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Area 6 : News & Views

LATEST SITE NEWS

18th August 2023 - Sol's Guide to Harry Potter

As many of our visitors will know, we haven't added anything significant to Sol's Guide since the last Harry Potter film was released - though we *were* able (finally) to add the long-planned 50 Harry Potter wordsearch puzzles, late last year.

However. Access to error logs and such like (after the recent server move) revealed that unexpectedly-large numbers of people were hitting the barrier pages in our Harry Potter area. After some degree of thought we've (a) added the remaining Chapter pages (an additional 192!) and (b) upgraded the 'barrier' pages (sample here) to highlight the 'Special Note' which explains why it was that we had to put all the scheduled Harry Potter pagebuilding on hold.

Meanwhile we've been clearing-down a significant number of worksheets and overview pages for not-yet-completed languages (pages put on line for checking, after the original translations were done) that had somehow been picked up by the search engines. 682 pages :/ We're just hoping that more people will volunteer soon, to enable us to get the rest of the (already-fully-translated) worksheets on line (there are about 3400 worksheets ready-to-go, plus all the associated overview [wall-to-wall] pages).

So - finally! - we've updated the number of pages on line at the foot of the main site-welcome-page here [scroll down page].

5th August 2023 - We have moved to https !!

After 25 long years being hosted with Force9/PlusNet, we have moved the Project HappyChild hosting to Mythic Beasts, so all our pages are now available via https.   Our broadband is still with PlusNet (so you can still support this site free-of-charge by moving your broadband to PlusNet via this link [just quote 'happychild' as your referrer]) but we couldn't go https without physically-moving the whole website. Hosting at Mythic Beasts is very reasonable, cost-wise (highly recommended) and looks to be a safe location for Project HappyChild for the foreseeable future.

We have also - finally! - made a 'contact' form for getting in touch with us. You can reach this via the contact page (now linked from almost all site pages here).

We would *very* much like to be able to get the remaining dual-language worksheets sets on line (translations already done) so if you can help with checking/validating (Castilian) Spanish-English vocabulary, Italian-English vocabulary, Malaysian-English vocabulary or Mandarin-Pinyin-English verbs, please do get in touch :)

26th April 2023 - Link Restores. We're delighted to say that links have now been restored across all News pages on line here, not only the 20 giant news pages (archive going back to 1999) but also the newsletters since the very beginning. There have been a lot of changes over the last 25 years and some organizations - and charities - have sadly not survived, but we've retained links wherever possible and the archives provide a unique overview of the many extraordinary developments over the years since 1998.

We've also finally completed updating all the many thousands of links from Schools Interchange and USA state counties. Links have been restored to government websites (and education departments) across the world along with schools and school-nets (seemingly vastly in excess of the 400,000 school links we started with) and universities in almost all countries worldwide.

My thanks go to all the websites that put a forward/divert to their new address, from old URLs - particularly the USA counties - this has made what might have been an arduous task, very much easier/swifter. Hopefully now the Internet has more-or-less standardised at https:// -type addresses, there will be vastly fewer link updates required in the future.

And yes, keenly aware that Project HappyChild probably needs to go https:// at some stage. That just isn't practicable right now, but it's on the roadmap for "some time soon", all else remaining equal and dependent on various external factors.

Whilst doing the link restores we've also updated various other areas across the site as a whole, and the writing practice worksheets for letters and numbers have now been upgraded to include pale characters to 'write over' (these pages can also be printed out and laminated, for use as required). A resource which has long been intended, just didn't quite happen before now.

And finally - the e-mail address for the site has been updated. Details on the contact page, which has also been expanded to highlight the particular areas of help needed to enable the free dual-language-worksheets area to be completed. The set-ups for generating the worksheets were thoroughly overhauled back in September/October last year, so processing further sets should be significantly swifter/easier than before. All that's needed now is more volunteers for checking / translating :)

Just let me know if you can help. I have to go away and do "other stuff" again, probably until about summer 2024, but will always aim to find time for processing any translated-and-checked language databases that materialise. E-mails are checked daily :)

29th November 2022 - Link Restores. * Links between the various areas of the site here all work fine, but there are around 12,000 links from our pages to other websites across the internet. Most of those sites have changed from http:// to https:// addresses over the last couple of years ... so during October and November we have been restoring links from a number of areas of the site.

Free educational resources - the big index here, the Potted Learning pages, the exams page (including exam-boards info for private candidates, ie those outside the school system), the Time + Space page, as well as the links for Maths resources (K1 to K12, ie from infant/primary to the end of A level) via the Maths area. Other resources (eg the 10,000+ dual-language worksheets) are fully on line on the site here so are already secure, link-wise. * All 16 home pages (home 1, home 2, home 3, home 4, home 5, home 6, home 7, home 8, home 9, home 10, home 11, home 12, home 13, home 14, home 15, home 16) and associated areas have now been updated, along with the links from the countries and islands pages.

