Posts by Mark Taylor
International Montessori Institute Scholarships – NAPE 068
Leonor Stjepic, is an award-winning social enterprise entrepreneur, whose career has spanned both the private and NGO sectors. She is Chief Executive of the Montessori Group as well as Chair of the Board of Directors of Montessori Centre International.
James Archer is the Centre Director of the International Montessori Institute. Prior to this he was the Course Director of the BA Primary Education Accelerated (2 Year) degree. He has worked on and written various validations of innovative programmes in the Carnegie School of Education.
The International Montessori Institute, a centre within the Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University (LBU), has launched a scholarship programme to support the next generation of Montessori educators. The Institute was established in August 2020 and will provide the UK’s first dedicated undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Montessori education.
Funded by the Montessori Group, the first scholarships of £2,000 each will be awarded to 25 students who are studying on the BA (Hons) Primary Education Accelerated Degree (Montessori) in the 2021/22 academic year. The relationship between the Carnegie School of Education and the Montessori Group means that further scholarships will be awarded in the future years of the partnership.
This scholarship will be first awarded in the next academic year, with applicants to LBU able to apply for the scholarship as part of their application to the university.
Website
https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/research/the-international-montessori-institute/
Social Media Information
Leonor Stjepic
Twitter: @LeonorStjepic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonorstjepic/
James Archer
Twitter: @mrjamesarcher
International Montessori Institute
Twitter: @Montessori_LBU
The Montessori Group
Twitter: @MontessoriUk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/montessori-uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/montessoriUK
Instagram: @MontessoriUk
To get your FREE e-copy of the professional journal Primary First please visit https://nape.org.uk/journal
205: Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize
Maddy Kavanagh, Education and Skills Programme Manager at Nesta Challenges and Gordon Taylor, a STEM technician at Walton Priory Middle School are talking to me about the The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize.
The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize, delivered by Nesta Challenges, calls on young bright minds to put their passion for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to the test, to create and develop technological innovations to help solve some of the biggest issues of our time.
Young people aged 11-16 are encouraged to apply their creativity and ingenuity in four key areas: supporting people living independently in old age, helping people lead healthier lives, tackling climate change and pollution, and helping people stay better connected.
Now in its fourth year, and supported by Amazon for the first time, the Longitude Explorer Prize pairs classroom STEM learning with valuable entrepreneurial skills to help young innovators make their great ideas a reality. The Prize helps teachers easily incorporate the programme into lesson plans by providing an array of free online resources aligned with the school STEM and citizenship curriculum – adapted to the Covid-19 classroom restrictions schools currently face.
Teams are asked to create solutions based on one of four prize themes:
• Living Longer – technological solutions to support an ageing population
• Living Healthier – technological solutions that help people live happier and healthier lives
• Living Greener – technological solutions that tackle pollution and climate change; and
• Living Together – technological solutions that help people stay better connected in a way that is easy, safe and environmentally friendly as well as solutions to deliver more sustainable transport.
The top 40 teams will be selected as finalists, where Amazon will provide expert mentoring on topics ranging from data analytics, software engineering, robotics, and app development to create prototypes of their concepts to determine the winner in July 2021. The winners will be awarded £20,000 for their school or youth group, and three teams of runners up will be awarded £5,000 each for their school or youth group.
The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize aims to reach students across the UK and address the lack of diversity in STEM industries by providing young people from all backgrounds with an introduction to the possibilities of entrepreneurship in STEM and becoming the disruptors of the future. According to a report from EngineeringUK earlier this year, only 12% of engineers in the UK are women and, according to the Intellectual Property Office, fewer than 13% of patents are made by women. More than half (55%) of entrants to the 2020 Longitude Explorer Prize were girls.
About Nesta and Nesta Challenges
Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society. We’ve spent over 20 years working out the best ways to make change happen through research and experimenting, and we’ve applied that to our work in innovation policy, health, education, government innovation and the creative economy and arts.
Within Nesta, Nesta Challenges exists to design and run challenge prizes that help solve pressing problems that lack solutions. We shine a spotlight where it matters and incentivise people to solve these issues. We are independent supporters of change to help communities thrive and inspire the best placed, most diverse groups of people around the world to take action.
