So proud of my children!

Yesterday we were lucky enought to be visited by a Deputy Head from another Primary School who wanted to see how we are using KLP! My children really did me and themselves proud! They showed our visitor around our Interest spaces and how we use KLP to sujpport our learning across all curriculum areas in our creative curriculum, their e-potfolios, and all the web 2 technologies that we use through it! They were extremely articulate, full of confidence and totally enthusiastic about the love we share for our Learning Platform. they also explein with great passion about our web conferance earlier int he week with America!
WOOPPPEEE!!

Talking to America!

Our web conference yesterday with St Annes School, Charlotte, North Carolina was amazing!
We synchronised watches – 8.30am there; 1.30pm here!!!
We were soooo excited - don’t know who was worse – me or the children!
It was so fab – a great experience – we had prepared questions to ask our Global cousins, they had done the same – when we spotted that they had logged into the Conference room we almost collapsed with enthusiasm! They could see us and hear us – we could only hear them as they hadn’t organised their web cam very well! Nevertheless, what an absolutely super event!
We chatted, laughed, shared and learnt quite a bit about life over there and the similarities and differences between the schools! We even showed them our class pet – Heidi.
They break up for summer soon, but we are going to resume contact after the BIG holiday!!!
What a memorable occasion!
Can't wait to the next one!

BURTON MAIL ARTICLE - local press!

http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/News/Two-teachers-in-line-for-top-national-awards.htm

Eureka is a small Primary School in the south of Derbyshire; 5 learning
zones; 145 children. Early adopters of KLP, now well into our second year
and loving every minute of it. In our school, KLP is a driving force for our
creative curriculum where it engages all stakeholders. It is used daily
by staff effectively, for reasons as described in this case study.
Objective: to facilitate communication and collaboration between school staff, tapping into the potential of KLP to support teaching and learning through, offering opportunities to make resources and data available 24/7.


Objective: to facilitate communication and collaboration between school staff, tapping into the potential of KLP to support teaching and learning through, offering opportunities to make resources and data available 24/7.


Motivation
To reduce the paper shuffle; to ensure that all staff are informed at
all times; to keep a record of all decisions; documents and
discussions in a central area that is safe and accessible by all
necessary members at a time suitable for them; to provide an evidence
base for county advisory/Governors/Ofsted etc; to eventually reduce
workload…

Impact and Benefits
· Staff informed earlier about meetings and content of them
· Any absent staff can keep up to date
· All staff can contribute to discussions; even if they didn’t attend
the initial meeting
· Tracking data is at hand 24/7 – thus informing planning
· Policies available 24/7 - to make reference to as appropriate
· Discussions kept as an aid memoir to decisions made
· Once embedded, staff fully informed 24/7


Hints and Tips
Introduce one section at a time to avoid overload
Manage the change carefully – have a strategic plan in place
Little steps, make great gains…
Make sure that your Leadership team are fully engaged
Remember, this is a big change, but if you continue to do things
‘the old way’, the benefits will never be seen!

The video is to promote discussion and thought about the children’s use of technology – changed frequently to promote thought!

Document Library!
In the document library we have created folders in which to upload important documents that are used regularly to support teaching and learning, tracking of progress, policies as they are updated, information about groups…

Think of it as folders of information that may be required by any member of staff at any one time. Everything to hand, in one easily accessible place.

DAY BOOK!
We had always had a ‘paper’ day book, which needed to go if KLP was going to support staff communication! We trialed initially, with staff checking the NEWS daily, but this wasn’t too effective, but adding an announcement and changing the title to DAY BOOK – was a hit!

All staff can add any important information that needs to be shared for that or the following day.

STAFF MEETINGS!

We also use Work Spaces to tie together all of our staff meetings in one, easily accessible space.

All meetings are added to the calendar at the beginning of a term, by adding a repeating event; a Meeting Space then added.

This gives us the opportunity to add agendas, minutes and any other documents useful to the meeting.

Again, all together, in a centralized area that can be straightforwardly, added to by the person leading the meeting and accessed by all staff.

Web-links: safe and useful sites that staff have identified to support staff; sites linked with our school; anything else as appropriate.

ENGAGING PUPILS WIKI!
For all staff to share their ideas as to how they have engaged the pupils with KLP.

Next steps When we can do our own provisioning, set up a similar space for Governors. Hurdles Getting staff to log on initially… Once they are, and fully engaged with it, organization and communication can be thoroughly supported!