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October 2007 Newsletter

Re-engaging with Geography!

YHGfL is embarking on a programme of initiatives to assist their Local Authorities (LAs) and Schools to re-engage learners with Geography in line with national curriculum aims.

We are inviting geography specialists from our LAs and schools to join an all-day event to express an interest in these, at Carr House, Doncaster, on Friday November 2nd.

Five key collaborative projects that relate to the use of Loc8, YHGfL’s Geographical Information System (GIS) and/or the Weather Stations data logging programme, are in the process of being initiated.

Although driven by separate agendas, and potentially creating different outputs, the commonality of the people and processes involved will bring synergy to the one Programme.

Loc8 http://loc8.yhgfl.net
YHGfL has already introduced Loc8 into the Y&H region but it is accepted that additional learning resources are required to help more actively promote the use of this product into schools. Now that the QCA is recognising the importance and relevance of GIS in its KS3 geography curriculum, there will be greater emphasis on the use of Loc8 in our schools.

Three initiatives are being introduced, one regional and two at national level. The regional project is the identification of regional examples of best practice, the sharing of them, the creation of new learning resources and exploring the next stages of development.

The national projects being facilitated by Becta and project managed by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), are firstly concerned with the use of Ordnance Survey (OS) mapping data, and secondly involvement at school level in the new QCA Co-development project for GIS. Both were the subject of a launch at the RGS offices in London on 9th October.

Weather Stations www.yhgfl.net/weatherstations
YHGfL has already provided each of its member Local Authorities with a weather station and the real-time data from all of these is available on the YHGfL website.

Two weather station initiatives are being introduced. The first project is NEN focused to bring a number of RBCs together (YHGfL, London and South West Grids for Learning) to consider and create national curriculum content for putting on the National Education Network (NEN).

The second is being sponsored jointly by YHGfL and RGS for two schools in the Y&H region to work together.

All Saints Catholic College, Kirklees and West Cliff Primary School, Whitby – both of which have weather stations installed – are collaborating to create ten starter learning resources for using weather stations across KS1, 2 and 3.

So come along and find out what’s happening – register for the event on November 2nd by contacting events@yhgfl.net

Note:- Cover time is payable on request.

Museums, Libraries and Archives

The My Learning website is the brainchild of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Yorkshire - www.mylearning.org and is crammed full of 1,500-plus pages of free resources for all areas of the curriculum and Key Stages.

Each of the many and varied items, trawled from the museum, library and archive collections in the county, are presented as learning journeys designed to support the curriculum.

The easy-to-navigate site lists all the subjects covered, which parts of the curriculum they can be related to and what Key Stages they are aimed at.

So, for instance, under science there is a topic on Minibeasts which is targeted at Key Stages 1 to 3 and includes an interactive game called ‘Super Bugs’. It covers four areas of the science curriculum and also ties into a number of aspects of QCA units.

Note: A set of six high quality A3 posters are being offered in return for teachers who take part in a questionnaire about the site. Go to www.yhgfl.net and follow the link from the home page.

Janet Collaborate

SHARING video conferencing expertise and experiences between schools and colleges has been given a helping hand with the launch of the JANET Collaborate Prototype this month.

This one-stop shop for educational VC opportunities is, however, more than just a ‘dating agency’! The free service also enables national and regional museums, galleries and archives to advertise their live sessions.

At the launch, in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Tim Boundy, Schools Content Coordinator with JANET (UK), said the aim of the project was to promote collaborative activities by making innovative, high quality content more accessible to teachers and learners.

The prototype is expected to run for a year, with the intention of developing a full production service after that. It includes basic collaboration tools, such as messaging, groups, forums and wikis and it is technology agnostic. Visit www.janetcollaborate.ac.uk/

Class Blog

Keeping children safe while they blog is exactly what YHGfL’s brand new initiative is about.

Among those taking part in the pilot is Holy Trinity CE school, in Calderdale, where children are being invited to explore interviewing techniques and at Broom Valley Junior School in Rotherham, children are doing some work on Grandpa Joe’s Diary. - See http://shareit.yhgfl.net

National RBC Annual Conference (26th - 28th September)

The annual National RBC Conference in Windermere welcomed many RBC delegates from across the UK. The Agenda focused on a number of challenges including the active engagement of learners, how we might define a learner’s entitlement, what input RBCs could give to teacher training, and how we might consider the broader view of the curriculum - taking on board the personalised learning and extended schools agendas.

