Furious parents and local councillors today blasted a school after it unveiled plans to build a ‘prison-style’ block for 12 of its most notorious troublemakers.
Tudor Grange Academy in Worcester, West Midlands – which has the second highest expulsion rate in England – has applied to convert a disused office block into an ‘alternative education’ facility.
There are programs and activities that I would classify as expendable – recess is not one of them! How a school could justify putting a stop to recess is beyond me. Even in prison there is circle work and yard time. Why on earth would a school want to deprive its students from the social and physical outlet that recess presents? Kids are forced to sit at their desks for hours without socialising with their peers. They long for the chance to get out into the fresh air with their friends. What school would deprive them of that right?
There’s not a minute to waste in the school day for Syracuse elementary students. There’s not even a minute reserved for recess.
The city’s elementary schools have master schedules for the new year and they include zero time blocked out for recess. The schedule requires every minute of a student’s day, except a half-hour lunch, to be spent on instruction.
At least one city school and more than a few teachers took the schedule to mean there could be no more recess, although district Chief Academic Officer Laura Kelley said teachers can offer recess if they want.
It is not clear how teachers could squeeze in recess and still spend the required number of minutes on instruction.
“If they are going to opt to do recess, they are going to be taking time from ELA (English language arts) and math, and that’s a choice I hope every teacher considers very carefully,” Kelley said.
This is absolutely disgraceful! I wouldn’t consider this very carefully at all. If the wellbeing of your students is your first priority, then recess is FAR more important than an extra lesson of math or English.
In fact, I would take my students outside for the day in protest. I would integrate my curriculum for the day around recess. I would have math related recess activities, language based recess activities etc.
To ban recess is tantamount to banning teachers from going home to have dinners with their families, with the reasoning that this time could be used for planning lessons.
I hate some of the trends being flagged in educational circles. They put achievement before child welfare, process before outcomes, political correctness before common sense and regulations before freedoms.
One of my non-negotiable as a teacher is – my students have the right to enjoy their school day!
Sweden has new school system that is eliminating all of its classrooms in favor of an environment that fosters children’s “curiosity and creativity.”
Vittra, which runs 30 schools in Sweden, wanted learning to take place everywhere in its schools — so it threw out the “old-school” thinking of straight desks in a line in a four-walled classroom.
A ‘tinkle pass‘? Are you kidding? Is this a ploy to bury the final glimmer of hope in connecting with your student population?
If you feel that students are wasting too much time taking trips to the toilet you should start by reassessing your teaching methodologies. If teachers were able to engage students, the toilet break count would drastically decrease:
A secondary school has outraged parents after introducing a ‘tinkle pass’ which allows students out of lessons to use the toilet just once a week.
The cards are issued to students at Castle Vale Performing Arts College in Birmingham every Monday morning.
If students don’t use them, they must hand them in on a Friday afternoon to ensure they aren’t carried forward to the next week.
The specially designed ‘tinkle card’ reads: ‘I am missing a super learning opportunity because I need a tinkle.’
New headmistress at the school, Charlotte Blencowe, is responsible for the introduction of the cards after introducing a series of new strict policies after taking over during the summer.
Students have also been told they can only communicate in class via a series of hand-signals.
These include ‘Fingers to eyes and then to the board = I can’t see’, ‘To hands clasped in the air = I need a new book or paper’ and ‘3 fingers in the air = I need the toilet.’
Pupils have also been told that their bags would be searched to ensure their mobile phones are switched off and to check that they have the required number of pens and pencils.
It’s more important than standardized testing results, record of behavior management or leadership skills. The most important thing a school can offer to its students is a caring environment. Schools which support and fight for the well being of its students are the ones which ultimately nurture the happiest children.
Uniforms are important for establishing school pride and have been linked to improved behaviour – but there are many more important facets to a good school:
A teenage girl who has to wear special shoes due to a foot condition, has been told by her school she will be taught in isolation if she doesn’t wear the ‘correct’ shoes.
Keeley Skov has to wear achilles tendon supports and orthotic insoles as she suffers from achilles tendonitis which causes her chronic pain.
