-The Learning Partnership Appointed as Promethean’s Exclusive UKI STEAM Partner-

Global education technology provider, Promethean has partnered with The Learning Partnership to support the wider integration of technology into education and to encourage the engagement of students and teachers in STEAM subjects.

With its roots firmly embedded in education, Promethean understands that STEAM subjects are high on the educational agenda as a result of a major skills gap in STEAM careers. Recognising the potential that great content can have on supporting teachers with difficult subjects and helping students to develop the skills they need for a more technologically focused future; Promethean has partnered with The Learning Partnership to champion effective use of edtech to enhance STEAM resource provisions and inspire learning.

The Learning Partnership aims to support global engagement in science, technology, engineering and maths by building and delivering engaging programmes and competitions into the curriculum that are inclusive and exciting. Working on connecting schools with relevant businesses within the industry, The Learning Partnership aims to create mass engagement in STEAM for students and offer an array of time saving resources for teachers.

Rachel Ashmore, Head of Promethean Academy, commented: “As an education technology company, Promethean aims to support the integration of digital content into classrooms that create collaborative and engaging spaces for subjects that are usually considered as challenging. As the STEAM focus is at the top of the curriculum, Promethean is working exclusively with The Learning Partnership to develop content and lesson plans that help to encourage students to engage with STEAM and provide them with skills that will set them up for life.”  

The Learning Partnership has a bank of powerful, existing content resources that promotes the delivery of an engaging STEAM curriculum, which can be enhanced through the use of the ActivPanel. The ActivPanel supports interactivity with apps, resources and other edtech devices to create a truly collaborative classroom. Working collectively, Promethean and The Learning Partnership can strengthen school STEAM provisions through content and hardware that support the wider use of immersive and interactive technology in STEAM subjects.

Aulden Dunipace, CEO of The Learning Partnership, commented: “Engagement in STEAM subjects in school is difficult if teachers and students are unable to utilise their technology to the best of their advantage. Working with the market leading education technology company, who shares the same values and passions as us, will allow us to collaborate to promote the delivery of a STEAM curriculum through technology – helping to encourage engagement and provide powerful resources which will ultimately help to improve student outcomes.”

Memorial Flames created by students chosen by judges to feature at official ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day

29 NOVEMBER 2019– Memorial Flames created by school groups up and down the country have been selected by a distinguished panel of judges to feature as part of a national art exhibition commemorating the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The artworks – from schools including Bennett Memorial School, Tunbridge Wells; Bishop Martin C of E School, Liverpool; The Spires College, Torquay; Coleg Gwent, Wales; and Upholland Roby Mill Primary School, Skelmersdale – make up some of the 75 Memorial Flames chosen to feature in an exhibition set to be unveiled at the official UK Ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day 2020, at which numerous VIPs are expected to be in attendance.

More than 300 groups from across the country registered to take part in the nationwide competition, launched by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) to encourage more people to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.

On the judging panel were: illustrator and children’s author Nick Sharratt, famed for his work illustrating Jacqueline Wilson’s beloved novels; arts correspondent at The Observer Sarah Donaldson; art curator and broadcaster, Kathleen Soriano; Holocaust Memorial Day Trust Trustee and daughter of Naomi Blake, a sculptor and Holocaust survivor, Anita Peleg; and Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Olivia Marks-Woldman.

Speaking about the project, Nick Sharratt said: “It’s more important than ever not to forget the history of the Holocaust, and this exhibition is a fantastic opportunity to ensure that. I’ve been very excited to see how many different interpretations of the brief there are, with each group using the central flame idea and making it their own. The number of different artistic techniques used has been very impressive and I can’t wait to see all the 75 Memorial Flames come together at the UK Ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day.”

The primary school submissions were inspired by a range of sources. The Memorial Flame from King David Primary School in Manchester was inspired by the writing of Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel and the lyrics of their favourite popstar, Ed Sheeran. Their piece, Flames for the Future, is a sculpture created from wire and nylon, decorated with acrylic paint and collage. It incorporates passages from Wiesel’s book Night and Sheeran’s song I See Fire. The pupils’ teacher said using texts like these, as well as the poem Butterfly by Pavel Friedmann, is a ‘subtle but powerful’ way of teaching Key Stage 2 children about the Holocaust. 

Students with additional learning needs at Coleg Gwent Crosskeys Campus, in Wales, created a wooden 3D light-up design incorporating the Star of David. Their sculpture Thank You Kitty was inspired the diary of Anne Frank. It features powerful quotations from the diary which are burnt onto the base, above which an image of Anne’s face hangs from the star. The piece aims to tell the story of what happened, and uses the symbolism of hands around a flame to depict the hope and strength created by people from different backgrounds coming together to make sure the horrors of the Holocaust never happen again.

The students’ tutor, Mary Bradfield, said: “The project has affected the group on a deep emotional level and they have shown great understanding and sympathy regardless of their own challenges in life. It has sparked a genuine interest in what happened during the Second World War and students have gone home and discussed it. Some are now happy to share stories about their family’s experiences during the war years. The students have shown maturity beyond their years and are keen to continue with this project. I am so proud of them all.”

Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Olivia Marks-Woldman, said: “It is hugely encouraging to have received so many submissions to this project and from so many different types of groups. The project has truly been nationwide and at a time when we know identity-based hostility is increasing, it is heartening to see so many groups and communities come together and pay tribute to victims of the Holocaust in this way. Holocaust Memorial Day is an important opportunity for us all to learn from genocide, for a better future, and I’d urge everyone to get involved in activities for Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 by visiting hmd.org.uk.”

