Blog

Mental Health Awareness week, hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, is an annual event when there is an opportunity for the whole of the UK to focus on achieving good mental health. This year it takes place from 13th to 19th May and has the theme of ‘Movement: Moving more for our Mental Health.

To support schools, with Mental Health Awareness Week, we have featured a range of resources from Purple Mash and free resources from Striver, that schools can use across the week, including a handy guide to share with parents.

The Mash of the Month for April is Purple Chip, our app which allows students to control an external device using code created in Purple Mash's 2Code Purple Chip tool.

An update for the Mashcot Design Competition
The entries have been flooding in since we announced our Mashcot Design competition back in January and there were thousands of imaginative and detailed designs. Find out more about the winning entry here.

We get asked all the time if schools still need to collect evidence of children’s learning. Our view has always been a resounding “Yes, absolutely!”. There is no doubt the introduction of new frameworks and methodologies created a narrative that collecting evidence was no longer needed. This message was received with open arms from early years practitioners who were fed up with the amount of time they were spending collecting evidence and assessment data. As a result many schools simply stopped collecting evidence because they believed that was the message coming from the experts. However, we have spoken to several schools that gave up collecting evidence and are now regretting the fact that they no longer have a collection of the exceptional practice and learners' magical moments; those experiences are lost forever.

All state-funded maintained schools and academies (including free schools) in England are required to administer an online multiplication tables check (MTC). Read the guidance and how you can help prepare students through our fantastic Multiplication Tables Check tool.