Research has shown that pupils who are more aware of their heritage and ancestral background are more likely to perform better at school. Our latest Theme on Planet for ‘Heritage in the classroom’ looks at ways that Planet can help teachers facilitate this, but how does this actually transfer from research findings to practical ideas in the classroom?

To show what can be achieved,  the Planet team met up with Alistair Geddes (pictured below), a Newly Qualified year 6 Teacher at John Gulson Primary School in Coventry, UK, to find out how theory becomes practice.

Alistair is well placed to offer practical advice on acknowledging the importance of heritage and culture, with  children attending his school from a wide range of backgrounds - Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, India, North African, Malaysia and many more! Over to you Alistair…

How important is it to make pupils aware of their heritage?

The range of cultures, ethnicities and nationalities in the catchment area for our school is huge, and this diversity is also therefore reflected in the children. Across the whole school, all members of staff are encouraged to celebrate the unique benefits that this gives our school, and to try to incorporate these elements in interesting ways across the curriculum.

How important is this for the school to recognise?

This is really important for us and the children, because we feel that the connection between heritage and identity is a very important one that should be nurtured. This isn’t to say that any child’s heritage creates a fixed identity for them, but that children who are strongly aware of their own and their family background, and equally aware of those of other children, are more likely to feel comfortable in a mixed-heritage environment.

Does this recognition impact on their confidence?

I personally think that children find it a huge confidence booster to have a secure understanding of how they ‘fit in’ with other children from similar and different backgrounds. I suppose the main goal here, is to improve confidence and self-esteem, and therefore increase childrens’ success in all aspects of school and home life.

How do you go about teaching heritage in the classroom?

Our PSHE / SEAL theme at the moment is ‘It’s good to be me’, and so we have held a lot of discussions based around the things that make us all different, all the same, and all great. Many of these sessions have naturally evolved into discussions about Heritage, and the children in my class are instinctively very proud of their backgrounds, and talk very ‘romantically’ (and sometimes dillusionally!) about their countries and the good things that can be found there. One recent SEAL project around this theme worked in the following way:

Each child has a blank postcard. On it, they anonymously write five things about their background - it can be based on any factors relating to their Heritage - cultural, ethnic, religious, social etc. The postcards are then mixed up, and given to the teacher. The teacher reads out one item from a postcard, and children have to try to guess who wrote the postcard. If they cannot guess correctly, the teacher continues to read more items from the list, until it becomes clear who wrote it.

This sounds a great way to start the class thinking about diversity

The children really enjoyed this activity, and many of them learnt a lot about other children in the class. We then continued to follow up the activity with research about the different countries that children or their families have lived in.

We also have a ‘Global Citizenship’ project run by a (mostly voluntary) local community group. They do a lot of small activities (such as map work, team games, research etc.) that often involve some aspect of other countries. The volunteers are also all from different worldwide backgrounds. This helps to give the children a good perspective of the range of different cultures and ethnicities that can be found in Coventry, and helps them to be less (negatively) judgmental about people from backgrounds different to their own.

Finally, the children’s most recent history topic has all about looking at their local environment and the history of Coventry, and this has given them a great sense of how the area has changed, both physically and ethnographically, over the past 100 years or so.

It is really useful for them to see how history is not necessarily ‘fixed’! Much of the stimulus here has come from images and other sources, most of which can be found online and presented in a flipchart. The History Learning Curve website is very useful for finding historical sources.

What tips do you have for other teachers thinking of teaching heritage?

1. My main tip would be to ensure that you have you class in the right frame of mind before doing work about Heritage. Because it can be quite a sensitive issue for many children, and sometimes actually a focus point for children who bully, it is vital that children are considerate of other childrens’ feelings and careful about how they choose to phrase things.
2. You can encourage this by talking to the children about your own Heritage, and hence they will appreciate that it is an important issue to the teacher as well, and therefore something to be mature about.

How can technology help your class become ‘global citizens’?

Using technology, there is an almost infinite number of options you have, which can help encourage children to be ‘global citizens’ - i.e. to be aware of the changing, dynamic world around them, and to integrate themselves successfully into it.

