Glenealy School provides for students with Individual Needs in line with The English Schools Foundation (ESF) Special Education Needs (SEN) Policy (2007). We recognise that many students whose Individual Needs require minimal teaching and learning adjustments are catered for within mainstream classes. These students are able to access the curriculum in these settings with minimal adjustment or support. Some students may have difficulties in maintaining attention, delayed language and/or literacy development or self-regulation. In these settings students may be supported by specialist teachers or by educational assistants.
Students whose Individual Needs require more extensive teaching and learning adjustments are supported by the Individual Needs Team who provide an option of small group teaching as well as support within the mainstream classes where appropriate. For further information about this provision, refer to the Learning Support Centre. Students in these settings may have more significant intellectual disabilities or autism spectrum disorders. These students require significant adjustments to the school curriculum in order to access it successfully. Entry to this type of Individual Needs provision is through ESF Central Admission procedures.
Glenealy School Individual Needs Provision
Glenealy School practice is based on an inclusive philosophy. Being an IB World School, our practise reflects the IBO statement of inclusion (August 2010):
“Inclusion is an ongoing process that aims to increase access and engagement in learning for all students by identifying and removing barriers.”
At Glenealy School our practice of inclusive education:
- Embraces all aspects of diversity- cultural, intellectual, physical and social & emotional needs.
- Values all student needs and individuality.
- Respects all learners’ rights.
Aims and Objectives
The aims and objectives of the Individual Needs department at Glenealy School are to:
Provide clear procedures for identifying, monitoring and teaching children with Individual Needs, in line with the ESF policy and practice.
Support the staff and students within the mainstream classroom to ensure suitable and effective adaptation is taking place.
Enhance the teaching and learning experiences to ensure that all students have access to a significant and engaging curriculum that matches their needs.
Promote positive approaches and support for students who require social and communication development.
Maintain detailed and up-to-date records of all individual needs to ensure smooth transition within and between schools.
Work in partnership with colleagues, families, ESF staff and outside agencies.


Do you know the one thing that coders share with musicians? The love for music. According to various studies, a lot of musicians studied to become programmers. The same set of studies also reveal that a love for music and proficiency in playing an instrument can help programmers be more creative and better at finding solutions. The extra boost in creativity is a huge plus, especially in today’s competitive market. The link between coding and music goes beyond these simple connections, too.
Music is usually played together; it is also often enjoyed together. The nature of music makes it the perfect way to train coders’ ability to work together in a team. Many tech startups are adding a music room – or already have one – for this very reason.
As more team members play music together, their ability to bond and work together increases as well. It doesn’t just stop at collaborative abilities, either. Those who can jam together and be in sync are more likely to complete each other in a problem-solving scenario.
The results are clear. Music makes coders better at tackling even the biggest of challenges. In fact, further studies suggest that those who share the same love for music are more capable in working on different parts of a project separately and later combining those parts successfully.
Simple and Easy to Pick Up
Music isn’t always about playing instruments. If you love listening to the latest tracks, for example, you have that same love for the art. Some prefer genres such as jazz and orchestra, while others simply enjoy having music playing in the background when working. All of these are perfectly okay. Even better, these different approaches can lead to the same creative boost we are all after.
Some programmers – mainly those who have reached a certain point in life – revisit their passion for music. Online universities such as Rutgers Online now have music programs you can take from the comfort of your office. You can study for an online MMME degree – a degree in music education – and explore the world of music you once left behind.
The online master of music in music education program itself is great for expanding a few other skills, such as the ability to think outside the box and connect better with other people. It is a particularly popular program in the industry.
More Benefits to Enjoy
The most important advantage of them all, however, is the relaxing nature of music. Coding can be very challenging, especially when you start running into bugs and big issues. Having the songs you like playing in the background is often more than enough to help improve the flow of thinking. It can also help keep stress levels at a minimum.
With all of these benefits to enjoy, having a strong love for music is a good thing indeed. What type of music do you like? Do you play any instrument? Be sure to leave your stories in the Comments section below.


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Greek Red and Black Figure Pottery
Transcript of Greek Red and Black Figure Pottery
The reason the pots were called black figure pots is bacause there was a glossy slip applied to the pots. When the pots were then fired the slip would turn black, making figures in the clay. The figures were then outlined by a red or white color. Other colors were used to but they were not as common. (historyforkids.org) The pots were often painted decorated of men and women in the Trojan War. The gods were not as popular in the decoration. in decorating these pots. There many things from ancient greece such as comedy scenes and some sport scenes. This Project will teach you the history and the way of Black and Red Figure Pottery. First we will go over Black Figure Pottery since it was created before Red Figure Pottery. The art forms were created in Greece. Eventually Red Figure Pottery was discovered and was easier to make. Some famous black-figure potters included Kleitias , Ergotimos, Nearchos, Lydos, the Amasis Painter, Andokides, Euthymides, and Sophilos.(www.visual-arts-cork.com) Red Figure Pottery Red Figure Pottery was discovered in about 530 BC and
died out in about 3rd century BC. It replaced the very common
black figure pottery.(wikipedia.com) Red Figure Pottery was the era with the most pots
and artifacts that are still intact today. Over 40,000 artifacts are
still preserved today. How was Red Figure Pottery Made? The Red Figure method was basically the
opposite of Black Figure. It was easier to make and harder to
make mistakes. The differnce from black figure was that when the pot was at a leather hard stage the figure
was put into the pot. The potter would then outline the figures with a brush or a charcoal. The figure
would come out fully during the firing and the outlines would go away. The slip was then put on to the clay
which would change colors during the firing stage making the red figures. The Red figure method allowed for more detail and overall better pots. Some great Red figure potters included Douris, Brygos and
Onesimos.(www.visual-arts-cork.com_ One of the works of Douris By Sebastian Lemm Works Cited:
"Greek Pottery, Ceramic Art of Ancient Greece: History: Geometric Style, Black Figure, Red Figure." Greek Art | Encyclopedia of Visual Arts in Greece | History of Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking: Artists, Museums, Galleries, Exhibitions. Web. 1 May 2010. <http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/antiquity/greek-pottery.htm#blackstyle>.
"Red-figure Pottery." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 29 Apr. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-figure_pottery>.
"Greek Black Figure Pottery Vases - History for Kids!" Kidipede - History and Science for Kids - Homework Help for Middle School. Web. 01 May 2010. <http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/art/pottery/blackfigure.htm>.


Music classes as they are taught in public schools are oftentimes a lot drier than need be. If you home school, take advantage of this by giving your child engaging music lessons. Here are some ideas.
Let Them Pick Their Instrument
Many parents sit their children down in front of a piano or hand them a violin and tell them to get to work. There is value in learning these instruments, but music instrument invention did not stop in the year 1900 and you should be broad about this.
Today’s music is oftentimes created with electronic instruments. Don’t be snobbish or dismissive toward these instruments, as it takes just as much skill and knowledge to play them as it does any other instrument. If your child wants to become a master at sampling and spinning records, give them a chance. You might be surprised at what they’ll learn about music by doing so.
Embrace Their Music
Your child, as the laws of the universe dictate, will probably love music that you find obnoxious. Don’t let this stop you from appreciating what they’re listening to. You’ll be teaching them one of the most basic lessons that they should learn from any music curriculum: You should be able to appreciate good music without particularly enjoying what it sounds like.
Ask them about their music. Ask them why they like it, why they prefer it to other music and what makes it connect to them. This helps them to develop a vocabulary for relating to music and that is a perquisite for developing any real skill as a musician.
Encourage Them to Jam
If your child is friends with other home schoolers, let them play music with their friends once and a while and make a point to not be the conductor or select the music that they play. Let them take the lead. This will encourage them to practice and will show them the value of learning a musical instrument. It also helps them to learn to work with other people, which is one of the most significant benefits of children learning anything at all about music.
Teach Them About Rules and Breaking Them
Music is a great way to teach children what artistic conventions are, why they exist and why people still continue to embrace them. It can also teach children how it’s important to have foundational skills in any discipline before attempting to branch off and do your own thing. In this regard, you can use music as a way to teach children how to take a basic set of tools—theory, tone, technique—and use those basic tools to create something that is truly their own. It’s also a great way to encourage them to take healthy risks, in that they’re expressing themselves through music.


