Reflecting on my childhood (which wasn’t THAT long ago), I remember playing sporting games on our street with the neighbours, climbing trees, building Lego villages and riding bikes.
I was stunned when I first heard a class of grown kids that confessed to not being able to ride a bike. Sure, they are experts at driving a computerised racing car or skateboard on their game consoles. But an actual bike? Not a chance!
Thousands of children are starting secondary school unable to run, jump, throw a ball or catch, the head of UK Sport has said.
Susan Campbell has claimed ‘physically illiterate’ children ‘hardly move’ by the time they are ready to make the transition from primary school.
And she said the legacy of the Olympics in the summer could be lost if teachers in primary schools did not receive specialist PE training.
She warned some 11-year-olds aren’t able to take part in the most basic of sports by the time they go to secondary school.
Baroness Campbell, chairwoman of UK Sport and the Youth Sport Trust, said sport should be taken as seriously as literacy and numeracy in primary schools.
And she has called for primary school teachers to receive extra training in PE.
Parents, not without good reason, are reluctant to give their children the opportunity of playing on the streets because of the many potential risks that exist. Whether these risks are as prevalent as we have been raised to believe is questionable. Whether these risks should be weighed up with the many benefits of having our children experience the joys of bike riding and outdoor sports is worth discussing.
I don’t believe in banning material just because I find it misleading or insulting. In a true democracy people should have the right to voice their opinion on a range of issues, whether they are right or wrong is immaterial:
A BOOK promoting the “marvellous” health benefits of potentially fatal measles should be taken off the shelves, doctors say.
Melanie’s Marvelous Measles is an anti-vaccination book aimed at children. It claims – despite evidence that measles can kill and cause brain damage – that it’s a “good thing” to have.
The Australian Medical Association said the suggestion was wrong and misleading and that publishers “should be ashamed of themselves”.
On the cover of the book ‘Melanie’ is happily playing in the garden and showing off a rash on her belly. In the story, she is home with measles and her friend Tina is worried – but her mother reassures her.
“Firstly Tina, measles don’t run and catch you or hurt you… for most children it is a good thing to get measles,” she says.
“Many wise people believe measles make the body stronger and more mature for the future.”
Tina then asks if she can go and catch measles from Melanie. “That sounds like a great idea,” her mother responds, and suggests some carrot juice and melon might help Melanie recover.
AMA President Steve Hambleton said only the “crazies” thought that it would be better to get a disease than be vaccinated.
Emma Pickles, a once deeply shy young girl, seems to have come up with an original method of her own:
A teenager who used to be so shy she avoided parties and could not speak in class has become an internet star through her YouTube channel.
Emma Pickles, 18, found courage after years of struggling with crippling social anxiety after posting makeup tutorial videos online.
More than 1.5 million people have watched her transform herself into everything from movie characters Edward Scissorhands and X-Men’s Mystique to pop star Katy Perry and terrifying monsters.
Emma, from Halifax, Yorkshire used to be controlled by her shyness which prevented her from speaking in front of people and caused her to shun social events.
Two years ago, her social anxiety got so bad she stopped answering questions at school and after her work suffered she began seeing a counsellor.
She says she became self-conscious at a very young age which developed into a fear of public speaking, even to the point where she struggled to ask for a ticket at the cinema.
Emma said: ‘I wouldn’t leave the house without putting on a full face of makeup and I even panicked at answering my phone.
‘When a teacher asked me a question in class I used to go bright red and start shaking all over.
‘When I would go to the cinema I even found it hard to ask for a ticket. I don’t know why, there is no reason but I was scared.’
But when she began posting her videos, Emma gained new confidence and her incredible makeup tutorials are now followed by thousands of loyal fans who subscribe to her channel.
She says she feels more comfortable speaking to people online and that she has YouTube to thank for her new self-assurance.
‘I’ve achieved so much through YouTube and having to speak in front of a camera has given me a lot more confidence.
‘It’s really weird that so many people have subscribed to my channel. I had no idea it would go this well but it’s so nice.
Teachers who think that bringing a loaded gun to school protects their students have rocks in their head. After the shocking events of last week our children to be reassured not bodyguarded. They need to feel that school is a safe place.
When a teacher decides to bring a gun to school they are encouraging already anxious kids to become more worried and insecure. Our children need to be sheltered from guns, not see them as a normal everyday imperative for ones own security.
