A piece on BBC Breakfast news 23rd April 07 revealed that the best school for Dutch children is actually in the UK. Founded by Shell for employees’ children based in the UK the school has thrived not only for what it teaches but how it teaches. A key in the schools success gets children to act as the teacher. This proves a double benefit as research by the National Training Laboratories in the USA and others shows the retention rate achieved with practice in doing – at 75%, and a substantial 90% of retention occurs through the process of teaching others. Independent research also shows that children learn at faster rate when “taught” by peers. See the K2 Learning Mountain diagram.

The foundations of the learning process requires the skill and management of the teacher, but as this example demonstrates there are additional benefits from the Practice, Teaching others and being taught by peers activity.Whilst the adoption of these techniques at school would require radical changes in teaching techniques, the opportunity for parents to use them with siblings and themselves at home can have an immediate effect.

Alistair Owens
keen2learn

A close friend of mine recently recommended this site to me, and I was more than impressed with its content. The selection of educational games available is extensive and the information page for parents was extremely useful. It has helped me to give my 7 year old son some great help at home in a number of areas where his teacher has told me he is behind at school. It was great being able to be a real help again – something I have missed doing since he went to school. It was only when the teacher told me how I could be such a great help just by practising the lessons again at home that I realised just how obvious this was. I thought I had to be a teacher to do this but the products on your site are games that we found to be real fun. I enjoyed purchasing from your site and I’ll certainly be visiting your site again as well as looking for Christmas and Birthday present ideas for my nephews and niece.

The Lindsay Family.Sydney, Australia

It seems appalling that teachers in our primary schools have to deal with disruptive and abusive children. The expulsion of under-five year old children has tripled in the last year, taking the total to 43,720 children suspended from our primary schools.

The figures get worse; the total for all schools is a massive 389,560 temporary exclusions in 2005. Judging from comments at recent Headteacher conferences the figure continues to grow.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The highly disruptive effect in school takes its toll on the teacher and the remaining 29 children in the class. It is the most common reason for teachers to leave the profession.

The resultant huge loss in core teaching time coupled to changes in teaching staff, it’s no wonder that academic standards are falling.

There is no easy solution. We have to deal with the consequences of an evolving society, and a recent major programme from the DfES is taking a significant step to encourage greater engagement of parents in the teaching process. The “Every Parent Matters” scheme recognises the huge benefit to the school from active involvement of parents. The comprehensive plans include resurrecting the natural parental teaching skills evident when the child was a toddler. Re-harnessing this latent ability at home can improve a child’s school performance by 25 %. Interestingly the involvement of the father in the process has a very marked benefit. Children who have has experienced two years good early education from age 2 get a boost of up to six months in their development.

More than 75% of parents questioned in the DfES survey believe that their child’s education should be shared between parents and schools. Teachers questioned in another survey indicated overwhelming support of the involvement of parents in the schooling process.

How this can be achieved follows developments in the modern educational resources now available. Incorporating a significant element of fun, resources used in school covering the whole curriculum are now available for home use to support a critical learning process.

Studies in the USA show that 75% of learning retention comes from practice. As children spend 15% of their time in school there is a huge opportunity to improve performance through enjoyable practice of the lesson content at home. Building the confidence, competence and importantly the speed of child has a huge knock-on benefit in school.

The days of the handwritten Banda spirit printed page has been replaced by DVD’s with stunning graphics and interactive content. Parents can relate to the programme content far more readily than conventional text book homework exercise. Many parents revisit past interests and personally learn with the process, and find the dynamic involvement far more constructive than any end of term report – when it could be too late.

To offset the downsides prevailing in our schools perhaps we need to reflect on King Canute. The unruly influence, staff turnover, curriculum changes are probably here to stay for a while, but now there is a real positive way parents can support an alternative outcome.

Once again our schools are under attack. Not a sudden and visible external force, but an assiduous disruption from a minority of mal-adjusted children who create mayhem as a consequence of their attendance at school. The growth in the larger secondary schools instigated as a logical means of controlling operating costs have created a highly disruptive subculture. If the aim of a disenfranchised child is to create mayhem then where better to archive the objective than in the larger school.

