I lost my mother last week to Alzheimer's disease. We were wonderful friends and she was a delightful parent and support to me throughou...
2007 - That Was The Year That Was
If you're a huge music fan like I am, you'll know that this is the time of year when the shops are full of greatest hits collections...
Social Mobility
The Sutton Trust educational charity has published a study which examines how social mobility has altered in the UK in recent decades. The ...
Children's Plan / Commercialisation of Childhood
If you've seen the news today you can't have escaped noticing that today is the day that the Government unveils its Children's P...
Equality & Human Rights Commission
Those of you who have been asking me for information about discrimination in recent days should really take a look at the website of the Equ...
Free E-Books
Hopefully many of you have now made use of the growing collection of ebooks which are available through E-Book Library (EBL) via Athens. How...
Educational Evidence Portal
Probably the main function of this blog is to direct students and staff towards research reports and other useful information on the Web whi...
More from OnTheWeb
Hot on the heels of the last issue of OnTheWeb comes the latest issue, which covers children and education-related research and reports whi...
Could We Have Made a Difference?
We went to California this past weekend to surprise my daughter for her 30th birthday. We also spent some time in San Francisco shopping and...
Child Poverty / International Education
The latest big report relating to child poverty is the 2007 version of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's annual publication, Monitoring P...
How Young Is Too Young?
A couple of newspapers have today picked up on a story about a letter which appears in today's Times Educational Supplement (TES). The ...
Teachers / Literacy
It's been mentioned briefly on this blog before, but I've been asked to draw people's attention again to the ongoing Becoming A ...
Latest from OnTheWeb
The latest issue of OnTheWeb contains its usual mixture of reports on all sorts of education and childcare related topics. Among the highli...
Internet Detective
Fancy brushing up on your internet skills? Hopefully some of you are finding the occasional tips that I post on here useful when using the i...
A Visit from Two Princesses
We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. Three of my grandchildren came and with my grandson in the highchair it was necessary to create ...
Children's Rights
A number of reports looking at the views of children living away from home or receiving social care services have been published duting the ...
Starting To Learn
Today and tomorrow sees a gathering of the great and good of the early years world at The Early Years Foundation Stage: Views From Near And ...
Google Scholar
One of the most interesting things about a job like mine is seeing how the way that students access information changes over time. When I st...
If You're Happy & You Know It...
With all the reports in recent months on bullying, poverty, exam stress, obesity and more besides, you'd be forgiven for thinking that B...
Speaking of infants and toddlers...
I just returned from the annual NAEYC convention. This year it was held in Chicago and it was a big event. I had the opportunity of spending...
Play / Poverty
There's two new reports out today which are worth mentioning. They concern play and poverty, two of the topics which students most frequ...
Children's Television
Last month, Ofcom published An independent Report on The Future of Children’s Television Programming ; this is a piece of research which the...
ADHD / Medication
Tonight's episode of Panorama on BBC1 will feature new research which appears to demonstrate that drugs such as Ritalin, which are used...
Open Access Journals
As if we didn't have enough academic journals available through Athens, there is also a large (and growing) number of 'open access...
Special Educational Needs / School Sport
This week the excellent Teachers TV is featuring a range of programmes which deal with various aspects of Special Educational Needs. As usu...
Child Safety
Last week saw the launch of No Fear , a new publication which investigates whether a preoccupation with keeping children safe is having the ...
Future Family
The BBC's Breakfast Programme is running a series of features this week on modern family life in Britain. Each of the reports will be ...
Whew!
I just finished creating some experiences and activities to populate a new teacher website resource. We already have resources for Head Star...
Latest from the Primary Review
The latest reports from the Primary Review (look at this previous post for information about the project) have again succeeded in making h...
Resource Banks
When you're out on placement, are you ever stuck for ideas on what to do with the children in your classroom? Or perhaps you just want t...
Creativity in Schools
An new report from the Parliamentary Education and Skills Commitee has flagged the importance of creativity as part of a balanced curricul...
Bereavement
Several students have recently asked what information is available on child bereavement, which seems as good an excuse as any to make that t...
The Invisible Web
As it's a slow news day, here's the latest instalment of an occasional series of search tips / tricks which appear on this blog. Tod...
When's Your Birthday?
A report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies has confirmed what many have suspected for a long time; the date of a child's birthday ca...
