Focusing on student and family health

scameron — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:13:37 +0100

Background

Helping teachers cope with stress

scameron — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:51:41 +0100

The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it.
Anonymous

A day in the life of a school nurse

scameron — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:16:38 +0100

My dual role

Ways to soothe teacher stress

scameron — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:07:46 +0000

A student’s personal and academic development is directly dependent on the teacher’s ability to make connections on all levels.

The striving to connect requires conscientious and continuous input to a degree that can be draining. To tackle this, it is important for staff to address the factors that create stress, and then go on to create a still balance within themselves that will enable a fulfilled and meaningful life on all levels.

Here are some initial ideas that could bring benefit.

Using PE to boost cross curricular skills

scameron — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:11:46 +0000

CASE STUDY Combs Ford Primary School, Stowmarket, Suffolk

A Suffolk primary used the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s PE and School Sport (PESS) initiative to rejuvenate the entire school and boost the skills and independence of pupils with special educational needs.

Overview

Developing primary thinking skills with cricket

scameron — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:40:27 +0000

This Primary Know-How section from PE & Sport Today offers lesson activities for:

Year 3 and 4
Year 5
Year 6

Crispin Andrews first explains how striking and fielding activities can develop children's thinking skills

Sport spotlight: Orienteering

scameron — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:51:12 +0000

What is orienteering?

Sport spotlight: Mini-basketball

scameron — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:42:14 +0000

The world development is administered by the Federation Internationale de Basketball (International Basketball Federation; FIBA) with headquarters in the city of Geneva, Switzerland. The international objective is to introduce young people to the world of sport in a spirit of friendship and understanding.

A healthy diet for early years

scameron — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:00:09 +0000

As an extension of their work on healthy eating in schools, East Sussex County Council Trading Standards recently conducted the Nippers’ Nutrition study, to look at the nutritional content of food provided to children in childcare. Increasingly, children are spending full days at nursery so their main source of nutrition will be obtained there. Eating patterns are established in childhood, and if the current trend in obesity and other dietary related illnesses is to be reversed, action should be taken here.

Dealing with SEBD: positive handling

scameron — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:49:42 +0000

Many people’s mental picture of a school for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties will include an image of children – mainly boys – involved in regular outbursts of physical aggression towards adults and pupils. This often leads to the regular use of physical restraint. This was the reality at The Willows School. Over the past two years, however, violence has decreased dramatically, and there has been an increase in positive relationships and behaviour between children, and towards adults.

Girls from ethnic minorities: sports participation

scameron — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:47:42 +0000

Current research indicates that a significantly large proportion of females from ethnic minorities, particularly those from South Asian communities (e.g. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indians) are failing to participate in physical activity in the UK. Reliable data on participation trends which pertains to women from South Asian communities is scarce. The aim of this study therefore was to make a contribution that will help to shed light upon the real and lived experiences of South Asian females and their engagement with physical activity in the UK.

Introduction

Computer games to encourage fitness

scameron — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:18:51 +0000

Beneath Christmas trees across the country and around the world, Nintendo Wiis were wrapped and ready for action. And for once no one could complain about children and young people being couch potatoes as living rooms were transformed into sporting arenas.

Self-harm at primary schools: what you can do

scameron — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:21:36 +0000

Depending on the size and demographics of your school, you may encounter very few or several pupils who engage in deliberate self-harm (DSH) as a coping strategy and, less frequently, children who become so desperate that they consider or even attempt to take their own lives when life appears intolerable to them. Generally the role of schools needs to be considered within the comprehensive child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

Boxing4Schools: tackling youth issues

scameron — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:04:37 +0000

Boxing4Schools is the first project of its kind in the UK, linking schools with local amateur boxing clubs and endeavouring to address disaffected youths, discipline, respect and the battle against obesity.

The scheme is run in conjunction with the Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) and, for the first time in nearly 50 years, allows secondary school pupils to learn the training skills of non-contact boxing as a regular part of their curriculum.

