UK Charity resources

Free Teaching Resources lists reviewed resources, lesson plans and worksheets produced by top UK charities, museums & more. From KS1-4, and all school subjects (Art & Design to Work related learning), the site links to hundreds of reviewed free lesson plans and resources such as resource packs, worksheets, assembly ideas, school visits, project ideas, videos and images. See here for details.

The Student Room

This is a massive site to support all students from KS3 to University, including a revision wiki here, and KS3 to A level help with academic work here.

Lots of practical information as well on study and student life generally, especially beyond A Level, and careers advice.

Video sites for School

There are now a huge number of videos on the Interweb that are suitable for classroom use, even assuming that your school blocks YouTube.
Here are a few I have found:
Open Video - University of North Carolina collection (4000+) - search by genre, duration or collection, and includes NASA films
5 min - Education (4312), History (1324), Languages (367), Science (2651) in Knowledge category. Arts include Dance, Design, Filmmaking, Drawing & Painting, and Software tutorials, and other general categories include Fitness, Food, Health, Spiritual, Sports and Travel. There are also many music tutorials
WatchKnow - Art (1301), Science (3712), Maths (2512), Eng Language (1931), Literature (1168), History (2449), Social Studies incl Geog (1192), Languages (851), PE & Health (415), The Arts (1302), Philosophy, Religion & Ethics (728) and others
NeoK12 - Thousands of vetted videos, games & puzzles for schools by subject, excluding languages, from many sources
My Learning Tube - Reviewed educational videos by subject (795)
TeacherTube - Videos (118,100), some indexed via Channels, plus Documents (2064), Audio (2304), Photos (3776) and Educational blogs (670)
SchoolTube - Moderated school, teacher & pupil video sharing website for pupils by subject

Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Resources

A number of sites offer specialised Interactive Whiteboard resources, beyond normal interactive websites which can often be used with a board:
Delicious feed - lots of links (1112), regularly updated
Fife Education - Notebook files from Smart by subject
Schoolzone - Maths, English, Science and Other links
Whiteboardblog - Blog with lots of ideas and sites
Topmarks - Maths (28), Literacy (6), Biology (3), RE (3), Art (7) & Music (1) links for KS3/4 boards

Learning Resource Exchange (LRE)

The LRE, from European Schoolnet, enables schools across Europe to find free educational content from many different countries and providers, from Austria to Sweden.
You must register first, and obviously the resources are in a variety of languages, but you can search by language, subject, keyword or age range. 39,482 Resources are currently available, 11,463 solely in English.
See http://lreforschools.eun.org for full details.

Wikipedia Selection for Schools

Did you know that there is a Wikipedia for Schools? The 2008/9 Wikipedia DVD Selection is a free, hand-checked, non-commercial selection from Wikipedia, targeted around the UK National Curriculum. It has about 5500 articles (as much as can be fitted on a DVD with good size images) and is about the size of a twenty volume encyclopaedia (34,000 images and 20 million words). It can also be downloaded, and was produced with the SOS Children charity. See http://schools-wikipedia.org for details. Navigation is by subject, by the first two letters of the topic word (a system which seems to work very well) or via 36 portals for major topics.

Teachers TV

Teachers TV, a UK based TV station & website founded in 2005, is a mine of information. For example, there are videos specifically designed for the classroom at www.teachers.tv/resource
(103 KS1, 191 KS2, 337 KS3 & 411 KS4), and all can be browsed by subject, topic or key stage. In addition, there are 35 groups you can join to discuss everything from Cover Supervision to Working in SEN. These groups include Learning Platforms, Personalised Learning and Web 2.0 Resources. See www.teachers.tv/groups for details.

Common Sense Media

Common Sense is a San Francisco based site that reviews
and rates websites suitable for pupils (plus books, TV, games, music and films).
770 websites are reviewed by age range, and each review rates sites by many criteria, including sex, violence, consumerism and educational content. There is an overall rating, colour coding for ages, and advice for parents. 196 sites are categorised as educational, and there are many recommended sites for each age group and type of interest.
Try www.commonsensemedia.org for details.

