This is a demo store. No orders will be fulfilled.

Go to US sites Hand2mind logo Brightkins UK logo

FREE DELIVERY on all UK online orders over £50!FREE DELIVERY on all UK online orders over £50!

FREE DELIVERY on all UK online orders over £50!
Recieve a FREE gift worh £10 with any Botley 2.0 Purchase!
15% off EVERYTHING this weekend only with code BANKHOL23 (excludes sale lines).
FREE DELIVERY on all UK online orders over £50!
Close Nav
Toggle Nav
Menu
There has been an error processing your request

There has been an error processing your request

Exception printing is disabled by default for security reasons.

Error log record number: 1421ceaff9d1a8c0a84d3bf4bee8e08f2df9a2089366b9b52dcaa15c0a2a6eac

Account
My Basket

Guest Posts

Build times tables confidence

Learning Resources | Posted on Aug 12, 2021 | Learning Resources

In this guest blog on how to build times tables confidence, the creators of the tacklingtables method offer helpful advice on how to build times tables confidence, and why it matters.

READ MORE
Learn through fun outdoor play!
Playing outside is an essential part of a child's development. From making mud kitchens, to getting to know nature, learning and playing outside will help little learners form key developmental skills such as physical health & self-confidence!
BROWSE THE CATEGORY

Building Brain Power with Sensory Play: A Guest post by Jackie Edwards

Author: Jackie Edwards from Fractus LearningJackie is a mum of two and an editor, researcher and writer. One of her children is on the autism spectrum and she actively finds ways to help her daughter achieve a sense of peace and freedom. She has carried out a lot of research on the impact of sensory environments on brain development and has teamed up with Learning Resources to share ideas for creating sensory environments at home. Building Brain Power with Sensory PlayWhen you hear the words ‘squashy’, ‘oozy’, ‘scratchy’ and ‘sloppy’, you know that children are fully engaged with their senses. They’re using their hands, eyes, ears, noses and mouths to explore and make sense of the world. Just watch their fascination and concentration as they swirl their wellie-clad feed through wet mud or run cooking ingredients repeatedly through their fingers. You’re observing the power of sensory play in action - a style of play that has enormous developmental potential: it can build connections in the brain and support learning, thought and creativity. Powering up the brainFor over a century, sensory play has been valued by a host of renowned child educationalists such as Dewey and Montessori. Yet it’s only recently that we’ve discovered that sensory play is fundamental for brain development. Scientists have shown that at birth, a multitude of unprogrammed neurons in the brain are awaiting connection. Sensory experiences in early childhood fire up these connections between the neurons. The more sensory experiences, the stronger the connections and the easier it is for us to think, understand and remember.The visible fruits of sensory playGeoSafari Jr. Underwater Explorer Boat and Magnifier EI-5115 GeoSafari® Jr. Underwater Explorer Boat and Magnifier When a child is engaged in sensory play, not only is the brain undergoing powerful transformations but there are also very visible signs of learning in areas of language, motor skills and social development. Language skillsSensory play can encourage new ways of talking about the world. Not only does it give meaning to descriptive words like smooth and sticky, but it can also prompt further discussions. No longer is water merely just ‘wet’, it’s also ‘runny, ‘ripply’ and ‘splashy’. Motor skillsSensory experiences often demand the use of gross motor skills, such as jumping in puddles or dancing to music, or fine motor skills such as mark-making with sticks in mud or rubbing grainy sand between fingers. Both types of action will help build physical strength. Social and emotional development Besides sensory experiences initiating social interaction, they also provide the ideal setting for independent exploration, testing ideas and problem-solving. How to create sensory environmentsPlayfoam EI-9268 Playfoam® Class Set As a parent or teacher, it is important to provide opportunities for sensory learning. Here are a few easy and cost-effective ideas:
  • Shadow puppets - Simply use a torch and your hands!
  • Vegetable printing - Slice vegetables in half to create different shape stamps
  • Flavoured sculpting materials - Use herbs and spices, such as cinnamon and dried mixed herbs
  • Coloured sand - Mix in grated chalk to give colour to sand
  • Rose petal perfumes - Add petals to a little water
  • Frozen small world - Create a mini north pole with ice and arctic figures
  • Clay faces on trees - Stick modelled clay faces to the trunks of trees
 The sponge effect!Children really are like sponges, absorbing vast amounts of information from the stimuli around them. In fact, between birth and 3 years of age, the human brain increases to 80% of its adult size! Whilst pre-schoolers will undoubtedly benefit the most from sensory play, opportunities for development and learning in older children are still apparent. It’s therefore absolutely crucial to maintain these opportunities to enrich learning and promote fun! *For more ideas and inspiration browse our range of sensory resources!#LoveLearning
Building Brain Power with Sensory Play: A Guest post by Jackie Edwards Author: Jackie Edwards from Fractus LearningJackie is a mum of two and an editor, researcher and writer. One of her children is on the autism spectrum and she actively finds ways to help her daughter achieve a sense of peace and freedom. She has carried out a lot of research on the impact of sensory environments on brain development and has teamed up with Learning Resources to share ideas for creating sensory environments at home. Building Brain Power with Sensory PlayWhen you hear the words ‘squashy’, ‘oozy’, ‘scratchy’ and ‘sloppy’, you know that children are fully engaged with their senses. They’re using their hands, eyes, ears, noses and mouths to explore and make sense of the world. Just watch their fascination and concentration as they swirl their wellie-clad feed through wet mud or run cooking ingredients repeatedly through their fingers. You’re observing the power of sensory play in action - a style of play that has enormous developmental potential: it can build connections in the brain and support learning, thought and creativity. Powering up the brainFor over a century, sensory play has been valued by a host of renowned child educationalists such as Dewey and Montessori. Yet it’s only recently that we’ve discovered that sensory play is fundamental for brain development. Scientists have shown that at birth, a multitude of unprogrammed neurons in the brain are awaiting connection. Sensory experiences in early childhood fire up these connections between the neurons. The more sensory experiences, the stronger the connections and the easier it is for us to think, understand and remember.The visible fruits of sensory playGeoSafari Jr. Underwater Explorer Boat and Magnifier EI-5115 GeoSafari® Jr. Underwater Explorer Boat and Magnifier When a child is engaged in sensory play, not only is the brain undergoing powerful transformations but there are also very visible signs of learning in areas of language, motor skills and social development. Language skillsSensory play can encourage new ways of talking about the world. Not only does it give meaning to descriptive words like smooth and sticky, but it can also prompt further discussions. No longer is water merely just ‘wet’, it’s also ‘runny, ‘ripply’ and ‘splashy’. Motor skillsSensory experiences often demand the use of gross motor skills, such as jumping in puddles or dancing to music, or fine motor skills such as mark-making with sticks in mud or rubbing grainy sand between fingers. Both types of action will help build physical strength. Social and emotional development Besides sensory experiences initiating social interaction, they also provide the ideal setting for independent exploration, testing ideas and problem-solving. How to create sensory environmentsPlayfoam EI-9268 Playfoam® Class Set As a parent or teacher, it is important to provide opportunities for sensory learning. Here are a few easy and cost-effective ideas:
  • Shadow puppets - Simply use a torch and your hands!
  • Vegetable printing - Slice vegetables in half to create different shape stamps
  • Flavoured sculpting materials - Use herbs and spices, such as cinnamon and dried mixed herbs
  • Coloured sand - Mix in grated chalk to give colour to sand
  • Rose petal perfumes - Add petals to a little water
  • Frozen small world - Create a mini north pole with ice and arctic figures
  • Clay faces on trees - Stick modelled clay faces to the trunks of trees
 The sponge effect!Children really are like sponges, absorbing vast amounts of information from the stimuli around them. In fact, between birth and 3 years of age, the human brain increases to 80% of its adult size! Whilst pre-schoolers will undoubtedly benefit the most from sensory play, opportunities for development and learning in older children are still apparent. It’s therefore absolutely crucial to maintain these opportunities to enrich learning and promote fun! *For more ideas and inspiration browse our range of sensory resources!#LoveLearning READ MORE

