Software to Cover Primary Curriculum

[Bobbeh]

Hello,

 

Had a quick search but couldn't spot any other threads about this. If I've missed one sorry!

 

We are looking at moving from our current RM CC4 server to a more 'vanilla' Windows environment over the summer when we replace our creaking six year old server.

 

We are without an ICT Coordinator and have been for a while so am interested in seeing what software others are using the cover the curriculum and any positives/negatives to help steer us in the right direction please?

 

Currently we have Office 2016/Office 365, the dated RM software like Colour Magic along with the usual primary stuff like Scratch and Google Earth.

 

There seems to be quite a few web based options like 2Simple and J2E. Does anyone have any experience of them?

 

Thanks!

[jmak]

We use Purple Mash (online version of the old 2simple).

 

We get great feedback from teachers. As well as loads more tools than the original software, there's a huge amount of curriculum topic based content. One of the upsides of it being web based is that it is kept up to date to match the national curriculum.

 

The obvious downside is that you have to pay a subscription, so which realistically ties you in to giving them more money, but we reckon it's one of the best value products we buy. (I wonder if they do referral discounts [emoji6])

 

For early years, we use Busythings - very accessible for younger pupils and there is now KS1 content. If I could only have one, I'd choose Purple Mash.

[Ditto]

Hello,

Had a quick search but couldn't spot any other threads about this. If I've missed one sorry!

We are looking at moving from our current RM CC4 server to a more 'vanilla' Windows environment over the summer when we replace our creaking six year old server.

We are without an ICT Coordinator and have been for a while so am interested in seeing what software others are using the cover the curriculum and any positives/negatives to help steer us in the right direction please?

Currently we have Office 2016/Office 365, the dated RM software like Colour Magic along with the usual primary stuff like Scratch and Google Earth.

There seems to be quite a few web based options like 2Simple and J2E. Does anyone have any experience of them?

Thanks!

 

We're mostly a GSuite for Education/Chromebook school so have largely managed without the MS stack. We do now have an ICT suite with a server and use it for AD, print management and support about 25 PCs in the ICT suite (senior only).

 

We're just up with 5 years of Purple Mash from 2Simple and have just renewed for another 5 after a small battle to justify - I guess that says quite a lot about the product. It's a sizeable, so if you can get a teacher to take the lead and train others, you'll get more out of it. We use BugClub for reading but it seems to be petering out of use and unlikely to be renewed. We use Mathletics in primary - useful for homework setting. Senior use MyMaths and some primary use it as licensing for Senior include primary's. I've seen SPAG.com used - seems OK.

 

One of the concerns for the business manager is overlapping solutions and a lack of use after purchase. You do need at least one teacher to be a 'champion' for the product and provide training on use. With a few years staff turnover any product can end up being under-used through lack of knowledge more than anything.

I can provide more feedback on Senior school products if needed, but I would say the two things we have purchased for a Windows based solution solution are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. We've yet to find a suitable chrome/android alternative to those. This could increase I guess as we grow (we're only up to Year 10 right now) and once we have a 6th form, I guess we will know more. In summary, we've not felt too restricted being using online solutions.