Presentations were given by TDA, DCSF, Becta, Janet, QCA and RBC representatives. The new NEN website was on show for the first time - and will hopefully be going live very shortly!

Safeguarding Children - e-Safety

YHGfL will be hosting a regional Safeguarding Conference on 31st January 2008. The initial planning is underway with keynote speakers expected from Becta, Childnet and CEOPs. More information about the event will be available in due course.

In the meantime we continue to be actively involved with the National Safeguarding Working Group which is aiming to use the NEN as its repository for all the best practice information that’s available so it can be found in one place. YHGfL are also supporting Becta’s initiative with identifying a specific e-safety role for the LSCBs. At a more local level we are starting to discuss the e-safety requirements of each LA to see where we can help.

Please note recent national initiatives such as:

DCSF campaign on cyberbullying with detailed guidance:
www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/tacklingbullying/cyberbullying

IWF National Awareness Day, 24th October - www.iwf.org.uk.

Website Update

We have made a few simple, but hopefully effective enhancements to the website. First off, you can now browse to some key areas of the website easily without convoluted URLs. These are:

www.yhgfl.net/safeguarding - A new area aimed at safeguarding children. We have kicked off with a document entitled “YHGfL Web Filtering Overview” which is designed to be an easy to read document about web filtering, for the non-technical folk out there.

www.yhgfl.net/latest - As new stuff is put up on the website, we will mention it here. It’s an RSS enabled page so you can subscribe to keep up to date!

www.yhgfl.net/newsletter - This is an RSS enabled page, displaying a text only version of the YHGfL newsletter. It also provides a link to download the full colour newsletter as a PDF.

www.yhgfl.net/logos - Here you can download the logos for YHGfL and Loc8, along with a simple usage policy in a variety of different formats.

Also, the “latest” and “newsletter” pages are RSS enabled. This means that you can subscribe to these pages, and as they change, these changes will be reflected in your RSS reader. For more information on RSS and how it can be used, have a look on the BBC pages -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm

A full colour PDF version of this newsletter is available here:

September 2007 Newsletter

e-Safety for the NEN

YHGfL are actively involved in the National Working Group which is looking to take the best from all the regions in the UK in terms of e-safety information, guidance and advice. There is now a clear set of actions for this Group to undertake.

The key outcomes will include producing a set of AUPs (Acceptable Use Policies) for RBCs, LAs and schools to use, a complete list of e-safety resources that are available, and links to safeguarding agencies and websites.

Various sub-groups have been tasked to produce the various outcomes for placing on the NEN for the start of 2008. If your LA or school has any best practice that you would like to share - please let YHGfL know as soon as possible so we can add it to the existing repository - contact@yhgfl.net

Blogs

Students and teachers have a new way of communicating with the world - by using blogs!

After requests for a safe environment from a number of schools and Local Authorities for blogging, YHGfL are piloting their newly created Classblog.
See http://shareit.yhgfl.net

Specially designed and created to appeal to children and teenagers, the facility allows all students and teachers to safely write a blog from within their school/college - via a username and password.

The blogs will be fully moderated, can be accessed globally and once written, the text cannot be altered by other users. YHGfL have added in the ability to videocast/podcast so that users can download entries to a variety of devices, e.g. mp3 and mp4 players.

Currently, the project is being piloted by Wakefield and Calderdale and it is then to be rolled out across the region.

National Coal Mining Museum for England - bringing history to life

YHGfL have joined forces with the National Coal Mining Museum for England to help secure funding from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council for two schemes to bring history to life.

YHGfL has also helped pilot the video conferencing schemes: A Bevin Boy Remembers and Meet a Real Miner. Bookings are now being taken for participating in the video conferences, as they are now offered to the whole region.

A Bevin Boy Remembers - a living history interpreter at the Wakefield-based museum, takes on the role of an ex-Bevin Boy, Jeff. Opening a suitcase he has found in his loft, full of objects and documents from his past, Jeff unlocks memories of WW2. Jeff explains how he was conscripted to work in the mines during the war; why coal mining was so important to the war effort and what it was like to work underground.

Meet a Real Miner - children meet a mining guide and hear first hand what it was like to work underground, including the dangers and thrill of working in a mine.

As part of both sessions, pupils are invited to ask their own prepared questions at the end and pre-and post-video conference session material is available. For further details, or to book, contact the museum on: 01924 848806, also look at the pages on www.yhgfl.net

Weather Stations

YHGfL has now purchased a Weather Station for each of our member LAs and, via our website, it is now possible to view real-time webcam pictures from some of the sites.

