The best optimised education site on the web?

I was very pleased to read this week that, according to Hitwise, the Woodlands website is again the biggest recipient of traffic from the search term ‘mothers day’. Our website received a third of all clicks on the term – more than three times as much as Wikipedia (the second biggest).

The title of this post comes from one of the many blog posts that are written about our website and its high ranking in Google. Companies pay alot of money to have their websites appear high in search engines and so there is much interest on how we manage it. I think one of the latest posts about our website hits the nail on the head when it says:

"If ever you wanted proof that optimising your site for human beings is the best way to optimise it for search engines, this is it." Blonde

Woodlands website has indeed been written for human beings - learners of all ages.  The prime aim of  our site is to extend learning beyond the classroom wall. Our aim is not to get the most number of visitors, but instead to give our pupils the best education they can have by making learning available to them 24/7.

I originally created the site for the pupils in my class and now continue to write it for learners all around the world. To have a high ranking in search engines is a bonus, but what is more important to me, and to the school,  is the impact my work has on learning.

Parliament

On 20 January 1265, the first English Parliament met at Westminster.
From Facts of the Day Calendar http://bit.ly/4K8AmE
Our latest calendar is a great way to encourage interesting registration discussions and gives students ideas for topics they can research themselves.

Shortest Day

Today marks the solstice — the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere .

• Customs and traditions of the Winter Solstice
• Why do we have seasons?
• What are Solstices?

Advent Calendar

As Friday 18 December is the last day of term for many schools in England, we have opened all the windows on our online advent calendar. We hope you have enjoyed learning new and exciting facts about how Christmas is celebrate around the world.

Which country featured in our calendar was your favourite?
Can you remember all the countries we visited?
How many facts can you remember? Click here to find out (quiz)

We would like to thank our many visitors from around the world for sharing with us what Christmas is like in their country. If you would like to contribute to next years advent calendar, please send information and photos to woodlandsweb@hotmail.com.

A Merry Christmas to you all!
PS It is snowing! Maybe we will have a white Christmas this year.

Special days this week

Sunday 29 November - Advent Sunday and the start of Advent

Monday 30 November - St Andrew's Day

How much do you know about December?
Facts, superstitions, traditions and customs

Tuesday 1 December - First day of our Round the World Advent Calendar
Find out how Christmas is celebrated in countries around the world. This year we have added more countries.

New website resource: River Keyword search

Website updates

The following sections of our website have been recently updated:

• Interactive online stories
• Woodlands Literacy Zone - interactive games and activities
• Woodlands Science Zone - interactive games and activities
• Woodlands Maths Zone - interactive games and activities
• Calendars - 4 out of the 6 calendars now have 2010 dates

Suppporting this weeks events and festivals
18 Nov - State Opening of Parliament
We have several pages about the UK government and parliament

22 Nov Stir-Up Sunday - Christmas Pudding day

We Remember .....

Woodlands Remembrance Day pages
Why do we wear a poppy?

Special Days

November : Facts about November and special days

• 05 November: Bonfire Night
• 11 November: Remembrance Day
• 20 November Children in Need
• 22 November Stir-Up Sunday - Christmas pudding day
• 29 November Advent Begins
• 30 November: St Andrew's Day - Scotland's National Day

1 December - Woodlands online Advent Calendar starts

Calendars Updated

• Holidays and Special Days in the UK 2009 - 2011
• Awareness days and Weeks - to August 2010
  

Special Days

17 October Diwali
Diwali, the festival of lights, is the most important date in the Hindu calendar. It is also an occasion for celebrations by Jains and Sikhs.
Follow this link to find out about the Festival of Diwali

31 October Halloween
Follow this link to find out about this day

5 November Bonfire Night
Follow this link to find out about this special day

11 November Remembrance Day
Also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day.
Follow this link to find out more about this special day

The Moon

It is always lovely to hear how our visitors are using the website. We are amazed how useful our Moon pages are for a wide variety of people. Here are two comments we received this week about our Moon calendar :

"I am a sailor and a scientist. I used your site to plan a night time sea voyage from Grenada West Indies to British Virgin Islands so that I was sailing around the time of the full moon to light up the night time sailing. I thought the technical detail in the site was brilliant."
Dr Sue Kingsman

"I am a Captain in the Army and my current job is to test all new wheeled vehicles. We look at various aspects of the vehicle when testing them; this includes any special night vision equipment.

