A recent report shows that an alarming number of children, mainly in more affluent countries, are suffering from sleep deprivation which is having a negative impact on their school work.

Smartphones, computers and TVs in bedrooms have been highlighted as a factor in poor sleep routines for children.

Is your child getting enough sleep?

One bad night may have a knock on effect the next day, possibly leading to grumpiness, lack of attentiveness and poor concentration but the effects of regularly not getting enough sleep are more dramatic. The cumulative effect of sleep deprivation can ultimately hinder progress and lead to lower grades.

How much sleep do children actually need?

Individual children will vary but children should be getting roughly the amount advised below:

• Pre-school – 11 to 13 hours per night

• 5 to 12 year olds – 10 to 11 hours per night

• teenagers – 9 hours per night

• for more detailed information go to the NHS Live Well page

I have seen the effects of sleep deprivation on primary pupils first hand; one boy in my class was struggling at school, he always seemed tired, struggled to concentrate and did not produce a satisfactory amount of work in lessons. I spoke to his parents after he actually fell asleep in class one day and it emerged that he had been watching TV into the early hours without his parents’  knowledge. Once he was getting enough sleep, he was a different child in school and began making good progress.

Most experts agree that TVs and computers in bedroom aren’t ideal and many surveys have indicated a link between lower educational attainment and the presence of TVs in bedrooms. Nevertheless the reality is that many children do have their own TVs, computers or handheld devices so parents need to know how to manage to balance this with a good night’s sleep.

Controlling your child’s TV time.

This article gives some great advice on how to manage screen time in your child’s room:

http://parentsforhealth.org/tv-tips

As the exam/SATs season is upon us, now is definitely the time to make sure your child is getting plenty of sleep!

Related articles

http://voices.yahoo.com/sleep-deprivation-school-age-children-6324980.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22209818

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/press_releases/press_release.php?id=447

Starting a Trafford Primary School in September 2013?

Give your child a great start to their school life with our play-based learning programme!

The transition from pre-school to more formal learning is a significant one for children. It can affect their interest, motivation at school and their future school success. Kip McGrath Urmston Tuition Centre’s specialised Get Ready for School programme is a gentle introduction to learning which aids the smooth transition from pre-school to “big” school.

These sessions are particularly useful for children who have been unable to attend a school nursery in the year prior to starting school. Due to the number of places that are only available on a part time basis in Trafford, many families are unable to take up a school nursery place. This can put children at a disadvantage when they start Reception class.

Our Get Ready for School programme is an essential for parents who want to ensure the initial school experience is a positive one for their child.

The programme includes activities that promote both learning concepts and school readiness skills.

Course Highlights

• Fun and stress free learning
• Carefully structured course introduces new concepts each lesson and revises previous concepts.
• Build children’s confidence in their ability to learn and interact in a learning environment
• Reduce the stress of the initial formal schooling experience

Course now available at Kip McGrath Urmston Tuition Centre

The sessions build children’s confidence in their own ability to learn and to interact in a learning environment.

The full programme consists 20 sessions. Each 80 minute session is fun-filled, with computer and written work in English and maths, speaking and listening tasks and practical and motor skill activities, with children working individually, in pairs and in small groups. The emphasis is on fun, positivity and confidence building.

The sessions will be run by Kelly & Claire, Centre owners and fully qualified teachers.

Kip McGrath Urmston Tuition Centre is OFSTED registered, not only do you have the peace of mind that your child will be taught in very high quality, safe and secure premises but you can use Childcare Vouchers to help towards course fees!

Course starts in April 2013, places are limited to ensure a high teacher:child ratio, phone 0161 747 1819 for more details or to book your place.

Top 10 Questions to ask at your child’s Parents’ Evening.

Children with poor working memory often struggle with routine, everyday tasks like instructions, directions and learning tasks such as maths and writing.

What is Working Memory?

