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.