Resolve to look after yourself

I spent my early years in the teaching profession working too hard, playing too little and kidding myself I was having fun. You can’t be resourceful, and inspire and support others when you are not giving enough back to yourself…School culture is a wonderfully warm and enveloping blanket, but it can sometimes smother you: when you are no longer aware of the hours you are putting in; when you are no longer aware of the cost to those you love most.

These words come from the opening of The Managing Workload Pocketbook written by Will Thomas, and thousands of teachers  struggling to juggle competing demands will identify with the sentiments.

Keep your promise to yourself

I wonder how many of us made new year resolutions about work-life balance. Those kinds of promises to ourselves are certainly ones worth keeping and as Will later found out, it really is possible to perform well at work and enjoy a healthy, happy rounded life. As he says, ‘your performance will improve precisely because you are happier, healthier and more rounded’.

Happy, healthy, rounded

The previous paragraphs were first posted on this blog in January 2010. They set me thinkng, though, about those words – ‘happy’, ‘healthy’,  ’rounded’. I thought I’d share some ideas on these matters for January 2012:

1. Happy (or SAD?) – By January, we’ve endured already two months of shortened days.  Many of us leave home and return home in darkness and those of us who spend our working days indoors, perhaps in offices or environments with small or no windows, see very little daylight between November and March. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that lack of sunlight can lead to ‘winter depression’. According to mental health charity Mind:

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or ‘winter depression’, may affect as many as a third of us, but the problem often goes undiagnosed.

The charity gives an excellent overview of the matter with a clear explanation and suggested solutions. I am currently sitting in front of my newly purchased light box and, for what it’s worth,  after two weeks’ usage I am impressed with the results.

2. Healthy – It’s generally accepted that two of the key ingredients contributing to good health are diet and exercise. I’m not best qualified to comment on the latter (!) but as this is rapidly turning into ‘Homespun Wisdom from PocketbookLinda’, I am prepared to share thoughts on – and indeed a recipe for… … … soup. Hearty, warming, nutritious and easy-to-make, I’m a soup fan. One of my resolutions is to bring home-made soup to work for lunch at least three times a week during the winter. So far so good. (Apologies to colleagues for slurping noises emanating from my office at lunchtime.) The best thing is, it’s filling, so no need to ‘pick’ throughout the day on other, less healthy snacks. Here’s my recipe for Ginger Edge Soup – the liquid levels vary according to bulk of vegetables, and for reduced zing cut back on the ginger:

About 4 cm of root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
one medium sweet potato, diced
5 medium carrots, diced
2 medium leeks, thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, chopped
500-600mls stock (I use Marigold Bouillon)
a couple of sprigs of rosemary
3 0r 4 sprigs of thyme
milk (up to 300 mls)
ground black pepper

1. Melt a small amount of butter in a large pan and stir in ginger and all vegetables. Sweat gently (the veg. that is) over low heat for 4 or 5 minutes.
2. Add stock and herbs.
3. Simmer gently until veg. are soft – about 15 mins.
4. At this point, carefully lift herbs from pan and strip leaves from stalks (asbestos fingers useful).
5. Blend. (If you’re going to get into soups seriously, a stick blender is a good investment. The whole process of blending and cleaning the blade takes seconds, unlike using a jug blender which requires potentially messy pouring and significant washing up.)
6. Add half of milk and blend again. If the soup looks like mushy vegetables rather than liquid, add more milk until smooth consistency is achieved.
7. Grind a generous portion of black pepper into pan.
8. Serve.

3. Rounded – You will be significantly less rounded if you eat more soup, less fat and fewer carbohydrates. But, taking the sense of the original, reading Teachers’ Pocketbooks will make you a more rounded individual, both professionally and personally. Here are the current top sellers:

1. Outstanding Lessons Pocketbook
2. Behaviour Management Pocketbook
3. Differentiation Pocketbook
4. Assessment & Learning Pocketbook
5. Dyslexia Pocketbook

        

Happy reading – and let me know how you get on with the soup!