Uluru – Australia’s Ayers Rock
In central Australia, you’ll find a very, very large rock known as Uluru, or as the Aussies call it- Ayers Rock. The rock is made of sandstone. It changes color during the day, depending on how the sun shines on it. Sometimes it looks brown. At dawn and at dusk, it looks red.
Uluru stands 1,141 feet tall. That’s almost as tall as the Empire State Building. It stretches over 2 miles long and 1 mile wide. Amazingly, most of the rock sits underground, although no one is sure exactly how deep it goes.
Fun Facts about Uluru for Kids
- Uluru is the Aboriginal name for this rock. It is also called Ayers Rock, after Sir Henry Ayers. Explorer William Gosse gave it this name when he discovered it in 1873.
- The rock was created over 600 million years ago. The Aborigines have lived there for 10,000 years.
- The rock was originally at the bottom of a large ocean.
- Uluru is a monolith, which means one really big stone or mountain.
- Climbing Uluru would be hard work. Most of the sides go almost straight up. The top is flat.
- Uluru is covered with crevices, caves and valleys.
- Sandstone: a soft rock formed from sand
- Dawn: early morning
- Dusk: early evening
- Aborigines: ancient tribes
- Monolith: large rock or mountain
Learn More All About Uluru, Australia’s Rock of Ages
Check out this awesome video about the Uluru in Australia:
A travel video all about Uluru, Australia’s Rock of Ages
Question: Can people climb Uluru?
Answer: The Aborigines consider Uluru a sacred place. People are not allowed to climb it.
Question: Are there other things to do there?
Answer: Uluru is part of a national park which contains other monoliths, waterfalls and wildlife. You can hike and sightsee.
Cite This Page
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MLA Style Citation
Declan, Tobin. " Uluru Fun Facts for Kids ." Easy Science for Kids, Aug 2017. Web. 20 Aug 2017. < http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-uluru-australian-ayers-rock/ >.
APA Style Citation
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Create successful practice, explore a composer's historical lifestyle, learn about modern composers, experience local performances - Musical Notes will enhance your music education and capture your imagination. Be Inspired!
John Williams is the most recognized name in film music. His scores are so well-known that just a few lines from one of his theme songs almost immediately places the listener into the scene of the movie. For example, the two note theme for Jaws re-creates one of the shark scenes in the minds of many. The Imperial March is yet another example. How could Darth Vader enter the scene without the Imperial March? These songs are so closely connected to the movies that they actually become a part of the movie.
Not only has John Williams captured the attention of the American people (and the world) but the film industry has recognized his accomplishments as well. He has been nominated for some 49 Academy Awards. John Williams has captured the art of storytelling with his music.
Jessica's Piano Studio
Teacher at Jessica's Piano Studio to many talented students! Here's some helpful tips and interesting information to create a wonderfully educational musical experience!


While working as a District Elementary Education Officer in the nineties of the last century, I had the privilege of interacting with a large number of teachers teaching at the grass root level. Soon after reaching a school for inspection, I used to ask the teachers: “How many of you teach language in this school?” The common answer was: “ Only one us.The language teacher, Sir.” “What about others? Don’t you teach Language?” “No, Sir, I teach Maths, she teaches Social Studies, he teaches……” I pretended to be surprised. “But, don’t you think, all of you are basically language teachers?” I used to ask. They were visibly shocked. How ignorant a District Education Officer could be, they must have wondered!
Do we need a teacher specifically for a particular language when all teachers are basically language teachers? Isolating language from the overall learning experience of a child goes against the theories of learning. How can we forget that all learning during our childhood was through language itself?
Language plays a central role in the learning experience of the child. It enables the child to form concepts, explore symbols, analyze a given problem and to solve it, organize information and interact with his or her environment. Therefore, irrespective of the subjects they teach, all teachers should give due weightage to the centrality of language in the learning process of the child and any pedagogic intervention should recognize the role of language in the transaction of the curriculum. The concept of Language across Curriculum acknowledges the fact that language education does not take place in the language class alone, it takes place in each and every subject.
While discussing the goal of language curriculum, the National Curriculum Framework of India also advocated a language across curriculum perspective. “A language across curriculum perspective particular relevance to primary education. Language is best acquired through different meaning making contexts, and hence all teaching is in a sense language teaching” (NCERT,2006:4).
Language across curriculum is based on three basic tenets: (a) language is more than surface structure, (b) the entire school as an environment influences the learners’ language development and (c) language plays a key role in virtually all school learning. ( Fillion, 1979: 48). Irrespective of the subject area, learners assimilate new concepts largely through language. When they listen and talk, read and write about what they are learning in non-language classes, they use language as language and consequently, while increasing their concepts in non-linguistic fields, they enhance their linguistic skills as well. Therefore, all the stakeholders of education need a broad language perspective that integrates language and content learning ( Mohan,B.A.: 1986:18).
The centrality of language in the transaction of the school curriculum leads us to content-related instruction that provides cognitively engaging contexts for language practice and integrates language development with content learning (Curtain, H and Dahlberg, A.,2010:281).
Language is a major tool for a child to decode the world around her, it is also a tool for her to learn about the world. For a child, a language is not limited to the domain of social interaction, it is also a resource for her thinking and reasoning. Therefore, don’t make the child a victim of the compartmentalization of your curriculum, design you curriculum in such a way that the cognitive development and the linguistic development of the child go hand in hand. All the teachers are equally responsible for presenting the language with its panoramic view before the inquisitive mind of the child.
Curtain, H. and Dahlberg, C.A. 2010. Languages and Children: Making the Match, Pearson: New York.
Fillion Bryant. 1979. Language across the Curriculum, McGill Journal of Education. Pp. 47-60.
Mohan, Bernard A. 1986.Language and Content. Addison-Wesley:Reading


Music education in Brazilian public elementary schools: A proposed curriculum for children of ages seven through ten
Date of Award
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
First Committee Member
J. David Boyle, Committee Chair
Second Committee Member
Joyce Jordan-DeCarbo, Committee Member
The study sought to develop a basic music curriculum for the first level of learning in the public schools of Brazil, that is, schools attended by students from seven to ten years of age, and to develop practical activities and inexpensive materials through which elementary classroom teachers may implement the curriculum.Essentially, the study delineates instructional objectives and specific activities related to melody, rhythm, texture, form, and the expressive characteristics of sound--timbre, dynamics, and tempo. Specific music, lists of materials, and guidelines for implementing the suggested activities are included. The musical materials are drawn primarily from Brazilian folk music. However, for listening activities, the works of some classical composers are included.The curriculum at each grade level is organized in terms of three broad classes of activities: (a) Performing Music, (b) Listening to and Describing Music, and (c) Improvising and Moving to Music. It includes specific activities for developing musical concepts about melody, rhythm, texture, form, and the expressive characteristics of sound--timbre, dynamics, and tempo.
Education, Music; Education, Curriculum and Instruction
Montarroyos, Joseide Gomes, "Music education in Brazilian public elementary schools: A proposed curriculum for children of ages seven through ten" (1988). Dissertations from ProQuest. 2722.


How to expand your child’s oral language…
As we discussed in our previous article “Literacy For Children“oral language is critical for literacy development and educational success.
Blank, Rose and Berlin (1978) developed a series of questions aiming to facilitate the development of a child’s language use from simple concrete concepts to more complex and abstract language forms.
Courtesy of Blanks research, the following levels of questions were developed as a general guide for stimulating a child’s expressive and receptive language by asking age appropriate questions:
Level One (2-3 year olds)
Questions relate to what’s happening in the child’s immediate environment.
“What is that?”
“What can you see?”
“Find one like this”
“Is it a —?” (yes/no response)
Level Two (3-4 year olds)
Starting to use basic analysis such as classifying/ grouping objects and describing objects by function.
“Find something that can …(jump)”
“What is happening in this picture?”
“Where is the…?” (requires a location response e.g. “on the chair” not just pointing
“Find something that is …(blue) and …(soft)”
“How are these different?”
“Which one is … (a vegetable)?”
Level Three (4-5 year olds)
Starting to use their own knowledge to make predictions and beginning to “Put themselves in someone else’s shoes”.
“What will happen next?”
“How do you think he feels?”
“How are these same/different?”
“What is a …?” (definitions)
Level Four (5 years +)
Starting to predict, problem solve and provide basic explanations. A child starts to use their own experience to determine solutions.
Predicting changes: “What will happen if…?”
Solutions: “What should we do now?”
Causes: “How did that happen?”
Justifying: “Why can’t we …eat jelly with a knife and fork?”
Explanations: “How can we tell he is angry?”


Note: this is the eleventh of a series of posts investigating the leadership style of John Wooden and its applicability to choral music education.
John Wooden’s central block in the third tier of his Pyramid of Success is SKILL.
Wooden says, “At the very center of the Pyramid of Success is Skill. You have to know your stuff and that includes a mastery of details.” He also says, “Mastery of the skills you need in your job requires learning and it is why leaders and those who are high achievers are lifelong learners.”
We can all agree that comprehensive skills are an essential part of quality music-making. I don’t think I need to spend any time convincing anyone of that. Wooden rightly put it at the center of the pyramid, along with alertness and initiative.
What I want us to consider here is Wooden hasn’t made skill a larger or more important building block in his pyramid. He could have made an bottom row labeled skill, implying it’s that important, but he didn’t.
There are fifteen traits Wooden considers vital to success, and skill is one of them.
What I’m saying is, you and I are guilty of focusing too much time on skill, neglecting the importance of the other fourteen traits.
It’s easy to focus on skill building, because teaching skills is straightforward and productive. We have spent our careers learning strategies for skill building, and when we attend conferences, it’s often with the goal of obtaining new skill-building techniques.
But I do not think that Wooden was the most successful college basketball coach ever because he prioritized skill formation. I believe his students succeeded because he nestled the learning of skills among the other fourteen traits of his pyramid.
It is his intentional approach to all fifteen of them that makes him a phenomenal success. Other coaches might have been better at teaching free throws, but his comprehensive teaching addressed so many more factors integral in success.
If you spend a few minutes every day on a lesson to your choir class, vocal technique should come up regularly – but so should loyalty, self-control, grit, and all the other traits your singers need to develop.
It’s not that skill isn’t important. It’s that it’s only one block of the pyramid.