One idea that we are about to start using is a website called Post Crossing. It allows children to send postcards (you can do this on an individual or whole-class basis) to places all over the world, and also to recieve them. It has fantastic potential for improving communication between children all over the world, and also as a great learning tool. Children are highly motivated to write as well as they can, when they know someone else will be reading it! It’s also free.

Another great use of technology to support an awareness of Heritage and issues in the wider world is photostories. They are a visual presentation of still images, often with a soundtrack or narration. I have recently used one from the website Foto8. This story follows some Kazakh Eagle Hunters, and it proved to be a fantastic source of inspiration for the children - both in terms of the discussions we had about how other people live, and for the ideas it gave them for writing.

Make sure that you check any photo stories that you use for suitability before using them however, as the images and themes of some photo stories can be unsuitable for children.

I would also suggest that teachers investigate podcasting as a means for children to research themes such as Heritage, and to then present their ideas and findings, not only to classmates, but also to the rest of the school and even a world wide audience.

Alistair Geddes teaches Year 6 at John Gulson Primary School in Coventry, UK

Continuing with my recent theme of turning pupils on to those ‘turned off’ subjects, I wondered what there was on Planet that could provide some inspiration…and then I remembered about a teacher from South Morningside Primary in Edinburgh, Scotland, called Bruce!

I visited Bruce in 2008 for his Teacher Feature debut and saw first hand his numeracy lesson and the engaging way he was using his Activboard with his young learners.

Here’s just some of my notes that I took away from Bruce’s lesson about how he sparked their imagination with his lesson, titled,  ‘Using Coins up to £1′.

Set expectations

At the beginning of the lesson, Bruce gave the children an idea of what they would learn, setting his expectations for the lesson.

Concentrate

In Bruce’s own words, he only concentrates on one learning objective per lesson, so as not to confuse his young class or set expectations too high.

The Money Box

Bruce uses a simple drag-and-drop method to match the coin shape up to the written value. There are only six boxes in his ‘money box’ so the class know they have to find six coins to make up the correct value.

Start Simple

Bruce’s lesson started simple, keeping the task to making 50 pence, a nice round number that the pupils could identify, particular since the shape of a 50 pence coin (a heptagon) is so recognisable.

Shapes for Shopping

To take the lesson into the real world, Bruce made a ’shopping’ activity using fruit from his resource library. Each fruit had a value and the class had to not just move the shapes but identify the coins you would use to purchase the fruit.

Finding Money!

By adding an element of suprise, Bruce took away the familiar so that his pupil’s didn’t know the outcome. He put coins behind a hidden layer, which each pupil had to drag out and then add to create a value. By doing this he could also involve the class - ‘who can identify this shape?’

Participation

It was evident from the queue of pupils lining up to drag out a coin how involved they were with the lesson, particularly, how much more focussed on activity they were when they knew they had a chance to guess correctly themselves.

Bruce’s lesson can be downloaded from Planet and you can also watch this lesson in action from his Teacher Feature page.

Note: Whilst this lesson uses UK currency, the principles could be applied for other currencies - just simply replace the coins with your own equivalent!

I was recently browsing through the Becta Twitter site and came across a link to a Teachers TV video about those ‘hard to teach’ subjects (this one was for Secondary English), and how teachers have been using ICT in the classroom to turn ‘hard to teach’ into ‘I want to learn’.

The Planet team have worked for over a year now with a publishing company (Self Made Hero) that run Manga Shakespeare, an abridged version of traditional Shakespeare but set in modern-day times and using Japanase manga illustrations.

There are the traditionalists who will prefer the full, original William Shakespeare version (we also provide this on Planet!) but for teachers looking to turn on teens to poetry or Shakespeare, delve into these ideas…

Illustrations - Manga uses some top graphic and comic illustrators. With the increase in popularity at the cinema with comic book characters (think Watchmen, Spidermen, Transformers) what do you think your pupils can identify with the most?

