Taecanet Springboard - "A Wonderful Learning Facility"

T-Learning are very pleased to welcome Carsic Primary School in Nottinghamshire into our teaching and learning community. Although the school have only subscribed recently, they already seem to be reaping the benefits of Taecanet Springboard to help promote personalised learning across the curriculum.

Teacher, Neil Pacheco, commented;

"Thanks for all you have done for our children to enable the whole school to access this wonderful learning facility. I have shown the site to our technician who provides IT support for other schools in Nottingham and he was very impressed and will no doubt pass this on to the other schools".

Many thanks to Neil and his team for their continued support and for implementing their training so quickly. Carsic Primary have raced up to the top of our user stats, becoming T-Learning's 'School Of The Month' for September!

More information on Taecanet Springboard can be found at www.taecanet.com and any email enquiries can be directed to support@taecanet.com

Boost PE Theory Results With Taecanet Springboard For PE!

Schools and Sports Colleges are being encouraged to use the Taecanet Springboard for PE 'Revision Packs' to help students revise for GCSE exams in the coming weeks. This makes allocating work a much easier process for teachers by enabling them to allocate all GCSE PE Units at one time. This means that 13 Units of work (encompassing over 200 learning activities) can be released for a class of pupils in roughly 20 seconds. Efficient working indeed! As all of the work has already been created by teachers in Sports Colleges, this process couldn't be easier.

To add to this, all marking takes place automatically saving teachers even more time. Real-time reports on class & pupil progress helps teachers to pin-point areas of weakness, which can help planning and teaching.

A function which can make work even more time efficient for students is the 'Revision Mode' offered by Taecanet Springboard. This allows students to access a variety of assessment questions related to a particular topic of work (or all Units in the case of the Revision Packs). Students can answer all questions, which should take between 5-10 mins. Once the test has been completed, the student will receive an accurate score and percentage, which is automatically fed back to the teacher online. For any questions the pupils get wrong, they are looped back to learn about the areas where questions have been answered incorrectly. This means that the system can effectively 'gap fill' for every pupil in the class. Pre-exams, this is a very useful capability for both teachers and students.

So far, the PE resources have proved a great success in schools. Please email chris.davison@t-learning.net for more information on special offers for low cost access before summer exams.

Sports Colleges Conference 2010 - Summary

Today was the final day of the Sports Colleges Conference in Telford, which was a great success for all involved. Many thanks to Ian Cawley, and team, from Youth Sport Trust for his great support, and for putting on a good event. You can see our stand (730) pictured left.

T-Learning have been working with YST for a number of years now, and we were at the show to help spread the word about our collaborative project. We have worked together, along with four Specialist Sports Colleges, to produce interactive resources for GCSE & BTEC PE Theory. These are now being used on over 60 schools to help students engage with PE Theory in a new and innovative way, while improving standards both in delivery by teachers, and in attainment for students. By offering access to shared, community generated resources, it seems that all parties are benefiting. If you would like more info on the project, and would like to see the impact that Taecanet Springboard for PE has had on GCSE results, please follow this link http://www.taecanet.com/yst/conference.htm

We had a lot of interested parties visit the stand, and as revision is vital at this time of year, this was the focus of many discussions and demonstrations. Surprisingly, quite a few teachers wanted to explore the other resources we offer (such as Science, History, Geography, RE & Citizenship) as they were so engaged with the offering across PE.

Our community based PE learning network was also represented at one of the 'Sharing The Challenge' sessions where supporters; Tony Downey (Blessed Robert Sutton School), Mick Tizard (The Cavendish School) & Kirstie Hartwell (Charters School) were on-hand to describe the project to interested parties. These teachers have experience of the project, ranging from strategic organisation to building the actual content used within the network. All of these perspectives were valuable when informing teachers about the community and the impact it has had on PE Theory education so far.

Many thanks to everyone who was able to visit the stand. We hope to see you all again very soon and I would encourage any interested parties to contact chris.davison@t-learning.net

Hackney School Rewarded After Completing Online PE Homework!