The Autism Friendly Tool Box A Guest Post by AuKids Magazine

image
  
image
 Name: Debby ElleyTitle: Co-editor AuKids magazineAge of children: Twins aged 13
image
 For Autism Awareness Day we’ve teamed up with Debby from AuKids, a parenting magazine for those raising and educating children with autism, to provide personal product recommendations and tips about buying presents for autistic children.
image
Social communication difficulties mean that pretend play often carries little interest for them early on. Motor planning can also be affected and so toys that require building may prove frustrating.  Our first piece of advice when buying for an autistic child: never guess. If you want to be known for thoughtful presents, prepare by asking mum or dad the type of thing their youngster likes. Some autistic children don’t like surprises or change very much, even when it comes to birthdays. It’s a nice idea to give them some suggestions – with images – and let them choose between them.  Sensory PlayIn children with autism, the sensory exploration stage is very important and often very engaging, too. Sensory toys can be fantastic for these children, but do check with their carers whether they have any sensitivities or aversions. The Sand Moulds Lowercase Alphabet is a good bet, helping finemotor skills as they pack the sand into a letter shape. It’s also an opportunity for parent and child to use simple language together whilst they have shared attention. This is the best way for autistic children to pick up new vocabulary.
image
We love toys that combine sensory fun with learning as they can be appreciated on different levels. Sensory rooms for children with autism can be very expensive – but there are some lovely toys that can make a bedroom a wonderful place to be at night. The Primary Scienceâ„¢ Shining Stars Projector gives super images and is a captivating little gadget. Often parents of children with special needs know that they enjoy sensory play, but the reality of cleaning up after every play session can be a little draining! We love the Playfoam Combo 8 Pack – Playfoam is non toxic and it doesn’t stick to carpet – result! They don’t need to build anything marvellous, just the process of squishing and squashing is extremely good for motor skills. We suggest you also buy a cheap shower curtain from the supermarket for about £1 – this provides great floor or table cover and is invaluable for a quick clear-up operation.
image

Time Team

Understanding the concept of time is particularly difficult for autistic children. It is an abstract concept – that is, the passing of time is a notion that you keep in your head. Autistic children rely on solid visual information. For those children who are in a mainstream school and ready to develop their understanding of time, we like About Time - Telling the Time & Understanding Elapsed Time.
image
What’s particularly good about this kit is that it includes visual representations of quarter of an hour and half an hour, helping children to understand their relationship to an hour.  Some older school children with autism would benefit from this, too.

