Langeroo, a software package that supports the teaching and learning of English to EAL, Early Years and SEN children, have announced plans to develop a series of Langeroo apps.

Development has already begun on the apps which will be available across multiple platforms. To compliment their popular online version, the apps will be split into two categories:

Rachel Johnson is celebrating after being announced as one of the UK’s most exciting young entrepreneurs of the year. The 27 year old from Wilmslow beat off stiff competition from around the UK to win a monthly heat of the world-renowned Shell LiveWIRE competition and £1,000 funding earlier this year. Since then, judges have sat down to reveal the 40 best talents in the UK and Rachel’s company Industry Insiders has just been awarded one of the highly contested titles.

Industry Insiders was set up to deliver inspirational talks and workshops in schools and colleges to boost confidence, raise aspirations and self-esteem. They educate young people on a flavour of what it’s like in the world of work. The company bridge the gap between education and work and the ethos is to inspire, motivate and encourage, helping people to achieve more and live their dreams. Rachel works with eight inspirational experts to deliver the sessions and include a former Commissioning Editor of BBC Radio 1, a Sales and Marketing Specialist and a TV and Sports Commentator.

Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor and MP for Outwood and Morley, visited Morley Newlands Primary School on 6th January 2012 to see for himself how a paperless online communication system, designed specifically for primary schools is improving links between parents and teachers.

Scholabo was founded in December 2010 by Brent, a parent of two primary school aged children, when he set out to provide an innovative solution for school to parent communication after finding it difficult to keep up to date with events and scheduled arrangements, which were primarily communicated via letters placed in his son’s school bag. 

Essex based professional magician, mentalist and hypnotist, Steve Drury, is proud to announce the formal launch of his uniquely adaptable Magic Workshops for education and business.

Steve Drury's uniquely adaptable magic workshop structure was developed through both his experience of years of performance as a professional magician / mentalist and utilisation of his interest and practice in psychological techniques as a hypnotherapist.

The best practice of a leading Essex independent school was showcased on Friday at the world’s largest educational technology exhibition, the BETT Show.

Assistant Headteacher at Felsted School, near Great Dunmow, Dr Nick Dennis, gave a talk about how his school use iPads with pupils to boost learning, social and pastoral practices. His speech took place on the stand of Essex based LapSafe® Products, an education specialist in managing mobile ICT, and gave teachers and education professionals the chance to find out how the popular Apple tablet can be utilised across a range of academic subjects.

Felsted School, an independent boarding and day school for children aged four to 18 years of age, is an Apple Regional Training Centre, and offers free advice and workshops to any school using Apple tools to support teaching and learning. Visitors attending the iPad talk discovered how Dr Dennis and his pupils use tablet computers both inside and outside of the classroom, taking them on school trips to use GPS and create video blogs of their experiences. Dr Dennis explained how the iPads provide students with a range of academic staples, such as electronic dictionaries and calculators, and assume an important pastoral role by placing student information, such as commendations and medical details, at staff’s fingertips.

Spellathon is a groundbreaking, new and exciting, FREE, global, digital sponsored spelling competition taking over the world, raising funds for learning disability charity Mencap.

Set in a futuristic digital universe and presented by ‘The Professor’, a 3D bee character voiced by none other than Stephen Fry; Spellathon is fun playing, fast moving, highly visual game and can be played anywhere, by anyone - children, students, and adults of any age! Register now at www.spellathon.net and BEE ready for the world’s first, unique global Spellathon!

Whilst competing against the clock, against others or even in reverse mode, or rather esrever edom! Spellathon entrants pledge a target number of words to spell correctly whilst practicing ahead of the online global championships to be held in March 2012. All words spelt correctly, are “banked” in your hive and your scores are displayed on the global leader board!

With the increasing strategic and financial responsibilities schools are taking on board, the need for a governing body with a wide range of relevant skills is becoming essential.

The school is in the business of creating top class education for its pupils as well as, increasingly, managing its multi-million pound budget as efficiently as a traditional business.

It is a difficult line to tread, you wouldn’t necessarily run a business of equivalent size with a group of people that happened to be the only ones who volunteered, but that is, historically, how the governing bodies of our schools are created.

As schools gain more autonomy, it is essential that governors of the right calibre, with the right skills are recruited. The School Governors' One-Stop Shop (SGOSS) is an independent charity dedicated to recruiting volunteers who offer the diversity on governing bodies that is needed.

The education sector’s expert in mobile ICT charging, security and storage will be showcasing its, increasingly popular, self-service laptop loan lockers for school libraries at the BETT Show 2012.

Trusted brand LapSafe® Products will return to the world’s leading exhibition for educational technology to demonstrate the Diplomat™ - the UK’s first self-issuing laptop and tablet charging locker designed for libraries using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).  The Diplomat™ provides students and teachers with individual access to secured and charged laptops or tablets using pin codes or smartcard access systems. The multi-bay locker can be configured for use with the  popular MIFARE system, enabling schools to track and monitor equipment use.

Media savvy primary school pupils are inviting visitors at the BETT Show to come along to stand H39 to discover how games-based learning can be used to inspire, challenge and enhance learning.

Youngsters from St Peter and St Paul CE Primary School in Burgh-le-Marsh will be holding an interactive workshop on the LapSafe® Products stand to demonstrate the application of the Nintendo DSi for teaching and learning in maths and beyond. Visitors to the show will be able to learn about how affordable and easy-to-use mobile technology can be utilised by both pupils and staff at 1.30pm Wednesday 11 January 2012.

Mobile TV studios, video, archiving and live streaming equipment from Yorkshire firm Planet PC will be among the first to feature in a European ‘classroom of the future’.

The ‘Future Classroom Lab’ initiative in Brussels is run by European Schoolnet, an international partnership of more than 30 European Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils.

The lab will be set up at the end of 2011 to showcase teaching and learning scenarios for classrooms of the future throughout Europe.  The flagship four-year project, which has received €9.45 million of funding from the European Commission’s FP7 research programme, is part of the Europe-wide Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom (iTEC) project.

The project involves 15 of the European Ministries of Education and will include trials and validation of future classroom technology scenarios in 1000 classrooms.