In addition, by going to www.yhgfl.net, clicking on Resources and following the link to Weather Stations, you can link up to all the graphs and historical data collected both regionally and nationally.

Funding has been made available from the Royal Geographical Society and YHGfL for the development of more teaching and learning resource examples for the project and work is soon to be undertaken in collaboration with West Cliff Primary School, in Whitby, and All Saints Catholic College, Huddersfield, towards this.

YHGfL has also joined forces with LGfL and SWGfL in developing national weather resources for schools. The link for LAs to use is: http://www.yhgfl.net/resources/weather-stations/

Tuned-in

Music is now part of the KS2 Primary Strategy and the Tuned-In project is an ideal tool for helping teachers deliver this.

Designed to particularly appeal to those teachers without a musical background, Tuned-In provides a wealth of online resources which would normally be difficult to get together in a classroom setting - and this already popular project has some new and exciting developments.

The West African drumbeats materials have inspired schools across the country to develop Djembe drumming and West African singing as part of the Wider Opportunities music provision at KS2.

In association with the Sage at Gateshead, online video materials for learning the folk (penny) whistle are to be launched this month.

Connecting You! is a pioneering development aimed at enhancing teacher confidence and skills in embedding ICT in music at KS2. The site makes use of free and shareware music programs, including Audacity, Van Basco Karaoke and Acid Xpress.

Tuned-in is cross curricular and has been developed in association with David Ashworth, Becta and Kevin Hamel, music and ICT Development Officer at Lancashire Music Service.

Tuned-In project developer, Kevin Hamel, is happy to provide twilight INSET sessions for teachers across the Y and H region. Anyone interested should contact YHGfL - contact@yhgfl.net

In addition,further large-scale developments as part of Tuned-In are planned for launch between November 2007 and January 2008, so watch this space… www.yhgfl.net

Audio Network & Pathe

All YHGfL member schools have access to a range of resources thanks to our purchasing affordable licences on their behalf. These include Audio Network and the Pathe news archive:

Audio Network

Free music downloads are available to all YHGfL member schools, thanks to a unique service via the National Education Network (NEN).

Through the project, teachers and students have access to literally thousands of music tracks of original composition, performances and recordings.

Audio Network provides schools and colleges with free access to rights-cleared, industry-standard, audio files for editing and re-use in school. It can be used for a whole range of creative activities in any subject area and at any Key Stage - but, says YHGfL’s Collaborative Technologies Manager, Andrew Lickley, it is particularly useful for pupils making soundtracks.

British Pathe - latest news

We are delighted to announce that the licence agreement with British Pathe has been extended for a further year.

This excellent resource is free to YHGfL member schools and contains 12 million still images and 3,500 hours of video footage. Ilustrations can be found for projects in all areas of the curriculum and saves hours of time trawling through different sources.

Should any schools/teachers need more information or assistance in making the most of Pathe please email contact@yhgfl.net

Note: YHGfL want to hear from LAs/schools with examples of their innovative use of Audio Network and Pathe so that we can spread the word around the region - contact@yhgfl.net

Need help with Learning Platforms?

Virtually There: All YHGfL schools should now have received their copy of this book/dvd set. YHGfL continue to support the personalised learning agenda and are available for meetings, discussions, etc. if required. If you are interested in seeing how a learning platform works, and how it can meet a school’s needs, email us at contact@yhgfl.net

You can also download the PDF version of this page here - July 2007 Newsletter

E-Safety
FROM BLOGGING to gaming, photo-sharing to instant messaging, children and young people are leading ever more active social lives online.

But for parents and teachers, worried about e-safety, it can be hard to know how to strike the right security balance: you want young people to develop the skills needed to interact in the wired world but you want to do everything reasonable to make sure they don’t come to harm.

YHGfL are joining in a national collaboration to find the most effective ways of helping local authorities and schools get informed and actively aware of safeguarding children.

By engaging local authority Safeguarding Officers and assisting local authorities in their approaches towards the e-safety agenda, YHGfL will create a set of exemplar policies and procedures and important information for use in their region.

As many parents and teachers are left playing a game of catch-up with their children and pupils, it really is a matter of being aware that there are many organisations which offer information and advice on keeping Internet usage safe.

Many of these - including the Internet Watch Foundation - also provide a hotline for the public to report anything which should not be on a site.