For Spin Doctors…

If the autistic child in your life enjoys watching things that spin around, then the Gears! Gears! Gears!® sets are a great bet. Not only can you support them to build, using fine motor skills, but at the end they have a fantastic, motivating visual activity. These gears sets can be appreciated on many levels. Parents can build for younger children and then start encouraging them to join in gradually. There are many sets to choose from – we loved the Gizmos Building Set and the Space Explorers Building Set but if that’s a little outside your price range, the Build & Spin Flower Garden Building Set is also bound to be a hit.

Motor Skills

The Design & Drill® BrightWorks™ set stands out for us as toy that is perfect for children with special needs. The colourful plastic bolts and drill are solid and durable and even those with shaky hands can enjoy great success making patterns on the light-up drill board. As with any child who has a tendency to mouth toys, an adult needs to closely monitor play to ensure that they don’t try and eat the bolts or drill too much – which puts a strain on the motor. But with a little prompting, this is a very useful toy to develop fine motor skills. Because it lights up, it’s great sensory play, and very motivating.
image
  Froggy Feeding Fun™ is another good game to develop fine motor; squeeze the frog’s mouth to catch a treat. Great for counting skills and colour recognition, it also gives an easy reward – so encouraging!  

Communication Fun

Developing attention, listening and copying skills will be much easier with the Magic Moves® Electronic Wand. This fun little gadget gives you ideas to copy - stomp like a dinosaur, swoop like an eagle, hop like a kangaroo! We suggest you join in too, and see what happens.
image
Even if they’re not ready to copy movement, it also has 26 random tunes and twinkling lights. Fun on lots of levels.

Other Ideas

Vehicles tend to be popular with autistic kids, as they have a definite purpose and the repetitive movement of them can be quite comforting. Thomas the Tank Engine is particularly popular. Find out which track the child owns and buy an interesting new piece for it. Many autistic kids love their iPads or computers. Colourful keyboards or a keyboard mouse might be a nice bet (you can even get large letter keyboards if their hand-eye co-ordination isn’t up to much). Cordless headphones that use Bluetooth can save endless headaches, as getting a fiddly jack into an iPad wearing a protective case can be a struggle. Most kids have collections of some sort, particularly as many computer games now have associated interactive figures. When an autistic child builds a collection, this isn’t just an ordinary haphazard semi-completed collection, oh no. You may hear the term ‘special interest’ in relation to autism. All this means is, when autistic kids like something, they like it A LOT. Their collection will be cherished; their collection will be complete; and having to complete it is the nightmare of most parents of autistic kids. So seek out the figures that they don’t already own. If you want to spend money on something that doesn’t gather dust, this is it.

Say it with Slogans

Parents spend so much extra on special needs children that they often don’t have as much disposable income as they’d like to spend on clothing. Positive messages are great signals for the public and families alike. Just check out any sensory sensitivities before you buy. You can get specialist autism T-shirts with positive slogans on them, dreamt up by AuKids magazine, from www.aukids.co.uk or www.finsdesignandprint.co.uk For more advice on autism, sign up for AuKids magazine for £16 a year at www.aukids.co.uk
image
The Autism Friendly Tool Box A Guest Post by AuKids Magazine
image
  
image
 Name: Debby ElleyTitle: Co-editor AuKids magazineAge of children: Twins aged 13
image
 For Autism Awareness Day we’ve teamed up with Debby from AuKids, a parenting magazine for those raising and educating children with autism, to provide personal product recommendations and tips about buying presents for autistic children.
image
Social communication difficulties mean that pretend play often carries little interest for them early on. Motor planning can also be affected and so toys that require building may prove frustrating.  Our first piece of advice when buying for an autistic child: never guess. If you want to be known for thoughtful presents, prepare by asking mum or dad the type of thing their youngster likes. Some autistic children don’t like surprises or change very much, even when it comes to birthdays. It’s a nice idea to give them some suggestions – with images – and let them choose between them.  Sensory PlayIn children with autism, the sensory exploration stage is very important and often very engaging, too. Sensory toys can be fantastic for these children, but do check with their carers whether they have any sensitivities or aversions. The Sand Moulds Lowercase Alphabet is a good bet, helping finemotor skills as they pack the sand into a letter shape. It’s also an opportunity for parent and child to use simple language together whilst they have shared attention. This is the best way for autistic children to pick up new vocabulary.
image
We love toys that combine sensory fun with learning as they can be appreciated on different levels. Sensory rooms for children with autism can be very expensive – but there are some lovely toys that can make a bedroom a wonderful place to be at night. The Primary Scienceâ„¢ Shining Stars Projector gives super images and is a captivating little gadget. Often parents of children with special needs know that they enjoy sensory play, but the reality of cleaning up after every play session can be a little draining! We love the Playfoam Combo 8 Pack – Playfoam is non toxic and it doesn’t stick to carpet – result! They don’t need to build anything marvellous, just the process of squishing and squashing is extremely good for motor skills. We suggest you also buy a cheap shower curtain from the supermarket for about £1 – this provides great floor or table cover and is invaluable for a quick clear-up operation.
image

