2nd – 6th July at Magna Rotherham

Yes that’s right – free, which is why there’s not much time get book your places. This is a national event with schools from all over the country taking part but as it’s in Rotherham, we’d like to make sure that YHGfL schools make the most of this fantastic opportunity. Sign up for as much or as little as you want. Take your pupils or just go yourself, it’s all free and runs over 5 days so loads to choose from:

• 5 days of hands-on interactive and inspiring workshops and lectures from leading figures in education and industry.
• Fully inclusive workshop schedule – from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 5.
• A fully engaged curriculum – Coding/Programmer/Computer Science, Art, Maths, Physics, English, Drama.
• 750+ workshop places and 2000+ activity places – applications encouraged from schools across the country.
• 250 CPD opportunities for teachers and educators to develop existing and new digital skills taking game creation back into the classroom.
• Industry-lead careers surgeries, vital advice and guidance for schools and young people.

For every you need to get the most out of this event, visit the website or download the Planning Your Visit document. They’ve even done your visit risk assessment for you!

http://www.gamesbritannia.com/2012/assets/planningyourvisit.pdf

http://www.gamesbritannia.com/2012/index.php

The Night of the Titanic – March 29^th 2012. The Royal Hall, Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Harrogate has a special reason to remember the demise of the Titanic by way of a musical performance. Wallace Hartely was a violinist in the Harrogate Symphony Orchestra, based at the Royal Hall. He was also one of the violinists who formed part of the quartet that sank with the ship 100 years ago this year.

The Concert featuring children from local schools and the Harrogate Music Centre commemorates the sinking of the Titanic by performing David Bedford’s “The Wreck of the Titanic” A piece of music specially commissioned for the FREE on-line teaching resource  http://www.thewreckofthetitanic.org/resources/

The Young Musicians from Harrogate Music Centre are preparing for the Concert alongside the Phoenix Dance Company.

31 May 2012

A FREE videoconferencing opportunity in true ‘Euro Vision’ style for YHGfL member primary schools.

Schools  perform a short song, no longer than 3 minutes in a MFL. (French, German or Spanish)

Schools will watch the other schools perform, then after a short break, vote for the best performance and report back in true Euro Vision style –  there will be no ‘0 points’

Performances will be judged along the lines of:

• Are the children joining in?
• Is it an enthusiastic performance?
• Are the children having fun?

The winning school will then perform their song again and feature on the YHGfL video host eviews.

Certificates will be awarded to all schools.

The time is dependent on the number of schools taking part, places are limited. We may split into  key stage sessions if numbers allow.

As usual YHGfL will be able to support any schools new to the technology. Can be done with just a computer and webcam.

Click HERE to visit the YHGfL website to register and for further information.

You can watch a previous year’s video HERE on eViews.

I came across this fantastic website via The Whiteboard Blog written by the ever knowledgeable Danny Nicholson. If you haven’t seen his blog it’s well worth a look as the site is packed with some really useful interactive whiteboard resources, including some great generic ideas that can be adapted to any curriculum area.

Isle of Tune is a visual music sequencer in which you create a road layout and add houses, flowers, street lamps etc. to create the musical notes.  The car travels along the road and plays a sound every time it passes one of your objects. By clicking on the object it is possible to change the pitch or sound meaning that users can create a wealth of different tunes quickly and easily. The site also has a gallery of user created tunes with some of the top rated tunes being well known pop hits. It is possible to save your work on the site with space for up to three saved files; however this is per machine as it is cookie based rather than user specific. If you want to save your pupils work once it is completed it’s probably worth using a screen capture device such as the Smart recorder tool and then saving it as a wmv file. This way you can then string a number of files together using Windows Movie Maker (Free download) or other software. If you don’t have interactive whiteboard software installed on the machine you could always use other freely available software such as  Camstudio.

http://isleoftune.com/