The supports don’t fit into standard school shoes, and so Keeley wears a pair of black and white trainers to school.
But Wilnecote High School in Tamworth, Staffs, have told the 13-year-old she must wear regulation black school shoes – despite Keeley having a medical note to explain the situation.
The school will not accept the letter and have said they will keep Keeley in isolation until she wears a pair of plain black shoes.
Mum Carrie Skov said: ‘Keeley is a shy girl, she works hard at school and she was devastated. She was in floods of tears.
‘I was told by a teacher that she would be in isolation until she wore the correct shoes and that they would not accept the letter from the hospital.”
Tan said that when she had registered her kids for elementary school, the boys’ future teachers had worriedly informed her that they would likely have difficulty telling them apart.
So in an attempt to avert potential mayhem, Tan decided that the boys — who are reportedly identical save for differences in the shape of their eyelids — needed to be adorned with a more distinguishing trait that would set them apart from each other.
“My sons are identical, even to me,” said Tan, according to MSN. “I could only tell the difference between them by having different ankle tags on them before they turned 18 months old.”
I try not to judge other parents, but I just can’t let this one go without making a comment.
Potting training can be a very difficult challenge, especially when you have twins, but there is nothing more disgusting than to practice it at the table of a restaurant:
A MOTHER is facing a backlash of criticism worldwide after she was caught potty training her twin daughters in a busy restaurant.
The mother from Utah was first seen by nearby diner Kimberly Decker, who was having lunch with a friend.
Ms Decker was so shocked by the mother’s actions that she decided to take a photo of one of the young girls sitting in her portable potty seat before she put it on Facebook.
“It didn’t quite register at first what was happening, but when I took a second glance I realized this is NOT OK!
“I decided to snap a picture of the whole incident and then later that afternoon as a ‘joke’ I decided to post it on Facebook. I couldn’t believe the response I got.”
Parents were challenged to play a prank on their children by making them wear embarrassing outfits for their first day of school. But watching the compilation video, I couldn’t help but admire these children rather than laugh at their expense:
Every once in a while, Jimmy Kimmel will ask his viewers to pull a prank on their loved ones and upload the results to YouTube. Last Halloween he asked parents to pretend to have eaten their kids’ candy, and last Christmas he asked them to give their kids a disappointing gift.
This time around, he challenged America to mess with that most sacred of back to school supplies: the new outfit. Instead of presenting their kids with a brand new backpack or pair of sneakers, these brave souls went with something a little more ridiculous and filmed the results.
Children today are seen as temperamental, spoiled, selfish and disrespectful. These kids were anything but. The way they reacted serves as a reminder to adults that they can not be underestimated.
I wasn’t a big fan of the set-up, but I am a huge fan of the kids involved and how well most of them handled the situation.
I believe teaching is a co-operative, collegiate, collaborative pursuit to varying degrees. The very idea of singling out a teacher for some sort of specious award is an insult to every other teacher. The whole idea is so much crap.
Erica DePalo, 33, won the Essex County, N.J. Teacher of the Year award in 2011. Last Friday, she was arrested and accused of having a sexual relationship with one of her 15-year-old honors English students, according to CBS New York.
Many of the students that the station spoke with were blindsided by the allegations.
“I was kind of shocked,” Arnold Ajondo said. ”I was a little surprised. She was really close with the students and we all liked her. She was always there after school if you ever needed any help.”
DePalo was charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, according to the Star Ledger.
Jeroen Wolf found 100 people, ranging in age from nought to 100, and persuaded them to reveal on camera how old they were.
He then put all the clips together to make a poignant video showing the volunteers counting to 100 – revealing how the ageing process alters how we look as we continue on life’s journey.
Mr Wolf said his job was easiest collecting shots of youths and middle-aged people, but that he had more difficulty accessing the very young and very old, who are more vulnerable and protected.He admitted that his collection was not completely representative of the population of Amsterdam, where the project was filmed, as representatives of some minorities were more reluctant to appear on camera than others.
Topical Teaching 