Area 6 : News & Views

NEWS ARCHIVE - Sept to Dec 2000

Firstly our thanks to Christopher Coyle, Principal Officer, Intranet Development, Edinburgh, for forwarding a modified URL for the new listing of Edinburgh Schools websites on the Edinburgh Grid for Learning - see Schools Scotland.

Secondly, thanks go to Asif, webmaster at Africa-Online, for forwarding details of a school on line in Malawi, which doesn't as yet have its own school-net - see Schools Malawi.

And finally, we've been able to locate details of Schools & Universities in Israel and Palestine - these have been put on line on the Schools Israel page, along with a link to the Israeli Ministry of Education.

26th November: Our thanks to Murray Kimber, A/g Assistant Secretary, Literacy & Special Programmes, Dept. of Education in Australia, for forwarding details of EDNA which we have now added to our Index to Free Educational Resources worldwide [just below the link to the Parliament of Australia, in the general resources table].

26th November: The e-mail address for I CAN, the national educational charity for children and young people with speech and language difficulties, has been updated in the Project HappyChild Directory. We have also now been able to include a link to I CAN's website.

20th November: There's been a break in ongoing updates to this page, due to further FTP difficulties across the whole server; at present we can upload a minimal amount but we trust full service will be restored as soon as possible.

20th November: Please note that the e-mail address for Lifeline Network International has been updated in the Project HappyChild Directory - if you have a cached or printed-out version of the Directory, you may wish to update this.

20th November: We're delighted to say that the first chapter pages for The Magical World of Harry Potter are now on line; this is a hugely popular area of the site and it's hoped to add more pages at the beginning of December.

11th November: The Child Poverty Action Group publishes welfare rights guides for advisers. The Welfare Benefits Handbook and Child Support Handbook are available at greatly reduced prices to benefits claimants - see the Booklists page. CPAG also sells Christmas cards - see the Catalogues page in the Project HappyChild Shop.

11th November: There have been some changes in the Project HappyChild Directory - firstly, PLAYLINK which helps people who want to set up and run adventure playgrounds so children can have a local place to call their own, to dig and climb, play games, build dens and meet friends, and also helps schools to improve their playgrounds - PLAYLINK now have a direct e-mail address which has been added to their entry in the Directory.
Secondly, Autism London, which aims to support families and individuals affected by Autism, Asperger Syndrome or similar communication and behavioural difficulties, has a slightly modified postal address and a new fax number - also they now have a website where you can locate a range of telephone numbers including their London helpline - site link from their entry in the Directory.
Thirdly, The National Council for One Parent Families (NCOPF) have a website launched by the world-famous author and single parent JK Rowling, who has decided to become an Ambassador for One Parent Families, and has made a substantial donation to the charity to help them with their latest fundraising appeal. NCOPF's new website and e-mail address have been added to their entry in the Directory.

11th November: SCHOOLS WEBSITES - Our thanks to Lorraine Rossiter, Technical Services Manager at Cheshire County Council for sending details of "SALT" (Support Access for Learners & Teachers). This has a complete list of all Cheshire schools and has direct links to all the schools websites currently set up - see Schools England counties A-M.

11th November: We've been receiving enquiries about safe playgrounds and associated subjects for quite a few months now, and are delighted to say we've now been able to feature The National Playing Fields Association on our FOCUS page. This extraordinarily comprehensive site has a great deal of info on all aspects of playing fields and playgrounds, as well as the relevant safety regulations.

The NPFA site also includes a database of fields under threat in the UK - sobering reading, take a look at the listings for London - and a lot of background details as to how to help protect fields in your area. There are also many links to relevant sites (eg grants, trusts) and help on looking after your field or pitch.

11th November: A letter was received in April 1999 from Paul Draper, about the Jodie Choules appeal which needed to raise Ł25,000 for a 2-year-old little girl from Sunbury, Middlesex. Jodie suffers from cerebal palsy and is unlikely ever to walk; she also suffers from epilepsy and poor hearing. Due to her disabilities, Jodie's home needed to be adapted to enable her to live on one level, which will ultimately improve her quality of life.We're delighted to report that Jodie's home has now been adapted [after help from various quarters, including her grandparents] - however we're informed that Jodie's parents are having trouble proving their negligence case against the hospital who have apparently "lost" the foetal traces which would have proved the time of her mother's arrival at the labour ward. We trust this matter will be properly resolved - the Guestbook has been updated in line with current developments.

