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Dear Parents…

Definitely worth a read.

Ramblings of a Teacher

Dear Parents,

When you receive your child’s report this year, things might not look as clear as they once did. Having spent years getting your head around levels and sub-levels, I’m afraid they are no more. And as much as this might come as a shock to you, believe me, we as a profession were no more prepared for it.

It comes at a time when – as you’ll know – so much else has changed in our schools. Teachers the length and the breadth of the country have been doing our utmost to provide the smoothest and most effective transition for your child as we move from one national curriculum to another, but it hasn’t been easy.

It means that when you receive the report on the attainment of your child at the end of this academic year, the picture may look very different from the past. Children who were comfortably…

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Staffrm

It appears that blogs have slipped off the radar for a while, well mine certainly has at least. Maybe it’s because of sites like staffrm.io – you can post a mini-article/post/question/musing as long as it’s under 500 words – like twitter for the more verbose of us. I wrote my first post this week in between marking and levelling papers, playing ninjar turtles and eating tea. Take a look, you might even sign up yourself.

Post LINK

So I’ve been meaning to write on here for a while. But, you know, there’s just never enough time! But then I saw Amjad’s post a while ago and he inspired me, so here is my attempt at a rapping comeback. Yes, it’s more like a poem but you get the idea…

1. What’s my job title and where do I work?

I am a #distresseddad and deputy, two jobs that’ll be the death of me. Derbyshire’s where I talk my talk, preach my stuff and wave the chalk.

At school, I’m the man with the plan, the guy with the tie and the dude that can;

at home, I’m the trampoline, the hugger and feeder; the cuddler, the player and the school book reader.

Both jobs are demanding, exhausting and tough, but I wouldn’t swap them for anything, for any old stuff.

2. What am I currently working on?

A junior school deputy has an exhaustive quota: PP, assessment and the assembly rota.

English and PP are my main deals; well, laughing and joking and keeping it real.

3. Where have I come from?

Derby City was the place of my birth, the sickest place in God’s glorious earth.

Teaching was never my ultimate aim; the SAS and a chef were more my game.

It took a long while to get where I am, with faith, hope and love from all of my fam.

After many lectures, essays and tears and time stressing about deadlines for years and for years, I finally finished. Graduated. Passed. It was time to start teaching my own class at last.

4. What gets me up in the morning?

Children, my children, my lovely children.

5. What keeps me awake at night?

Children, my children, my lovely children.

6. Who inspires me?

So many people, the list has no end, with twitter and google and all of its trends. The teachers I meet at teachmeets and more, blogs, tweets and posts and presentations galore.

But the people that inspire me the most, the ones of whom I do like to boast are the children, my class and my own, the ones who still love me, despite all my moans.

They laugh and they work hard; they grow and they smile and then I know that it’s all so worthwhile.

 

Anti-bullying week resources

Tomorrow marks the start of another Anti-bullying week. I know, like so many other areas in school, we don’t just deal with issues of bullying in one week but it gives us a focus; an opportunity to re-address key ideas and scenarios.

I hope the resources and links are useful. If you want the Publisher doc of the PDF, just email, comment or tweet me.

Anti-bullying week – PowerPoint (cyberbullying focus)

cyberbullying poster – PDF

Links

Interactive Anti-bullying video – you choose what happens.

http://www.aea1.k12.ia.us/en/school_technology/digital_citizenship__cyberbullying/

http://www.cybersafety.co.nz/

http://cargocollective.com/kzkdesign/Cyberbullying-PSA-Campaign

http://www.ricgroup.com.au/product/bullying-in-a-cyber-world-poster/

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/cybercafe/Cyber-Cafe-Base/

http://www.childline.org.uk/Explore/Bullying/Pages/online-bullying.aspx

http://www.internetmatters.org/issues/cyberbullying.html#deal

 

 

 

WWI resources

Below is a list of links to a trove of fabulous resources for teaching WWI.

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo as an audio broadcast from the BBC

Every Man Remembered – a site to commemorate fallen soldiers. Find a hero that has a surname the same as yours and the regiment they served in.

http://onesworldwar.com/

Archie Dobson’s War – 3-part audio book from the BBC

http://ictmagic.sharedby.co/share/m19y9W – massive list – well worth looking at.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01n4mfq

Click to access private_peaceful.pdf

 

ICT Surveys

I’ve been meaning to float these for a while but after a prompting from @dawnhallybone thought I’d get my digital finger out…

I’ve used these surveys with parents and children to get a simple snapshot of the school.

