Yaa..Well...There's Always Mashed Potatoes.I was excited to help in my granddaughter's first grade class recently. She has a great teacher, but I still thought about telling her to go home and let me take over. I do miss the daily interaction with young children. I really wished I lived closer because one particular boy instantly bonded to m…
Play for a ChangeSeveral students I know are doing research into children's play at the moment, so hopefully all of them (and many other readers) will find today's post useful.Last week Play England published Play for a Change - Play, Policy and Practice: A Review of Contemporary Perspectives. The organisation prese…
Education For AllThe latest edition of UNESCO's annual global monitoring report for education makes for depressing reading. In previous years the organisation had set a target to have all primary age children in education by 2015, yet the failure of rich countries to meet their aid pledges means that there could be …
New Laws on Forced MarriagesLast year the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 was voted through by parliament, and from today this legislation is to be implemented in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is the first set of laws which have been designed specifically to deal with the issue of forced marriage; among…
Children and Young People in MindWhen the Children's Plan was published by the DCSF in December last year, one of the announcements that it contained was for an independent review of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the UK. Following the publication of an interim report - Improving the Mental Health and Psycho…
What Happened?If you think the blog looks different, you'd be right! Unfortunately we had some technical problems with the previous template which was used to design the page, so have been forced to give the blog a new look. Hopefully readers will still find that the information here is clearly laid out and easy …
Pupil AttainmentThe DCSF has just released detailed statistics on pupil attainment for the last academic year, which are broken down by various pupil characteristics, including gender, ethnicity, SEN and others. For the first time, Foundation Stage results have been included too. To view the statistics, click here.…
CCInform (Again!)It's a slow news day, so I'd just like to take another opportunity to remind students about CCInform which is now located behind the 'Non-Athens Resources' link on Blackboard, and no longer requires you to remember any login details.CCInform is a service from the people behind Community Care magazin…
Working TogetherBased on recent comments, know that nothing brings out the passion in people like politics (and religion). It would be nice if everyone would take all of their passion for such topics and aim it toward improving things that will really improve the life of citizens. As I mentioned a couple of weeks a…
Ofsted Annual ReportToday sees the publication of Ofsted's annual report, which gives an overall picture of the state of education in England. The latest report differs slightly from previous years as Ofsted now has a wider remit to inspect all children's services and adult learning as well as schools. Among the core t…
Britain & BeyondFollowing on from yesterday's post, here are some details of another recent survey. Britain and Beyond is the name of a new report from the charity Youthnet; the research for the report was carried out from May-July 2008, when 850 young people aged 16-24 were asked about their attitudes to issues su…
Breaking The CycleA poll commissioned by the charity Barnardos has uncovered some rather negative statistics; according to the research which they have commissioned, more than half of the population believe that UK children are "feral" and behave like animals.The figures drawn come from a new report entitled Breaking…
School and MoneyWe are in such a shaky economic time right now that I worry about the effects it will have on educational funding. Almost 50% of funding for education comes from state money (the rest comes from local taxes and a small amount from the federal government). I knew funding was always a critical issue w…
A Mixed BagNeed some reading for the weekend? Once again the latest issue of the OnTheWeb newsletter (see this previous post for details of this excellent service) has come up trumps, so without further ado, here are some of the highlights from the latest issue...Aspirations: The Views of Foster Children and t…
Harnessing Technology 2008Becta have just released their latest annual Harnessing Technology report; this review focuses on the use of ICT in schools and further education, and provides an excellent snapshot of current provision for students. One of the key issues highlighted in this year's report is the importance of ensuri…
Raising the BarThe Daycare Trust has today published a new briefing which I suspect most of the blog's readers will support wholeheartedly. The report argues that the government should intervene on pay and conditions for early years workers, and proposes a number of recommendations as to how this could be achieved…
Educational Provision for Autistic ChildrenThe Autism Education Trust (AET) was launched last year by the DCSF, to investigate improve educational support for children in England who are on the autistic spectrum. Today the AET publishes Educational Provision for Children and Young People on the Autism Spectrum Living in England: a Review of …
Ending Child Poverty: Thinking 2020A new week, a new child poverty report...The government's pledge to end child poverty by 2020 is well known; back in June, the Child Poverty Unit and the Institute for Public Policy Research held a conference to discuss future methods of achieving this goal. A summary of the papers presented, and co…
CCInformEarlier this year I posted about an impressive new service we had introduced to the College called CCInform. Initially take-up of the new service was low as we had some issues with regards to setting up user accounts for students, but these have now been resolved and you can access CCInform behind t…
It Is History!Like many Americans, I had a hard time sleeping last night after hearing President-elect Obama's acceptance speech. His speech was filled with a challenge for future healing and a hope that America can get back on track as a land of promise. I felt the promise that we can make our country an even be…
Learning Outside The ClassroomA new DCSF backed website has recently been lauched for educators in England. It's title is Learning Outside The Classroom, and it's aim is to provide information and resources for practitioners who work in this area. The site is still a work in progress so is not yet complete, but it is worth takin…
Getting On, Getting AheadYesterday saw the publication of Getting On, Getting Ahead, a discussion paper from the government's Strategy Unit. The report is based on research carried out by the LSE and Bristol University, and suggests that social mobility in the UK (the ability of individuals to move between social classes an…
Fostering FamiliesA new publication from the Fostering Network examines an area of policy that is often disregarded; the report, entitled Fostering Families, looks at the issues that can be faced by the sons and daughters of parents who choose to offer foster care to other children. The report also contains some reco…