More than 150,000 of the Government leaflets, which are designed to look like advent calendars and entitled, ‘Tis the season to be careful’, will be given out to offer tips on avoiding hazardous situations. They warn parents to take care not only with candles and games but with aftershave, perfume and dregs in glasses when young children are around.

According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, more than 80,000 people are expected to turn up at accident and emergency units during the 12 days of Christmas because of typical festive incidents which include: children falling off rocking horses or smashing new bikes into walls; parents stabbing themselves with scissors; parents cutting themselves with knives after trying to open presents too quickly; and drunken party guests crashing to the floor when they miss their seat at the dinner table. Around 1,000 people will go to hospital because of accidents with Christmas trees; 1,000 will be hurt by trimmings or when decorating their homes; and 350 will be hurt by Christmas tree lights.

Visit www.direct.gov.uk/childsafety more for information on keeping children safe.

Ministers have pledged to overhaul children’s services in England after a report condemned the slow progress made in protecting young people from harm.

Lord Laming’s review said too many authorities had failed to adopt reforms introduced following Victoria Climbie’s death in 2000 after months of abuse.

The Tories said the “scathing” report was an “indictment of the state of child protection” in England.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls said all recommendations would be acted upon.

Maths teachers ‘taught to teach’

Ofsted says that pupils at all levels must be stretched

Maths teachers in England are being sent booklets with advice on how to teach their subject after a report identified weaknesses.

School inspectors Ofsted has warned that about half of schools need to improve the quality of maths teaching.

The booklets aim to improve teaching by “shifting it away from a narrow emphasis on skills”.

Maths results at primary and secondary level are improving, but ministers recognise more needs to be done.

Ofsted’s report on maths teaching, published at the end of last year, said too much of it was “taught to the test” and that this did not equip pupils for their futures.

The new booklets – one written for primary schools and one for secondaries – are designed to help improve pupils’ understanding of maths and how it is applied in everyday life.

Ofsted says that more pupils should be achieving higher grades in the subject.

“Strategies to improve test and examination performance, coupled with teaching that focuses heavily on preparation for the qualifications, does not equip pupils for their futures,” says the booklet destined for secondary schools.

It goes on to describe features of good and satisfactory teaching.

In successful teaching, the booklet says, “Teachers monitor all pupils’ understanding throughout the lesson, recognising quickly when pupils already understand the work or what their misconceptions might be, for example, circulating to check all have started correctly, to spot errors and extend thinking.”

Problem solving

But the National Union of Teachers did not welcome the booklet.

Its head of education, John Bangs, said, “Teachers don’t need Ofsted breathing down their necks about what they should or shouldn’t do.”

Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s chief inspector of schools, said it was vital to equip children with confidence in a subject which was so relevant to their adult lives.

“I hope these booklets will help teachers ensure that every child gets the best possible mathematics teaching.”

In a report at the end of 2008, Ofsted said results were improving in both primary and secondary schools, but that understanding of the subject was not.

It said that secondary schools in particular were less effective in developing pupils’ understanding of applying maths to new situations or solving problems.

The government has said it is putting £140m into maths teaching in schools to raise standards, and said there was “no reason” why tests should result in a narrow focus or uninspiring lessons.

by Patty Wipfler

Parents are expected to stay “in control” of their lives, their children, and themselves. Some major parts of this expectation are impossible to fulfill! But because there is no way to learn parenting skills and truths ahead of time, we parents struggle and worry when we don’t seem to be “in control,” or when being “in control” means being harsh with our children. Let’s first outline the things no parent can fully control.

• We don’t have full control over our lives. Hard things can happen to us and to our children, and societal oppressions can force us into inhuman circumstances. There are things we can do to try to keep our families healthy, but we don’t have full control there. There are things we can do to be able to pay our bills, but job security and earning worthy wages for working class jobs are not things we alone have the power to determine. We work at building good relationships, but many of us don’t begin with the tools, support, information, or time to solve critical relationship problems. We are also up against racism, drugs, violence, and harshness on the schoolyards and the streets. By ourselves, we and our children are vulnerable to hurt and unforeseen difficulties. To blame ourselves for lack of control makes no sense. The influence we can have when we face these oppression-based or health-based hard times lies in our ability to organize with others to do what’s necessary, WITH LOTS OF HELP.
• We don’t have control over our children’s behavior. We do have deep influence on them. How we love, cherish, and treat our children affects them moment by moment, and for the rest of their lives. But our influence doesn’t mean that we can exert control over how they behave and feel. Nor does it mean that a child whose behavior is difficult comes from a parent who is not trying hard enough, or is not doing the right things. Our children are subject to difficulties because of circumstances beyond our control–their health, accidents, unforeseen encounters with people who don’t care for them well, enormous stress on us, frightening incidents that couldn’t be anticipated. When children are hurt by these kinds of circumstances, their behavior does reflect their fears, and they may be perceived as “difficult.” But this is not the parents’ fault! What’s more, this “off track” behavior is a necessary signal that the child gives that she’s been wounded and needs attention. As difficult as their behavior may be, we parents can be grateful that our children refuse to suffer silently when they feel too isolated or frightened or angry to think.
• In the short run, we sometimes don’t have control over our own behavior. It’s one of the great shocks of parenting to find ourselves yelling at or hurting our beloved children, when we never ever intended to do so. There are things they do that drive us nuts–whining, making messes, fighting with each other, using street language, “talking back” when we’re trying to gain control. We each have our personal thresholds, past which lose power over our own behavior. Usually, we become very like our own parents when they were lost in reaction.
• Finally, we don’t have full control over how other people feel about us or our children. We parents try hard to get our children to meet some unwritten standard of conformity, hoping that if they “act right,” people will like them. In fact, we live in a society in which grownups are taught to see children as “trouble,” “a problem,” “extra work,” “in the way,” and more. This training is widespread, and no matter how fully a child may conform, those attitudes lie under the surface in many people, waiting to be triggered. We as parents need to decide, on our children’s behalf, not to attack our children to please grownups who only accept children if they act like little adults. Even a child’s best behavior can’t cure that kind of hostile attitude. So if your child is having a healthy tantrum in front of a relative who is loudly demanding that you be harsh to her, you can simply move to a back bedroom to handle the situation, taking the time you need. Being harsh to your child on someone else’s demand won’t help your self-respect, it won’t change that grownup’s bias against your child, and it sets you against the child you love dearly.

