Editor’s note: Were you at this amazing event? If so, share your experiences of the day in the comments below. Be sure to get in touch, as we’re keen to collaborate with as many Primary Rockers as possible!

When I tell my colleagues about Twitter, I often get the eye-roll. ‘Here he goes again, banging on about Social Media.’ ‘I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying.’ Use the words ‘edu-chat’ and I’ve lost them completely.

The organisation of school pupils into after school clubs and the associated admin has always been a complex and time consuming exercise for schools. Allocation of pupils to extra curricular activities, chasing parental consent slips and collecting fees can take days, and they’re generally dreaded tasks for school staff at all levels. This was the issue at Hilltop Primary School in Crawley before they enlisted the help of intuitive and wide-reaching activities management system SchoolsBuddy, which now saves at least one member of staff at the school a huge 25 hours a week of work.

Aspire Training Solutions and Succeedin Limited are have joined forces to bring their online PECS (PE Curriculum Support) platform to Primary schools across the UK. Both Aspire (Stand L55) and Succeedin (Stand K54) will be exhibiting at the Education Show (16th – 18th March) at the Birmingham NEC, with educators invited to visit and discuss how the companies can support primary PE delivery.

We are used to deploying technology in schools to support ICT lessons and to help with the general administration of learning. However, many schools don’t get the best value from their ICT investments because they miss out on the cross-curricular engagement factor that some technologies can offer.

Young children are naturally curious about the world around them. We need to harness that love of discovery and encourage a passion for Science from a young age. At the heart of this lies inspiring teaching. This is why the free Reach Out CPD programme, a resource from Tigtag and Imperial College London, is invaluable for schools.

Primary music gurus Rhythmajig are working with schools to enhance pupils’ understanding of musical concepts and vocabulary, while assisting teachers with behaviour management and engagement. The online learning platform is designed to be accessible to all, adaptable to the instruments available in school, and, importantly, enormous fun. It also offers a unique scheme of work with outcomes above and beyond National Curriculum 2014. Teachers are able to take out a 30-day free trial to see for themselves.

For a generation that did not grow up with the Internet, it is fascinating to watch small children today intuitively handle a touchscreen mobile device with such ease. Indeed, modern pupils are growing up in a world where digital technology touches every facet of their lives, from the toys they interact with, to how their health care is managed, to how education is delivered. It is important that we look at not only how but what today’s young people are learning in terms of technology, as digital skills are becoming increasingly crucial for succeeding in the workforce, and will continue to be so in years to come.

Teaching a foreign language in Primary school is often a bit of a misnomer. French and Spanish are the standard options and you as the teacher are typically in one of three situations:

1. A foreign language expert is brought in one day a week to blitz-teach every class in the school.
2. There is a resident foreign language teacher in the school who teaches each class.
3. You teach your class a half hour lesson every week, where possible.

2016 marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death and a celebration of 400 years of his creative and cultural legacy. For some, Shakespeare can be seen as inaccessible - many of us have memories of reading plays such as Hamlet or Henry V around the classroom, possibly with little effort being made to untangle the meaning behind the words or the context in which the plays were written. For many teenagers today, Shakespeare is a playwright you are taught only to be examined on.

Saturday 21st March saw Primary school teachers from across the UK descend upon Medlock Primary School in Manchester for Primary Rocks Live. A huge event planned by a small group of passionate educators, the gathering was the evolution of Twitter chat #PrimaryRocks. Featuring keynote presentations by Hywel Roberts and Stephen Lockyer, #PrimaryRocks Live saw enthusiastic teachers attend a variety of different workshops, taking home a wealth of CPD and resources.