Daily Archives: 15/03/2016

STEM

Practical, hands on and a great way to introduce problem solving and management skills

Ideal for STEM and re-usable at only £39.95

So how do you give young people the opportunity to solve problems and develop creative thinking skills whilst they are still at school?

STEM resources have been developed to provide teachers with a way of giving students experience of solving problems and gaining confidence in how to respond to challenges. Good maths based problem solving exercises are hard to come by.

So in order that students might see how things can easily go wrong and how, by working together and sharing information they can go right, we’ve put together a business exercise called Safe Delivery which is designed to give students experience of solving a difficult maths based problem and to develop creative thinking skills.

The exercise is suitable for small teams of KS4 and 6th form students who will each act as managers in a business.  Each manager will have individual briefing notes which they must read carefully and then communicate to the rest of their team.

The Scenario – The MD has ordered a huge fire resistant storage cabinet for the business that will house a new ‘server’ on which information will be stored. It is Friday afternoon and the cabinet is being delivered Saturday morning. It must be installed in the General Office by Monday morning – an office floor plan of the building is provided.  A team meeting is called and the managers sit down to work out how this problem will be undertaken.

This resource contains: For the students:
A memo that sets out the task
5 detailed briefs for different managers in the business and one scribe
A floor plan of the office building showing all the obstacles that need to be overcome

For the teacher:
Clear teachers’ guidance notes that explain how to run the exercise
A snapshot crucial information chart
The written solution
The solution on a power point presentation

There are more details at…
http://c-l-e.co.uk/buy-teaching-resources-online/safe-delivery-exercise/

You can pay and download the exercise direct from our website using Paypal or you may wish to pay with a purchase order number. Simply e-mail your purchase order number to us and we will send the exercise to you along with the invoice for payment.  For more information e-mail Julie@c-l-e.co.uk

English

The importance of having a comprehensive literacy programme, not only in each school, but across the whole of the UK.

With reports suggesting that one fifth of children are failing to meet the expected Level 4 standard in at least one of the “three Rs”, it highlights the importance of having a comprehensive literacy programme, not only in each school, but across the UK.

Which is why MSL has devised The Complete Reading and Spelling Programme

This programme covers all 90 different spelling and sound rules and adds in ten sections on issues such as word patterns, suffixes, prefixes, homophones, and irregular final syllables, making 100 topics in all.

The 90 rules and associated topics can be seen on our website where you can see the structured order of teaching that we have introduced.

What we have then done is broken these 100 topics down into 20 modules, presented in an order which allows students to use the spelling rules as soon as they have learned them.

As a result of this structured approach, which includes placement & progress tests, you can introduce a pupil to the sequence from the very start. You can also begin work at a point where the individual will be revising key points, before moving on to areas of weakness.

A copiable printed version of each module costs £29.99, or you can order five modules together on a CD for £80 plus VAT. All 20 modules (including the 4 CD’s) are available for £450.

You can order the Complete Reading & Spelling Programme in a variety of ways:

  • On our website
  • By phone on 01536 399017
  • By fax to 01536 399012
  • By email to msl@schools.co.uk       
  • By post to Multi-Sensory Learning, Earlstrees Court, Earlstrees Road, Corby, NN17 4HH

Gifted

How can you provide for the most able child in a year group when the other 119 take all your energy?

For the most able children, it can be lonely at the top. However academic the school, there will always be some children whose interests and abilities are beyond those of their peers. They may hide those abilities in order not to be seen as “weird”, or display them and suffer a social penalty.

Even for those with the social confidence to be themselves at school, there’s not much space in a crowded curriculum for their interests to flourish. Teachers overwhelmed by the pressure of getting the bulk of children exam-ready struggle to provide the individual attention they need.

The best resource for exceptionally able children is… other exceptionally able children. Extra-curricular initiatives such as philosophy clubs or occasional trips can allow such children to enjoy one another’s company, but these are still limited to those within the same school and often year group.

At GIFT, we’ve been providing opportunities for exceptionally able children to meet and learn for over 20 years. The residential weekends and Easter and Summer schools provide a whole new, aspirational peer group for bright secondary students, and lifelong friendships are formed.

Each day, students work in small groups on a whole-day project chosen from three or four options. Projects are “an inch wide and a mile deep”, exploring an unusual area in depth and with space for sustained endeavour and creativity. Each group is led by an experienced G&T specialist, and the atmosphere is more informal and “adult” than is usually possible in school. There are substantial breaks when students can socialise, and further activities in the evenings which many GIFTers use to try something different, challenging any narrow views they have about where their talents lie.

“I’ve been meaning to write that my daughter absolutely loved the Easter residential course.  She really enjoyed the entire week and enjoyed being with the other students. She has a real longing to return.  Although she’s not one that lacks friends, she said she realises now what it means to really bond with others.  She said, ‘there ARE people just like me.’   I have honestly never heard her so genuinely happy.  Many thanks for offering these retreats for our kids.”

At the 2016 Easter School, some of the projects on offer are around philosophy & roleplay, Shakespeare’s mysterious double life, the engineering challenge of the Dambusters’ bouncing bomb,  improv comedy and Homer’s Odyssey. On the May residential weekend, there’s time travel, Kandinsky, Colditz and the challenge of being Chancellor of the Exchequer battling the deficit.

Each place on the Easter school or May Residential booked through this offer comes with a free copy of “The Philosophy Files” by Stephen Law, one of my favourite books for gifted teens. You can see full details of the courses at: www.giftcourses.co.uk/hamiltonhouseoffer

Jason Buckley, Director of Studies

School News

What is the most effective way of getting students to retain the information you’ve imparted during a lesson?

We all know that the students who are able to focus for the longest periods of time on what we’re saying without their attention wandering are the ones most likely to retain the information.

Conversely the students with short attention spans are also the ones most likely to be disruptive in class. No news there.

We would all dearly love to be teaching classes full of students who behaved well and hung onto our every word. Realistically, a totally perfect teaching/learning scenario is unlikely, but can we improve the situation?

We believe we can! We’ve developed extremely quiet background music designed specifically to enhance information retention and improve concentration. Also, as a bonus, disruptive behaviour is reduced.

If you’d like to know more, go to: Further information and media

Where you’ll be able to see a Teacher’s TV programme explaining why and how it works, listen to samples and purchase downloads of 12 hours of Calmer Classrooms Music for £79.99.

Calmer Classrooms music can be used and is effective across all age ranges, nursery, primary and secondary schools.

If you have any questions or queries about Calmer Classrooms Music please do call me on 07801 067386 or email: vo.fletcher@btinternet.com

Vo Fletcher