A wide range of Primary classroom activities, reviews and resources has been developed and published over the years originally by MAPE and, more recently since the merger in 2004, by Naace.

The Direct2U service was a weekly email service produced by Becta in partnership with Naace. The service was for primary teachers and offered lesson plans featuring ICT in activities based on six subject strands. The service is discontinued but you can view the lesson plans in this archive.

The Naace Annual Strategic Conference and Exhibition opened in Torquay in early March 2008. This is the definitive ICT Conference in the UK for all those involved in advancing education through the use of modern technologies in learning and teaching.

This short article aims to highlight the background, key features and current vision of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) project at Ranvilles Infant School. The full version of this research project is available through the University of Winchester library: Aubrey-Smith, F.S., (2007) 'How the implementation of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) can affect the strategic development of a whole school. MA(Ed) Dissertation. University of Winchester.'

'Moving ICT National Agendas Forward: Policy-makers and LAs working together'. The conference is organised by a partnerthip between The School House Partnership, Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Advisers, YHGfL and Naace. The target audience is LA ICT Strategic Leaders. The conference will be held at the Park Plaza Hotel Leeds, Boar Lane City Square, Leeds, LS1 5NS from 9.30 am Thursday to 1 pm Friday, 29 - 30 November 2007.

In this month's Sharing Success we welcome Paul Springford who is Naace's Professional Officer. Paul will be live in this month's 'hotseat between 8-9pm on Tuesday 11th November. The second live 'hotseat' will be on Wednesday 26th November between 7-8pm.

Paul's profile:

My career in education began in another century when I took a PGCE course and then worked as an English teacher in secondary schools in Southampton and Peterborough. In the early 1980s, schools in England were given half a computer by the DTI to stimulate the UK industry, and I became an enthusiastic adopter. The reasons I believed in English as a subject are not very different from the reasons why I believe in ICT.

Later in the eighties I was seconded to and then permanently employed in local authority work with Cambridgeshire and I've found it hard to get away. I became involved in using communications technology at an early stage with projects using e-mail, Prestel (anyone remember that?) and BT's early internet service for education, CampusWorld. I can't remember when I joined Naace, but I'm certainly not one of the originals.I've really enjoyed the opportunity to work as professional officer for the association this year.

I'm not very technical, and still surprised that at least half of my working life has depended on things with plugs. Never mind the technology, I've been lucky and worked with some outstanding people from my earliest encounters with ICT. And most of them are probably Naace members.

Primary Focus magazine is published termly as an online journal. It contains a wealth of interesting articles from practitioners working in the primary sector. Like other Naace publications, we encourage Members to contribute and interact with Articles, the Editor and other Members, with the idea of stimulating points of view within a continuing professional dialogue.

In 2006 Naace and QCA held a joint Think tank to try to get to grips with what we really mean by the term 'e-learning'. Like quite a few other e-words that have sprung up in the last year or so, we cannot assume that everyone will use the term in the same way. Does the 'e' just mean electronic, as in 'email', or something more profound?

'Sharing Success' is a monthly e-magazine that focuses on schools' and teachers' use of ICT to contribute to successful achievements. Features freqently focus on recent issues, with the opportunity for Members to post comments directly onto each Article.

An ICT Co-ordinator in an infant school decsribes how she has set up an after-school Internet Café for children and their parents.