A new report from Save the Children, Ending the Hidden Exclusion: Learning and equity in education post-2015, offers a detailed assessment of the challenges facing global education. The report’s key argument is outlined here by four Save the Children education experts from around the world: Desmond Bermingham, Gerd-Hanne Fosen, Will Paxton and Dan Stoner.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and much policy thinking in recent decades have rightly focused on an obvious and invidious exclusion – the large number of primary school age children who are still out of school.
But now we need to focus much more on a “hidden exclusion”: children who are in school but learning little or nothing.
Though less obvious, this form of exclusion is also both incredibly damaging for each child’s life chances and detrimental for achieving a fairer society. That’s why a post-2015 global education goal must include the explicit objective of not only improving overall learning, but also narrowing gaps in learning between the best off and the poorest, most disadvantaged children.
The scale of the challenge should not be underestimated. The chart below, adapted by Save the Children from work by the University of Stellenbosch’s Nicholas Spaull, distinguishes between “simple” enrolment – merely being in school – and “effective enrolment” – where children are in school and gaining basic literacy and numeracy skills.
In South Africa, for example, almost 100% of children are enrolled, but only around 70% are “effectively” enrolled; almost 30% are suffering from “hidden exclusion”. For many other countries – such as Malawi, Zambia or Namibia – the gap between simple and effective enrolment is even greater.
‘Simple’ versus ‘effective’ enrolment in literacy and numeracy of Grade 6 students in select eastern and southern African countries
Source: Based on data from Spaull and Taylor (2012) ‘Effective enrolment’ Stellenbosch Economic Working Papers 21/12.
The poorest and most marginalized are hit hardest by this hidden exclusion. In Uganda, for example, children from the best off households are 20 percentage points more likely to be in school and learning (measured using literacy at the end of primary school). In South Africa the gap is a shocking 33 percentage points. There are similar, though slightly less stark, differences between children in urban areas and those in poorer rural areas.
Gaps in learning are likely to be even greater for the children we know are most marginalized – including those living in conflict-affected areas, disabled children and those facing disadvantage because of their ethnicity or their mother tongue.
We know more about how marginalized these groups are in terms of access to school, not least because of the important work by the EFA Global Monitoring Report team and their World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE). But we know relatively little from national data about how much children in these groups suffer from hidden exclusion.
Save the Children is acutely aware, however – from its extensive experience working with some of the most disadvantaged children – that they face particularly large barriers to learning and tend to learn much less once in school. They are often the first generation in their families in school and will have less support in the home, might be asked to learn in a language other than their mother tongue and often live in areas with poorly resourced schools and the least trained teachers.
Narrowing learning gaps requires ambition and boldness
So what does this mean for the post-2015 development framework? Save the Children believes that tackling hidden exclusion demands an overall improvement in education quality: the overarching goal we have proposed is that all children “receive a good quality education and achieve good learning outcomes”. But critically we must avoid one of the main pitfalls of the current MDGs – a failure to explicitly target most inequalities.
That is why we must underpin an easily articulated overall goal with an ambitious target to substantially narrow the learning gaps between the poorest and best-off children. Our specific proposal is that this target should be:
“Narrowing the gap in literacy and numeracy learning outcomes achieved by aged 12 between the poorest and richest quintiles.”
Some will argue that this should be more ambitious: that is definitely an option. We could, for example, set a more explicit target of reducing the gap by 50%. There would certainly be a case for having more specific targets like this. But the absolutely critical point is to have a clear “gap narrowing” target of some form in the post-2015 framework.
Without such a target, we could ensure 100% enrolment in primary school in the coming years, only to let millions continue to suffer from a damaging hidden exclusion.


Educating children for life
We help children, including the most vulnerable, access quality education and attain functional levels of literacy, numeracy and essential life skills. When children can read, they can better advocate for their rights and help provide for their families.
World Vision uses a lifecycle approach in our programmes that focuses on the needs of children at all stages of development: early childhood, basic education, and adolescence and youth.
OUR GOALS FOR CHILDREN
We work with children, families and communities so that:
- Children read, write and use numeracy skills
- Children make good judgements, can protect themselves, manage their emotions and communicate ideas
- Adolescents are ready for economic opportunity
- Children can access and complete education
A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO EDUCATION
World Vision works with parents, teachers, community members and local partners to ensure that:
- Teachers know how to make learning effective and fun
- Parents are equipped to help their children learn in the home
- Community volunteers are trained to host after-school activities
- Whole communities get the opportunity to create learning materials for children that reflect their traditions, values and language
Download our two-page Quick Guides to learn more about our work. Additional resources can be found on our Resources page.


Ice Cream Numbers - preschool summer math that explores fine motor skills, counting, one-to-one correspondence, and more early math skills
"Being, Belonging & Becoming" (from Kinder Corner via Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/p/BQhKdInBpi7/?taken-by=kinder.corner)
Fine motor activity- balancing marbles on golf tees! Children loved it!
The Walking Rainbow science experiment should have been easy, but due to a mistake we discovered a fascinating capillary action and natural balance project. via @steampoweredfam
reggio-inspired Archive - Mathematics and Science in SD#38 (Richmond)
Spring Science for Kids: Make a rain cloud in a jar so kids can see up close how clouds make rain. | homeschoolpreschool.net via @homeschlprek
This super easy salt water experiment is the perfect science activity to teach kids about the density of salt and fresh water. Great for an ocean unit!
This oil and water science exploration is a fun science experiment for preschoolers and kids in early elementary.
Again, easily extended for older children by adding two ramps so that comparisons can be made, applying cloth to the surface, then vaseline, to see how those affect rolling speed, etc.


By Joanna Ragsdell, Institute for Cultural Diplomacy
It is a saying in the English language that if you smile the world smiles back. This is the basis behind the UK charity Comic Relief which uses humour to raise money to create a world free from poverty. In its history it has raised over £900 million helping 15,789 projects in the UK and Africa.
One of the projects sponsored by Comic Relief is Feed the Minds organisation. This charity runs grassroots education projects in some of the world’s poorest communities to save lives and reduce poverty. It builds hope, independence and opportunities for the future. Education is key to taking people out of poverty and enabling them to have a greater standard of living. It can provide a person with self-worth, empowerment and understanding of the world. The project targets certain countries within Africa and other parts of the developing world.
The importance of Feed the Minds can be seen in the story of Nusura Kassim, a woman from Arua, Uganda, where only 28% of the female population can read, compared to the UK where it is closer to 100%. Nusura Kassim was denied education, sold into marriage and left to bring up five children alone. She could not get a steady job because she could not read. Since attending classes, Nusura’s life has transformed. Thanks to her numeracy skills, she has a profitable business and hopes to build a secure home for her family.
The success behind this project is the partnerships between the UK volunteers and local organisers. The charity treats each different region separately enabling a community-based vibe towards the project. This allows for a cultural exchange to take place so that both the UK and local volunteers can learn from each other to provide the most effective service. This allows locals who feel marginalised within the society to empower themselves and take on a more prominent role within the community.
Every project covers one or more types of practical education:
- Vocational skills – to increase people’s living standards and independence.
- Health education – to improve people’s quality of life and ability to support themselves.
- Civic education – to help people access their rights and understand their responsibilities.
- Peacebuilding – to promote understanding between different groups, and reduce prejudice and conflict.
- Practical theological education – to equip ministers to meet community development needs.
The project works on the theory that if the world’s poorest improve their education then they can ultimately work and lift themselves out of poverty. Feed the Minds also understands the importance of the community and peace among groups to enable this personal journey of the individual to take place.
To come full circle – do these charities not suggest that if you smile the world indeed smiles back? When the UK raises money by ‘doing something funny’ then they can ultimately help those who need it most and put a smile back onto their face.
Center for Cultural Diplomacy Studies Publication
Institute for Cultural Diplomacy


