Robotics are fun and interesting, but how can a school go about implementing them into their school? Restech’s Zan Nadeem gives her top tips on the topic.

The changes to the curriculum, although daunting in some ways, are hugely exciting. Most people, kids and adults, have a love for making things. The power to create/ and the joy from finishing a self conceived model, drawing, cake, knitted jumper etc, is indescribable. To be able to understand how to make the devices, devices that we use everyday, and how they are programmed is incredible and hugely appealing for many students. This is why robotics projects for students, and robots for schools, are proving to be so popular.

Schools want to offer the very best in education to their students, but funding is so often an issue. Rachel Gordon of The School Funding Service gives her 5 top tips on how to go about getting a grant for your school.

You have a great idea for a school project or innovative new practice, but the school budget is tight and you need a bit of cash to help you bring your idea to life. Does this scenario sound familiar? If so, my advice is don’t despair. Have you thought about applying for a grant to help you?

I love it when a member of our school team follows through on an idea or project about which they are passionate. Passion drives innovation and this is certainly the case for our school’s Digital Learning specialist, Mrs Karen Stadler.

During the course of 2012, Karen visited the wonderful Kruger National Park with her family. A trip to a watering hole was to be a defining moment as she witnessed five magnificent rhino arrive to drink the water and wallow in the mud. She realised that within a year there was a possibility that some, if not all, of these gracious creatures may have been killed by poachers.

This realisation moved her into action and she set up a Global Classroom Project known as The Travelling Rhinos. This involved having five small rhinos, which were made and covered in traditional African Shweshwe fabric, sent to schools in South Africa, Australia, Canada, Ireland and the USA to teach pupils about the plight of the rhinos in Africa.

Today I went on my first geocaching experience. For those that don’t know, a geocache is a container that is hidden somewhere in the world. It has coordinates assigned to it and then using these coordinates (or an app) people go and look for the boxes. Inside the box could be a number of things, but usually there is a notepad to sign to show you found it.

Why did we do it? I’ll come back to this later.

We started with getting an app. I used the official geocaching.com app called Groundspeak. This is £6 which in app-world, makes it very expensive, but consider the fact that I was out and about using it for two hours today and it only cost me £6. Plus I get to use it over and over again. It is well worth it in my opinion.