PocketbookLinda

Jerome Bruner

Guest blogger and Pocketbook author Brin Best gives an overview of Jerome Bruner’s contribution to education and educational thinking:

JEROME BRUNER

 Jerome Bruner (1915 — ) is an American psychologist who has been a very influential figure in the field of education. His work, bringing together the ideas of Vygotsky, Freud and Piaget, has helped teachers to understand the process of education. In more recent years he has made a special contribution to the importance of culture in learning.

An influential theory

Bruner’s most important book (The Process of Education, published in 1960 – see ‘Further reading’) emerged following a 1959 meeting of scientists, psychologists and educators who were united by a desire to improve scientific education in the USA. It profoundly influenced some of the finest minds to work in education in the remainder of the 20^th Century, such as Howard Gardner, who has gone on record to say that he was drawn to a life in education after reading Bruner’s landmark volume.

Five concepts underpinned the ideas in The Process of Education:

• Knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it – it is the underlying structure of a subject that is most important
• The child is an active learner and problem-solver
• Children are always learning: intellectual activity is all around us
• Any subject can be taught in some meaningful form to any child at any stage of development – Bruner called this concept the ‘spiral curriculum’

The representation of knowledge

Bruner’s core work has focused on the full range of human capacities involved in teaching and learning, including language, creativity and motivation. He has developed a powerful three-stage model to help us understand how children represent experiences and convert these into knowledge, which included the following ‘modes’:

• The enactive mode – involving physical action
• The iconic mode – where one thing stands for another (eg a child uses a stick to simulate a rifle)
• The symbolic mode – involving children representing their experiences through a variety of symbolic systems (eg writing).

Bruner differed from Piaget in believing that, instead of children’s progression through these modes being a one-way process, their entry point depended more on the level of experience of the individual. Children are more likely to choose the enactive mode of representation for things that are new to them; as they become more experienced they move towards symbolic representational modes.

The importance of culture

Bruner’s more recent work places much emphasis on the key role of culture in education.  He believes that cultural psychology can help explain the intentional behaviour of people and that education provides a test-bed for developing cultural psychology as a field of study. Writing in his book The Culture of Education Bruner states, ‘Culture shapes the mind…it provides us with the toolkit by which we construct not only our worlds but our very conception of ourselves and our powers.’

Further reading

The Process of Education (Latest edition published by Harvard University Press, 1977 and still available on Amazon) is Bruner’s key contribution to education. The 1977 edition has an introduction by Bruner that considers the strengths and weaknesses of the original work, published in 1960. Also of special note is Bruner’s volume The Culture of Education (Latest edition published by Harvard University Press, 1997).

 

 

 

The Round Robin

Keeping in touch

I’ve always been good at keeping in touch with people and I’ve always done most of my ‘keeping in touch’ in writing. In former decades handwritten letters were the order of the day. These gradually gave way to emails and – for those not online – typed letters sent through the post. I have been known to indulge in a bit of Skype-ing, but I prefer corresponding in print. I’ve collected more than a few contacts over the years, including the RAF children I went to primary school with and who were posted all over the UK and Europe during our childhoods; teachers and classmates from my secondary school years; university friends; teaching colleagues; and students I’ve taught from all six schools I worked in. That’s not to mention relatives in far flung corners of Britain and the world, former neighbours, people I’ve met on holiday, and the mother of the boyfriend I went out with in 1978/9. You get the picture.

The circular

My Christmas card list expands each year and I’m happy to touch base with people in this way. Writing out a card means I spend some time thinking about the recipient and and I enjoy that.  Not all, but a good proportion of those I send a card to – the ones I don’t see from one year end to the next – I also write to at Christmas.  Not least beacause I’ve found if you write to them, they write back to you, and hearing what people have been up to over the previous 12 months interests me. I’ve never been offended, as some people are, at receiving their news via a circular. It seems to me you have to be realistic. Finding the time to write individual, personalised Christmas letters in our time-pressured lives is impractical, and I’d rather receive something than nothing. I’ve also never felt that people’s accounts of their year, including where they’ve been, what they’ve done and what their children have done, are tantamount to gloating or bragging.

