De-escalation Strategies: 7 Ways To Diffuse Difficult Situations
Reading time: 3 minutesEffective classroom management is a cornerstone of successful teaching, and...
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Life Skills
The Power of Positive Intervention: Discover Confidence and Motivation
Reading time: 2 minutesPositive intervention in schools is a powerful tool for enhancing...
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Why are functional skills important?
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Functional skills are important because they provide the skills, knowledge and understanding for young people and adults to progress in work, education and life.
It relates to transferring to learner’s ability to solve problems to real-life contexts. Functional skills are the fundamental English, Maths and ICT skills to aid their working and personal lives. People can study for these qualifications in practical ways.
This blog post explains what functional skills are and why they are important.
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How adult learning helps students achieve their potential
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Adult learning refers to education, courses and training that is designed for adults. It can also be defined as the provision of instructed learning events for adults who usually act or who have acted in working life.
Adult education may be arranged with specific individuals in mind. Alternatively, it may be sourced by the adult directly.
This blog post explains the benefits of adult learning and how it can help students achieve their potential.
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Mental Health tips for parents and children
Reading time: 3 minutes
The United Kingdom has outlined new measures to order to tackle the coronavirus pandemic which will affect everyone.
The vast majority of shops will close and police will intervene on gatherings of more than two people. People are only allowed to leave their homes for essential travel to work, food shopping and to exercise once per day.
Many people are now fearing the effect of a lockdown on their mental health?
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Night school proposal: achieve your potential through online learning
Reading time: 3 minutes
Part time learning was once accessed by tens of thousands of adults through night schools – but due to funding cuts, many institutions have had to close. Following Baroness Alison Wolf’s appointment as skills policy adviser to the prime minister, they could be set for a revival.
Flexible learning is an essential option in education with a large number of people hoping to improve job and career prospects through further training. However, night school cutbacks have also coincided with an increase in online learning.
What are the benefits of night schools and online learning? And why are night schools set to be revived?
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What are the top 10 benefits of CPD?
Reading time: 6 minutes
The benefits of CPD impact on professionals, organisations and the community as a whole.
CPD covers the whole spectrum of automotive learning. It is much more than just formal training. By utilising CPD you are maintaining and developing skills which enables you to perform as effectively as possible. It is a business essential, as it means that individuals are improving and therefore the company has knowledge and expertise to outperform competitors.
But what is CPD? Why is it a necessary essential? And what are the top 10 benefits of CPD?
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5 simple strategies…to teach children how to spot fake news
Reading time: 2 minutes
Fake news is everywhere and, if adults are susceptible, children are even more vulnerable to being hoodwinked by it.
A report delivered by the Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy Skills found that half of children are worried about being unable to spot fake news while only 2% of them have the critical literacy skills to assess whether a story is fake or not.
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5 simple strategies….to help build emotional and academic resilience
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Resilience – you might think that it’s every bit as important as academic aptitude, talent on the sports field or being an exceptionally skilled musician. But is it perhaps the most important learned characteristic of all?
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5 simple strategies…to encourage gender neutrality in schools
Reading time: 3 minutes
Gender neutrality in schools can have an impact on the wellbeing and attainment of all pupils.
The idea has shot to prominence due to press panic about the implications when, really, a growing body of experts from around the world are highlighting the benefits of gender neutrality not just on transgender pupils but on the wider student body.
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How trying and failing can teach students to overcome problems
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Over time there have been more than few vocal commentators who relish an opportunity to criticise the ways in which students are seemingly wrapped in cotton wool. In some environments, children are not taught about failing and every attempt to achieve is considered a success.
Yet amongst all the hyperbole and media bias, there’s an important question at the centre of it all – do they have a point? And more importantly, should we allow our children to try and fail?
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5 simple strategies…to introduce debates into the classroom
Reading time: 4 minutes
Confidence, logical reasoning, a power of persuasiveness – some of the positive strengths developed when practising debating skills – are critical to many career paths.
