If your school purchases broadband from Northern Grid you are entitled to support from our eLearning team , this is included in the price of your connection.
As well as online resources we provide events, advice, newsletters and publications and examples of best practice. Northern Grid schools are also entitled to request in school support across a range of areas including:
ICT across the curriculum
Meeting Ofsted requirements
Parental engagement
Using social media
IPR and Copyright
Video Conferencing
Learning Platforms
eSafeguarding
This area of the website gives details of some of the support other schools have had. Please contact Northern Grid to discuss your specific needs: support@northerngrid.org
If your school does not get broadband from Northern Grid you can still access our support, contact us for details of our charges.
Recently there have been some high profile national debates about what schools should teach as part of the ICT curriculum and a high profile has been given to programming. Programming in schools isn't new and builds on work they will already be doing. It starts in early years with work on instructions, positional language and knowledge of machines and devices that can be controlled in the world around us. Much of this early work doesn't need to involve technology at all but there is lots of technology that can be used to support it. Floor turtles and computer based resources can be programmed with simple instructions or complex sequences and there are several free applications. On this page there are resources to support programming for pupils of all ages.
Northern Grid in its new partnership with BT is pleased to promote:
FREE 'LIVING WITH TECHNOLOGY SESSIONS' FOR PARENTS
eSafety with a difference!
As part of the Living with Technology pilot programme, BT have worked with The Parent Zone to develop a free, hour long workshop for parents, giving practical advice and information to help them feel confident in understanding and enjoying technology with their family.
The Parent Zone have trained BT workers, most of them parents themselves, to deliver the workshop, and are also responsible for matching volunteers to schools.
BT has developed a series of 'how to' hand outs that parents will receive, and The Parent Zone offers follow up email support to parents and schools after the workshop. The workshop can be delivered to parents with children of any age, but is probably most useful for parents of 8-14 year olds.
We have volunteers trained and ready to deliver in Newcastle, Gateshead, Blyth, Alnwick, Cramlington and Tynemouth – to register for a workshop in your school go to www.btlivingwithtechnology.com and fill out the online form.
Alternatively, you can ring Sophie, the Project Coordinator on 07939 569617.
Deadline for booking a workshop: 4th May
Please note: as this is a pilot, the number of workshops is limited, so sign up now to avoid disappointment! Once you have registered, Sophie will be in touch to find a suitable date and time; she'll also send you materials to help you promote the workshop to parents.
“very interesting and thought provoking and the information was delivered very clearly and concisely”
Northern Grid delivered an in school support session on Parental Engagement to the staff of Ash Trees School in January 2012.
The focus of the session was how technology can be used to support effective parental engagement.
The aims of the 1 hour session were to:
recognise the importance of parental engagement
identify how technology can be used to improve parental engagement
start the process of planning how to develop your school’s approach to parental engagement.
The session included:
A review of the current literature and research
Parental Engagement and the Ofsted Evaluation Schedule and the Ofsted Schools and Parents report
Becta resources
Technology and how it can be used
Glenn Atkinson, ICT coordinator at Ash Trees provided the following feedback:
“the staff and myself found your input very interesting and thought provoking and the information was delivered very clearly and concisely. I know you had condensed your usual delivery to meet the limited time available for our staff meeting but I do feel you imparted lots of useful information without the feeling of being bombarded with too much.”
For more information about this session contact christine.jack@northerngrid.org
To find out how else Northern Grid can support your school contact support@northerngrid.org
A head teacher from a primary school in one of the Northern Grid partner LAs recently asked about teaching Control Technology and what equipment was needed. Susie Arnott, who has worked with Northern Grid regularly over the last few years, has produced this helpful guide.
Teaching Control Technology in the Primary Curricuum
Teaching control technology starts in Early Years.
Many Early Years settings will have lots of role play toys such as microwave ovens etc. that have buttons to start timers, noises etc. Old “real’ items, such as old mobile phones also offer opportunities for important play and talk. Adults should draw attention to the “cause and effect” of pressing buttons etc., and also discuss the control switches, dials etc. on real-life machines and gadgets.
The most frequently seen “formal” equipment is the BeeBot which has a simple set of control buttons to make it move forwards, backwards, turn to right or left and make a sound. There are lots of accessories to add, such as additional shell tops to transform your BeeBot into a variety of different characters/colours, and play mats that encourage the planning of routes.
Play with BeeBots (and other programmable toys) begins in an experiential way. Structured, adult-supported activities are needed to supplement free play in order to develop the important sequencing strategies for making complicated actions in one go. With the addition of some support materials for planning or recording moves, children’s development in understanding of this technology can be extended greatly. This can be as simple as providing a set of teacher-made cards which match the buttons on the toy and setting them out in a sequence to show the buttons to press to complete a specific action.
Many schools also have ROAMER. This is more suitable for use with children in Y2 up – if they are to develop sequencing and programming skills...
