Sponsored Webinar
Sir Linkalot: The Future of Spelling
Tuesday 4th May 2021 / 4 pm BST
Next Tuesday 4th May the Global School Alliance features spelling celebrity ‘Sir Linkalot’ AKA Andy Salmon who will talk about ‘The Future of Spelling!’ Andy will be joined by Kent teachers, Stephanie Apps, Julia Fleming and Wendy Walters.
Sir Linkalot is a revolutionary app and website that helps students (and grownups!) to master the art of spelling. Instead of Look-Cover-Write and Check and other traditional approaches to spelling, SirLinkalot uses a revolutionary visual approach of stories, words within words, animations, and lots of toilet humour which children clearly enjoy!
Susie Dent from the smash TV quiz ‘Countdown’, aka Lady Lexicographer, appears in many of the lessons to give the origin of words that have an interesting story to tell. Take the word nature. This comes from the Latin natura ‘birth, nature, quality’. Biscuit is a hard word to spell but seeing the cu becoming a cup is a great visual prompt and there is also a story: in French bis means twice and cuit means cooked. Twice cooked – that would be the reason why biscuits are so crisp.
The Sir Linkalot app is divided into the five key elements of literacy: spelling, homophones, rules & patterns, punctuation & grammar and etymology (origin of words). These are categorised into ‘bundles’ with each based on a renowned literary figure. Andy is always adding more bundles to the app to further expand children’s spelling knowledge.
Sir Linkalot is an award-winning spelling app, winning ‘Best Educational App’ at Bett Show 2020 – the world’s number 1 EdTech exhibition.
If you would like to stay up to date with Global School Alliance events, please register here.
Guest Speakers
Andy Salmon, Founder of Sir Linkalot
Andy Salmon (aka Sir Linkalot) has been linking for over 25 years, initially as a hobby and then as a career. He has been spreading the joy of linking, i.e. the use of the overlooked yet extremely powerful technique of mnemonics, for the last ten years to 150,000 children of all ages and over ten thousand staff in over five hundred schools. Andy’s workshops focus on helping children commit to memory the spelling of tricky words all the way from ‘was’ to ‘onomatopoeia’. In 2019 he launched the Sir Linkalot app which won the ‘Best Educational App’ award at BETT 2020 – Europe’s leading EdTech exhibition. It is breaking down barriers for students who have dyslexia or whose mother tongue isn’t English. He is a one-off, high-octane individual who is passionate about his subject. No one has ever done this before to this extent and that is why it’s getting so much attention. Hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride…
Stephanie Apps
Stephanie Apps has been in primary education for over twenty years working in a variety of roles including class teacher, English Lead, PSHE Lead, Maths Lead, Acting Deputy Head and has worked as part of various school leadership teams.
Julia Fleming
Julia Fleming is currently a teacher in Year 4, Phase leader and English Coordinator at Hextable Primary School. She has taught Key Stage 3 and 4 as well as being Specialist Teacher at KS3 for AEN and English Lead Teacher.
Wendy Walters
Wendy Walters has been teaching for 16 years and is literacy leader at St Matthew’s Primary School in Tunbridge Wells for the past 10 years.
