Monitoring Your Child’s Facebook

April 28, 2011

It’s never ideal to secretly review your child’s activities, but sometimes it’s an imperative that cannot be avoided.  Rather than recommend that parents use this new innovation that allows them to oversee their child’s Facebook page without being classified as their friend, I think it’s important to alert parents and teachers of its existence.

INTERNET security firm Check Point overnight launched software that lets parents watch over offspring on Facebook without being “friends” at the online social network.

ZoneAlarm SocialGuard alerts parents to signs of trouble in a child’s Facebook account without them being privy to all posts, comments, pictures, videos or other digital content shared between friends at the website.

The program scans Facebook profiles, communications and “friend” requests and uses algorithms to identify potential bullying, sexual overtures, or talk of drugs, violence or suicide.

SocialGuard software runs unseen in the background, flagging suspicious activity and sending alerts to parents, according to its Redwood City, California-based creators.

“It’s about protecting your kids from the social threats out there, while still respecting their privacy and fostering open communication,” said Check Point vice president of consumer sales Bari Abdul.

“We are offering Facebook users a simple way to embrace social networking safely,” he continued.

SocialGuard is crafted to detect hacked accounts, malicious links, online predators, and cyber-bullies, according to Check Point.

The software also checks to determine whether people contacting children online are being deceptive about their ages or if a stranger is trying to become a Facebook “friend.”

“Parents are increasingly concerned, and rightfully so, about the dramatically increasing trend of criminals, predators and bullies targeting children over social networks,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

“SocialGuard provides a strong suite of tools that can effectively protect children from these types of social threats that are keeping parents awake at night.”

Check Point cited a survey indicating that 38 percent of teenagers have ignored requests from parents to be friends on Facebook, and that 16 percent of children have only done so as a condition of using the social network.

SocialGuard was available online at zonealarm.com for $US2 ($1.85) monthly or $US20 annually.

Spying on kids is the very last resort.  You would hope that children are able to use social media responsibly.  Unfortunately, too often that is not the case.  Therefore, for safety reasons, it is important that parents are aware of safeguards like this one.

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Posted in Cyber Safety, Parenting | 3 Comments »

Teacher Stress a Real Issue

April 27, 2011

At a time when teachers are being unfairly picked on by politicians and the media and forced to take the heat for standardized test results and missed benchmarks, there is no wonder why teachers are suffering from stress.  The paperwork is ridiculously high and the support is nowhere to be seen.

Just look at what toll it is having on teachers in Britain:

An increase in Government targets and high-stakes Ofsted inspections is fuelling a rise in serious mental health problems among school staff, according to teachers’ leaders.

Most teachers said behaviour policies in schools were inconsistently enforced, allowing many pupils to get away with bad behaviour

The National Union of Teachers claim stress is now the main reason for driving teachers out of the profession.

It follows the publication of figures last year that showed almost 309,000 school teachers – more than half of the workforce – were signed off sick for an average of two weeks in 2009.

The NUT claim that staff are now routinely expected to work more than 50 hours a week after being swamped by marking and form-filling.

Speaking at the union’s annual conference in Harrogate, activities told how many teachers were resorting to alcohol to get through the day or even attempting suicide because of the workload.

Sue McMahon, branch secretary for Calderdale, West Yorkshire, said: “As a divisional secretary I have seen a meteoric rise in work-related stress and in more than one occasion have had to support a member who has attempted suicide.”

She said the problem was being caused by “the demands being placed on our members to hit Government targets”.

“We got into teaching to teach, not to be beaten by the target-driven culture of those Stepford heads who relish the Government agenda,” she said.

“The target tsunami escalating from the aspirations of this Government is sweeping away those [teachers] that you are struggling to support. And as the wave gets bigger it is leaving a trail of devastation in its wake that used to be a world class education system.”

Teachers need more support and consideration.  It isn’t an easy profession, and yet it continues to be more taxing and highly stressful than ever before.  Less paperwork, less beaurocracy, more support and more leadership from our politicians and administrators please?


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Posted in Teachers Stress | 1 Comment »

Corporal Punishment Reveals the Worst School Has to Offer

April 24, 2011

Imagine finally taking the important and highly necessary measure of banning corporal punishment only to take on another absurdly simple-minded strategy in its place.  That is what India’s Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School is guilty of:

Candy or cane? City schools seem to have dumped the primitive notion of spare the rod and spoil the child. Instead of wielding the stick, they are now offering chocolates to kids to encourage them in academic excellence and enforce discipline.

“We are strictly against corporal punishment. We hand out chocolates to students if they score good marks and behave well in school. We have realised that it greatly motivates our students,” said Gouri Ramarathinam, Principal, Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School.

Why go from one extreme to another?  Is it so difficult to replace a terrible educational policy for a sensible one?

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg banning corporal punishment didn’t change a thing:

Corporal punishment is still common in South African schools even though it was banned more than a decade ago. Recent research showed that up to 70% of primary school and 50% of high school pupils were still subjected to corporal punishment.

In Louisiana corporal punishment is here to stay.  But don’t be concerned. They have come up with a foolproof measure for its responsible use – a checklist!:

Corporal punishment is here to stay in Rapides Parish public schools, and members of the Disciplinary Policy Review Committee on Wednesday discussed ways parents can inform a principal if they don’t want their children paddled for infractions.

“Corporal punishment is an acceptable discipline procedure by law … We try and use it as little as possible,” said Ruby Smith, the Rapides Parish School District’s director of child welfare and attendance. “When I was a child in school, corporal punishment worked like butter on toast. I receive few calls from parents saying that they don’t want their child to receive corporal punishment.”

Louisiana House Resolution No. 167 was passed last year that requires principals to fill out a “Corporal Punishment Incident Checklist.”

“Principals will send the checklist to the (School Board office), and once a month, it will be sent to the state Department of Education,” Smith said. “Our first reporting was due in Baton Rouge on the 11th of April, and principals will have to turn one in every month, regardless if they have an incident or not. The officials in Baton Rouge will probably do some study on the checklist.”

Corporal punishment never worked like “butter on toast” for students as it may have for teachers, Ms. Smith! I am sorry to tell you but your checklist isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

To conclude my thought for the day on this awful means of disciplining kids, I will quote from an article entitled “Schools Under Pressure to Spare the Rod Forever,” Dan Frosch tells the story of one case, and then puts it into larger context:

When Tyler Anastopoulos got in trouble for skipping detention at his high school recently, he received the same punishment that students in parts of rural Texas have been getting for generations.

Tyler, an 11th grader from Wichita Falls, was sent to the assistant principal and given three swift swats to the backside with a paddle, recalled Angie Herring, his mother. The blows were so severe that they caused deep bruises and the boy wound up in the hospital, Ms. Herring said.

While the image of the high school principal patrolling the halls with paddle in hand is largely of the past, corporal punishment is still alive in 20 states, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, a group that tracks its use in schools around the country and advocates for its end. Most of those states are in the South, where paddling remains ingrained in the social and family fabric of some communities.

Each year, prodded by child safety advocates, state legislatures debate whether corporal punishment amounts to an archaic form of child abuse or an effective means of discipline.

This month, Tyler, who attends City View Junior/Senior High School, told his story to lawmakers in Texas, which is considering a ban on corporal punishment. The same week, legislators in New Mexico voted to end the practice there.

Texas schools, Ms. Herring fumed, appear to have free rein in disciplining a student, “as long as you don’t kill him.”

“If I did that to my son,” she said, “I’d go to jail.”

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Posted in Corporal Punishment | 5 Comments »

Inspiring Words For All Teachers

April 24, 2011

I came across this brilliant article by Priscilla Wilson, a retired school teacher and educator.  In her wonderful piece, she calls on new teachers to put children first, and to look past bureaucratic stumbling blocks and instead, fight for the child.  It is so refreshing to come across a teacher that puts this critical message in such eloquent terms.