The Hittite Empire (B.C.2000) established in the Anatolian geography in ancient time had laid a foundation of the handicrafts. The Hittites had devised tools and equipment made from clay to ease their daily life at that time and they had started using them accordingly. In order to keep the water clean and cold, they had produced water-battle, to protect their foods and to eat them easily, they had produced dishes and plates and to cook their foods, they had produced the pots as well as they had produced their products by free hand technique by using operated bench that was invented at that time.
In 1071, when Turks came to Anatolia, these products had been gained art value and Seljukian designs had produced by inspiring particularly from Hittite Empire and many civilization established in Anatolia. These designs are composed of geometric and nature figures and blue-white colors are dominant.
In 15th century, during the Ottoman time, Turkish handicrafts and architecture had experienced its golden age by Iznik ceramics and patterns. In addition to Seljuk designs, tulip, carnation, tree of life and Ottoman miniatures had been seen in the Ottoman designs. These designs are multi-colored instead of blue-white colors as in Seljuk time. The places where these patterns had been frequently used in Ottoman are madrasah, baths, palaces and mosques indeed. Nowadays, the best example of it could be seen in Topkapı Palace (1478), Sultan Ahmet Mosque (1616) and Selimiye Mosque (1575) accordingly. The most important reason that these products have never been deformed and have always remained fresh is the availability of quartz material at the highest rate in the clay.
As the Sultans Ceramic family, since 1762, we have been introducing the handicraft to our local and foreign art-lover guests that has been started for centuries thanks to our experience in the area of 4500 m² constructed by curving completely through hand workmanship within the rocks in Avanos in Cappadocia. The foundation of family art had laid by our grandfather Celal when Yavuz Sultan Selim who was the Ottoman Emperor in 1514 brought Turks in Khorosan. This art that has been inherited from generation to generation and transferred from father to son is at the 7th generation at the moment. The masters in our family have become skilled without having any art training only by their own skills on time. Our masters have learned the art education at 11-12 ages through their fathers. They serve as apprentice until 18, qualified workman until 25 and they gain master statue after 25 in the handicrafts. Until today, thanks to our knowledge and experience, we have spared no effort to introduce handicrafts by our various activities in the country and abroad. In the county; we have introduced handicrafts by being sponsor for below mentioned television series and we have also contributed to motion picture screen that is another art.
1. Asmalı Konak
2. Yer Gök Aşk
3. Kırık Ayna
4. Kapadokya Düşleri
On the other hand, in the foreign countries, we have introduced our country and Turkish handicrafts by means of following occasion;
1. Downtown Square, City of Singapore, Singapore (1999, 2000, 2001)
2. Berjaya Times Square, Kuala Lumpur, Malesia (2003, 2004, 2005)
3. Daley Plaza, Chicago, United States of America ( 2007, 2008, 2009)
4. Alamo Castle, San Antonio, United States of America ( 2011)
5. Among 16th and 20th Streets, Philadelphia, United States of America ( 2012)
6. Eau Claire Festival Plaza, Calgary, Canada (2012)
7. Nathan Phillips and Pecaut Squares , Toronto, Canada (2012)
In our rapid globalizing world, we have attempted to contribute to our country’s value and ceramic culture that are our common heritage by introducing Turkish handicrafts to the foreign art-lovers in the international area.
Sultans Ceramic is a unique ceramics company which is not found anywhere in Turkey, except in the town of Avanos, Cappadocia. It is only in Avanos that you will find this little treasure.


Help to up-skill childcare staff before they reach the frontline
Exit requirements for English and maths will ensure high quality childcare for all.
People looking to work in childcare will be given more help to reach the high levels needed to give children the best start in life, Childcare Minister Sam Gyimah announced today (1 July 2015).
Childcare apprentices will have to show they have a good level of English and maths by the end of their training through the creation of an ‘exit standard’ of a grade C or above in GCSE English and maths.
Today’s announcement builds on last week’s Ofsted early years statistics that showed settings offering the government’s free hours of childcare per week have never been rated better and the quality of staff has never been higher. As a result, 100,000 more pupils are on track to be reading more confidently compared to 2012.
Childcare Minister Sam Gyimah said:
All the evidence shows that the higher the quality of childcare, the higher the quality of a child’s learning and development. That’s why it’s imperative that childcare workers have crucial literacy and numeracy skills needed to give every child the best possible start in life.
We’re totally committed to raising the bar and improving the care children receive in the early years so parents can have the strongest confidence in the people who are teaching our youngest children.
However, unnecessary barriers shouldn’t stop skilled people joining the workforce, and it makes much more sense to have an exit standard rather than a barrier to entry. That’s why I’m pleased to say that we will offer people the chance to study their maths and English GCSEs alongside their childcare apprenticeship training.
The news has been warmly welcomed by the childcare sector, who say that the move will encourage more apprentices to join the early years workforce.
Sue Robb, Head of Early Years at 4Children, said:
We welcome the government’s decision that apprentices can work for their childcare qualifications at the same time as studying for their GCSEs in maths and English.
This will encourage more apprentices into childcare and early years.
Neil King, from the London Early Years Foundation, said:
It is essential that we have accessible routes for those apprentices who are on their way to achieving their grade C in maths and English; whilst ensuring we continue to raise the quality of provision for children across the sector through the early years educator (EYE) qualification.
This decision further supports government policy which is predicated on a high quality early years workforce that is fit for the future.
Staff with level 3 EYE qualifications can lead and manage settings delivering this care, so it is essential that they are suitably qualified and have an appropriate level of numeracy and literacy.
A number of government-funded projects are available to help staff to improve core skills while they are training or employment.
The apprenticeship trailblazer group made up of childcare employers has submitted a new apprenticeship standard to government for consideration including a GCSE on an exit requirement. If approved by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, the new standard would come into effect on 1 August 2015.
In order to raise the quality of early years learning, the Department for Education has improved early years’ qualifications by setting more robust criteria for them and encouraging more high-quality entrants to the profession, including graduates through early years initial teacher training routes.
As a result, 87% of the workforce now have level 3 qualifications and 13% have degrees.
Notes to editors
- 85% of children receiving the government’s offer of free childcare receive it in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ settings
- The apprenticeship trailblazer group is made up of childcare employers and has a remit to develop employer led apprenticeship standards on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
- The exit requirement for GCSE English and maths grade ‘C’ or above means the new standard is more closely aligned with the requirements of other apprenticeship programmes. The standard will not however accept functional skills as an alternative to GCSE.
- In addition to apprenticeship routes, there are also standalone childcare courses that provide a level 3 training route for those individuals that already hold GCSE English and maths.
Central newsdesk 020 7783 8300
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Making Ghanaian Girls Great!
Making Ghanaian Girls Great! (MGCubed) Background
Making Ghanaian Girls Great! (MGCubed) is Ghana’s first interactive distance-learning project. The Project has impacted over 10, 000 marginalized girls and boys in 72 schools, within two regions in Ghana (Volta and Greater Accra) by providing them with an enhanced quality of education to improve their lives and transform their future. MGCubed aims at addressing the challenges of teacher quality, teacher absenteeism, and poor student learning by equipping two classrooms in every school with solar-powered computers and projectors through which real-time two-way interactive distance lessons occur. The project is been funded by the Department for International Development (DFID)’s Girls' Education Challenge (GEC).
In School Classes
Over a three -year period, 1 hour of basic Maths and 1 hour of basic English Language curriculum is taught during the school day, broadcast live to multiple classrooms by master teachers from two teaching studios in Accra. A total of over 10, 000 girls and boys have been taught basic numeracy and literacy over the project.
After School Wonder Women and Boys Boys Sessions
In addition to the in-school classes, the project delivers for an hour per day an after-school girls' club called Wonder Women to up to 50 marginalised girls, per school including some out-of-school girls. The Project introduced boys after school sessions known as Boys Boys as an offshoot of the Wonder Women sessions. The after school sessions for the girls and boys cover topics such as early pregnancy, early marriage, reproductive health, personal hygiene, child rights, and financial literacy, leadership and problem solving, community projects as well as introducing them to different adult female and male role models. The goal has been to empower them, raise their self-esteem, increase their aspirations to enable them stay in school.
Community and stakeholder engagement is a critical part of MGCubed’s delivery strategy. In order to achieve self-governing local committees, MGCubed works with volunteers in deprived communities and Parents and Teachers Associations (PTAs). The Project works in collaboration with the Girls Education Unit and the District Directorates of Ghana Education Service.
- The Project’s independent external evaluation at Midline and Endline through a Randomized Control Trail (RCT) using the Early-Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early-Grade Maths Assessment (EGMA) test showed the following results:
- Large and significant positive impact on numeracy skills with a treatment effect equivalent to 0.39 standard deviations in test scores at Midline. Positive effects found across all components of the mathematics test and for all students, but effect even stronger for girls and students in earlier grades.
- The treatment effect on an index created from the various English test tasks between Midline and Endline was 0.275 standard deviations, with a treatment effect on words-per-minute of 0.11 standard deviations.
- MGCubed influenced girls’ beliefs regarding gender norms, with girls in Project schools more likely to disagree with a standardized index of statements reflecting patriarchal norms.
- 80% of facilitators (school based teachers) teach other non-MGCubed standard classes, a valuable positive unintended consequence is the spillover impact of improvements in teaching quality on students outside MGCubed classes.
- 55 out of the 246 (22%) out of school girls have successfully returned to mainstream schooling
- Improvement in the confidence of the girls observed in their readiness to take up leadership positions in school, public speaking, and boldness to report abuse cases, operating classroom technology equipment and managing classrooms on behalf of teachers.
Download the brochure for more information here.


