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Education
| Please select an article from below. To read the full article please click on the article name. |
| Ireland-specific articles are marked with Irish flag |
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| Click here to jump to the Ireland-specific articles |
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Compulsory Learning Age Raised
Teenagers will continue in education or training until the age of 18 as part of a new law passed this week. The new Education and Skills Act will raise the education leaving age to 17 in 2013 and to 18 from 2015. |
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First Lego League comes to Northern Ireland
Secondary schools in Northern Ireland will be using teamwork, research and robots to tackle climate change problems in the First Lego League. The world's biggest interactive robotics challenge takes place in Belfast on 18 November. |
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Save Morrisons vouchers for Schools
Morrisons are arranging for thousands of packets of seeds to be sent to schools taking part in the ‘Let’s Grow’ scheme so that teachers can encourage pupils to have fun with food and start planting. That’s enough free seeds to grow around 1.5 million salad leaf plants for six million salad bowls! |
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National Peer Mentoring Anti Bullying Pilot
Primary, secondary and special schools have been selected to be part of a two-year pilot that will look at how peer mentoring can contribute to tackling bullying in schools. On 25th September, The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation who are managing the DCSF funded pilot, will launch the programme with the first of four regional training events for the participating schools. |
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Yellow School Bus Report
David Blunkett (chairman of The Yellow School Bus Commission, initially announced in April 2007) takes the next step in a major review of the U.K.’s school transport system. The former Secretary of State for Education and Employment today announces the report with 10 months worth of findings highlighting the benefits and disadvantages of operating a Yellow School Bus transport system within the U.K. |
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Rockford’s Rock Opera
Rockford’s Rock Opera is a unique free audio book – an ecological musical story with songs, clear narration, animated videos and FREE teaching resources. What’s more, it’s now being used by over 4,000 primary schools around the world and is gathering thousands evangelical fans. |
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Butterfly Conservation
Schools Minister Jim Knight has launched a new children’s website as part of celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the charity Butterfly Conservation. Remarkably, as he was posing for pictures at the launch, a Red Admiral butterfly landed beside him and then moved onto his finger.
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Extended Schools & Extended Services
A free online guide for parents/carers, plus guidance for schools on producing information leaflets for parents/carers. Did you know that all schools will be extended schools by 2010? |
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Learn with Dogs
Meet the gang - Rex, Rosie, Zippy, Flick, Muffin and Digger - they all live in Dogs Trust Rehoming Centre, which takes care of them until they find a new home. They have lots of fun together.
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Helping your child through exam time
Children aren’t known for coming forward about their problems. Sometimes it can feel as though they don’t want to talk to you about anything. There are lot of reasons why your child might be bottling things up but a new poll shows that the main reason young people don’t share their worries is embarrassment. |
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Children missing out on Practical Skills at School
British children could be missing out on practical skills they need to make it in the real world. 85% of Brits think kids should be taught more about cooking and baking at school rather than purely focusing on intellectual study |
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Teachers Voice
Not everyone would regard the human voice as a tool but for teachers in particular, and for parents too, that is exactly what it is and it needs to be nurtured. |
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ActionAid launches new Chembakolli Resource
Following ActionAid’s award winning website Chembakolli.com, the international development agency has just launched another exciting teaching resource to extend Unit 10, A Village in India (QCA scheme of work). The photo-pack and DVD, ‘From Bangalore to Chembakolli’ takes children on an fascinating journey through the diverse communities, cultures and landscape of south India – from booming Bangalore city to the remote village of Chembakolli. |
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Making science fun
For centuries, Britain has dominated the world of science – particularly medical science. Some of the world’s greatest scientists have been British – think Issac Newton, Alexander Fleming, Joseph Lister, or James Watt. |
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THE CHILDREN OF THE PLAYGROUND REVOLUTION
Award winning artists Snug & Outdoor and Sutcliffe Play, one of the leading designers and manufacturers of children’s play equipment, have announced the arrival of ‘Snug’, a revolutionary new concept for school playgrounds. |
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RSPCA Encourage Animal Friendly Schools