Teachers from all around the globe would be well advised to read this:

This week is somewhat of a milestone for me.

Forty years ago this week I started my first teaching job. In reflecting on what a great time that was for me, I am saddened as to how much things have changed. It was an exciting time when people who felt that they wanted to teach could easily do so.

It was actually a very care-free and nurturing time which I must say we simply took for granted. It only made sense that if you had studied to be a teacher, you would have the opportunity to do so. The big discussion was not if you could get a job but simply where you thought you wanted to live and work! People were excited to do both and there was a great buzz about the profession and about getting to it!

April may seem like a strange time to begin teaching but I simply finished my university year one week and went to work the following week. I was in Fredericton and there was a separate Special Education school. I had the pleasure of volunteering there during my time at Teachers College and St. Thomas University and knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do. Following this opportunity, I was fortunate to be able to work in a segregated Special Education school for 10 years prior to Integration in the early 1980s. It was indeed an exceptional time that was especially meaningful, productive and memorable, a time of my life filled with fond memories that I will have forever.

With the introduction of Integration, many of us who had taught in the separate Special Education system became resource teachers. In addition to working as a resource teacher I was fortunate to teach most grades from 1 to 9.

I know now that I was always drawn to the child who was struggling, for whatever reason. I was very drawn to this particular student and was always intrigued as to what I could do that would be different; teach it again or another way. What was it going to take in order for the student/students to be successful?

I consider myself so fortunate because teaching has been such a positive career choice for me. What about those who are ready now to dedicate their time and energies to teaching? Why does employment have to be such a struggle for them? Why, too, are so many who are teaching so dissatisfied with their career? What changes could be made to the system to make things better for everyone?

What is more important than our young people; both our students and our young teachers? At a time when so many so-called topics of importance are being discussed, why aren’t we hearing more about the importance of an education? Why aren’t we talking more about how to make it better?

Many children are unhappy with their school experience which is extremely sad and quite unbelievable! Parents are dissatisfied and teachers can only dream of better teaching experiences, and thousands of enthusiastic young teachers feel they may never teach. How can things be so desperate in what should be such a progressive time?

In addition, the needs of so many children are not being met because the system is not set up to handle them. Amazing young people are losing out every day and we get to help them and, in fact, turn their lives around because at Wilson Reading Centre we’ve created a learning environment that is working for them.

Getting back to my 40-year anniversary, I think that it’s interesting that I have the energy and stamina that I’ve always have. Well, it seems that way to me. No doubt, I have slowed down somewhat but I’m having too much fun to notice. There’s nothing extra special about me, except that I truly love what I am doing. That in itself is a gift and one that I wish for the many young people trying to fulfill their dream of being a teacher. Just think of what they could accomplish!

I feel strongly that as a society we should be fighting back. Our students need so much more and our young people need work.

I personally know very capable young people who have left the area in order to teach. Can you imagine the time, effort and expenses that they have endured in order to achieve the necessary qualifications, only to be unemployed? If this isn’t enough, they are then forced to move away in order to find work.

I know that this isn’t just happening within education but my soap-box is education. A good education can have the most meaningful effect on the lives of our young people and we are letting them down.

We always say how important our children are to us as parents and as a society. Parents do their best to provide for their children but they aren’t the ones assigned the task of teaching their children to read.

Being a successful reader carries over into every aspect of life. Without it, the child feels helpless, defenceless, frustrated, discouraged but most importantly defeated and unsuccessful.

So my challenge to the education system is to look at each individual and ask what we as a society could be doing differently.

Perhaps the key to my happiness as a teacher was the fact that I was drawn to the child who was struggling and set about to make a difference. It seems like a reasonable solution to a successful career because it would mean the difference between doing the best job possible and one that produced mediocrity.

Teachers feel overwhelmed because too many children are coming to them with too many struggles. One solution would be to address some of these struggles before they become insurmountable.

I am not talking about a hypothetical situation. I am, in fact, talking about one that I decided to tackle as an individual. I did so by creating a learn-to-read program that I felt would make a difference. Then I set about to prove that it would work.