The Anthropology Department offers this combined major in partnership with Western's Woodring College of Education. Anthropology is particularly valuable for teachers, because it provides a broad understanding of human behavior. Teachers often work with students of various cultural backgrounds and an awareness of specific cultural learning influences, attitudes, motivations, and patterns of interaction is an integral part of working effectively and respectfully in diverse communities.
Through the required basic courses in Anthropology, education majors will acquire an understanding of the nature of human beings, the evolution of the human species and the tremendous variation of cultural traits that are both our heritage and potential. With faculty advisement, Anthropology — Elementary students will identify topics for advanced coursework, including:
- Cultural minority groups in the Pacific Northwest
- The relationship of cultural learning to personality development
- The relationship of cultural expectations to the learning process itself
This major satisfies the academic major requirement for teacher certification with an endorsement in elementary education and must be accompanied by the professional preparation program in Elementary Education offered through Woodring College of Education.


Description of course:
the past thirty years or so in educational circles a debate has raged over the most effective method of teaching reading.
Is teaching phonics more effective than whole language? Is whole language instruction more effective than phonemic awareness? Classroom teachers who have been caught in the shifting tides of the debate have long
known that both methods leave something to be desired. Students who are taught through the phonics first method develop strong
rote skills. Spelling, grammar, and literal comprehension tend to be relative strength for these students. Students who learn to read through the whole language approach have a good grasp of story elements but
often remain weak in spelling, grammar, and writing mechanics.
the National Reading Panel conducted a major study in 1996. The results of this study point to the development of stronger
literacy programs by combining not only phonics instruction with whole language approaches but also combining elements of
reading and writing instruction into one program. The resulting integrated whole is referred to as balanced literacy. Reading skills affect the development of writing skills and vice versa. A balanced approach takes advantage of this and includes elements of word study, guided
reading, silent sustained reading, interactive writing, and grammar and spelling as just some of its focus.
course will briefly explore the historical development of balanced literacy. The
majority of our work will center around the aspects of reading and writing programs that are included in balanced literacy
and how to use those elements to create lesson plans appropriate to a specific teaching situation. What does balanced literacy look like in the real world classroom? How can a teacher plan and prepare for
balanced literacy instruction? What elements of balanced literacy are particular
to the middle school?
Intended Student Population:
course will benefit beginning teachers who have little or no practical experience in literacy instruction. It is designed for future literacy educators, potential reading specialists, and even for current teacher
facing a new classroom approach with little practical guidance.
will use a variety of online tools to explore materials that will clarify just what comprises balanced literacy. They will
then explore a variety of online tools and use these tools to create lesson and unit plans they can use.
Online Tools for this course:
following four tools are the primary tools selected for this course. These tools
will be used for both formative and summative assessments throughout the course.
more important reason for the selection of these tools is that they can easily be turn keyed into use in literacy classes
ü Exam Professor
ü Our Story
ü Teacher Ease


Professor Renata Salecl, a Slovenian philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist, raises an interesting perspective on the topic of choice. She highlights that the provision of rights and choice are generally thought to equate to social change. Apparently this may not be necessarily true. Salecl points out that if we are overwhelmed with a raft of choices (think of being in the supermarket trying to decide which cheese to buy) then feelings of anxiety can arise and we can even become frozen in indecisiveness. How does this effect society? Salecl uses the analogy of a diner at a restaurant trying to decide on which bottle of wine to buy. They don't want to choose the lowest priced bottle in case people think they're cheap. They also don't want to choose the most expensive bottle for the fear of people thinking that they're showing off. The result is that we generally choose something 'in the middle' to appease society and the anxiety in choice.
Choice provokes anxiety in a number of ways:
- We never make individual choices. That is, we don't make choices separate or outside of society. We choose what other people are choosing. We do this because we ask ourselves 'how will others regard us in regards to our choice?' Choice is a very social matter.
- We try to make an ideal choice. For example, we are constantly switching mobile phone providers in order to find the best deal. This results in a certain level of constant dissatisfaction.
- Choice always involves a loss. When you make a choice then you immediately lose the possibility of having chosen the other option. Dealing with loss is something that can provoke anxiety.
- Another layer of anxiety comes in the form of ideology. The ideology of choice forces us to perceive ourselves as being guilty for the failures in our life.
So Salecl asks whether the ideology of choice actually prevents social change? Her opinion is that the ideology of choice actually makes us criticise ourselves rather than the society we live in, therefore inhibiting social change.
This got me thinking about how the ideology of choice applies to education. I've titled this post 'the choice paradox' because myself, and many other educators, encourage the availability of choice for our students. We give our students choice in the tools they use, the topics they inquire into and the people they work with. This is because we believe in that every student learns in different ways, one size does not fit all, and everyone has a variety of needs. By offering our students these choices we must be giving them the best opportunities to develop and show their understanding. But what if these choices that we offer are actually working against the things that we think they are promoting?
Peter Dudley, in Assessment in Action in the Primary School highlights the factors that effective primary schools offer their students. They include motivation; high expectations and self-esteem; a belief that learning is important; literacy and numeracy skills; the ability to organise and learn independently; the confidence to take risks in learning and view mistakes as a necessary part of the learning process. Dudley highlights the interesting point that many of these factors relate not to cognitive processes but to how learners feel about themselves. He points out that these 'affective factors are vital to the process of learning and achievement'.
Is it possible that by offering our students too much choice that we may be initiating some of the factors that Salecl says provokes anxiety? Furthermore, do anxious students exhibit many (or any) of Dudley's behaviours listed above? How much choice should we be offering to our students? For me, the jury is out on this one until I can read some more about it but it has certainly given me something to think about.


David Spencer's Education Paragon is a free educational resource portal helping David Spencer's secondary school students, their parents and teaching colleagues with understanding, designing, applying and delivering assessment, curriculum, educational resources, evaluation and literacy skills accurately and effectively. This wiki features educational resources for Indigenous Aboriginal education, field trips for educators, Davids Music Jam, law and justice education, music education and outdoor, environmental and experiential education. Since our web site launch 10.5 years ago on September 27, 2006, online site statistics and web rankings indicate there are currently 1,868 pages and 11,682,604 page views using 7.85 Gig of bandwidth per month. Pages are written, edited, published and hosted by Brampton, Ontario, Canada based educator David Spencer. On social media, you may find David as @DavidSpencerEdu on Twitter, as DavidSpencerdotca on Linkedin.com and DavidSpencer on Prezi. Please send your accolades, feedback and resource suggestions to David Spencer. Share on social media with the hashtag #EducationParagon
Knowledge Ontario fills the information and learning needs of the people of Ontario and nurtures their full and equal participation in our province’s life, culture and future through wide collaboration, a culture of creativity and use of leading edge digital technology.
Knowledge Ontario’s plans and projects support the achievement of six over-arching goals:
- Bridge the digital divide by providing equitable and seamless access to high quality digital content and services to people at every stage of life and reflective of Ontario’s diverse communities
- Strengthen libraries as community hubs of learning and literacy by adopting and delivering new technologies and innovative services
- Enable the creation of informed, engaged and digitally literate citizens
- Build Ontario’s digital literacy and critical thinking skills through creation of innovative, collaborative, web-based learning tools
- Support life-long learning and close the gap experienced by students and adult learners in Ontario’s remote and rural communities by delivering quality electronic databases, virtual reference services and digital learning tools
- Enable communities to create and manage sustainable digital content about Ontario history and culture and make it discoverable to a wider audience
Knowledge Ontario Services
Knowledge Ontario services are available to every community in Ontario. See what’s available for you:
- Ask Ontario realtime chat help for online research
- Connect Ontario transforming the public library user experience using the BiblioCommons OPAC
- Learn Ontario learning digital literacies
- Our Ontario digital toolsets and search technologies. VITA (Video, Image, Text and Audio) is a web based toolkit for building digital collections, available free through partnership with Our Ontario. PICA (Press Index for Community Access) is a web based software for uploading and indexing full runs of heritage newspapers. To search and browse existing heritage newspaper collections, go to the Ontario Newspaper Index.
- Resource Ontario access to trusted e-resources, anytime, anywhere. Watch the video.


Discussion Paper series, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit 6524
School accountability systems that establish the adoption of incentives for teachers and school managers usually impact positively students' performance. However, in many circumstances, school accountability systems may face institutional restrictions to establish rewards and sanctions to administrators. In that aspect, the Brazilian accountability system is an interesting example: Most of primary public schools are run by municipal officials and federal government cannot enforce the adoption of incentives at local level. However, because mayors of Brazilian municipalities are the ultimate responsible for public elementary education we provide evidence that in 2008 local election, just some months after the publication of the second wave of a new evaluation of public schools run every two years by federal government, mayors became electorally accountable for not improving school quality. The results show that, on average, one point increase in a 0-10 scale index from 2005 to 2007 increased by around 5 percentage points the probability of re-election. This effect is even greater in localities with lower per capita income and those where the fraction of children at school age is larger. Therefore, electoral accountability may play a complementary role in school accountability systems that had not yet been fully exploited by education and political economics and political science literatures.
public education school accountability electoral accountability mayoral re-election races


