Year 5 have been combining their history research with ICT skills to produce a series of PowerPoint presentations all about the Ancient Greeks. We have been researching this particular historical period in great detail, and learning about Greek culture, food and lifestyles.

The focus in our ICT work has been to create a successful presentation that is able to put across a point clearly and informatively. This seemed liked the perfect opportunity to combine the two subjects!

All of the content for the presentations was researched, and then put together by the pupils. We offered support about where to look for images, and how to sequence these with the words. As you can see from the video above, this was also a great exercise in giving our Year 5 pupils confidence in their own presentation skills.

We have been combining out maths and ICT work in Year 2 by learning how to programme the wonderful Michael Faraday roamers. These are computerised buggies that respond to a set of instructions that we can programme in. We can tell the roamers whether to move forwards or back, or to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise by either 90 or 180 degrees.

We set the children the task of writing down a sequence of instructions for the roamers. We then programmed this information in, and pressed the Go button. We observed the movements of the roamer, and plotted on our paper the route in which they were taking. We were able to conclude the exercise by matching up the original set of instructions with the diagram that we had drawn. You can find out more in the short video above.

We have been combining out maths and ICT work in Year 2 by learning how to programme the wonderful Michael Faraday roamers. These are computerised buggies that respond to a set of instructions that we can programme in. We can tell the roamers whether to move forwards or back, or to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise by either 90 or 180 degrees.

We set the children the task of writing down a sequence of instructions for the roamers. We then programmed this information in, and pressed the Go button. We observed the movements of the roamer, and plotted on our paper the route in which they were taking. We were able to conclude the exercise by matching up the original set of instructions with the diagram that we had drawn. You can find out more in the short video above.

We introduced our new Year 1 classes to working on the school laptops at the start of the term. This is the first time that the children have accessed the laptops at school. We will be using these on a weekly basis throughout the year as part of the Year 1 ICT curriculum.

We held a class discussion first, thinking about how we can share the resources amongst our friends. We also addressed ICT basics such as how to turn on the laptops, and the importance of shutting down at the end of each session.

Our first ICT session in Year 1 was all about familiarity and feeling comfortable with the machines. The children explored the CBeebies website, finding many fun games and learning experiences to share. Future ICT sessions will introduce new software to Year 1, such as basic data handling and sorting, and how we can use the laptops for our literacy work.

We introduced our new Year 1 classes to working on the school laptops at the start of the term. This is the first time that the children have accessed the laptops at school. We will be using these on a weekly basis throughout the year as part of the Year 1 ICT curriculum.

We held a class discussion first, thinking about how we can share the resources amongst our friends. We also addressed ICT basics such as how to turn on the laptops, and the importance of shutting down at the end of each session.

Our first ICT session in Year 1 was all about familiarity and feeling comfortable with the machines. The children explored the CBeebies website, finding many fun games and learning experiences to share. Future ICT sessions will introduce new software to Year 1, such as basic data handling and sorting, and how we can use the laptops for our literacy work.

Year 1 are incredibly proud to be able to share a selection of our multimedia work based around literacy and ICT. Having had such a wonderful trip out to London Zoo, we decided to capture our memories and make a selection of videos.

The children took many photographs on the day. As part of our literacy work, we then asked each child to recount their personal experiences of the zoo, and to write a script to accompany the images.

Working with the Photostory software, the next stage was to use our ICT time to produce a selection of stunning videos. The work displayed below is all the work of our Year 1 pupils. They selected the images, recorded the audio, chose the music and even added in their own choice of transition effects.

We are very proud to present the Year 1 London Zoo Video Project!

Brooke and Mariah:

Diego and Enaya:

Finn and Farhana:

Ishmel and Debbie:

Kelly and Eniola:

Lauren:

Lucy and Konrad:

Shakwon and Warren:

Soni and Edith:

Tomiwa and Leah:

All of our Year 5 children were presented this week with their very own high spec Asus netbooks! This is as part of an ICT scheme which we hope will allow the pupils to work independently at both school and at home. We are incredibly proud of this major project and we are extremely grateful to our friends at Southwark Council for working closely with the school on the funding for the netbooks.

All of Year 5 had an introduction session with their new machines this week. The aim is to have a two week intense period of using the netbooks in the classroom, and then the children will be encouraged to take their computers home to continue their work and learning. The netbooks will remain with this particular year group up until the end of Year 6.

The first task that we carried out during our introductory workshop was to connect the netbooks online. The school has improved its WIFI provision, having put in place a network that will support all fifty machines simultaneously. We learnt about how to turn our WIFI settings on and off, as well as basic customising of our desktops. You can listen to a selection of our Year 5 pupils talking about the project in the podcast below.

All pupils have signed a school and home agreement. This confirms the ownership of the netbooks, as well as setting out the Michael Faraday Online Safety policy. We have talked in great with our pupils about the problems we might find when using the internet. The children are aware that social network sites such as Facebook, can provide dangers for young people. Year 5 asked some great questions about how to remain safe whilst online.

This project provides staff and pupils at Michael Faraday with a whole new way in which to learn. We hope that parents will offer support to our pupils at home. All that we ask in return is a nominal £10 contribution per term to cover insurance costs. This is a major project at Michael Faraday – we are confident it will be a huge success, and will lead the way for other schools in the borough.

The first day of online learning proved to be a wonderful introductory session. We had a few minor technical problems, but plenty of fun! We caught up with some of the pupils at the end of the day to find out what their netbook experience had been like:

All of our Year 5 children were presented this week with their very own high spec Asus netbooks! This is as part of an ICT scheme which we hope will allow the pupils to work independently at both school and at home. We are incredibly proud of this major project and we are extremely grateful to our friends at Southwark Council for working closely with the school on the funding for the netbooks.

All of Year 5 had an introduction session with their new machines this week. The aim is to have a two week intense period of using the netbooks in the classroom, and then the children will be encouraged to take their computers home to continue their work and learning. The netbooks will remain with this particular year group up until the end of Year 6.

The first task that we carried out during our introductory workshop was to connect the netbooks online. The school has improved its WIFI provision, having put in place a network that will support all fifty machines simultaneously. We learnt about how to turn our WIFI settings on and off, as well as basic customising of our desktops. You can listen to a selection of our Year 5 pupils talking about the project in the podcast below.

All pupils have signed a school and home agreement. This confirms the ownership of the netbooks, as well as setting out the Michael Faraday Online Safety policy. We have talked in great with our pupils about the problems we might find when using the internet. The children are aware that social network sites such as Facebook, can provide dangers for young people. Year 5 asked some great questions about how to remain safe whilst online.

This project provides staff and pupils at Michael Faraday with a whole new way in which to learn. We hope that parents will offer support to our pupils at home. All that we ask in return is a nominal £10 contribution per term to cover insurance costs. This is a major project at Michael Faraday – we are confident it will be a huge success, and will lead the way for other schools in the borough.

The first day of online learning proved to be a wonderful introductory session. We had a few minor technical problems, but plenty of fun! We caught up with some of the pupils at the end of the day to find out what their netbook experience had been like: