• Hear Gillian on The Anton Savage Show on Irish FM “ 27th September 2016. (Listen again here “ Part 2, 19.26 minutes in).
  
  


• Hear Gillian live on The Pat Kenny Show “ Newstalk on Friday 30th September 2016 (around 9.45am). Listen here.

œHomework can be a nightmare - for the parents. You know that sinking feeling. It™s late in the evening and you™ve caught the glint in the eye of the wine bottle in the fridge. You can read the article in full here.

If this has left you questioning the place of homework in your teaching, may we recommend Unhomework by Mark Creasy? 

With questions being raised over the value of homework, Mark Creasy advises teachers and parents on how to get the most out of homework without letting it get in the way of their lives. This book questions the necessity of homework while recognising that most teachers have a statutory duty to provide it. The author provides suggestions for how teachers can make homework more effective, applicable and less pointless; organising classroom learning to allow children to set their own homework and creating opportunities for learning out of everyday situations.

So, click here to start reading an extract or to purchase a copy for yourself!

Bill Lucas, co-author of Educating Ruby, has written an article for the Times Educational Supplement discussing character education and how it can be integrated into a school™s curriculum and culture.

Click here to read Bill™s article and here to take a closer look at his title, Educating Ruby, which explores how teachers, parents and grandparents can cultivate confidence, curiosity, collaboration, communication, creativity, commitment and craftsmanship in children, at the same time as helping them to achieve well in public examinations.

To mark their tenth anniversary, Laughology - a company founded by our author Stephanie Davies - are holding their inaugural Laughology Happiness Awards.

In their own words, œwe want to honour the happiness heroes who contribute the most to making their organisation the happiest place to work in the UK.

Do you consider yourself or those working around you to be the happiest in the UK?

Should you wish to enter yourself, a colleague, your business/employers, or your school for the awards, you can do so by following this link to download the appropriate entry forms before submitting your entry before midnight on the 17th of October.



You can also keep up to date with news and recent nominations for the awards here.

We at Crown House Publishing are pleased to announce that we will be a Diamond Sponsor at the event, sponsoring the Happiest School Award with the first prize being £1,000 worth of school vouchers of your choice as well as £1,000 worth of workshops for children.

‹Avril McDonald, author of the illustrated children™s Feel Brave series of ˜little stories about big feelings™, continues to attract rave reviews for both her books and their learning outcomes within the school setting.

œAll primary schools™ literacy and PHSE subject leaders should be fully embracing the Feel Brave series of stories into curricular practice. Everyday emotional and personal challenges are woven into the most absorbing stories that children and teachers alike will marvel from. The cross-curricular learning potential is far-reaching. - Giles Platt, Regional Primary School Sports Advisor & Professional Qualified Grant Writer.

The five beautifully illustrated Feel Brave story books are all designed to help children explore emotional intelligence, positive psychology and some of the real-life issues which they might face “ such as bullying, anxiety, bereavement, friendships and worries “ in an engaging, creative and non-threatening way, whilst the Feel Brave Teaching Guide serves as the perfect companion in providing activities and guidance on how to explore these issues in the classroom.

Click here to view a range of buying options for the books, where you can buy them individually or as two different sets - with and without the teacher resource.

Primary-school parent website The School Run offering you the chance to win a copy of Georgina Jonas's recently published series The College Collection.

Click here to enter the competition and here to view the College Collection titles and take a look inside the books for yourself.

The College Collection centres around five main characters, Luca, Anda, Jim Jam, Woody and Nolan. In each of the first five books in this set we meet a different character, and learn about their personalities, backgrounds and what they did before they arrived at Parkfield College.



The College Collection is designed to support and extend the acquisition of reading skills, and the enjoyment of reading, through exciting stories and relatable characters. The books reinforce high frequency words and the core phonic skills needed to access basic reading levels. Each set provides stories which bridge the gap between base level schemes and longer, more challenging texts. They are suitable for readers who still need a formatted reading scheme and are not yet ready to go onto free readers, but who still want interesting, engaging, real-life books. They are flexible, so no matter what other schemes you may be using, these books stand alone, enhancing and extending any reading experience.