The other major areas that have been updated relate mainly to the children's charities that we highlight on the site. The Project HappyChild Directory and Syndromes Links index have been updated, along with Appeals + Projects helping children across the world. The network of charities helping children across far-flung lands has strengthened quite remarkably in the intervening years (eg see Europe/Asia).

Links from Latest News and Newsletters dating back to 1998 will need to be updated in due course (but not quite yet). It is hoped to be back here early next year to deal with those and also links from the last two major areas (massive quantities of links from both): Schools Interchange and USA state counties.

Wishing you all a good Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year :)

8th October 2022 - The 399 worksheets for Hungarian verbs are now on line.

Our thanks to Alexandr Papp and Ági Horváth-Szász for the many hours of translating and checking all the Hungarian content.

Volunteer translators/checkers are still requested for Hungarian-English vocabulary worksheets, and for other languages - please see the Translators' Page.

8th September 2022. RIP Queen Elizabeth II.

2nd September 2022 - We're delighted to say that the long-awaited wordsearch puzzles for our Keywords for Learning area are now finally on line.

A total of 1649 puzzle pages, a large block relating to vocabulary sets for our dual-language worksheets area, and another full of the keywords for science definitions.

There are also 50 new wordsearch puzzles for over 700 Harry Potter characters, as well as a wide range of puzzle themes sent in by site visitors.

Individual profile pages at The White House have now been linked from the names of all US Presidents up to the year 2020.

7th October 2016 - After the recent Hurricane Matthew devastation in Haiti, a check of the link to HSKI (help for Haiti's forgotten Restavek slave children) revealed that the Paypal donations link was no longer working, and their previous Facebook page seems to have disappeared.

Accordingly the previous news article about HSKI has now been removed, and we have replaced the previous link from the main welcome page with one to Restavek Freedom, working to try to liberate 300,000 Restavek children in Haiti from slavery (they have a current donate-link for Hurricane Matthew relief).

17th July 2016 - Most of our visitors will be aware that 23rd June 2016 marked the date of Great Britain's "BREXIT" Referendum. There were a great many factors to consider and the linked page is one I put together (on my personal site) from 17-19 June 2016, to try to illustrate some of the very many factors that became a part of our collective decision to LEAVE.

The Project HappyChild page for UK Prime Ministers has today been updated. Sorry for the delay - has been a busy time, behind the scenes.

Huge rise in visits to Andy's Guide to Pokémon, as new iPhone app Pokemon GO changes the landscape

11th July 2016 - We were alerted by the huge rise in visits to Andy's Guide to Pokémon these last four days that something major is happening in the world of Pokémon. Suddenly we're back in the realms of 20,000 visits a day :) Turns out this is due to the launch of the new iPhone app, Pokémon GO, that links with GPS to locate Pokémon in "real-life" locations.

The requirements are high-end - iPhone 5 onwards, internet connection (3G, 4G Wi-Fi) as well as GPS and Location Services, and a similar level for Android, apparently. So far the game (app) is available only in Aust/NZ and now (from 06/07/16) in USA (UK access to Pokémon GO not scheduled till later this year at best), *but* we have it on good authority that if your phone is sufficiently high-end, it should be possible to adjust the settings so as to get the game to work in other countries.

Adults as well as kids will be using this :) and no doubt many of the thousands of kids across the world who helped create the unique help guides in Andy's Guide to Pokémon (most of them now adults themselves) will be a part of this too.

Pokémon GO gets kids *moving* again. The more they walk around - preferably in groups, because isolated children are vulnerable - the more Pokémon they're likely to find. A real case for "TEAM Pokémon" - and a whole new ballgame. General concensus amongst adults is that Pokémon GO is likely to combat childhood obesity better than anything governments ever came up with :)

5th May 2016 - We're delighted to say that the counters appear to be *fixed* : D   It became apparent earlier this evening that things had started working again - quite by chance, as it happened, for with the visible counters having been removed from the site, there was no immediate indication that anything had changed. It's been six long months now since all this started and we were beginning to wonder if the counter issues would *ever* be resolved.

My personal thanks go to Bob Pullen at PlusNet for the many months of negotiations which have helped to finally bring this about, and to David Booker for providing very detailed technical overviews of the underlying issues, such that they proved fixable, in the end. All four of the original counters have now been restored site-wide and have now been reinstated on the "about us" page. Bob and David - and, I guess, hostopia - thank you :)

5th February 2016 – and we're still waiting to hear. Waiting for "hostopia" to confirm or deny they know how to fix this, is like watching paint dry :/   We'll update this page as soon as things improve. In the meantime we've removed calls to visible counters from (hopefully) all pages; let us know if you have difficulties with printing any of the free worksheets on line at the site here.