T-Learning will be presenting a prize at Hackney Free & Parochial School in London on Thursday 17th December. This is to commemorate the fact that a student within this school completed the 3,000,000th Taecanet Springboard learning journey on 8th November 2009 at 9.56pm.

The school will receive a financial donation from T-Learning and the pupil in question will also receive enough iTunes vouchers to keep them occupied for the next few weeks!

This caps a great first year, following the release of our PE elearning resources, which over 60 schools are now using. The first year has proven a great success, with 80% of Sports Colleges partaking in the project, reporting improvements in GCSE PE results.

T-Learning have teamed up with Youth Sport Trust and 4 Specialist Sports Colleges in order to produce interactive learning resources for GCSE & BTEC PE. For more information on the collaborative project, please visit www.taecanet.com/yst/index.php or contact chris.davison@t-learning.net

PE Resources Score Big For Schools!

Following our collaborative PE project with Youth Sport Trust (YST), our schools have been prolific in their use of the KS4 PE resources so far. Over 100,000 learning journeys have now been completed, which equates to over 3,500 hours of extra tuition across the 60 schools involved. What was the result of all of this activity?

Students completed work both inside and outside of school online, and feedback suggests that they were motivated to learn, which matches feedback from our other subject areas. Teachers also saw significant improvements in attainment with 80% of the Sports Colleges involved reporting improvements over last years GCSE grades. Although these stats are unverified at present, we are very encouraged by this initial release.

We have also seen evidence of improved results across other KS's & subject areas, which strengthens our belief that Taecanet Springboard can motivate pupils and improve attainment through the provision of personalised learning.

T-Learning are experts in the creation of sustainable elearning communities. Our PE community was established some months ago with the help of YST and 4 Specialist Sports Colleges, in which teachers produced the resources which now populate the service. Schools are now beginning to see the benefits of this project. For more information on this project, please contact chris.davison@t-learning.net or visit www.taecanet.com/yst/index.php

T-Learning Deliver 1 Million Learning Journeys In 7 Months!

So, we have come to the end of another school year. We have reached some interesting milestones while helping schools to deal with key objectives such as personalised learning, assessment, inclusion, intervention and home access.

Within this school year, our community of schools have completed over 1 million learning journeys! This is testament to how useful schools find Taecanet Springboard in helping with the above factors and for continual learning, revision and extension work across the curriculum.

At T-Learning, our model is simple. We collate knowledge and resources from hundreds of teachers, and share that with the wider schools population. This means that ALL teachers can get involved (no matter what their ICT capability) and easily involve themselves in the provision of ICT to enhance education. The ease of use from the teacher's point of view is matched by the pupils ability to log on 24/7 and complete motivational and interactive learning journeys with rewards throughout for good work. All of this student activity is tracked and reported to the teachers in order to help with personal or whole class intervention.

As well as the cross curricular learning community, we have also recently undertaken work to set up a sustainable online PE learning community with the help of Youth Sport Trust (YST). This work has now been completed and enables both BTEC & GCSE PE teachers and students to benefit from a similar formula as described above. Within this school year, over 60 schools have completed around 100,000 learning journeys in PE, which is really encouraging.

For more info on T-Learning's innovative services, please contact chris.davison@t-learning.net

Join Our Growing PE Learning Network!

Following on from the Sports Colleges Conference earlier this month, I would like to welcome: The Lammas School in Leyton, Wood Green High School in Sandwell, Cumberland School in London and Wey Valley School in Dorset into our teaching and learning community.

This is a positive indication that Sports Colleges and other schools alike see the benefits of developing personalised learning across the GCSE & BTEC PE courses. Initial feedback has been extremely positive and we look forward to working closely with the above schools in the coming months.

If you would like to know more about the collaborative PE project, please go to http://www.taecanet.com/yst/index.htm . Here you can learn about the origins of the project and submit any questions/comments you may have.

We look forward to expanding our PE community, as we have with other subjects across the curriculum.