The Goal of Being a Learner

I think goals that we parents can reasonably set for ourselves are:

• To enjoy our children
• To learn something every day
• To treat ourselves and our children like learners.

Deciding to be a learner can help take the internal pressure off of us, and off of our children. Learners have permission to make lots of mistakes, learners get to ask for help, learners often don’t know what to do or how things work. Best of all, learners get to laugh (or cry) when their project turns upside down and flops in front of everyone. We understand. This is learning.

If we are learning, then we know how to be in charge of some things, and we are figuring all the rest of it out in a sometimes messy, haphazard way. As parents, some “I’m learning, not controlling” strategies can be immensely helpful.

• Actively notice what’s fun, what’s good, what is working well. Our minds get so fixed on the tasks at hand that we lose sight of who we like, what goes well, and the little things we learn. It may help to put a list on the refrigerator or the bathroom mirror, where a few words of what was good each day can be written down for all to see. Some families start dinner with a round of “what was good today?” so that the children get to join in, and have the chance to have the whole family listen to their experience.
• Welcome your children’s feelings. Feelings are a big part of children’s lives, and expressing these feelings is how children recover from the hard things, big and small, that happen to them. Crying, tantrums, and laughter all are deeply healing for children. Expressing these emotions at length gets rid of children’s feelings that their lives aren’t good enough. When they’re finished, they regain their sense of loving and being loved. It helps if you can get close and listen to them through the stormy upsets, but if you can’t, see if it’s possible to keep from criticizing, shaming, hurting, or blaming them while they get the sad or the mad feelings out.
• Find a listener for your own feelings. We mothers and fathers have lots of feelings, too, which we have been taught to tuck away as if they didn’t exist. Matter of fact, tucking away feelings is equated to being “in control” of our lives! The problem is that feelings don’t tuck well forever. Our worries, our frustrations, our angers mount, we spend more and more effort tucking them away, and finally, they burst out when some small thing goes wrong. Often, they burst out at our children in ways we regret later. Finding another parent and setting up listening time over the phone or after the children are asleep can help relieve the burden that our feelings create. A good laugh, a good cry, a good rant about how many expectations we’re trying to meet can do a lot to lighten our step and help us remember that we are good, no matter how many mistakes we make or how many answers we don’t have at the moment.
• Notice what you can’t figure out, and talk to others about it. There are probably 50 things a day that happen in a parents’ life that he or she doesn’t understand! Why won’t your child willingly brush her teeth? Why is she scared of the dark? Why does your pre-teen suddenly think you’re the dorkiest person he ever knew? Being open about what we don’t know is an excellent learning strategy. It makes us active seekers of information and understanding. And it’s also fine to be open with our children when we don’t know what to do. “I don’t know what to do about you refusing to help around the house. I’m thinking about it. Can we talk about it tomorrow, after I’ve called a couple of people to see if they have any good ideas?” is a fine approach to a problem with a child.
• Organize help. We are trained to believe that asking for help is admitting weakness. However, there are many kinds of work which are not designed for one person to do alone. Building bridges, operating a supermarket, providing intensive care nursing, and raising children are the kinds of work that can be done well only with several people organized to work toward a common purpose. When we gave birth to our children, most of us had no idea that organizing help was part of a parents’ job description. We learn this, usually, by getting burned out trying to do it all ourselves, then feeling badly that we’ve had to “stoop” to asking for help. But any experienced parent can reassure you that every parent needs time away from their children, every parent needs others to care about their children, every parent needs people to think and talk with about the details of life with children. Every parent needs help!
• Throw expectations overboard. When you’re working too hard to appreciate yourself or anyone else, throw an expectation overboard. Let the house be a mess for a couple of weeks or months or years, or don’t worry about serving hot meals, or let the relatives be grumpy because you decided not to visit this month, or sleep during your lunch break, even though people at work will talk. You get to decide what’s really necessary and what’s not, and keeping up appearances while parenting is often a joy-killer. You have permission to let things get ragged, and still be proud of yourself, your family, and your decisions.
• Set up play that includes laughter. Children love to laugh, and when we are willing to play with them so they can laugh (without tickling them!), they become buoyant and hopeful. It’s infectious. We see them wriggling with enjoyment, coming toward us for fun and lots of contact, and we can’t help but be pleased. Our empty cup meant for hope begins to fill again. We have lots to learn from children about how a really good life has time for play, wrestling, chasing, where the grownups may “lose,” but everyone wins back their sense that it’s good to be alive.
• When you’re at your wits’ end, lie down on the floor for awhile. When we’re frazzled, the things we do aren’t usually very successful. Our children’s tensions and our tensions make a knot that keeps tangling tighter. At times like these, if we “give up” for 10 or 15 minutes, and lie down on the floor, it provides enough of a contrast to the previous tense situation that we and our children can take a fresh start with each other. Sometimes we can give ourselves permission to cry, which helps release tension. Sometimes, our children come around and decide they want to be close. They sit on our tummies, or crawl under our legs, or start jumping over us for fun. Having given up the effort to be in control, we can begin to pay attention to how things are, rather than the way we want them to be. Without the effort to stay in control, it’s often more possible to make workable decisions, and to like the children we have again.

