Education City summary review

Date: 15.07.2022

Overall star rating: 3.9/5

Overview comments:

• Some good printable resources to reinforce learning.

• I would recommend these resources to colleagues planning a cross-curricular scheme of work,

• Quite a good resource with planning provided. Just needs to have a quicker way of finding what you require.

• Education City is a motivating resource that supports learning and enables children with SEND to work independently at times.

• Breadth of the offer, interest and motivation to the children

• An excellent product which both supports and enhances children's learning. I would recommend this to other schools.

• We really value this resource

• Really Love this program and so do the kids. It is the program that children prefer most out of all educational programs.

• Education City is a really useful, engaging tool that we would highly recommend to support learning in lessons.

• It is an effective resource which works well. It is high quality, with engaging graphics. Good linking to the National Curriculum.

• The programme meets our needs and provides us with a useful resource for revision and home learning.

How well does it match the curriculum?

• 4* Variety of material - meets cross curricular needs. Covers broad subject base. Engaging and relevant resources

• 4* Can be accessed remotely. Further teaching ideas aid planning and preparation. Probably too much content which takes time to research.

• 4* Motivating to learners with SEND. Facilitates access to a range of curriculum areas through the wide variety on offer

• 3* A lot of content, there's nearly always something to link with what you're doing. Occasionally could be quicker to update things that are current in society

• 4* A wide range of activities in various aspects of the curriculum. Children access activities at an appropriate level which both supports and extends in class learning.

• 4* The content is well matched to the national curriculum for Early years all the way through to year six

• 5* Strengths- perfectly matched. Age appropriate and sets the work at level applicable to the child depending on their ability. Weaknesses- none. I feel this program is great

• 5* It’s matched carefully against the national curriculum statements. There are learn screens to teach and revise concepts

• 3* It covers the curriculum, but does not provide sufficient extension activities. It would be good to have some more challenges that we could give higher attaining children.

• 4* Good range of activities that support the curriculum and it can be used at home. We have found that the tasks are very engaging and child friendly. The science tasks match with the majority of our science lessons and the videos help the children to recall facts.

How could it be improved to support different learners?

• 5* Well differentiated resources.

• 4* Some variety of materials with differentiated tasks. Suggested different activities depending on pupils knowledge and ability

• 4* Drill down differentiation more thoroughly and offer better differentiated planning that would satisfy Ofsted. Condense lesson notes to make planning and preparation easier.

• 5* We find it is easy for our SEND pupils to engage at their level and there is enough stretch for our most able, although our children are working at a low level

• 3* Modifiable resources would help - could these be done electronically by changing settings so the tasks would appear different to the respective groups

• 4* higher order thinking tasks and other tasks to fully extend the more able children. Ability for children's learning to continue into secondary schools (I am not sure if this option already exists).

• 3* More clear differentiation within each year group so that pupils are not having to dip in or out of previous or subsequent content

• 5* I can’t see anything that would be needed to develop this program further. Perhaps having some teaching tools that adults could use to support the children if they’re stuck or maybe presenting the questions in a different way if children don’t understand. E.g. a different visual.

• 3* It would be useful for activities to have levels of challenge that could be selected e.g. beginner, mastery

• 3* More activities that expand and challenge children's understanding of concepts. This is particularly true at upper Key Stage 2.

• 3* Further support could be given to children who are working BARE. The task could me differentiated better and have more of a range of activities. The videos work well to support these children but the box but be explained better.

How well does it engage and motivate pupils?

• 4* Many pupils prefer onscreen learning now.

• 3* Resources require teacher input in general and pupils needs support to use. More required to promote full independence.

• 3* Some activities are repetitive without progression and do not motivate pupil learning. Some activities are well thought out and engage pupils in their learning.

• 5* Nice graphics and rewards for correctly completing an activity means that they engage and persist with the work until it is completed

• 5* Children can't wait to get onto it. There's nothing really that they complain about, so I'd guess that's a vote of confidence!

• 4* The children like that the look and feel is similar to games they already know and play outside of school.

• 4* The wide range of games are appealing due to the variation between each one. Also the pupils like the graphics and sounds

• 5* The children love the games and are very motivated by it. They will ask to ‘play’ on it. It would be great if it highlighted their personal target more clearly so that children could recall this if asked by Ofsted

• 5* The activities are easy to use and presented in an engaging way. Activities for older children could do with reflecting their maturity levels more - the use of the cartoon characters is not necessarily as appealing to UKS2.

