Olympic values in the classroom

In light of the Olympic Games taking place next year, our school has adopted the Olympic and Paralympic values as part of its ethos. These are the values that athletes follow and they could easily be applied to education.

These Values are:

• respect
• excellence
• friendship

• courage
• determination
• inspiration
• equality.

We are spending time in assemblies and in class thinking about how these values can help to guide is in school.

(I tried hard to find an acronym for the values to make them easier to remember for the children. The best I could come up with is FED RICE.)

You can learn more about the Olympic values here: http://getset.london2012.com/en/resources/educators/the-olympic-and-paralympic-values

Harry Potter Teaching Resources

Many years ago I remember using a brilliant website which shared resources to teach Harry Potter in the classroom. It was run by Gareth Pitchford from Primary Resources. Unfortunately, I believe the site was removed for legal reasons.


I recently discovered that the site has been archived online at http://web.archive.org/web/200012022312/http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/harry/index.htm. You can find out ideas for using the first four books.

Purplemash

I guess we are relatively late in jumping on board the Purplemash bandwagon as we have only had a subscription since September this year. However, our school is increasingly becoming hooked!


We have signed up so that we can access Mash through our Uniservity learning platform. This way the children can save any work created using Mash into their own space easily. Once into Purplemash there are thousands of activities that can be used in all parts of the curriculum.


These are the activities I plan to use in Year Four this year:

• Postcards - at the beginning of the year we will send postcards to our headteacher.
• Newspapers - we will use the grids in 2Publish extra to write newspaper reports.
• Roman and Viking resources - lots of cross-curricular work can be done here.
• 2Investigate - to explore the idea of databases.
• Logo - to introduce programming.
• 2Animate - to create a slideshow about our residential later in the year.
• 2Graph - to enhance our work in handling data in maths.
• 2Type - to continue to develop our typing skills.
• Maths games - we tried some of these in Year Three and they proved to be popular, so we'll give them another go.
• 2Sequence - to bring ICT into music.

I'm sure they'll be loads more facilities that we'll use, in particular in 2Publish and 2Publish Extra.

I love the fact that we can start something in school and then it can be finished at home!

How do you use Purplemash in Year Four?

Good features of planning

During the year we are reviewing our school planning format. In David Dunn's book he writes about the most important features of planning that are needed to have an outstanding lesson.


He makes it clear that planning doesn't have to be incredibly detailed - just delivered well.

"Your outstanding judgement is based on how well the children have learned, not how many words you have on your detailed lesson plan. I have seen lessons planned on the back of a cigarette packet (well, not literally you understand, but you get the idea) that have been outstanding; and I have seen lessons that have had the planning equivalent to a Tolstoy epic that have barely been satisfactory... It's quality, not quantity, that counts." David Dunn, How to be an Outstanding Primary School Teacher.

The most important aspects are:

• Objectives
• Differentiation
• Support/Teaching Assistants
• Assessment
• IEPs/Special Needs/G & T
• Resources
• Questions
• Key information - putting the plan into context.

 What key features do you include in your planning?

Building Great Relationships with Parents

 In his book How to be an Outstanding Primary School Teacher, David Dunn talks about building relationships with parents. He makes some great recommendations. Communication with parents must be:


Regular
Dunn says that regular communication must be, "Quick, easy and profitable!" It must be as regular as you feel would be of benefit, but it must be brief. He also advises against only making contact when there's a problem - they love to hear something positive too.
Simple ways of communication could be:

• Whole class email
• Home/school diary
• Reading Records/Homework diary
• A quick word on the playground.

Honest

"Be honest but professional."

Helpful

"Be helpful /committed to helping their child(ren) to learn and develop." Always find the time for the parent who wants to help their child(ren) at home.

Approachable

"Have an open-door policy; be approachable." Make sure that if they ask to speak to you, you find the time to do so, or at least call them back as soon as possible.

Professional

"Always be professional. Parents will respect you for it."

As far as communication goes for me personally, I'm making a few resolutions:

• I will try to be outside to meet my class and chat to parents at least two minutes before the start of every school day, instead of being so busy I run outside at the last minute.
• I will speak to different parents each week about how pleased I am with a pupil.
• I will send a text to parents each day about how pleased I am with a child's work/attitude/progress.
• I will continue to send out messages to parents each week in our Reading Records/Homework Diaries.

Recommended book: How to be an Outstanding Primary School Teacher

I recently read this superb book. It's not often that I feel inspired by an professional book, but I certainly was after reading this. It's well worth a read and I hope that a few readers will buy a copy of the book after reading my blog. The author, David Dunn, is on Twitter, and you can also view his website here.

Monthly Review: August 2011

The summer holidays don't half go quickly, do they?! Five weeks sound like a long time at the beginning. By the end it feels like just a quick break!


Family
It's been lovely to spend time with my family, in particular looking after our baby. It's amazing to see how much she has developed over just a few weeks. I will miss this when I return to work.


Knee operation
In the second full week of the holidays I had an arthroscopy operation on my knee. I'd never had an operation before and wasn't sure what to expect. The general anaesthetic was just awful. They told me it would be in my system for 36 hours and they weren't wrong. I felt terrible. My knee was injured in April and I've been hobbling around since then. It's so frustrating not being able to play football or go running. In the arthroscopy they removed a lot of my miniscus cartilage and found that I have a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). Before the operation I didn't even know I had an ACL! I've been having physiotherapy and it's making a big difference, and I'm getting into the habit of doing my exercises at home. I am doing plenty of walking (with the baby) and that helps. I now need to start cycling too. But I've got to wait three months before I see the consultant and find out if I will need further surgery on my knee.