For more general information about Taecanet Springboard please visit www.taecanet.com where you can hear how schools are using the service to deliver personalised learning and to help engage and motivate students. To find out more about how schools are using the service and what impact it has made, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm

Need Help With PE Theory Revision? Talk To T-Learning!

Many thanks to everyone who managed to attend the T-Learning stand at the Sports Colleges Conference in Telford last week (pictured above). I'm pleased to say it was a huge success with over 100 schools visiting the stand over the two days, which certainly kept us on our toes!

Thanks also to Ian Cawley and his team from Youth Sport Trust (YST) for their invitation to the exhibition and for their excellent support in making our collaborative project a success to date. We are delighted to be part of this collaborative network made up of 4 Specialist Sports Colleges, YST and T-Learning, in order to distribute best practice and deliver effective teaching and learning resources for KS4 PE. With revision high on the school agenda at the current time, it could not be a better time to get involved with this project.

So far, feedback from schools has been extremely positive. Scott Cordon form Chasetown Sports College described Taecanet Springboard as "absolutely fantastic" and he "could not speak highly enough of it students love it and staff like the service too, because Units are easy to set up and teachers get instant feedback of student progress”. At present, with revision occupying much school time, this instant feedback through Reports is key to guiding teachers on targeted revision activities for whole classes as well as individual students. For a full copy of the case study, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/yst/casestudy.htm

Following on from the show, we would like to welcome Wood Green High School in Sandwell, Lammas School and Sports College in Waltham Forest and Cumberland School in Plaistow, London, into our teaching and learning community. We very much look forward to getting you started in the coming days to help with your immediate revision needs.

Visitors to our stand will have all the info needed to get involved. However, should you like further information please visit www.taecanet.com and follow the YST link at the foot of the page. Otherwise, please email ian.nairn@taecanet.com with any specific requests.

Independent Schools And The Personalised Learning Agenda

T-Learning were very pleased to attend the recent Independent Schools Association (ISA) Annual Conference in Oxford. Following our success in working with Independent Schools such as the Claires Court group (mentioned in numerous other articles below) we were able to present our ideas to the attendees. This presentation was chaired by James Wilding, Principal of the CC group, who was able to give the delegates a unique insight into how we have helped their schools to achieve personalised learning across all 3 sites.

The event was an undoubted success and we would like to thank Maggie Turner and her colleagues at ISA for a great few days.

We are working to help Independent Schools to take ownership of the personalised learning agenda, as we feel they have traditionally been thought leaders in personalised learning. By creating a specialised online Independent Schools learning community, we hope to enable this sector to be the leading force in this field, and to take control of shaping their own destiny.

If you wish to know more about the presentation, and our work with ISA, please email ian.nairn@taecanet.com

Some Good News For SATs Results!

The vast majority of people involved in education have the same goal; to help students learn, improve and achieve as best they can. A key requirement to facilitate this is to provide both students and teachers with a comprehensive tool set, which meets the needs of the parties involved. As teachers are increasingly busy, ICT is now playing a valuable role in helping schools to modernise education, provide teachers with excellent interactive resources, and giving students increased ownership of their own learning. With ICT giving teachers so many options, and by giving students a platform on which they enjoy learning, student motivation is increased and results can be improved.

Taecanet Springboard provides teachers with a live online teaching and learning community, and by sharing best practice, both teachers and students can thrive in the ways described above. Students can benefit from personalised learning, engaging materials and the fact that they can access the service online, 24/7. Teachers can benefit by having access to a pool of resources from hundreds of teachers, as well as time saving features, such as automated marking (making it easy to spot strong/weak areas) and the rapid release of work, meaning that a Unit of work can be released to a class in about 30 seconds!

Year on year, we have received feedback from schools suggesting that Taecanet Springboard has helped to improve results and in some cases, massive improvements have been witnessed. To see case studies relating to this, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm. We have most recently heard from Woodside Primary School in Gloucestershire (http://www.woodside.ik.org/).