I detest the idea of putting guns in the hands of the very people instituted to be our children’s role models.
The teacher who decided to bring a gun to school may have thought she was protecting her students, but are our students so much safer in such an environment?:
Fear over the Newtown school shooting prompted a Minnesota teacher to bring a loaded gun to school last week, forcing a school lockdown. The unnamed teacher, a female in her 50s, has been placed on administrative leave from Seward Montessori School in Minneapolis.
“This is the first case like this I’ve ever heard of,” Minneapolis police Sgt. Bill Palmer told KMSP. “In this day in age in this week, handguns in schools are of great concern to everyone.”
While the teacher was not arrested, she could face misdemeanor charges for violating conditions of her Minnesota conceal carry permit, which prohibits firearms in schools without written permission from a principal or school official.
How dare Richard Dawkins, the grumpy old man with nothing positive to say about anything, even equate child abuse with religion, let alone comment that religion is worse.
Whilst I am not a Catholic I appreciate the role the religion plays in guiding its believers in thinking beyond themselves, giving charity and promoting acts of kindness.
These recent comments by a person who deserves little to no recognition should banish the rest of his bile fuelled views to the dustbin for all eternity (whether he believes in eternity or otherwise!):
Raising your children as Roman Catholics is worse than child abuse, according to militant atheist Richard Dawkins.
In typically incendiary style, Professor Dawkins said the mental torment inflicted by the religion’s teachings is worse in the long-term than any sexual abuse carried out by priests.
He said he had been told by a woman that while being abused by a priest was a ‘yucky’ experience, being told as a child that a Protestant friend who died would ‘roast in Hell’ was more distressing.
Last night politicians and charities condemned the former Oxford professor’s views as attention-seeking and unhelpful.
The remarks are due to be broadcast tonight by Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera.
Never take a suggestion from a gun advocate seriously.
What’s a person calling themselves a ‘gun advocate’ anyway? Out of every single thing in the world that you can use to represent who you are and what your world view is, who in their right mind would choose to align themselves with deadly weapons?
“I was thinking of becoming a charity worker or humanitarian but I decided to aim higher and lobby for the freedom to store deadly weapons in my attic.”
Anyway, back to their insane suggestion of the month – arming teachers to combat deadly, insane gunmen at schools.
Who do they think we are? Bruce Willis!
Why do you think we need to justify the proliferation of deadly weapons by arming good people with more weapons? Thank Heavens I’m an Australian because I want rulers and pencils and ‘Good Effort’ stickers in my top drawer – not a pistol!
In the terrible event of a situation like the one we saw at Sandy Hook Primary School, I would do everything in my powers to protect my students – including taking bullets for them. But let’s face it – I’m no action hero. A teaching degree shouldn’t depend on a high score at the shooting range and the ability to put together a rifle blindfolded. Teachers have enough to worry about in their classroom -gun handling should not be included in the mix. It should be about classroom management not firearm management.
And don’t give me that rubbish about ‘guns are like cars, it’s the people that use them that can cause harm’. The purpose of a car is to take you from point A to point B, the purpose of a gun is to kill another living being. And don’t start with the expression ‘misuse’ a gun. Adam Lanza did not ‘misuse’ his gun. He used his gun for it’s direct purpose.
To gun lobbyists and advocates, I have this message for you. You have an opportunity right now to make an important mind shift. You can stand firm and watch your beloved weapons being used to kill innocent school children and moviegoers or you can use your passion and boundless energy to advocate for other causes such as child welfare.
If I wanted to be a cop I would have signed up for the Academy. But I am not policeman material. Instead, I signed up to help students feel safe, cared for, nurtured and educated.
The only tools I want in my holster are whiteboard markers and grey lead pencils.
I’ve had enough of reading about more innocent lives lost to violent outbursts. I’m also tired of our obsession with profiling gunmen. Why did he do it? Was he quiet? Was he clever? Was he a recluse?
The papers will point to his mental disorder or parents breakup as the reason. But surely living through a divorce and struggling with a mental disorder does not in itself lead to crimes of this magnitude being committed:
Three years previously, in 2009, Nancy and Peter Lanza had divorced after 28 years of marriage. The break up was traumatic, leaving the couple’s sons devastated. Ryan Lanza was living away at university, meaning that his brother Adam, four years younger, was left at home alone with their mother at their £350,000 house.
