View from the classroom
View from the classroom Dan Chambers
an online cross-curricular primary resource for students aged 3-12 years. Mapped to key curriculum objectives, the resource delivers content in English, Maths, Science, Computing, French, Spanish and English as an Additional Language.
Tell us about some of the challenges ou faced As a teacher I am always looking for exciting and innovative ways to engage the children in my class, but I found I was hampered by the limited content of the existing CD-based software the school was using.
It took hours to gather the T
his month, we hear from Dan Chambers, ICT co-ordinator and teacher at Brierley
Forest Primary School, Sutton-in-Ashfield, about the work the school is doing to engage its pupils through innovative and exciting cross-curricular teaching.
Tell us a little about your school Brierley Forest Primary and Nursery is a mid-sized school with 22 teachers, 23 teaching assistants and a 401 pupil roll, based in Sutton-in-Ashfield, a former mining region on the edge of Mansfield. The school’s mission is to encourage ambition and aspiration whilst ensuring that all learners reach their full potential in an engaging, safe and challenging environment. Rated good in the latest Ofsted inspection, Brierley has been embracing the new National Curriculum using EducationCity,
necessary information for lesson planning and each disc was narrowly subject specific and did not include enough resources. I wanted a solution that would provide content for the whole curriculum and one that would capture the imaginations of pupils and staff alike.
How did you go about resolving this? I tried EducationCity following a recommendation from a colleague and it immediately struck a chord and became a ‘must have’ in my classroom – so much so, that I have used it for 12 years in 5 different schools! I really liked the fact that the activities met curriculum objectives, but were short and focused keeping pupils engaged and on task whilst developing their knowledge and understanding.
What subjects do you currently subscribe to? We currently subscribe to English and Maths for KS1 and KS2 and are trialling Science, French and
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www.education-today.co.uk
Computing. We have just added Foundation Stage Maths and Numeracy as a trial and we are looking to add this to our subscription The range of subjects and the breadth of
content available in one resource is good. I’m no longer required to switch between CDs or a selection of limited websites in order to find the right material which really takes the hard work out of lesson planning.
How did you implement the software? To ensure that staff were using the resource to its full potential, I arranged an online training session where we had a detailed demonstration of the product, its features and how it could be used in the classroom – this was really helpful for staff who were not as confident using IT in the classroom. I was also trained to an advanced user level so that I was able to lead internal staff training sessions and some 1:1 and small group workshops.
What do the pupils think? Pupils grasped the user friendly website very quickly - in fact better than some members of staff. The characters are fun and friendly and the activities are effective and simple to follow, even independently. Within a short period of time children could navigate easily around the software and the majority of classes in my school were using it more than once a week.
What do you find most useful? There are a number of features that have proved particularly useful to me as a teacher. Key
July 2015
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