In the case of Woodside Primary, not only did they achieve their best ever results for Science (100% Level 4 & 66% Level 5 - against predicted results which were 94% Level 4 and 54% Level 5) but they also for the first time achieved 100% Level 4 for Literacy & Numeracy, with Taecanet making a positive impact on Literacy through improved reading levels.

This is brilliant news, and to this end, we would encourage more schools to get involved to see if we can help in the same way. Please visit www.taecanet.com to apply for a free guest account, or call 0871 288 4580 to speak with the team about how we can help in your school.

We have also previously outlined feedback from Claires Court School in Berkshire, describing how using Taecanet Springboard has helped their students to achieve fantastic results in the new 'SOSCA' online assessments. For more information on this, please see the blog article below this one.

We would like to thank all subscribing schools for their on-going support, and also welcome interest from new schools and other interested parties. We will be detailing other 'good news' stories in the near future and look forward to continuing this trend of improved results next year!

Can E-Learning In Schools Benefit Future Life Skills?

At Taecanet, we like to think that our services transcend traditional educational boundaries, and this is reflected in our nationwide customer base. Taecanet Springboard has been successfully implemented in high & low achieving public sector schools, Independent schools, PRUs (Pupil Referral Units), Home and Hospital Services and more.

We can help schools to improve attainment, to engage pupils and learn in a way that suits them. For more info on how this has been achieved, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm . Taecanet can also offer much more than increased curriculum knowledge, as the online format helps to bring education into the 21st Century, and can therefore help to improve life skills for students (and arguably teachers too).

James Wilding is the Principal of Claires Court Schools in Maidenhead, Berkshire (http://www.clairescourt.com/). Claires Court is made up 5 school divisions on 3 school sites: Co-ed Nursery, single sex boys and girls at junior and secondary level and a co-ed 6th Form. The school has been using Taecanet Springboard for a number of years to deliver cross-curricular elearning. They have also recently taken part in KS3 'SOSCA' assessments, set up by the University of Durham. This assessment takes place on a PC, and James reported a strong correlation between students who use Taecanet Springboard for curriculum work, and students who fared best in the SOSCA tests. James commented;

"Our top end learners are now expected to pass on-screen assessments for Law, for medicine, for entry to Imperial College and post degree for most blue chip schemes – over 15% already for University entry."

"....assessments on screen are really hard to use if you are wedded to paper and pencil problem solving, and we reckon we need to give the boys and girls a lot more practice at working on screen."

"Our SOSCA science performance was stunning…and when spoken to about why, those candidates that performed the science assessment felt that the variety of work that they had completed using springboard was one of the key reasons."

We are obviously delighted to play a role in any sort of school improvement, and we look forward to continuing our successful working relationship with Claires Court, as well as all the rest of our subscribers. For more information on Taecanet's services, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/ or email enquiries@taecanet.com

Easy Personalised Learning for PRUs

Last week saw the National PRU Conference at Eastwood Hall in Notts (pictured above). The venue and event was a great success, and we would like to thank Neil Finbow for his organisation and assistance. There were a range of suppliers exhibiting, offering educational board games to online learning. Taecanet offered a workshop on Friday detailing how PRUs can improve the provision of personalised learning for students, which seemed to go down very well. For more information on this workshop or for a copy of the presentation slides, please contact david.holden@taecanet.com

We met a number of people from various centres around the country to tell them about Taecanet and how we are helping to connect teachers and provide an easy way of sharing in best practice, saving teachers' time, and offering personalised learning for students. We also saw some existing customers as well, which is always a pleasure.

Taecanet's ethos is simple. We combine the knowledge of hundreds of teachers, so that other teachers can benefit! By doing this, we have created a vast network, which is helping teachers to deliver effective online elearning that can benefit whole class work, as well as individual work plans for students. On this basis, we are attracting sustained interest from PRUs (and groups of PRUs) due to the fact that we can help engage students, and give teachers assistance in setting work for individual pupils in a matter of seconds. If this sounds too good to be true, please call 0871 288 4580 to find out how.

