Some online advent calendars.
Activity village – colour in page and an activity a day.
Nature Detectives – a nature activity a day in the countdown to Christmas.
CBeebies – a CBeebies surprise each day for the little ones.
CBBC – and something for the little bit older.
Tate Kids – Children’s favourites from Tate Kids Collection and a chance to win a prize.
All posts by Katherine
Norwich school children get a taster of a different kind of education
Primary school children get a chance to become zookeepers and think about animals in caprivity in a theme based.
What the article doesn’t say – this approach is hardly new! Of course as the subject has been set by the teacher it isn’t really the way inquiry-based learning works best – when it follows the child’s own interests. A little taster of home education for school children though.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED13%20Nov%202009%2016%3A16%3A38%3A557
Submissions to Select Committee on Badman Review
Those of us watching the Badman Review and the Government steps to register, monitor and control education outside school have been aware for a long time of the poor quality of the review and how it was obviously conducted to give Ed Balls the answere he wanted, rather than an independent review.
The Select Committee has now published the submissions to the inquiry into the review. The most interesting submissions include:
Ofsted wants parents CRB checked to look after their own children!
Badman seems to consider parents who home educate to be mentally ill!
And emminent Professor James C Conroy, member of Graham Badman’s Expert Reference Group concludes that “In my 30 odd years of professional life in education I have rarely encountered a process, the entirety of which was so slap dash, panic driven, and nakedly and naively populist.”
http://every-child-matters.blogspot.com/2009/11/our-case-against-change.html reviews the submissions
Clever fools: Why a high IQ doesn’t mean you’re smart
News Scientist reports on why IQ isn’t everything. 28 October 2009 http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427321.000-clever-fools-why-a-high-iq-doesnt-mean-youre-smart.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg20427321.000
Watford bans parents from adventure playgrounds
Completely typical of the current climate where parents are all assumed to be abusers.
We have been meaning to go, but now it is out of the question. E has clearly said that she won’t go unless she knows that I am there – not necessarily with her, but available if necessary.
This Government’s policies seem determined to undermine family life at every step. With the vetting and barring, banning parents from looking after each others children, and plans to interview home educated children as young as 5 alone (up until now reserved for abuse victims or those suspected of crimes).
Please, please, please – give some support to families. Parents and children must be encouraged to spend time playing together.
Young children and those with special needs especially need parental help settling in somewhere new. Parents need to be able to see how their children are getting on in a new environment before leaving them. It should be up to children to say if and when they want to be left alone.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6453268/Council-bans-parents-from-play-areas.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2703465/Parent-fury-over-playground-ban.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223528/Parents-banned-supervising-children-playgrounds–case-paedophiles.html
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/4705034.Parents_banned_from_council_play_areas/?action=thanks
“risks for babies whose parents did not smoke or consume alcohol or drugs but who did sleep with their baby were not different from that for babies in a separate cot”
OK – another study clearing saying what those of us who ever actually looked at the previous studies that supposedly linked cosleeping in an adult bed with cot death knew already…
Cosleeping is not a risk factor for SIDS – alcohol, drugs, smoking and sofas are.
Researchers say “Firstly, it is not enough to advise against cosleeping on a sofa; health professionals must advise parents to avoid putting themselves in the position where this could happen.”
The important part of this research is that it bedsharing with a sober, non-smoking adult is as safe as sleeping in a cot. Sofas are dangerous. The two must not be mixed up.
Telling parents not to cosleep has resulted in MORE deaths because parents then fall asleep with the baby in unsafe conditions – such as on the sofa.
The research actually found that
1. Baby sharing a bed with a parent who does not smoke, and hasn’t been taking drugs or alcohol has the same risk of SIDS as a baby sleeping in cot.
2. There is a higher risk to babies sharing with an adult who has been drinking more than 2 units of alcohol or been taking drugs.
3. Sofas have a higher risk of SIDS
4. Deaths in cots have declined, because of advice to have feet at bottom of cot, and to sleep on their backs.
Messages about how to cosleep more safely are what is needed.
http://www.babyfriendly.org.uk/pdfs/bfi_sids_statement_151009.pdf
And finally a newspaper produces a cosleeping story that reflects the research they are writing about! Interviewed in the Guardian researcher Peter Fleming says “My view is that the positive message of this study is that it says don’t drink or take drugs and don’t smoke, particularly for breastfeeding mothers. We did not find any increased risk from bedsharing. It is a very different message from the one the media picked up.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/16/sudden-infant-death-syndrome-children
I feel sorry for Peter Fleming – why do the papers insist on misunderstanding his research.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/16/cot-death-warning-misinterpreted
Mass Lobby of Parliament
Had an exciting and hopeful day at the Houses of Parliament. A big group of families – picnicing, playing, demonstrating and seeing their MPs.
We need to keep up the fight to make sure that every familiy has the right to choose the education that works best for their children. The recommendations would mean that parents would no longer have responbsibility for their children, that the state would be primarily responsible for them!
For the many children removed from school because of special needs, bullying or educational problems there would be NO PROTECTION from the very Local Authorites who have already been shown to be unable to provide a suitable education or protect them whilst at school.
LAs would be able to interview children alone, prevent families from home educating for any reason they like, without any appeal.
LAs already have all the powers they need.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acmenormans/
A generation of scaredy cats…
Risk fear creating ‘scaredy cats’
Author Tom Hodgkinson is speaking at conference on the balance between risk and safety. He warns that a preoccupation with minimising risk at home and in the classroom could be creating a generation of “scaredy cats”.
The conference, organised by Children in Scotland and Play Scotland, discussed whether risk aversion in society could have a long-term impact on youngsters.
Home educated children snatched by authorites
Home educators in Europe are fighting for the right to choose to home educate and in some cases are having their children snatched away JUST because they home educate.
The worst offenders are Germany (acting on legistlation introduced by Hilter) and Sweden, which is in the process of banning home education.
Four children of a family that fled Germany to avoid further fines for homeschooling have been snatched from their home in France by police and accused of “being alone,”
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=112106
The desperate situation of a 7-year-old homeschooled child who was nabbed by Swedish police from an airliner as his family was departing on a move to India