Time Team

Understanding the concept of time is particularly difficult for autistic children. It is an abstract concept – that is, the passing of time is a notion that you keep in your head. Autistic children rely on solid visual information. For those children who are in a mainstream school and ready to develop their understanding of time, we like About Time - Telling the Time & Understanding Elapsed Time.
image
What’s particularly good about this kit is that it includes visual representations of quarter of an hour and half an hour, helping children to understand their relationship to an hour.  Some older school children with autism would benefit from this, too.

For Spin Doctors…

If the autistic child in your life enjoys watching things that spin around, then the Gears! Gears! Gears!® sets are a great bet. Not only can you support them to build, using fine motor skills, but at the end they have a fantastic, motivating visual activity. These gears sets can be appreciated on many levels. Parents can build for younger children and then start encouraging them to join in gradually. There are many sets to choose from – we loved the Gizmos Building Set and the Space Explorers Building Set but if that’s a little outside your price range, the Build & Spin Flower Garden Building Set is also bound to be a hit.

Motor Skills

The Design & Drill® BrightWorks™ set stands out for us as toy that is perfect for children with special needs. The colourful plastic bolts and drill are solid and durable and even those with shaky hands can enjoy great success making patterns on the light-up drill board. As with any child who has a tendency to mouth toys, an adult needs to closely monitor play to ensure that they don’t try and eat the bolts or drill too much – which puts a strain on the motor. But with a little prompting, this is a very useful toy to develop fine motor skills. Because it lights up, it’s great sensory play, and very motivating.
image
  Froggy Feeding Fun™ is another good game to develop fine motor; squeeze the frog’s mouth to catch a treat. Great for counting skills and colour recognition, it also gives an easy reward – so encouraging!  

Communication Fun

Developing attention, listening and copying skills will be much easier with the Magic Moves® Electronic Wand. This fun little gadget gives you ideas to copy - stomp like a dinosaur, swoop like an eagle, hop like a kangaroo! We suggest you join in too, and see what happens.
image
Even if they’re not ready to copy movement, it also has 26 random tunes and twinkling lights. Fun on lots of levels.

Other Ideas

Vehicles tend to be popular with autistic kids, as they have a definite purpose and the repetitive movement of them can be quite comforting. Thomas the Tank Engine is particularly popular. Find out which track the child owns and buy an interesting new piece for it. Many autistic kids love their iPads or computers. Colourful keyboards or a keyboard mouse might be a nice bet (you can even get large letter keyboards if their hand-eye co-ordination isn’t up to much). Cordless headphones that use Bluetooth can save endless headaches, as getting a fiddly jack into an iPad wearing a protective case can be a struggle. Most kids have collections of some sort, particularly as many computer games now have associated interactive figures. When an autistic child builds a collection, this isn’t just an ordinary haphazard semi-completed collection, oh no. You may hear the term ‘special interest’ in relation to autism. All this means is, when autistic kids like something, they like it A LOT. Their collection will be cherished; their collection will be complete; and having to complete it is the nightmare of most parents of autistic kids. So seek out the figures that they don’t already own. If you want to spend money on something that doesn’t gather dust, this is it.

Say it with Slogans

Parents spend so much extra on special needs children that they often don’t have as much disposable income as they’d like to spend on clothing. Positive messages are great signals for the public and families alike. Just check out any sensory sensitivities before you buy. You can get specialist autism T-shirts with positive slogans on them, dreamt up by AuKids magazine, from www.aukids.co.uk or www.finsdesignandprint.co.uk For more advice on autism, sign up for AuKids magazine for £16 a year at www.aukids.co.uk
image
 READ MORE

The Young Engineers Academy: A Head Teacher’s perspective on STEM in Action™ in the classroom