Working memory is like a note pad in your head, your mental working space; you use it to retain facts that you only need temporarily eg – down the corridor, past the photocopier, second door on the right. Or what is 12+45+73?

Clearly Working Memory capacity is an important component of effective learning.

Poor working memory is a feature of about 70% of children with special educational needs such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADD/ADHD and ASD.

Whilst about 10-15% of children will suffer from a WM impairment this is often mistaken for other learning difficulties, such as attention problems or even just lack of ability.

Children who have low Working Memory may:

• Have normal social relationships/friendships with other children
• Be reserved during group activities in the classroom and tend to be reluctant to answer direct questions.
• Find it hard to follow a set of instructions or directions.
• Lose track during more complex tasks and end up  giving up before completion.
•  Find it difficult to keep track of where they are up to in tasks like copying from the board or miss steps out in work.
•  Struggle to remember details about work they’ve just done.
• Seem to have poor attention span or may just seem “away with the fairies”
• Have difficulty with procedures that require both storage (remembering) and processing (manipulating information), the classic example being maths word problems.

How to help a child with poor WM

• encourage children to ask for further help or reminders if they forget things
• break longer tasks down into a series of steps with visual reminders
• ask children to repeat instructions back to you to check they have understood.

At Kip McGrath Urmston Tuition Centre we often tutor children who have working memory impairment and realise what an impact it can have on their educational attainment and self esteem. We have recently become fully trained Cogmed coaches and are now able to offer the Cogmed Working Memory training programme.

The Cogmed programme is the only working memory improvement system that is clinically proven to be effective. Cogmed is based on a wealth of academic studies and has proven benefits for all age groups, including those with specific learning difficulties such as ADD/ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia.

It is an intensive 5 week online training programme, partially home based with some sessions in our centre. The online programme is based on a series of games designed to target different aspects of working memory. It measures progress and adjusts the level of challenge needed to ensure progress.

Some GCSE pupils have even found the Cogmed Working Memory training programme helped improve their revision skills!

Click here for more information about Cogmed.

read this BBC Scotland webpage for tips about improving memory in general.

Ring 0161 747 1819 for more information about Cogmed training or any of our other tuition sevices.

It is almost that time of year again - World Book Day. On the 7th March 2013, school children across the UK are encouraged to dress up as a favourite book character.

When it comes to World Book Day, parents tend to fall into 2 distinct categories; the ones whose hearts sink when that letter comes home and the ones who rub their hands with glee at the thought of the wonderful creative opportunity offered by a day of fancy dress at school. If, like me, you fall into the former group, try some of these ideas to avoid a)unwanted stress and panic b)tragically disappointed face on your child.

Although it can be fun to make your own costumes, if you are that way inclined, it can be too time consuming for many busy parents. Here in Urmston we are very lucky to have a specialist Fancy Dress shop, Affordable Fancy Dress, based on Church Rd in Flixton. I popped in to have a chat with owners Philippa Knight and Sam Hickson to find out which  costumes are looking popular for this year’s WBD.

Affordable Fancy Dress’ Top 5 costumes for WBD 2013

1. Ratburger by David Walliams

2. WW2 Evacuee  (Carrie’s War, Goodnight Mr Tom)

3. Pirates (Peter Pan)

4. The Hobbit

5. Where’s Wally

Other popular choices, according to Phillipa and Sam, are costumes deriving from the Wizard of Oz, The Hungry Caterpillar, Horrid Henry and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I was quite taken by the Oompa Loompa outfit!)

Check out the images for inspiration and read on for more ideas…

Ideas for girls’ costumes for World Book Day 2013

Carrie from Carrie’s War – 1940’s evacuee style clothes with suitcase, gasmask and name tag.

The Hungry Caterpillar – Affordable Fancy Dress stock a costume that is extremely cute! See the images above

Little Princess – white nightdress and crown

The Worst Witch –Witch’s hat, black cape over black pinafore with red sash. Broomstick and toy cat.

