Welcome to December's newsletter. We appreciate this term has been taxing for the whole school community and congratulate you for the efforts you have made in handling everything that has been thrown your way due to Covid-19.
We hope when the Christmas holidays FINALLY arrive, you get the opportunity to get some rest and relaxation.
Bridge The Divide
LGfL are encouraging our community to address data poverty by bridging the divide together. We believe all children, including the most disadvantaged, deserve better on mobility. Therefore, we are undertaking one of the largest and most ambitious mobile data and device procurements ever to help schools and vulnerable children.
If you are a school who has ordered devices through Bridge the Divide, we have set up a site with information about the delivery of devices and details of who to contact in any event -devicesupport.lgfl.net
Pledge 2020
The Pledge2020 Programme Lead, Richard Hannah asks for the support of our customers one last time as the Pledge 2020 programme begins to wind down. Thanks to a huge collaborative effort with the schools, boroughs and school service providers all but a handful of schools have been upgraded as we approach Christmas.
There are several things that the Richard, the Programme Lead wants to bring to LGfL Schools' attention:
Please do not switch off your firewalls or routers. This causes our service monitors to record a fault, or worse still, reset the software configurations in the software that runs the security firewalls.
Due to COVID-19, we are having to use small independent couriers to pick up old devices. Please keep them in a safe place and do not dispose of the devices; they are refurbished and then re-allocated to other sites.
Please do not move devices from the locations at which they are installed without contacting your Account Manager.
If you have not yet booked or confirmed your Pledge2020 we only have slots available during the week ending 18th December 2020. Contact us immediately to see what can be done rather than lose an upgrade that could potentially double your bandwidth.
Free Resilience - 1 Gbps for secondary schools
Resilient services are available through LGfL; these services are available both over copper VDSL or fibre lines dependent on the level required. They are of particular benefit to schools in the unlikely event that there should be a network failure, as the resilient service will take over and keep essential services running for the school. For further information please contact enquiries@lgfl.net
LGfL HomeProtect
Our school-safe home web filtering for remote learning is designed to keep children safe at home and is managed Windows devices, Chromebooks or iPads. Find out more and sign up for our FREE 6-month trial at homeprotect.lgfl.net
Adobe Spark
We hope your school is enjoying the free Adobe Spark for Education and Adobe Creative Cloud licenses available to all LGfL schools! With Christmas approaching, you can easily design your electronic (and environmentally friendly) Christmas greetings using Spark – start your design from scratch or choose from beautiful Christmas card templates available here.
The advent calendar is full of quizzes, puzzles, activities and games all in just2easy, LGFL pupils can save their progress through the calendar too.
They also have a range of Christmas activities available. Access these by clicking on Just2easy’s JIT5 tile and see all the new Christmas themes and clipart ready to use to make pictures, animations, pictograms or fabulous writing templates for Christmas themed writing.
J2skills - Weekly Professional Development Sessions
Join Just2easy's education team and other teachers for their weekly professional development session - J2skills! They will be taking a look at all your questions about using j2e as well as providing some quick and easy wins for creative use of j2e in many subjects. Everyone is welcome to their drop in sessions, from brand new users to the seasoned just2easy user. Not only will you pick up some good ideas, but you will have your questions answered and have the possibility to make some global collaboration connections for your class too!
The J2e Club -J2skills meets every Tuesday at 3:40 - 4:40 for an hour, but you can drop in at any time within that timeframe. Bookhere.
Have a fabulous Christmas and wishing everyone a safe, happy and healthy new year from the Just2easy team!
BusyThings and LGfL's ReadingZone Live
Busy Things have recently released more activities to support LGfL's ReadingZone Live updates (and some other activities to support other curriculum areas).
Visit Busy ThingsEnglish area (or latest releases) to discover extracts from a range of authors and activities such as comprehensions, book reviews and creating book jackets.
In the History section you will find activities for Anglo Saxon and Viking Britain. They have also released their "Christmas Pack" for 2020.