So here’s my problem

This year I’ve been immobilised on the letter-writing front thanks to author and poet Sophie Hannah. I’ve recently come across her satirical poem Round Robin (the full text can be found here). It starts like this:

Dear Distant Friends,
Surprisingly we’ve still got your addresses,
So here’s a list of all our latest triumphs and successes.
This year we’ve been as busy as a family of beavers
(Though they’re just furry animals, while we are high achievers.)

She goes on to mock the way the authors ‘Dorothy and Mick’ gloat about their high-flying children, expensive holidays and large house and how they might deign to write again next year subject to a bit of grovelling and sycophancy from their correspondents. It’s very funny and extremely caustic – and I’ve found I can’t write a single sentence as a result of having read it!

For round robin fans

If you’re a fan of the round robin and remain undeterred by any of this, you might like to sign up for the Teachers’ Pocketbooks version. I’ll write to you (and a couple of hundred others) 3 or 4 times a year (and occasionally -  if you’re happy to hear from us this way – send an email). You’ll hear about new books and products, new developments, exhibitions we’re attending and special offers we’re running. I’ll try to keep the boasting to a minimum and promise not to show off unduly.

To join us, contact marketing@pocketbook.co.uk with your name, and address (and, if you wish, your email address) and say that you’re subscribing to our list as a result of reading this blog.

Happy Christmas!

Pocketbook Linda

Making an exhibition of ourselves

Teachers’ Pocketbooks exhibiting in London

When I swapped my teaching career for a career in publishing, I was occasionally able to say – for the first time in 20 years – that I was ‘away on business’. For friends and neighbours this seems to signify travel to exotic destinations in the Middle East, ‘across the pond’ to NY and Boston, or regular hops to the continent. My own travel has taken me thus far to Birmingham, Bolton and Islington. In fact, twice in two months to the latter.

This week – December 9th and 10th- we’re returning to Islington, to the Business Design Centre, to take part in the brand new TES Resources Show. Billed as ‘the Capital’s ultimate education resources show’. it is suitable for early years, primary and secondary teachers. There are 48 seminars scheduled over two days, free consultancy on offer in the Leadership Lounge and an exhibition focused firmly on ‘supplying educational establishments with all the ideas, resources, services and classroom aids they require’. Sounds fab!

Teachers’ Pocketbooks will be on lucky (we hope) Stand 13. We’ll have all 36 Pocketbooks with us for you to browse or purchase on the day and a range of Management Pocketbooks also.  If you can visit the exhibition do come along, introduce yourself and take advantage of the special show discount on paperback Pocketbooks.

To give you a flavour, here’s an image of our stand in October at Special Needs London.

We look forward to seeing some of you later this week.

Pocketbook Linda

Licence to Skill!

Licence to Skill

In recent months we’ve seen a huge surge of interest in our e-Pocketbook library. It seems as if schools, colleges and other educational organisations, having made good strides with their VLEs, are now keen to promote e-learning. Some establishments are starting from the position of wanting content to populate their online learning environments; others are Pocketbooks fans who want to make Teachers’ Pocketbooks available to everyone on the staff as a key element of their ongoing CPD programme. We’ve also spoken to the programme managers of several GTPs who wanted the facility to upload our Pocketbooks to their intranets, giving access to trainee teachers dispersed across a wide geographical region. Our multi-user licences make all of this possible and we’ve now got a sizeable band of happy licensees.

So how does it work?

If you’d like to share e-Pocketbooks among several different users, an annual subscription buys you a multi-user licence. You then get access to the full library of Teachers’ Pocketbooks (currently 36 titles – over 4,000 pages of CPD material) for as many users as you’d like. You can upload the entire library to a VLE or intranet, project pages onto a screen for small group or whole staff training sessions, and licensed users may print pages any number of times for their own use.