The White Witch (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) -White fur fabric or velvet as cloak, crown, wand and box of Turkish delight.

Pippi Longstocking – pipe cleaners in plaits, stripy odd socks, dress with patches, put freckles on face.

Tiara Club – party dress, tiara, feather boa, or fake fur shrug/jacket

Hetty Feather/Sapphire Battersea – Victorian clothes, mob hat & pinafore

Meg and Mog – witch costume plus cuddly toy cat

Sleepover Club – pjs & dressing gown

Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) – blue gingham dress, red shoes, hair in plaits, toy dog for Toto.

Rainbow Fairies -  possibilities are endless! Fairy wings with appropriate colour/themed accessories.

Mary Poppins – Long black or navy skirt, white shirt with brooch/red bow at neck, hat, umbrella and carpet bag or similar.

Laura from Laura’s Star – nightclothes plus teddy and gold star with plaster on it.

Fern from Charlotte’s Web – jeans, shirt, toy pig, toy spider and, if feeling ambitious, cobweb made from pipecleaners.

Railway Children – Edwardian style clothes (ankle length skirt, high neck blouse, lace up boots, pinafore and wooly cap) accessorise with red shorts/bloomers on a stick!

Pony Club Secrets – jodphurs, riding hat, jacket & crop.

Camicazi/Astrid from How to Train your Dragon – brown/black/grey skirt or dress with leggings underneath, brown Ugg type boots, sword and shield, Viking hat or bandana.

The Illustrated Mum – Fake tattoo arm sleeves (available Amazon uk) long hippy style skirt, denim jacket

World Book Day outfit ideas for Boys

Horrid Henry – scruffy clothes & messed up hair

Just William – old fashioned school uniform; shorts, knee socks, crooked tie and school cap. Catapult and/or peashooter.

Burglar Bill – eye mask, black trousers, black and white stripy top, swag bag

Alex Rider – jeans, black bomber jacket/denim jacket, baseball boots, sunglasses, chunky watch, torch, spy accessories

Tom from Tom’s Midnight Garden – pyjamas and dressing gown

Cowboy or Indian from the Indian in the Cupboard.

Pirates – Captain Hook or the Night Pirates

Puss in Boots – Cat costume or face mask and either boots or customized wellies.

Dracula – any Halloween vampire cloaks, fangs, gelled back hair.

Harry Potter – cloak, glasses, wand, lightning scar, maybe a toy owl?

King Babar – elephant mask, crown, smart suit

Hiccup from How to train your Dragon – Viking hat, sword, shield, drab coloured clothing and book about dragons.

Bestselling author James Patterson has joined in the launch of a campaign to encourage fathers to read with their children.

The campaign is called Get Dads Reading.

A poll, on behalf of reading charity Booktrust, revealed that only one in eight dads are the main family reader. I have 3 daughters and it is invariably the case that I get the bedtime story duty. In fact, my daughters complain if I ever manage to pass the task to their Dad!

Research from the Book Trust reveals that only 13% of fathers in the UK take the lead with reading to their children. A quarter of fathers blame working late for not reading to their children.

Further research suggests many fathers see reading as a female domain. When they do read to their children, fathers favour their daughters over their sons, reading to them for longer, and more often. The lack of male role models in reading has been highlighted previously and schools have run campaigns featuring Premier League footballers reading. However it remains a fact that many boys are reluctant readers and lag behind their female counterparts, despite schemes such as Boys into Books in libraries.

Patterson himself turned his hand to writing children’s books to encourage his own son to read more and has launched a website to support fathers reading to their children – Read kiddo read

Another great website full of ideas to get kids reading is Love reading 4 kids

This is a great site that even lets you read the first chapter of books so that you can try before you buy!

There is a wealth of research highlighting the link between positive reading habits and educational attainment. The role of fathers is now being highlighted as a factor in reading habits.

“The most crucial thing for dads to understand is that if kids see their dads reading they’re more likely to enjoy it themselves,” said Viv Bird, chief executive of Booktrust.