All children in Al Bashaer School EYFS are given the opportunity to experience the very best possible start to their education. These early years are critical as children develop rapidly during this time, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially.
We aim to introduce the children to a wide range of learning experiences which will lead to the acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding. We aim to create a safe and stimulating environment which will encourage self confidence and allow your child to reach their full potential.
The curriculum for the Foundation Stage should underpin all futurelearning by supporting, fostering, and promoting children’s;
• Personal, social and emotional development
• Communication, language and literacy development
• Problem solving, reasoning and number
• Knowledge and understanding of the world
• Physical development
• Creative development
The following sections describe the six areas of early development on which we base our activities.
Six areas of learning :
The curriculum guidance for the foundation stage is set out in six areas of learning covering children’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development
The six areas of development are included in the profile :


- Students will be able to respond to a writing prompt and build on an idea.
- Students will be able to create experiences or events that follow a sequence to tell a story.
- Students will be able to connect sequencing story events to programming.
- Students will be able to write commands in the correct sequence to run a program.
Common Core Alignment
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
“This is a special week! This week is the Hour of Code, where students all around the world are learning about computer science. We are going to start by thinking about things we already know and do, and how they can help us learn computer science so we can use technology to help ourselves and the world.
Today, we are going to talk about how reading and writing are a lot like computer programming. When we read, we have to follow something called a sequence for the story to make sense. We have to keep track of the events that happen in the stories we read, or we won’t understand the story. As authors, we have to have a clear plot with events in a sequence to tell a story to our readers.
This is just like sequence in computer programming! Programmers have to instruct computers by giving them written directions in something called code. If the code is out of order, the program won’t make sense to the computer and it won’t be able to do anything- just like stories don't make sense out of sequence.
We’re going to start by reading a short Kodable story together and seeing how the author organizes the event sequence. After we practice together, you’ll get your own graphic organizer to plan out your own short story based on a fun prompt and then you'll write a rough draft. Finally, you’ll show how much you learned about sequence today by getting on your device (iPad, computer) to sequence commands that will move the Kodable blueFuzz through a maze!
We are going to follow directions and work together as we learn about sequence and organization in reading, writing, and programming.”
Direct Instruction (I do)
Read the "Kodable World"(included in materials) narrative to students, keeping track of events that unfold throughout the story. Model reading comprehension strategies such as thinking out loud, tracking words with your finger, keeping track of characters, etc.
Listen to students conferring and bring the group back together after a few minutes. In a place where everyone can see, lay out the order of events and explain how the details and sequence help the story make sense.
"Now, you're going to come up with your own short story! To start, you're going to plan out your story. You'll have a prompt to start your story that will give you the setting and characters, but you'll need to come up with events that happen in your story and a clear ending."
Give students the "Story Map" graphic organizer to plan their story before writing. Model for students how you would build on a prompt by coming up with creative (silly, fun, real, imagined) ideas. Show students how to use the graphic organizer to help them plan the events and closing in their story.
Once students have planned out their stories, have them get a story template to begin writing their short story.
"Now that you have a storyline that follows a sequence and will make sense to your reader, you are going to write your story!"
Share the prompt with students and get students to their work spaced with materials needed to write.
"When you're done with your story, you'll get your device and continue using sequence to move blueFuzz through the maze."
When students have completed their stories, explain that the same concept they used to help their stories make sense will be used to successfully command blueFuzz through the maze. Make connections between the Kodable World story and the sequence writing activity.
"Sequence is just as important in programming as it is in reading and writing. In all three ways that we use sequence, we know that if the sequence is incorrect the result won't be what we tried to do. Your job now is to practice putting the commands in the correct sequence to program the fuzz through the maze!"
Students complete the on-screen levels in Smeeborg Sequence Sector "1,2,3 Roll" and "Buggy Basics" 1.1-1.10 independently.


1. CVP Analysis with Semi-fixed Costs
Melissa Mooring, director and owner of the Kids Education Center, has a master's degree in elementary education. In the seven years she has been running the Kids Education Center, her salary has ranged from nothing to $20,000 per year. "The second year," she says, "I made 62 cents an hour." (Her salary is what's left over after meeting all other expenses.)
Could she run a more profitable center? She thinks perhaps she could if she increased the student-teacher ratio, which is currently five students to one teacher. (Government standards for a center such as this set a maximum of 10 students per teacher.) She refuses to increase the ratio to more than six-to-one. "If you increase the ratio to more than six-to-one, the children don't get enough attention. In addition, the demands on the teacher are far too great." She does not hire part-time teachers.
Mooring rents the space for her center in the basement of a church for $900 per month, including utilities. She estimates that supplies, snacks, and other non-personnel costs are $80 per student per month. She charges $380 per month per student. Teachers receive $1,200 per month, including fringe benefits. She has no other operating costs. At present, she cares for 30 students and employs six teachers.
a. What is the present operating profit per month of the Kids Education Center before Ms. Mooring's salary?
b. What is (are) the break-even point(s), before Ms. Mooring's salary, assuming a student-teacher ratio of 6:1?
c. What would be the break-even point(s), before Ms. Mooring's salary, if the student-teacher ratio increased to 10:1?
d. Ms. Mooring has an opportunity to increase the student body by six students. She must take all six or none. Should she accept the six students if she wants to maintain a maximum student-teacher ratio of 6:1?
e. (Continuation of part d.) Suppose that Ms. Mooring accepts the six children. Now she has the opportunity to accept one more, which requires hiring one more teacher. What would happen to profit, before her salary, if she accepts one more student?
The solution is in excel showing CVP analysis with semi fixed costs showing the impact of step costs on cost-volume-profit analysis.


Government and Google-backed organisation looks to boost computing skills of primary teachers
A UK government initiative to improve computing education in primary schools will train teachers using Google money and the training skills of volunteer organisation Code Club.
Google has invested £120,000 in the Code Club Pro project, which will provide low cost training for primary school teachers preparing for the Government’s new computing curriculum, commencing in September this year.
Volunteers know best?
Under the new curriculum, all primary school teachers will teach computer programming to children of 5 and over, but for many this will be their first time teaching the subject, with little or no prior experience or training. The initiative enlists Code Club, which has been using parents and other volunteers to run a network of over 1,875 after-school coding clubs, using a specially-developed set of modules aimed to help children buld interactive sites and applications.
Unveiled today by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne and launching in April, Code Club Pro aims to train 4,500 primary school teachers by the end of this year, and 20,000 by 2016. Schools and teachers can register their interest through the Code Club Pro website, which also contains information regarding a variety of online learning programmes and resources.
At the launch of the initiative in Cheshire today, Osborne emphasised the need to get young people interested in technology.
“In an increasingly digital world, it is more important than ever that we equip our young people to make the most of the opportunities offered by the burgeoning tech industry,” he said.
“This new partnership is a great opportunity for teachers to get the skills they need to prepare for the upcoming curriculum change and teach children the computing and coding skills that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.”
Launched in 2012, Code Club provides initial training for children and adults at after-school clubs run by volunteers, and has enjoyed a massive surge of support following a wave of interest in computing.
“The addition of coding to the new primary school curriculum is a great step forward for the UK education sector,” said Clare Sutcliffe (pictured), Code Club co-founder and CEO. “However, to date, there has been a lack of focus on how to equip the primary school teachers to actually teach this new subject. We know first-hand that teachers are feeling daunted by the prospect of having to teach a syllabus they don’t fully understand themselves.
“As a result, we decided to create a training programme that would help support them through this period of change. Our goal is to improve access to training, so that teachers can feel confident and excited about delivering the new computing curriculum.”
Google’s UK engineering director, Mike Warriner, said of the launch, “There is increasing demand for computer science skills in all industries – not just tech – and Code Club Pro is a great initiative to engage the UK’s teachers in computing and give them the skills they need to inspire the next generation of coders.”
How much do you know about Google? Try our quiz!


Title: Student-Involved Classroom Assessment in a Literacy Education Class
Discipline(s) or Field(s): Reading Education, Elementary Education, Secondary Education
Authors: Judy C. Lambert, Melissa Stinnett, Joan Naomi Steiner, University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh
Submission Date: February 28, 2007
The goal of this project was to develop and refine a lesson that would provide a clear and consistent vision for student-involved classroom assessment. In the developed lesson for Adolescent Literacy Methods and Literacy and Language in the Content Areas, undergraduate students explored their beliefs about assessment and participated in specific class activities to generate new learning. Learning goals for the students were: 1) to gain background knowledge of best practices in assessment; 2) to be able to self-assess an assignment using a rubric; 3) to learn how to write I can statements; 4) to apply demonstrated strategies in their teaching units; 5) to appreciate the value of student-involved assessment.
Students viewed a DVD regarding assessment myths and a new vision for assessment and participated in several specific student-involved classroom assessment strategies. These strategies included
- Two-Minute Write
- Three Column Notes
- Key Learnings
- Learning Logs
- I Can Statements . . .
After self-assessing an assignment, students wrote “I can statements. . .” or learning targets for improving their own performance. Students later reflected upon their learning and how they might implement student-involved assessment strategies in their future classrooms.