Yet introducing debating to the classroom (with all the chaos, and loud versus louder voices) does not always lead to a positive, well-reasoned and all-round constructive debate.
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5 simple strategies…to help prepare students for job interviews
Reading time: 4 minutes
Your students are ready to seek employment. After more than a decade of learning, their entire career could be influenced by the first job position they hold. There’s a lot riding on that interview – for which your pupils must be informed, calm and confident.
So how can you help them prepare for job interviews? Here are a few suggestions.
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How can you help prepare students for university life?
Reading time: 4 minutes
For many students, university life can be an experience that is both exciting and terrifying, as many young people find themselves completely unprepared for this new step in their education, both in terms of the learning style and the way of life.
Often, going to university is the first time that students have lived away from home, and the lack of parental oversight can be both liberating and a shock to the system.
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5 simple strategies…to manage your workload
Reading time: 3 minutes
How easily do you manage your workload in school?
90% of teachers have seriously thought about abandoning their career due to their ever-increasing workload (NUT Survey, September 2014).
Even more concerning is the fact that as many as half of all teachers have reported that they’ve seen a doctor due to work-related mental or physical illness (BBC).
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Using mindfulness to help overcome stress
Reading time: 2 minutes
Exam times are a very stressful period for students, and while a small amount of stress can be motivational, too much is the opposite and means that students won’t be able to perform at their best.
But what can be done to alleviate stress during this very important time? Mindfulness is a bit of a buzzword at the moment and it’s easy to dismiss it as the latest fad.
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5 simple strategies…to combat procrastination
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Procrastination is often a tool of avoidance – something to block out our thoughts or need to address that painful task, intimidating challenge or mind-numbing chore. You already understand what you need to do and why, now is the time to do it.
46% of us who procrastinate report that it negatively impacts our life “very much” (46%) or “extremely” (18%) (Brandon Gaille). Whatever the facts of the matter, it’s clear that many of us waste our times on tasks that don’t matter.
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Independent learning – encourage your students to be less reliant on directed learning
Reading time: 2 minutes
Independent learning is more than just a teaching buzz term. It is an approach to teaching that can set a pupil up with critical life skills – preparing them for the world of higher education or work.
However, there is still some confusion about this topic, with various sources of information overcomplicating different approaches to independent learning.
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Alternative Provisions
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With the changes to funding over the last few years, it is increasingly likely that schools will want to handle alternative provisions in-house to avoid the cost of supporting pupils being taught elsewhere.
There are various ways to address the issues within school and we will cover some of those today.
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Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour in Schools
Reading time: 2 minutes
Schools that have behaviour challenges often find that the sort of anti-social behaviour that affects the communities they are part of spills over into their school grounds, their corridors and even their classrooms.
Intimidating behaviour, property damage or even alcohol and drug use are all challenges faced by many schools and pose a significant threat to the safe environment that is needed to promote learning and achievement.
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Raising Aspiration in Younger Students
Reading time: 2 minutes
It has been suggested that a person’s aspirations are shaped by the likelihood of them being achieved. When linked with the concept that a child’s belief in their ability to achieve something is in part based on whether they see those they consider to be peers achieving in a similar way, then it is no wonder that the biggest challenge to raising aspiration in schools is socio-economic status.
The longer the negative messages received by a child go unchallenged the harder they are to overcome, which is why raising aspiration in younger children is increasingly an issue being raised by school leaders.
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Improving Attainment of Low Numeracy Pupils
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Not having numeracy skills can have a long lasting and damaging effect on life as an adult. Lack of numeracy can affect behaviour, employment prospects, lifeskills and the overall attitude to the future.
To minimise the risk of this happening after a pupil leaves school, all issues with regards to numeracy must be addressed as early as possible to help a low numeracy child become numerate.
