Many teachers will be looking for Bonfire Night teaching resources in the run up to the 5th of November. Here we have put together some of the best pages and websites with ideas for lesson plans on Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, including KS1, 2 and 3 activities, sequencing pictures and video. These resources may be useful for History or Literacy lesson planning.

Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot Resources

This is a Webanywhere post with lesson ideas and activities to help you teach the story of Guy Fawkes.
There are 5 downloadable Gunpowder plot activities – a Classroom Presentation, a Word Search, a Gunpowder Plot sequencing activity, a Writing exercise, and an Artwork activity.
The pack includes content aimed at students in the Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, and Key Stage 3. Hopefully, this means you’ll find something to adapt or use, whatever school age group you teach in Primary or early Secondary.

The Gunpowder Plot Part 1 – Stories from Parliament

A history video from Parliament.uk aimed at KS2 and 3. Using illustrations, this video describes the first part of the 1605 plot to kill King James I and destroy Parliament. You can also find Part 2 of this Assembly and Lesson plan video by clicking here.

TES Gunpowder Plot Lesson Plans

More from the Parliament Education Service, the TES website has collated some downloadable PDF worksheets and activities for those teaching children about Bonfire Night and the origin of ‘Penny for the Guy’.

Twinkl Bonfire Night Resources

A range of highly visual teaching resources on Bonfire Night, the Gunpowder Plot, and Fireworks. There are sequencing activities, PowerPoint presentations, videos, quizzes, posters and control sheets.

We hope you find these lesson resources useful! Could you or your school benefit from an online tool to manage and share teaching resources? Check out the Learn App, which allows you to create a Learning Site that fully integrates with your school website.

To celebrate Black History month in the UK, we here at Webanywhere thought it would be a great idea to help teachers by providing lesson plans around the theme of black history. So below are two ideas for lessons you can lead to help share knowledge about black history:

1. Mary Seacole – KS3

A brilliant example of why Black History month is so important, Mary Seacole was a Jamaican woman who assisted soldiers during the Crimean War, but was seldom talked about prior to more modern curriculums. A great way to start a lesson about Mary Seacole would be to show this video to the class and then discuss what we learn about Mary Seacole and her role in history. Why might she have been ignored?

Once you’ve had a discussion, split the class up into groups and have each group do some research about Mary Seacole and find out what people think about her and what happened; you can find a useful interactive guide to Mary Seacole here for a start. This exercise should help reinforce ideas of how to do independent research, as well as looking at how people can manipulate history to create a narrative. Ask students about how reliable they think their sources are, why some people might hold certain views and encourage critical thinking.
Due to the subject matter and surrounding controversy with this lesson, be sure to do it with older students who are expected to be able to form their own conclusions and not be easily mislead – Mary Seacole has a lot of controversy surrounding her addition to the History curriculum, so some online resources might need to be checked to make sure they’re appropriate. At the end of the lesson, have students write about what Mary Seacole shows us about how people might manipulate resources for their own agendas.
Also, for a bit of fun, Horrible Histories also did a great song if you have some time at the end of lesson.

2. Great Inventors! – KS1 & KS2

There are plenty of notable black inventors & innovators, and what better way to encourage students to learn about them than with a day showing off some of their inventions! The Black Inventor Online Museum has a vast library of information on black inventors. Here are a few activity ideas:

• George Washington Carver invented over 1,000 uses for the peanut! How many uses can your students think up? Carver’s uses included shampoo, facial cream and even ink! Encourage students to think outside the box when asked to do tasks.
• Match-up!  Get pictures of each of the inventors (along with their name as a caption) and create some matching invention cards. Then get students to guess who made what, and encourage them to remember the names. This is a simple activity, but it’s a great way to help students remember inventors, and that in itself is a way to help make black figures in history become more commonplace.
• Lewis Latimer improved on the lightbulb, and invented a version that lasted longer and was safer to use. What other inventions do your pupils think could be improved, and what would be the benefit? Encourage the idea that things can be improved with careful thought.

These lesson ideas should help you broaden the horizons of your pupils, and encourage positive attitudes to viewing and studying black history.
Lesson plans just like this one can be easily made and shared using our Resources App in School Jotter, which acts as a repository for files, quizzes and lessons. Thanks for reading and enjoy Black History Month!

Sometimes being a teacher is far too stressful. Mounting workloads, lack of resources and even staff shortages cause all manner of issues within a school, but the biggest disruption is one that has always existed – keeping control of the classroom. The best laid plans can go awry when one student decides that today is the day they’re going to impress everyone by refusing to behave. Well, don’t lose your head – here’s a few tips for keeping control of the classroom.

