Changing Places - Narinder Dhami

Will it be a Prince and the Pauper, dragged into the modern era by a smattering of references to Bay Blades?

Virtual Unreality - Terrance Dicks

I come to this book with baggage, the fact that I didn't even bother to focus the camera on the cover tells you all you need to know about my disdain for 'gamers'...

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Alan Garner

Black Hearts in Battersea - Joan Aiken

The French Connection - Anthony Horowitz

The Curse of Hackjaw Island - Scoular Anderson

A piratical romp, featuring unionised rats, a psychoanalytical parrot, talking skull, buried treasure and orphan children abandoned to the seas by their cruel aunt and uncle (could be a bit close to the bone for some kids?!). Some of the humour seemed to be directed at parents...Nice illustrations including pictorial cast of characters at the front.

Home

Nice interactive looking at how homes have evolved

Making projects

http://www.minieco.co.uk/

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/toys.html

Marvin Redpost Class President - Louis Sachar

Marvin gets a crush, fogets to go shoe shopping and gets visited by the President.

Grandpa's Indian Summer - Jamila Gavin

Light-hearted stories about two British children who go to visit relatives in India for th summer - cricketing, river-bathing and yoga all feature. Good descriptions of the sights, sounds and smells of Calcutta. Exploration of similarities and difference, notion of culture-shock.

Skellig - David Almond

Shades of magic realism (cf Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus). Michael has moved house, Mum and Dad are preoccupied with the sick baby and renovations. The half-dead man in the condemned garage just wants a Chinese and a bottle of Newky Brown...

Enter Mina, the precocious home-schooled neighbour and her free-spirited mother, on hand to dispense modelling clay and liberal wisdom. Phew.

This is a genuinely well-written book and deals sensitively with emotional issues from a male perspective.

Varjak Paw - S F Said

Really evocative writing, kittens and gang culture! Varjak's the ugly duckling in a snooty family of pedigree cats, bullied by his brother, he feels like an outsider. His only ally is the Elder Paw who is killed saving Varjak from The sinister Gentleman and his suspiciously expressionless cat henchmen.

Varjak leaves the only home he's ever known for the mean streets of the city, where he makes friends and learns a lot about self-reliance. Several dream sequences in which he returns to Mesopotamia with an ancestor to learn The Way - would work well as egs for writing with all the senses. The Way is full of moral lessons, as are Varjak's interactions with the street cats. Comedy comes from Varjak's innocence of the outside world - he thinks cars are dogs. Varjak's later friendship with Cludge, a fearsome-looking, but kind-hearted dog also a good model.

The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd

Two Weeks with the Queen - Morris Gleitzman

Comic narrative voice, AIDS and cancer both dealt with sensitively, child's experience of hospital / authority figures, child's first meeting with gay couple, sibling rivalry (and love).

School Swaps - a nice idea

http://www.schoolswaps.net/

IoE Recommended Children's Books

My first favourite book Mr Gumpy's Outing is on the list. Woohoo!

Poetry
See Poetry Archive for wide range of poetry and poets including poems by Carol Anne Duffy, Jackie Kay, Valerie Bloom, Michael Rosen, James Berry and Benjamin Zephania.

Fiction
Significant children’s authors include Anthony Browne, Jacqueline Wilson, David Almond, Michael Morpurgo, Philip Pullman, JK Rowling, Malorie Blackman. Anthony Horowitz, Roald Dahl, Maurice Glietzman, Julia Donaldon, Allan and Jane Ahlberg, Nick Sharratt , Jamila Gavin, Louis Sachar and many more.


Foundation Stage
You Choose by Pippa Goodhart and Nick Sharratt
Come to Me, My Chickadee by Carol Thompson
So Much by Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury
A Squash and a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson
The Baby Catalogue by Allan and Janet Ahlberg
The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg and Ingman
Mr Gumpy’s Outing by John Burningham
This is the Bear by Sarah Hayes and Helen Craig
Did Dig Digging by Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe

KS1
J is for Jamaica by Benjamin Zephaniah and Prodeepta Das (out of print but available on Amazon)
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Lima’s Red Hot Chilli by David Mills and Derek Brazell
I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
Wolves by Emily Gravett
Grace and Family by Mary Hoffman
A Dark Dark Tale by Ruth Brown
Biscuit Bear by Mini Grey
Angus Rides the Goods Train by Alan Durant and Chris Riddell
(currently out of print but well worth a read if your local library has a copy)

