Autism has garnered much attention recently, however, despite advances in science, treatments and educational techniques, there are several common misconceptions about autistic children. We’ve looked at 5 common myths about autism and dug deep into their roots to try to reveal the truth behind these myths. Our hope is that with a greater understanding of autism, society’s perception and treatment of autistic individuals will move in a positive direction.
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After a summer full of free time – most of which kids will have spent sleeping, lazing around and playing – it’s no wonder that many pupils find the return to school a difficult adjustment. The school routine of the previous year is a distant memory, and this can make coming back into a learning environment challenging. As teachers, this is an issue we all face, but it can be exceptionally hard to address. With increasing distractions from learning (predominately in the form of smartphones and handheld games consoles) on top of the usual excitement of seeing friends again and
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An interesting guest post by David Evans of the SRE Project on the role of Drama in effective SRE. “I am an actor really – giving a performance in the classroom.” I must have heard teachers draw that analogy dozens of times. Often they will develop their thesis with phrases like ‘You’ve got to have your classroom character, wear your teacher’s mask or you wouldn’t survive.’
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In the UK, with the new phonics matching funding, lots of schools will be looking for good programmes to invest in that can secure real progress for their students. So a note I received recently from David Morgan of Easyread caught my eye. How do you make sure that your literacy programme is the real thing, and you’ve not been saddled with snake oil? When a literacy system is being promoted, the company will often publish “research-based evidence” for its success with schoolchildren. In itself this is a good thing, of course, but there are a few reasons to
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From initial charges that ‘it;s just an overgrown iPhone’ the iPad is now part of many teachers’ and schools’ essential kit. But it’s fair to say that while Apple has created a beautiful, robust and powerful piece of kit finding the best apps on the App Store can be a challenging experience. So I asked everyone on Twitter for some advice on what th best apps were out there, and @narthernlad came back with so many suggestions I’m going to split them over a couple of posts! Here are some suggestions for literacy apps to try with your students. If
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So many people already turn to Twitter to find out new things and develop their skills as a teacher – but what about Google+ the new social network from the search giant? Helped by heavy cross promotion from Google’s other products Google+ is growing at a phenomenal rate, and it has a number of interesting features you can use to help you get fresh ideas on your teaching.
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How much do you write each day? Not on a computer, a tablet or a phone – but actually write. Probably as teachers we write more than many people, particularly with endless mounds of marking, but for many whole days can go past without them having to write anything at all by hand. So are we wasting precious time teaching handwriting in our schools? Are we just doing the modern equivalent of teaching pupils to ride a horse to get places, when they’ll be driving round in cars in 10 years’ time?
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The government is quite right to support the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics in schools, and the forthcoming matched funding initiative for KS1 Phonics materials will be a welcome boost for many schools who need to invest in phonics resources at this level. It will also be a bonanza for the publishers who have got their programmes selected for the catalogue of approved resources to be released by ESPO later this year. However, for many of the people who really count – the children being taught, and especially those who are struggling with reading and who are therefore most at
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I saw this wiki article by Dave West, originally published here and like it so much I asked if we could repost it on our blog. He kindly agreed. During the spring term I visited Skipton Girls High School and saw there the power of this kind of staff-student interaction. I was struck by several things: The fact that the barriers between staff and students seemed to be broken down The engagement of the staff and students in the lessons the students had helped to plan The apparent increase in results that co-construction had brought
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I headed to BETT last Wednesday to soak up the atmosphere and see if I could learn something. And I did! Look!
Read more →All Awarding Bodies are competing for a sale of their qualifications, whether you provide one course, hundreds of courses or even thousands. You could be teaching Maths, Science, English, Computer Science or Food Technology. They want your business. Assessment and qualifications is a multi-billion pound industry in the UK and with the ongoing government emphasis on education it is an industry that is only likely to grow.
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Research by the Institute of Education shows that while 94% of teachers think that it will always be important to teach about the Holocaust, almost half say it is difficult to do so effectively. The Holocaust is a particularly challenging part of the curriculum, both because of the complexity of the history and because of the emotional demands it places upon both the teacher and the learner. How can we explain modern Europe’s collapse into genocide? How do we engage young people without traumatising them? What if students do not take this seriously or make inappropriate remarks?
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Not enough effort is spent truly promoting teamwork in school, considering the amount of time all of us will spend working with others once we graduate. Finding ways to get your students to work together to accomplish a goal is one of the best ways to encourage critical thinking, raise their self esteem, involve them actively in learning, and improve camaraderie. Try any one of these fun activities with students of all ages.
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Well, it’s been an exciting year for the Creative Education blog. It’s hard to believe we’ve been going just for little over 1 year. We’ve got plenty of exciting stuff planned for 2012 – as I’m sure you do too – but for now I thought it would be nice to look back on our most popular articles in 2012.
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Both are playground classics and should provide the same play value, shouldn’t they? In reality, they don’t.
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