When testing night vision equipment it is essential that we know when the darkest nights will be and then plan our trials and tests around them. Your calendar has proved to be an invaluable asset for all my staff during the planning process, could you please pass on our thanks and congratulations on a great piece of work and let the young people know that they are contributing greatly to supplying excellent equipment to our troops serving overseas."
John S

Happy Birthday to us

In October, our website will reach the grand old age of 10 years. It has changed and grown a lot over the years. I thought you might like to see how it used to look. (I wish I knew then what I know now about building websites.)

Follow the link below to see how our website has changed over the years.
www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/birthday

Harvest Festival

Every year we have a Harvest Festival in our schools and churches.
Do you know what it is and why we celebrate it?
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Harvest.html

Conkers

I am sure many of you have noticed that most of the conkers have now fallen from the Horse Chestnut trees. Usually the conker season is not until late September, but a mild spring followed by a hot damp summer this year has brought the conker season forward.
The game of conkers is a traditional playground game that has been played by children for generations. You can find out more about the game by visiting:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/conkers.html

British History

Have you seen our British history pages full of easy to read facts and illustrated with many photographs?

• Celts
• Romans
• Saxons
• Vikings
• Normans
• Tudors
• Victorians
• WW ll

Inventions since the 1930s Timeline from the end of the war Old Money
Life in 1948 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

History of Castles Houses and Homes Kings and Queens

Tonbridge through the ages

Why did Guy Fawkes try to blow up the houses of Parliament?

Our longest Rivers

The longest river in England
In April 2007, Winnie the Pooh travelled down the River Thames in his boat. It took him several months and he had a fantastic time visiting many of the towns and villages along the way.

The longest river in the UK
In April 2009, Winnie the Pooh decided to meet up with two friends, Berty Beaver and Percy Penguin, to travel down the River Severn. On their journey they learned about the different features of a river.
You can read about their journey down the River Severn here.

Painted Lady Butterfly

I wonder how long it would take to fly 1,000 miles from Africa to England? That is exactly what Painted Lady butterflies have done. These butterflies are from north Africa, but migrate to Europe seeking cooler temperatures each year.

Painted Lady butterflies have orange, black and white-spotted wings. How many have you seen?

Victorian pages updated

We now have five pages on Victorian fashion. (Photos taken at the recent Dickens Festival in Rochester, Kent.)

Moon Calendar

I thought you may be interested to know who is using our 2009 Moon Calendar.
Kayaker
As a kayaker in the desert southwest, I usually go kayaking before the sun comes up, since this is the coolest part of the day - I user your moon calendar to pick the most well-lit times (mostly full moon) - thanks for your great page!
Student
I use your moon calendar to help me record the phases of the moon for my homework when it is too cloudy to see the moon.
Fishermen
The moon phases are a very real factor in the feeding patterns of fish. I have used your moon phases to help me find out about the best fishing times. Sea fish feed better on a full moon, a great website thanks.
Gardener
I used your moon calendar to know when the full moon was as it is the best time to plant. In the olden days, watching the moon was the only way to know when it was time to plant.
Photographer
We are having a discussion in a photography forum about the best settings to photograph the full moon, so your moon data is particularly helpful in planning for this. Thanks.
Traveller
Thanks for the moon phases as I now know 2 Nov 09 is the Loi Kratong festival in Thailand which is going to be the highlight of my holiday there
Moth Collector
Thanks for the information on Moon phases. I use it, in conjunction with the weather forecast for my area, to decide the best nights to put out my moth trap. The best nights are overcast or dark nights, so I need to know how bright the moon is going to be.
Wedding DJ
I found your full moon phases planner really useful for summer weddings, if there is likely to be a full moon, and I have a marquee or rural disco, I can moderate the light leakage so people outside can really enjoy the evening.
Pagan
As a pagan I use the phases as a source of energies at different times.

Website Updates

We would like to apologise for not being able to update our homepage with the latest news and newsletter. This was due to problems experienced by hosting company and therefore it was out of our control. You may also have seen a username and password window appear from time to time, this is also due to our hosting company having problems.

