Liam McGurrin is headteacher at St John Fisher Primary School, in Sheffield, the UK. He runs a project “Time for citizenship”, aimed to promote good aspects of Citizenship and share best practice. The website has been “on the go” for about 5 years and he hopes to persuade one teacher in every country to become a national representative.
There are now over 2,500 registered schools with the site, so things are looking up! There are five sections on our website, as follows:
1. The first page is the Homepage with appropriate waffle from the politicians about how good the site is, and hyperlinks to our sponsors. It also has a link to the Great School's Projects page. We pay £200 to schools if they submit their project and it is published on the site.
2. The second is the Kids' page with links to attractive Kid's sites and activities sent in by children in the UK (at the moment). For example, the Animal anagrams is a clever usage of words and pictures to rattle the brain cells. It might be quite good fun to ask a group of children to submit drawings and jumbled up words, naming the drawings, in different languages.
3. The third is the Parents' Page, with links to many sites which offer advice regarding all problems from the child at 2 years old to the "child" who is 15 years old!
4. Next is a section for teachers with info and links. The Free registration means that teachers can access the library of lesson plans - the hope is that teachers will send me some plans or topics of their own in return.
5. Next is the 999 section, with links to the Emergency services in the UK and Ireland. There is a very good police section with advice for police officers when they visit schools
6. The Gallery is the Art display area. Lots of ideas here, with prizes of £50, £30 and £20 termly for their winning entries + copies of Encarta 2004 for the winning child's class.
7. A resource area for teachers which is being expanded continually.
The whole site is free to schools, because I have badgered the HSBC, Access and Microsoft to support us. Being a representative is really a matter of talking to teachers you know in schools and making them aware that we exist. Then, they are free to choose to join or not - no pressure. It would be great if you could send me some samples of your children's art, and I'll display them on the site.
