Inclusive Education

With all the bad weather currently affecting the country, parents are glued to local radio stations listening for the name of their child’s school before heading out on a potential long and perilous journey.  Information about school closures is a potentially patchy affair, with each school contacting a variety of information providers in a bid to inform parents of school closures.

We have therefore decided to construct a central web site at schoolclosures.info to hold national school closure information to provide a single point of reference for parents wanting to know about school INSET/training days, closures due to bad weather or to check holidays – in effect any time a school is closed to pupils.

This also supports schools in delivery of their business continuity procedures by providing another communication medium through which to communicate with parents.

The service is free and there and no plans to introduce any charges for this service.  The site will be fully searchable on the name of the school as well as having the usual facility to browse an entire authority.

If you would like more information, please get in touch at enquiries@schoolclosures.info

Not heard of BT Internet Rangers?  You may not know the name, but you may well be familiar with the concept.  This BT sponsored programme promotes intergenerational learning with the pupils taking the role of the teacher/tutor.  Instead of tutoring peer groups or younger students, instead pupils devise and deliver training courses for grandparents.

The BT Internet Rangers site provides pupils with lesson plans, certificates and even example homework to support their learning and has examples of successful schemes from across the UK.

The scheme also provides an incentive to pupils by awarding prizes to the most successful Internet Rangers.

The site doesn’t seem to be regularly updated, but should provide you with a method of starting off a similar scheme in your area.  Get in touch if you’re already taking part or are thinking of taking part and we’ll see whether can set up a support group via the site.