We are looking into away of preventing all of this occuring again. Thank you for your patience.

1st May is May Day

The first day of the month of May is known as May Day. It is the time of year when warmer weather begins and flowers and trees start to blossom. It is said to be a time of love and romance. It is when people celebrate the coming of summer with lots of different customs that are expressions of joy and hope after a long winter.

Traditional English May Day celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen and dancing around a Maypole. It also marks the the start of Well Dressings in the Peak District. Wells, springs or other water sources are 'dressed' (decorated) with pictures made from things that grow such as parts of plants.
Follow this link for customs and traditions about May

River Severn

In April 2007, Winnie the Pooh travelled down the River Thames in his boat. It took him several months and he had a fantastic time visiting many of the towns and villages along the way.

In April 2009, Winnie the Pooh decided to meet up with two friends, Berty Beaver and Percy Penguin, to travel down the River Severn. On their journey they learned about the different features of a river. You can read about their journey down the River Severn here.

Who visits our website?

Woodlands website was built to support the work we do in our school, however, from the comments below you can see that our website is also helping people of all ages and around the world too!

Radio Show Hosts
"Hi - we are radio show hosts in the US and went onto your website to learn more about St. George, as we are talking about St. George's Day on our show. Thanks for such a great website!" Barbara and Graham
Students in Britain
"The homework site is great. I had to learn lots about India, before I went back to school and because of your fantastic website I now have enough. 3 pages, my teacher will be pleased." Jess
Overseas Students
"Thank you for such a wonderful site! We are a Dutch school and your site is perfect for our bi-lingual first years." Class 1T Culemborg Holland
Teachers
"Yet again when searching for something I find just what I am looking for this time it is St.George. Thankyou you have on many occasions made my work as a teacher so much easier." Kirsty
Parents
"Thank you ever so much for a wonderful, informative website. Woodland’s children are very lucky. My daughter now enjoys homework and has a much happier, less stressed mum." Karen

King Tut at Woodlands Junior School

The following comment was written by Dr. Annette Laing

Well done, Woodlands Junior School, in Kent, England, for a superb web site. My nine-year-old son and I read and discussed your Tutankhamun mini-site as preparation for our visit to the Tutankhamun exhibit in Atlanta, Georgia. We thoroughly enjoyed the stimulating questions, the use of extracts from archaeologist Howard Carter's actual diary, the copious pictures, and the clever approach, which helped us share in the building excitement of the discovery. Alec is now working on the assignment to create a newspaper account of the discovery (with drawings), and is showing that he could have a bright future in tabloid journalism.
Homeschoolers and teachers, I do recommend this site, not only for its content, because it also models the web-based materials that we could have children create in American history: Enjoyable, well-illustrated, and non-preachy, it's a great introduction to "King Tut", and to Ancient Egypt in general.

We are number one again for Mother's Day

For the second year in a row our website was the number one site receiving 27.6% of the traffic from UK searches for 'mothers day' last week, followed by Wikipedia (19.4%) and Marks & Spencer (7.8%).

Science Zone Updated

I have updated the Science Zone. This section of our website contains interactive activities or a wide variety of science themes. It is part of our Sats Revision Zone.

See also our Science Homework Help zone

The most visited school website in the country

According to the website popularity monitor, Hitwise UK, Woodlands Junior school has by far the most visited school website in the country. For 2008, our website was the third most popular site for an education institution, behind the University of Aberdeen and the Open University, but ahead of learndirect. There were no other school websites above us.

Our school's vision is ‘Caring about learning, proud to shine’ This is certainly evident through out our website. It was made for our students as a place for them to show off their work, their school and their community to the world. We are very proud of the fact that 18 million people a year are reading our work. Thank you:)

During 2008 the Woodlands Junior website received:

• 30,616,362 Visits
• 18,272,249 Absolute Unique Visitors
  (Over 50,000 visitors each single day)
• 151,228,514 Pageviews

The sheer number of worldwide visitors to our website speaks volumes of how well we are showcasing our school, and we are not even at full throttle yet! We have a lot of exciting plans that will move our school on even further. Watch this space!