Paradox, problem, and potential in secondary school jazz education
Warner, Matthew Eric
MetadataShow full item record
Several rationales for secondary school jazz education are commonly referenced in pedagogy manuals, advocacy literature, and instructional resources: jazz education can develop certain musicianship skills more effectively than traditional large ensemble classes (e.g., concert band), jazz education fosters lifelong music-making, jazz education can help build and sustain an audience for jazz, and jazz education is important because jazz holds a special place in American art and culture. The growth of jazz education, however, does not seem to have led to the expansion of the jazz audience and consumers in the USA or increased the likelihood of lifelong music making of students. Furthermore, jazz educators have not employed the kind of curricular structure and pedagogical practices necessary to take advantage of salient features of jazz in secondary music education. A close examination of the incongruence between rationales for jazz education and the practices of jazz education in secondary schools reveals certain paradoxes: student jazz participation grows, while broader jazz consumption ebbs; jazz education resources multiply, while diversity of theory and practice within jazz education diminishes; student jazz ensembles become more polished, but at the expense of developing skills that enhance students' personal music agency. I contend in this study that paradoxes such as these can be useful as a framework for problematizing as well as imagining (and ultimately enacting) possibilities. I propose that a "this-with-that" dialectic described by Jorgensen enables paradoxes to be analyzed and potentials to be discovered. I describe three paradoxes in secondary school jazz education with a twofold purpose: 1) to critique secondary school jazz education and offer recommendations based on this critique, and 2) to provide a practical example of how paradoxes in music education might be engaged by music educators. Although this project will have special significance to secondary school jazz educators because it offers a sustained critique in that area, it is my hope that this project will benefit music educators of all types as they encounter paradoxes in music education.
Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University


Nord Anglia International School, New York, offers a program for 2-year-olds which uses song and play to sow the seeds of literacy, numeracy, and language.
Our 2-year-old program is a fun environment for children to start learning.
Our approach uses play, song, and movement to help children take their first steps with literacy and numeracy skills. Our playful learning experiences set your child up for a future of learning.
Led by qualified UK teachers, our programs run from 8:30 to 11:30 with options available for full day from 8.30 to 3.00.
Our program focuses on:
Reading: Your child enjoys reading through group story-time sessions, and builds up the ability to recognize words as age-appropriate confidence is developed.
Foreign language: Your child picks up the building blocks of Spanish through games involving song and movement
Holistic Approach: Our teaching staff provide a safe and nurturing environment in which a curious and exploring child can learn "why", while giving them the opportunity to play and meet new friends. The learning they absorb at this early age sets them up for a future in which they are more confident, more socially-assured, and more in-tune with their personality, their talents, and their learning abilities.
We use the Development Matters approach to learning, which is designed for children learning the English National Curriculum up to the age of five. This approach stresses the personal, social and emotional development of the child, as well as communication, physical development, literacy, math, art and design, and world understanding.


The Reading Debate
Video of Jennifer Buckingham’s address to an Australian forum following significant media attention for her report (with Kevin Wheldall and Robin Beaman-Wheldall), Why Jaydon Can’t Read. Buckingham summarises succinctly the massive funding for literacy education in Australia and compares this with the poor results in student achievement. She goes on to examine the key components of effective reading instruction and argues that, given the scientific evidence, the only reason for not implementing effective programmes is ideology – how people believe reading ought to be rather than how it is.
This comprehensive article discusses the origins, prevalence and erroneous conception of the so called 'Three-Cueing System', which promotes guessing rather than teaching a systematic knowledge of the written language code.
Kerry Hempenstall summarises key aspects of the controversy around whole language versus phonics methods in beginning reading instruction. He argues for the evidence of scientific research to be given greater emphasis.
Whole-Language High Jinks – How to Tell When ‘Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction’ Isn’t (Moats, L January 2007): Thomas B Fordham Institute
Louisa Moats outlines how to discriminate between reading programmes which are scientifically-based and those which use the jargon, but are actually based on ineffective practices. Essential reading when choosing a reading intervention.
Joseph Torgeson summarises two decades of research on what is required to ensure effective early reading instruction for all children. He argues for improved teacher skills, improved practise for identifying children at risk of reading failure, and improved resources for teaching all of these children systematically, explicitly and successfully.
This report questions the effectiveness of Reading Recovery, an international popular reading intervention based on whole-language principles. The authors assert that not only are there serious problems with the methodology of Reading Recovery, but there is also strong evidence that it fails to help the children who need the most support in reading.
This lucid summary of the state of literacy education in 2009 highlights issues still not yet resolved: the lack of a systematic, good-quality evidence base for interventions, especially at secondary school; and the need to establish much more thorough professional development on reading development and how to intervene successfully with struggling readers. Such professional development should be made available to English teachers, teachers of other subjects, and LSAs.
Tom Burkard sets out the appalling statistics for continuing literacy failure after the Literacy Hour was introduced in 1998, showing how the National Literacy Strategy was itself a component in this failure due to its roots in whole language concepts of reading (not to mention some suspicious tinkering with statistics).
A news report from 2005 contrasting the success of synthetic phonics in Clackmannanshire with the lack of progress under the Literacy Hour. A key question is how much the classroom has changed since.
A good example of how mixed messages come from confused ideas about phonics teaching. Exactly when students should be taught more varied and complex aspects of the alphabetic code, some practitioners eagerly want them to begin to use ‘visual memory’ and look for ‘context clues’. Muddling up phonics instruction with other (failed) methods is the likely explanation for poor scores on the phonics screen (which assesses the effectiveness of the teaching, not students).
Dr Hempenstall summarises the position taken in the reading debates. This overview provides an excellent perspective not only on the key issues but the arguments and philosophical positions which sustain them.
The authors contend that literacy is much more complex than just learning to read, that the government’s policies on literacy are too narrow, and its treatment of professionals too heavy-handed. The weight of material cited is firmly on the ‘socially constructed’ approach to reading that is associated with whole language and constructivism.
This short paper form 1996 outlines the problem of falling standards and attributes it largely to a ‘mixed methods’ or ‘balanced’ approach, combining phonetic methods with context clues and guessing. The challenge for teacher training is clearly set out. It is interesting to reflect on how much (or little) progress has been made since the time of publication.
This site has extracts from Jeanne Chall’s landmark work, where she researched and articulated contemporary issues in how to teach beginning reading. Chall pointed out that the issue was already a long-standing debate, but one which was increasingly influenced by non-practitioners. She concluded that a code-based approach worked best for beginning readers, particularly those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and that this approach ultimately gave more success in reading for understanding.


The Home Literacy Environment Is a Correlate, but Perhaps Not a Cause, of Variations in Children’s Language and Literacy Development
Puglisi ML., Hulme C., Hamilton LG., Snowling MJ.
© 2017 Marina L. Puglisi, Charles Hulme, Lorna G. Hamilton, and Margaret J. Snowling. Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children’s language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children’s reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study of children at high risk of dyslexia (N = 251) followed from preschool years. Latent factors describing maternal language were significant predictors of storybook exposure but not of direct literacy instruction. Maternal language and phonological skills respectively predicted children’s language and reading/spelling skills. However, after accounting for variations in maternal language, storybook exposure was not a significant predictor of children’s outcomes. In contrast, direct literacy instruction remained a predictor of children’s reading/spelling skills. We argue that the relationship between early informal home literacy activities and children’s language and reading skills is largely accounted for by maternal skills and may reflect genetic influences.


The Tuneables is an award-winning children's music education DVD and CD series designed to teach the key building blocks of music at a critical time in a child's development. Sponsored by the Music Intelligence Project, this fun, interactive program engages children in songs and activities that provide a foundation of music understanding and growth in intellectual development. Ages 3-8.
Buy your copy today at: www.thetuneables.com/the-music-shop/
The fundamental rhythmic understanding in music is the beat. And, the fundamental way to gain understanding of the beat is through movement. Children are usually successful performing the beats in music when the movement and the tempo (speed of the music) are appropriate for their developmental level.
Very young children are usually successful when they use the lap-pat to respond on the beat. This bi-lateral movement, performed from a seated position, requires only basic muscle coordination. The movements for both hands and arms are the same. Further, the time of impact provides precisely focused visceral (body) feedback for beat accuracy when the hands strike the knees or thighs. Other bi-lateral movements include tapping the head, shoulders and toes.
Many songs encourage clapping to the beat, but one should be aware that this motion requires moving the hands in opposition to each other, thus, presenting some difficulty for some children to perform the beat. In such cases, changing the movement to a lap-pat would be advisable.
Alternating motions, such as marching, can also be employed after children have been successful with more basic movements. However, with this motion, as with all other motions, the tempo selected will have a bearing on rhythmic accuracy. In general, music with a tempo of about 120 beats per minute will be successful for most children. Music that is too slow (less that 100 beats per minute) or too fast (more that 140 beats per minute) may be difficult for young children to perform accurately.
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WHAT IS GAINED FROM MUSIC STUDY?
Music lessons are more than just learning to read music and playing pieces. Pursuing music study reaps many benefits for children and adults.
PERSONAL GROWTH: A love for music brings relaxation to the musician and to the listener. Recent studies have found that music lessons help to lower anxiety, depressions, and the feeling of loneliness. Most students learn easily. Music enriches the inner self and provides many hours of enjoyment to take one beyond the daily routine of life.
DEVELOPS A LOVE & APPRECIATION OF MUSIC: Probably the most lasting value of music study is the love and appreciation of music that is developed during lessons. The beauty and complexity of music unfolds as you learn about the stylistic characteristics of the different periods of music history, hear and analyze other interpretations and create your own.
PROVIDES EMOTIONAL RELEASE: Humans have the basic need to express themselves. Music expresses all the emotions of life such as joy, sorrow, and excitement. Music helps create an emotional release in both the performer and listener.
INCREASES CONCENTRATION SPAN: The more we exercise our brains, the more they are capable of doing. Learning to play an instrument and read music requires the student’s attention. To effectively keep a steady beat, play the correct notes, finger properly, and interpret all dynamic marks, a student must continually look ahead one or more measures. Music demands that the student develop concentration and mastery over distractions.
INSTILLS SELF DISCIPLINE: Did you ever notice in life that you seem to be the most productive when you have the least amount of time? When you have free days, it seems as if the day disappears, and not one thing was accomplished. Music lessons actually help you organize your lifestyle as you set and realize your goals.
DEVELOPS COORDINATION: Music improves coordination between thought and actions. There are 39 muscles located just in the forearm and hand, and at execution rates of technically advanced instrumental play, most of those muscles are intermittently active many times each second. Music performance requires mental alertness, accuracy, and good memory. Imagine the thought process required when playing piano. The eye sees the music and sends a message to the brain, triggering movements of fingers and feet as needed.
INSTILLS SELF-CONFIDENCE: Successful playing of an instrument gives the student a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.
ArtStar Music offers music programs, music instruction & professional music education for all ages. Our instructors are experts in a wide variety of instruments & techniques – ensuring you the highest quality education available.