Having accomplished this has allowed me the opportunity to prove my philosophy on many levels. One is that by simply taking a different approach to learning to read, people who have struggled, sometimes for years, can be successful. Another is the proof of the overwhelming power that learning to read plays in each individual’s life.

Finally, the clincher, which I think is the fact that being able to give back is the key to a successful career whatever you do. So, as this week represents forty years of tons of fun and loads of opportunities to give back, my plea is that we try harder as a society and look for ways to help more children be more successful, for certain more successful and more confident as readers and therefore, as individuals!


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Posted in Inspirational Teachers, Literacy | 1 Comment »

The Benefits of Educational Apps

April 22, 2011

Last week I discussed how technology can be a good thing when the balance is right.  Unfortunately, technology addiction is very common among young children.  The trick is to have firm guidelines for how much time can be dedicated to technology use.  I certainly wouldn’t ban it altogether.

Technology has such a legitimate upside which cannot be dismissed:

Pupils at primary schools who use educational apps on smart-phones and tablets are performing better in their lessons, a new report showed has revealed.

The study reveals that forty per cent of parents who download educational apps say their child’s academic performance has improved as a result.

But the research shows that not only are they helping to raise academic attainment, educational apps are also helping children aged between 5 and 11 every day, inside the classroom. 

The study, commissioned by Encyclopaedia Britannica, shows the vast majority of parents who have downloaded an app claim they have helped their child with school work and projects, while more than half of parents with smart devices actively encourage their child to download apps for exam revision, homework and learning about new topics.

The report also reveals that families with access to mobile devices are fully engaged with educational apps as learning aids, with the average smartphone-owning family downloading more than four since purchasing their device.

The findings comes as two thirds of parents with smart devices are calling for more educational apps to be developed, saying they encourage independent learning and that children prefer to use them compared to other learning aids.

Ian Grant, Managing Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica UK, said: ‘It’s great that families are fully embracing new technologies when it comes to their childrens education and that they’re starting to see tangible benefits to academic attainment, both in and out of the classroom.’

Sue Atkins, Author of Raising Happy Children for Dummies and parenting blogger, said: ‘In a busy, hectic, stress-filled world of trying to get children interested in learning and being curious about the world, we need to engage them in new ways, and what better way than to download smartphone apps.

‘As a parent myself, I welcome this brilliant new way to help my daughter with her revision.’

Research was carried out online by PCP among 510 UK parents of children aged 5 – 11 with access to at least one smart device, in March 2011.

Exposing children to technology is good when properly supervised. Like with everything in Education, and therefore in life – balance is integral.

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Posted in Technology in the Classroom | 3 Comments »

The Horrendous Over-Prescribing of ADHD Drugs

April 21, 2011

America is running our of Ritalin!  Parents are frantically running around trying to find pharmacies that still have some in stock.  You might think that what I have just written is the making of good fiction, perhaps a Hollywood satire, but I’m afraid that it’s a true story, with potentially huge ramifications.

Nationwide shortages of popular drugs used to treat ADD and ADHD are sending parents scrambling, with some combing multiple pharmacies for the Adderall and Ritalin that keep their kids calm.

Molly Taylor, 46, of Worcester, Mass., was turned away empty-handed this week when she went to pick up prescriptions of Adderall XR for herself and her 16-year-old son, Luke.

“They don’t have them,” an incredulous Taylor told msnbc.com. “You could be waiting several days, which would have a HUGE impact. If you can’t get it that day, it’s very, very difficult.”

In the past two weeks, federal Food and Drug Administration officials added the drugs methylphenidate hydrochloride and amphetamine mixed salts, the generic names for Ritalin and Adderall, to an expanding list of national drug shortages. Some distributors cite manufacturing delays and increased demand as the reasons; others offer no explanation for the shortages.

But the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which tracks drug supply issues, has listed the products in short supply for nearly a month, and there have been regional reports of spotty shortages even before that.