The first is a simple ‘hands-up‘ chart for teachers to ask children: esafety questionnaire

The second is a ‘what are your views/thoughts on ICT‘ for the parents: e-learning questionnaire

And the third is not mine, it’s @esafetyadviser’s – very detailed one: Parents Survey

By all means, copy, change, update. I need to update ours and re-do for this year and will float again once I’ve done so.

 

A mastery model for Writing: moving away from the text type treadmill

Really interested in this at the moment. Hoping to re-shape literacy based on some of the ideas here.

Ramblings of a Teacher

Are we deceiving ourselves about cohesion?
(Cartoon from xkcd.com/724)

I wrote back in the autumn of 2013 about how I found the endless march through text types to be ineffective in really securing children’s skills in Writing. I have spoken at several events since about how our perception of a joined-up curriculum in primary schools may not be conveyed as well as we like to the children we teach. We often build our writing tasks around a common topic or text and describe this as building a coherent curriculum, but too often the cohesion is in the topic, and not in the skill of writing. I have likened this in the past to trying to build a wall with bricks simply by dropping lots of randomly-shaped bricks and hoping they’ll fall into place.

This year, I have tried to improve on this model by bringing greater coherence to the…

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Maths transition units – function machines

After spending many years in Y6, I amassed a bunch of resources. A particular one that I used on a few occasions was the bridging unit from Y6 to Y7 regarding function machines. I believe it was called QCA Bridging units in mathematics: algebra – catchy title.

I don’t have the original anymore – I didn’t take everything with me when I moved schools!

What I do have, however are a couple of links to people’s versions of the units and my own too.

As with everything I post, feel free to use and abuse and tweak to your nature. Just let me know what you think.

Photo courtesy of @mrsdenyer

LINK 1 – trafford learning

LINK 2 – webmaths.co.uk

My resources:

maths plan 07-06-10 algebra function machines plans

DfE Transition Units maths (not mine)

As the slides are for SmartBoard and Promethean, I can’t upload them here. If you want them, email me: benwaldram@me.com or tweet me: @mrwaldram

 

#C2C – the final countdown

Two weeks ago, the boys and I attempted a 30+ miler, with hills, to help prepare ourselves for our #C2C journey at Easter. We were aiming to cycle all over Derbyshire, up hill and down dale. We made just under 30. Pretty much a marathon. We did indeed encounter plenty of hills (some fearsomely beastly) but it was all good training. We had an enjoyable day, a cracking (if not over ambitious) pub lunch and an opportunity to test out the bikes in the wild, as it were.

What concerned me slightly was, as we arrived back at the Team Leader’s ranch, wet and tired, that we had cycled only half of the first day’s target. Could we have cycled the distance again? Unlikely. But, we knew we were at home, we’d finished. Mentally, we’d clocked off.

The rest of the Wheezy Riders have been training brilliantly, thighs are pumped, bikes are serviced and endurance is brimming at an all time high. Not for Benji however…

Tonsillitis hit me this week and the knowledge that I had to fit yet another flat tyre. With less than a fortnight to go, there are lots of preparations, including some night-time rides that need to be squeezed in to my hectic schedule.

So why then are we doing it? Why are a group of wheezy riders cycling the width of our country? For charity, it’s simple.

Andy & Nigel are cycling for Sarcoma UK – LINK

Rhys is cycling for the Dogs Trust – LINK

Matt is cycling for Anthony Nolan – LINK

And I’m cycling for Derby Kids Camp – LINK

So, if you’ve got time, click a link or text WBEN75 to 70070 with your amount.

Don’t let us push ourselves without good cause. Thanks.

 

Maths Problems: Working backwards

This is a problem I used when I was teaching in Notts a few years ago and have since used again with Y6. It’s a good example of working backwards; eliminating redundant information; and partner work. As an extension, the children changed the names of the teams and re-wrote the scores using the same pattern. For the really able, they produced a similar problem but changed the wording of some of the problems.

I altered the team names to match the then current employees – more for amusement value than anything else.

Let me know if you try it and it works. It is available in Smart Notebook, Promethean but the quality has changed during the transition from one to another. Best solution: use the word doc and drop it into your own table. I am happy to email the files for you if you want, can’t upload them here.

basketball scorelines – word doc

basketball-scorelines – PDF