1st January 2016 – Happy New Year to all our visitors :)

Negotiations have continued, but apparently "hostopia" don't know what might have been changed on their servers that stopped the file-locking for our main site counters from working, just that they have no record of any such change, if I've understood correctly. We've been as patient as we can, but this has dragged on for about nine weeks now, and it isn't entirely clear if they're planning to fix this at all.

So, in order to get the free worksheets here to download properly (and print), we're going to need to take down the "visible counters", starting today :/ This is not as straightforward as it sounds, because it's likely to be necessary to also remove or replace counter-calls that are not visible to site visitors but which will probably still stop pages from loading. We'll deal with this one stage at a time :/   please do let me know - e-mail address in 'contact' link below - if there's anything that's needed urgently. Thank you :)

Footnote: our version of Internet Explorer (IE 11) has print-preview options for 1-page-view, 2-page-view, 3-page-view, etc. - and worksheets (though single-page) may display in 2-page-view or 3-page-view, even if not in 1-page-view. Alternatively, there's the Firefox option below (note of 6th December 2015).

4th December 2015 – Many of our regular visitors will have noticed that the “visit counter” has been absent since the early hours of 31st October, so we figured an update to this page was probably required : /

The site pages here are hosted by Force 9 at PlusNet – however our visit-counter (specially adapted with file-locking to cope with high levels of simultaneous visits) is provided by a cgi server. PlusNet's own cgi-server was decommissioned in early 2014 and a company called “hostopia” (in Dublin, I believe) took over the cgi-hosting provision. The initial “migration” was far from trouble-free, but after many long weeks things became resolved, or seemed to be.

Now – barely 18 months down the track – our visit-counter has stopped working (my understanding is that this relates to some change made by “hostopia” at server level, but I'm not a techie by any means). PlusNet have repeatedly asked “hostopia” to get this fixed – “hostopia” haven't done so.

So.   This presents something of a dilemma, for me – clearly things can't be left as they are, because pages not loading properly (because of the counter-display issues) is preventing the printing of thousands of free worksheets on the site here.

Many of you will know from the last Newsletter that I have “gone away” to work on rescuing the finances and also hopefully to fathom out some way of forward-funding the Project HappyChild website for the years ahead. However if “hostopia” don't fix the server issues relating to the HappyChild visit counters, it would require a significant amount of work to remove or modify the cgi call-ups that have been woven into the fabric of countless thousands of webpages since the very beginnings of building the Project HappyChild site, over seventeen years ago.

I have to admit I feel somewhat dismayed at the prospect of such a huge undertaking, but I don't see much alternative. If “hostopia” fail to fix things by the end of December 2015, we may have to remove all the visible counters at Project HappyChild, while we try to figure out some longer-term solution. Fingers crossed “hostopia” get their act together before then. I'll keep you posted.

Penny.       04/12/15

6th December 2015 - counters not restored as yet, but if you're still finding worksheets or other pages will not print because of the counter issues, you may wish to try switching browser to Firefox (free download) - Firefox enables printing on some PCs, even if Internet Explorer doesn't.   Hope this helps :)

14th November 2015

Our thoughts are with Paris - and the whole French nation - at this time.

Deep shock and sadness have been felt across the world, much as they were at the time of the London bombings and the Twin Towers tragedy. To quote Yusuf Islam from the Twin Towers page here: "No right-thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such action."

Paris in mourning has turned out the lights on the Eiffel Tower, but the rest of the world has lit theirs in solidarity. British Prime Minister David Cameron has said, today: "Our message to the French people is simple ... We stand with you. United."

9th July 2014: SUMMER 2014 NEWSLETTER: Well, it turned out that the June 2014 Newsletter-send was something of a non-event, with both the visitor counters and the database going down (not here, ISP-related but not PlusNet's fault) - fortunately the counters were rescued fairly swiftly, but the database has taken rather longer, with the result that only hundreds rather than thousands of Newsletters were able to be sent out.

Everything seems to be back up and running now, so we've written a rather more complete Newsletter this time and are planning to start the "sending" process shortly. We've dated the new one "Summer 2014" rather than "July 2014" as we're not entirely sure how long it will take to reach everyone :/ It's on line now, anyway - just click here.

The subscribe page sign-up is working again so do let us know of any Newsletter issues via the "Messages" box on that page, or if it goes down again you can reach me via the e-mail shown on the 'contact' link below.

1st June 2014: NEWSLETTER: Major developments here, with our own Newsletter-mailing-list system finally installed :) Our deepest thanks to David Booker without whose help the required configuration and settings might forever have remained a mystery.

A new edition of Project HappyChild News has just gone on line, mainly to update site visitors on developments.

It's likely to take us a while to get everything up to speed again here, but we look forward to hearing from many of you via the new facilities for "Message" and "Comments" on the subscribe page :)

28th February 2013: ENGLISH-CHINESE worksheets: A somewhat-momentous day the 28th of February 2013 has been, with the resignation of the Pope probably overshadowing almost everything else :/

A landmark day it is for us, too, though, in that we're able to announce - finally! - that the first 2400 Chinese-English worksheets (vocabulary) are now on line. The worksheets started going up a few days ago but there has been an incredible amount of work to do, to link them into the network of other dual-language worksheets on the site here as well as from the very many other pages across the site.