Taecanet offers a range of services designed to meet the needs of mainstream schools, as well as PRUs, and we have a special pricing structure for PRUs which makes 24/7 personalised learning affordable to every PRU in the country. To find out how PRUs are benefiting from Taecanet, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm where you can find a PRU case study at the foot of the page.

Following on from the event, we would like to welcome the Compass Centre PRU, Bolton, into our teaching and learning community, and we look forward to getting the centre up and running early next term.

Please contact chris.davison@taecanet.com for more information on Taecanet's services for PRUs, or for more general information please go to www.taecanet.com

ASE 2008 Round up

ASE 2008 was a great success, and it was a pleasure to meet a host of attendees, as well as a number of existing customers. This is one of the better events of the year, mainly due to the fact that attendees have a genuine interest in helping to raise educational standards. Thanks to everyone who was able to attend.

During the three days, I was unfortunate enough to be pulled out of the crowd to pet a giant millipede at the open exhibition section. This was a (not so) pleasant surprise, but it is nice to witness more enthusiastic people out there, who are bringing science to life for students. We also had a visit from Galileo (pictured left), who wowed his audience with his tales and theories. This seemed to be the biggest draw at the event, only bettered by the free tea and coffee stand!

I think the reason that teachers are drawn to Taecanet, is because we offer a very 'teacher centric' approach to teaching and learning. We simply facilitate a huge knowledge share designed to disseminate best practice, so that both teachers and students can benefit from the strongest learning materials available. Our role is to harness this knowledge and create the teacher generated 'Learning Journeys' that schools use to help improve their results and bring subjects to life. Hundreds of teachers have contributed to our service, so that ANY teacher and ANY student can benefit from their combined knowledge. Teachers tell us that they can save hours in terms of searching for, and delivering appropriate content, as well saving time by using our automated marking system and teacher Reports. Students can learn at their own pace, both in school and at home via the web (or anywhere online), making homework easy and accessible. We have a good reputation in helping schools to improve results, including SATs. For more info on this, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/Addlestone.htm

For all those who entered the free Prize Draw, this is the moment of truth! I am very happy to announce that Liz Boakes from Michael Primary (IM6 1AJ) on the Isle of Man is the winner! Your school licence will commence today, and will be valid until 8/1/2009. It includes access to Yr 2 - Yr9 Science, History, Geography, Citizenship and R.E. Please call 0871 288 4580 to claim your prize and we will then begin to load your school up, so that you can begin using Taecanet Springboard. Congratulations to Liz for winning this prize.

For any other interested parties, please call the above number to book a free on-site visit, so that we can fully explain our approach to teaching and learning, and offer you a demonstration of Taecaenet Springboard. Alternatively, please email chris.davison@taecanet.com to book a visit. Feel free to visit http://www.taecanet.com/ for more information.

Thanks again to all ASE attendees. Best wishes to you all for 2008.

ASE 2008 in Liverpool

We very much look forward to attending ASE 2008, which is taking place between 3rd - 5th January. We have attended this national event for the past two years and so far it has proved one of the better events throughout the year. Please click here for more information on ASE 2008.

As a company based in Liverpool, we felt it was paramount to attend this year once we heard that the venue was the University of Liverpool! Despite having customers from as far afield as Cornwall and Cumbria, we like to maximise local links. We have many Liverpool schools using Taecanet Springboard, and the whole of Knowsley LEA within our community of schools. We are also in talks with the Culture Company regarding two initiatives designed to tie in with the 2008 European Capital of Culture award. The first one will be to use Taecanet Springboard to release some unique 'Liverpool' based units of work for Primary and Secondary schools, with associated competitions and prizes. The second initiative would be to broadcast ongoing events using our Virtual Classroom. This could provide a live feed via the web, meaning the events could be broadcast to any destination instantly. It would also provide the opportunity for an interactive element, meaning that both points of the broadcast (send/receive) could communicate effectively.

