Becta was the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology in education. It was established in 1997 and closed in March 2011. Becta provided leadership to embed the effective use of technology and provided rigorous research to evaluate the impact of...

This KS2 resource looks at the importance of bees as pollinators and explores some of the threats they face. The activities are based around the work of ‘real world’ scientists in organisations such as Fera.

Activities include:

Pollination roleplay...

This activity gives SEND pupils the opportunity to create a program to control a single Bee-Bot around a complex course. Pupils learn to break down a problem into smaller parts, create an algorithm and a program to move a robot to a specific point and to detect and correct errors in the program by creating obstacle...

This activity for younger children introduces algorithms and algorithmic thinking. After first planning how to draw numbers using the simple commands available, children then program a BeeBot to create the shapes (BeeBots are a type of simple programmable rover). By watching and feeding back on each other's efforts...

This introduction to using the small programmable robot, the BeeBot, introduces children to creating simple programs. They learn the importance of sequences of accurate instructions, and test their sequences out using a 'fakebot' or paper-robot. Children are encouraged to debug and develop their sequences before...

For lower-primary children with some understanding of algorithms, this Barefoot Computing activity uses a basic robot (BeeBot) to show how algorithms are executed as stored programs on digital devices. Simple sequences of instructions are given to the BeeBot to 'write' numbers. These algorithms are represented by...

Beginnings, from the Nuffield Mathematics Project, is concerned principally with students in their first few years at school and how their experiences of life gradually extend their mathematical thinking.

This guide is a 'beginning' in another way; it is concerned with some of the basic ideas at the...

This is the parallel Guide, from the Nuffield Mathematics Project, to Beginnings (Circle series). It deals with the early awareness of both the meaning of number and the relationships which can emerge from everyday experiences of environmental play: measuring, length, capacity, area, time and size.

This collection of resources has been collated by the National STEM Learning Centre and Network and covers a wide range of topics related to effective behaviour management.

In 2005 the Wellcome Trust commissioned this survey of teachers and managers in state maintained schools in England, focusing on three main aspects of continuing professional development (CPD):

• What do different types of teacher want from CPD?
• What are the benefits of CPD, and for whom?
•...

This play looks at how an increase in the demand for meat can affect tropical rainforests far away. It explores some of the consequences for; animals and plants living in these areas, farmers and our planet.  

Great for use in an assembly or in class, when learning about rainforests, healthy eating and...

This report from Ofsted looks at low level classroom disruption. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) raised concerns about low-level disruption in schools in his Annual Report 2012/13. As a consequence, guidance to inspectors was tightened to place greater emphasis on this issue in routine inspections. In addition...

This document, published by SCORE (Science Community Representing Education), provides guidance to primary schools on the resources needed to carry out practical work, to ensure that all children receive a well-rounded science education. The benchmarks show the levels of resourcing that SCORE considers necessary to...

This short animation film joins Bepi, as she prepares to embark on a space mission to Mercury. Bepi explores a range of scientific facts and gets pupils thinking about all the things we don’t know about mercury. This video would be well placed at the start of a lesson researching a planet like Mercury. This video...