NEWS
Steps to beat bullying
The Anti-Bullying Alliance has launched a subscription scheme to offer information, support and services to schools and colleges. For more details visit, www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk
OFSTED TIPS
A new range of courses aims to prepare primary and early-years staff for Ofsted inspections. The Creative Education courses look at what an outstanding lesson is and include strategies for lesson planning. www.creativeeducation.co.uk
SENCO UPDATE
Optimus Education and Teaching Expertise are holding their eighth annual Senco update conference in London on March 24. The programme for the one-day event includes sessions on managing budgets and organising workloads. Keynote speakers include Sonia Blandford, director of the Government’s Achievement for All project.
For details, go to http:conferences. teachingexpertise.com
MUSEUMS
What is it
This is a collection of resources to support visits to popular destinations.
How to use it
The collection includes worksheets that can be used to support a visit to the Museum of Childhood in London. The worksheets ask pupils to identify types of toys and feature a quiz and treasure hunt. They are aimed at key stage 1 children (uploaded by ehoare).
A video showing Year 4 pupils in the interactive Launchpad gallery at the Science Museum in London can be used to support a visit to the museum, with particular relevance to work on forces and friction for KS2 pupils (Teachers TV).
Another Teachers TV video features a virtual tour around the SS Great Britain and can be used to prepare pupils for a visit to the ship, which is docked in Bristol. It is particularly useful for a KS2 history project on investigating artefacts.
A series of interactive resources has been developed to support a visit to Cardiff Castle and is split into topics including a focus on servants and on armour through the ages for KS2 pupils (NGfL Cymru).
A resource looking at Tudor and Stuart portraits can be used to support a visit to the Welsh National Museum gallery, with cross-curricular links to history and English and ideas for creative writing and art work (also NGfL Cymru).
FARMS
What is it
This is a collection of resources put together by Farming and Countryside Education (FACEonline), a charity that helps young people to learn about sustainable food and farming.
The resources cover a range of subjects and can either be used independently or to support a visit to a farm.
How to use it
For key stage 1 pupils, maths activities include problem-solving games based on organising cows into milking parlours and grouping animals into categories, according to how many legs they have or whether they have fur or feathers.
Data-handling activities require pupils to sort animals they saw at a farm into a pictogram or bar chart. History resources range from a comparison of farming machinery and practices to a task inviting pupils to make observations based on a series of agricultural artefacts.
Science materials include investigations into what plants need to survive and different materials that can be found around a farm.
KS2 English activities include creative-writing exercises based on stories and poems set in farms or using a basket of farming objects. Among the ideas for art and design are a project based on the patterns that can be found on a farm, such as brick walls, corrugated roofs, fences, crops and animal prints.
Another activity uses farm materials, such as sheep’s wool, feathers and corn, to create textured art through clay, printing, rubbing or weaving.
The collection also includes cross-curricular resources based on a visit to a horticultural nursery, which is aimed at KS2 pupils.
Local interest
What is it
A collection of resources that can be used to support visits to local places of interest.
How to use it
A PowerPoint showing the main features of a church (pictured above) can be used to introduce children to what they can expect to see, and is aimed at key stage 1 pupils (uploaded by lukeliamlion).
A web link to resources can be used to support visits to Poole, with walks, maps and teacher notes, and to Wiltshire museums, with sections on pre-history, the Romans, Tudors and Victorians, or as templates that can be adapted for other destinations (SouthWestGridforLearning). Both are aimed at KS2 children.
Resources developed by the Hamilton Trust can be used to support visits to Roman sites. A pre-visit lesson gives pupils the chance to decide what information they want to find out and includes activity sheets where they can record their experiences. A follow-up lesson could look at how historians acquire facts and develop ideas about how people lived in the past. Both are aimed at Years 3 and 4.
Where to find them
All the materials on these pages and more resources to support educational visits can be found at www.tes.co.ukeducational-visits.