We support the boldest and bravest ideas to become real, and seed long term change to advance society and build a better future for everyone. We are part of the innovation foundation, Nesta. We are challengers. We are innovators. We are game changers.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion or invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalised recommendations, Prime, Fulfilment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit aboutamazon.co.uk and follow @AmazonNewsUK.
About Amazon in the Community
Amazon has long been committed to communities where our employees live and work and we focus on building long-term, innovative, and high impact programmes that leverage Amazon’s unique assets and culture. We want all children and young adults to have the resources and skills to build their best future. We concentrate on “right now needs” – via programmes that address hunger, homelessness, and disaster relief efforts – as well as programmes like Amazon Future Engineer, designed to inspire and excite children and young adults from underrepresented communities to pursue careers in the rapidly growing field of computer science. We are committed to inspiring and educating students across the UK to try computer science and coding, and pursue a career in this field.
Website
www.longitudeexplorer.challenges.org
Social Media Information
Twitter: @NestaChallenges
Show Sponsor
The National Association for Primary Education speaks for young children and all who live and work with them. Get a FREE e-copy of their professional journal at nape.org.uk/journal
204: Tough Conversations with David Wood
David is a former consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies. He built the world’s largest coaching business, becoming #1 on Google for life coaching and coaching thousands of hours in 12 countries around the globe.
As well as helping others, David is no stranger to overcoming challenges himself, having survived a full collapse of his paraglider and a fractured spine, witnessing the death of his sister at age seven, anxiety and depression.
He coaches high performing business owners to double revenue, and their time off by focusing on less and being 30% more courageous in their business or career.
Now David is using his skills, expertise and experience to support teachers and educators to use these insights and support the next generation.
Website
Social Media Information
www.linkedin.com/in/focus-ceo
www.youtube.com/c/ExtraordinaryFocuswithDavidWood
www.instagram.com/_focusceo/
www.twitter.com/_focusceo
www.facebook.com/extraordinaryfocus
www.facebook.com/playforrealll
Resources Mentioned
Byron Katie https://thework.com/
Show Sponsor
The National Association for Primary Education speaks for young children and all who live and work with them. Get a FREE e-copy of their professional journal at nape.org.uk/journal
Oxfordshire Headteachers Conference 2021
Leading To A Brighter Future.
Headteachers have responded brilliantly to the many issues brought about by Covid 19, and the consequent demands made upon them by politicians, parents and the media.
Join them for an online conference which brings together a unique group of speakers, who all realise the importance of change in our education system, and that things should not “go back to normal”. Alongside the huge physical effort of keeping schools going, headteachers and teachers – of all phases – have been reflecting on ways to engage our children by creating better learning environments.
The conference will include:
* A main programme of brief presentations by great speakers throughout the day
* Workshops and seminars addressing children’s needs
* Short videos of innovative practitioner classroom practice available to watch on demand
* The opportunity to network and discuss with colleagues via video chat
The main stage will be recorded so that delegates will have access to the talks for up to five days after the conference, so any talks you might have missed on the day or just want to watch again will be available for that time period.
Speakers include, Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching on The Future of Teaching, Ruth Seymour, Richard Gerver, Jan Dubiel and Bill Lucas. More exciting speakers listed below.
For more details and to book please visit:
https://hopin.com/events/oxfordshire-headteachers-conference
203: thinkfour online learning platform with Matthew Pearce
thinkfour is a free online virtual learning platform for Scottish Higher pupils which distils complex sections of the curriculum into four minute videos as presented by experienced teachers.
It is available to all children throughout Scotland and targeted at ages 14-17. Young people are able to upload their own versions of the videos which are vetted by teachers and there is a whole section dedicated to helping parents and carers support their children with their studies.
It is a collaboration between expert teachers, academic specialists in education, and a Glasgow-based award winning digital agency. This independent start-up was funded by The Glasgow Academy of which Matthew Pearce is Rector.
Website
Social Media Information
www.facebook.com/thinkfour
@think4scot
www.linkedin.com/thinkfour
Show Sponsor
The National Association for Primary Education speaks for young children and all who live and work with them. Get a FREE e-copy of their professional journal at nape.org.uk/journal