For a continually updated and extended list of such sites, visit the YHGfL website at www.yhgfl.net and click on the e-safety link. Here you will find, among others, links to CEOP - the Child Expoitation and Online Protection Centre - and Childnet. You will also find a pdf of the Becta E-Safety document.

Weather Stations
Work is continuing to equip each member LA in our region with a weather station and now it is even easier to link in to resources related to the project via the YHGfL website.

Simply go to www.yhgfl.net, click on Resources and follow the link to weather stations.

You can still access data via the Loc8 link, which will direct you to a list of all the weather stations around the country - and in particular those in the London Grid for Learning area.

The first national weather station curriculum meeting was held recently with London South West and YHGfL contributing ideas

You can take a look at the stations by going to
http://weather.atomwide.com

Sri Lanka
Staff from seven schools in Calderdale swapped the Yorkshire hills for those of Sri Lanka when they were lucky enough to visit the country recently after many weeks of emails and letters between the two Continents.

Representatives of Triangle Primary; Christ Church CE Juniors; Old Earth Primary; Luddenden Foot Primary, Whitehill Primary; and Sowerby Bridge High School visited Kandi, where they have set up links with local schools.

Headteacher of Bolton Brow Junior and Infant School, Jonathan Longstaff, said that, as well as the tea growing area around Kandi being breathtaking in its beauty, it had a lot to offer in regard to attitudes toward education and citizenship.

“Education is vital to the Sri Lankan people, who realise that if they want to get on in life they have to work hard and get a good education,” he said.

And, in a country where many Faiths sit side-by side, the schools were a testament to multi-cultural tolerance, said Jonathan.

A scheme of work has now been drawn up between the schools.

Loc8
A number of schools have been working on a ‘My Town’ project adding gazetteer points from around their villages or towns.

Have a look at a couple of examples: in the Gazetteer search for ‘Sowerby Bridge My Town Calderdale’ or ‘Camblesforth My Town North Yorkshire’. Using this convention (’School’ My Town ‘Local Authority’) all schools can add pages about themselves…

Visit http://loc8.yhgfl.net

Learning Platforms - Virtually There
The Virtually There book/dvd sets are being sent to all our schools via the Local Authorities. This publication contains both a written and a visual account of the learning journeys of 7 schools across 6 local authorities in the Y&H region in their quest to implement a learning platform.

Whether you are at the start of your journey or part way through, this is a definite must read/must see opportunity! For more information please visist www.yhgfl.net/learning_platforms/

National Coal Mining Museum (Update)
There are two new video conferencing sessions available at the NCM:

Session 1: Coal Mining’s Contribution to the Second World War - Stories from a Bevin Boy
Meet Jeff, an ex-Bevin Boy as he unlocks his memories of WW2 (KS2 resource)

Session 2: Meet a Miner
Let one of the mining guides give you first hand experience of a typical day in the mine (KS2 resource)

RockIT
Those wishing to take part in this annual battle of the bands need to register as soon as possible to be in with a chance of winning £2,500 of music equipment for their school.

The YHGfL final will be held on October 16th and the national final in December. Bands, which must have the permission of a school to enter, can find full details and can register at www.rockIT2007.org.uk

Great News about British Pathe!
The RBCs have collectively secured another year’s subscription to British Pathe at a sensible price so Schools in our region can continue to download and make full use of this incredible archive.

Big Day Out
Courtesy of SWGfL and LGfL, all RBCs are being invited to join in a brand new national project to create KS1 resource. Originally a brief to provide 15 KS1 modelling activities for SWGfL, the project has evolved to provide an innovative infrastructure that enables pupils to post task outcomes to a collaborative ’scrapbook’.

It has been agreed that each Grid can discuss their part of the project with i-board and will be responsible for the design and content of their chosen unit. Access will be two fold - the ‘Make a Postcard’ feature available to all for all activities anywhere, and the access to the collaborative scrapbook depending on IP recognition at site level where this information is available.

A beta version of this fun resource can be found at http://bdo.swgfl.org.uk. YHGfL will seeking views as to what theme their first Big Day Out should be about. Any ideas? Please email contact@yhgfl.net.

National Education Network
When you connect to broadband through an RBC, you don’t just get a connection to the Internet but also to an ever growing network of schools, universities and other educational bodies, as well as to a wealth of resources offered by the other RBCs.

For more information about the NEN, please visit www.yhgfl.net