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ISSUE 4 2014 December

PedEx WBGS

I M AG I N E , I M P R O V E , I N S P I R E

Editors—Hk and Wk

Contributors—Anne Petty, Ayan Lowe, Gf, Fa, Hw, Cc, Wk, Hk

Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to this issue.

If you would like to se your ideas in the next edition, please get in

contact with Hk or Wk.

Welcome back PedEx! Our teaching and learning

group magazine is back up and

running for the year ahead,

with new and improved ideas!

To those of you who haven’t

heard of us before, we’re here

to fill your heads with brand

new ideas to use in the class-

room, so take a break from

your marking, grab a cup of

tea and your new edition of

PedEx. The articles in this

magazine are a mere snippet of

the innovative ideas which are

shared once a term at teaching

and learning group, so come

and join us at a meeting, to

share suggestions of your own,

or to listen to what others have

to offer. We aim to provide

activities which can be used

across the board in a variety of

different subjects, so let us

know how you get on and we

look forward to hearing your

new ideas!

CONTENTS

Page 1

Welcome back to PedEx Page 2

E-books

Book quiz Page 3

Question Wall

Ted Talks Page 4

Devious Descriptions

Catchphrase Page 5

Websites to use in Form time. Page 6

Coffee break fun—games, puzzles and more

PedEx WBGS is published once a term by

WBGS Teaching and Learning Group.

Next T&L Group Meeting is Thursday 8th January

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E-books As the nights draw in and the weather gets

colder, encourage your students to read using

our fantastic new resource in the library, as

well as taking the opportunity to browse

yourself! Broaden their minds and further their

educational desires with the new eBooks! The

information on the right explains how the

students can find the eBooks online using their

phone, tablet or reader and it is available for

all staff as well!

If you would like your Winter reading to

include a few magazines, why not register for

the Hertfordshire Libraries Zinio Magazine

Collection? You will need to be a member of

Hertfordshire Libraries as you require the

number to logon and create a password, but it

is definitely worth having a browse. There is a

huge selection of magazines to choose from,

including back issues, to help fill the cold

nights over Christmas.

Search for Hertfordshire Libraries Zinio

Click on –Read Magazines online

Click on Zinio

How well read are you? Do you know the answers to the questions below? 1) The Bennet family appear in which Jane Austen novel?

2) Who wrote the ‘Twilight’ series of novels?

3) Who wrote Paradise Lost?

4) How are the sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy described in the title of an 1868 novel?

5) Who wrote the Booker Prize winning novel The Life of Pi?

6) What was the street address of Sherlock Holmes?

7) Amy Dunne is the main character from which popular book, which has been recently turned into a film?

8) Polynesia the parrot teaches animal language to what literary character?

9) Which famous literary character's parents were killed by Lord Voldemort?

10) In what year did Charles Darwin publish ‘On the Origin of Species’?

(Answers below)

1) Pride and prejudice 2) Stephenie Meyer 3) John Milton 4) Little Women 5) Yann Martel 6) 221B Baker Street 7) Gone girl

8) Doctor Dolittle 9) Harry Potter 10) 1859

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Question Wall

What is it? The idea is to print and laminate a copy of this to put up in

your classroom, encouraging a culture of curiosity and enquiry

in lessons, rather than pupils learning passively. It engages

students with their learning, giving them the opportunity to

think and question what they are learning, as well as clarifying

their own thoughts.

You could use it easily as a starter/plenary – write some

questions they have on Post-it notes at the start of the lesson

and by the end of the lesson boys come up, pick a question and

try to answer it. If not, could they find out the answer for

homework? Using post its means it is also easy for the teacher

to group the questions and save some for future lessons.

Why is this useful? AfL – pupils can demonstrate what they’ve learnt in a lesson

or over a couple of lessons by answering questions they had at

the start.

Behaviour/time management strategy – to prevent disruption to

your lesson e.g. Every pupil has some Post-its at the start of the

lesson and if they have a question they can write it down. A

time period can be set aside at the end of the lesson to answer

any questions which haven’t been answered during the course

of the lesson already.

Revision – questions could be kept until the end of a topic where they could be revisited and answered

by other pupils in the class. If the wall is permanently left up in the classroom then Post-its could gather

over time and be used later on.