It’s hard to believe, but it is possible to get teenage boys into opera. At least that’s what Ariana Wyatt, assistant professor of voice at Virginia Tech, found in her search to create more engagement with the art form. How? Minecraft.
In a marriage of music and technology, a group of local high school students have been working with Virginia Tech students to create an original opera set to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Minecraft is an open world program, meaning the game allows its players creative freedom in how they want to play. The game revolves around breaking and placing 3D cubes in a sandbox, or designated space within the game’s boundaries. Players can gather cubes and place them in various configurations, creating the environment they desire. The player can use Java, the game’s programming language, to modify the code and alter the appearance of these cubes. Using the program, the high school students are building a virtual set along with avatars, characters created by the program.
The project is an interdepartmental effort between Wyatt and four other professors: Tracy Cowden, piano; Kelly Parkes, music education; Katie Dredger, English; and Ivica Ico Bukvic, music technology. Together they lead students through the process of producing an opera. Meanwhile, students from the School of Computer Science and Technology assist the high-schoolers with coding the set and characters, created using Minecraft and projected digitally on screens during the performance. Voice students from Virginia Tech’s music department act as voice actors and breathe life into the avatars as they move around the virtual set. It’s not often that an opera is produced without a singer’s physical presence on a stage, but it’s something the team is experimenting with through this virtual opera.
Wyatt’s repurposing of Minecraft is not a new topic in the tech world; it has been used as a teaching tool for math, science, and the humanities. However, as an engagement tool, the production process accomplished its main purpose: getting students excited about opera. “The goal is to engage students in the arts because of the wonderful effects it has on children and their success in life. It's a way to encourage self-expression and confidence and all of the things that come along with producing an opera,” Wyatt said. Through this collaboration, Virginia Tech is promoting the intersection of arts and technology while inviting an entirely new audience to experience opera.
OPERAcraft will be presented on December 4, at 7:30p.m., and again on December 7, at 2:00p.m., at Virginia Tech’s Cube at the Center for the Arts.


What is ear training?
Sharpen your aural skills and become a better musician
Ear training is the process of connecting music theory (notes, intervals, chords, scales, melodies, etc.) with the sounds we hear. In other words, studying ear training is building a bridge between the language of music and the sounds that are designated by that language.
The more we train our ear to recognize this connection, the better we get at playing music, because we learn to understand what we play and to anticipate musical stuctures.
Who needs ear training?
The short answer is all musicians.
Both beginners and professionals need to keep their ear in shape in order to know what they (and others for that matter) are playing and to anticipate what they are about to play. This is called improving one's relative pitch.
This is why ear training is a mandatory course in about 99.9% of all music schools, conservatories and general music courses around the world.
Ear training in music education
The main focus of ear training being the development of aural skills, the training sessions mainly involve identifying sounds by ear and naming them, transcribing them, playing them back, singing them or, at more advanced levels, improvising upon them according to harmonic rules.
In many music schools, ear training includes the use of solfege syllables (movable-Do system), which puts recognition skills into a tonal context. Singing is also widely spread, as there is a direct connection between hearing correctly and singing accurately (e.g. most singers with poor pitch accuracy have simply bad aural skills).
What does ear training consist in?
Ear training is usually consisting in the study of:
- scales and modes
- chord progressions and cadences
What are the benefits of ear training?
- Adding improvisation to your performance
- Improving your rhythmic skills
- Tuning your instrument
- Acquiring greater musicality
- Interaction with other musicians
- Transcribing melodies and chords by ear
- Composing music
- Singing in pitch
Ear training software - a good idea?
Ear training typically requires two persons to be efficient: one to ask questions, and one to answer them.
The feedback you get on how you identify intervals, chords or scales is the key element to your progression.
This is where computers come in very handy for ear training.
The most efficient way to train your ear is ear training software.


It is common practice for elementary teachers to go over phonics in the early grade levels (PK-1st grade). Little children have an inherent ability to absorb the phonetic structure of (any) language. Noam Chomsky attributes this to the L.A.D or Language Acquisition Device. It is widely believed by the teen years this L.A.D. begins to dissipate and people generally lose their abilities to acquire the essentials of a new language. This is believed by many to be due to the fact that by the young adult years, the mind has acquired what it needs to survive socially, culturally and otherwise. In contrast, it is also believed if people continue to learn new languages throughout their youth, the L.A.D. remains strong and people have been known to learn many new languages throughout their adult life.
There have been a slew of studies to support the existence of the L.A.D. and its attributes, so it is difficult to argue the “use or lose it” tendency inherent with it. This is important to keep in mind when considering the difficulties adults encounter when learning a new language, especially the English language. English is an especially difficult language to learn because of its “Frankenstein” composition. English is comprised of several world languages (Old English, Latin, Germanic, Danish, Norse, French, Greek, to name some), and many of their original rules traveled with them into English. This is quite evident when someone is trying to understand the many pronunciations of “ough” in different English vocabulary words, for example. The English language is filled with such examples. Although these complexities seem arbitrary at times, they really exist as a culmination of old pronunciation rules (and syntax) and a creole effect, meshing several languages in parts and morphing with trending acceptances to the rules. If this seems confusing to the native English speaker, imagine the confusion to non-native speakers and people new to the language. The one thing that can tie everything together is establishing English at the phonetic level. Having a strong phonemic awareness is tied to literacy, as well as listening and speaking skills. Before tackling the daunting, complex rules of the English language, ELLs should first establish a strong phonetic foundation.
The National Institute for Literacy published a report in an effort to “strengthen literacy across the lifespan” authorized by the U.S. Congress under two laws: the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The report’s section on “Alphabetics” (Chapter 4) is at the heart of what the I Want To Learn English textbook was designed to do with adult ELLs. The Phonemic Awareness Training and Phonics Instruction chapter gives a comprehensive synopsis of the complexities of teaching phonics to adult learners (click here to read the report). Many of the highlighted issues in this report are primarily what IWTLE addresses in the strategies and methods employed throughout the textbook. Instructors and administrators are encouraged to review this report. When the issues in the report are compared to what the student textbook covers, it will become apparent this textbook was tailored to meet the phonemic awareness needs of adult English Language Learners struggling with literacy and overall communications skills. With grant funded programs becoming more competitive and the needs for adult English learners to acquire the language more efficiently in order to apply their acquisitions at the workplace, the need for excellent language learning tools grows. “I Want To Learn English” takes all of these factors into consideration and works to resolve the fundamental needs of ESL students, which in turn will contribute to the improvement of communication in the workforce and make adult ESL (and high school) programs become more productive.


Computers are now part of everyday life. For most of us, technology is essential to our lives, at home and at work. ‘Computational thinking’ is a skill children must be taught if they are to be ready for the workplace and able to participate effectively in this digital world.
At St Barnabas and St Paul’s we have implemented the new national curriculum for computing to develop and equip our children with the foundational skills, knowledge and understanding of computing they will need for the rest of their lives.
Through our new programme of study for computing, they will learn how computers and computer systems work, they will design and build programs, develop their ideas using technology and create a range of content.
When pupils at St Barnabas and St Paul’s leave us to go onto high school they will be able to understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation. They will also be able to analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems, and will be responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.
Computing at St Barnabas and St Paul’s is very much a central part of our curriculum. Discrete Computing lessons are taught once a week throughout the school, as well as being embedded within our Creative Curriculum topics.
The development of Computing is continuously ongoing within the school with the introduction of new hardware and software packages such as banks of laptops, class Ipads, multi-touch interactive class room boards and the 4D immersive pop up to name but a few.