Words divide - As Manga is a visual medium using text and images, why not create your own scenarios using some of the Manga Shakespeare resource packs on Planet? To make it even more relevant, have your teens take pictures of their own environment (e.g. a housing estate scene), which you can insert into a flipchart and place the characters on top of.

Get dressed up! - Why not take the Manga from the book and into the classroom? Maybe there’s a scene in Macbeth your having difficulty portraying - have your teens act it out, stop and start the act where you want it and take the drama from the book (or the IWB) to the classroom.

There are some more ideas for teaching Shakespeare using Manga in the Manga Shakespeare partner resource area on Planet. Make sure you download the free resource packs as well for Macbeth, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar & more.

Has this ever happened to you?

Throughout the course of my day, I create a lot of new files on my computer.  Sometimes, I make sample flipcharts that I only need temporarily, sometimes I create a brief audio or video recording using one of the recorders in ActivStudio/Inspire other times I may simply download a read-only file that I need to alter and then delete.

Whatever I may be doing, I usually end of up with tons of random files, usually on my desktop. Most of these files are things that I won’t ever need again, yet needlessly litter my computer for months until I get around to deleting them.

Of course, the process of deleting them is never as easy as we’d think. First, you have to open the files,then preview them and then figure out why you created the file in the first place.  Eeek!delete icon

Solution: When creating a file that you know you will be using on a temporary basis, simply name the file “delete.” Subsequent files can be named delete1,2 or even “delete me.” Now, when you see these files bullying other files on your desktop, you can send them packing without any further headache.  Now that’s one less bit of clutter in your life!

Whether you live on the coast, or far inland, every one of us is connected to the ocean. Celebrate this connection to the wondrous sea and its creatures in your ActivClassroom on World Oceans Day, June 8, 2009.

The concept of a “World Ocean Day” was first proposed in 1992 by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Since that time, a growing number of nations have joined the celebration, promoting awareness of the fact that we are all responsible for preserving these amazing resources for future generations.

As of 2009, World Oceans Day has been officially declared by the United Nations as June 8 every year! This year’s theme: One ocean, one climate, one future, calls to attention the impact of climate change on our oceans, and how we can help.

Following are a few ideas about how to celebrate World Oceans Day:

• Wear blue in honor of the ocean
• Read stories and conduct activities about the ocean in your classroom
• Download and teach ocean-themed lessons from Planet’s Oceans theme
• Download and post the World Oceans Day poster in your classroom
• Attend a World Oceans Day celebration in your area

For more ways to celebrate and promote the preservation of our world’s amazing oceans, visit The Ocean Project.

As you know, manga is growing in popularity with our students.  This is due to the visual style with which the content is being delivered.  One example of how to effectively use manga or graphic novels in your English class is teaching Maus along with the Diary of Anne Frank.

Another way to integrate manga into your classroom is to use the Manga Resource Packs created on Promethean Planet.  But what if you want to use your own pictures in the lesson?  How can you transform those pictures into “Manga Style”?  One resource that I recently found can help you, it is a website called Be Funky.  It allows you to upload your own pictures, then use a number of effects to transform them!  Here is an example of a picture of me.  (This is what happens when you know the people who take the school pictures, you are able to play around a bit!)

Now after using some of the photo effects on Be Funky, here are some of the ways that I was able to transform my picture.

Using the Desktop Tools and Camera Tools in Inspire, I was easily able to take these images off the website and drop them into Inspire.  Imagine the possibilities!  You could transform pictures of your students and put them in their own manga story!  You could transform pictures that you and/or your students took to create a manga backdrop!

Enjoy!

Now that the school year is coming to a close, it’s time to think about how you can further sharpen your ActivClassroom skills during the summer break. Whether you’re looking for short online tutorials, or would rather take a complete workshop, the Planet can point you in the right direction.

Free Activtips Video Tutorials

Access these short, helpful video tutorials at your convenience either on the Planet, or on your mp3 player through our Activtips podcast. You’ll find videos for both ActivInspire and version 3 software.

Free ActivInspire Webinars

Get a thorough introduction to ActivInspire with these free, two-hour webinars. All you need is a phone, a computer and an internet connection. These webinars will be offered throughout the summer, but they’re filling up quickly, so check out the schedule and register today!