If you would like to know any more about this initiative, or any of the Taecanet services, feel free to come and visit us at ASE 2008 at stand D41. If you would like to book a time to come and see us at this event, please call 0151 907 2946 or email chris.davison@taecanet.com

1 Million Journeys!

Taecanet, and our associated schools have reached a huge milestone in the last few days with the One Millionth Learning Journey being completed!

At 16.31 on the 5th December 2007, a pupil from Holy Trinity School in Cookham, completed Journey number 1, 000, 000 as part of their homework. As it turns out, this could have been awarded to any number of schools, as this accolade went down to the wire. Schools from Bracknell Forest and Gloucester were completing journeys mere seconds before and after number 1 million. Ian Nairn, founder of Taecanet said;

"Pupils from literally dozens of schools were simultaneously doing Taecanet homework online; Holy Trinity beat other schools to the 1,000,000th journey by only two hundredths of a second!".

Headteacher, Graeme Aldous was very pleased that his school had won this award.

"We are all excited by the success and looking forward to making good use of our prizes. Having been one of the earliest subscribing schools and the one that completed the 1,000,000th learning journey is an unexpected and very pleasant surprise".

As a reward, the school will win a free 1 year subscription to Taecanet Springboard, as well as a free Virtual Classroom licence. This will help Holy Trinity to connect with other schools, either locally, or internationally.

Mr Aldous, on a more general note, went on to say the following about Taecanet Springboard.

"Our teachers and pupils find it an innovative, creative and enjoyable online learning service, it brings all the benefits of the internet with none of the drawbacks, it has made a genuine and profound impact upon our Key Stage 2 Science SATs".

For the full article, please click here. If anyone would like more information on Taecanet Springboard, please call 0871 288 4580.

Congratulations to everyone at Holy Trinity and all of the other schools who have contributed to this achievement!

Taecanet @ SSAT National Conference 2007

Please come and see Taecanet at the 15th National SSAT Event! The venue is the ICC in Birmingham, and the date is 29th & 30th November 2007. We have always enjoyed a good relationship with the SSAT on a number of levels. As we are based in the NW, Sue Moore has always been very supportive of our approach to teaching and learning. Some of our very first trial schools were SSAT schools, and many SSAT teachers have contributed their knowledge to the Taecanet Springboard service, for the benefit of others. Our collaborative learning service is now implemented in many SSAT schools throughout England and benefiting their teachers and students alike.

For more information on this event, please visit http://imm.specialistschools.org.uk/natconf/

We are very much looking forward to this event, and meeting the delegates.

Visit stand E27 in order to enter our free prize draw, where schools can save up to £1800!

Taecanet @ NW Education Technology Show from 21/11/2007

Taecanet will be attending the North West Education Show on 21st & 22nd November 2007! The venue for this event will be the Last Drop Village Hotel in Bolton (BL7 9PZ), and we very much look forward to meeting the local teaching community to share our ideas.

Personalised learning is at the very core of Taecanet's approach to teaching and learning, and our ethos of 'shared knowledge' is currently benefiting over 500 schools in England, and over 100 in the NW region. Schools report huge improvements to student attainment levels after using Taecanet, and we would be delighted to show you how your school can benefit as well.

To book a time to visit us, or if you are generally interested and wish to know more, please contact chris.davison@taecanet.com

Slow internet - fast students!

It can indeed be a problem for some schools, trying to offer effective online elearning to pupils, while having to deal with limited bandwidth. However, this does not necessarily mean that such learning has to stop, as there are a multitude of ways to make the most of current provisions. From my personal experience, here are some such options when using Taecanet Springboard for teaching:

Whiteboard activities - It is easy to use Taecanet Springboard on an interactive whiteboard. Teachers can guide students through Learning Journeys on the board in order to help weaker readers, or simply to increase class participation. Students can be invited up to control the board, and press the buttons in order to go through the Journeys. By doing this, students can be polled for correct answers and whole class participation is acheived extremely easily. This will be motivational for students as they are learning in a new and exciting way, and at the same time, teachers can benefit from the integrated content that is easily accessible through the service. As there is only one PC being used at a time, the internet connection should be fast and efficient.

