Inclusion in Tower Hamlets
This one-hour webinar from the BDA is helpful for staff, parents, and pupils with dyslexia. It covers how to develop memory skills and positive metacognition. It gives practical examples for making revision fun, using games and teaching valuable techniques for tackling exam questions.
We’ve all been inundated with stories about AI since ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022. During this time, you may have encountered articles discussing how AI could potentially undermine students’ critical thinking skills. Conversely, you may have also read about the potential for new tools to transform education, offering each student access to their own personal tutor.
As a technology enthusiast, I’ve been keeping up with the latest developments for some time. However, the guidance in this field has been changing rapidly, making it challenging to keep up. New services are being launched every day, and even Twinkl has its own impressive AI services! When I received an email from Oak Academy “introducing” me to Aila, their new free lesson planning AI bot, I realised it was time to take stock and gain an overview of the current state of AI in education. AI in education is a vast and controversial subject. Let’s start by discussing the least contentious aspect: teachers using AI to prepare better lessons faster.
Before I go any further, it’s worth noting that it costs many $billions to develop an LLM (Large Language Model) – the engine behind any chatbot or most AI services. Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Facebook’s LLaMA. All of the other services (Aila, Twinkl AI etc.) are built on top of them. It’s not hard to build a chatbot. I made one to incorporate appropriate assistive technology into lesson plans. It wasn’t difficult. But it’s not finished. There are lots of helpful guides and videos online.
You should also know that AI lies (hallucinates). Always check important information.
It would be impossible to list all the resources here. They’re constantly evolving, and new ones are being launched. However, if you’re still manually writing out your lesson/unit plans, you’re wasting a lot of time. Used intelligently, AI can be like having a personal assistant, leaving you more time for the critical part of the job. Spending time with students. However, if you’re looking for somewhere to start, take a look at the information below. If you use any others, please leave a comment to share your experience with the community.
Generate creative prompts and brainstorm ideas for lesson activities. Get instant explanations and examples. Generate questions for quizzes. Create lesson plan outlines.
Keep in mind the following information: Give it a learning objective, an age group, and details of prior learning, and it will generate a lesson plan, a PowerPoint, 2 quizzes, and a worksheet. Its plans align closely with the English curriculum. You can edit them. You’ll need to do so since it doesn’t seem to want to differentiate them. It’s free. One of the best parts of the generated lessons is the quizzes, which can be accessed directly.
Twee works well for warm-up activities. Give it a YouTube video, which will generate various quizzes about the content.
Primary only. Lesson planning includes differentiation and maps to their existing (and extensive) pool of resources. Also has a whole host of useful time-saving tools. Definitely worth a look.
Creates incredibly engaging AI-enhanced presentations. Very impressive! Free trial for teachers.
Josie worked as a Careers Advisor and librarian before starting the Home Ed Life blog. Her website is full of current advice, unpicks the legal requirements and points you in the direction of free resources to teach the way you want to, enrich your child’s learning but also prepare them for statutory examinations.
Homeschool Life Archives (homeedlife.co.uk)
Give your child the chance to read each day (10 minutes is fine)
Read stories to your child (three short stories before bedtime goes down a treat)
Cook with your child (preparing a meal, operating the microwave or weighing and measuring are great opportunities for learning mathematics)
Buy bread and milk (or other basics) on the way home from school. Doing this in person at the shop using loose change is great ‘real life’ mathematics
Have fun. Playing games, taking turns, watching TV together and dressing up are great ways to support your child
Write shopping lists, keep diaries, write letters and invitations to inspire you child to write.
There are lots of ideas on this 50 Ways to Learn poster that you could also use at home.
Anson Primary school has a great range of resources. Check their website:
Linda Hall and Tracey Grant from the Language, Literacy and Communication Team led training on Word Aware, a structured whole school approach to promote the vocabulary development of all children. Focused on whole class learning, the resource is of particular value for those who start at a disadvantage – including children with Developmental Language Disorder, Special Educational Needs and those who speak English as an additional language, but it will extend the word learning of all students.
Practical, inspiring and fun ideas were explored that can be easily applied by busy classroom practitioners to develop both spoken and written vocabulary.
Remi Atoyebi (Headteacher), Helen Vail and Tracey Grant (Language, Literacy and Communication Team Learning Advisory Service Advisory teacher for inclusion).
Contact linda.hall@towerhamlets.gov.uk for further information if you are interested in booking this training for your school.
Climate change and Environmental Science
Enjoy a light-hearted illustrated children’s book about climate change and caring for our animals that is perfect for inspiring the next Greta Thunberg or David Attenborough.
Listen to the author read it aloud- https://youtu.be/ZEn-6ZiAUNM
Climate Change resources
Climate change resources for schools | WWF
Climate Change for Kids – Science Experiments for Kids (science-sparks.com)
17 Weather Science Projects and Lessons | Science Buddies Blog
Great learning at Arnhem Wharf Primary School led by LLC advisors Alison Haines and Tracey Grant. Staff delved into current theory and innovative practice leading to classroom success!
Click on the Specific Learning Difficulties heading in the blue bar above and you will find a range pages to support parents and teachers with study skills, reading, spelling and handwriting
Click the image above to see this short YouTube video from the British Dyslexia Association. It explores the possible difficulties and strengths of young people with dyslexia. It is three minutes long.
The video could be used pupils, parents, teachers and teaching assistants.
Dyslexia Awareness Week is:
Almost all schools now offer a literacy curriculum based on systematic synthetic phonics which most children respond really well to. But, there is a small group of pupils that don’t make the progress that we expect. 
The building blocks to good phonic skills include really strong phonological awareness skills (the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in spoken language e.g. syllables, rhyme etc.) and phoneme awareness (manipulating individual sounds). Research shows that the majority of pupils that go on to struggle with spelling, reading and writing have a relative difficulty with their phoneme awareness and other phonological skills. This group need extra time and attention.
Early Years settings are brilliant at developing phonological awareness skills, but as children move up into Key Stage 1 and beyond, it becomes harder for class teachers to find time to spend time on this.
One useful resource, available to all schools with access to the London Grid for Learning is Busy Things. We found their phonic games very helpful when supporting children during lockdown, as they develop phonological awareness as well as phonics.
They updated a lot of the materials in May 2021. We like the way you can customize the games to concentrate on specific grapheme phoneme correspondences.
Our pupils loved the games. There are games to support rhyming skills such as Topple the Tower and Robert Robot:
As well as games like Feed the Monster and Build the Word which focus on oral blending and segmenting:
The software allows you to choose which scheme you want to follow, as well as your regional accent preference (north or south of England):
Once pupils are confident at using the games online, you can also produce pdf’s of specific patterns to reinforce areas that they are working on. This was useful to set as targeted homework.
Busy things does not replace the work we need to do to help strengthen phonological awareness skills but it is a really useful tool. Children can independently use the game on laptops during class reading time or other pockets of the school day.
Teachers can set up class profiles and monitor how their pupils are doing.
For more information, there are youtube videos on how to get started, as well as tutorials online. Alternatively, do contact us for more information. While not experts, we are happy to share what we have learnt!
Tower Hamlets Language, Literacy and Communication Team
September 2021