Learning Resources
The following resources are available for Giles Brook School pupils to access both at school and at home, to help them with their education. The Tapestry app is for use by parents in the Nursery and the Foundation Stage of schooling at Giles Brook.
Every child at Giles Brook from the Foundation Stage is given a G Suite account. This gives them access to the complete Google suite, powerful tools to allow collaboration, a free set of office tools, including Mail, Classroom, Google Drive, Docs, Slide, Sheets, Forms.
Because your child has a G Suite account the easiest way for them to access all of the above software is to give them access to their own Google Chrome logon at home. All their passwords are saved to their own Google Chrome account so when you Sync and Link their data at home, they will be able to access what they do at school. Google Chrome is a free web browser
Education City is web based software for use from Nursery to Year 6. It covers the following areas of the curriculum, Maths, English, Science, Computer, French, Spanish and Learn English. Your child can work through all the topics that follow the National Curriculum which will embed what they have learnt at school. Their teacher has access to everything they do on Education City and can see your child's outcomes and identify the areas in which they need extra help to support their progress. Children can access all years with Education City, so they can work at their own level.
Children in Year 4 are tested on their times tables as per the government initiative to help ensure all primary school children know their times tables up to 12 x 12. We use various methods in school to teach children their times tables, including practise using TT Rock Stars. This is something which requires regular over learning so we have purchased Times Tables Rock Stars to support your child's learning at home. Every child has a logon and can practise at home - the more they practise the more tokens they earn. They can then use these tokens to buy clothes and instruments for characters within the software.
Is a web based interactive maths learning tool for the whole school. Every student is given a MyMaths logon, which allows them access to maths resources covering the curriculum from Year 1 to Year 7 maths. It covers number, measurement, geometry and statistics. It gives children an online lesson teaching a mathematical concept and then exercises follow to practise what has been learnt. This is a good tool used along side teaching to help embed the understanding and application of maths. Children learn at their own pace. They can also logon to their own portal area if homework is set in this way.
Discovery Education Espresso is a whole school, whole curriculum learning resources. It is used throughout the whole school as a teaching tool but children also have home access to this amazing resource. It covers everything!
Discovery Education Espresso Coding
Discovery Education Espresso coding covers the national computing strategy for Years 1 to 6. It covers block coding, HTML and Python. Your children will use this web based software for their computing lessons but they also have access to it at home, so they can further develop those skills. The majority of children in all year groups really enjoy coding.
Scratch
Scratch is a free programming language for children aged 8 to 16 years, it is web based but can also be downloaded to run from a computer. At Giles brook we run scratch 3.0 from a computer and use the web based version. The children are not allowed to create an account at school but are told to go home and ask their parent / guardian's permission as their parents email address has to be used to create the account. This allows children to save their scratch projects online rather than their computer. If they have a home account, they can also logon and show us at school.
Resources available at home for Parental Use
Tapestry Online Learning Journal
This is for parents who have children in Nursery and Foundation Stage and is an online learning journal helping staff and families to celebrate children's learning and development. For more information on Tapestry see their info website. Tapestry is best used through an app which parents can have on their phone - it allows parents to upload pictures and information regarding their child's development. Parents will also see the uploads from the school on a termly basis.
Parents Evening System
Parents consultation evenings are held twice a year and we use an online booking system to accommodate this. All children who attend Giles Brook are linked to the system, which makes booking appointments very quick and easy from any web browser.
School Gateway
Gateway is for anything payable to Giles Brook School i.e. clubs/educational visits/book bags & PE Bag/Music etc.
More information about School Gateway can be found on this page of the school website.
Price & Buckland school Uniform
School uniform is ordered online through Price and Buckland. More information on school uniform can be found on this page of our website.
Parent Pay is used to pay and book school meals.