www.spellbindereducation.co.uk

If you’re still teaching - congratulations! Recent figures show that drop-out rates for recently qualified teachers are now running at 48 per cent for the first three years.

If your resolve is still strong, you have a right to be proud. But if you’re beginning to waver, a CD Rom called The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to Survival for Teachers - offering tips on the “responsibilities and sometimes nightmares of being a teacher”- may be just what you need.

Subjects covered include resolving conflict, coping with the Office for Standards in Education, dealing with difficult questions, assessment, parents’ events, observation and teaching sex education.

Each section looks at the conflicting issues involved in different scenarios, before setting out ways in which you can tackle the potential problem or strategies to use to make a chore or event less time consuming and stressful.

There’s also a section for NQTs on both the primary and secondary disks, which includes information on the usual subjects, such as the first day and settling a class.

But areas not deemed a high priority - such as getting used to staff room culture, getting the most out of your mentor, difficult colleagues and even acknowledging the caretaker, are also included.

The Survivors Guide doesn’t come with bells and whistles. There are no fancy charts or arty pictures.

The information is presented in PDF files with lots of text, a few bullet points and the odd cartoon to break up the copy.

It is not a design classic, but it is useful, and you can print it out without having to worry about distracting graphics.

The beauty of having all this information on CD Rom is that you can cut down on the paperwork and head for what you need within a minute or two when the going gets tough.

To get a taster of what is on offer, go to the Spellbinder Education website and click on “samples”. at www.spellbindereducation.co.uk.

For queries and comments, email: ash@spellbinderail.demon.co.uk Yolanda Brooks