Nomophobia

The Daily Mail reports on the most tragic phobia. I am definitely a sufferer and perhaps you are too: 'Nomophobia' - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Millions apparently suffer from "no mobile phobia" which has been given the name nomophobia. They have become so dependent on their mobile that discovering it is out of charge or simply misplacing it sends stress levels soaring.

More than 13million Britons fear being out of mobile phone contact, according to research. Keeping in touch with friends or family is the main reason why they are so wedded to their mobile. More than one in two said this is why they never switch it off. One in ten said they needed to be contactable at all times because of their jobs, while 9 per cent said that having their phone switched off made them anxious. Experts say nomophobia could affect up to 53 per cent of mobile phone users, with 48 per cent of women and 58 per cent of men questioned admitting to experiencing feelings of anxiety when they run out of battery or credit, lose their phone or have no network coverage.

The Post Office questioned more than 2,100 mobile phone users.

How on earth did we all cope before mobile phones. I remember being able to memorise phone numbers. I knew all my friends' numbers off by heart. I never had a written record of them, they were just all in my head. Due to having a mobile phone I think I know two - my own and my mum and dad's. There's just no need to memorise them any more. But what would I do if I lost my phone? This is a potentially life-ruining problem. That is why I have nomophobia!

Online SATs papers

You can find rich text format versions of past SATs papers at St. Josephs' RC Primary School's website. Very useful at this time of year!

Proper reading

A report on the BBC website describes the results of a survey of favourite reading material of children aged 11 to 14. The National Year of Reading report shows that more youngsters are choosing online sites as a reading source. Not all parents are comfortable with this shift and many have told off their children for choosing material that is not "proper reading", says the survey.

Anything set for homework, and Shakespeare, come out as the least favourite reading materials. The Read Up, Fed Up report is an insight into the reading habits of young people and the conclusion of a month-long research project co-ordinated by National Year of Reading and online teen community Piczo. In the Read Up section of favourites, Heat magazine came first with Bliss magazine and online song lyrics joint second. Other favourites in the top 10 were the Harry Potter series, Anne Frank's Diary and the BBC website.

The Fed Up column had homework in first place, followed by Shakespeare and books with more than 100 pages. Others in this list of 10 least favourites included "reading about skinny celebrities in magazines", "the books I am made to read by school/my teachers" - and the Financial Times.

More than 1,300 young people took part in the survey, which found that 45% of youngsters had been reprimanded by parents for reading something that was not "proper reading".

National Year of Reading director Honor Wilson-Fletcher said: "Young people are web natives - exposed to a wider variety of reading material than any previous generation through the explosion of digital media. It seems not all adults are comfortable with this shift, and are often discouraging teens from taking advantage of this new reading landscape. Accessing the digital universe is absolutely central to life's opportunities for teens. We may be only just starting to understand the dynamics of online reading, but adults need to feel more positive about it and to learn more about it."

The research found a gender divide to reading with 31% of boys saying they love reading because it helps them become better at their hobbies, like sport, films or music. On the other hand 39% of girls said they loved it because it is an escape - quiet time they can enjoy on their own.

Schools Minister Jim Knight said: "It is vital that young people have the opportunity to read widely. It is wonderful that 80% of the teenagers surveyed write their own stories and keep up-to-date with current affairs by using sites like BBC Online. It's wonderful that Anne Frank's Diary is still proving so popular among teenagers 60 years after it was written."

Compiling their own online blogs came fourth in the Read Up rankings and 80% of those taking part said they had written their own story, film, play or song.

I guess what we can learn from this is that reading habits are evolving - children prefer short blasts of reading rather than reading in depth long books. Also, as reflected in the new literacy framework, on screen reading is becoming more frequent.

Numeracy World

Numeracy World: there are lots of free Maths worksheets at this site. Not the most inspiring of maths sites, but one which could be useful every now and then.