The cost of an annual subscription is determined by number of users and we’re told it compares favourably in cost and content with school training days or sending staff on courses. Each year when you renew we update your library with all the new editions and new titles published since the start of your subscription period. We also offer 25% discount on all paperback Pocketbooks purchased by the licensee during the subscription period.

If you’d like a quote for an annual licence or to find out more, call us on 01962 735573 or email sales@pocketbook.co.uk telling us how many people you envisage using the resource and we’ll get back to you with a price and more information. Please also mention that you found out about licences from this blog.

Can I buy e-books just for myself?

Of course, you may just want the odd e-book – or a set of e-books – for yourself. That’s possible too. In fact, you could be at your screen reading any one of our 36 Teachers’ Pocketbooks within the hour. We’ve just launched our new e-book website from where you can browse, buy and then download Pocketbooks in pdf format to your PC, laptop and/or Mac. At £6.96 per book you also save over £1 compared with the paperback version – and, of course, there’s no postage to pay. You can download each e-book up to three times – for your own individual use. So, for instance, you could have a copy on your work PC, your laptop and maybe a Mac or PC at home. The text at the top of the e-book website page explains the order and download process.

If you’d like to see what our books look like on screen before purchasing, remember there are free pdf extracts from every Pocketbook on our website. Click here to see an example.

Pocketbook Linda

Outstanding Lessons

Excellent vs Outstanding

When I started teaching in the 1980s, I remember being a probationer (NQT in today’s parlance) and being observed for the first time by the head of English. She was happy with what she saw, describing the sense of focus and purpose, the range and creativity of activity, the harmonious mood and the lesson’s outcomes as excellent.  Everyone was happy; nothing was written down;  I was never again formally observed in the remaining three years I spent at the school. It was a system that had its faults, though it seemed to serve well at the time. It certainly wouldn’t pass muster in today’s world where ‘Outstanding’ is the watch word. Something to do with Ofsted, I think?

Hoops, Targets and Ubiquity

Utter the words ‘outstanding lessons’ in the hearing of teachers today (at least in parts of the UK) and their ears prick up – their careers could stand or fall depending on their grasp of the concept.  Listen to teachers, heads and trainers, read the current literature, visit teacher websites and the phrase  ‘from good to outstanding’ is not just familiar, it’s endemic; Google ‘outstanding lessons’ and you get 54 million hits (!!!); a glance at the National College for School Leadership forums shows how central ‘nailing’ the outstanding lesson is – what is the ‘extra ingredient’ that marks out some lessons as ‘outstanding’ when others, which seem to jump through all the hoops, just miss hitting that all-important target?

I’m not keen on jumping through hoops and I’d resist to the death the notion that by following a formula, anyone could become outstanding – it’s simply not the case. It may be no bad thing to be preoccupied with the concept of what constitutes ‘outstanding’ but it’s a concept that might be defined differently by different groups, according to their own agenda.

Great Book!

Whatever my personal view, there’s no denying that publishing a book with the title Outstanding Lessons has been a good move. The three-week-old Outstanding Lessons Pocketbook is proving to be one of the fastest-selling Teachers’ Pocketbooks ever (the Differentiation Pocketbook nipping closely at its heels).

£7.99 plus postage from Teachers' Pocketbooks

Author Caroline Bentley-Davies is acutely aware of her audience and of the weight of responsibility for meeting different needs with this book. Caroline began teaching in the mid-90s. She has been a middle leader in three schools, a LA Education Adviser and a school inspector. She now runs training sessions for teachers and over a five-year period has taught demonstration lessons in over 80 schools. Caroline says:

“Being a great teacher isn’t about pulling the occasional ‘perfect’ lesson out of the bag for an observation or inspection; it is about developing excellent relationships with pupils and honing our skills and judgements about them on a daily basis… The tips in this Pocketbook will enable you to develop the skills to teach a stunning lesson, one that will knock the socks off your observer, but the book has a much broader remit. In looking at developing outstanding lessons, it considers crucial factors drawn from current classroom practice, recent educational research and pupil feedback.”

