Ketlane

Cumbria certainly is broken. Cumbria Traffic News - BBC Travel We have several roads closed; local rumour has it that some won't reopen for a year or so (not confirmed); diversions according to the BBC - and I think they are right - can be 40 miles. It's sort of telling when one road closure is labelled as being only medium disruption!

Quick disclaimer - not my website although I have a (rather distant) interest....

So this is not so good then:.... Sandy Lane Primary School - Sandy Lane

Out of interest - how long can a maintained school get away with a website which only says "We are rebuilding the website: check back soon" or words to that effect?

Known to crews as Dreamlighter.....

Like it. Does what you need. Significantly better than one I have to use regularly (won't name the school, different part of the country). The staff mugshots - as on so many websites - are a bit mugshot-like. I'd try to get pictures of the staff doing things - teaching, marking, cooking, NMing, whatever....it would provide more personalisation.

This. 1965 Jaguar E-Type Series 1 4.2-Litre Roadster | Monterey 2015 | RM Sotheby's

Check your MIS. It's built in to SchoolBase, for example.

Elephant walks into a bar and orders a pint. Barman says, "We don't get many elephants in here." Elephant replies, "No wonder at these prices."

Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Went to a school auction a few years back; without much of a catalogue and without knowing what the bidding would be like our Bursar kindly gave us a top limit and let us spend where it seemed to be best value. Worked well: we bought kit that we were planning to get in the future but paid far less than list price. The sad bit was that all the sports trophies and the honours boards were up for sale too - and presumably with very little intrinsic value but lots of sentimental value. I spoke to the auctioneer and he decided to withdraw them from the sale and then offer to the former pupils' organisation for, I think, a nominal price.

How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Fish

What did the slug say to the snail? "Big Issue?"

What has six legs and if it fell from a tree it would kill you? Snooker table

Yes - it's an MIS. If you're thinking of switching to SIMS you might think of switching to a competitor?

SchoolBase is a contender here. Includes web portal sign-up, timetabling, attendance....

This is a personal request, rather than a whole-school question, as this is well outside my experience. After an assessment, my grandson in Year 2 has been advised to "use a laptop" in class, specifically for typing his work. In discussion with the school, they want to delay this a bit to get his handwriting better first: this seems wise, so we have until September to think things through. They have some AlphaSmart Neo devices, which are a bit ederly in terms of technology, but which they advocate for younger children. We haven't yet opened a BYOD discussion with the school. I would welcome advice and experience: 1. Any comments on how we could help with the AlphaSmart device? 2. At what stage is it sensible to move from handwriting to keyboard, given his dyslexia? 3. My prejudice is that if you are using the devise to write with, you need a keyboard not just a touch screen: comments? 4. If we went the BYOD rout - dependent on school IT policy - what sort of device for a Year 3 child? Needs to be simple and bombproof? Many, many thanks!

The speed reading course I did some time ago emphasised reading groups of words - three, four or five - at a go, which encourages reading the words in context. It mirrored the observations of fast readers, whose eyes hop along a line of text in blocks of words rather than one at a time. We were pushed hard to read a novel at speed and many were approaching 1000wpm; there was more improvement among the slow readers, some of whom tripled their reading speed (with comprehension tested) in two days' training. I had a go with Spritz just now and was OK up to about 600wpm, but found that comprehension was fading - and long, polysyllabic words are presented at the same rate as short, easy words, so not sure it's the way forward. One of the presenters on our course suggested that if you could establish the width that could be read in one glance, then retyping the text in a column just that wide would enable the eye to read straight down, rather than scanning left-to-right and then down; I seem to remember him saying that President Kennedy had a staff that did the retyping for him.

Flipped classrooms Remote teaching, particularly of minority subjects Rumour has it that Finland will abandon the teaching of handwriting Lesson recording for all sorts of purposes

I've seen a few where parents and children in the family share the same email address. As for whether it's a good thing, as always, it depends......

One solution I've seen: change your desk so you stand at it, so higher than normal, monitor at eye level for standing......

No reason why the overall timetable can't be posted, though - wouldn't be too much of a challenge for candidatesto deduce their own timetable? Can't the MIS (SIMS or whatever) provide a personalised timetable on student and parent logins?

One of the reasons I used to like driving a Land Rover: the front bumper is unforgiving and looks unforgiving.

Agree on Llangorse: plenty to do for a very long day indoors, Llangattock outside.

Llangattock near Crickhowell.....