The 75 Memorial Flames project was launched with the creation of a sculpture by artist and survivor of the Holocaust, Maurice Blik, who was liberated from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a child. The project is part of a wider programme of events devised by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to enable people to take part in Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) and learn from the horrors of genocide.

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Students who rarely ate breakfast on school days achieved lower GCSE grades than those who ate breakfast frequently, according to a new study in Yorkshire.

Researchers, from the University of Leeds, have for the first time demonstrated a link between eating breakfast and GCSE performance for secondary school students in the UK.

Adding together all of a student’s exam results, they found that students who said they rarely ate breakfast achieved nearly two grades lower than those who rarely missed their morning meal.

The research is published today in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.

Lead researcher Dr Katie Adolphus, from the University of Leeds’ School of Psychology, said: “Our study suggests that secondary school students are at a disadvantage if they are not getting a morning meal to fuel their brains for the start of the school day.

“The UK has a growing problem of food poverty, with an estimated half a million children arriving at school each day too hungry to learn. Previously we have shown that eating breakfast has a positive impact on children’s cognition.

“This research suggests that poor nutrition is associated with worse results at school.”

The Government in England run a national, means-tested free school lunch programme accessible to all students, but there is no equivalent for breakfast.

Charities Magic Breakfast and Family Action deliver a means-tested breakfast programme funded by the Department for Education, which provides free breakfasts for more than 1,800 schools located in the most socio-economically deprived parts of England.

Separately, Magic Breakfast supports breakfast provision in a further 480 UK schools. However, this leaves many of the 24,000 state-funded schools in England without free breakfast provision for children not getting breakfast at home.

Some schools compensate by offering breakfast clubs they have to fund themselves, or funded by companies such as Kellogg’s.

The Leeds researchers say their findings support the calls to expand the current limited free school breakfast programme to include every state school in England. A policy proposal from Magic Breakfast to introduce school breakfast legislation is currently being considered by politicians, which has been supported by Leeds academics.

Alex Cunningham, CEO of Magic Breakfast, said: “This study is a valuable insight, reinforcing the importance of breakfast in boosting pupils’ academic attainment and removing barriers to learning. Education is crucial to a child’s future life success and escaping poverty, therefore ensuring every child has access to a healthy start to the day must be a priority.

“We are grateful to the University of Leeds for highlighting this positive impact and welcome their findings, highlighting once again the importance of our work with schools.”

GCSE performance

The researchers surveyed 294 students from schools and colleges in West Yorkshire in 2011, and found that 29% rarely or never ate breakfast on school days, whilst 18% ate breakfast occasionally, and 53% frequently. Their figures are similar to the latest national data for England in 2019, which found that more than 16% of secondary school children miss breakfast.

GCSE grades were converted to point scores using the Department for Education’s 2012 system, where A* = 58, A = 52, B = 46, and so on. Adding up students’ scores across all subjects gave students an aggregated score.

Those who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 10.25 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, a difference of nearly two grades, after accounting for other important factors including socio-economic status, ethnicity, age, sex and BMI.

Looking at performance for each individual GCSE, they found that students who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 1.20 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, after accounting for other factors. Each grade equates to six points, so the difference accounted for a drop of a fifth of a grade for every GCSE an individual achieved.

Nicola Dolton, Programme Manager for the National School Breakfast Programme, from Family Action, said: “The National School Breakfast Programme is delighted to see the publication of this thorough and compelling research, highlighting the impact that breakfast consumption has on a child’s GCSE attainment.

“This report provides impressive evidence that eating a healthy breakfast improves a child’s educational attainment, which supports our own findings of improvements in a child’s concentration in class, readiness to learn, behaviour and punctuality.”

The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and The Schools Partnership Trust Academies.

A Birmingham secondary school has made its sixth form maths lessons more interactive and inclusive by incorporating the latest in Casio Projectors’ collaborative technology with graphic calculator emulators. Students can now share their working to complex maths problems with the rest of the class from their seats in real time.

Over the summer, an XJ-F211 model, part of our latest Educational Solutions Series from Casio, was installed in a maths classroom to support effective lesson plans. Featuring the new One-Click Connect function which enables wireless screencasting from smartphones, tablets and laptops, Hamstead Hall chose to install this model to create a more participatory and interactive classroom dynamic.

Head of maths Melios Michael uses the new projector alongside laptops which are shared between pairs of students. Emulators produce a virtual version of fully-functional Casio graphic calculators which can be interacted with via a laptop. Using these, students can work through maths problems whilst casting their screen to the projector wirelessly, sharing their working with the rest of the class. The split screen function is used to compare different answers and allows the teacher to select one laptop to zoom into, with the student working through the problem on the emulator in real time.

Head of maths Melios Michael comments:

“In a tuition context, you can just watch what students are doing on the paper and interact with them that way. But when you have a class of 30, you can’t watch what they’re all doing. Having a tool where you can share screens at the click of a button quickly and smoothly really helps achieve this.

“Working through problems at the front of the class on a whiteboard is effective, but requires a lot of confidence and students sometimes worry about being selected. Under that pressure, they tend not to work out the problem in the way they’d do it naturally. But when students are being asked to share their work with just a simple click, nearly everyone is up for it and the students can watch, interested in what they do naturally.”

Executive principal Jonathan Mortimer comments:

“Interactive whiteboards used to provide excitement, a wow factor, but now they’re quite everyday. But use resources effectively, and technology can bring the lesson to life”.

“We use action-based research. We try new technologies out and if it’s enhancing lessons, producing a benefit and we can identify key transferable aspects, then we upscale. However, technology doesn’t automatically make lessons more effective, it’s about how you use it.”