Covering relationships, lesson planning, how to develop pupil independence, techniques, motivation, resources and – yes – that elusive X factor (which for Caroline is about praise and aspects of A4L) there’s a wealth of material to learn from in this visually engaging book. The last words go to an Assistant Head and a trainee Maths teacher who have read it.

A wonderfully refreshing read! Makes delivering outstanding learning for students of all ages accessible and possible for every teacher.
V. Lea. (Assistant Head, The Elizabeth Woodville School)

Simply put, this is a fantastic book. Bentley-Davies encourages the reader constantly to ask questions and reflect on their practice throughout the book. As a trainee teacher on the GTP, I cannot recommend Outstanding Lessons highly enough.
P. Collins (Royal Alexandra & Albert School)

Let us know what you think – about the issue and/or about the book – by posting a comment on the blog.

Pocketbook Linda

Maria Montessori

Another in our occasional series of posts from Brin Best about the men and women whose research or ideas have influenced education. This week, Maria Montessori:

MARIA MONTESSORI

Maria Montessori (1870—1952) was an Italian doctor who is famous for developing a method of early childhood education that still bears her name.

Montessori specialised in paediatrics at the University of Rome and in 1896 was the first woman in Italy to be awarded a medical degree. After graduating she developed a special interest in the welfare of children from deprived backgrounds, especially those with special educational needs. This led Montessori to study the major publications on educational theory, and to reach her own conclusion that special schools were needed for these children.

She later took the directorship of a school in Rome, providing teaching and training in the care and education of children with severe learning difficulties. Later, as part of her research back at the University of Rome, she visited primary schools to see the methods of education being used; these visits convinced her that the education approaches she had previously developed in her work with children with learning difficulties were appropriate for all children.

The Casa dei Bambini

To put her ideas into practice Montessori set up a Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House) in a very poor part of Rome. Young children were given simple practical toys to play with (eg cubes to build into a tower) and staff were instructed to observe but not to intervene. This had dramatic results, with many children becoming absorbed in the toys and Montessori describing them as being transformed from ‘timid and wild’ to ‘social, communicative and joyous’. This encouraged Montessori to open additional Children’s Houses, some of which were for older children and those from more affluent backgrounds.

The core theory

The Montessori educational method, which began as a response to the behaviour of the children in the Children’s Houses, encompasses the following principles:

• Children experience periods of special sensitivity when they are eager to learn
• Children learn best through the senses, in an environment designed to meet their needs, and through movement (especially of the hands)
• Although children can read, write and count at an early age, these skills should only be introduced when they show interest in them

Further features of the method are the teaching of mixed-age groups together, the large amount of choice given to children over their learning and the provision of extended periods of uninterrupted time to allow children to follow their interests.

 

International attention

The success of the Children’s Houses led to the publication of Montessori’s influential book The Montessori Method in 1912 (see ‘Further reading’), which was widely read in Italy and translated into several other languages for publication overseas. This elevated Montessori to the status of educational guru and she travelled extensively around the world promoting her ideas, often being received as a major celebrity. By this time schools had been set up using her principles in many of the cities she visited.

Montessori nurseries and schools today are still based firmly on the original principles, and aim to support all aspects of children’s personal and social development. The curriculum includes:

• Daily living skills – including care for the environment, oneself and others in the community
• Education of the senses
• Language development
• Number concepts
• Science and exploration of the wider world, especially nature

Advocates of the Montessori method believe that it helps to develop children who are confident, independent, good at decision-making and well-balanced as individuals.

Further reading

The Montessori Method (first published by Heinemann, 1912) describes every aspect of a child’s life at a Montessori School. See also www.montessori.edu.

 

 

 

Will Thomas’s Tips for Managing Workload

In this week’s blog, Pocketbook author Will Thomas shares his tips for managing workload:

1. Use unexpected available time, such as when people are late for appointments, by creating a weekly ‘Transition Time File’.  Keep in it tasks for that week that you can do in short bursts . Carry it with you so you never lose a moment!

