Mr P's ICT blog - Tech to raise standards!

I am so excited to announce a BRAND NEW approach to English I have developed alongside John Murray ( @ReadingExplorer .) The website readwriteperform.com is now LIVE. The approach covers every aspect of English - Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. We have created and released our first teaching pack. Each teaching pack provides teachers with a unit of planning for English lasting 2-3 weeks. The following image gives an overview of the approach and how each pack works: We know this approach works, as all the ideas have been tried and tested in the classroom. The quality of writing and performance from the pupils in my class was phenomenal!  The pack encourages your learners to actively engage with a variety of media and get the most out of the learning experiences you provide. Technology is used as a tool to enhance children's learning and evidence their final creations. We focus on combining all the elements of writing into one meaningful project: readin...

This is my latest vlog sharing different things you find in every staffroom! Feel free to share -

Like most, I am completely hooked on Game of Thrones! If you haven't seen my other Game of Thrones inspired post, check it out - 12 Game of Thrones Teachers You See in Every School . One of my favourite characters in the series has to be Tyrion. People have such little faith in him. Yet he is constantly proving people wrong and challenging their misconceptions about him. He is almost the perfect metaphor for teachers as it seems the 'powers that be' have a similar faith in teachers. But we are constantly proving them wrong. This weekend, social media has been flooded with positive messages for teachers and students in preparation for the upcoming SATs that are asking A LOT from children, to say the least! Let these thoughts from Tyrion inspire you to get you through this week and motivate you to keep doing the amazing job you do day in day out.  "You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality; that and your cheekbones." Now, I am not...

How many of these can you relate to? Feel free to share!

In Year 1, our latest topic is Minibeasts. As a class, the children have turned all their knowledge into their own app! Click the Link - MINIBEASTS BY YEAR 1 We started by splitting the class into groups of 3 and assigning them a minibeast to research. We tried to focus on three questions -  What does it look like? What does it eat? Where does it live? The children then had to use the iPads to research and try to find answers to the questions. They used the app Shadow Puppets Edu to create a short video to share their learning.  Each group then worked alongside me to add their video into the app. The app was created in the brilliant Touch App Creator.  For a more in-depth tutorial on how to use this app, check out my book - 50+ iPad lessons for Teaching Non-Fiction.

Today, I had the pleasure of working with a group of Year 2 children. I decided to start the lesson by using the iPad to create a hook. This was the first thing the children were shown - How will year 2 save the day and stop this robot destroying the school! #techtoinspire #creatingahook #makingwritingfun A video posted by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on May 5, 2016 at 2:32am PDT This was created using the app - FX Guru . The app has loads of special effect clips that you can film on top of any picture or video. As you can see from this clip, we created a scene showing a robot destroying the playground. It worked, the children were totally hooked. I immediately hit them with their mission: they had to design a robot that would beat the rogue robot in the video and save the school. Firstly, we had to report what had happened and so created a news report explaining the situation. This was done in our Media Suite using Greenscreen. The children were all then given t...