5.4 million children have ADHD

In the United States, an estimated 5.4 million children ages 4 to 17 have ever been diagnosed with ADHD, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and 66 percent of those with current ADHD take medication to control the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, that amounted to 152 million units sold of Adderall and Adderall XR, the extended-release version of the pill, 35 million units of Ritalin and nearly 702 million units of generic ADHD drugs, with sales totaling more than $1.2 billion, according to data from Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions.

For millions of children — and adults — the stimulant medications ease the symptoms of ADHD, allowing them to control distracted thoughts and behavior well enough to participate in school, work and social life.

The drugs are taken daily, but when patients miss even one dose, the consequences can be swift, said Ruth Hughes, interim chief executive of the organization CHADD, Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

“The symptoms come back very quickly,” said Hughes, who is the mother of an adult son with ADHD. “If you start that spiral, within 24 hours you begin to get in the loop of negative feedback. It doesn’t take very long until it has a truly negative impact.”

The current shortages affect various doses of the medications supplied by several manufacturers of brand-name and generic drugs. That means patients who find they can’t get their usual prescriptions might be able to find a similar drug in a different strength, made by a different manufacturer.

However, because the drugs are tightly controlled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, prescriptions are doled out only a month at a time, and patients have to visit their doctors in order to authorize new drugs, which could be more expensive than the old ones.

“Tightly controlled”? You have got to be kidding me!  This is sickening!  How can we sit and watch our kids being prescribed these drugs in the millions and not wonder whether or not these kids really have ADD and ADHD?  How can you get to the point where demand for a drug for children is so readily prescribed that demand exceeds supply?

It seems like pharmaceutical companies are winning, and we are sitting there silently letting them.  It is time for a parliamentary inquiry on this issue.  Doctors and teachers in particular need to be accountable for their role in this situation.

Surely when a drug becomes so rampantly prescribed that drug companies struggle to meet demand, there is something not quite right going on?  Or am I the only one that thinks this is the case?

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Posted in Children and Medication | 2 Comments »

Political Correctness is a Failed Philosophy

April 20, 2011

For all its good intentions, I am not a fan of political correctness.  My school just invested in new blinds for the classrooms, only weeks before a dictate from the Education Department stipulating how many bolts must be present in classroom blinds.  My school now has to find the money to put extra bolts in, even though the current setup is more than sufficient.  Whilst I agree that students welfare and safety is of vital importance, sometimes bureaucracy goes too far.

In the past few months, I have written numerous posts about political correctness gone wrong. I wrote of a farcical primary school law that banned young children from hugging.  Then there was the school that banned football in the playground and another that banned socialising in groups bigger than three.  These are examples of political correctness working against the students, not for the students.

It was so good to hear the British Prime Minister speak out against the bureaucracy trying to ban street parties in honour of Prince William and Kate Middleton wedding.

If only our Education Minister had the presence of mind to do the same.

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Posted in Political Correctness, School Rules | 4 Comments »

The Phonics Debate

April 18, 2011

It is far too simplistic to be blaming a whole language approach instead of a phonics approach for the poor results in our children’s reading.  If it was only as easy as reinstalling a national phonics program, we would have done it ages ago.  The issue here is not about phonics like some are professing:

 
OLD-school ways of teaching children to read should be re-introduced in Victoria, experts say, urging a return to phonics.

Academics and primary education specialists say Victorian children are paying the price for the Education Department’s failure to heed a federal literacy taskforce’s calls for a return to structured phonics-based teaching.

RMIT childhood psychology expert Kerry Hempenstall said the current approach – where children are taught to recognise whole words instead of learning to sound them out – had failed.

“Whole language has been around for 30 years and since then the Government has spent billions on literacy programs and reducing class sizes and, despite that investment, literacy has not improved,” Dr Hempenstall said.

The Education Department told the Sunday Herald Sun it had no way of knowing whether the reading standard had improved under the whole language “experiment” because it could not compare the two different approaches.

