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It is now the day after the conference and I have some time to sit down and reflect on yesterdays conference. For those of you who were unable to make it to Shrewsbury for the day I feel you missed out on some excellent presentations.

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In discussions yesterday, I was reminded of the wealth of free, excellent quality resources available from the NGfL Wales website – if you’ve never been there, or haven’t visited for a while, its really worth the effort as there are countless resources on all aspects of the curriculum. URL – http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/

Hi8us Midlands Ltd are raising funds to run a series of comic illustration and animation workshops with young people 13-19 year olds from July to October 2007. The young people will be supported by industry professionals, to create  comic books and flash animations. Open to submissions from young people throughout the West Midlands. For more information please go to www.stripsearch.org.uk or call me on 0121 753 7700

Jemima Cattel

The London Symphony Orchestra is offering video conferencing opportunities to schools across the UK. Could you please post the following information on your websites and/or email eachers and schools who might be interested in participating. Pictures attached for your use.

Introduction to the orchestra
This workshop will cover orchestral instruments and sections. The video conference is hosted by an LSO player who will also perform a short piece on their instrument for the class. Pictures of instruments are shown and short orchestral excerpts are played across the video link. The presenter will also engage your class in a discussion about the instruments and sounds of the orchestra.

Education level: Key stage 2 and 3
Duration: 30 minutes
Cost: Free to UK schools
Dates:
Wed 9 May 2007
Thurs 10 May 2007
Mon 14 May 2007
Tues 15 May 2007
Requirements: Your school must have video conferencing facilities
Contact: Email or phone Ajax McKerral (ajax.mckerral@lso.co.uk 020 7566 2878) for more information and to book
Website: lso.co.uk/schoolsteachers

Instrumental masterclasses
(Suitable for instrumentalists from beginner to level
Inspire your students through masterclasses with players from the LSO. Suitable for small groups, ensembles and individuals. Instrumental and ensemble masterclasses available for trumpet/brass, clarinet, violin/string ensemble, and percussion (snare drum and xylophone). This workshop lasts 30 minutes and is available to schools across the UK with video conferencing facilities.

LSO players can guide young musicians through GCSE, A-level and ABRSM or other syllabi, or provide inspirational workshops. Sheet music of all works that students will be playing must be forwarded one week in advance of the video conference.

Duration: 30 minutes
Cost: Free to UK schools
Dates and instruments:
Wed 9 May 2007 Percussion (snare drum and xylophone)
Thurs 10 May 2007 Trumpet (brass ensemble)
Mon 14 May 2007 Violin (string ensemble)
Tues 15 May 2007 Clarinet
Requirements: Your school must have video conferencing facilities
Contact: Email or phone Ajax McKerral (ajax.mckerral@lso.co.uk, 020 7566 2878) for more information and to book
Website: lso.co.uk/schoolsteachers

Did you know Service Pack 5 is now ready to download?

Added Features
SMART Board software Service Pack 5 now supports:
– the Windows Vista operating system (32bit and 64bit)
– Ink Aware for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007
– Ink Aware for Adobe Acrobat
– text recognition for East Asian languages in the Microsoft Vista and XP operating systems, including Simplified and Traditional Chinese,Japanese and Korean
– more Gallery items

To download Service Pack 5, CLICK HERE.

If you find that a site you really want to use has been blocked by Azzuri, this is the procedure to get it unblocked for your school
 - Phone the SITSS helpline on 01743 252200 and explain what you want
 - Follow this up with a fax on school headed notepaper or use the online form from the Shropshire County Council website
 - If its urgent, you need to let them know that – with the reason why, otherwise a reasonable time scale to get it done is around 8 hours.
The procedure is the same to get a site blocked.

Two new publications have been added to the Becta publications site:

Safeguarding children online: a guide – http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=31049
Safeguarding children online: a checklist – http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=31051

The E2BN gallery is at http://gallery.e2bn.net
All images are copyright free and downloadable at high resolution/size.

Well done to Andy Davies (the head) and to all the staff and pupils at Clunbury Primary School, who are the first in Shropshire to gain the prestigious ICT mark. To do this, they had to achieve high levels in all aspects of the BECTa SRF (http://matrix.becta.org.uk) and pass a rigorous assessment visit by two ICT mark assessors.
You can find out more about Clunbury Primary School by looking at the school blog – http://clunburypupils.ethink.org.uk

At Greenfields School this morning, I was introduced to Rainforest maths – a colourful and engaging site from Australia which has activities that cover many aspects of maths at many different levels. Well worth a look.