Animal-friendly schools do more than just teach about animals. They encourage both teachers and pupils to think about animals’ needs and to develop a sense of care and responsibility for them. |
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Children from schools across the UK can now use their computer skills to sell or swap unwanted gifts and toys online in a bid to get to raise some cash and make mum and dad happy by clearing out their bedrooms at the same time! |
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The humble British blackcurrant has been announced this summer as the number one Superfruit which can help fight cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, new findings show. Recent research by Dr Derek Stewart, of the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) has found the blackcurrant contains greater levels of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants than 20 other fruits tested |
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CRE Launches Web Site for Teachers
The CRE has today launched Teaching about slavery, an on-line resource for all secondary and primary school teachers. The web pages will for the first time, pull together a range of materials to assist teachers when covering issues relating to the Transatlantic Slave Trade (TST). |
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Three- Step Plan to Stamp out Absenteeism
The national Every Lesson Counts campaign has enlisted Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Raj Persaud, to help advise parents on the best ways in which to tackle attendance problems with girls and children with special educational needs. |
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What has made these poems especially useful to children and also to ESL students, is the fact that Josie has added her own clear English voice recording to each of the poems, as children pointed out how useful this was as a tool to help them with reading. |
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Ireland-specific articles
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The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) is a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery. |
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CESI is Ireland's leading conference addressing ICT and learning. It has a long and proud tradition of highlighting good practice in ICT usage from primary, post-primary and third level teaching settings as well as engendering critical debate on key issues of interest to practitioners in all areas and levels of the Irish education system |
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Ocean Adventure Schools Programme |
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The HB Ocean Adventure Schools Programme is a Galway Stopover Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009 Legacy Initiative. It introduces teachers and students in primary and secondary schools throughout Ireland to the sport of sailing, the marine environment, Ireland and its history with the sea, a variety of geography lessons and marine careers. Schools Packs are now available for download from http://www.letsdoitschools.com/ |
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A progressive primary school which teaches all of its 600 pupils sign language as part of the daily curriculum says new technology it initially began using with its 20 deaf pupils two years ago has totally revolutionised the way the entire school learns. |
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Killybegs has certainly got talent, that’s for sure! Pupils and their teachers at the Niall Mor National School in Killybegs really pulled out all of the stops as Ian Dempsey and his breakfast show rolled into the school to present it with its brand new, hi-tech Promethean Interactive Whiteboard. |
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Do you have the talent and vision to design and build a model for the Formula 1 cars of the future? If so, you'll be interested in the new season of the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge. Sponsored in Ireland by Honda and supported by Discover Science & Engineering and the Irish Computer Society, F1 in Schools is a global competition in which secondary students design, build and race model CO2-powered Formula 1 cars.
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The National Youth Council of Ireland is now seeking applications for this scheme. The Youth Arts Development Award is offered to further sustainable development of youth arts practice at a local level. |
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In the beginning… there was blackboard and chalk. Then along came whiteboards with marker pens, same idea but neater, and without all that pesky chalk dust. These days, teachers can teach using interactive whiteboards, which as their name suggests, work interactively with a computer and multimedia projector |
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Newly founded Irish publishing house Special Stories Publishing has just released their exciting and unique collection of children’s books, The Special Stories Series. The series, launched in Temple St. Children’s Hospital, comprises 7 full colour picture books for children, parents, teachers and healthcare professionals that address a range of childhood health and social issues |
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Internet Safety - Life Skills |
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As the Internet and related technologies are now enmeshed in children's lives Barnardos in its 2008 Childlinks issue sets out to explore both the benefits and the dangers to children because of the Internet.