Spokeswoman Megan McNaught said figures showed there were more grade 3 students meeting minimum reading standards today than 10 years ago.

The National Inquiry into Teaching of Literacy recommended in 2005 that educators should provide “systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction” to help children master “alphabetic code-breaking skills” needed for reading.

But Dr Hempenstall said Victoria had ignored the advice to the detriment of its little learners.

“Teachers today have not been taught to teach phonics in a systematic way,” Dr Hempenstall said.

“They don’t receive that training in their teacher education, so it doesn’t matter whether or not people are saying, ‘We do teach phonics’, they need to have that training for it to have an impact.”

Anyone that thinks that reverting to a phonics program will fix the problem is in fantasy land.  The problem concerning poor reading rests with two major factors.

1.  People are reading less.  We live in a modern world where people are getting their entertainment and news from the digital media.  Children are not being exposed to literature at home like they used to.  Adults are not modelling good reading habits in the same way that they used to.  There is something quite powerful about reading around your kids. 

2.  Both systems of teaching literacy are deeply flawed because they don’t easily convey the joys of reading.  Both systems can be taught well, but often come across in  a turgid and uninspiring way.  Whatever system teachers are instructed to take on must be engaging and relay the joys of reading to our kids.

When something isn’t working, there is always a call top go back in history.  Only trouble is, things change for a reason.  If it was working so well back then, it never would have been overhauled in the first place. 

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Posted in Literacy | 7 Comments »

Schools Must Share the Blame With Parents

April 18, 2011

Teachers are great at blaming poor parenting for the bad habits of their students. Often it is completely justified. However, sometimes parents are not the only one that deserves the criticism. Sometimes when students present poorly at school, it is just as much the failure of the school to engage and enforce standards as it is the parents.

Take this case for example:

Teachers are warning that pupils are failing to pack their schoolbags with basic classroom equipment and instead are bringing mobile phones, iPods, hand-held computer game devices and even the latest iPads to school.

Some schools have even begun to introduce new agreements which require parents to ensure their children are equipped with textbooks and pens at the beginning of each day.

“They often don’t come to school with their books, or without their homework and sometimes they are lacking something so basic as a pencil to write with,” said Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT union.

“They come with all this electronic equipment, it would be nice if they just brought a pen.

“My message to parents is that you can send a very powerful message to your child about the importance of their schooling by making sure that they are ready to work when they get to class each morning.”

The problem will be discussed at the union’s annual conference later this week, which will also hear from schools which have drawn up “learning contracts” with parents to encourage them to take a keener interest in their child’s day-to-day progress.

Frustrated by pupils forgetting the basics but arriving with hundreds of pounds worth of electronics in their blazer pocket or schoolbag, one Sheffield teacher was instrumental in introducing a learning contract at his school.

The English and drama teacher, who declined to be named, said: “I teach children from some of the wealthiest backgrounds in the city but it was getting to be an absolute pain in terms of the day-to-day basics.

“It’s amazing how many devices kids carry around with them these days. Young people aspire to have these Macbooks and other expensive equipment but it seems to me that the priorities are skewed.

“They automatically reach for their MP3 players and so on, but not for the writing equipment.

“I believe they should be able to pick up a pen and construct a sentence, which is correct in terms of grammar and spelling, without resorting to an electronic spellchecking device which will probably give them an incorrect, American version.”

He added: “Our policy sees any forgotten equipment being marked in children’s daily log books for parents to see and I urge all parents in the country to check their child has the basic equipment for the school day.”

The Education Bill published in January proposed new powers for teachers to confiscate prohibited items, including electronic gadgets, and to also enable staff to examine data such as video clips for evidence of bullying or other bad behaviour.

A survey in 2006 found that 91 per cent of children owned a mobile telephone by the age of 12.