11th November: There's been a break in the News updates this month as the FTP equipment at our ISP started to break down towards the end of October (affecting several hundred thousand people across their network). We were lucky enough to get the Newsletter on line eventually, but couldn't upload anything else as there was no guarantee the pages wouldn't come up blank; the whole FTP equipment base is now being replaced and hopefully things will soon be back to normal.

1^st November: Project HappyChild News for November 2000 is now on line, along with Michael Tipper's November articles on Accelerated Learning.

19th October: Just a reminder that the "Sponsored Wrap" takes place tomorrow - see General Events - hope lots of you out there are able to take part.

19th October: In the background to everything else that's been going on here, there have been major additions recently to the children's interest areas of the site - Pokémon and Harry Potter. Andy's Guide to Pokémon now has pictures of all the different Pokémon characters, with a mass of inter-related info that kids need to find their way through the red, blue and yellow games. The Magical World of Harry Potter has at last been opened up to visitors - the first 100 or so pages have now been constructed - see the books index - and specific info should be added fairly soon. In the meantime there are links to photos of the children who'll be taking the parts of Harry, Ron and Hermione in the film, along with details of Jo Rowling's extraordinary offer to write an extra couple of books in aid of Comic Relief .....

Both Pokémon and Harry Potter are wonderful entertainment for kids (and many adults!) - but both of them are so complex and have so many inter-related facets that often children simply can't remember all the different factors and end up feeling slightly swamped. We hope that the info going up in both these areas will be useful for kids to back-track on, especially now there will soon be Pokémon gold and silver, Harry Potter 5 and of course the two new books as well .....

Vinny and Jacquie have been visiting organizations that help kids in need (Vinny's voyage raised funds for disabled and disadvantaged kids) and he speaks movingly about Leukodystrophy in his diary entry of 13th October.

16th October: We've received a request from UNESCO to publicise their "Time" Project , for which only 157 schools, youth groups and organizations have signed up so far. - quote - "Time" offers young people the opportunity to communicate live with each other and learn about other cultures. By comparing our local communities, we are all taking part in the global village. Networks are created between schools from opposite parts of the world. All of a sudden, we encounter that walls are falling down and the global village is getting smaller. Travel the world without packing your suitcase! Grab the opportunity to learn from and about other young people! Get involved! Be an ambassador! We aim for two participating schools from every time zone on earth. Although UNESCO-ASP Schools have priority we invite all interested schools to sign up. If your school or organisation would like to participate, please let us know. Feel free to contact us by e-mail or fax. You will receive all the necessary information regarding the different parts of the project as soon as we have received your application. - unquote -

10th October: Another global school net has been added to Schools Interchange - schools and universities in Thailand.

We're also delighted to say that the Schools Italy page has now been updated - there has been a reform of the Italian school system and there are now comprehensive listings of schools. The "route" through the Italian sites is a little complex but we've detailed each stage as clearly as possible.

6th October: We've received an urgent appeal for help with funds for a project in Romania building a new home for 24 teenagers shortly to become homeless - the foundations for the new building are already laid but the high inflation rate is making it impossible for local people to complete the project. Please see the Betesda - Piatra Neamt link on the page for Appeals & Projects Romania - any help anyone can offer will be much appreciated.

3rd October: Michael Tipper's October articles are now on line. There's some fascinating info this month - and the book Michael has reviewed sold 7.5 million copies in China in 25 weeks .....

1^st October: Project HappyChild News for October 2000 is now on line.

30th September: Just a reminder that the London Triathlon takes place in Docklands tomorrow - our good wishes to all taking part and especially those raising funds to help disadvantaged kids [see Sponsored Events]. If you're planning to go and watch, events start from 7.15 am [roads closed from 6.30am-6.30pm] - details of how to get there and schedule for the day at the London Triathlon website.

29th September: Our thanks to Steve Feld at the John F. Kennedy High School, the Bronx (USA) for forwarding details of two very interesting projects for inclusion in the Artwork section within the "Creativity" area - "ArtiFaq21000" and "Why is the Mona Lisa smiling?" We've also linked the latter from Michael Tipper's article on Leonardo da Vinci, in the Accelerated Learning area of the site.

