Pearson Schools Blog

Joy Mbakwe, Head of English at Lilian Baylis Technology School, explores the impact of lockdown on learners and three strategies to boost students' academic motivation.

At Pearson, we believe great assessments further learner progression, and are dedicated to ensuring we can fully support primary schools and teachers with the right assessment tools. Lindsay Nadin, Director of Primary, discusses our commitment to, and exploration of, the UK’s primary assessment offering.

Did you know you can send Power Maths resources for children to access via their own logins? This might be invaluable when children miss lessons through illness or having to isolate at home, but it could also help you with setting homework or providing access to digital resources on devices in school.

This blog takes a quick look at the resources you might want to share and how to do it.

It's time for your November Power Maths update! This month we will be talking about our latest blog on Power Maths assessments, as well as how you can go about sharing digital Power Maths resources with your class. We'll also be focusing on our free and handy Pinpoint Maths online Times Tables Check, to prepare children for the Multiplication Tables Check.

How can educators prepare for students’ futures, when recent months have shown just how unexpected the future of education can be?  

Now that we've passed half term, have you been assessing children using the half-termly Power Maths Progress Tests? Don’t forget that you can enter scores into the online Markbook to track and analyse results against age-related expectations. (Just click the Markbook tile when you log into Power Maths. There’s a walkthrough video here.) 

Classroom cliff hangers and library legends

Once upon a time, when chickens still had teeth, and horses still had feathers...

Have I got your attention? Stories do that, too, and this post is about storytelling and reading aloud. Stories grab and enthral, they stimulate thinking, they play with language, they celebrate listening – and they’re a high-octane way to motivate children, and model reading for pleasure.

All your pupils need the experience of stories (whether told from memory, read aloud, or on audio books), especially if they’re struggling with reading. They need to be reminded of the delights to come when they become more fluent.

By itself, reading is potentially a quiet and isolating activity. Reading groups, author events and online book chats are challenging this, but speaking aloud challenges the stereotype even more, bringing a buzz to books in class, and making it ‘loud in the library!’
 

Imagine a warm, colourful space where children can sit, or lounge, on the carpet – and just read: read what they’ve chosen themselves; read without follow-up tests; browse, skip and skim; become glued to books or magazines, or discard them at will; gaze at pictures as well as soaking up words.  Imagine them talking to each other excitedly about what they’ve just read, or the amazing facts they’ve discovered from books or IT devices. Imagine a space that they feel is theirs; one that says ‘Be yourself’ rather than ‘Be careful’. And, in whatever size the space may be, imagine that (in Ted Hughes’s phrase) they’ll ‘turn the key to the whole world.’ (1)

Over the past 18 months, in the face of significant challenges, educators across the UK expressed their passion for diversity and inclusion – and a wish to broaden in-class conversations on race and inequality.