“There is evidence that boys are slipping further behind girls in reading – and this emphasises how important it is that dads are positive role models to their sons as well as their daughters when it comes to reading.

Further reading

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21545204

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-blogs-and-press/news/185/

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/24187/

http://www.love2read.co.uk/help-children-learn-to-read/dads-read-with-the-kids.html

Michael Gove faces allegations that his team have acted unprofessionally.

Tales have been circulating around Twitter that something was about to be published that may cause the resignation of Education Minister Michael Gove. Once the story actually surfaced it proved to be not quite as momentous as anticipated. It does however cause serious concern to those unhappy about the rate of change and the direction that Mr Gove is taking with his policies.

The basic gist of the story is that a twitter acount, @toryeducation, has mounted a campaign against certain individuals who have spoken out against Government Educational policies and proposals. At times the tweets have been very unpleasant, personal and not above twisting the facts to support the official Government stance.

It now seems that there is mounting evidence that the twitter account belongs to the Tory Party and that the tweets are written by some of Michael Gove’s Special Advisors.

What worries me the most is that, if the allegations are true, this demonstrates a total disregard, if not contempt, for those who do not agree with current policy coming from the heart of the department. It does not indicate a willingness to listen to the huge numbers of teachers, parents and other interested parties who are expressing doubts that the decisions made by Mr Gove and his Special Advisors will benefit our children.

Instead the message is that dissenting voices are not respected or listened to and that is a deep concern to anyone who cares about our Educational system. 

Click on the links below to read the full story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/02/gove-advisers-claims-smear-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/02/michael-gove-department-twitter-attacks

Reblogged from Leaderinlearning's Blog:

Teaching ICT skills at Primary.

Misgivings about the quality and content of the ICT Curriculum have been rife for many years now, both amongst teachers and educational experts. Britain is in danger of losing its reputation for producing world class ICT experts. Ironically, the type of skills that are dwindling lead to the type of career that many children would love, such as games designers! Click on the link for more on the story.

I was an Primary ICT coordinator for many years and was very unhappy with the curriculum as long ago as 2003. Much of the content has been out of date for many years (half a term spent teaching Year 5 and 6 to search the internet?!) and it is well overdue a huge overhaul. 

The main problem however is not the curriculum itself but the lack of investment in teacher training and the ICT infrastructure in some schools. Some teachers are very lacking in skills and confidence when it comes to teaching ICT; I was  once called down to a classroom by a teacher complaining that her PC wasn’t working only to find that it wasn’t plugged in! Some schools also have inadequate resources and are wary of teaching ICT due to the unreliability of the hardware they have available. Few primary schools have in house technical support, speaking from personal experience, it tends to be the poor ICT coordinator who gets lumbered with all the tech problems!

Furthermore 21st Century pupils tend to be far more au fait with the latest developments than the teachers who are expected to teach them! When I bought a class set of iPads, several teachers were absolutely terrified at the idea of having to use them to teach a lesson as they had little prior experience of them. The reality was that the pupils, either intuitively or by experience, knew how to use them without much input from their teacher!

The other problem is that ICT is such a dynamic area that it is very difficult to devise a scheme of work that doesn’t need updating on a very regular basis, rather like the brand new top of the range PC that is out of date within 6 months. ICT provision at the moment varies widely whilst many teachers are doing a fantastic job, there are many who are struggling. Personally I feel that the only way forward  with ICT provision at KS 1 & 2 is to have significant investment in teacher training or to provide in-house specialist teaching staff where necessary. I find it depressing when I hear children citing ICT as a subject they hate; pupils should have an ICT curriculum that challenges and inspires them!

Once more the Government has been criticised for the speed at which they are proposing the change the GCSE system. This is something that I know concerns teachers, parents and pupils alike. It would be reassuring to think think that Michael Gove will listen to the concerns of others but judging by past experiences, I won’t be holding my breath!

Click on the link to see the full story.