Teachit’s top ten resources 2007–8

We thought you might be interested in taking a peek at this year’s most downloaded resources.

1. Achieve your dream [Writing to argue, persuade, advise]
2. Persuasive writing skills worksheets – a set of worksheets covering (nearly) everything [Advertising]
3. Varying your sentences [Writing skills]
4. Original writing trail [Teachit trails]
5. 15 random adverts ‘crunched’ in Teachit’s Cruncher [Advertising]
6. A comprehensive pack (Of Mice and Men) [Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck]
7. A scheme of work for year 8 (Holes) [Holes by Louis Sachar]
8. Writing non-fiction [Non fiction text types]
9. Persuasion skills [Writing to argue, persuade, advise]
10. English Paper 1 learning mat [GCSE specification resources: AQA A]

Teachit Primary

We’re delighted to announce the arrival of Teachit Primary.

It works just like Teachit: an ever-growing library of tweakable, tried and tested resources written by teachers for teachers; Whizzy things (including a lovely collection of ready-made Primary whizzies); My Teachit, where you can store and organise your resources ... and more!

We’ve started with English and Literacy, but we’ve also classified resources by cross-curricular projects and we hope to develop the site to include resources for other curriculum areas.

Go on, dive in and take a look! We have some lovely resources free for all to use and some fabulous whizzies to play around with.

Free logins for our existing Primary and Middle School members

If you’re a Primary or Middle school Teachit member and you’d like a free membership for Teachit Primary, email support@teachit.co.uk or call us on 01225 788850.

Spend, spend, spend!

Just in case the news hasn’t reached you yet, e-Learning Credits are due to expire on 31st August 2008. After that date any you have left (assuming you can get your hands on them in the first place!) will be worth zilch. What better time to shore up your Teachit membership? – we offer substantial discounts to schools who subscribe for two or more years.

You can use e-LCs for any of our KS3 Interactive Packs, too. Zap up your poetry lessons with Poetry Shuffle, and/or get one (or more) of our KS3 Interactive Shakespeare Packs, including updates for SATS 2009 (The Tempest) and GCSE (Much Ado About Nothing and

Richard III) - now only £30 each.

The one with all the
PROJECTS
Summer (2) 2008 / Term 6

Are projects a waste of time or the bee's knees? For anyone alive in the 70s, they're the stuff of nostalgia: whole terms spent pootling about with tissue paper, Gloy and marker pens or filling a scrapbook with stickers, photos and the odd sage word. Lovely at the time, but the kind of indulgence that curriculum pressures seemed to have ruled out long, long ago. ... > read on

Romeo and Juliet

We're getting a steady trickle of enquiries asking whether we're planning to do a pack for Romeo and Juliet. The answer is yes! In partnership with Devon Education Services, we'll be publishing a DVD of active approaches for the 2009 set sections, including video material, lesson plans and resources. We hope that it will be available by early October.

Register your interest by emailing support@teachit.co.uk and we'll let you have more details soon.

Book of the month

Our current book of the month is Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – the story of Nigeria in the 1960s, told through the eyes of three main characters. ‘It’s gone straight to the top of my list of recommended reads’, says Alison in the Teachit book group discussion – ‘What do other people think?’ Over to you ... and if you haven’t read it yet, well, what else is the summer for? :-)

Calling all subject leaders

The Subject Leaders’ Sanctuary has been open to all so far, but from September it will be closing its doors. From then on only heads of department will have access. You can register now by emailing support@teachit.co.uk and telling us your name, your school, school phone number, your job title and your Teachit username if applicable.

We’re on the lookout for a new blogger to spill some weekly beans about life as a subject leader. The aim is to entertain, but also to give other subject leaders something by which to measure the mayhem of their own weeks. If this appeals, please email katie@teachit.co.uk to find out more.

World Book Day survey results

NATE and Teachit ran a joint survey for World Book Day this year, to find out what you and your students enjoy reading and teaching. We'll report the results in full in the next English Teaching News.

Many thanks to all of you who responded. We're pleased to announce that the prizes for the most interesting sets of answers go to Carrie Chittock, Amy Wagner and Ros Fisher.