Free and Low-Cost Online Courses

ActivLearning offers free tutorials, as well as low-cost online and face-to-face workshops to support ActivInspire. For those who have not yet upgraded to ActivInspire, you may still find courses for version 3 software on the Promethean Learning site.

Cost-Effective Live Workshops

The summer schedule for Promethean’s live workshops, held in Atlanta, GA, is now available! Choose from ActivInspire Foundations, ActivInspire Classroom Integration, Using Assessment Tools in Your Classroom to Assess Learning, or ActivClassroom Instructor Training Course. Customized training courses are also available.

Don’t forget to visit our Best Practice section for the latest research and theory into teaching and learning from educational experts around the world. You’ll also find some great how-to flipcharts for ActivInspire created by our Innovations Team by visiting the Resources page and searching by keyword “ActivInspire.”

If you want to ensure a smooth start for the 2009-2010 school year, it’s a good idea to prepare your classroom now before you lock it up for the summer.

Promethean’s Customer Care team is here to help, and has created a checklist with End of School Recommendations to assist you in preparing your equipment and safeguarding your files while you’re away from school. Some of the tips you’ll discover include how to:

• back up your files
• safely store your Promethean equipment
• protect your login information
• stay up to date by visiting the Planet during the break!

You might also want to check out the blog article, Cleaning Your Projector With Len Lamp & Fanella Fan.

The following was written by Kerry Arens, a High School English Teacher at Kirkwood High School in St. Louis Missouri.

Making the Activboard More Interactive

When I first received my Activboard, I used it mainly as a large display tool, projecting my PowerPoint presentations and other documents.  I shared the Activpen with my students, but I was the one creating and sharing most of the knowledge.  The appeal of adding in video and images that our visually demanding students could analyze during a lesson was powerful and began to shape my daily lessons.  Soon I realized that my student-centered classroom was shifting back to a teacher-led structure, where I was the one spending hours on learning and creating, but my students were passively receiving the information instead of engaging with it.  However, with a simple shift in lesson design that placed my students in control of both the Activboard and their learning, my students began constructing their own knowledge instead of simply consuming information.  My new focus for lesson design became creating ways for my students to physically manipulate ideas and information through their tapping and dragging with the Activpen.

This new way to build knowledge could easily be seen by their use of containers with Activstudio 3 and the Activboard.  One Friday, I asked students to prepare to learn about simple grammar concepts; they groaned and shifted around in their desks.  I reassured them that it would be fun, and they looked at me as if I were crazy.  Then, I showed them an Activstudio flipchart I had created in about 15 minutes that had three containers on it, one for active verbs, one for linking verbs, and one for helping verbs.  Ten sentences hung above the containers, waiting to have their verbs identified and placed in the correct box.

I asked for a volunteer who could correctly identify the verb in one of the sentences and use the Activpen to drag the verb to the correct container.  Rachel volunteered, and she correctly dragged the verb ran into the action verb container.  Once the verb was correctly placed, she heard canned applause coming from the Activboard.  She smirked, proud of herself, and held up the pen to see who else wanted to give it a try.  The students who were dreading a grammar lesson at the beginning of the hour now were waving their hands in the air, trying to be the next in line for the Activpen.  John grabbed the Activpen and dragged the verb is into the linking verb container.  This time the Activboard cheered for him, and he took a bow.   Then John asked what happened when the verb was placed in the wrong box.  Someone else grabbed the pen and gave it a shot, dragging the verb could into the action verb container instead of the helping verb container.  As soon as the verb was dragged into the container, it flew back to its original place.  It would not let a student put it in the wrong place.  My students cheered, realizing that the software would give them as many chances as they needed to figure out the correct answer.

At the end of the container “game,” my students wrote definitions for each kind of verb, using the knowledge they created from the activity.  Because the students viewed the game as fun and challenging, they worked diligently to build their understanding.  Seeing their joy in learning more about grammar gave me even more reason to love Activstudio, and it caused a shift in my lesson planning.  No longer would I simply use Activstudio to create visually appealing lessons that I could present.  Now, I would focus on how to give my students time to construct knowledge through Activ play.