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Raising Self-Esteem in Students with Low Literacy and Numeracy
Reading time: 2 minutes
Students who struggle with literacy or numeracy barriers can often have low self-esteem as they become more and more aware of their differences to their classmates who do not have the same struggles. This lack of self-esteem then becomes a barrier to them overcoming their difficulties, as they lose the will to try new tasks or commit themselves to activities that challenge them.
Raising the self-esteem of someone who has a genuine barrier is tricky, as their doubts have a basis in truth. You need to avoid false praise or platitudes and instead target things they really are good at to begin with. Build up their basic level of confidence and some of this will transfer onto their academic work.
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Tackling gang culture in and out of school
Reading time: 3 minutes
In previous years, gang culture was an issue which was a part of only inner-city life. Things have changed though and now schools in all environments; cities, towns and rural locations are looking to find ways to tackle gang culture. It’s an issue which can affect pupils whilst both in and out of school and whilst gang prevention work is happening, it’s more often than not a series of short term programmes rather than an ongoing realignment of the wider school environment.
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Addressing Legal Highs
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Legal highs are an increasing issue in and out of school.
A legal high is a stimulant substance with mood-enhancing properties where the sale and use is legal in the country of use. They often contain a number of chemicals which when combined mimic illegal drugs such as cocaine but in themselves are not banned under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
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Social Learning
Reading time: 3 minutes
Social learning is a big trend within education. For any students using Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook as part of projects and research work, they are already participating in this area of teaching.
Many teachers may be unaware of the underpinning basics of what social learning is and how it can best be utilised in lesson time.
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Improving attainment for C/D border students
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Improving attainment for C/D border students can mean a huge difference to their lives. It can be the difference between being offered a place at their FE college – or not, or it can mean starting an Apprenticeship – or not.
The reasons pupils fall into the C/D sector of a year are varied, but the solution is intervention to look to resolve the issues in the run up to exams as much as possible.
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The use of tablets in schools
Reading time: 2 minutes
The use of tablets in schools is currently at its highest ever level, with no sign of a downturn.
Technology charity Tablets for Schools has recently released the results of a study examining the use of the hardware in both primary and secondary sectors. The figures show that of the 671 schools sampled, tablets are in use to some degree in 68% of primary schools and 69% of secondary schools.
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Teaching financial literacy
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With financial literacy now firmly part of the newly introduced curriculum for maths and citizenship, schools have to be focused on looking at the opportunity to equip their pupils with the skills they will need to manage money throughout life.
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How adult learning empowers those who take the leap
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Adult learning has evolved over the last two decades. Whilst still the place to learn self-improvement skills such as crafts and languages, the role of adult learning has a strong focus now towards enhancing entry level life skills, improving employability opportunities and all the time instilling self-confidence in each and every learner who steps through the door to sign up for a course.
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Teaching arts and culture
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The importance of teaching arts and their related subjects has always been a much discussed area. Those who work in the arts feel that it’s a way to emphasise and develop the individual mind of each student.
They also feel that it’s not just about creating children or young adults to be artists but it’s a broader goal to look towards.
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Building Character Strength
Reading time: 2 minutes
The role of a teacher stretches past teaching subject knowledge. It’s a position which means more than passing on information regarding history, geography, maths and science. The classroom is a sea of opportunity for pupils to spend their time developing strengths such as fairness, hope, courage and a sense of adventure which will give them a life of fulfilment.
A good teacher will see this aspect of learning as a natural part of their job and they will look at the development of individual character strengths and the equipping of personality skills as something they are carrying out on behalf of each child they work with.
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Mindfulness in schools
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Teaching mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular in primary and secondary schools, and with good reason.
This mind-body approach focuses on living in the present moment and being aware of our thoughts and feelings.
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Preventing Pupils Becoming NEET
Reading time: 2 minutes
One fifth of all young people aged 16-24 don’t make the leap from school to work, a situation which can quickly become a cycle of failure and despondency.