image
image
 In March 2015, our school (Parkfield Community School), which is located in one of the most deprived wards in both Birmingham and England, was honoured (and more than a little shocked) to win the National Pupil Premium Award for 2015. This award was presented to our school due to the attainment of our pupil premium (disadvantaged) children and the innovative approaches we adopted – using our pupil premium funding - to help all of our children to fully achieve their potential.With this prestigious award also came a substantial amount of extra funding. This money could have easily been allocated to lots of small scale projects/resources, but we wanted to do something really special with it that would create a long-lasting, inspiring legacy for each and every child at our school both now and for those that will join us in the future.  As an outward-facing, innovative school, and after much discussion within the leadership team, we came up with the idea of creating Parkfield’s Young Engineers’ Academy (YEA) where children could specifically work on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) projects in a vibrant, dedicated space and have a wealth of resources which do this. This we believed would be quite unique for a primary school, and would inspire our children, our staff and the wider community, as well as providing the children with some of the skills that led to Birmingham’s proud history of innovation and manufacturing and which are still very much in demand today with key employers, such as BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover in our city.
image
image
 Each half term, our children visit our YEA for a full day. Here the children tackle a bespoke scenario, that provides the children with an opportunity to explore the links between and develop skills within the STEM subjects (in particular engineering, which is unfortunately given a low priority within many primary schools), in practical, real-life and fun contexts. Our key aim with the YEA is to inspire and excite our children and to infuse them with a sense of awe and wonder about education generally, but specifically within the STEM subjects, so that hopefully more of them will have the passion and drive to continue pursuing these subjects further beyond their time at Parkfield.
image
 The YEA provides experiences which the children would probably not get at home. It also develops those skills which will be crucial for both their education and for the workplaces of the future, such as: creativity, ingenuity, risk-taking, resilience and teamwork.
image
In the past, we have found that many of our children have demonstrated low aspirations when they start thinking about their options for the future. Unfortunately, this often occurs due to cultural factors present in our community context, particularly amongst our girls. In addition, national evidence shows that many girls become disinterested with the STEM subjects at secondary school. This is something that we proactively try to address. One way that we do this is through the use of our Young Engineers Academy, by trying to capture the children’s interest in these areas from an early age. We also promote positive role models for all of our children to aspire towards, using pioneers from the present and from throughout history.As somebody with a real passion in these areas, I found myself designing the curriculum for the YEA. Although I had quite a few ideas, I quickly found myself turning to every teachers’ best friend - the internet - for inspiration. To my surprise, although there are lots of websites out there with possible ideas for lessons, I struggled to find a commercial company that produced quality resources with suitable lesson ideas that we could use. That was when I stumbled upon Primary STEM in Action.
image
After browsing their selection of resources, the Earthquake Technologies Challenge Project immediately caught my attention (having always been fascinated by earthquakes myself) and I ordered a set to take a closer look at, which promptly arrived in school a few days later. The first thing that caught my attention were the wealth of teacher’s lesson plans that were provided within the teacher’s guide and children’s resource sheets. Although I’ve never been somebody who follows commercial lesson plans to the letter, these provided me with the inspiration I had searched for and with a few tweaks to the lesson plans/resources here and there, I could immediately see the potential of how this pack could be used with primary aged children to tackle various aspects of the STEM subjects, in an engaging way, within the context of looking at structures and earthquakes. I quickly found myself ordering multiple sets of this to use with a full class.
image
For our children, they found using the K’Nex type materials to initially construct any structures quite challenging. This was because this was a completely new and alien construction material to our children. However, after some initial experimentation (which after all is what STEM is really about) the children’s confidence quickly began to grow and they began assembling all sorts of constructions, which were tested using the ‘dreaded’ Wobbletop Shake Table.
image
During the full day that each class used these materials for, the children learnt about: the science of earthquakes; problems encountered by engineers (including monetary constraints – through being limited on the resources the children could afford to use); number computational skills; the construction of 3D shapes; problem solving; working as a team and much, much more. These were all skills were identified by the children when we evaluated the day. For me though, the richness of the discussion that could be heard as the children used these resources, the thought processes that were travelled (particularly when constructions were not as successful as hoped) and the engagement of the children throughout were fantastic.
image
After the success of this project, we also purchased the STEM in Action Wild Feet Exploration Project, which we felt linked perfectly with a Year 2 topic concerning animals. This again, with the occasional tweak to personalise this to our school/topic, was equally as successful and popular with our children.
image
The need for our YEA and for all schools to generally provide a higher priority to the STEM subjects is very clear. Although nearly all of the valuable skills developed by children through engaging in STEM sessions and through studying the STEM subjects are transferable (and are the kind of skills all employers are searching for), engineering is still key to the UK economy, especially in the post Brexit era we are about to enter. For example, “in 2014, the engineering sector contributed an estimated £455.6 billion (27.1% of the UK’s GDP). It is estimated that engineering employers have the potential to generate an additional £27 billion per year from 2022, if we meet the forecasted demand for 257,000 new vacancies in engineering enterprises inthe same timescale.”
image
“Failing to meet our engineering workforce requirements will not only damage the UK economically, but it will also have a detrimental effect on individual employees’ prosperity and the economic sustainability of engineering employers. What’s more, failure will impact on engineering’s role in providing a lasting legacy for future generations through ensuring the supply of food, clean water and energy – a tough challenge against a backdrop of climate change and ageingpopulations. The single biggest threat to success lies with education: to meet demand, we need enough young people to study STEM subjects at schools and colleges.”
Engineering UK 2015 – The state of engineering Through our current and future planned work with our YEA and through other school’s giving the STEM subjects a higher profile (particularly in primary schools), hopefully we can inspire and equip our children with the vital skills they will need to succeed in the future, thus ensuring that our future workforce and country continues to lead the world in creativity and innovation.#LoveLearning
image
 Discover STEM in Actionâ„¢ at BETT – it’s free to attend! Find us on stand B78, Hall N3.www.steminaction.co.uk
The Young Engineers Academy: A Head Teacher’s perspective on STEM in Action™ in the classroom