Click here to view this flipchart.

If it is and you live in Australia, can I make a suggestion? RUN!

For those of us who live with the safe knowledge that the most harmful thing we could encounter is a calorie loaded pizza, I feel secure in viewing at a distance (on screen only of course) the Carpet Python from Australia, knowing that me and it, are separated by 9,000 miles of land and sea.

But the great advantage of our digital age and online communities such as Promethean Planet, is that information is closer than you think, opening up a world that many of us will never see or experience. For example, I never knew that a species of Python would ever be named after a carpet, but it was only when viewing the recent Australian Snakes resource pack I discovered it.

I then explored some of the other resources, Australian Birds, Mammals and Spiders to see what other creepy creatures would be awaiting me down under, and here are my Darwinesque discoveries…

The Carpet Python Morelia Spilota

Mainly found in Indonesia, Australia and New Guinea, they are one of the largest snake predators alive and can grow between two and four metres. Pythons are also constrictors, meaning they squeeze their prey to death, rather than relying on venom.

• Download Australian Snakes Resource Pack

The Australian Bilby Macroft Lagotis

A desert dwelling marsupial, this little creature’s name originates from the Yuwaalaraay Aboriginal language of New South Wales. Interestingly, they don’t drink water, but instead, obtain all the fluid they need from their meal!

• Download Australian Mammals Resource Pack

The Christmas Spider Sarcalogos Nemus Arachnia

Known as the jewel or spiny spider, this spider carries an armour plated shell with six spines. They received their name from appearing in the summer months leading up to Christmas. Not a present I’d like to see under my tree this Christmas!

• Download Australian Spiders Resource Pack

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo Cacatua Galerita

Believe it or not, this bird can live up to 70 years and can be considered a pest in Australia, though it is protected under Australian Commonwealth Law.

• Download Australian Birds Resource Pack

It was only by downloading these resources that I could find out the names of these creatures, quickly link to Wikipedia for information on them and their habitat, and then breathe a sigh of relief.  After all, I don’t think a Carpet Python would like the wood floor in my flat.

As a teacher, there is always something new that is being asked of you. Along with your everyday classroom responsibilities of teaching, lesson planning, classroom management and grading; you are asked to sit on committees, attend workshops, participate in faculty meetings, plan parent-teacher meetings, learn everything new in the world of education and still maintain some life outside of the classroom. A complaint that I frequently get when working with teachers is “Who has the time?”. I understand this complaint and can sympathize with classroom teachers who feel this way…to an extent.

During a recent user conference, this common complaint resurfaced and sparked a discussion among the TLC’s working the conference. We all agreed that we were getting a little tired of hearing the complaint about time because if teachers would just take a small amount of time and dedicate it to learning something new each day, they would really improve their skills and enhance their instruction.

Activ software (Studio, Primary, Inspire) all come with a wealth of resources built into the software in the form of the Resource Library or Resources Browser. These FREE lesson building resources are well worth the time it takes to explore them. During the aforementioned conference, I conducted a break-out session that discussed many resources available to teachers. The resources built into the software programs are often overlooked. These resources are content and grade-level specific and valuable tools to help teachers create more exciting, interactive flipchart lessons. Both new and seasoned users of the software applications should take some time out to review these resource folders and see if they can find useful tools to create lessons for their classrooms.

Free resources, right at your fingertips….as a teacher, I think exploring these is worth the time!

As part of a Global Marketing Project, Eastbourne C of E Academy from Darlington in the North East of England teamed up with Promethean to film some key sequences for a video that will be seen worldwide.

Eastbourne Academy were chosen for this task because Alan Dick, the Assistant Principal, is an avid promoter of the Promethean solution, and is using Inspire software, Activexpression, Activslates and Activ sound as part of the daily teaching regime. The school is also going to be equipped with the full Promethean solution when they move to their new BSF build in September 2009.