The structuring of the Chinese area has been complex beyond description, but effectively there are six "sets" (English to Mandarin, English to Pinyin SC [Simplified Characters], Pinyin SC to Mandarin) (English to Cantonese, English to Pinyin TC [Traditional Characters], Pinyin TC to Cantonese) and each worksheet links to its own equivalent in each of the six sets. A little difficult to describe, but a page like house08 (random selection) shows the links (gold bar) to the other Chinese equivalents, and clicking on the underlined 'HOUSE' in the worksheet title takes you to the house index page where there are links to the other language sets where identical-English-content vocabulary worksheets are all available - English, Russian, Urdu, French, Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, German, Dutch, Arabic, and Turkish, so far.

Effectively this means that children of different nationalities can learn English side-by-side in classrooms, by using the corresponding pages/worksheets in any of the other language sets.

Our endless thanks for all their hard work go to Shalem Lee (translating) and Ron Lee (checking) who have made possible this incredible interwoven English - Pinyin - Mandarin - Cantonese resource.

Our thanks must also go to the very many other people who have given up months or even years of their spare time, to help in translating and checking the other language sets now available - see our "Roll of Honour" page - and made possible this whole extraordinary language-learning resource which now goes beyond anything available anywhere else worldwide. And it's *free*.

3rd April 2012: RUSSIAN-ENGLISH worksheets: Sorry for the long delay in updating this page : / Needless to say, lots of work is always going on in the background with volunteers translating and checking content for the dual-language worksheets area, but often it can take months or years before each additional language is fully translated and checked. We're delighted to say that the checking of the Russian-English verbs database has now been completed, and that 390+ Russian-English verbs worksheets are now on line. Our thanks go to Randy Sanders in the USA, and to Gleb Krasnianski in Sweden, for all the work that has made this possible.

20th October 2011: BULGARIAN-ENGLISH worksheets: We're delighted to say that the checking of the Bulgarian-English vocabulary database has now been completed, and that 400+ Bulgarian-English vocabulary worksheets are now on line. Our thanks go to Lilyana Parashkevova in Bulgaria, and to Pavlina Parashkevova in England, for all their hard work over a very long period.

17th August 2011: It was discovered a week or so ago that the petitions site at Downing Street had finally re-opened (see earlier News item here) - effectively far too late to have any hope of getting EMA reinstated for September 2011. We sent in a three-month petition, anyway (the shortest timeframe available) - and it was rejected (several EMA petitions were turned down). We are sorry that so many families with teenagers will be harshly impacted by the sweeping away of a valuable initiative which in real terms cost the Government very little money, its cost being vastly outweighed by the practical benefits it brought to poorer families.

4th July 2011: TURKISH-ENGLISH worksheets: We're very pleased to say that the checking of the Turkish-English database has now been completed, and that 400+ Turkish-English vocabulary worksheets are now on line. Our thanks go to Meriç Tuncer and to Gülfem Apaydin for all their hard work :)

6th May 2011: The content for the Malaysian-English worksheets has now been translated - checking help requested from language professionals or native speakers educated to degree level. Please see the Translators' page for details of other languages where volunteer help is also needed.

20th April 2011: New resource added - "Chanting Worksheets" for helping to learn times tables. The original complete set of 50 Times Tables Worksheets remains as popular as it ever was :)

3rd April 2011: So, we're there, finally - 100 million visits.  See the "Journey" page for a note from Penny, who built the pages of this website.   Our deepest thanks go to all of you who have been a part of making all this possible :)

1st April 2011: We're delighted to say the basic pagebuilding for this website is now completed !! and the visit counter is likely to reach 100 million some time over the next 24-48 hours. Only just got this finished in time :/

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We have just put the latest set of Spanish-English worksheets on line - those for dairy products, milk, eggs, cereals, flour, rice, pastries, bread, sugars, soups, sauces, salt, pepper, seeds, oils, herbs and spices.

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We have also (in the last few days) added a new set of worksheets for writing practice - easy-to-use worksheets for all the basic letters and numbers, with different stages for different levels of writing capability. These have often been asked for :/ just there was never quite time to make them, before now.

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Almost all the basic pagebuilding is now "done" but we still have content to add from outside contributors - in science (just re the elements), for Keywords for Learning wordsearch puzzles, and for the huge area for dual-language worksheets. We'll continue to add to these areas whenever the remaining information is forwarded, on an ongoing basis.

