Our friends over at Early Childhood Education Degrees recently published a great infographic on how technology hardware is being used in schools, and we wanted to share their fantastic work with you. Click through to see the full infographic, with some excellent stats on how schools are engaging with new technologies:
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You may remember that before the school holidays we were looking for children aged 5-16 to impress us with their poetry prowess by submitting a poem or short story based on the theme – Do Computers Rule the World?
We received over 500 entries – an absolutely amazing response – and are delighted to announce that Ian McMillan, the Bard of Barnsley, has picked three winners.

Cue drum roll…

1st Place: Emily Wilson, Wetherby High School
2nd Place: Sophia Barnett – Bishop Walsh Catholic School
3rd Place: Annabel Cox – Oasis Academy John Williams

A huge thank you to all children who entered. We will be publishing a large selection of the entries in the coming days for you to read and share!

Emily’s poem:
My dog ate my homework
Was the line that used to be,
But now it’s all gigabytes
And my printers ran out of ink

The old park swing
That was full of joy,
Is now empty
Just swinging in the wind

The boy with his head down
Looking at a screen,
Just missed the chance of a lifetime
A friendship that could’ve been

The mother that climbed monkey bars
Can’t get her child to stop watching ‘Cars’
She asks herself why?
Why don’t children want to see the kites fly?

We’re completely addicted,
Addicted to the net.
Those children who want to make computer games
Instead of becoming a vet

It’s got us in its grubby hand
Controlling us through its links,
We’re buried in the sand
Puppets on strings that can’t blink

Children used to cry
From a grazed knee,
Now children cry
From losing to technology

It’s a disease
And it’s spreading fast
There is no cure
No way you’re going to last

The forever chatting world
Is now silent
All the chatting is online
And bullying is no longer violent

It’s all done online
The hate, rumours, the stories
We’re running out of time
To return to our former glory

We don’t dare say it to their faces
But we say it in online places
Where we think we’re safe from torment
But we’re not safe from judgement

So look up from your screen
And see the world as it is
We don’t need to be the robot generation
We need to stop at the outside station

So break out of the chain
Out of your prison cell
To a world without pain
To a world which isn’t technology hell

Back in June we launched a new and exciting competition asking teachers and pupils to design a new app for our best selling School Jotter suite.  After all these are the people that use School Jotter and are possibly best placed to guide us on future apps.
The entries were varied and showed a great deal of creativity, we were very pleased with the response. It was a tough job but the decision was unanimous!
We are very pleased to announce that the winner was a pupil from Scargill Junior School in Rainham, Essex. The school will receive the full suite of School Jotter apps, worth £7,000. These include Jotter Learn, Resources, School Merits, Blog, Survey, Forum, Portfolio  and Messages. We hope that the pupils and staff enjoy their prize.
Here is the winning idea and we are sure you will agree that the app icon is eye catching and the description is thoughtfully written.

More information can be found about the School Jotter suite of apps here. Please remember we are always open to suggestions and ideas from schools, so please let us know, prize not included!

We had a fabulous response to this competition, seeing the Tour de Yorkshire really captured your imaginations! A very big thank you to all of the fabulous pupils and schools that sent entries to us. You made the judges job very difficult!
Our winning entry is from a year 3 pupil who attends Skipton Parish Church Of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. The team is called Speeding Sharks!
I think you will all agree this is a perfect representation of the Tour de Yorkshire which gave Yorkshire an exciting and colourful weekend.

We would like to showcase some other fabulous entries that we believe deserve a well done! 

If you would like to know more about our Bloganywhere app you will find more information here.

The last thing most teachers will be thinking about right now is September. It’s a an age away – a whole new school year! Before then, there are sports days, end-of-year award ceremonies and gifts from pupils to look forward to!
As an e-learning company dealing with thousands of schools in the UK and worldwide, naturally Webanywhere’s workload ebbs and flows with schools’ needs. We’re therefore usually pretty quiet over July and August – which is why we’re offering schools a limited offer.

Plan to start the next school year in style with a new school website design, introducing new pupils and parents to your school, and we’ll knock off £100 if you’re a Webanywhere customer, and 20% if you’re not yet using our School Jotter website system.
To find out more, just get in touch here, quoting our website redesign offer. Before you do, however, we recommend you take a look at some of our latest website designs below.

The App Store is where you can find out more about the Webanywhere education apps currently available. You can also use the App Store to set up a free trial of any of these apps.
To make using the App Store easier, we’ve created a tutorial video, which you can watch below.
If you don’t have access to the App Store, just take a free trial via any of our product websites, such as School Jotter, Jotter Learn and Surveys. Requesting a free trial for any of these products will mean you’ll get access to the App Store, where you can set up further trials yourself.

If you need further information about any of our education apps, or the App Store, get in touch here.

Last month, Webanywhere invited schools and teachers to take part on a e-safety questionnaire (you can see our original blog post here) – and last week, we compiled the results. If you took part- thank you! You’ve helped us build a picture of the state of e-safety in UK primary schools – and here are the results.
The survey revealed that, astonishingly, 63% of teachers don’t feel they have any influence over whether a child uses social networking sites, such as Facebook. Facebook, incidentally, has a minimum user age of 13.
And almost a third – 30% – feel they haven’t had adequate training on how to deal with cyberbullying.

