More Islamic Alternatives to State School Education

[Umm.Yahya.bint.Abdul.Khaliq]

Assalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi

I was hoping to share a few sites that I regularly use and have found to be extremely useful in aiding the delivery of lessons.

Children are engaged by exciting lessons which need not be elaborate deliveries, nor take hours of planning. What I’ve found engages most children of all ages, whether it be young kids, or the older teenagers, is the simple yet Varied lesson - broken up into piecemeal chunks.

Using a variety of media definitely aids understanding. Similarly, it helps those who are not natural speakers to convey information clearly and concisely.

For secular subjects, Websites such as:- Skoool.co.uk; TES and Teachers TV videos support this.

The sites can be used for:- 1) the introduction of the lesson,
2) to act as a spring board for discussion,
3) to printout prepared resources for games
4) quite simply personal learning/professional development.

All are easy enough to use both by home tutoring parents, who may be somewhat daunted at the prospect of home tutoring, or teachers of any size class.

www.skoool.co.uk
As the home page states, ‘A new concept of e- learning.......’.
An interactive website including animations of key objectives from ks2-ks4 with a clear voice over. It has animations very closely linked to the curriculum in Science and Numeracy- allowing independent learning.

www.tes.co.uk
A website of all the current topics in the Education Field. It has thousands of resources ready to be downloaded in subjects across all stages; from Early years to special Educational Needs.

Teacher TV Videos
Hundreds of videos from Subject Topics, to those viewed for professional development. ( Can be accessed from TES, as Teachers TV has now ceased)

Finally, although the resources/videos are grouped in to subject areas, once teachers are confident and experienced, resources don’t really have boundaries- they can be just as effective when used to meet other learning objectives in different subjects. Such as:-

1) A section of a video or recording at the beginning of an English lesson for a listening exercise- to make notes from.
2) Short videos, say on light, watched from start to finish to highlight the structure and language of explanation texts.

These are to mention just a few examples that may be useful.

Assalaamu alaikum
Umm Yahya, Naweeda bint Abdul Khaaliq