realsmart in action!

Here at realsmart HQ, it’s always great to hear how our schools are using realsmart, and even better, how much they enjoy using it!

The following quote was written by the Literacy teacher at Hirst Park Middle School to the Acting Headteacher following a training session we held for them earlier this week. It was so ace, we just had to share it with you…

“I altered the interface very quickly and easily. I chose a pink and purple colour scheme with sparkly images. I believe the children will enjoy using this as it is fun and is aesthetically pleasing. Most of the children at HPMS are familiar with ‘Facebook’ and regularly use sites with a familiar look to catch up on ’showbiz’ gossip.

rmap - This is fantastic! I used this to plan and prepare a unit of work for literacy. It could work really well as a tool to share planning and resources with the literacy team. Other members of staff (teachers/TAs) could then simply log on to use this planning tool, adding resources where necessary. The benefit of this is when members of staff are planning out of school as they can access the information from anywhere in the world! Whether teachers are at home or away on holiday, they could read the lesson plans in preparation for the next term!

rweb - This is an easy-to-use and effective way of creating a website. Not only would this be a great teaching tool to allow children to make websites about their chosen topics, teachers could use this to inform/teach children about a topic such as The Victorians etc. I used this to create a website about balanced arguments. Year 6 could then use this information to revise and then create their own balanced argument. This could be particularly useful if children are absent from school for long periods of time due to illness etc. Alternatively, the traveling community could keep up-to-date with relevant topics while they are away from school.

rafl - This is a fantastic resource to set homework from school. Pupils can access their work from their home PC and, using the success criteria, complete work asked of them. The teacher can add guidance to the homework task to give, specific individuals or a group, extra support. Children should then self evaluate their work allowing the teacher to see clearly who has struggled with the activity.

Improvements to be made

A ‘mark book’ facility may prove effective so that the teacher can feedback to the child and issue a mark/level for the work produced.”