Alan and a dozen students visited Beamish Museum to film key sequences for the video in the 19^th century school building. Accompanied by representatives from Promethean and a crew from thinktank video, they changed into period costume and experienced school life as our grandparents knew it.

In the afternoon, they returned to school and repeated the experience in the ActivClassroom environment to compare and contrast the way education had evolved over the last century.

As a thank you for their hard work and patience, the Promethean Teaching and Learning Consultant for the North of England presented the group with some gifts as the school’s PR department created a piece for local media. Keep an eye out for the finished video on prometheanplanet.

www.beamish.org.uk

www.thinktankvideo.co.uk

www.eastbourne-ce-academy.org.uk

John Adams is the ICT Subject Leader at Fosters Primary School in Welling, UK, and a pioneer of using Elluminate technology & other ActivConnect ideas to connect his classroom with Rock Island Elementary, Florida.

Elluminate, a free service to Planet members, creates a virtual classroom connection between two schools via an interactive whiteboard - all you need is the internet and webcam, easy!

By linking up the two schools, John’s pupils have exchanged more than just lessons; they have learnt first hand how the hurricane season effects Rock Island, discussed America’s new President and exchanged popular music culture.

In this interview, the Planet team caught up with John to find out what it’s really like using Elluminate technology to bridge the Atlantic and connect children with a different community.

I believe this isn’t the first ‘live’ session you’ve participated in?

We have “met” successfully online three times this year – once per term.
In our first meetin both schools shared a flipchart prepared by Promethean Teaching & Learning Consultants (TLCs) Selda, from the UK, and Shannon, from the USA, to find out a little about each other’s school.

We used Elluminate to share control of our ActivPrimary/Studio/Inspire software. Pupils were able to write responses to the questions using the interactive whiteboard pen and the writing instantly appeared in the other classroom on the other side of the Atlantic!!! We then used Skype for the audio and video part of our communication.

The second time we met up, opupils from both schools put together some flipcharts using the Promethean FlipPals. My class produced flipcharts on entertainment, the local area, our school & transport.

What ideas did you come up with to swap virtually?

For our final meeting, we gave both sets of pupils the same  brief: “write and perform either a poem or song with words linked to their UK-USA link experience.” The pupils had one afternoon in groups/pairs to come upwith original material.

For this the USA performed songs live in front of the webcam. In the UK we recorded our performances beforehand as not everyone was keen to do it in front of a live camera. We uploaded the videos to our webserver and sent a page of links to the USA so they could view them before our linkup. They then talked about how much they enjoyed what we sent and asked lots of questions.

How does it benefit your pupils from linking with another school?

Our link has been absolutely fantastic in terms of the childrens’ learning. Children were able to extend work on natural disasters covered in their literacy lessons by asking questions about America and the hurricane season.

The FIRST HAND experience/information the USA children gave my pupils was incredibly valuable. They were able to speak to children who actually have to board up their windows when hurricane warnings are given – this made the issues very real, as opposed to just reading about them in books.

View some of Fosters Primary School’s Elluminate sessions…

What other value has the sessions given your pupils apart from exchanging lessons?

From this they have been able to draw comparisons between life in the UK and life in Fort Lauderdale, noting linguistic, geographic and cultural differences.

It was also great for the children to see outside of their own school environment and into another, realizing that technology that enables them to do so much is used across the world.

This has also tied in well to other countries we have been studying through topic work, where such technology is not available. It has drawn children’s attention to the fact that there really are great differences in provision across the world and made them realize just how lucky they are and how much they take for granted.

How easy was it to set up an Elluminate session?

With the support of Selda and Shannon the project has been a breeze. Dates for conferences have been set well in advance.

Suggestions as to activities to be carried out in the sessions were made and Elluminate rooms were set up - as a class teacher all I had to do was click the emailed link.

After installing Skype I was able to video conference with Selda and was taught how to use the Elluminate software through web-conferencing! For our video conference we used Skype as it provided a much more real life communication environment. Schools may need to check that necessary ports in their firewall are open before starting to use Elluminate and I would recommend a test connection beforehand.

John Adams is the ICT Subject Leader from Fosters Primary School in Welling, the London Borough of Bexley, UK.