Children's Poetry Archive

I must admit that I am not a fan of poetry - reading it or teaching it. But maybe this website will help enthuse me. The Children's Poetry Archive is a dedicated poetry site for children. It is brimming with heartfelt, humorous and quirky poems about all sorts of things. Children can read wonderful examples of poetry and also listen to poets performing their work. Sound like fun!

Webbli World

WebbliWorld is an exciting, stimulating, virtual world that kids can explore, inhabit, belong to and share. It is a world that promotes caring, responsible behaviour and gives kids the opportunity to voice their opinions on topics that matter.

The site says that, "WebbliWorld mirrors the real world and guides children through the mind-boggling maze of the internet. Our friendly characters introduce important topics such as the environment, climate change and recycling in an accessible and memorable way. Here, kids will learn without even knowing it! We are working in partnership with WWF to make sure that all our environmental messages are accurate and educational."

Read Write Think

Read Write Think has an online comic creator. Really good for helping children to storyboard or for considering the most important messages in a piece of writing. Or just for having fun!

E-safety should become part of ICT lessons

I wholeheartedly agree with a report in the TES today. A government-commissioned review found that parents' lack of awareness about the interent was leaving pupils vulnerable.

Dr Tanya Byron, a TV child behaviour expert, was asked by Gordon Brown to look at the risks internet and video games posed to children. She found that parents did not have the confidence to deal with them. Many parents seemed to believe that leaving their children surfing the internet was similar to them watching television. She said in fact it was more like opening the front door and letting a child go outside to play unsupervised.

Her report asks ministers to look at how e-safety could be applied to the PSHE or ICT curriculum.

A phrase I've often heard used by adults is, "You can find anything on the Internet." It's so true - you can. But unfortunately, a lot of what you find is not what you were looking for. Regarding children's safety, this is a very worrying situation - they could be exposed to something completely inappropriate. The fact that now, in 2008, it's just occurred to the government that this is a problem, once again highlights their failings in moving along the quality of the ICT curriculum. Sort this out quickly!

Brenden Is Teaching

Brenden Is Teaching is a really useful site with loads of resources and ideas which he has very kindly added for free! There are generators for various classroom games and activities, resources for English, Maths, Science and Art and ideas for displays. One fantastic resource is the unit plan repository. After uploading at least one resource you can access other medium term plans. Very helpful indeed!

Shakespeare 4 Kidz

There are lots of free resources at Shakespeare 4 Kidz for bringing the plays to life. Some of these are quite advanced for KS2, but lots are usable with Year Six. There are general resources about Shakespeare and his plays. The plays included are A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and Twelfth Night.

Maths Playground

Math Playground is an American website created by teachers who are passionionate about math and technology. The site has lots of interactive activities for use on IWBs or for the children to work on individually. There are also videos which can be used for demonstrations. Very useful...

It's not ok to be "useless at maths"

The BBC reports that according to a government review, every primary school should have a maths specialist and parents should have a less negative attitude to the subject. An interim report by Sir Peter Williams says the UK is one of the few developed nations where it is acceptable to say you are "useless at maths". Such attitudes will not help children see maths as an essential and rewarding part of their daily lives, it says.

The study criticises the amount of maths training teachers receive. Most teachers had the basic requirement in maths for teacher training - one GCSE in the subject.

The report said parents needed to have a "can-do" attitude to maths and to learn the modern techniques their children were using to help them and give them a love of maths. "Social issues surrounding the subject affect learners at all levels, including the very young," it says. "The United Kingdom remains one of the few advanced nations where it is socially acceptable to profess an inability to cope with mathematics. That is hardly conducive to a home environment in which mathematics is seen by children as an essential and rewarding part of their everyday lives."

That view was endorsed by schools minister Jim Knight: "Why is it that this is one of the few countries where it is acceptable, fashionable even, to declare that you are useless at maths. Maths is central to giving children the best start and the right skills for life. If children can't add up, and if maths isn't valued or seen as being important, how can we expect them in secondary school to understand science, or manage their own finances when they go to college."