On Monday 3rd October I led a CPD session for the staff at Shotton Primary Durham to look at ways of making informed and appropriate choices about using social media tools.
The session also looked at how to manage the risks by considering safe practice in order to protect yourself, your pupils and the wider school community.
The following 10 important points were considered and discussed:
Decision should be made as a school.
Full support of the SLT
Use should be fully documented
Risk assessed
Identified within the eSafety policy
Responsibilities for moderation
Up to date content - keep it fresh
Sites Terms and Conditions
Compliance with schools behaviour and complaints procedures
Due to the global nature of the internet, risk cannot be 100% removed, a clearly defined eSafety policy and incident procedure is essential
The following links may be of use if you are thinking of engaging the use of Social Media for your School Community:
Northern Grid attended the Kinect™, Kindles™, Know How and Learning Impact! event on Tuesday 27th September. During the event schools had the opportunity to find out about the wide range of support available from Naace, including the ICT CPD 4 Free website and the Naace ICT CPD award scheme. Vital shared information about the work they do and the support they provide (see: http://www.vital.ac.uk) and some of the events they are supporting in partnership with Northern Grid, including the Tees Teachmeet on October 6th.
Then it was time to hear how Kindles and XBox Kinects are being used in primary, secondary and special school classrooms and a have chance to play with the Kindles and the XBox Kinects set up in the room.
After playtime the session was rounded off with Steve Bunce sharing some great ideas for using free tools to add some excitment to teaching and learning. Ideas included using Angry Birds, Scratch and Camera Mouse - an interesting tool that can turn your nose into a mouse!
The afternoon was very enjoyable and it was great to meet such enthusiastic teachers from across the region.
Dame Dorothy Primary School in Sunderland completed a support request at the Northern Grid conference in June. They wanted a session that would support staff in building on their knowledge of using sounds, images and PowerPoint.
The session included:
How to find images and sounds to use in school that wouldn’t cause problems with copyright.
“Simon delivered a presentation to our Childminder Network earlier in the year, around how to keep within professional boundaries when using social websites. We all got so much from this session that the network requested a return visit. As usual, Simon delivered a fast paced, very informative session which stimulated much thought and discussion".
September 13 2011
Working with children has many rewards and also presents a range of safeguarding challenges.
An interesting area of my esafety and safeguarding work involves supporting childminders, and the challenges they face are much more complex than we may at first expect.
Childminders work at home and the benefits of this are clear, yet the blurring of work and personal boundaries can lead to problems. We may occasionally be more flexible in our understanding of ‘acceptable’ in our own home than perhaps if we were working in an open plan office or alongside colleagues all day.
The group of childminders I met, in the evening, this week had a huge range of experience, and one childminder had almost 30 years’ experience in working with young children. If we consider the changes in technology over the last 30 years we can begin to imagine how the risks to both the children and the childminder have increased at a seemingly alarming rate. A childminder must ensure that they have the confidence and skills to manage the risks facing children who use common internet technologies including games consoles, phones and computers.
In addition to the challenges of working at home and the lack of day to day contact with colleagues who could provide important support and advice, childminders also face the challenge of informal relationships with their clients or customers. Where other self-employed people will have clearly defined parameters to relationships with their clients, childminders may have close friendships with the parents of the children in their care. We discussed this during the session and where the childminder and the parent of the children share a mutual trust and understanding then friendships and working relationships can be managed very effectively. This may mean the general guidance we offer in managing Facebook privacy settings is often much harder for childminders, and those who work at home, to put into effect. Unfortunately this can lead to potential areas of difficulty if parents of...
"The presentation was very comprehensive and delivered in a way that everyone could interact with and understand. The balance between the talking and hands on was great and staff went home last night and actually explored further.Thank you very much for you time and effort - it was great!"
Staff from Archibald First School attended the Northern Grid Conference in June and were impressed by the work other schools were doing with Blogs. They filled in a support voucher on the day which entitled them to a 2 hour support session from a member of the Northern Grid eLearning team.
The session included:
An introduction to how Blogs can support teaching and learning
An overview of things to consider when setting up Blogs for use in school
A chance to examine the eSafety issues involved in using Blogs
An introduction to using Blogger
A practical, hands on session
Feedback from the session was very posive and the school is now planning how they will introduce Blogs. For more information about this session or How to Use Blogs in School contact christine.jack@northerngrid.org
Northern Grid provides a range of support for schools. For more information about how we can help you please contact support@northerngrid.org
This is a collection of useful information about the services Northern Grid offers and what to do if you want to buy a service from us, or if you want to leave us to go elsewhere.
The broadband Northern Grid provides to schools and Local Authorities is currently provided through Easynet. Our contract with Easynet will expire on July 31st 2012 and Northern Grid is going through a procurement process to identify who will provide our connectivity after this date
This means that information in the documents on this page is likely to change. To make sure you get the most up to date information heads can complete the Expression of interest document. See the Procurement briefing note for more information.
