Thursday, January 27, 2011
Have your say, January 2011.
Opportunities and resources for teachers, learners and schools .. all of which are free.
Lab UK is a BBC website which provides opportunities to take part in science experiments online. The latest is the How musical are you? Experiment . Go to the website and you can take part by testing your sense of rhythm and pitch and general musicality. To go straight to the musicality experiment click here.
Galaxy Zoo is an interactive website using the data and images from the Hubble telescope of hundreds of galaxies. Visitors to the Galaxy zoo website are asked to view images and classify the shapes they see – tutorials are provided online to support users. More than 250,000 people have taken part in the task online.
Show Racism the Red Card, a charity campaigning against racism in football and society has launched its Anti- Racist school competition 2011 . After watching the campaign’s anti-racism video school children are asked to produce a piece of artwork inspired by the video. Each registered school can enter one entry in each of the categories. Categories are: Poster design: Years 1-4, 5-6, 7-9, 10+, Video/Media, Classroom Display, T-Shirt Design, Poetry. There are separate competitions for England and Wales with awards ceremonies taking place at Wembley and the Millennium stadium in April.
For more details visit the site for schools in England or the site for schools in Wales.
Prizes will include the winning designs being featured on Show Racism the Red Card calendars and tee-shirts as well as tickets for key sporting events.
Make IT happy is an annual UK wide competition for children aged 9-11 highlighting innovative use of IT . It is organised by the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee (PITCOM) in partnership with e-skills UK (the sector skills council for Business and Information Technology) and supported by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Nominet Trust.
The 2011 competition has been launched and the theme is Pass It On. “ Schools are challenged to show us how they have used technology to connect school children with others in their community - whether that is down the corridor, around the town, across the UK or halfway around the world.” Twelve winning schools from across the UK will be awarded £1,200 each, and from these entries 3 overall winners will be chosen to receive additional cash prizes. All winners will be invited to attend an awards ceremony on 28th June 2011 at the Houses of Parliament. To register or find out more details visit the website.
Film Education is a charitable organisation funded by the UK film industry to promote and support film and media education. The charity runs National Schools Films Week, providing free screenings of films and free resources for primary and secondary teachers. Part of the week is the Young Film Critic award. The Young Film Critic of the Year competition is open to any student aged 4-19yrs that is resident in Great Britain or Northern Ireland. There are four age ranges, with matching categories for those with a sensory impairment. Teachers normally submit entries as part of a whole-class activity. The competition aims to empower young people of all ages to become their own critics of film. It also provides teachers with a powerful and engaging activity that is used in several different ways. This website provides resources for teachers about the competition, suggested classroom activities and notes.
Labskills is a set of ICT practical resources designed to support practical science lab lessons in schools. Each school in the UK is entitled to a free copy of the software on a USB stick. To register your school to receive your memory stick or to find out more, visit the website.
247 tales is a writing competition which challenges entrants to produce stories of 247 words or fewer. Run by Bloomsbury Group publishers, the competition is run monthly and is open to anyone aged 8-16 resident in the UK. To enter or see previous winning entries visit the website.
The Booktrust website is a good starting point for preparing for literature based projects and activities in schools and classrooms. The website has a range of resources and advice for teachers and school leaders. Currently there is the opportunity to nominate the next Children’s Laureate and the chance to win tickets to the announcement in June 2011.
Ten years ago The Guardian ran the “The School I’d like” campaign to ask children in the UK to design and describe the characteristics of their perfect school: the results were put together into The Children’s Manifesto which was presented to the then Education Secretary, David Milliband. Ten years on the paper is running the campaign again. Children of any age are asked to send their views and ideas to : school.i'd.like@guardian.co.uk, giving your full name, age, year and name of school, and a contact phone number. The deadline is 18 February. Some of the comments will be published and some entrants will be asked to join a Children’s Manifesto Panel which will organise the comments into the final manifesto. To read what children saw as the ideal school ten years ago and judge whether their views have been reflected in schools today click here.