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Help is urgently requested for several languages, where the translations have been completed but we still need a volunteer language professional to check. These are as follows:

Bulgarian~English vocabulary worksheets - ready for checking
Mandarin~English vocabulary worksheets - ready for checking
Cantonese~English vocabulary worksheets - ready for checking
Malay~English vocabulary worksheets (translation scheduled to be completed within the next few weeks)
Italian~English vocabulary worksheets - ready for checking
Spanish~English vocabulary worksheets - just the last third (approx 1400 words and phrases) - see the Spanish page for more details.
Russian~English verbs worksheets - ready for checking

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We'll update "The Journey" page whenever the 100 million is finally reached :)

  26th March 2011: Link restores - WYOMING (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Wyoming schools, here.

  26th March 2011: Link restores - WISCONSIN (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Wisconsin schools, here.

  26th March 2011: Link restores - WEST VIRGINIA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see West Virginia schools, here.

  26th March 2011: Link restores - WASHINGTON (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Washington schools, here.

  25th March 2011: Link restores - VIRGINIA (state counties + ind. cities) - completed. For additional links please see Virginia schools, here.

  25th March 2011: Link restores - VERMONT (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Vermont schools, here.

  25th March 2011: Link restores - UTAH (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Utah schools, here.

  24th March 2011: Link restores - TEXAS (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Texas schools, here.

  23rd March 2011: Link restores - TENNESSEE (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Tennessee schools, here.

  22nd March 2011: Link restores - SOUTH DAKOTA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see South Dakota schools, here.

  20th March 2011: Link restores - SOUTH CAROLINA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see South Carolina schools, here.

  20th March 2011: Link restores - PENNSYLVANIA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Pennsylvania schools, here.

  20th March 2011: Link restores - RHODE ISLAND (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Rhode Island schools, here.

  20th March 2011: Link restores - OREGON (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Oregon schools, here.

  19th March 2011: Link restores - OKLAHOMA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Oklahoma schools, here.

  19th March 2011: Link restores - OHIO (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Ohio schools, here.

  19th March 2011: Link restores - NORTH DAKOTA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see North Dakota schools, here.

19th March 2011: Our thoughts are with the people of Libya at this very difficult time - see BBC News here.

  18th March 2011: Link restores - NORTH CAROLINA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see North Carolina schools, here.

  18th March 2011: Link restores - NEW YORK (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see New York schools, here.

  18th March 2011: Link restores - NEW MEXICO (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see New Mexico schools, here.

  18th March 2011: Link restores - NEW JERSEY (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see New Jersey schools, here.

  18th March 2011: Link restores - NEW HAMPSHIRE (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see New Hampshire schools, here.

  17th March 2011: Link restores - NEVADA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Nevada schools, here.

  17th March 2011: Link restores - NEBRASKA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Nebraska schools, here.

  17th March 2011: Link restores - MONTANA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Montana schools, here.

  16th March 2011: Link restores - MISSOURI (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Missouri schools, here.

  15th March 2011: Link restores - MISSISSIPPI (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Mississippi schools, here.

  15th March 2011: Link restores - MINNESOTA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Minnesota schools, here.

  14th March 2011: Link restores - MICHIGAN (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Michigan schools, here.

  14th March 2011: Link restores - MASSACHUSETTS (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Massachusetts schools, here.

  14th March 2011: Link restores - MARYLAND (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Maryland schools, here.

  14th March 2011: Link restores - MAINE (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Maine schools, here.

  14th March 2011: Link restores - LOUISIANA (state parishes) - completed. For additional links please see Louisiana schools, here.

  12th March 2011: Link restores - KENTUCKY (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Kentucky schools, here.

11th March 2011: After all the humanitarian disasters last year, it was to be hoped that 2011 would be a little easier :/ News today of an 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan, followed by a giant tsunami wave that destroyed almost everything in its path up to ten *kilometres* inland.

ShelterBox has supplies near the disaster area that they can provide to help families made homeless by today's events - a single ShelterBox provides the basic essentials (including a tent) for up to 10 people, for Ł590 ($US 1000). Could your school or office raise this much, for a single box? ShelterBoxes are in place across the world for use where required but they need to be replaced to make sure help is always available wherever needed.

If you want to help towards the cost of a ShelterBox, just donate at the ShelterBox site (secure donations from whatever your area of the world). Their site says you'll be given a tracking number so you can see where your box eventually ends up. Please help make a difference, if you can :)

You'll find other organizations helping in the current crisis at the Crisis Appeals area, here.

  10th March 2011: Link restores - KANSAS (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Kansas schools, here.

  10th March 2011: Link restores - IOWA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Iowa schools, here.

  9th March 2011: Link restores - INDIANA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Indiana schools, here.

  9th March 2011: Link restores - ILLINOIS (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Illinois schools, here.

  8th March 2011: Link restores - IDAHO (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Idaho schools, here.

  8th March 2011: Link restores - HAWAII (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Hawaii schools, here.

  7th March 2011: Link restores - GEORGIA (state counties) - completed. For additional info please see Georgia education, here.

  6th March 2011: Link restores - FLORIDA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Florida schools, here.