Will your ICT provision support your journey to become an outstanding school?
Where ICT is used effectively to support learning, attainment and achievement can increase. Outstanding schools are ones where ICT is embedded within all aspects of school life and where management, teaching and support staff and learners exploit technologies.
Do you know how ICT is used in your school? ICT and online technologies can support your staff, promote more engaging teaching, motivate pupils and help you engage more effectively with parents. The list below will help you get off to a good start in the new academic year.
Security Leavers and New Starters
Good schools have effective security policies and practice. Having these in place enables more creative and positive uses of technology. Does your school have Policies and Practices which support creative uses of online technologies?
Knowing who has access to your systems is important. How do you ensure integrity and confidentiality of staff and pupil data? Is your security policy enforced and reviewed regularly? What would be the consequences of public access to your confidential data? Loss of reputation is a key driver for securing your information infrastructure.
Effective policies which deal with "leavers and new starters", improve the security of your systems and data. Do you remove former pupils and staff from your database to prevent them from accessing your systems remotely once they have left? Is someone tasked with ensuring that email accounts and other online systems have been disabled for those who are no longer part of your establishment? Do you ensure that new...
"Thanks very much for the two sessions you delivered today. They were really good and the feedback suggests enjoyable and informative. I hope to be in contact in the future for a follow up session for staff in due course"
-Tim Dufill, Assistant Head
Early in Summer 2011 Assistant Head, Tim Duffill, contacted Simon to explore ways in which Northern Grid could provide support to the school, particularly in the area of sharing messages about esafety and online behaviour. The school is currently reviewing its esafety and safeguarding policies and it was agreed that Simon would deliver two sessions for the whole staff on the first training day of the autumn term. The workshop focused on the challenges facing adults who use social media, and work with young people. Both the sessions were well received and helped to prepare the teachers and support staff for the launch of the redrafted school esafety policies. Northern Grid provides a range of esafety offerings for all schools and organisations who work with young people. For more information how we can help you please contact support@northerngrid.org
A pilot project / case study facilitated by Northern Grid for learning and Lush Places Media.
Northern Grid is always keen to promote and facilitate the use of cutting edge technology in its partner schools. Lights Camera Action is a unique and interactive TV workshop using a portable television studio with the latest 'virtual' computer generated set which gave the pupils and staff at Normanby Primary a rare opportunity to experience life in the high pressure world of broadcast news.
The pupils were engaged right from the beginning of the session and were keen to investigate how everything worked. The level of interest and skills shown by the pupils was of a very high standard. The structure of the day almost demanded this along with a mature approach to editing and producing to targets and deadlines.
The pupils at Normanby certainly stepped up to the mark during this intensive and challenging day.
This day-long course which can be customised to appeal to all learners really gave the pupils an insight into the decisions you have to take under pressure to ensure a programme gets 'on air' to deadline. During the day the groups of pupils showed how adapt they were at teamwork and decision-making skills whilst developing those leadership skills required in a scenario that required them to choose and reject user generated content in writing their scripts. As well developing the type of skills mentioned above the pupils also showed how to stay 'cool' in front of the camera by auditioning for the roles of news / programme presenter.
“It was fantastic to see how our children were inspired to produce a high quality, indeed professional, news broadcast”
Carl Faulkner, Head Teacher, Normanby Primary School
The day organised at Normanby included the use of visual and audio materials collected by the pupils using their own school equipment. Schools can however use video cameras provided by Lush Places Media to record their own material in advance of the workshop to ensure the final bulletin is very much theirs.
The Lights! Camera! Action! Day supported and enhanced the...
View the 4 videos below or go to our YouTube Channel. If you need guidance and resources in dealing with these areas visit the eSafety area of our website.
Also labeled: 
eSafety with a difference!
The focus of the session was how technology can be used to support effective parental engagement.
Many schools also have ROAMER. This is more suitable for use with children in Y2 up – if they are to develop sequencing and programming skills...
Social Media CPD Shotton Primary Durham
Staff from Archibald First School attended the Northern Grid Conference in June and were impressed by the work other schools were doing with Blogs. They filled in a support voucher on the day which entitled them to a 2 hour support session from a member of the Northern Grid eLearning team. 
Northern Grid is always keen to promote and facilitate the use of cutting edge technology in its partner schools. Lights Camera Action is a unique and interactive TV workshop using a portable television studio with the latest 'virtual' computer generated set which gave the pupils and staff at Normanby Primary a rare opportunity to experience life in the high pressure world of broadcast news.
The day organised at Normanby included the use of visual and audio materials collected by the pupils using their own school equipment. Schools can however use video cameras provided by Lush Places Media to record their own material in advance of the workshop to ensure the final bulletin is very much theirs.