Fetal alcohol syndrome in children

scameron — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:31:00 +0000

So-called ‘lifestyle illnesses’ are fast becoming the number one concern of politicians and health professionals. Professor Ian Gilmore, of the Royal College of Physicians, recently warned of ‘a tsunami of health-related harm’ if the government failed to take action on issues such as obesity and alcohol-related disease. Information released by the Department of Health in July, based on a new approach to counting alcohol-related hospital admissions, produced a figure of 811,000 in 2006 (accounting for 6% of all admissions) compared with 473,500 in 2002.

Teaching wrestling

scameron — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:27:06 +0000

Do you remember Please Sir and the Welsh teacher (Mr Price) who used to mark his pupils’ books down the pub?

That was the first time I had ever pondered what these highly respected figures did to unwind away from the stresses and strains of ‘the chalk face’.

Legal case notes: LA negligence in child protection cases

scameron — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:14:41 +0000

The facts
The claimant, 31 years old, was described as ‘a very disturbed man who has had serious mental health problems throughout his life’. He suffered from a borderline personality disorder with particular problems of anxiety and agoraphobia. He had had severe psychological problems in childhood, and required special schooling because of severe behavioural problems. In 1976, at the age of four months, he had been taken into care by the local authority because of significant loss of body weight and other symptoms of neglect.

Promoting students' happiness

scameron — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:35:47 +0000

Research shows that we can promote happiness by:

training ourselves to see the best in people and situations
learning to deal positively with adversity
retaining a sense of balance whatever the circumstances.

This means that there is considerable potential for teaching children how to actively pursue happiness.

Curriculum

Remembering child protection with older young people

scameron — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:30:59 +0000

Newcastle’s Safeguarding Children Board has recently published a serious case review in respect of a 16-year-old girl. To review the death of a young person of this age is an unusual step and this particular review highlights some of the dilemmas faced by professionals in respect of teenagers who are not quite old enough to be of concern to adult services. Child protection law defines a child as a person up to the age of 18 but there seems to be increasing difficulty in recognising the teenager as in need of child protection.

Raise pupils' awareness of children's rights

scameron — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:17:39 +0000

What is ECPAT UK?

Student happiness resource: what works well for them?

scameron — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:01:39 +0000

It invites students to assess what works well for them in school by beginning a Happiness Log with a Happiness Diary and a number of activities, and includes templates that are ready to print out and use.

Written by Ruth MacConville

Understanding and preventing suicide in young people

scameron — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:54:40 +0000

In the aftermath of the suicides of young people in Bridgend, Wales, where 19 young people under the age of 27 have hanged themselves, a suicide prevention project is to be set up using nearly one million pounds of lottery funding. Quite separately, the Samaritans is in the early stages of developing a suicide and self-harm response kit for schools, and has opened a consultation process to which anyone with relevant experience can contribute.

SEAL activities to promote emotional health and wellbeing

scameron — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:11:42 +0000

The activities explore perceptions of happiness, encourage new friendships and groupwork, explore prejudices and challenge stereotyping.

Written by Belinda Heaven

Supporting the emotional needs of children

scameron — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:29:05 +0000

For the past 12 months, Carmarthenshire Youth and Children’s Association has been running a project designed to help secondary schools in the Llanelli area to address the emotional needs of their pupils. The project, called Reaching Out, is funded by the Big Lottery Fund.

Interventions

Social and emotional wellbeing: NICE guidance

scameron — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:15:29 +0000

The NICE guidance on promoting the social and emotional wellbeing of primary-age children recommends that schools and children’s services promote a holistic approach which ‘recognises the importance of a supportive and secure environment and an ethos that avoids stigma and discrimination in relation to mental health and social and emotional difficulties.’

The guidance is designed to complement other initiatives, such as SEAL and the National Healthy Schools programme which, it says, ‘provide important vehicles for implementing these recommendations.’

Is two hours of PE a week enough?

scameron — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:42:58 +0100

Nearly every day you can read or watch an article in the news with regards to healthy living or obesity issues. On the news I watched a piece on how inactive adults have become – and that an adult is dying every day as a result of inactivity. If adults are inactive, what role model do they provide to their children? Very recently there was a newspaper article discussing how scientists have created a new formula for newborn babies that has a specific hormone in that could ‘end obesity’.