image
image
 In March 2015, our school (Parkfield Community School), which is located in one of the most deprived wards in both Birmingham and England, was honoured (and more than a little shocked) to win the National Pupil Premium Award for 2015. This award was presented to our school due to the attainment of our pupil premium (disadvantaged) children and the innovative approaches we adopted – using our pupil premium funding - to help all of our children to fully achieve their potential.With this prestigious award also came a substantial amount of extra funding. This money could have easily been allocated to lots of small scale projects/resources, but we wanted to do something really special with it that would create a long-lasting, inspiring legacy for each and every child at our school both now and for those that will join us in the future.  As an outward-facing, innovative school, and after much discussion within the leadership team, we came up with the idea of creating Parkfield’s Young Engineers’ Academy (YEA) where children could specifically work on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) projects in a vibrant, dedicated space and have a wealth of resources which do this. This we believed would be quite unique for a primary school, and would inspire our children, our staff and the wider community, as well as providing the children with some of the skills that led to Birmingham’s proud history of innovation and manufacturing and which are still very much in demand today with key employers, such as BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover in our city.
image
image
 Each half term, our children visit our YEA for a full day. Here the children tackle a bespoke scenario, that provides the children with an opportunity to explore the links between and develop skills within the STEM subjects (in particular engineering, which is unfortunately given a low priority within many primary schools), in practical, real-life and fun contexts. Our key aim with the YEA is to inspire and excite our children and to infuse them with a sense of awe and wonder about education generally, but specifically within the STEM subjects, so that hopefully more of them will have the passion and drive to continue pursuing these subjects further beyond their time at Parkfield.
image
 The YEA provides experiences which the children would probably not get at home. It also develops those skills which will be crucial for both their education and for the workplaces of the future, such as: creativity, ingenuity, risk-taking, resilience and teamwork.
image
In the past, we have found that many of our children have demonstrated low aspirations when they start thinking about their options for the future. Unfortunately, this often occurs due to cultural factors present in our community context, particularly amongst our girls. In addition, national evidence shows that many girls become disinterested with the STEM subjects at secondary school. This is something that we proactively try to address. One way that we do this is through the use of our Young Engineers Academy, by trying to capture the children’s interest in these areas from an early age. We also promote positive role models for all of our children to aspire towards, using pioneers from the present and from throughout history.As somebody with a real passion in these areas, I found myself designing the curriculum for the YEA. Although I had quite a few ideas, I quickly found myself turning to every teachers’ best friend - the internet - for inspiration. To my surprise, although there are lots of websites out there with possible ideas for lessons, I struggled to find a commercial company that produced quality resources with suitable lesson ideas that we could use. That was when I stumbled upon Primary STEM in Action.
image
After browsing their selection of resources, the Earthquake Technologies Challenge Project immediately caught my attention (having always been fascinated by earthquakes myself) and I ordered a set to take a closer look at, which promptly arrived in school a few days later. The first thing that caught my attention were the wealth of teacher’s lesson plans that were provided within the teacher’s guide and children’s resource sheets. Although I’ve never been somebody who follows commercial lesson plans to the letter, these provided me with the inspiration I had searched for and with a few tweaks to the lesson plans/resources here and there, I could immediately see the potential of how this pack could be used with primary aged children to tackle various aspects of the STEM subjects, in an engaging way, within the context of looking at structures and earthquakes. I quickly found myself ordering multiple sets of this to use with a full class.
image
For our children, they found using the K’Nex type materials to initially construct any structures quite challenging. This was because this was a completely new and alien construction material to our children. However, after some initial experimentation (which after all is what STEM is really about) the children’s confidence quickly began to grow and they began assembling all sorts of constructions, which were tested using the ‘dreaded’ Wobbletop Shake Table.
image
During the full day that each class used these materials for, the children learnt about: the science of earthquakes; problems encountered by engineers (including monetary constraints – through being limited on the resources the children could afford to use); number computational skills; the construction of 3D shapes; problem solving; working as a team and much, much more. These were all skills were identified by the children when we evaluated the day. For me though, the richness of the discussion that could be heard as the children used these resources, the thought processes that were travelled (particularly when constructions were not as successful as hoped) and the engagement of the children throughout were fantastic.
image
After the success of this project, we also purchased the STEM in Action Wild Feet Exploration Project, which we felt linked perfectly with a Year 2 topic concerning animals. This again, with the occasional tweak to personalise this to our school/topic, was equally as successful and popular with our children.
image
The need for our YEA and for all schools to generally provide a higher priority to the STEM subjects is very clear. Although nearly all of the valuable skills developed by children through engaging in STEM sessions and through studying the STEM subjects are transferable (and are the kind of skills all employers are searching for), engineering is still key to the UK economy, especially in the post Brexit era we are about to enter. For example, “in 2014, the engineering sector contributed an estimated £455.6 billion (27.1% of the UK’s GDP). It is estimated that engineering employers have the potential to generate an additional £27 billion per year from 2022, if we meet the forecasted demand for 257,000 new vacancies in engineering enterprises inthe same timescale.”
image
“Failing to meet our engineering workforce requirements will not only damage the UK economically, but it will also have a detrimental effect on individual employees’ prosperity and the economic sustainability of engineering employers. What’s more, failure will impact on engineering’s role in providing a lasting legacy for future generations through ensuring the supply of food, clean water and energy – a tough challenge against a backdrop of climate change and ageingpopulations. The single biggest threat to success lies with education: to meet demand, we need enough young people to study STEM subjects at schools and colleges.”
Engineering UK 2015 – The state of engineering Through our current and future planned work with our YEA and through other school’s giving the STEM subjects a higher profile (particularly in primary schools), hopefully we can inspire and equip our children with the vital skills they will need to succeed in the future, thus ensuring that our future workforce and country continues to lead the world in creativity and innovation.#LoveLearning
image
 Discover STEM in Actionâ„¢ at BETT – it’s free to attend! Find us on stand B78, Hall N3.www.steminaction.co.uk
 READ MORE