  6th March 2011: Link restores - DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (no counties) - completed. For additional links see Washington DC schools, here.

  6th March 2011: Link restores - DELAWARE (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Delaware schools, here.

  6th March 2011: Link restores - CONNECTICUT (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Connecticut schools, here.

  6th March 2011: Link restores - COLORADO (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Colorado schools, here.

  6th March 2011: Link restores - CALIFORNIA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see California schools, here.

  5th March 2011: Link restores - ARKANSAS (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Arkansas schools, here.

  5th March 2011: Link restores - ARIZONA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Arizona schools, here.

  5th March 2011: Link restores - ALASKA (boroughs and census areas) - completed. For additional links please see Alaska schools, here.

  5th March 2011: Link restores - ALABAMA (state counties) - completed. For additional links please see Alabama schools, here.

4th March 2011: Project HappyChild NEWS: Thirteen years on line, today :)   and a new Newsletter has now gone on line - here.

Meanwhile the visitor counter reached 99 million pages, yesterday ... likely to be a very hectic four weeks ahead for us, until the 100 million threshold is finally reached :/

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1st March 2011: SERVER ISSUE - update - Page display seems to have been restored across the board :) and our thanks that this was resolved so swiftly.

We'll leave the test page here on line for the time being, just in case there are any further issues.

28th February 2011: : Masses more of the site has been link-checked and link-restored in recent weeks, including all the rest of Schools Interchange (now with links to over 400,000 schools worldwide). We've also been able to complete the final update to Andy's Guide to Pokémon - another very time-consuming process but "done", now :) Our thanks to everyone who has waited so patiently for this, and to the many thousands of visitors who have sent in content for this area.

SERVER ISSUE - our ISP has recently (end of last week) upgraded the servers where our pages are housed. At present there's some sort of "encoding" issue which means that pages on the site (especially Pokémon and the dual-language worksheets) are looking very odd indeed :/ we're hoping that the servers will be sorted out shortly.

In the meantime there's a test page here where you can check if you're seeing the site properly - the characters in column 2 should match those in column 3 - if they don't, please just change "view - encoding" on your browser settings (to "Western"), for the time being. If you do that whilst looking at the test page (in either Firefox or Internet Explorer) you should see the characters restored so that everything matches. We're sorry for any inconvenience :/

2nd January 2011: EDUCATION MAINTENANCE ALLOWANCE : We don't often express criticism here :/   But we have to give a huge thumbs-down to the Coalition Government's decision to axe EMA. This *only* hits poorer families.

Whatever happens with "tuition fees" and university places, taking EMA away from teenagers in low-income families is short-sighted at best and callous at worst. Only cocooned politicians could imagine this isn't going to hit the poorest families the hardest. EMA covers college-related outgoings for the whole year - books, tools, travel, food, incidental expenses - that poor families will struggle increasingly to afford. EMA is probably the best idea the Labour Government ever had - it supports poorer families unobtrusively and even-handedly whilst dually keeping teenagers focussed on actually getting their qualifications.   A re-think is needed in Westminster ~ EMA deserves to be reinstated.   NOW.

The 'New Petitions' area at the Number 10 website - here - seems to be conveniently closed :|

Update 17/08/11 - The petitions website didn't re-open until August 2011, far too late to get EMA reinstated for September 2011.

30th December 2010: COUNTDOWN TO COMPLETION : More link restores here up till Christmas in the following areas:

* Project HappyChild Directory * Countries A-Z * Schools Africa * Schools Australasia (Australia, NZ + Pacific islands) *

As many of you will know, it was planned to start work on the next Pokémon update straight after Christmas - however a fall on some steps on Christmas Day has resulted in a broken foot. So, sorry, there is going to be a delay (four weeks at least). Sorry to everyone who was waiting for this :/
Penny will be back to add the latest stuff that's been sent in, as soon as she's able to. In the meantime our best wishes to all of you for a very Happy New Year : )

10th December 2010: COUNTDOWN TO COMPLETION : Work here is continuing on the "link restores" across the site as a whole.

Areas recently checked and updated are as follows:

* Projects helping children in Africa * Kathryn (Roving Reporter) * Islands across the world * Resources & Recyling * Syndromes Links index * Index to Free Educational Resources * USA State Counties - Alabama * Time + Space *

There are thousands of external links yet to be checked, but still on schedule for completion at 100 million visits.

3.4 million to go .....

28th November 2010: SCIENCE ~ BIOLOGY ~ CHEMISTRY ~ PHYSICS : We're delighted to say that all the basic content has now been input for the science, which is now properly open for visitors.

Individual content for the "elements" pages is scheduled to be added some time between January and March 2011, to fully complete this resource.

3.8 million to go .....

12th November 2010: COUNTDOWN TO COMPLETION : With the finalising of the lists for the wordsearch puzzles for the Keywords for Learning area (see below) we have now completed all the basic areas of overall site structure. The science is still "under construction" ... but the remaining content for the definitions should be on line by Christmas 2010, all going well.