The long term outlook for this group is one which will affect their wellbeing in a number of ways; their mental and physical health and their poor economic forecast. Typically, these pupils will come from a background of low-income and long standing issues and so there is a need for the best support possible to help this disadvantaged group to achieve as much as possible academically.
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Extra-Curricular Activities
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For some parents – and students – the role and importance of the offering of extra-curricular activities can be difficult to fully convince that they should be taken full use of to enhance the overall learning experience.
The issue of not embracing the opportunity to take part in extra-curricular activities usually stems from the perception that they are a distraction to the pupil from their academic studies.
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Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Students
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Students have great capacity to develop and to better every aspect of their lives whilst at school and in preparation for further education or work.
Most capacity though lays dormant unless challenged – similar to a ballerina at the barre each day or a violinist practising and learning new scales every day. If pupils take their thinking methods for granted and they aren’t given the opportunity to have knowledge of and embrace the skill of critical thinking they won’t improve.
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Bring Your Own Device
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For many classroom situations, students producing a phone in a lesson is obviously not required and shows that they are not engaging in the lesson itself. However, there are a number of benefits to asking them to ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) as a way of accessing learning information and to be used as tools for engagement and increased technology awareness.
More and more schools and colleges are now setting up dedicated IT provisions so student devices will connect to the in-house network.
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Hearing the Student Voice
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The role of the student voice in any school is an important element. It means that those take part in some way can offer their ideas, thoughts and opinions on what matters the most. The enhancement and development of life at school should always be upper most in the objectives of any school voice project or council.
A student voice engenders empowerment, self-confidence and a feeling of self-worth in the school they attend and it offers life skill learning and community issue awareness.
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Lesson Observations
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Lesson observation is a critical teaching tool which should be used in a positive way for both the teacher and the observer. For the person being observed, it is a time to be able to reflect on their teaching style, content and effectiveness and for the observer, the opportunity to see a snapshot of how well the students are being taught as well as the overall skill of the teacher.
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Digital Literacy
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Digital literacy is now a cornerstone key skill for many careers and there is a growing impetus for it to be recognised as being as important as being able to read and write to a level where it felt that it is a comprehensively gained life skill.
In the past, digital literacy was known generically as ICT and was originally untested. It did not sit alongside the core subjects of English, maths and science and was often based around learning packages such as Microsoft Office or activities which included internet browsing or gaming.
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Developing Your Pupils’ Time Management Skills
Reading time: 2 minutes
From arriving at school on time to handing in homework when required, pupil time management is a key factor in their time spent at school. Getting ready for PE, changing back into their uniform for following lessons and arriving for school trips in a timely manner are all examples of how the time management of pupils is tested each day.
Children of all ages are easily distracted and combined with any thoughts of not wanting to be in a particular place at a particular time can quickly lead to lesson disruption and pupil and teacher frustration.
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The Effect of a Healthy Lifestyle on Education
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Healthy eating and its link to lifestyle is a subject which is instilled in students at all Key Stages. It’s often difficult to know that the learning they have gained will be put into practical use due to their family environment, peer pressure and their out of school social life.
However, taking up and maintaining a healthy lifestyle means that marks in tests and exams will improve, their interest in subjects will increase and the important factors will positively influence their ability to learn and retain information.
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5 Simple Strategies…to Support ESOL Pupils
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Students who speak English as a second language can face multiple barriers to education. It is important that we strive to enable these pupils to have full access to the curriculum, allowing them to develop autonomy and achieve in mainstream education.
In order to do this, here are our top 5 strategies to support your ESOL pupils, which can be adapted to suit both group workshops and the mainstream classroom
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Careers in the gaming industry
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Sheffield had an exciting event over the weekend to celebrate Britain’s gaming heritage and to inspire a new generation of gamers with Games Britannia Live! The event took place at various venues around the city with plenty to get involved with.
Arcade games lined the Millennium Gallery and gamers young and old gathered round the stalls to partake in workshops and test their design skills.