Community Family Support Resources
The number of students from the FdA Community Family Support who have visited the library office today suggests that you're all rather k...
Internet Safety
A new campaign has been launched by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), with the aim of helping young children to ...
Child Obesity
One of the most common enquiries from students is requests for information on child obesity, so no doubt many readers will be interested in ...
Families & Neighbourhoods
Yesterday saw the publication of a survey based on interviews with 2,100 parents across England. The survey, entitled Families and Neighbour...
Video Games
This post is being created primarily in response to the person who left a comment on Monday's post regarding children and video games, b...
Alternative Education
A bizarre story in the Guardian today tells of a 'secret school' in Germany which had apparently escaped the notice of the local au...
Latest from OnTheWeb
Once again the people behind the OnTheWeb service ( click here for details) have done an excellent job of bringing together details of new ...
Appropriate Practice-cont.
I should have done a better job last posting of explaining about my 'adopted' grandchildren. Those two cuties are not my grandchild...
Primary Review
Primary Review is an independent project based at the University of Cambridge which is taking a detailed look at primary education in the UK...
Nursery Places
The Daycare Trust and National Centre for Social Research have just collaborated on Childcare Nation , a report which aims to act as a com...
Space Learning
If you're a devotee of the cult 1960s programme The Prisoner , then you may remember one episode where the characters were exposed to a ...
We Know Too Much
Sometimes I think that well-trained early childhood educators know too much. It may certainly be the case when we look at our own children a...
Rounding Up The Reports
Friday feels like a good day to round up some of the reports which have recently been published but not yet featured on the blog, so hopeful...
It's a Family Affair...
The changing face of the family in the UK is highlighted today with the publication of Focus on Families . This publication takes an incred...
School Dinners / Children's Television
Just like buses, it seems that news stories relating to children seem to come in twos and threes... The first headline of interest today rel...
Children & Doctors
Anyone writing about children's health issues may be interested in taking a look at a new publication from the General Medical Council. ...
Great Books
Teacher's TV and the National Union of Teachers (NUT) are collaborating on a project to find out which books have most inspired the pe...
School Councils
A new piece of research looking at school councils, and the role that they can play in allowing pupils to become involved in decision making...
Guidance / Briefing Papers for Schools
If you work in a school or early years setting, you'll know that bodies like the DCSF regularly issue briefing papers for staff on a wid...
Healthy Eating
It's induction week at the College, which may make it difficult to add regular updates this week, as everyone's so busy. So today...
Finding the Leaks
We have been creating two ponds and a stream in our back yard. It has taken a long time because it has been so hot this summer. Once we ha...
New Cyberbullying Campaign
The DCSF has launched a new campaign to tackle the problem of cyberbullying. The homepage for the campaign can be viewed here , while a full...
Education At A Glance
Continuing the international theme from last week's post, the OECD has just published the latest annual edition of Education At A Glanc...
Language & Communication
Last week the DCSF announced that it was launching a review into the support services that are currently available for children with speech...
International Resources
There's a global flavour to today's post, as we take a look around some of the internet resources which contain information on child...
HLTA Staff
Students on our HLTA courses may be interested in a new report from the NFER . Research into the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff who...
Child Poverty & Education
Following the trend of several recent posts, another new report dealing with the issues surrounding poverty has just been released. Chicken ...
New Research from OnTheWeb
The latest issue of OnTheWeb (see this previous post for details of the service) is up to its usual high standard, with links to dozens of...
Conferences
As part of your professional development, it's necessary to stay on top of your subject by extensive reading of items such as journal ar...
NAEYC Visit
I had the opportunity to briefly visit the NAEYC headquarters in Washington DC this past week. I was part of a discussion about what are the...
Chavs and Chav-nots
Hot on the heels of yesterday's post , the Joseph Rowntree Foundation seems to be attempting some sort of record by today publishing ei...
Child Poverty
Barnardo's has just published a new report on child poverty. It Doesn't Happen Here: The Reality of Child Poverty in the UK is a p...
Ready To Read: New Phonics Research
New research from the Civitas thinktank suggests that primary school pupils who receive intensive "synthetic phonics" lessons can...
Nutrition & School Meals
This week there have been some confusing stories in the news on how well children are eating. Most of the headlines have focused on new figu...