KS2
Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne
Angry Arthur by Hiawyn Oram and Satoshi Kitamura
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
(Also The Sally Lockhart Mysteries among many others)
Two Weeks with the Queen by Maurice Glietzman
31 Ways to Change the World by 4,386 children, we are what we do and You! by Nick Stanhope
Three Cheers for Inventors by Marcia Williams
The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett and Laura Carlin
Hacker by Malorie Blackman
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver
Varjak Paw by SF Said
Skellig by David Almond
The Other Side of Truth by Beverly Naidoo
Storm Breaker (The Graphic Novel) by Anthony Horowitz
Fire Bed and Bone by Henrietta Branford
(currently out of print but worth tracking down).
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Job hunting

Massively premature - but this is to remind me to register / start looking in all these places in December / January:

Lewisham NQT talent pool
Southwark NQT talent pool
Lambeth NQT talent pool
https://www.schoolsrecruitment.education.gov.uk/

Speculative applications?...

Very long but potentially useful lists

literacy sites

numeracy sites

massive mish-mash

Fun with words

http://testyourvocab.com/

Terrifying to-do list...

To Do
CRB - done £55
French CRB - done
Occupational Health - done £45
Send P45 and P50 to Inland Revenue
Placement form - done
Student travelcard - done £10
Check Student Finance updated - done
Council tax exemption form - done
Hand in notice - done
Student bank account
NUS card - done £12.99


To Buy
MS Office done £40
Printer done £35
Laminator
Guillotine
lever arch files
punched pockets
stickers
academic diary

clothes...
2x ballet flats
boots?
PE clothes / sports bra?
more black trousers (like DP ones) buy 3x =£75
more new Look jeggings c.£15 each
cheap / bright washable tops

House Stuff
Paint balcony
book boiler service
clean oven - done
switch to capped energy - done

Science

What were your own school/university experiences in science? Most memorable, DS setting herself on fire. At primary science was a tangential subject eg dry stone walls, pouring vinegar on limestone, confused explanation of particle theory.
What did you learn? Not very much!
What teaching approaches were used? experiments without context, lots of copying from the board.
What images or feelings do they conjure up? boredom
Have you observed any science teaching in your experience of primary classrooms? not a lot
What aspects of science were addressed?
What kinds of work were children engaged in?
How was the class organised?
What informal experiences of science have you had outside school or university?
Think about any books, TV or computer programmes you may have come across or museums you have visited. Some work on biodiversity at HM. Robin Ince's stand up. Dad making hot air balloons, metal detector, volcanoes.

Do you have any interests that might have extended your knowledge in particular areas of science e.g. gardening, fishing, cooking, outdoor pursuits?
cooking - adapting recipes / substituting ingredients. Hyperbolic crochet!
These informal experiences are of increasing importance in the development of people’s understanding of science. What have you learnt from these?
Science can be fun...
How have they affected your attitudes to science? Increased interest in and respect for science. Feelings of inadequacy at lack of scientific knowledge.

Lifeline and Critical Incidents

Lifeline
1980 Born

April 1985 Start School
I only spend a term in reception and hate it. Terrified of my teacher, convinced the other children know everything already.


Sept 1991 Start secondary school
Work is boring, get bullied, disengage with school system.

Summer 1994
skive school for year 9 SATs

Sept 1996 Sixth form
Move to larger, more academic school, suddenly achievement isn't seen as something shameful. Now I'm ashamed - I can't be the best without trying anymore.
Oct 1998 Cambridge
College and course are full of dazzlingly confident private school kids. Takes me most of the four years to realise that this is all bravado and they are not in fact more brilliant / interesting than anyone else.

Oct 2003 London - first job in PR - hate it - feels utterly pointless

2008 - relationship with NR who wants to become a primary teacher - first pangs of jealousy that I've left it too late.
May 2008 Step change interview - identify education as area I'd like to move into - unsuccessful

April 2011 listen to In Our Time on Octavia Hill, feel like a wastrel in comparison
May 2011 - search PGCEs with view to 2012 start, see places are still available for 2011 - galvanised!

Books

This is a place to record children's literature suggestions