BESA CORNER
In our regular feature highlighting the work of members of the UK education suppliers’ trade body BESA, Education Today this month hears from headteacher Laurence Keel on his school’s use of The Literacy Box from Prim-Ed Publishing Ltd; while Joskos Solutions explain how having a managed IT infrastructure partner can save your school time and money.
Technology overload…?
The annual BETT exhibition is the height of the annual education ICT events calendar. This exhibition is attended by 30,000+ school leaders and 100s of the industry’s leading ICT suppliers. BETT is a hive of activity with a number of seminars and demonstrations stretching over the 4 days. It is the perfect place for schools to draw inspiration and guidance on how the latest Edtech can transform their classrooms.
What to do now?
Following exhibitions like BETT and showcase events held throughout the academic year, educators are constantly making new investments in hardware devices and software as current systems are quickly becoming obsolete. More and more, we see innovative and exciting technologies are introduced to the education sector to drive student engagement, unburden teaching staff and simplify assessment. However, the truth is, quite often school leaders make these hefty investments in ICT solutions, only to fail to integrate them fully into existing systems.
Send in the reinforcements
More often than not, this integration cannot be achieved without the help of a dedicated ICT Managed Services partner. With an extensive curriculum to cover and the need to use time efficiently, integrating technology into systems and lessons can often be time consuming. An ICT Support and Managed Services partner can offer your school advice from the inception of your project until deployment and after. This consists of building 3-year ICT roadmaps, assistance choosing the right technologies, procurement and even CPD to ensure staff get the most from their ICT. Even if your school has an in-house ICT Manager, a Managed Services partner can offer scalable support to existing staff. Joskos Solutions are the partner of choice for many schools because we understand the unique requirements from Primary to Academy and as an education only provider; we are attuned to the challenges facing these institutions.
Overcoming IT problems
When Joskos were initially introduced to one of our current customers, the school was experiencing a number of issues, including very unstable networks. Hardware issues were also a challenge for the school as their laptops were not charging adequately, causing them to shut down halfway through lessons and cutting into teaching time.
Today, the school now has a dedicated network manager who has created a more reliable network and saved the school thousands of pounds on replacement devices, by improving the existing laptops. Head Teacher Zoe shares “I used to have weekly IT meetings, I don’t anymore because it just works.”
Children at Kilburn Park School make outstanding progress in
literacy, particularly in reading In addition to our book-based literacy lessons, children receive daily GRASP (Grammar, Reading, Spelling and Punctuation) lessons. A key resource that contributes to the success of these lessons has been the set of three literacy boxes, each of which helps teachers to provide comprehensive practice in the key areas of literacy.
Laurence Keel
Each box contains 75 colourfully illustrated four-page cards that cover fiction, poetry and nonfiction across a wide range of text types.
On each card there is a good balance of activities, covering: grammar; word study; spelling; punctuation; and comprehension. Within each box there are fifteen colour-coded levels each containing five different activity cards.
Each card has high-interest reading material and the content links into cross-curricular themes and high-interest topics. Linked with this text are comprehension questions and word study activities. On each card are multiple-choice questions to accompany the text. Pupils answer the questions, then they can get the corresponding answer card and check whether they are correct or not.
One of the key advantages of this resource is its flexibility, in that it can be used to provide: • for children to work independently for a sustained period of time; • stimulus for one-to-one reading support or literacy interventions; • home learning activities; and
• opportunities for children to peer assess and self-assess their learning and to take responsibility for their own learning. Each box, and the levels within, become progressively more challenging. The comprehensive Teacher Guide provides valuable information and teaching strategies for each card, including word definitions and spelling rules. There are additional sections with notes for teachers about grammar, comprehension and developing proof-reading and editing skills, using different text types.
To find out more about how Joskos can support your schools please visit:
https://joskos-solutions.com
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www.education-today.co.uk
The teachers have found it a valuable resource when delivering guided reading sessions. They use them both as a resource in their teaching and also as part of a range of activities to engage children not being directly supported by an adult. Others have used the teacher guides as a quick reference guide for subject knowledge in literacy. As a direct response to the National Curriculum an accompanying Progression Guide helps teachers to place children on the correct level depending on whether they are working at age related expectations. (There is also a handy reference to old National Curriculum levels.) The Progression Guide also provides information about the comprehension strategies, word work, grammar and punctuation for each card level and some suggestions for informal assessment strategies. Literacy boxes are used in all classrooms throughout the school; children find them bright, colourful and engaging. Once they understand what is expected of them they quickly settle to the task. They are motivated to successfully complete one card and move on to the next. The pressure on teachers to deliver quality literacy learning to children, often with a wide ability range and cultural background is high. The Literacy Box is a resource that quickly allows them to match activities to children’s needs whilst still providing that element of challenge to ensure that all children are making meaningful progress.
http://www.prim-ed.com/webshop/English/The-Literacy-Box June 2017
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