Whilst schools have broken up for summer, you can still catch our team here in the office on 0191 424 6336 if you need anything.
In this blog from Claire Meyer @ Gifted Geek, she shares good advice for parents to support them to keep their family safe using the internet.
To read her blog click on the picture.
Mission Beamish iPad Day – Using a visit as a stimulus for creative storytelling in English
In our one day CPD event, we aim to provide inspiration for teachers who want to explore the potential to use iPads to support cross-curricular English and Computing activities. by making use of an educational visit to inspire student writing and creative storytelling.
Participants will select from a series of “missions” aimed at developing your iPad skills in KS1 & KS2. Every mission seeks to unleash your creativity and provide you with inspirational ideas for activities you can run with your own class both during and after a visit to Beamish.
What will we be doing?
After meeting at the museum entrance, and having a chance to have some refreshments, we will take the bus into town.
After a short mission briefing, half the group will embark on app training while the other half will visit the costume store to be kitted out and shown how to recreate period pictures.
This is great for if you like to bring your learners to Beamish dressed up and because we will have full access to costumes and the stunning backdrop of the museum your pictures will look amazing.
The groups will swap
You will then be given an overview of the range of missions. There are missions to suite all types of tablet user. Select a mission, form a mission team and head out into the museum to complete your mission.
All of the missions are based around creative approaches to delivering the computing curriculum and making use of skills and techniques for storytelling.
Example mission include.
Recreating Pockerley Old Hall in an adventure game and using it to tell a story
Use five-shot storytelling and create a film to use as a stimulus for creative writing
Using visual storytelling to recreate the day in the life of a historical character (KS1)
How to create collaborative non-fiction e-books
How to produce a modern re-creation of a silent movie with your class
Historic storytelling in English through e-puppetry (KS1)
As our missions require various levels of knowledge with the iPads, you will have the opportunity to select something appropriate to the age you teach and your familiarity with the apps and devices. There truly is something for everyone.
After lunch you will have the chance to exercise your creativity and collate some of the content you collected on your mission
The day will end with a chance to share your efforts and to gain inspiration from the other groups and their experiences.
I know what you might be thinking – this sounds way too much fun to be a CPD course. At Sunderland RTC and Knetic Education we believe the best learning takes place when you are working collaboratively and allowed to express your creativity. That is what Mission Beamish is all about. Everyone who comes will also be given access to the online resources they need to plan missions with your own learners.
Be prepared to come back buzzing with ideas that’s the aim of the day!
We will also introduce you to the range of free courses on offer at Sunderland Regional Training Centre and via the Apple Teacher Programme.
Lunch and refreshments are provided and Beamish are offering a voucher for a free class activity to all schools that attend.
Museum website : http://www.beamish.org.uk/
The event will run from 09:00-15:30 on Monday the 1st of July and there is the opportunity to explore the museum yourself afterward.
Costs for the event – As the event is provided by Sunderland Apple Regional Training Centre, and supported by the Academia Group and their partners, we are able to offer you places free of charge. All we ask is that you purchase some apps to use on the day..
Places are initially limited to one person per school – If you would like any additional places we can put you on a waiting list before the event.
What if we don’t have any iPads?
We have iPads available for you borrow on the day so if you are thinking about investing in devices, and want to explore their potential we’d love you to come along and give them a try,
We are so excited to be running Mission Beamish again this year. Teachers who attended last year gave us 100% positive feedback with many saying it was the best staff training event they had ever attended.
Final
OpenZone @ The Word
Thursday 6 June 2019
What is Junior First Lego League?
“Each year, FIRST LEGO League Jr. presents a new and exciting Challenge to ignite the creativity of children age 6 to 10. Each team of up to 6 children begins the exploration of this real-world theme with an exclusive LEGO® Education Inspire Model. Using this model as a starting point, they design a new model of their own with LEGO® elements. As they work, they learn basic engineering and programming skills with LEGO® Education WeDo and apply those concepts to make their model move. Teams also document their work in an Engineering Notebook and share their journey through a team Show Me Poster. Throughout their experience, teams operate under the FIRST Core Values, celebrating discovery, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism®.”
This year we were joined by 9 teams for our Junior Lego League Expo.
Teams
Ashley Primary School
- Super Ashley Astronauts
Cleadon Village Academy
- Moon Marvels
- Rocket Rangers
Mortimer Primary School
- Mortimer Master Movers
Fulwell Junior School, Sunderland
- Moon Masters
- Mission Geckos
West Park Academy, Darlington
- Moonpig
- West Park Space Station – WPSS
Willow Fields Primary School, Sunderland
- Team Lego Fields
What a fantastic afternoon we had. Everybody won a medal and certificate and there were awards given to each team. The medals were build it yourself Lego ones and were a huge hit
Many thanks to all of those schools who joined us and we look forward to seeing you all next year!
Episode 4 – Rules for the use of technology.
There is still time to book your tutor training with Val and Jude. Training is for 2 days and will be on 19th and 20th June at The Word. Contact Kidsafe directly to book:
 Email : info@kidsafeuk.co.uk  Call : 015395 34767
KidSafe UK (Charity No: 1105179) founded in 2004 by Val Webb & Jude Walker, provides training to school staff in order for them to deliver Kidsafe specialised child protection / safeguarding programmes to children and young people from Early Years Foundation Stage through to High School.
KidSafe programmes are age appropriate and delivered to children without shattering their innocence.
Our aim is to protect, educate and empower children. With the help of our puppet, KS, our courses are uniquely designed to help children take an active role in protecting themselves from all forms of abuse.
KidSafe is proactive, not reactive and we wholeheartedly believe that empowering children to speak out to a trusted grown up about abuse will help minimise the short and long term damage and harm associated with abuse.
Come along and join us on 26th June at the CAS Conference. Phillippa and Amanda will be delivering a session on Pencil Code and Steve is doing a session on Ready, Steady, Code.
Book your place here:
http://casne.ncl.ac.uk/events/2019/conference/
The CAS North East Regional Conference is a day of high quality CPD delivered by experienced teacher trainers and practitioners with a focus on lessons to take back to school and opportunities to share practice and ideas with colleagues across the region.
The conference offers a range of hands-on practical sessions on how to deliver various aspects of the computing curriculum in both primary and secondary school.
Topics covered include:
- approaches to computational thinking
- computing without computers
- curriculum planning
- data representation
- physical computing
- primary and secondary programming
- networks
- computing in Early Years
There will be keynotes from:
- Sue Sentance, Raspberry Pi Foundation Chief Learning Officer and formerly CAS National Academic Coordinator, and
- Gareth Judd, North East Regional Cyber Crime Unit
Really interesting and up to date figures from the Internet Watch Foundation showing trends over the last year.
You can download it here