LSSO in Lockdown - a socially distanced concert triumph: the show did go on!
LGfL is pleased to announce a major update to the London School Symphony Orchestra (LSSO) portal featuring concerts from the last two years. You can search for each concert by year, performer and composer at www.lsso.lgfl.net.
After a devastating year for live performance across the arts, this update includes the first and hopefully last socially distanced LSSO performance undertaken in September 2020. Artistic Director of the LSSO, Peter Ash, explains here the context of the September concert and also the plans for the future for the orchestra.
Earlier in the year in January 2020, the orchestra performed at the Barbican featuring music from The Dark Side Penderecki ‘Melodrama’from Paradise Lost, Mendelssohn ‘Overture’ to The First Walpurgis Night, Liszt Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and Berlioz Rakoczy March.
LSSO Alive!
The portal also now features short video vignettes featuring past members of the orchestra talking about the positive impact that being a part of one of the finest youth orchestras in the world had on them at the time and also after they left.
Examples are:
Click hereLSSO Alive 2018 with Leon, Lydienne and Samuel
Click here LSSO Alive 2006 with Finn, Cecilia and AJ
Click here LSSO Alive 2013 with 2013 vintage Sam, Isha Sophia
And Otis, a former cellist explains herethe overwhelming feeling he had in his first ever rehearsal with the LSSO and the impact it had on him then and to this day.
Find out more about the LSSO here and to access the archive click here.
To see the LSSO in rehearsal and meet the players click here.
Since Adobe's support for Flash Player* ends in 2020 (*software used on the Adobe Flash platform that includes viewing multimedia content and executing rich internet applications, such as educational games and also streaming audio and video) we will be retiring the LGfL "Legacy" resources at the end of the year (this includes Rigolo, Virtual Experiments and PB Bear's Adventures). If you have any further questions about our legacy resources, please contact: contentsupport@lgfl.net.
Ed Tech Demonstrator Programme
From the 9th to the 14th November 2020 we held a FREE six-day online EdTech event, #EdTechWeek2020 designed to celebrate the work of the EdTech Demonstrator Schools and Colleges, and to support educators - across the UK - in bringing technology into every aspect of their work, both in the classroom and remotely. The event is now over, but we have gathered together the session recordings here.
If your school has not yet expressed an interest in getting *free* (funded by the DfE up to March 2021) peer-to-peer support yet, click below to find out more and register with the programme.
Schools who are at the early stages of their digital journeys can apply directly for DfE-funded support with setting up Office 365 or G Suite for Education. Find out more via The Key'sdigital education platform hub.
Upcoming Training
All our training remains online during December and in to 2021. Check out the training portalfor a vast range of topics.
These training events are included in your school's Let's Get Digital subscription and are therefore *free* for LGfL schools staff to attend. Click the text/images below to see the information for the highlighted courses and to book.
This 1 hour online session designed to fit into a staff meeting slot. We are running the sessions EVERY Monday (4-5pm) during term time.
This two hour course will focus on how to help reluctant writers gain confidence through the use of technology. 1-3pm on 2nd December.
Google Training
Look at the various sessions on offer by clicking and registering here.
Including on 10th Dec 15:45-16:45 - The Anywhere School - Blended Learning with Google and LGfL.
IncludEd Training
Multisensory Festive Fun on 8th Dec 14:00-15:30. This truly is a course for anyone and everyone. Whether they are a volunteer; an educator of any stage; a parent or carer or indeed just interested in multisensory learning, they will be made very welcome. So please spread the word.
IncludEd: Wellbeing and Mental Health Support
We are currently updating our training and resources to provide more help for schools to promote wellbeing and support mental health in their communities.
We need to know what is most important to you and what training will best support your school/setting. The training will be free and open to ANY school, so do forward this on to any colleagues who are in education settings without an LGfL subscription because it's for them too! Complete the survey by clicking on the button below:
