Information SharingWednesday's blog post talked about the role of children's trusts in coordinating services, so perhaps it's timely that this week the Government has chosen to issue some updated guidance on information sharing which is aimed at practitioners who work in health, education, or social care. The various …
Family Support WorkersToday's post is aimed at our students on the Family Support Workers foundation degree course. I spoke with some of you in the library on Monday and it was mentioned that while many of you look at the blog regularly, you'd like to see more posts relating specifically to your course rather than genera…
Are We There Yet?Today's post title is nothing to do with children in the back seat of a car...In 2003 the Victoria Climbie Inquiry delivered its final report into the circumstances of her death. Among its recommendations to prevent a recurrence of such an event was a proposal (later taken up by the Government) to e…
Hot and ColdThis past week, I had the opportunity of doing workshops in Los Angeles and Anaheim, California as well as Atlantic City, New Jersey. When I boarded the plane in Anaheim, it was 92 degrees. When I deplaned in Philadelphia, it was in the 40's. Burrrrr...what a difference. Going from hot to cold made …
Children's Survey / Gifted ChildrenOfsted has just published its annual Tellus3 survey which asks 10-15 year olds in England a range of questions covering the five Every Child Matters outcomes about their lives, concerns, and general wellbeing. You can read about some of the most interesting findings by looking at this news story, wh…
New Child Poverty ResearchChild poverty is one of those topics that seems to be perenially in the news, but even those who follow it closely may be surprised to learn that according to a new piece of research, from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, child poverty is costing Britain £25 billion pounds a year. This figure apparen…
Every Child Matters articleToday's post is simply to point you towards an article which appeared in yesterday's Guardian, which some of you may find interesting. Changes for the Better interviews several professionals who work with young people to ask them how children's services have changed in the five years since the publi…
Children's Emotional Development and WellbeingThe Office for National Statistics has just released a lengthy new report entitled Three Years On, which takes a detailed look at the development and emotional well-being of children and young people. The report has made headlines for it's claim that children whose parents have separated are more li…
Families & RelationshipsThe Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) is a department of the University of Edinburgh. Research carried out by the Centre spans a wide range of topics, such as parenting styles, the treatment of older generations and cohabitation. Although much of their published output focuses…
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About ChildrenToday's post may be the longest this blog has ever seen; last months issue of OnTheWeb (see this previous post for details of this excellent service) was packed with reports that students may find useful, covering topics such as mathematics, child obesity, preschool education, play, and much more. S…
The Millennium Cohort StudyThe Millennium Cohort Study is a huge ongoing project which is examining the social conditions which today's children will encounter as they grow up, and so looks at a wide range of topics such as education, parenting, social class and more. The project is so named because it gathers its data from o…
ICT in Secondary SchoolsToday's post is for our ICT bods. Last month Becta produced a series of reports on the subject of Web 2.0 within secondary school (for an explanation of 'Web 2.0', see this previous post). Each report considers different aspects of how such technologies can be used within schools, and their possible…
Quality Child CareIn the last weeks we have been talking about quality child care in my Introduction to Teaching course. Research tells us that quality child care contributes to the cognitive and emotional development of children. This results in lower levels of delinquency, teenage pregnancy, drug use, and dropout …
Children & Young Person's BillThis week the Children & Young Person's Bill received another reading in the House of Commons, which means it is one step closer to becoming law; the Bill contains various measures intended to improve the planning and delivery of services for children in care. There are still various points which MP…
Poverty & The MediaOccasionally students make enquiries about how the media reports on early years or social issues, so if you're doing research in that area then today's post should interest you. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has recently published The Media, Poverty and Public Opinion in the UK, which makes a detai…
Round UpI was away for most of last week, so here's a quick summary of some of the new reports and research which came out during that time:A report from the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child made 120 recommendations for improving the rights of children in the UK; among its recommendations were call…
Sage Journals - Special OfferThis is just a short post to inform all readers that if you log onto Athens and choose the Sage Journals site, you will be able to access all of the articles there in full until the end of October. Sage has a lot of content that relates to education, childcare, social issues and social sciences, so …
We're in this Together!I did a math workshop in Nashville this week and it was wonderful. What a great group of teachers and caregivers! It is always such a treat to go around the country and meet other early childhood professionals. The commonality is that we all want what is best for young children and strive to be appr…