Posts

Showing posts from July, 2014

One's World War - Ready for launch!

Image
I have been waiting eagerly for the launch of this fascinating project from the Alan Peat team! One's World War is a project that will last a number of years and will chronicle the diary of a soldier throughout World War 1. Alan Peat acquired the diary a few years ago and alongside Simon Matthews has been putting this project together for over a year. The diary belongs to a gentleman called George Beale–Browne, a Gloucestershire man who, at the start of the war, was a Lieutenant in the 61st Company of the Advance Service Corps (1st Army). By the end of the war he was a Major commanding a G.H.Q. Supply column. What is unique about the diary is that it reads as a continuous narrative looking at all the different aspects of war from someone who lived through it. To bring the diary alive, the team have put together the website onesworldwar.com , each month the website will feature a free podcast which runs alongside a digital magazine. The digital magazine is available th

It is nearly summer!

It is nearly the end of the year and where we you would expect everything to be winding down, it seems to be the most busiest time of the year for many teachers! Sports days, Year 6 productions and reports are just some of the things that creep up on us this time of year! This doesn't mean that teachers aren't looking forward to the imminent break! This is perfectly reflected in this little treat for our Year 6 from the staff at Davyhulme Primary School. A fantastic way to show that we don't take ourselves too seriously, have hidden talents and are willing to go to "embarrassing" lengths to entertain and put smiles on our children's faces!! Please feel free to share, like and tweet! Even grab staff from your school, have a go at your own and share the #summerjoy! I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their incredible support this year. Looking back to this time last year when I decided to drop to part time and be a part

Poetry in the New Curriculum

Image
Never before has Poetry had such a big focus than in the New Primary Curriculum. Learning poetry by heart, reciting and performing poems is prevalent throughout the new Literacy curriculum: Year 2 POS - "..continuing to build up a repertoire of poems learnt by heart, appreciating these and reciting some, with appropriate intonation to make the meaning clear." Year 4 POS -  "...preparing poems and play scripts to read aloud and to perform, showing understanding through intonation, tone, volume and action recognising some   different forms of poetry."  Year 6 POS -  "... learning a wider range of poetry by heart." Something that we have been doing for the past 3 years at Davyhulme Primary School is a whole school Choral Poetry competition. The idea is that the children learn and perform a poem with winners for EYFS, Year 2, Lower KS2 and Upper KS2. The competition runs in an X Factor style, where the judges (Head, Deputy and yours truly,) give

Guest Blog Post - Whole School Math Duel World Cup

Image
At Brockwell Junior School ( @brockwelljunior ) we are lucky enough to have 16 iPad available for classes. The problem we have been facing is trying to stop them from being a 'simple' internet browser or only using them as an extension activity. What we needed was an app and an idea (iDea what a great name for an app) that could be used across the entire school and could be incorporated into lessons. The main purpose of this was to highlight to staff the potential of the impact the iPads could have. Enter @ICT_MrP and MathDuel ( @ElliesGames ). Lee wrote an incredibly useful 15lessons eBook for the World Cup . One of the lessons was about setting up a MathDuel World Cup in your maths lesson. This was a fantastic idea but we felt it could go even further. So we decided to run a whole school World Cup competition. Each class had to complete a league of 8 matches (each match is 2 minutes long, a goal is scored when the progress bar reaches one players side and stars ca