This project is based on the concept of the "Virtual Learning Community" and plans to encourage collaboration with many schools across Europe and the rest of the world, with the adventurers themselves, with scientists from various institutions, and with the media.

To find out more, and to get your school involved in this project, see the FOCUS page. Our thanks to Laurent Dubois at EduNet Switzerland for forwarding details.

24^th September: The new area for free French worksheets has been extensively re-designed and will now be operated in conjunction with Freeway. Several hundred worksheets will be uploaded in due course, all of them free to print for non-commercial use as originally planned.

21^st September: This week's new Cheats, Tips and Shortcuts are now on line at "Andy's guide to Pokémon", along with additions to the Missingno page and new Questions and Answers.

19^th September: We've added a new entry to the Guestbook, from First Step International Foundation, requesting teaching aids and funds to help in their work with children in Gambia [also now linked from the Gambia appeals page].

16^th September: The site has been unavailable for the last 12 hours at time of writing this - sorry for the access problems! - apparently a British Telecom core router is down in Manchester, or so we're told by our ISP, Force 9 / Plus Net.

Over the last 24 hours there's been a lot of pagebuilding going on, and we now have two *new* areas within the Creativity section of Area 6 - Articles and Poems. It was always planned to include these - eventually! - but work on other areas of the site didn't previously allow pagebuilding of this area.

We've started the Articles area with two items, "In Praise of Black Sheep", by a USA author, and "The Cause of Cot Death ... and how to prevent it" from New Zealand, and added the first poem, Unity, about the partnership between teachers and parents.

Submissions for any areas of Creativity - jokes, poems, stories, artwork, articles, etc. - are always much welcomed.

We've also taken the opportunity to update the main Index page for Area 6, News and Views, to make it easier for visitors to find the different areas of the site.

13^th September: The National Eczema Society has a "Sponsored Wrap" scheduled for 20^th October 2000. Individuals, businesses, schools and families can join in and raise money by wearing a Tubifast bandage (supplied by NES) all day or by wrapping up in other ways. School classes can all wear bandages, wrap up the teacher, have a 3-legged wrap race .....

7^th September: The webstats page has been updated to 29^th August - that day showing the highest visit level logged so far! - our ISP Force 9 has been upgrading equipment so hasn't provided stats since that date, but we're assured the info has been retained so maybe we'll see the stats for the intervening period in due course. Traffic varies considerably from day to day but seems to be holding steady in the one-to-two-million-a-year band.

7^th September: We've had not a few e-mails asking when the Monday "cheats update" for Andy's Guide to Pokémon is going on line - Andy has had his hands full with the new term and the beginning of GCSE work but the pages are being set now and should be up by the end of today, all going well.

4^th September: Michael Tipper's September articles are now on line in the Accelerated Learning area of the site - this month's "Great Mind" is Dominic O'Brien who has just won the World Memory Championships for the *seventh* time .....

2^nd September: FREE COMPUTER AND PRINTER offered to a good cause, school or charity within 50 miles of Coventry, UK - for details see our Surplus Resources page.

Usually we wouldn't publish virus warnings but this one came from a reliable source and the LoveBug itself deleted 3000 files from our computer in 20 minutes [to see the solution to the original virus put on line by James later that day click here].

In your mail program, you should have a "Tools" option which has a section "Inbox Assistant". If you click on this then "Add" you can put "erap" in the subject line, then near the bottom is an option "Delete off server" which can be ticked - this should ensure any e-mails with this in the title don't get to your system. We've followed the same procedure to set up a block on the word "estrada" also.

As yet there's nothing up on Sophos Anti-Virus but their site address is www.sophos.com and they will no doubt have details on line soon about whether this virus is genuine, and if so, how to deal with it. If you don't have a virus scanning program, you can get free programs from www.tucows.com or www.download.com [usually shareware but free operation for 30 days, some are freeware also].

We just thought you might wish to know about this virus warning; feel free to pass on this page address (file - send - page by e-mail) to friends and colleagues if you so wish.

1^st September: Project HappyChild News for September 2000 is now on line.

NEWSLETTERS - this website has been on line since 1998 - there have been a lot of Newsletters! The archive is here and the very last Newsletter is here.