2. Parkinson’s Law states that ‘Work expands to fill the time you make available to it’. So, set yourself a ‘Working Envelope’, ie how much time  you will spend each week working and in other pursuits.

3. Poor work-life balance can have short- and long-term effects on our health, relationships and effectiveness. Here’s a simple prescription for thinking about making positive changes: R.E.S.T.
R= Refuel. Eat and drink healthily for maximum performance. Are you getting enough water each day?
E= Exercise. Take regular exercise for posture, health and stamina. Are you getting a daily heart-rate rise through exercise?
S= Stop. Take stimulus-free time. Are you getting at least a few minutes of time in total peace and quiet each day?
T=Time. Take time to reflect on your successes and plan your next steps each day. Are you taking a few minutes of quiet reflection to review, energise and plan?

4. When someone delegates something to you, you always have at least four options:
a) Say Yes.
b) Say No.
c) Negotioate – ‘If I do this for the time you say, it will mean I won’t be able to do this other thing until…How do you feel about that?
d) Say you’ll come back to them when you have considered it.

Will Thomas is author of the Managing Workload Pocketbook and joint author of the Head of Department’s Pocketbook. Both books are available from Teachers’ Pocketbooks at £7.99 + p&p.

Pocketbook Linda

Rudolf Steiner

Thank this week to Brin Best for the third in his occasional series of introductions to educational theorists.  As you read about Rudolf Steiner below, we’re loading the Pocketbooks van in preparation for our drive up to London tomorrow to set up for Special Needs London. This excellent special needs resources show (visit www.teachingexhibitions.co.uk for more information) has a packed CPD seminar programme and offers the chance to see first hand a huge variety of the resources available for special needs teachers. Teachers’ Pocketbooks will be on Stand 53 on both days of the show – Friday 14th and Saturday 15th. Do come along and see us. With all Pocketbooks at 25% discount it might well be worth your while. We look forward to seeing you.

Now for  Brin’s post on Rudolf Steiner:

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner (1861—1925) was an Austrian scientist and philosopher who developed a distinctive type of education that aimed to promote a child’s personal and social development. Over 1,700 schools inspired by Steiner’s methodology have now been set up worldwide.

The first Steiner school

After graduating from university Steiner became interested in spirituality and developed, among many other ideas, a ‘science of the spirit’; this centred on the human struggle for inner freedom. Impressed by his ideas, employees at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart set up a school for their children, and what was to become known as the first ‘Steiner-Waldorf School’ opened its doors in 1919.

The central philosophy

The Steiner philosophy was based on the idea that all children and young people progress through three distinctive stages of development, each lasting seven years:

• Birth to seven years old – when the ‘active’ or ‘will’ tends to dominate
• Seven to 14 years old – when the affective or ‘feeling’ takes prominence
• 14-21years old – when the cognitive or thinking ability predominates

Steiner emphasized the importance of education working in harmony with the emerging abilities and differing needs of children at each stage. He also warned against the dangers of putting too much pressure on children to succeed intellectually at an early age, which he believed can lead to lack of personal motivation to learn.

A distinctive ethos

Steiner developed a very distinctive ethos for his schools, as follows:

• The central aims are to give children clarity of thought, sensitivity of feeling and strength of will
• All elements of growth and development are considered important, including spirituality
• An appropriate physical learning environment is considered essential – it needs to be a warm, natural and friendly environment where children can feel nurtured and at ease
• Children experience both the arts and the sciences, though during the early years there are no subject boundaries and learning proceeds at the pace of the child
• Play and imitation is emphasised for children up to age seven, as it is believed to strengthen the imagination and support all other aspects of learning
• Formal schooling using the printed word does not start until children reach 8 years old
• There is a strong emphasis on the spoken word, with stories, songs, poems etc. being considered the most appropriate introduction to literacy
• Up to age eight, mathematics is taught in practical human terms through activities such as cooking, where vegetables are chopped and counted, flour is weighed etc.
• The curriculum blends creativity with practical activity, with an emphasis on meaningful life experiences such as cooking and gardening
• Part of each day is devoted to ‘free creative play’, which includes a special form of movement with language and music
• Rhythm and structure is an important part of the school day, week and year, as children are thought to be reassured by the continuity this provides, e.g. there are regular daily and weekly activities; seasonal events mark the natural cycles of the year

