Bring some living history into lessons by visiting the education centre at Bovington’s Tank Museum. Helped by donations from online game developer and publisher Wargaming, the Education Center, which opened in 2012, has welcomed over 15,000 school children and community groups to take part in its educational workshops. Benefiting from the popularity of the game World of Tanks, pupils often have a high level of knowledge of armoured vehicles, and when they visit the Education Room they can learn more about the history of tanks and be inspired by the science behind some iconic armored vehicles. A group of Year 9 students from Blandford School recently had the chance to meet the TV historian Dan Snow in the Education Centre. “It’s been fantastic to be able to use this facility to talk to such enthusiastic students studying World War I which is such an important period in world history,” said Snow, a Trustee of The Museum. For more details visit: www.tankmuseum.org
It is claimed that school children’s academic performance can improve by almost a fifth, with just one weekly lesson which stresses oral communication skills, using activities drawn from a new book by former University of Bedfordshire Vice Chancellor Dr. Tony Wood. Speak, Listen and Learn, written by Dr. Wood in association with The English-Speaking Union, provides a teaching resource to boost self-confidence and communication skills in 7-13 year-olds. The book, which incorporates activities focusing on the use of persuasive speech, questioning and debating, is based on groundbreaking results of a research project carried out in 2013.
Calling all teachers – it’s time to pre-register for this year’s World Education Games, organised by 3P Learning and supported by children’s charity UNICEF. The World Education Games is the expanded format of what was once World Maths Day and now includes World Literacy Day and World Science Day. It is the world’s largest free-to-enter online educational competition with over 5m students aged 4-18 from over 200 countries and territories around the world participating when it was last held in 2013. The three-day competition will test students in a variety of friendly 60-second online games against the clock in spelling (World Literacy Day – October 13), maths (World Maths Day – October 14) and science (World Science Day – October 15). Full registrations and warm up for the Games will open in September 2015, so be sure to put these dates in your school’s calendar! For more details visit: www.3plearning.com/worldeducationgames/