Peri-hand Space: The hidden benefits of Hand Pointers A guest post by Joanna Grace

 Joanna Grace is an international sensory engagement and inclusion consultant. She is the founder of The Sensory Projects and has a personal and professional background in the world of SEN. Through her work Joanna looks to contribute to a future where people are understood in spite of their differences.
Jo tweets excerpts from research about the sensory world from @jo3grace We met Joanna at the TES SEN show 2016, the largest SEN-focused event held annually at the Business Design Centre in London. This show is designed to provide teachers, SENCOs, support staff and parents with the tools and skills to help all pupils achieve their full potential. Joanna was at the show to deliver a seminar and visited our stand on the first day. She was immediately drawn to our hand pointers and explained to us how she used them in her work. After revealing some hidden benefits we teamed up with her on this guest post to share her ideas with our readers.
 A box of hand pointers arrived at my house. They were instantly tested for safety by The Sensory Project’s small assistant. I can confirm that if you beat them on chairs, cushions, stairs, floors, walls, tables and kitchen tiles they do not break! I was then treated to a rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes with two Hand Pointers (first chosen at random but then selected to be matching in colour – a good little skill there, let’s just say it’s not so easy to point to your nose when your arm is twice as long!
 That evening a secondary school maths teacher friend of mine came to dinner and I automatically lost half of the hands into her gleeful grasp. “Oh I’m going to use these for group work” she declared. I once worked as a supply teacher and in my bag of essentials I always carried a bunch of neon hand shaped fly swatters which I used to engage children in my lessons. The people holding the fly swatters were the only ones who could answer questions; once they’d answered a question they passed the fly swatter on to the next child. In this way I was able to encourage everyone to be involved in the lesson. The fly swats were great but they can’t operate an interactive white board like the pointers can! My next outing with my remaining hand pointers will be to a special school where I will use them to encourage students to explore the world around them and have some fun. But beyond these tactical teaching ideas and general playfulness, there is a sensory something about these Hand Pointers that you may not know about.
 In my work at The Sensory Projects I provide training to mainstream and special settings across the UK. I teach people how to use sensory engagement strategies that will support the learning of their students. I tend to, for pragmatic reasons, restrict myself to seven sensory systems, very occasionally slipping into eight when my resolve weakens. I sometimes get into debates with people who argue for there being nine or eleven primarysenses but, did you know, we actually have thirty three sets of neurons that control our sensory experiences, so arguably there are thirty three senses! These Hand Pointers are ideal for developing one of these sets – the peri-hand space. In your brain you have a set of peri-hand space neurons. Your peri-hand space is the space all around your hand and your hand itself. It goes to about 10 centimetres around your hand (if you’re an adult, with children it will be proportionately smaller). You also have peri-head space neurons and a set of neurons dedicated to the area of space around your body. These spaces are important for our safety and our interaction with the world, it makes sense that we would evolve to have extra attention in these spaces, and that is essentially what these extra pockets of neurons are.
 Here is where, it gets even more fun: at a single cell level your peri-hand space neurons are sight, sound and touch all at once! This means that, for example, when you look at something within this space your visual neurons process the information and so do your peri-hand space neurons. Extra bits of your brain get involved in the looking. It is quite amazing. So getting children to point at the words they are trying to read is a really good idea, because you are coaching them in a way that means they end up getting extra information from their brain about the symbols they are trying to decode. Now, if the single cell level information blew your brain wait for the next bit! I’d like to describe this as magic, but I don’t believe that is the scientific term for it. Studies have shown that when we hold an item, such as a pen, or stick, or pointing hand, our peri-hand space neurons attend to the space around that object as well as the space around our hand. In essence that zone of extra sensory perception extends to the end of whatever we hold. So using a pointing hand to point at something on a white board that you are trying to read is a way to fractionally boost a child’s ability to process that information. Knowledge like this usually only appears on programmes like QI, but knowledge is power and power should be used for good, so arm yourselves! Go out there and point at things. Use it in your own life too, don’t stand there squinting at the tube map, point at it! Instruct students who aren’t sure which answer to choose to point at their options as they consider them. Get some Hand Pointers, channel your inner stockphoto teacher or 1950’s school mistress and get pointing!
 You can find out more about Jo’s work at The Sensory Projects#LoveLearning
Peri-hand Space: The hidden benefits of Hand Pointers A guest post by Joanna Grace