1. Make the rules clear

The rules in your classroom will define the way it runs. The advice often given is to have 5 very clear, very firm rules. You need to make them short and easy to remember, and you need to teach them in a positive light. Remind students that behaving isn’t just going to avoid reprimanding, but can also lead to rewards. It’s also a good idea to get students to agree to the rules, through show of hands or even a written agreement. But don’t forget that you too will have to obey them. It has to be a fair system, one rule for them is just as much a rule for you.

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2. Innocent before proven guilty

Sometimes misbehaviour is simply a misunderstanding of the boundaries. If someone is acting up, let them know why it’s not acceptable and explain what the rules are. Don’t let the student feel like a victim of ignorance – first offenses can slip, but repeat behaviour requires a firmer hand. Lay down the law and you’ll find that most, if not all students will be more than happy to obey. The point is to not assume malice – when you have someone actually causing active disruption you need to have no ambiguity that that’s what’s going on.

3. Be fair, but be authoritative

Is it better to be loved, or feared? Machiavelli is said to have fallen on the side of feared, but in truth he agreed the ideal was both. When disciplining students it’s always best to deal with the student in a way that they will be able to understand and accept, but if you need to put your foot down make sure not to hold back on the agreed consequences of breaking the rules. Authority is derived from respect, and to earn respect you must be consistent, both in mercy and in justice.

4. Don’t Argue

Arguing is a guaranteed root to misery, it inflames a pupil’s need to “win” and will lead to further disruption. Instead make sure you discipline students separately, as this gets them in an environment where they don’t have to defend their ego. Tell them they’ve broken the rules and then instigate punishment, don’t instigate a shouting match. Do hear your students out, let them make their case, but only once. Think of it as a 3 stage conversation.

Stage 1

Explain what rule they have broken.

Stage 2

Allow them to respond

Stage 3

If their input doesn’t change your mind enforce the punishment.
Don’t mistake not arguing for not listening – often the scuffles in the playground are rarely one student acting up, so make sure that all those involved are dealt with appropriately, and don’t punish the innocent, as nothing will erode your authority faster than being unfair.

5. Make sure cover teachers know the rules

As we’ve established, consistency is everything, so even when you aren’t in you’ve got to keep your classroom in order. Create a printed pack for substitute teachers explaining what the rules are and the expectation of the pupils. It might even be a good idea to have the substitute teacher explain to pupils that they’re aware of the rules and that they too agree with them. If you’ve done your job well, kids will respect the authority you laid down for the rules, even when you aren’t there.

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6. Every day is a fresh start

Don’t hold grudges – there’s no such thing as a “troublemaker”. Once a student has served the consequence of their misbehaviour they should be treated like all the others regardless of past behaviour. If you help cultivate the reputation of a troublemaker it’ll become a self fulfilling prophecy, so try to encourage pupils to refresh their attitudes.
Keeping control of the classroom is tricky, but create a proper culture of discipline and you’ll soon see the need to monitor behaviour fade into the background of everyday teaching. It’s worth bearing in mind that although discipline is worth maintaining, rewards are what backup good behaviour.
Webanywhere offers online services for VLEs, School Websites and Learning Apps for both the education and workplace sector. Our range of products include a Merits App for our School Jotter suite, and a behaviour and rewards tracker via MIS integration.

Now that we have worked out the different guises of the tech savvy teacher we are asking ourselves what does Webanywhere do to support that teacher? So the same headings will appear, just as they did in the last blog post, with how we support you.
Your students read your blog
We lead by example here, we have several blogs attracting very different types of audience. We work with different sectors in and outside of education and recognise that their needs are different. So giving you all the same advice is not an option. Blogging is a great way to communicate in a non-invasive way for us and you respond very well to that.
In School Jotter we have created a blog app that allows everyone to write and have their work published on the internet. The blog app is easy to use and what’s more, schools enjoy writing their blogs and receiving comments.