To facilitate such activities, all teachers are provided with 'student' usernames, so that they can guide their class through work on the whiteboard, or simply gain confidence with the system in their own time. Another way to promote this usage would be to access the 'Help' file as a teacher. Within there, teachers can access all of the content within the service, in isolation. By using the 'Unit Explorer', ALL available content can be accessed in seconds, without the need to use the pre-prepared Journeys. This section gives teachers increased ownership on how they would like to use the materials, and it will provide an excellent starting point for personalised research. No longer do teachers have to sought through millions of web hits through search engines, because we have already paid teachers to do this legwork! Save hours in terms of planning and preperation and take advantage! If you are doing a topic next week, see what you can find in the Unit Explorer!

Homework - As Taecanet Springboard is an online resource, teachers can easily allocate work for students to complete at home. With more and more households being equipped with broadband, this will increasingly be an option for schools. For those students who cannot gain access at home, teachers can set a longer timescale and perhaps create 'homework clubs' where students can get online in at lunch or before/after school. This has been especially effective in a number of schools that I have visited. This technique will reduce the need for large bandwidth by staggering student's use of PC's, while retaining your delivery of essential personalised learning. Some will complete their work at home, some may come in at lunch, some after school.....and so on. This will ease the impact on your school systems, and give students increased ownership over their work. Win win.

These are just a few basic ideas that I can point to through my experiences of working with classes. Please comment below this article if you know of any more!

E-Learning Made Easy......

Summer time was not a restful period for the Taecanet team! A new set of updates and improvements have now been added to the service, based on teacher's comments and feedback. As a result, Version 5 has now been unleashed, and schools are already benefiting from its delivery. In fact, on visiting Bugthorpe Primary School in Yorkshire last week, one of the students commented 'The person who invented this must be a genius'. Praise indeed!

As a reminder to all of those associated with Taecanet, we are now offering full coverage of Citizenship, and Religious Education from Yr2 - Yr9 (to add to our existing portfolio of Science, History & Geography). Some of the Citizenship Units look especially strong, and this is a testament to our network of teachers who are always striving to find the most exciting materials to share in our teaching and learning community. More exciting and interactive materials are being added to Taecanet all the time, to assist in motivating students and presenting them with tasks that are fun, but have serious educational value. The young man at Bugthorpe will certainly attest to that!

Our preferred method of updating and improving Taecanet is to use teacher feedback in order to direct these changes. A major step forward on this front is our introduction of optional 'voiceover technology' in order to assist weaker readers. This has been something frequently requested by our teachers, and it is now in place across the service. Instructions, questions and some content now contain optional voiceover in order to increase our effectiveness in reaching weaker readers.

The omission of such a technology has previously worked in the favour of some students as Claire Allen (St Paul's Primary School, Addlestone) attests to.

"A single student who was a Level 2, or at best Level 3 in Literacy....achieved a Level 5 in Science and this must be down to Taecanet as he used it extensively" (for the complete article, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/Addlestone.htm). However, this addition has increased the possibilities of personalised learning for all, and will give teachers increased peace of mind that their students will be able to complete all of the necessary tasks by learning at a pace that suits them. This is crucial to our approach.

Other changes include a new rating system for students in the Peer Assessment section. Previously, students rated each other with 'Good/Average/Poor' ratings, but teachers suggested that a 'one star/two star/three star' system would be a much better way of protecting pupil's confidence levels. This has now been implemented.

We will soon be creating our new subject areas, and Numeracy has been highlighted as an area of interest from many of our users. To that end, if there are any interested teachers reading this who would like to become part of our content creation team, please email chris.davison@taecanet.com

To follow this theme of additions, we have also added a number of 'services packages' available to all schools from as little as £150 per anum, which will include a number of on-site visits. This will ensure that schools have all of the necessary training and support needed throughout the year in order to successfully implement Taecanet into their teaching plans. This training can be tailored to school needs and will give schools a much better chance of making best use of our innovative teaching and learning tool.