We have, therefore, finally begun work on the "link restores" across the site as a whole. As far as we're aware, all the many hundreds of thousands of internal site links work :) but there are some 12,000 secondary links to other sites. Some of these will have broken during the several years of intensive pagebuilding here :/ so we have embarked on the (major) task of checking them, one by one, so as to restore the "currency" factor with the Internet as a whole.

So far we have checked the following areas:

* exams * the events calendar * Twin Towers * free maths worksheets (all key stages) * the Potted Learning pages *

A very long haul ahead, still :/ but we are hopeful of actually being able to complete all of this by the time the counter reaches 100 million visits.

4.3 million to go .....

7th November 2010: WORD SEARCH PUZZLES : Just a brief update to say that we have finally put together all the "keyword lists" for the wordsearch puzzles in the KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING area.

To integrate the 1400 new puzzles (the final total will be over 1600) with the learning resources elsewhere on the site here, we've used the vocabulary content from the dual-language worksheets area, the basic themes of the science area - biology, chemistry and physics - and the extraordinary range of USA state counties. New content also includes lists sent in by visitors across a wide range of sports, leisure and general knowledge themes.

Our thanks to everyone who has sent in content for the wordsearch puzzles :) the puzzles themselves are currently under construction and should be on line within the next few weeks, all going well, but the actual "word content" of all of them is now visible on the index pages within the KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING area, and in the case of the science, also links directly to the definition for each individual item.

3rd October 2010: GCSE SCIENCE DEFINITIONS : We're highly delighted to say that the next construction stage - stage 11 - of the new "science" area is now on line.

Complete with electrons diagrams for the first 20 elements (our thanks to Ben Mills, who created these) and many more science definitions - now over 1300 in all. We've also updated home page 16 to give more of the slightly-unusual background to this new resource :/

As previously, any offers of further graphics would be very much appreciated :)

24th September 2010: VISIT LEVELS : Just a brief note to mark the 94 million visits threshold ... six million to go.

Sorry for the entire lack of updates to this page recently - we've been in the midst of the hardest remaining stage of the new "science" area and have been flat out, here. The next edition (stage 11 of the construction process) should be on line within the next couple of weeks, and is scheduled to include the 'electron diagrams' for the first 20 elements.

We may also soon be able to upload the next batch of Spanish worksheets - the first block for the "foods" area. In which connection we'd really appreciate some help from any Spain-based Castilian-Spanish language professionals - although the remaining worksheet content (for this whole resource) has now been fully translated and has been checked through several times, there are still some finer points of translation to be resolved between Spanish spoken elsewhere and Spanish spoken in Spain. So we'd welcome contact from anyone who could help :) address as usual is given on the 'contact' link below .

The "Journey" page has been updated with the latest landmark - site traffic has been heavier this month, so perhaps less time left than we thought .....

15th August 2010: COUNTDOWN TO COMPLETION : the pagebuilding for this website is scheduled to have been completed by the time we reach 100 million visits worldwide.

Just over seven million visits to go, now. A new page has gone on line - "THE JOURNEY" - showing the dates the "million" landmarks were reached ... from one million onwards. We're planning to say goodbye when we get to 100 million - this has been a very long 12 years plus - and our deepest thanks go to everyone who has helped to make all this possible :)

25th July 2010: 3D SCIENCE: Stage 10 of Organic Learning ~ Science - is now going up on line (2pm, here in England).

We've had to "wipe" the previous set (because the new pages are significantly-advanced from the ones that were there before, so some of the multi-lateral tracking pages have changed titles) ... and it will be a couple of hours before all the new pages will be visible on line (about 4pm, we hope). If anyone tries to access the biology/chemistry/physics pages before then, you may well get the teleport page - bear with us, shouldn't take that much longer :)

14th July 2010 - THE LEEDS PYRAMID

We've received an e-mail from the Ward family in Leeds, asking us to publicise the "Leeds Pyramid", a pyramid (50 metres tall) to be constructed specially to house time capsules from every country on Earth.

We understand that a number of Governments (ranging from Australia and Madagascar, to Wales and the Solomon Islands) have already agreed to become involved.

A global vote on where this pyramid should be built is next on the schedule, and schools from every country on Earth are asked to participate.

Editor's note 17th July 2014: the website link previously provided to us has now expired. For reference we were able to locate via Google an "Earth Pyramid" website giving details of ongoing progress, if any of our visitors should wish to discover more about this pyramid project.

4th July 2010 - Independence Day - We're delighted to say that "YOUR AGE IN SECONDS" has now gone up on line. There have been lots of requests for this resource since the site we used to link to, stopped operating. Our thanks go to David Booker for making it possible to create a permanent home for this on the site here.