• 3* They like that it can be done on a variety of devices and they like the gamification of learning. Younger children are motivated by the certificates.

• 4* They love the characters and finding out if they got the correct answers. Love that they can do it at home and school.

How well supported is it by any included formative assessments?

• 4* Informative assessments

• 4* Great for monitoring pupil progress and giving feedback. Assessments can be accessed from different locations making assessment more accurate and less stressful. Adding to teachers well-being.

• 3* It would be good to see it linked to engagement scales and if we could tag any assessment through our Evidence for Learning app

• 2* We're not really interested in it for assessments, although the option to do some would be helpful. Basic summing up, in terms of a score is more than enough.

• 4* We like the way there are additional resources that can be printed off so that pupils can do them after the lesson and show what they know

• 4* I like the use of algorithms to set the work. Perhaps something that could be printed out for teachers where they can see the progress made, hours played, maths age, time to answer a questions, time spend in different areas of the programme.

• 5* The assessments clearly show where gaps are and provide tracking data which can be used to plan teaching. It is all automatic so saves so much time.

• 3* The children complete a task and it gives them a finally score that could be used for AFL

How well does it support planning?

• 3* There are a lot of resources and time consuming to look through.

• 5* Really easy to use resources to plan ahead and include in a scheme of work. Some guidance and recommendations are provided.

• 4* lesson notes are available but sometimes rather verbose, Finding appropriate material can be time consuming unless you are familiar with the resources.

• 3* We use it as an additional resource so planning is done, then we look to see if anything links on it, rather than the other way round

• 4* Helps reduce teacher workload. Could be updated more frequently to reflect current issues and ensures that the children don't repeat access to content

• 3* There are activities to fit in with virtually all areas of the curriculum we plan for. It is easy to find activities on Education city that support the lessons we are planning in class.

• 4* We have found that planning is well supported. We have been able to utilise this as a whole Class resource or direct individuals to activities

• 5* Matches the curriculum perfectly so no issues here at all. Perhaps for teachers to login and be able to assign children set tasks and then for this to link with sims Integris, seesaw so you can notify staff and parents easier with progress.

• 4* You can search by NC statement or concept and match to different groups of children really easily. It analyses results for you so you can see success or areas of need.

• 3* It is clearly linked to the National Curriculum, which makes it easier to link work to that being done in the classroom. It is useful for homework.

What improvements could make this better value for money?

• 3* All online materials are very expensive.

• 4* Good value for money overall for cross curricular teaching and engaging resources and broad variety of tasks.

• 4* Less verbose lesson planning with more obvious differentiation. Easier access to resources with a better search facility.

• 3* We all want more for our money and school budgets are tight, so more resources for SEND would make it for us

• 4* Further add-on options, such as for SEN or children with impairments. It would also be great if there were regional options that linked to History and Geography

• 4* As schools, we are always looking for better value for money - with Education City, this would be by reducing the price! - But I know this isn't always possible.

• 3* I think this depends on the school and it’s budget and current spending priorities. Schools have to decide what they have to dedicate to this

• 4* School love the program. However, it is expensive in comparison to doodle, TTRockstars and Ed shed. With budgets being tight it is hard to have all programs. Perhaps a discount for trusts schools who would purchase say 20 schools worth of pupil logins.

• 4* Different levels of access, or subject by subject access would be ideal as we tend to use it mostly for maths and science rather than English.

• 3* It would be better value for money if the whole range of children's abilities were catered for - more extension.

• 4* Could have different tasks for home and school to create more exciting about home learning tasks. The children could also compete against each other to motivate them to complete the tasks.

How well does it support home use / independent learning?

• 4* Some login issues during lockdowns.

• 3* Pupils need help and guidance to complete some tasks and therefore needs planning ahead before setting for home learning tasks.

• 4* Lessons can be assigned and monitored. Not sure if pupils are being supported at home. Results can vary for many pupils depending on location and level of support.

• 3* Children can have a home login

• 5* Parents and pupils are really positive about Education City. They use it very often!

• 4* Children have individual logon details that can be accessed at home. It is easy to navigate at home - it is mostly KS2 children who access it out of school.

• 5* Easy to use and easy to access means that this is easy to use at home. We only have positive feedback from home

• 5* Children are motivated so will use the program. There are some children without access to tables or the interest so perhaps something in a paper book to support learning online.

• 5* It’s a really useful tool for remote learning and we use it extensively for homework.

• 4*

• 5* My class love completing the tasks for homework.

Net promoter score for this resource:

Education City

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