Ted Talks

It does what it says on the tin! A website

full of fantastic ideas to be shared, dis-

cussed and argued. They have daily cov-

erage of the world of ideas, blogs from

their global community, short books to

feed your craving for ideas and probably

the most useful tool – TED talks.

Great videos on a whole plethora of different topics which can be used during form time to promote

discussion, in lesson time to engage with new ideas and phenomena and for homework to further the

students’ knowledge of global issues and ideas. Some of the following are the hot videos of the moment:

TED under 20: Talks from scientists, musicians, innovators -- all in

their teens.

How Christmas lights helped guerrillas put down their guns

How autism freed me to be myself

The coming crisis in antibiotics

QUESTION WALL

So follow the link below

and get the discussions

rolling!

http://www.ted.com/

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Devious descriptions

This can be done in pairs or by getting boys to come up to the front and describe to the whole class.

The boys need to describe a key word to their partner by saying as many things as they can before their partner

guesses what the word is (everything that they say needs to be correct).

The boy describing can then be given points for how many correct things they say before their partner guesses

what they are describing.

This activity works better than normal articulate (where the person needs to describe a word or phrase, to be

guessed as quickly as possible) as much more information about the topic is given. It encourages boys to link

in abstract ideas, remember the finer details and get down to the nitty gritty of what they are trying to explain.

For example if describing deforestation boys could talk about the fact that it is increased with an increasing

population, the removal of carbon sinks, affects the carbon cycle, increases leeching, reduces biodiversity etc

instead of just saying ‘cutting down trees’.

Catchphrase

Exactly what you think it is! The aim is to have

the answers to various questions in boxes,

which cover up a catchphrase underneath.

When boys answer the questions correctly, the

boxes are removed and they can begin to guess

the catchphrase! The catchphrases can be

changed to any of your choice – they could be

completely irrelevant to the topic questions

being asked, to add an additional fun aspect to

the lesson and test their catchphrase skills, or

there could be pictures/phrases etc related to

your topic! A template for this can be found

here: T:\Teaching and Learning Group\teaching

and learning ideas\Autumn 2014

Some ways to use this:

Ask all boys to show answers on mini

whiteboards and then select one to click the

square and have a guess.

Split class into teams and pick a boy from

each team to answer the question. First boy

to answer correctly reveals the square.

Disadvantage is the other boys won’t be

doing anything apart from shouting and

giving you a headache!

Ask boys to think about the answer in their

head and then pick one randomly to answer.

Checks who has been listening!

Enjoy!

Here is the grid be-

fore you start – with

lots of answers in

boxes covering the

catchphrase.

As questions are an-

swered correctly,

boxes begin to reveal

the catchphrase –

can you guess what

it is yet?

Finally, the

catchphrase can

be revealed! Did

you get it?

Hand in hand!

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http://formtimeideas.com/

Websites to use in Form Time.

Sporcle—mentally

stimulating

diversions.

This website has

loads of interactive

quizzes that can be

completed as a

forms or in teams.

Quizzes include:

naming the countries

of the different con-

tinents, naming the

movies from their

posters and naming

the companies from

their corporate

logos.

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SIDE

Coffee Break

Dingbats—try to figure out the object, famous

phrases or sayings. More can be found at:

http://www.quizmasters.biz/DB/Pic/Dingbats/

Dingbats.html

Excellent to use

in form time as

well.

Get writing… If you’ve got something you want to write about, we want to hear from you. Email Olivia Hockin

or Katie Watson with any suggestions.

Cryptic Underground stations. Can you

guess the name of the underground station

from the clues below? Answers below.

1. Alpine Dwelling

2. Its falling down

3. The longest reign

4. Irate monarch

5. Where the money is

6. Weapon store

7. Nobleman captured

8. Heavenly messenger

9. Where blackboard materials are grown

10. You won’t find acrobats at this

university

Cryptic underground answers: 1. Swiss cottage, 2. London Bridge, 3. Victoria, 4. Kings Cross, 5. Bank,

6. Arsenal, 7. Earls Court, 8. Angel, 9. Chalk farm, 10. Oxford Circus.

Dingbat answers: Potatoes, postman, too little too late, foreign language, ping pong.