Helping pupils with asthma to exercise

scameron — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:35:00 +0100

Research suggests that up to one third of children with asthma may miss out on PE or other sport about once a week because of their condition, despite compelling evidence that exercise is good for them. There is no reason why an asthmatic child, given proper medication, support and appropriate adjustments to their activities, should not enjoy the full range of physical activities on offer at a school.

Teaching non-traditional street sports

scameron — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:30:28 +0100

Encouraging our children and young people to undertake more physical activity is becoming an increasingly important priority for schools. In summer 2007, prime minister Gordon Brown said: “We need to put school sport back where it belongs, playing a central role in the school day. Whatever their natural ability and whatever their age, sports and activity can make our children healthier and raise their self-confidence and self-esteem.”

Promoting healthy eating in children

scameron — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:36:55 +0100

We don’t always have to agree with her, but the first sentences of Janet Street Porter’s column in the Independent on Sunday 24 February 2008 are useful starting points when looking at healthy eating in schools. She suggests that: ‘A whopping number of kids – around a quarter – are now officially overweight before they’ve even started primary school, according to new statistics released by the Department of Health.

Self-harm at primary schools: what you should know

scameron — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:16:33 +0100

In the past two to three decades there has been a disturbing increase in suicidal behaviour among children and adolescents. This type of behaviour includes non-fatal behaviours such as attempted suicide or deliberate self-harm (DSH) and completed suicide.

Such behaviours by children and young people may be frightening and even incomprehensible to their peers, and inevitably evoke powerful emotional responses in adults, who can find it disturbing that a young person finds their life so unbearable that they wish to end it or put it at risk.

PE teaching resource: Students' fitness diary

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:28:27 +0100

Encouraging students to fill out this fitness diary in PE lessons not only encourages physical activity, but also triggers research in associated subject areas such as health and biology.

The diary concentrates on the areas of aerobic exercise, muscular endurance and strength, but PE teachers can adapt the tasks to suit their students’ main areas of activity.

Written by Lisa Symonds

Taken from The PE File, edited by Sara Evans (no longer published)

Lesson plans for effective PE transition

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:28:27 +0100

This free resource for PE teachers gives suggestions for lessons plans for the autumn and summer terms of year 6 , to smooth the way for a constructive, rather than repetitious, programme over the KS2 and KS3 cross-over.

Written by Lisa Symonds

Taken from The PE File, edited by Sara Evans (no longer published)

Personal development for professional gain

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:44 +0100

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.
Alice Koller

We may not be as good at supporting our personal development as we are at promoting professional development but there’s no time like the present to start trying!

Practical tips: Professional learning made personal

read more

Improving the safety of children and young people

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:42 +0100

What is 'Staying Safe'?
Staying Safe was launched for consultation in July 2007 by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), with the aim of promoting a widespread discussion on how best to keep children and young adults safe, and how to respond when they have been harmed. More than 1,000 people responded to the consultation − parents, practitioners, voluntary groups and, perhaps most importantly, children and young people themselves.
read more

Secondary Assembly: Naturally high!

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:40 +0100

Summary
This week's assembly examines our apparent need for a 'buzz' in life, and how some people achieve this in a positive way, and others in a much less positive way. It challenges listeners to consider the rejection of harmful lifestyle choices and replace them with the idea of getting high on life. It uses a number of recent news items about the drugs and alcohol culture, which seems to have Britain in its grip, from the alleged drug-taking of high-profile musicians to the plan to reclassify cannabis as a class B drug.
Resources
read more

Enrichment Activities: Thinking about bereavement; designing homes

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:40 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity asks pupils to imagine living in flying houses and to consider the social consequences of populating the skies.

This week's secondary enrichment activity looks at how we manage death and bereavement and asks pupils to consider whether a less sombre approach to funerals is a good or bad thing.

