Celebrated book illustrator Quentin Blake takes us through the story, ideas and illustration techniques behind two of his own books, Clown and The Green Ship.

Mick Waters, Ex-Head of the QCA, celebrates moments of inspired learning captured in five video clips made by children and teachers. He invites viewers to send in their own ‘inspiring’ clips. One such clip is taken from a film made with professional help at Graisley Primary School in Wolverhampton, a documentary of a term long schools project ‘igniting learning’. Mick talks about the power of each clip and suggests how teachers might use similar inspiring approaches in their own schools.

Documentary, 5 x 15′, 2009-2010

Secondary drama teachers Dan Edwards and Nathan Human share some simple but effective creative techniques for the ‘refreshing’ primary and secondary classrooms. In this clip they suggest a news bulletin as an engaging way for pupils to review and summarise what they have learnt in their lesson so far. This is the mid lesson news…

Following composer Howard Goodall in his capacity as National Ambassador for Singing, this programme explores singing as a positive force among students in Secondary School, and looks at some of the best examples of this throughout the country.

In Cuba, the importance of teaching performing and visual arts is a legacy of the 1959 revolution. Today, the Cuban government’s ongoing commitment to arts education includes training young ‘art instructors’ from the age of 14 to teach music, dance, drama and the visual arts in primary and secondary schools across the country.

How can you make Shakespeare work for all ages and abilities in the primary classroom? Two schools, Wimbledon Park Primary School and Queen’s Park school find exciting ways to work with Shakespeare’s language and stories.

This co-production between the London Symphony Orchestra and Teacher’s TV is an introduction to the orchestra, its instruments and history. The layout of the orchestra and its various sections are shown with brief demonstrations of some of the instruments, and an interview with composer Paul Rissmann on his specially composed piece ‘Supersonic’, written to introduce the orchestra to KS2 children. The piece is performed by the LSO, and is accompanied by members of the LSO Youth Choir singing lyrics and doing simple body percussion.