I saw a quote in Wired magazine the other day.  It was in a product review for a Flip camera, the ubiquitous tech-toy so many people cherish these days.  The review called it “so simple, even an adult could operate it.” Not only did that make me laugh, but it made me think.

I can’t remember when we reached this point, but we are certainly in a place where digital natives can assimilate and understand new technology faster than their more wrinkle-prone counterparts. Our students really seem to have an incredible aptitude for new technology. We see many teachers  being tutored by their own students on features of the new LCD projector, laptop, software or doc cam.

What are the implications of this?  Nothing we don’t already know. We need to teach them/reach them in their world using their learning style and their tools.

So my question is:

How would your educational experience have been different if your teachers had used an Activclassroom?

What do you notice about your students when you use your Promethean tools?

What would happen to your students/you if your tech tools were suddenly removed?

image in Creative Commons public Domain: G. Andrew Page

Teaching about responsible pet ownership is now firmly planted in the UK curriculum, with the responsibility falling on teachers to educate their students about how to treat animals with care and sensitivity.

Thankfully, help is on hand from one of the world’s most famous animal welfare organisations, the RSPCA, a registered charity. It has been assisting teachers in England and Wales for many years, offering tailored lesson plans and practical demonstrations for Key Stage 1 to 4 classes, all for free.

To help teachers understand the options available to them and how the RSPCA can visit them at their school to develop an individual plan of study, the Planet team caught up with Neil Barnett, RSPCA Education Adviser for the North West of England. Neil was an experienced primary head teacher for 13 years and has been an ambassador for the RSPCA for the past five years.

How would you summarise your role?

As RSPCA Education Adviser for the North West, it is my responsibility to work with teachers and trainee teachers to help them develop a scheme of work that raises awareness of responsible pet ownership through the national curriculum.

So it is actually a national requirement that school children understand about caring for pets?

Absolutely. For the Key Stage 1 Science curriculum as part of ‘life processes’, pupils have to understand and learn about treating animals with care and sensitivity.

Does it help to start educating children at as early an age as possible?

The aim of RSPCA Education is to promote kindness and develop empathy skills amongst children. The younger we start, the better, as attitudes towards animals are likely to be much more positive when developed over a period of time.

So if a school is interested in using your free services, what is the process?

In all circumstances, we have a preliminary meeting to discuss what they want to achieve and what scheme of work they are planning. We look at the various curriculum-aligned lesson plans offered by the RSPCA and always tailor them to the individual needs of the subject co-ordinator and the needs of the school.

Can you help deliver the actual lesson?

We can offer to deliver one or two lessons for the teacher or even joint deliver the lesson until the teacher is confident to do this themselves. However, our ultimate goal is that teachers will feel empowered to deliver the scheme of work themselves and embed the scheme of work into a whole-school approach to planning.

Can you tell us a bit about how your lesson plans are used?

The RSPCA has developed a range of flexible lesson plans (some are available to download from www.prometheanplanet.com/rspca) aimed at each key stage. We recommend using a variety of interactive learning techniques to engage with the class, including some class participation work. We would encourage pupils to actively get involved and take responsibility for decisions themselves.

We’re not trying to make animal welfare a separate subject, but to use it as a focus or context for delivering the curriculum so that pupils can empathise with animal welfare and make informed decisions about pet ownership.

What advice would you have for parents considering purchasing a pet?

In all cases, research the particular pet that you’re interested in first. Obtain knowledge about the animal and research its needs – it’s not just the animal’s food and water needs that should be taken into consideration!

It’s also important to remember that anyone who is responsible for a pet has a legal responsibility under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to make sure the animal’s welfare needs are met, as well as the moral aspect to pet ownership.

These needs include:

• A healthy diet, including fresh water
• A suitable place to live
• Any need to be housed with, or apart from, other animals (companionship)
• The need to behave normally
• Protection from pain, suffering, injury and disease

How can teachers find out more?

Please visit the RSPCA Education website and use the ‘contact us’ option to get in touch. The local education adviser for your area will then contact you to discuss your requirements.