Emergency plan for independent audit of MPs’ expenses

An increasing number of workers, who have lost their jobs and are either unable to find new work at all or get jobs at a much lower rate of pay, are finding themselves having to go to court to get the amount of child support owed each month modified. For many of the parents owing child support, seeking a lesser amount is a desperate and last resort. But since the recession isn’t showing any signs of being over just yet, many individuals feel they have no alternative.

A lower amount of child support is having a devastating effect on the custodial parent, who has relied on a certain amount to pay bills and pay for certain medical and child-related services, such as physicals, child care, or orthodontics. That parent may have already committed to a treatment (such as braces), and without the amount due coming in, may face a grim financial hardship in not being able to meet the obligations.

Family court judges are willing to amend payments for the jobless, especially when it is a parent who has typically paid child support in a timely and responsible manner. Typical recourse for child support non-payment has been to garnish wages or even jail the offender. But, when the individual responsible for making child care payments is out of work, there are no wages to garnish. And, jailing the offender simply means that much more time without a paycheck. The sour economy has truly created a child-rearing financial struggle for families who were already facing tough times before the recession.

Child care providers are seeing the effect of the economy, with parents pulling their child out of daycare¹ when out of work. Sometimes, when they do find new jobs, they return, but may ask for part-time hours or negotiated fees. Some struggling families may use family members,² neighbors or friends³ to watch their kids while they work to save money, but those arrangements are sometimes unreliable and can jeopardize the new job.

Parents who owe child support but are out of work or working reduced hours should not hesitate in contacting their local child support division, so that arrangements can be made. Simply not paying only makes things worse. At the same time, parents who are on the receiving end of child support payments may need a reality check on the current job market and finding work. It’s not a desirable solution, but tough times may mean certain changes are inevitable. When things improve, the child support payments should be reflective of that as well.

Until then, families should:

• Consider child care solutions that may fit better into a shrinking family budget. Not all child care options are the same, and services and weekly charges can vary greatly. Ask your current care provider if there is any financial flexibility. An example may be allowing your child to bring lunch from home instead of eating a prepared meal or opting out of add-ons that often occur with daycare operations. If a new arrangement cannot be worked out, consider moving from a preschool to a family care setting, going part-time and asking family to help out during the remaining hours, or look for a less expensive child care option⁴ that still provides safe and healthy services.
• Consider whether extracurricular activities or lessons are essential. Your child may be a great baseball player, but a family in financial crisis may need to look at switching from a select team to a local recreational team for the season…or taking a season off until times are better.
• Involve your children in financial decision making. Don’t hide your financial hardships from your kids. Many kids are well aware of today’s tough economic times and know there is a recession. Ask them for ideas on ways to reduce costs.
• Avoid the blame game with a parent who is unable to pay child support like in the past. If there is a legitimate reason the parent is unable to pay support at this time, or has had the amount to be paid reduced, avoid turning that parent into the bad guy. Rather, your family will be stronger overall if you explain that it is tough finding a job right now, but once the parent does, extra support will return to the family.

Why consider summer school?

• Summer school helps prevent “brain drain” of topics learned over the previous year. Since school is a stepping stone where each year provides the foundation for new skills the upcoming year, forgetting basic school-level skills is a real problem for teachers every year.
• Since class ratios are very small, or even one-on-one, students benefit from receiving quality instruction with fewer distractions.
• Target tutoring allows students to benefit right where they need it the most.
• Students with low self-esteem or academic concerns benefit greatly from summer school. While their report cards may show an A, the may be fearful about new concepts to be learned and whether they will be able to grasp the content as quickly as their peers.
• Summer school is a great confidence builder, in that a student entering a grade where fractions will be learned, for example, can enter into the classroom already having that base understanding to feel better about overall school success.

For more information please contact info@totalchildcare.co.uk

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