The report recommended that every primary school should appoint a "maths champion" within the next five years to improve numeracy. These maths champions would be paid more and be expected to work towards a masters degree in education.

Cutting class sizes

The BBC reports that the National Union of Teachers (NUT) is to vote on a proposal to limit classroom sizes in England and Wales. Schools Minister Jim Knight provoked teachers' anger this week when he said classes of 38 and even 70 pupils could be managed with teaching assistants. The NUT's annual conference will vote on whether to demand limiting class sizes to 20 by the year 2020. There is a call for industrial action if Westminster and the Welsh Assembly refuse to implement the policy.

The Times adds that teachers are trying to force a reduction in class sizes in state schools to a maximum of 20 by 2020. They are seeking to improve the academic achievement of pupils and give teachers a better work-life balance. Steve Sinnott, the NUT's general secretary said, "This is not just about reducing workload for teachers. It's about saying to parents that we have class sizes that will give your son or daughter the individual attention that they need."

The paper also publishes some facts about class sizes, taken from 'The Class Size Debate: Is Small Better?' published by Open University Press.

• Average class size in state primary schools in England fell from 27.8 pupils in 1998 to 26.2 in 2007.
• As class size increases, achievement decreases.
• Being taught in a class of 20 versus a class of 40 gives an advantage of ten percentile ranks.
• Children in large classes spend more time interacting with each other, but there is no sign that social relations are better in small classes.
• Class size reductions alone do not necessarily bring about change. Smaller class sizes bring about greater enthusiasm on the part of the teacher.

Let's face it - an average class size of 20 is just going to be impossible to achieve. The cost implications are huge! Schools are still adjusting to the introduction of PPA. In a 2-form entry primary school, employing 2 full-time teachers for each year there are 14 teachers with 60 children in each year group. It would mean employing an extra teacher for each year group - 7 additional teachers. And then 7 additional classrooms would be required for each new class. There's no chance...

Gertie Grumbles

There are lots of English SATs papers and Maths and Science SATs questions to download at this excellent free site. The questions are grouped into the area of the curriculum, making this ideal as a source for SATs revision.

Tests will put mental health of pupils at risk

The Times reports that children will face a battery of tests under a “lighter touch” assessment regime that could be every bit as stressful for their mental health as the national curriculum SATs test they are designed to replace, teachers were told yesterday. Instead of being drilled for “high-stakes” SATs at age 11 and 14, pupils face the prospect of testing at least twice a year under the Government’s new system of single-level tests. Mary Bousted, the general-secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, told delegates at the union’s annual conference that SATs were already responsible for poor mental health among many young people and that this could get worse. “Children suffer stress and anxiety as the test looms and the rise in children’s mental health problems cannot be divorced from their status as the most tested in the world,” she told the union conference in Torquay. “The tests label young people as failures, and this leads to one of the lowest rates for staying on post16 of any industrialised country.”

The new tests are designed to show the progress that children are making rather than to find their absolute standard. Teachers are expected to use their knowledge of children’s achievements to judge when they are ready for testing and what level they should be tested at.
While welcoming this approach in principle, Ms Bousted said she feared that the new system would create as many problems as SATs. While high-achieving students face the prospect of continual testing as they progress swiftly past each attainment level, lower-achieving students would become demoralised because they would be less able to make the progress at the expected rate. “The danger is that schools with disadvantaged intakes will continue to be penalised because their cohort of students will not make the same progress as those schools with more advantaged intakes,” she said. There was also a danger that the continual assessment of pupils progress could be “degraded into assessment for covering the teacher’s back – reams and reams of recording of levels with very little focus on the individual student’s understanding of key concepts in the subject”. Ms Bousted, who sits on the government-appointed group overlooking pilots of the new single level testing system, said that teachers needed to be on guard to make sure that what replaced SATs did not make things worse.

