them to try the same problem on the paper with 3 red and 3 blue counters. Total disaster – they could not cope with this step! This could be the end of the adventure. Then Chris suggested that we put the counters onto 7 chairs and try it. It worked brilliantly and they moved confidently onto squared paper.
Later, I asked them to find out what happens if they have different numbers of counters on each side. No problem! They took over and I just watched. They organised their results on the board. They put together groups of results using the same values of L and R. They decided that they needed 3 matching results for each set of counters so that they knew that the values were correct. They put their results onto a table with 3 columns: L, R, & N.
As we all looked at this table, I asked them if they thought that there would be a rule connecting the values of L and R with the number of moves, N? I thought this might be a step too far, but they were keen to try. I gave them 10 minutes or so and then they put their possible ideas onto the board and we all looked at them. Some of the ideas worked for some values but not for others. You cannot imagine the concentration of that class as they tried to find the rule. I didn’t know the rule at that stage. Then Sophie, sitting at the back, looking at the values we had put for L+W & LxW, spotted it. If you add together the values of L+W and LxW, you get the number of moves!!! The class exploded with delight!
So what had I given these students? They had certainly lost their fear of maths. They had all developed more self-confidence and had enjoyed their maths lessons. They were keen to do more maths.
It was a very busy year for me as I strove to develop interesting ways to introduce and develop topics for them. They did a lot of number and shape work with total enjoyment and their self-confidence continued to grow.
Shortly after Christmas, I gave a top set a new type of problem for homework. They had just been working on Area and Volume. I gave them the dimensions of a brick and the size of the garage that was to be built and asked them to estimate how many bricks would be needed. 7 divided the volume of the garage by the volume of one brick, 11 had garages with four walls and 12 could not do it. A class discussion ensued and sensible estimates were produced.
My mood was not good when I left them and went to teach my Y9 bottom set. They spotted that I was a little annoyed and asked me why. I told them to leave it until the end of the lesson. Later I explained what had happened, and they asked if they could do the same problem for their homework? 11 out of the 12 came up with sensible estimates!!
But the crowning moment of the year came after the Y9 end-of-year exam. The exam was the same for all sets. My students in Set 6 did better than all but one of the students in Set 5. Wow!!!
| In many later blogs, I will demonstrate some approaches to topics that work well with low attainers. |
In the meantime, would you like to try some of the free sample material from the Y7 & Y8 texts for low attainers on our website?
Visit http://mathsisjugglers.com
You’ll find 4 mini-samples (5-19 pages long) for each text, with permission to download and use with your students. There’s also one whole topic for each text to use with your students, as well as teacher resources (and, of course, the answers!). Links to these samples are at the top of every page of the website, labelled DOWNLOADS.
If you’d like to find out more about The ‘Maths is…’ Jugglers textbooks you are always welcome to get in touch – you can reach me at barbara.young@mathsisjugglers.com or on 01428 717113.
Kind regards,
Barbara (maths enthusiast, teacher, writer and director of The ‘Maths is…’ Jugglers)