***Primary Enrichment***

KS2: Design and technology

read more

Focus on well-being for professional development

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:35 +0100

It seems that the nation is run down. Bugs are taking hold and many schools appear to be operating on a fraction of full power. There's only one obvious solution: a fresh focus on well-being, this time blending it with our quest for professional development. This week we provide eight practical, easy tips for achieving that blended solution. We also explore what the GTCE Connect Network can do for CPD coordinators.
read more

Early Years PiP Cards: 1.4 Health and well-being

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:01 +0100

PiP Card Theme: A Unique Child
‘Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.’
Commitment 1.4 Health and Wellbeing
‘Children’s health is an integral part of their emotional, mental, social, and spiritual wellbeing and is supported by attention to these aspects.’
Areas of knowledge covered:
read more

"Fitness to teach": a guide to the law for education providers

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:01 +0100

Employers of existing and prospective teachers, lecturers and those entering initial teacher training have a responsibility to ensure that employees have the health and physical capacity to teach and will not put children and young people at risk.

read more

Should 'suitable education' be defined by parents or LA?

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:01 +0100

QUESTION:

Whose opinion takes precedence in a dispute over provision – parent or local authority?

ANSWER:

in the case of R(R) v Kent County Council [2007] ELR 648, a boy of 14, S, started his local school, the W School in September 2004. He was called names, and bullied. His father met the headmaster, who took the complaint seriously.

read more

Meditation as an aid to wellbeing

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:59 +0100

Like many other teachers, I am fed up with most of the ‘initiatives’ we are asked to undertake. Too many of them seem to come around again and again, contradicting the other things we are doing and having very little impact. But some recent initiatives are different. These recognise that a child is body, mind and spirit. It has always been so, of course, but the need to recognise it has become urgent.

Why now?
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A day in the life of a schools counsellor

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:58 +0100

I am a counsellor working two days a week in Kenton Secondary School in Newcastle upon Tyne. I commenced this role in 2003 and work with young people to support them in addressing the emotional and behavioural difficulties that are affecting their learning and quality of life. My role in school is funded partly by Connexions and partly by the school.
read more

Emotional wellbeing

Making the links to promote wellbeing in schools

Creating support systems to promote staff well-being

Developing approaches to manage self-harming behaviours

Learning from home with ICT

Strengthening transition and transfer between schools with classroom dialogue

CPD support for teacher's wellbeing and self-worth

Managing cases of students' emotional abuse

A day in the life of a child and family support worker in school

Focusing on student and family health

Helping teachers cope with stress

A day in the life of a school nurse

Ways to soothe teacher stress

Using PE to boost cross curricular skills

Developing primary thinking skills with cricket

Sport spotlight: Orienteering

Sport spotlight: Mini-basketball

A healthy diet for early years

Dealing with SEBD: positive handling

Girls from ethnic minorities: sports participation

Computer games to encourage fitness

Self-harm at primary schools: what you can do

Boxing4Schools: tackling youth issues

Fetal alcohol syndrome in children

Teaching wrestling

Legal case notes: LA negligence in child protection cases

Promoting students' happiness

Remembering child protection with older young people

Raise pupils' awareness of children's rights

Student happiness resource: what works well for them?

Understanding and preventing suicide in young people

SEAL activities to promote emotional health and wellbeing

Supporting the emotional needs of children

Social and emotional wellbeing: NICE guidance

Is two hours of PE a week enough?

Helping pupils with asthma to exercise

Teaching non-traditional street sports

Promoting healthy eating in children

Self-harm at primary schools: what you should know

PE teaching resource: Students' fitness diary

Taken from The PE File, edited by Sara Evans (no longer published)

Lesson plans for effective PE transition

Taken from The PE File, edited by Sara Evans (no longer published)

Personal development for professional gain

Improving the safety of children and young people

Secondary Assembly: Naturally high!

Enrichment Activities: Thinking about bereavement; designing homes

Focus on well-being for professional development

Early Years PiP Cards: 1.4 Health and well-being

"Fitness to teach": a guide to the law for education providers

Should 'suitable education' be defined by parents or LA?

Meditation as an aid to wellbeing

A day in the life of a schools counsellor