This article is a great example of teachers blaming parents for a problem they have a share in. The following points need to be made:

  1. If you have a child at your school for 5-15 years and they still haven’t grasped the concept of bringing pens and text books to class, you are not running a very good school. Where are your rules? Where are your expectations? Don’t blame parents for not overseeing their kids’ schoolbag – surely you can do more to enforce standards of organisation.
  2. What has mobile phones and i-Pods got to do with not bringing books and pens to school? If you have a problem with electronic gadgets, ban them or at least set some guidelines. Kids will always be drawn to modern gadgets. Don’t blame mobile phones for the lack of student organisation. There is no reason why kids can’t be taught the importance of balancing educational and extra-curricular activities.
  3. If you’ve got something to say to parents don’t do it through the media. Teachers and parents must work together. Articles that have teachers preaching to parents often create a divide which helps no one.
  4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a likely reason for our students being so disinterested in their studies as to come to class unprepared, is due to the lack of engagement on the part of teacher. One of the most important skills a teacher must have is the ability to stimulate and interest their class. If their class seems bored, it is probably because they have a boring teacher. It’s so easy to blame parents and i-Pods, when the real issue is there are too many teachers who offer little and expect a lot in return.

You might accuse me of being disloyal to my profession. The truth is, I am a parent as well as a teacher, and I empathise and relate to both sides of this debate. Sure there is far too many parents out there that don’t get involved with their child’s educational needs. I hear horror stories all the time. But let’s not forget that teachers choose to enter this profession because they want to make a difference to their students. To do this, they must be prepared to work through all obstacles and challenges.

Apportioning blame is fine – just as long as all parties accept some responsibility.

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 1 Comment »

Poor Children Coming to School Tired and Hungry

April 15, 2011

This is a universal problem that requires a lot more attention.  Teachers are not given enough credit for their role in supporting kids that come to school with inadequate food or no lunch at all.  It is not widely known that teachers often spend out of their own pocket to ensure that their poorer students have what to eat.  But the problem still exists, and it must be addressed.

A concerted campaign from schools by working with charity groups to ensure that meals are provided for students of poor families should ensure that heartbreaking articles like this one will be a thing of the past:

Teachers are reporting a rise in pupils entering the classroom feeling tired, hungry and dressed in worn-out clothes.

A study by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found almost eight-in-10 staff had pupils living below the poverty line and a quarter believed numbers had increased since the start of the recession.

One teacher from Nottingham told of a sixth-former who had not eaten for three days as her “mother had no money at all until pay day”.

A teaching assistant from a West Midlands comprehensive told researchers that some pupils had “infected toes due to feet squashed into shoes way too small”, while another member from Halifax reported a boy who was ridiculed in the PE changing room because his family could not afford to buy him any underpants.

Some teachers told how pupils were consistently late for lessons as parents could not cover the bus fare to school. Other children from middle to lower income families have been forced to cut out school tips because money is so tight, it was claimed.

The disclosure follows the publication of figures showing a rise in the number of pupils eligible for free school meals as families struggle to stay above the breadline in the recession.

Almost 1.2 million five- to 16-year-olds claimed free lunches last year – a rise of more than 83,000 in just 12 months.

Mary Bousted, ATL general secretary, claimed that problems would escalate further because of Government funding cuts – putting the Coalition’s social mobility drive in jeopardy.

“It is appalling that in 2011 so many children in the UK are severely disadvantaged by their circumstances and fail to achieve their potential,” she said.

“What message does this government think it is sending young people when it is cutting funding for Sure Start centres, cutting the Education Maintenance Allowance, raising tuition fees and making it harder for local authorities to provide health and social services.

“The Government should forget empty rhetoric about social mobility and concentrate on tackling the causes of deprivation and barriers to attainment that lock so many young people into a cycle of poverty.”

It is time that we made the most crucial issues in education our first priority and main focus.  As important as debate over class size, ICT, male teacher numbers are for improved educational outcomes, such discussion often takes over.  We need to get back to basics.  The basic requirement for a school is to look after the welfare of its students.  That makes health and bullying among the most important priorities in my book.Here’s an opportunity for schools and charity groups to work together to tackle a problem that shouldn’t even exist in the forst place.

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Posted in Child Welfare, Nutrition | 2 Comments »

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