CGP Study Guides

Affiliate Links

As a parent and tutor I am finding the CGP Study Guides invaluable. I am constantly adding to my collection as they provide clear and concise information which is readily understandable for students. The English language one provides practice questions too:

Students can easily use the workbooks to complete tests and consolidate their skills:

For Literature there are poetry study books which include the full texts with analysis:

Fractions made simple

As a teacher and a parent I become aware of which areas of mathematics children are most likely to struggle with. I am starting a mini series of videos on how to work on some of these areas and make them simpler to understand. 

First up it is fractions. The video looks at:

• equivalent fractions
• common denominators
• simplifying fractions
• adding fractions
• subtracting fractions
• multiplying fractions
• dividing fractions
• improper fractions

What areas of maths would you like to have explained simply?

Forest School: Bird Feeders

As I am just starting out to teach forest school with children from Nursery to Year 1 I have been researching simple ideas of things that they can make to incorporate into our sessions. We are going to be looking at winter as a topic from this week so I have been looking at simple bird feeders that we can make. These look easy enough for them to do (as long as they don't eat the cereals!):

These look good too as long as no-one is allergic to nuts:

#TeacherTuesday Esnart Chapomba in Malawi

This is part of a UNESCO campaign to highlight the difficulties teachers around the world face. For the first week we are hearing from Esnart Chapomba in Malawi. 

Esnart and her family

This is a transcript of an interview with her:



• I am a self-motivated person who strives to make a positive impact on other people’s lives so that they can use their knowledge to change their own lives and those of others.

• At present, I am no longer teaching full time in class but I train Complementary Basic Education (CBE) facilitators who teach out of school youths and children. These facilitators are met in their village zones/clusters.

• The schools in which facilitators teach are in the rural areas and a maximum of 60 facilitators are trained though mostly such trainings would take place at zonal level where a group of 15 facilitators are trained. CBE classes are held in borrowed premises such as school classrooms or any other community building as they only exist for three years to help school drop outs catch up with learning and those who have never been to school to learn before they go back to formal schools.

• I have been a teacher for 25 years.

• I teach adults who in turn teach children and youth of ages 9 to 17 years.

• There are about 60% males and 40% females in my class.

• My classroom is a permanent building with all facilities available. It has model teaching and learning resources that my students could learn from and make their own in their respective classrooms.

• My students are of diverse abilities and backgrounds, but I create an environment where all are given equal opportunity to learn from me and from others.

EXPERIENCE AS A TEACHER IN MALAWI

The Educational Value of TV

It is amazing what my children have picked up from watching certain programmes on the TV. Yes some of what they watch appears to have no educational value whatsoever but they have learnt an amazing amount about history and art. 

Like many families we love Horrible Histories my children have been brought up from an early age to have a keen interest in history and the way this show is presented is perfect for them. They love singing along to the show especially the Kings and Queens song:

Such a fun and catchy way to learn English monarchs. Its a show I don't mind them watching over and over again.

Amazingly The Sarah Jane Adventures introduced them to the Mona Lisa:

And the show Leonardo is a fictual account of Leornado da Vinci's teenage years with amazing inventions and art.

Then there was an episode of Dr Who that introduced them to Vincent van Gogh:

They can now recognise some of his paintings such as sunflowers:

We are going to be visiting Paris in the summer and the children at age 9 & 6 are really excited about the thought of going to the art gallery that they saw on the television to see van Gogh's paintings. They also want to go and see the Mona Lisa (hope they aren't as disappointed as I was by her size!

What have your children learned from watching television?

Educational Review: My Phonics Kit

Sponsored Post

Phonics is now a key part of the Foundation and Keystage 1 learning in English primary schools. Many of us parents have had the joy of practicing these sounds with our 4-7 year olds. As it is such a fundamental part of their learning the government have introduced a Year 1 Screening Check from this summer. The key points of this are to check:

• a child can give the sound when shown a grapheme
• blend sounds in order to read words
• read phonically decodable one-syllable and two-syllable words
• read a selection of nonsense words to show they are really decoding and not guessing

Oxford Reading Tree have brought out My Phonics Kit to help parents practice with their children at home. The set is based upon the popular Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy series with characters most children are familiar with from school. My son is only in Reception but we gave the kit a good try out.

The kit comes with several components:

1. 3 workbooks
2. reward stickers
3. a sticker chart
4. a CD

At the start of each book is a selection of phonic graphemes so that you can tell if your child is going to be able to complete the workbook. My son obviously didn't know them all but he was very keen on doing the books any way:

Education City

Sponsored Post

I first came across EducationCity.com when I was a school IT technician in East Sussex. Several of my schools subscribed to it and in some of these the parents could also sign up so that their children could use it outside school. I have been running an advert for them on my blog as its a product that I can endorse from personal experience.


Today I received an e-mail laying out some exciting news from the company:

Play Live Maths (available and suitable to children from Year 1 to Year 7) is an exciting addition to EducationCity.com encouraging children to practice their maths skills by taking part in an engaging multiplayer online game.

Players have 60 seconds to answer as many Maths questions (appropriate to their age level) as they can by playing against the clock and against other users. It’s an interactive mental math challenge where your children take on the world. They’ve got 60 seconds to prove they’ve got what it takes, working against the clock to beat their opponents. It’s all in the speed, but they’ll need to be careful too. Make a mistake, and they’ll lose one of their three precious lives. Lose all three and they’ll be knocked out of the race altogether!

EducationCity.com has recently been shortlisted for 3 British Education and Training Technology (BETT) awards making it an ideal digital stocking filler for Christmas shoppers that want to give their children a fun present with real educational benefit.

We currently have a Christmas voucher code “perfectpresent” which saves £5 off per family at checkout.

You can subscribe from this link

Or take out a 10 day trial for free!

I am certainly going to be signing up for my children as its a great additional resource for use at home.


Breaking News:

A report in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper has shown how EducationCity.com has helped children with dyslexia  with their school work.

http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/teacher_s_hi_tech_tools_give_hope_to_dyslexic_children_1_1987297

The home version of EducationCity.com allows children to access fun online games that have been designed around curriculum objectives.

For parents concerned about the content of video games EducationCity.com can provide a refreshing change and is a great digital stocking filler for Christmas.

Using “perfectpresent” at checkout gives my readers £5 off per order and with affiliate payments per trial taken and orders placed there are really good opportunities available in the build up to the festive period.

#TheGallery: Education

Afraid I have disappoint Tara by not posting a photograph of myself in my school uniform as all those pictures are currently languishing in a box in my parent's garage! So instead I give you my daughter all ready for her first day at school:

How the last 2.5 years have flown by and I can't believe her baby brother will be starting school in September! By the way the fleece does still fit but she's changed schools so she had to have a new one this September...

I promise to dig out some of my old school photographs sometime... honest!

Click on the logo to find more entries for the Gallery