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Learning Outside the Classroom
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How often do you take lessons outside? The benefits of taking pupils outside the classroom to learn are well documented, with research conducted by Ofsted outlining advantages such as making subjects more vivid and interesting for pupils, enhancing their understanding, and developing pupils’ personal, social and emotional development. (Learning Outside the Classroom, 2008)
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Creativity in the classroom
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During World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 people are acknowledged, informed, inspired and encouraged to use their creativity – to be open to and generate new ideas, to be open to and make new decisions and to be open to and take new actions – that make the world a better place and to make their place in the world better too.
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Careers guidance in schools
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The Department for Education has today published the revised ‘Careers guidance and inspiration in schools’ statutory and non-statutory guidelines. The documents are for governing bodies, school leaders, school staff in maintained schools, local authorities that maintain PRUs, academies and free schools.
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World Meteorological Day 2014
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World Meteorological Day 2014’s “theme is ‘Weather and climate: engaging youth.’ Today’s youth will benefit from the dramatic advances being made in our ability to understand and forecast the Earth’s weather and climate. At the same time, most of them will live into the second half of this century and experience the increasing impacts of global warming. WMO encourages young people to learn more about our weather and climate system and to contribute to action on climate change” (World Meteorological Organization).
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The problem with maths
Reading time: 2 minutes
I don’t think anybody would be surprised by the notion that maths is often considered unpopular. Indeed one of the biggest barriers to engagement with maths seems to be the reputation it has in society.
In his book, Rethinking School Mathematics, Andrew Noyes identifies the social barriers pupils experience in regards to maths, and the fact that textbooks’ attempts to connect maths problems to real life situations often fail as “there is a real difference between what many teachers and textbooks perceive to be real-life mathematics and what people experience in their lives”.
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National Apprenticeship Week
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National Apprenticeship Week (3-7 March) “is the time when all eyes are on Apprenticeships and it’s all about raising the profile amongst employers, individuals, teachers, parents and the media.” We therefore thought we would take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of apprenticeships, so that we can give the best advice to our pupils when they are considering their options once they have left school.
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5 Simple Strategies…to improve attendance
Reading time: 3 minutes
The correlation between attendance and attainment is hardly surprising, as The School Services Sourcebook identifies “Poor attendance means that students are not developing the knowledge and skills needed for later success” (Franklin et al, 2013).
With attendance being such an influential factor on a child’s education, we have put together our top strategies for improving school attendance…
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Safer Internet Day 2014
Reading time: 4 minutes
Safer Internet Day 2014 is the perfect time to plan your approach to making the internet a safer place for your pupils. Adults and young people alike are exposed to countless threats on a daily basis whilst surfing the net. By identifying these threats and devising methods to combat them, we can start making the internet safer for young people.
Safer Internet Day is a great initiative for raising the awareness necessary to protect young people from the dangers encountered online. The day serves to “promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world.” (Insafe, 2014).
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Parents fined for lateness
Reading time: 2 minutes
A school in Milton Keynes has caused debate today as they have warned parents that they will be implementing a fine if their children are late for school 10 times in a 12 week term (BBC, Jan 2014).
I think it is important that cases should be individually reviewed, identifying any underlying causes that are preventing pupils arriving to school on time. Some pupils may have extenuating circumstances and this should be taken into consideration when implementing any kind of penalty system. This includes providing help for pupils and their families to combat any intrinsic problems that are having this effect on the pupil’s education.
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5 Strategies to Develop Your Students’ Life & Employment Skills
Reading time: 3 minutes
An article in The Telegraph at the beginning of January identified that 120,888 children are currently at risk of becoming NEETs because they “perform below national averages in the three-Rs” (The Telegraph, Jan 2014).
Statistics from June 2013 show that 15.5% of 16-24 year olds in England were NEETs (DFE, June 2013). With pupils now having to stay in education or training until the age of 17, moving to 18 in 2015, will this prove to be the magical solution for reducing unemployment for young people?
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