She also made a passionate plea for teachers to be given more freedom from the national curriculum so that they could concentrate more on teaching students skills of independent thinking rather than on rote learning and drilling children in lines from Shakespeare or historical battles.

Stories from the Web

Stories from the Web is a fun site all about reading. The 7-11 section has lots of online stories and extracts from popular authors. Children can add book reviews and their own stories. A well produced website.

Darwin's Footsteps

Darwin's Footsteps is an interactive game where pupils can follow Darwin’s voyage of discovery around the world. This would be very useful when learning about how animals and plants are adapted to their environments.

The Science of Rotting

The Science of Rotting is a website that... well it's just what it sounds like - photos of lots of items rotting away!! Great for a study of micro-organisms!

Like Beckham

A report in the Daily Mail writes that David and Victoria Beckham are the leading icons in a damaging celebrity culture that encourages children to believe they can become rich and successful without working hard at school, teachers warn today. Pupils who dream of becoming pop stars and footballers are neglecting their studies and emulating the worst excesses of their idols' language, behaviour and raunchy clothing, they claim. A survey of more than 300 teachers found that Posh and Becks are the celebrities most widely admired by schoolchildren, although more than 20 others were also named as role models.

These include socialite Paris Hilton, "famous for being famous", and Russell Brand, who confessed to a sex addiction. Sports stars include Frank Lampard, Lewis Hamilton, Dame Kelly Holmes and Andy Murray. The Sugababes, Leona Lewis, Nadine Coyle from Girls Aloud and Lily Allen were among those named as pupils' favourite pop stars.

But teachers warn that celebrity adulation is hampering their efforts to convince children they must try to do well at school. The findings were released as members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers prepare to gather in Torquay next week for their annual conference. Delegates will debate a motion condemning a "cult of celebrity" for "perverting children's aspirations and expectations". It will call on the Government to take action to promote positive role models of ordinary people across the media.

Members who responded to the survey warn that a growing celebrity culture is contributing to underage drinking and anti-social behaviour, because some teen idols are foul-mouthed and yobbish. They also say provocative behaviour by scantily-clad celebrities is increasingly robbing young girls of their innocence.

One teacher, Julie Gilligan, from a primary school in Salford, said: "I have seen and celebrity footballer/pop star language and behaviour in the playground and in school - including disturbingly age-inappropriate 'acts' by young girls in school talent shows."

Transition projects more important in Science

According to a report in the TES, projects aimed at improving pupils' transition between primary and secondary schools are more important for science than maths or English, according to a new study.

The report also found that, to be successful, the schemes should run from Year 5 to Year 8, rather than just in Year 6 and Year 7.

Martin Braund, a lecturer in science education at York University, examined the drop in achievement in science between primary and secondary school. He found two in five pupils failed to make the progress in KS3 suggested by their results in KS2. This is four times the drop in maths and five times that in English. And classroom observation indicates that, between 11 and 14, pupils' concentration levels decline more in science than in English or maths.

Mr Braund suggests that this may be becuase secondary teachers often introduce scientific terms and concepts that pupils have already covered at primary level. Repeating the same work, with no additional challenges, merely alienates pupils. And, while secondaries often appoint transition co-ordinators in maths and English, this rarely happens in science.

I find this all a little surprising. Whilst English and Maths in high school should offer more of a challenge to pupils than in in primary school, the subjects do not particularly alter. Writing is still writing, reading is still reading and maths is still maths - allbeit at a higher level. But science? Science, as I thought, is the one subject that should be dramatically different in high school. High schools have incredible facilities - Bunsen burners, gas chambers, electricity boxes, chemicals, metals, etc - all of which primary schools simply do not have the facilities to offer. To me, the transition in science should be an amazing one - to go from the uninspiring QCA schemes of work offered in Year Six to the possibilities offered by specialist teachers should be a truly memorable experience.