Over on Schoolanywhere.co.uk we’ve been taking a look at homework workloads and how to make it all just that bit more managable. We’ve examined three different areas that people can struggle with in homework: managing stress, getting it done and marking it. We even have a podcast all about it!

Handling Homework Workload

The first blog of the month took a look at managing stress. With a focus on how teachers can help students, the rule of time-management is ultimately what came out as the most important factor, with things such as eating properly and staying positive also making the list. You can find the full blog here:
How teachers can help to handle homework stress

How to get Students to do their Homework

The second in our series of blogs examined how to get students to complete their homework. While it’s all very well to blame the student for their missed deadlines, it’s sometimes worth remembering that being set up to fail can be in the hands of the teacher. Planned workloads with fair expectations can help motivate a learner into engaging, rather than shutting down when feeling overwhelmed. Combine this with varied and interesting assignments that reinforce the learning done in lessons and you can help students get their work done. The full blog is here:
Getting Homework Done

How to Mark Homework

Finally, the third blog took a look at the research of Dr Rod Ellis and his various models for marking work. The theories he examines explain how you can turn the feedback process into one that also engages with a student’s learning process, and rather than just outlining the correct answers, actually engage them into learning afresh once marking has been handed back. The blog, along with a link to the full lecture, can be found here:
How to Mark Homework

Podcast

Of course if you’d rather not spend time reading these blogs and would like to have them read to you, the inaugural episode of the Webanywhere Podcast is now live, where I go through each of the blogs and discuss what they mean and how you can implement some of the better ideas. Podcast link is below:

That just about wraps it up for Homework month, next month we’ll be examining anti-bullying, and tackling issues around cyber bullying in schools. Until then, thanks for checking out homework month!

Webanywhere provide school web design in the East Midlands, throughout the UK, and beyond. We have provided learning platforms, websites and useful education apps to many schools across Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland.
On this post, we’ll be looking at just a few examples of great school websites in the East Midlands of England, all made with School Jotter – the website builder and suite of apps for education providers.

Martinshaw Primary School in Leicester

Martinshaw Primary in Leicestershire has a beautiful website that blends images of their school with their green surroundings. A gallery of images on their homepage showcases their outside spaces and facilities.
The homepage also shows the school’s awards and accreditations, while a calendar feed and latest news section keep visitors informed.
This Leicester school website can be seen at: https://www.martinshaw.leics.sch.uk/

St John’s C of E Primary School in Nottingham

This Nottinghamshire school has a smart and vibrant website design that quickly signposts visitors to useful information. The main menu uses drop-downs to easily navigate to deeper pages of the site, while a section on the left shows excerpts from a recent Ofsted report and allows parents to download a school prospectus.
The homepage is used to provide a warm welcome from the headteacher.
Visit the website to learn more: https://www.st-johns.notts.sch.uk/

Grampian Primary School in Derby

This Derbyshire primary has a fun and colourful school website design, welcoming visitors with some friendly robots! There are information feeds from Twitter and their latest news section.
Lots of images on the homepage, including a slideshow, give visitors a great introduction to the school and its surroundings.
View the website of Grampian Primary School in Derby at: https://www.grampianprimary.org.uk/

Can We Help You?

Are you looking for school website design in or near Derby, Leicester, Lincoln or Nottingham, elsewhere in the UK, or even further afield? Since 2003, we’ve helped thousands of clients worldwide to create fantastic looking school websites, packed with useful apps and features, and which are easy for their teachers and support staff to maintain. We provide full training in using School Jotter and of course we’re always here if you need support.
Browse the site for more on school websites and our range of education products and services. You can learn more about our school website builder at www.schooljotter.com or why not contact us for a no-obligations discussion of your needs?

A pupil at Harrogate’s Saltergate Junior School has been declared the winner of our national Digi Designer Competition! The competition asked for schools up and down the country to design a website using the child friendly design software found in School Jotter’s ePortfolio for the chance to win an iPad Mini.

The competition received hundreds of entries, but the winner, Charlotte Durosaro, a Year 6 student at Saltergate Junior School, was awarded her prize on October 6th. Her design used a huge array of features, including the built in profile, image gallery and video embedding.

Charlotte was awarded a certificate to commend her great work and an iPad Mini to keep designing her wonderful websites on.
Although Charlotte was the overall winner, there were also two runners up, with Aman Praveenb using his excellent HTML, Java and CSS knowledge to secure a highly commended certificate and goodie bag, and a team of pupils going by the acronym SVER used their teamwork to make a great page about dogs, landing them a goodie bag each.
Webanywhere’s CEO Sean Gilligan says “We’re delighted to help find budding talent such as Charlotte and support young people developing skills for the future. Web design is a skill that children will need to learn as everything heads online – we’re proud to be supporting technology education and its evolution in the classroom. We’re delighted to see coding make it onto the curriculum, and we hope that running competitions like these shows teachers how they can combine the creative with the technical to inspire their students.”
Keep an eye on the blog for more updates about upcoming competitions, and if you’d like to try out ePortfolio yourself check out the free trial available here!

To celebrate Black History month in the UK, we here at Webanywhere thought it would be a great idea to help teachers by providing lesson plans around the theme of black history. So below are two ideas for lessons you can lead to help share knowledge about black history:

1. Mary Seacole – KS3

A brilliant example of why Black History month is so important, Mary Seacole was a Jamaican woman who assisted soldiers during the Crimean War, but was seldom talked about prior to more modern curriculums. A great way to start a lesson about Mary Seacole would be to show this video to the class and then discuss what we learn about Mary Seacole and her role in history. Why might she have been ignored?

Once you’ve had a discussion, split the class up into groups and have each group do some research about Mary Seacole and find out what people think about her and what happened; you can find a useful interactive guide to Mary Seacole here for a start. This exercise should help reinforce ideas of how to do independent research, as well as looking at how people can manipulate history to create a narrative. Ask students about how reliable they think their sources are, why some people might hold certain views and encourage critical thinking.
Due to the subject matter and surrounding controversy with this lesson, be sure to do it with older students who are expected to be able to form their own conclusions and not be easily mislead – Mary Seacole has a lot of controversy surrounding her addition to the History curriculum, so some online resources might need to be checked to make sure they’re appropriate. At the end of the lesson, have students write about what Mary Seacole shows us about how people might manipulate resources for their own agendas.
Also, for a bit of fun, Horrible Histories also did a great song if you have some time at the end of lesson.

2. Great Inventors! – KS1 & KS2

There are plenty of notable black inventors & innovators, and what better way to encourage students to learn about them than with a day showing off some of their inventions! The Black Inventor Online Museum has a vast library of information on black inventors. Here are a few activity ideas:

• George Washington Carver invented over 1,000 uses for the peanut! How many uses can your students think up? Carver’s uses included shampoo, facial cream and even ink! Encourage students to think outside the box when asked to do tasks.
• Match-up!  Get pictures of each of the inventors (along with their name as a caption) and create some matching invention cards. Then get students to guess who made what, and encourage them to remember the names. This is a simple activity, but it’s a great way to help students remember inventors, and that in itself is a way to help make black figures in history become more commonplace.
• Lewis Latimer improved on the lightbulb, and invented a version that lasted longer and was safer to use. What other inventions do your pupils think could be improved, and what would be the benefit? Encourage the idea that things can be improved with careful thought.

These lesson ideas should help you broaden the horizons of your pupils, and encourage positive attitudes to viewing and studying black history.
Lesson plans just like this one can be easily made and shared using our Resources App in School Jotter, which acts as a repository for files, quizzes and lessons. Thanks for reading and enjoy Black History Month!