The blogging facility within an open-source LMS is a popular part of many schools VLE. Whether it is a teacher’s blog or a student’s blog it is a great way to keep in touch with students in between tutor group times or lessons.
You instigate your own CPD online
At Webanywhere we enjoy being proactive and it is very much encouraged by the senior management. So we are starting to offer free webinars offering support on using various parts of your school’s VLE or apps in the School Jotter suite. All webinars are recorded and posted online for those who cannot make the webinar live or would like to go over the information again at a later date.
We also hold regular events around the country for e-safety, OFSTED website requirements and how to meet them. We know these are not online but it is another way we can support you with your CPD.
You have made an online PLN
We hope you consider yourselves part of our learning network. You are brilliant at telling us what you think of our products and how we can develop them. We take note of this and we feel this is one reason that our products go from strength to strength.
It was great to see so many customers at BETT this year and get an update of what you are doing and your future plans. Webanywhere has a strong social networking presence and we offer help and advice to all rather than just informing you of our offers and service available.
You share your life with virtual colleagues you have never met
We are lucky and have some very strong relationships with schools and businesses around the country. We definitely share our working lives with you and include all of our customers when breaking good news about the company.
Your weekly schedule involves Twitter chats
Webanywhere does tweet and we do follow and chat with our customers and other interesting organisations using Twitter. But we do prefer a more personal touch, that is why we enjoy talking to our customers directly whether that is a telephone call or an email.
Summer break means ISTE and other conferences
Webanywhere works through the summer, you will be surprised how many teachers take training sessions during the summer break, we are not though as we know how driven you are. We also do large installs and implementations during this quieter period. We are also planning for the new school year just like you. Planning events and offers that will help you to make the most of the technology you are using.
You know the vocabulary
This should possibly read know our products and services, the vocabulary will then follow automatically. Every educational establishment and business is different, they have different requirements and need varying levels of support. Understanding that we know that what we did for one organisation will not necessarily work in another.
You turn to colleagues in other countries in times of need
We do have colleagues and people in our PLN that are in other countries and they are an invaluable source of information. But we also turn to our customers and ask for their help. In March we took some new School Jotter apps to a local event and invited schools to attend. We had headteachers, teachers, teaching assistants and administration staff. We showed them our new apps and listened to them as they fed back. This was an amazing session and the developer we took with us had a good list of quality suggestions to take back to the development team to work on. An update at the end of June included many of those ideas.
You are a digital citizen
Gosh, we hope so. We strive to be role model digital citizens and if ever we let you down please tell us. As we have always done, we stretch beyond with our enthusiasm and willingness to go further. We are still in front of market needs and we go beyond what’s expected to deliver a truly positive experience for our customers.
You are always hungry to learn, try and tinker with new tech
This goes without saying, it is part of who we are.

The summer holidays are nearly here and we’re celebrating with a prize give away. Webanywhere’s search for School Poet of the Year 2014 begins now!
We are looking for UK based children aged 5-16 to impress us with their literacy skills by submitting a poem or short story based on the title, ‘Do computers rule the world?’.
Ian McMillan, one of the UK’s best known contemporary poets will be helping us in our quest and he will be judging a short list of 25 entries.
The lucky winners will receive one of the following prizes;

• 1st Prize – 1 iPad mini
• 2nd Prize – £50 worth of iTunes vouchers
• 3rd Prize – £25 worth of iTunes vouchers

All three winners will also receive a framed copy of their poem, signed by Ian McMillan himself!

The closing date of the competition will be 10am on 3rd September 2014 and the first prize winner will be invited to our brand new office in Leeds on the 5th September 2014 to receive their prize from Ian in person.
To give one of your students a chance to win, they simply need to send their submission to poems@webanywhere.co.uk before the closing date to stand a chance of winning.
Good luck to everybody!

This week is Anti-Bullying Week, an annual UK-wide campaign to highlight the issue in schools.

Here are 7 great resources to help you discuss the problem of bullying with your pupils.

Multimedia resources from Bullying UK

This interactive video allows you to choose your own path through a common bullying situation in school. The viewer decides between from various options, and sees those choices play out.

Bullying UK have also made an embeddable button you can add to your website or VLE that allows your pupils to talk in confidence about bullying to the Family Support team online.

 A School Assembly PowerPoint from The Guardian Teacher Network

Download this free presentation, containing tips on creating school assemblies on the issue of cyberbullying, looking at the themes, key aims and definitions.

A free ebook download

Get ‘Finding Your Inner Cherokee’ by Siobhan Curham for free by clicking here . The book is full of case studies, exercises and advice to help inspire and empower victims of bullying.

Lesson plans, roadshows and resources from The Anti-Bullying Alliance

The Anti-Bullying Alliance established Anti-Bullying Week, and host a wide range of resources and lesson plans on their website, along with details on events aimed at tackling bullying, held throughout the year.

Cyberbullying: A Need To Know Guide from Webanywhere

Online technology has changed the nature of bullying – with social networks, bullying is no longer limited to the schoolyard, and is something children often have to deal with at home. Cyberbullying is a growing problem, and one all schools need to know how to deal with. Webanywhere, with help from e-Safety Adviser’s Alan Mackenzie, have put together a free guide to tackling Cyberbullying in school, full of practical tips on implementing anti-bullying policies. If you would like a copy of the guide, please contact us.