Unfortunately the control of these children absorbs valuable teaching capacity stolen from the balance of the class. A teachers time is invaluable and finite.The pressures on the teacher to achieve targets are already high and the consequence of lost time spent dealing with any disruptive activity is lost to the class forever.

The solution is complex but an immediate remedy lies with parents taking an active role in improving the performance of their child. Children retain the greatest proportion of learning through practice. The majority of time at school is consumed in the essential passive aspects of learning. Often precious little time is left in class to complete the practical function.

Children spend 15% of their time in school, parents therefore have the greater option to engage in the practice function. The majority of modern educational resources used in school are ideal for home use. The integral element of fun engages children and parents in the process that has a significant impact on progress in school.

So if your child is falling behind, in a class with an unruly element, or subject to a number of staff changes or teacher absence, the solution lies in your hands with help at home.

Click on the image below to enlarge and see children’s learning retention.

Perhaps teaching citizenship in school, aside from the debate as to whether this should be a key subject best taught at home can be summarised as the new three “R’s”- Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions

Teachers now get half a day per week out of lessons for paperwork.   A teachers’ union that backs the government’s school workforce changes in England and Wales is warning they can dilute the quality of education.

Unqualified assistants were teaching exam classes in subjects they knew nothing about, teachers at the NASUWT annual conference, in Belfast, said.

At the NASUWT conference Austin Murphy from Leeds said the problem of unqualified staff was far greater than many people realised.  “Cover supervisors will take over the whole timetable of an absent teacher, including A-level classes, for an entire term,” he said. “I do know of a school in south Leeds where a cover supervisor was asked to take on this role for maternity leave. They did GCSE and A-level classes. “This person has no experience whatsoever in that subject.”Clearly this is an absolute scandal. It should be known that this is happening.” There was no immediate reaction from the Department for Education and Skills. (BC Online)

 

English language skills are essential for early learners but let’s not forget the importance of children who learn English as an Additional Language. Now available at keen2learn is the hugely popular Basic Vocabulary Photo Card Set. Containing 156 photo illustrated cards, this fantastic resource is even suitable for Special Needs. This provides a positive means for children speaking English at home.

As the average teacher spends 60 -70 hours a week in teaching, lesson preparation and marking, it’s no wonder their stress level is so high. With the average newly trained teacher lasting about three years in the profession, our children are progressively being taught through an embryonic skill base.

As the curriculum extends into areas such as citizenship, arguably a parents responsibility, it is also perhaps no wonder that the time consequently spent on the core subjects is limited. Perhaps we should not be surprised in the outcome, with our children’s performance in numeracy and English remaining a concern.

Charles Smith,
Leicester

Topologika’s popular ‘Mania’ titles now include speech!

Following requests from customers, Topologika Software has updated its best-selling games-style ‘Mania’ series so that all five titles now speak the maze questions and puzzle instructions. This addition of speech makes them accessible to a wider range of pupils, including those who find on-screen text difficult to read.

The five titles in the series are WordMania 2 (ages 7-11), WordMania 3 (ages 11-14), MathMania 2 (ages 7-11), MathMania 3 (ages 11-14) and ScienceMania 2 (ages 7-11). Each title includes a maze-based element in which children have to answer multiple-choice revision questions to open doors and find their way to the exit. They also include topic based puzzles which encourage children to put their skills and knowledge into practice in more challenging ways.

The ‘Mania’ series has proved very popular with children in school who enjoy the games approach. By adding speech Topologika hope these revision activities will be enjoyed by many more pupils. Managing director Brian Kerslake says, “We don’t want a child’s reading skills to put them off learning. Speech is already included in most of our other titles so it’s consistent to add it to the ‘Mania’ series as well.”

Each ‘Mania’ title costs just £29.99 inc VAT for home customers or from £59 + VAT for use in schools.

A while ago whilst in Malaysia, I was told that state schools there are operated in two shifts – from 7am to 12 noon and from 1pm to 6pm. Everyone seems happy with this because it pretty much halves the cost of school buildings.

Our schools are utilised less than 20% of available time – a use of resources which would be unthinkable in business, commerce and most other public facilities.

Imagine the total value of all school buildings and grounds in Britain and what a massive difference it would make if a third of this money could released to fund other additional educational spending. Every school could have world class resources.

Bill Whiting
Fordingbridge, Hants