E L Easton

This US site started out as an English language learning site, and can be used for teaching both native speakers and those whose first language is not English. It also covers other curriculum subjects, including many Foreign Languages. Links to suitable sites, plus quizzes and audio sites, are provided. See http://eleaston.com for details.

National Digital Resource Bank

NRDB is a swapshop for teachers to exchange resources for VLEs. Launched for the new school year, it has 1100 resources so far. You can search by subject, key stage, learning time and even learner type, and use keywords. Local Authorities opt to fund it via a small change from Oct 2009, so passwords require membership first. See www.ndrb.org.uk for more details.

TES - The place to swap resources

You should already be familiar with TES if you have ever looked for a post in Education in the UK, but the site has two other reasons for a visit.
TES has a membership of 829,000+ teachers, who contribute to lively debates about their subjects, and any other educational topics, via forums. It is simply the best way to keep up to date with what matters now in your subject(s).
In addition, there is a fantastic collection of 39,000+ resources which are available to share, with comments from some who have downloaded them. Resources can be searched by keyword, subject, type and Key Stage.

Anyone who is serious about finding excellent resources, as used by real teachers in the classroom, should see www.tes.co.uk. You need to register to download, but it's a small price to pay for what you can get in return.

Learn ICT (and other subjects)

The learn ICT site is based in Swansea, and has weblink resources for many Secondary subjects, from Art to www searching, not just ICT itself.
The list of links by subject is also annotated with information about the chosen site.

See www.learn-ict.org.uk/links/curr_links.asp for details.

Edublogs and Larry Ferlazzo

Edublogs has been set up to allow teachers and pupils to create and manage their own blogs, and in itself offers potential in many subjects (see http://edublogs.org), even just as a source of links and resources.

Larry Ferlazzo has an Edublog that was originally written for English language learners in the USA, but has grown to now cover other subjects via his Best of series, and Websites of the Year and Month. Alternatively, a search by category reveals links for Geography, Grammar, Health, Educational games, Music & Art, Reading, Technology, Science and Writing, plus many other resource links.
Take your time to explore http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org carefully, and http://larryferlazzo.com/index.html for more links about English, Maths and Social Studies (History & Geography).

Teachers Resource Exchange

The TRE offers a range of more than 8,000 resources, indexed by Key Stage, year, subject, resource type (incl whiteboard, assessment, planning and weblinks) and other criteria. See http://tre.ngfl.gov.uk/ for details.

Schrock tactics

Kathy Schrock has a wonderful website as part of Dicovery Channel Education (US). There are links to all school subjects, sites of the school days (web 2.0 ideas), and even awards for excellent web sources for schools. Always up to date and fast changing.

See http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide for details.

Bling my Grade

North Tyneside Learning Platform has come up with a wonderfully pupil-friendly site, covering maths, english, science and PE, plus exam and revision tips. Rapping animated characters will help pupils remember facts in an unusual way. See www.blingmygrade.org.uk for details.

Vital Knowledge?

This US site includes links for many subjects, and you can search for Middle, High or Middle/High grades. Many have been chosen to include lesson plans or webquests. See www.vitalknowledge.com/teachers/resources/home.asp for details.

TTRB Site Update

The TTRB site I mentioned last July has had a redesign, and now supports the saving and rating of resources and better searching. See www.ttrb.ac.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?contentId=12086 for a look.

Yahoo Groups Education

Yahoo Groups has an Education Resources group, compiled in Australia, with almost 900 links, many topical. You may find resources by alphabetical topic, from abbreviations to zoology, with brand new items at the top.
You have to have a Yahoo account, and become a member of the group itself first, but neither are complicated. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Education_Resources/links for details by topic, or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Education_Resources/messages to enable you to search for text in titles or descriptions.

Librarians' Internet Index & Internet Public Library

LII is a 20,000+ weblink collection maintained by California's librarians, organised under 14 headings. Each is reviewed, and placed into one or more of 300 topic headings. The LII will be merging with the Internet Public Library (IPL) from October 2008.

See www.lii.org for details, and www.ipl.org/div/subject for the IPL.