 Joanna Grace is an international sensory engagement and inclusion consultant. She is the founder of The Sensory Projects and has a personal and professional background in the world of SEN. Through her work Joanna looks to contribute to a future where people are understood in spite of their differences.
Jo tweets excerpts from research about the sensory world from @jo3grace We met Joanna at the TES SEN show 2016, the largest SEN-focused event held annually at the Business Design Centre in London. This show is designed to provide teachers, SENCOs, support staff and parents with the tools and skills to help all pupils achieve their full potential. Joanna was at the show to deliver a seminar and visited our stand on the first day. She was immediately drawn to our hand pointers and explained to us how she used them in her work. After revealing some hidden benefits we teamed up with her on this guest post to share her ideas with our readers.
 A box of hand pointers arrived at my house. They were instantly tested for safety by The Sensory Project’s small assistant. I can confirm that if you beat them on chairs, cushions, stairs, floors, walls, tables and kitchen tiles they do not break! I was then treated to a rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes with two Hand Pointers (first chosen at random but then selected to be matching in colour – a good little skill there, let’s just say it’s not so easy to point to your nose when your arm is twice as long!
 That evening a secondary school maths teacher friend of mine came to dinner and I automatically lost half of the hands into her gleeful grasp. “Oh I’m going to use these for group work” she declared. I once worked as a supply teacher and in my bag of essentials I always carried a bunch of neon hand shaped fly swatters which I used to engage children in my lessons. The people holding the fly swatters were the only ones who could answer questions; once they’d answered a question they passed the fly swatter on to the next child. In this way I was able to encourage everyone to be involved in the lesson. The fly swats were great but they can’t operate an interactive white board like the pointers can! My next outing with my remaining hand pointers will be to a special school where I will use them to encourage students to explore the world around them and have some fun. But beyond these tactical teaching ideas and general playfulness, there is a sensory something about these Hand Pointers that you may not know about.
 In my work at The Sensory Projects I provide training to mainstream and special settings across the UK. I teach people how to use sensory engagement strategies that will support the learning of their students. I tend to, for pragmatic reasons, restrict myself to seven sensory systems, very occasionally slipping into eight when my resolve weakens. I sometimes get into debates with people who argue for there being nine or eleven primarysenses but, did you know, we actually have thirty three sets of neurons that control our sensory experiences, so arguably there are thirty three senses! These Hand Pointers are ideal for developing one of these sets – the peri-hand space. In your brain you have a set of peri-hand space neurons. Your peri-hand space is the space all around your hand and your hand itself. It goes to about 10 centimetres around your hand (if you’re an adult, with children it will be proportionately smaller). You also have peri-head space neurons and a set of neurons dedicated to the area of space around your body. These spaces are important for our safety and our interaction with the world, it makes sense that we would evolve to have extra attention in these spaces, and that is essentially what these extra pockets of neurons are.
 Here is where, it gets even more fun: at a single cell level your peri-hand space neurons are sight, sound and touch all at once! This means that, for example, when you look at something within this space your visual neurons process the information and so do your peri-hand space neurons. Extra bits of your brain get involved in the looking. It is quite amazing. So getting children to point at the words they are trying to read is a really good idea, because you are coaching them in a way that means they end up getting extra information from their brain about the symbols they are trying to decode. Now, if the single cell level information blew your brain wait for the next bit! I’d like to describe this as magic, but I don’t believe that is the scientific term for it. Studies have shown that when we hold an item, such as a pen, or stick, or pointing hand, our peri-hand space neurons attend to the space around that object as well as the space around our hand. In essence that zone of extra sensory perception extends to the end of whatever we hold. So using a pointing hand to point at something on a white board that you are trying to read is a way to fractionally boost a child’s ability to process that information. Knowledge like this usually only appears on programmes like QI, but knowledge is power and power should be used for good, so arm yourselves! Go out there and point at things. Use it in your own life too, don’t stand there squinting at the tube map, point at it! Instruct students who aren’t sure which answer to choose to point at their options as they consider them. Get some Hand Pointers, channel your inner stockphoto teacher or 1950’s school mistress and get pointing!
 You can find out more about Jo’s work at The Sensory Projects#LoveLearning READ MORE
Previous Page 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7
Learning Resources trusted brand iconsLearning Resources trusted brand icons