Route 2/Digital Nursery has launched its new interactive table product, The Tilt & Touch.

The new product retains all the fun and function of the hugely popular C-Point Table and its touch applications which are designed to reflect the EYFS and Key Stage 1 Curriculums, and combines that with the ability to tilt and lock the screen in place.

This allows smaller children to access the table more easily, opening up the age usage, and for it to be used in circle time for story-telling or activities for the whole class.

“We think the Tilt & Touch is the next step in the evolution of the product,” said Route 2’s Commercial Director, Richard Bijster.

Visualisers are a proven teaching tool in today’s classrooms, and the benefits of using a visualiser can be immediately observed. But for many teachers understanding their use and value is still problematic, largely due to a lack of organised and coherent information on applying visualisers as reliable learning tools in classrooms.

Elementary has recognised the need for modern educators to have a foundational resource that can aid them in procuring, adopting and making the most of visualisers in a demanding curriculum context.

How does it work?

The Definitive Guide to Visualisers in Today’s Classrooms helps teachers who are educating pupils from Key Stages one to four, in understanding the benefits of visualisers and their specific uses as a collaborative learning tool.

Beginning in Birmingham on the 4th of June this year, The Guardian in partnership with Zurich Municipal are organising their first-ever roadshow centred on 'Planning for your school's future'. The venue will also take place in London, Cheltenham and Liverpool in the following days.

Expert speakers, school leaders and business managers will all come together to share insight and provide advice on the best methods of practice and strategic planning, while also allowing a large scope for discussion and questions.

Who's speaking?

Key speakers include the charismatic educational thinker Sir Tim Brighhouse who, before retiring in 2007, has held fundamental positions in the educational landscape including Chief Education Officer for both Oxfordshire and Birmingham and Chief Adviser for London Schools, where he figure-headed the turnaround of performance in schools in the lowest performing boroughs.

High demand for people with science and technical skills has ensured an opening for schools and other educational establishments to take advantage of new Laboratory Technician Apprenticeships issued by innovative training provider CSR Group.

The Advanced Laboratory Technician Apprenticeship programme is a Government funded programme which is expected to fill skills gaps within the sector, particularly where budgets are tight.

Lightspeed Systems has always been embedded in safety, but they have grown to become what they call a Mobile Learning Essentials company—combining safety with device management and a platform for collaborative learning. Joel Heinrichs, Lightspeed Systems CEO says, “Yes, we build a filter, we have My Big Campus, but these pieces are most effective as elements of a combined solution.”

Just as education can no longer be separated, they believe that the elements of Mobile Learning Essentials are inseparable and work together as one holistic solution for safe, mobile, and collaborative education.

The involvement of parents in their child’s education is recognised as hugely beneficial: it promotes important two-way communication between the school and the family, fosters common aims and provides all-round support for the child. Ofsted recommends that schools should “engage parents in supporting pupils’ achievement, behaviour and safety and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development” (The Framework for School Inspection, Ofsted, Jan 2013).

For pupils with Special Educational Needs, this involvement is critical. The Lamb Inquiry looked into the most effective ways of increasing parental confidence in the SEN assessment process, stating that, “Good communication is not just better for parents and professionals, it is better for children. In the most successful schools, the effective engagement of parents has an impact on children’s progress.” (Lamb Inquiry, Crown Copyright 2009)

Professor Brian Cox, one of the worlds’ leading particle physicists, will deliver a unique science lesson to 1,000 school pupils from across the UK, who will hope to discover more about science at Science Discovered!.

Labelled the ‘Brian Cox Effect’, Professor Brian Cox has been at the forefront of helping to make science fashionable with take-up of the subject now at some of the highest levels ever at A-Level. Science Discovered!, organised by school science trip specialists Adaptable Travel, will be held in London in November and is aimed at Key Stage 4-5 science pupils from across the UK.

As Pupil Premium funding increases to £2.5 billion in 2013-14, and each disadvantaged child attracts £900, schools are now being asked to demonstrate how they are spending their Pupil Premium.

To help schools achieve this, and to save teachers' time, SAM Learning has developed a special report that enables Free School Meals students to be easily targeted and monitored. The Fischer Family Trust conducted an independent study showing that Free School Meal students gain an average of 3.5 GCSE grades (+12.3 capped points score) better than expected with as little as 10 or more hours of using SAM Learning.

Schools are being encouraged to think beyond standard phonics-based teaching in early year education by exploring a new teaching resource based on British Sign Language (BSL).

Told through a combination of books, online games and videos of words and phrases, SignSpell is the first holistic educational resource of its kind, designed to help hearing children in their early years to read, spell and remember words through basic BSL.

Interactive 3D teaching software provider 3D-Hub is expanding its online library of 3D content after a number of world-leading distributors and producers agreed to make a selection of their titles available for download.

This expansion is good news for teachers looking for new and exciting 3D videos to use in the classroom with 3D-Hub’s media player.

3D Content Hub, National Geographic Entertainment and Principal Media have all agreed to provide 3D content, adding to the many titles already available on the 3D-Hub website.

Among the new factual clips will be the multi-award-winning film Cosmic Journey. This spectacular documentary takes the viewer on a trip to the edges of the universe using previously unseen NASA and Hubble space telescope images.