Worldwide influence

The Steiner-Waldorf approach to education was enthusiastically adopted in a range of countries across the world during the 20^th century. Today, there are 1,087 nurseries and 640 schools spread across 50 countries, providing education to children aged 3-18.

Further reading

An Introduction to Steiner Education (by Frances Edmunds; latest edition published by Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004) provides an accessible overview of the topic. More information can be found at www.rudolfsteinerweb.com.

 

By Brin Best

 

World Space Week – lesson resources

SPACE – THE FINAL FRONTIER

October 4 -10th 2011 is World Space week. I thought you might enjoy a few ‘space’ jokes:

Why do people think Captain Kirk has 3 ears?
Because he has a left ear, a right ear and a ‘final frontier’!

What kind of songs do planets like to sing?
Nep-tunes!

When is a window like a star?
When it’s a skylight!

Space Related Websites

The World Space Week association was formed in 1981 and partners the UN in the co-ordination of world space events.  Their mission:

To celebrate each year at international level the contributions of space science and technology to the betterment of the human condition - the United Nations General Assembly.

For further information about events visit their website.

The European Space Agency site is also packed with information and has links to the UK space education office. This organisation promotes the use of space to enhance and support the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). From the European Space Agency site you can also link through to NASA ‘science casts’, short videos about fun and interesting topics. I watched a video clip called A Breath of Fresh Air about how the same kind of oxygen humans breathe on earth has been found in deep space. The video clips are short and would make good topic openers in class.

Also, If you visit the BBC science website there are presently some great items on astronomy. The item about the night sky in Autumn is something children can get involved in. You don’t need lots of special equipment, just a pair of binoculars and the opportunity to go somewhere that is not light-polluted.

Another website www.our-space.org  set up by Richard Garriott – computer games guru and adventurer who visited the International Space Station in 2008, contains video clips of him at the space station. There are materials and resources on this site which can be used to build lesson plans.

The National STEM Centre

Many teachers will already be aware of the National STEM Centre. Their e-library contains numerous lesson plans and teachers’ notes. I noticed a lesson plan on Newton’s first law, the law of inertia, but I decided to stay in my existing state and did not click the PDF! A few other lesson plans that caught my eye, although not directly linked to space, were ‘Engineering Chocolate’ aimed at 11-14 year olds – 4 lesson plans and teachers’ notes on areas such as investigating solubility, thermal insulation, hygiene, micro organisms and packaging, all taught through the medium of chocolate. ‘Beyond the visible – 100 years of X-rays’ is another topic I particularly enjoyed. Although written in 1995, I think it is still very useful. The areas covered in this group of lesson plans are: the discovery of x-rays; x-rays in medicine; diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy.

Although we have moved on from the notion that girls are not interested in science, there is still evidence to suggest that many students – both boys and girls – don’t select science to study. It’s perceived as difficult and, sometimes, dull. Neither of which are true when the teaching and resources are creative and exciting.

A couple of our publications which you might enjoy are:

Creative Teaching Pocketbook by Roy Watson-Davis in which Roy shares numerous suggestions about how to engage students and help them learn more effectively, and how to stimulate and support creative practice.

Boys, Girls and Learning Pocketbook by Ian Smith  – practical classroom advice on how to motivate and connect with both boys and girls and create an environment that will work for both genders.

 A couple more jokes before I blast off:

 What kind of poetry can you find in outer space?
Uni-verse!

 And my current favourite:

Where does Dr Who buy his cheese?
A Dalek-atessen!

Jenny