He was not well known to neighbours, who describe him as being reclusive and troubled.
And when the news broke on Friday of the murder of 26 people at a primary school in the town, and Ryan Lanza was hastily identified as the killer, people who knew the family knew they had named the wrong brother.
“Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old,” said Tim Dalton, a neighbour and former classmate, on Twitter. “As horrible as this was, I can’t say I am surprised.”
“This was a deeply disturbed kid,” a family insider said. “He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall.”
A further family friend said he had acted as though he was immune to pain.
“A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it,” said the friend. “Adam had a lot of mental problems.”
What we should really be focusing on is strategies to help ensure that we don’t have to read about another school shooting again.
More than four in ten parents say that their children have been exposed to internet porn, an official survey reveals.
Almost a third say their sons or daughters have received sexually explicit emails or texts and a quarter say they have been bullied online or on their phones.
Many others have been exposed to websites promoting anorexia, self-harm and even suicide.
The frightening insight is contained in a round-up of responses to a Department for Education consultation on parental internet controls obtained by this paper.
It is absolutely bewildering to me how obsessive some teachers get about toilet breaks. Sure, they can be a disturbance to class and it can get very annoying to have a student ask to go to the toilet only minutes after recess, but you just don’t interfere with a child’s need to go to the toilet.
The mother of a seven-year-old boy at an elementary school in Irving, Texas says her son wet his pants in class because he hadn’t accumulated enough good behavior credits to secure a trip to the bathroom.
The teacher at J.O. Davis Elementary rewards students for good behavior with “Boyd Bucks,” reports KXAS-TV5 in Dallas-Fort Worth. Her students can use the restroom outside of three scheduled breaks throughout the day, but the price of each trip is two Boyd Bucks.
Sonja Cross’s son was fresh out of Boyd Bucks on Thursday afternoon when nature called urgently. When the boy’s teacher denied his request to use the facilities, he sat back down.
“He tried to hold it as much as he could, but he just couldn’t,” Cross told the NBC affiliate. “He came home from school, and he was crying and really upset.”
“I was absolutely appalled,” Cross told the NBC affiliate. “I could not believe it.”
Cross initially took up her complaint directly with the teacher, who is reportedly in her first year with the school. However, Cross said, she wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of that conversation.
“Originally when I first spoke with the teacher, she was just going to show my son special treatment, but then I said, ‘That’s just not good enough. I need for you to stop this for all the children,’” Cross explained.
I was staggered to read of the rising numbers of underage rapists, some of which are as young as 10 years-old. How can this be happening? As a Primary School teacher it is absolutely unfathomable that children that young could commit such an atrocious act.
Surely online pornography is just a quick and easy excuse. It must be more complicated than that:
Children as young as ten are being arrested on suspicion of rape amid fears that online pornography is twisting their view of sex and relationships.
The scale of sexual offences committed by primary school children was revealed in disturbing figures from police forces across the country.
Twenty-four forces arrested children under 13 for suspected rape in the past year while seven detained at least one ten year old.
The figures, obtained by the Daily Mail under a Freedom of Information request, highlight growing concerns at the influence of online pornography on impressionable young minds.
Yesterday NSPCC spokesman Jon Brown said there was ‘undoubtedly’ a link between children carrying out sexual assaults and easy access to online pornography, which gives them a ‘distorted picture of what sexual relationships should be about’.
John Carr, from the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said: ‘There is already a widespread feeling that the internet is playing an unhealthy part in the early sexualisation of children and these revelations about the arrests of ten-year-olds for rape will add fuel to the flames.’
The figures were uncovered in a survey of all 52 police forces across Britain.
Of the 39 that responded, 31 forces had arrested children between the ages of ten and 13 on suspicion of rape in the past year.
Seven said the youngest child arrested for rape was aged just ten while six said the youngest was 11, and 11 forces said the youngest suspect was 12.
Forces reported only the age of the youngest child they had arrested for the crime, meaning the actual number of very young children detained in each age group could be much higher.
According to the figures, 357 children aged 18 and under were found guilty of a range of sex crimes including rape, sexual assaults on other children, grooming, incest and taking or possessing indecent photographs of minors.
Topical Teaching 