If you know your time of birth, you can work out exactly how many months, days, hours, minutes or seconds old you are. Lots more landmarks to be celebrated! whether it's 7000 days or 200 months or 500 million seconds .... someone born on 1st March 1947 will be two *billion* seconds old, later this year. How old are your grandparents? click here to key in the birth dates of people you know.

11th May 2010 (just before midnight): PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN: ... and after a nail-biting five days (7th/8th/9th/10th/11th) of "negotiations", the UK political situation has been resolved. Gordon Brown left office with great dignity, and David Cameron's Conservatives have forged what seems to be a strong coalition with Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats. An unlikely alliance, it might have seemed before the very-unexpected vote results - but one which now promises security and strength for the future. British voters have ushered in a new age in politics ... and MPs have had five full days for much-needed reflection. Our page for UK PRIME MINISTERS has now been updated :)

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7th May 2010: PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN: The extraordinary election results have meant we've updated our page for UK PRIME MINISTERS - just on a temporary basis :) Of course there's no real clue as to which way all this will go - will Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems make a deal with David Cameron's Conservatives - or a deal with Gordon Brown's Labour Party - or not? Will Nick get backing for the proportional representation which might next time deliver a fairer result in terms of "seats"? Will there be sufficient electoral reform to ensure that all voters actually get to cast their votes, next time? A fairer deal for longstanding "illegal immigrants" from the Commonwealth? A reform of the tax system, to help the poorest in our society? Who knows. An interesting time in British politics, this : D

18th April 2010: VOLCANO POWER: Our thoughts are with everyone stranded hundreds of miles from home because of the extraordinary effects of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in Iceland, and its drifting "ash cloud". We trust you will all get home safely ... however long that takes.

We've had e-mails arriving here asking what Eyjafjallajökull "means" - we're reliably informed it means "island" (Eyja) - "mountain" (fjalla) - "glacier" (jökull).

As to "how you say it" - the best guide we've had so far for the pronunciation of Eyjafjallajökull is AY-uh-fyat-luh-YER-kootle (the bits in capitals are where the stress falls). A word that no-one quite expected to be adding to their vocabulary in April 2010.

Webcam/photos of ongoing progress of the volcano can be seen here and here- a little disconcerting to watch, at times.

Technical info about the ongoing progress of the volcano is on line at the Nordic Vulcanology Centre here.

7th April 2010: 3D SCIENCE: Stage 9 of the Science - biology, chemistry and physics - is now going up on line ... and with it, the first of the entries for physics. We know from recent traffic to the science pages, how very keenly this particular area has been awaited :) more to follow, and very soon, we hope.

Lots still going on here with the languages, with more Spanish vocabulary worksheets now available (250+, in addition to the Spanish verbs already on line) and new areas created for Turkish (completed vocab database received, just checking help now needed) and Malaysian (currently being translated). We're also delighted to say that the Mandarin~English vocabulary worksheets are now being checked :) and we trust these will be able to go up on line within the next month or two.

21st March 2010: 3D SCIENCE: Just a note to update this page to say that Stage 8 of the Science - biology, chemistry and physics - went up on line on 4th March 2010.

There has been much else going on here this month, with progressions on several languages, and offers of several more - and many of you will have noticed that the site "visit counters" disappeared for six days - casualty of transfer to a new cgi platform, when our ISP upgraded - all working again now! and vastly more swiftly, we're delighted to say. We're also in the process of expanding the counters across the site (adding extra digits to allow for whenever the visits level reaches 100 million) - so it's going to be a little like a construction site (everywhere here) for a while yet :/

21st February 2010: FREE LANGUAGE WORKSHEETS: Our thanks to everyone still helping with the translation and checking of the free dual-language worksheets - we're delighted to say that on 18th February the first 100+ of the Spanish vocabulary worksheets went up on line, and yesterday, 20th February, almost 400 new Polish verbs worksheets were linked in from the main Polish index page, and all the new verbs overview pages from Wall-to-Wall Polish.

31st January 2010: SCIENCE: Just a brief note to say that Stage 7 of the Science - biology, chemistry and physics - has now gone on line. Our unremitting thanks go to Anne Evans and David Booker for their work on this area over many months now.

It's not often we open up an area that is still "under construction" (well, not since the early days, anyway!) but we hope visitors will be interested in seeing how this amazing new resource is now starting to fit together.   Offers of graphics would still be very much appreciated :)

1st January 2010: A very happy New Year to all our visitors !!

We're likely to be doing major work this year on both VERBS AND VOCABULARY WORKSHEETS and 3D SCIENCE ... so this is just an advance warning that we might not have time to update this page very much, ongoing.

However this *is* scheduled to be the final year of "major pagebuilding" ... and we're hoping to complete the (external) link restores along the way and update the Project HappyChild Directory.

Just leaving us with the final updates to Andy's Guide to Pokémon and whatever remaining lists are sent in by visitors for our Keywords for Learning wordsearch puzzles. It's going to be a (very) busy year : D

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.