Teach Your Monster To Read (TYMTR) is a series of engaging phonics games “for children in the first stages of learning to read, or for older children who need a bit more practice.” The web-based version for use on computers is available for free, while app versions for use on iOS, Android or Kindle are £3.99. TYMTR is not new, but it’s still great and unrivalled as a supportive tool for any phonics scheme. Reception or key stage 1 teacher? Here are five reasons why you should use it. Continue reading
Purple Mash, the subscription website from 2Simple, is widely praised and really popular with children and teachers. This post is not for those ‘in the know’, however. I’m writing this for any nursery or reception teachers whose school has Purple Mash but who maybe don’t really know it or use it themselves. Let’s get going before you leave. Here are five ideas to help you start to use Purple Mash this week… Continue reading
One way to engage children in computing is by relating what they are learning to the world beyond school. This could include current news stories, films or even TV adverts (who knew that Brian* had a website?)
But maybe you’re not an expert on AI, not even knowing that it’s an abbreviation for Artificial Intelligence—apparent intelligence exhibited by machines, especially computers. You don’t know your Siri from your Cortana. Where do you turn for succinct and reliable information? Well, the BBC can help. Continue reading
HMI David Brown recently gave a presentation at the Child Internet Safety Summit in London. Part of his presentation was a summary of responses to a small survey of online safety practice (39 primary and 45 secondary schools), all the HMI-led Section 5 school inspections carried out in March 2015.
Online safety survey
Inspectors discussed online safety issues in the school with four groups: senior leaders, groups of teachers, governors and groups of pupils.
The slides provide headline comments, supported by graphs of responses, and include topics such as who was involved in the development of their school e-safety policy, how online safety is taught in the school and the professional development staff have received dressing this topic. Continue reading
This one is for the littles!
And in the vein that the simplest things are often the best, Talking Tiles are very simple indeed and having taken a group of teachers who work daily with young children to see them at BETT, there was a consensus that they would be a hit in the classroom. In brief Talking Tiles are hexagonal plastic blocks that you can record sound into. In addition, they have a removable clear cover under which you can put pictures, numbers, letters—anything you want—and like the audio that can be recorded and re-recorded you can swap the pictures or visual prompts in and out for different activities. Continue reading