Setting up my new classroom
Of course I'm moving to Year Four. I'm also moving classrooms again. Moving classrooms is so hard. I'm moving into a classroom in which the previous teacher was in for a long time, so there's quite a bit of rearranging to do (just like someone would have to do when I vacate a room!) I'm looking forward to getting started in there.


Days out
We've been on a few days out over the summer. With a baby in a pram our choices are limited to a degree. But I loved visiting Llandudno and Conway, Lymm Dam and Blackpool in particular.


Cinema
There were really only two films I wanted to see this summer and, with the help of babysitters, I was able to see them both: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two and The Inbetweeners Movie. They were both absolutely brilliant! We've watched tonnes of films over the summer at home.


And so it's back to work on Monday and, five minutes in, it will feel like the summer holiday never really happened!!

If I could design apps, this is what my teacher app would be...

I don't know how much of a market there is out there for an iPhone (or Android) app for teachers to help them with their professional work. But I know that I could use one. However, so far, I've not come across one that I would use. Here are a few ideas for what I would want from an app:

• Secure - It's absolutely vital that the app is secure. A pincode and also a password should probably be standard.

• Accessible online - Everything done on the app must be stored online which I must be able to access. Again, security is important.

• Add details of each class I teach - I want to be able to add each child (probably first names only, for security reasons) and then attach data for each child as and when I collect it.

• Camera for photographing evidence - The app should enable me to take photographs of evidence and attach it to a particular child(ren).

• Spreadsheet - The data should be stored in a spreadsheet style grid which I can customise to my liking. I can then add assessments to the grid to build up evidence for the progress of each child in the class. The spreadsheet should also be able to do things like calculate average levels, average progress etc.

• Make notes - I must be able to make notes to accompany each piece of evidence in the spreadsheet.

• Linked to documents - It should be linked to the National Curriculum and other relevant documents so that I can immediately view expectations and plan accordingly.

• Planning - As the app should be linked to an online facility, I should be able to access my planning through the app.

• Class name picker - The app should allow me to pick names of children in the class at random. 

• To do list - The app should allow me to set up a to do list for my class.

Do you use any teacher apps?

Becoming a powerful leader

There's a brilliant post about leadership at the Dumb Little Man blog where 7 simple tips are given to turn you into a powerful leader. It's actually an inspiration read. You can read the post here.

The blog post goes into much more detail, but the seven tips are:

• Goals: Make it simple and easy for your team to understand the mission and to understand their part in achieving it.
• Motivating people: What you reward gets done. It's that simple.
• Walk your talk: You need to practice what you preach. This is how you establish trust and credability.
• Inspire: Through a combination of unwavering positive future vision, commitment to improve and the ability to bootsrap when resources are tight.
• Process power: Good process is like having a high performance machine. Sloppy process makes things fall apart.
• Change: Embrace change by seeking it out. This will tread a path for your teammates to follow.
• Advocacy: Support your team and they'll support you.

Really good simple advice. I hope to become a headteacher in a few years' time. These tips will help me to establish myself as a good leader.

Take a look at the full blog post at Dumb Little Man.

Brilliant Headteacher Part One

As part of my plan to become a headteacher, I have been reading books which offer some great advice. I recently read Brilliant Head Teacher by Iain Erskine. This book is certainly a helpful read - it's full of practical, honest advice for anyone who wants to be a brilliant headteacher.

So what makes a successful Headteacher?

Building an ethos
No really successful school is about standardisation and uniformity. Inspectors will tell you that they get an immediate feel for the school they are inspecting and even what will be their overall judgement for a school after the first few minutes of entering it. Something hits you about the ethos, which has a unique feel to it. A good school has developed an ethos and a curriculum that suits its teachers, the school building and most importantly its children and community. Ultimately the creation of that ethos is down to the Head even if much of a school's success is down to what happens day to day within the four walls of a classroom and the interaction of the adults and the children in that room. A Head's influence can and must inflitrate those four walls as well.

Being a leader
Headship is about enabling others to be successful, be the best they can be, at every level of staffing, as well as the children and the extended school family of parents and carers.

More than ever before, staff want a Head to be good at the job of headship and not necessarily a wonderful classroom practitioner. In the past there was always a strong argument that Heads must be good classroom practitioners but the whole educational landscape has changed in recent years - there are many more distinctive layers of management leadership and responsibility and a Head's job is very different and distinctive compared to 20 years ago. In addition to this, if we are not in a classroom day to day, we quickly become de-skilled as practitioners, but we do become up-skilled in what we have to do as Head.

Role model
Many Heads rightly believe that it is important to role model the behaviours we wish to see throughout the school, the Head ultimately setting the whole climate for the school. Staff follow the model that is set for them by the Head and children follow the example that is set for them by the Head and the school staff. That is why when a Head changes in a school the school can go from a highly successful one to a failing school or the reverse.

There are times when family life and the needs of family members must come first, but equally there are times and circumstances when the job must come first.

Ever the optimist
As Heads ourselves we must display bountiful energy and be full of enthusiasm for the job no matter what each day places in front of us; we must have an endless supply of optimism and hope for a better and more successful tomorrow. More importantly the school community must see the Head's optimism in order to replicate it themselves. As Heads we must be confident in what we are doing and what we believe in and stand for.

Be visible
Successful Heads know that during the day the whole school community is in school and that they need to be high profile, making the daily round of greeting staff, pupils and parents cheerfully as they welcome everyone into the school. It is important, when you tour the school, to vary your route so that you get a chance to see different people at different times of the day. This allows you to monitor what is going on around school and which staff are following school routines.

People person
A brilliant Headteacher in this day and age has to be a people person; you must be able to get on with both the Ofsted Inspector and the cleaner. 

Decision maker
One of the most important qualities, if not the most important of headship of leadership, is to make sure that in your decisions you put aside your own needs and priorities the needs of others.