More>> www.webwise.ie/article.aspx?id=9314 |
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Language Teachers: Training in Berlin |
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Based on the experience of the Speech Bubbles project, European Schoolnet are offering a European teacher training course in October 2008 in Berlin. The deadline for application at the National agencies is the end of June. Please pass the message on to your colleagues. More>> http://www.23muskeltiere.de/course.htm
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Primalingua - we speak European |
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'Primalingua' is looking for primary schools in different countries, which would like to participate in their part of the European Lifelong Learning Programme. On a web-based learning platform, primary school pupils, aged 8-12 years, work on interactive learning units. They discover other children's lives in different countries, their environment and culture. The project starts in October 2008 and will end in June 2009. More>> www.primalingua.info/Home.749+B6Jkw9MQ__.0.html
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Organised by Amnesty International (Rep of Ireland & UK) and the teachers Unions - INTO in the Rep of Ireland and the UTU in the North of Ireland, Lift Off has been running since 2001 and uses human rights issues to support teaching and learning. All material is written by teachers and ties in with the SPHE curriculum. More>> www.liftoffschools.com/Default.aspx
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SAFIR - English and Working Life for Beginners |
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This is a web-based resource for teaching English which may be of interest. It contains 7 modules and has various tasks and exercises, including Grammar.More>> http://www.cfl.se/safirenglish
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Software Spotlight: FÍS and iMovie HD 06
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FÍS is a Film in School for Primary Schools project to explore film as a medium of expression and introduce pupils to aspects of film making process. It is an initiative of IADT and NCTE. Most of the films have been created using iMovie06. Regional screenings are currently on at the moment around the country.iMovie is part of the iLife’06 suite of programs. The iMovie HD6 program is a Apple movie editing programme used to edit digital imported from a DV camera via firewire to an Apple Mac Computer.More: www.softwarecentral.ie/Evaluations/iMovieHD06/
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All NCTE courses are available as whole school training events. These can be run in your own school, customised to your staff's requirements and using the school's own technology. They are an ideal way to promote the use of ICT as a teaching and learning resource throughout the whole school. For more information contact your local ICT advisory service www.ncte.ie/advisornetwork.
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Developing an eLearning Plan |
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Developing an eLearning plan is a new 20 hour summer course, the objective of which is to provide the ICT co-ordinating teacher (or any teacher involved in ICT planning in their school) with the necessary information and tools to develop an eLearning plan for their school.
More information click here.
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Over 120,000 primary school children throughout the country are expected to take part in the Heritage in Schools Programme that has been significantly expanded this year to include a number of environmental specialists. |
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SchoolTube is for educators who want to:
- share approved videos nationwide.
- empower students and encourage creativity.
- join recognized leaders in video broadcasting.
- access lesson plans and helpful classroom information.
- encourage students to compete in moderated competitions.
More>> http://www.schooltube.com
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The goal of TeacherTube is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. It seeks to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. It is a site
to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill. More>> http://www.teachertube.com
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New teachers' website delivers a strong lesson in e-safety
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The launch of the TeachToday.eu website fills a major gap in the web awareness puzzle. Many teachers may feel the need to address the e-safety issues in class but fear that they know less about the new technologies than their pupils; others consider that such issues should indeed be addressed in school but don’t know how to tackle a topic that is outside the official
curriculum and therefore unsupported. For more information click here.
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A great online resource for all who wish to learn more about the computer and internet. Click on the link above to find out how to achieve it. |
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| Great ideas on using the digital camera |
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For great ideas on using the digital camera for Maths in the junior classes, read an article entitled 'Ideas for using the digital camera for Maths in the junior classes' which was published recently in 'In Touch' magazine. It was written by Anne White of the NCTE. Read: http://www.ncte.ie/documents/InTouchFebruary08.pdf
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What started fifty years ago with a father’s simple desire to help his son with his maths homework, has today developed into a global network of students. Every hour worldwide, someone somewhere is studying Kumon. |
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Over the last year, I’ve been encouraged and surprised by the creativity and variety of school websites all over the country. Websites are hugely important. They allow children and teachers tell the story of their school using their own words and pictures. They also allow the school to present its core values, and so share its unique ethos with schools both in Ireland and overseas and with their local community. |
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