The survey also revealed that 55% were aware that between one and five pupils had been a victim of cyberbullying at their school in the past 12 months.
The purpose of this questionnaire was originally to get a better insight into how schools feel about -and are affected by – e-safety issues. However, since seeing these results we decided to speak one of our customers about the issue – as well as an independent e-safety expert.
Jo Corrigan, Headteacher at Eastlands Primary School in Rugby – who hold an SWGfL 360 safe accreditation and has two members of staff registered as CEOP Ambassadors – took part in the survey and said: “The teaching and learning of internet safety is extremely important from an early age. Key to educating the children is ensuring staff are appropriately trained.
“At Eastlands Primary School we try to develop innovative ways of engaging parents and children with the safe use of the internet – for example, ‘speed-e-learning’ workshops.”
John Carr OBE, Secretary of the UK’s Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said: “Teachers can’t teach if they don’t feel confident in relation to the subject they are meant to be teaching about. This survey shows that too many teachers do not feel they have been given proper support to enable them to do their job. That has to be fixed, as a matter of priority.
The full results of the survey, in colourful pier charts, can be seen below. If you’d like to find out more about e-safety, or if you would like to learn more about our free e-safety events, please email info@webanywhere.co.uk.

Simon Hey has the best of both worlds at Greenacres Primary School, Shropshire. “I’m actually 40% head and 60% deputy as our school has a job share headship,” he says. “I enjoy the role of headteacher and maintain a teaching role also.”
It’s this split of responsibility that gives Simon two very useful viewpoints within the school. Here, as our Head Teacher Of The Week, he answers our questions…

What do you think makes a good leader?

Someone who leads by example, earns and gives trust and respect, and is constantly looking ahead.

How important is technology in improving learning outcomes?

As part of looking ahead, we need to be sure that we show children and adults that ICT can be successful as a learning tool  as it is as a source of entertainment.

What are you tips for preparing for Ofsted?

We all know what will be inspected and so we should have evidence ready to share with the inspectors. The best way to collect evidence is as part of your cycle of internal school monitoring, ensuring evidence is current, clear and useful. An inspection lasts for a very intense short period of time and spending it searching for evidence to back up your judgements might mean you are not able to share more of all the positive work your school is doing.

What tips would you give other senior leaders who aspire to becoming a headteacher?

Although schools are all different in terms of size and catchment areas, the resulting benefit for each individual child should be at the core of every decision and change we make. Remembering that the children are the sole reason for being there helps focus the mind in a world of increasing complexity.

What is your biggest challenge at the moment?

The biggest challenge is the same as it has always been, to give each child in our care the best education we can in an atmosphere of increasing expectations. We are working a great deal more with colleagues in schools in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, and Herefordshire. Using a combination of formal and informal CPD, sharing ideas and identifying the most successful teaching and learning strategies, we are already seeing the successful impact of this collaboration.

How do you feel education is changing?

When I started teaching I was told by colleagues I thought were ancient (they were in fact the age I am now) that if I stayed in the job I would see it all change over and over again. When has education ever stood still? We are all still searching for the best way of educating our children in an ever changing world.

What gets you out of bed in a morning?

The chance to do things better than yesterday.

Do you think your school’s Head deserves to be Head Teacher Of The Week? Nominate them and tell us why! Email your Head’s details to info@webanywhere.co.uk.

Blogging is becoming more and more popular in schools. At Webanywhere, we’ve often had teachers asking us if we could help them with creating blogs that their school could use. So, we’ve developed a brand new app, Bloganywhere, which makes creating blogs and writing blog posts easy for both pupils and teachers.
The Bloganywhere app is part of our Jotter Suite – which means pupils’ blogs can be accessed via one log in page within your school. We’re also developing the app so that, in the next month, it will allow you to post your school’s best blog posts direct to your School Jotter website.

Blogging itself ticks many curriculum boxes – from improving literacy and typing skills to encouraging online collaboration and reflection. Find out how your school can benefit from blogging by downloading our free guide, 7 Reasons Why Schools Should Blog here.
You can read about Bloganywhere, our featured app over at schooljotter.com, here.
Or, if you’re ready to get blogging straightaway, book a Bloganywhere demo here.

This week, we head over to Rugby in the West Midlands for our Head Teacher of the Week. Jo Corrigan (back, far left in our picture, with Year 6 children celebrating winning the Rotary Young Citizen of the Year Award at the BBC),  regularly receives comments about how good Eastlands Primary School’s website is. So, we’ve picked her brain about technology, Ofsted in schools and what it takes to be a great teacher…

Why did you choose to become a Headteacher?
As a child I never spoke about being a teacher but being a headteacher.  I have been inspired by my own teachers and realised it was such a privilege position to be in.

How important is technology in improving learning outcomes?

The children we currently teach have grown up with a wide range of technology and I am sure new technologies will emerge in the future which they will require in the career paths they choose.

What are you tips for preparing for Ofsted?

Clearly being prepared for Ofsted is very important and there is lots of documentation provided to support this. However, as a school we have never done things just to satisfy Ofsted. We believe in providing a high quality education for our children and are always looking to improve.

How do you motivate your staff?

By proving to them that the outcomes for the children make all of the hard work worthwhile.

What is your biggest achievement to date?

My biggest achievement to date is getting through an extremely challenging first year as a headteacher and receiving external validation that I had made a positive impact on the outcomes for the children at my school. This enables me to focus on the creation of exciting teaching and learning resources for e-safety with a group of children in my school which have received national and intonation all awards.

What do you think makes a great teacher?

A great teacher understands that children only get one chance at education and that a great deal of trust is put in their professionalism to get it right.
What is your biggest challenge at the moment?
Keeping up with the amount of changes taking place and the short timescale provided to implement them.