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Unique Child Health

childcaremedia — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:01:30 +0000

A Unique Child Health: Sun up!

Nursery World, 17 January 2008

Practitioners can help parents prevent the resurgence in rickets with some important advice, says Ruth Thomson.

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the incidence of tuberculosis, but now another ‘Victorian’ disease is on the rise. Rickets, caused by vitamin D deficiency, is staging a comeback, prompting the Government to recommend that pregnant or breastfeeding women boost their vitamin D intake in the darker winter months.

What is rickets?

Rickets is a bone disease that can lead to bone deformities, stunted growth and general ill-health. Symptoms in children include:

- tender swollen joints
- bone pain and tenderness
- muscle weakness and pain
- breathing difficulties
- bow legs or knock knees
- delayed walking or waddling gait
- delayed closure of the fontanelle (soft spot on a baby’s head)
- delayed eruption of the teeth or weak tooth enamel.

What causes it?

The disease is caused by a long-term deficiency of vitamin D, which helps keep our hearts healthy and muscles working properly but is also vital to the normal development of nerves, teeth and bones. Vitamin D is essential because it helps calcium to be absorbed from the intestine and into the bone. Without it, bones weaken and become soft.

The deficiency also causes seizures, has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and may also worsen the symptoms of Crohn’s disease and similar conditions.

People with only a mild deficiency may have no symptoms and be unaware of the problem or may experience only slight tiredness or aches. The most common symptoms are muscle weakness and pain and bone pain.

Who is at risk of Vitamin D deficiency?

Most people have enough Vitamin D stored in their body to last for two to three years, but more and more healthcare professionals are reporting cases of deficiency.

You are at risk if you suffer from fat malabsorption or have a poor diet and no regular exposure to sunlight – 90 per cent of our Vitamin D is made by the action of sunlight on the skin.

In winter we maintain adequate levels of the vitamin through dietary intake and the reserves stored in our bodies. When at latitudes of 52 degrees north (above Birmingham), there is no ultraviolet light of the appropriate wavelength for the body to make vitamin D in the skin.

Vitamin D deficiency is common among the white population, but most at risk are children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers within the Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Middle Eastern communities. Some research has suggested that as many as 1 in 100 children in ethnic minority groups may have rickets.

This increased suspectibility is due to these populations’ dark skin, which absorbs less sunlight. Clothing worn for cultural reasons may also limit a person’s exposure to the sun.

Dr Colin Michie, a paediatrician at Ealing Hospital, says, “We are seeing significant numbers of children with vitamin D deficiency. If a pregnant or breastfeeding woman is lacking in vitamin D, the baby will also have low vitamin D and calcium levels, which can lead babies to develop seizures in the first months of life.’

How do you prevent Vitamin D deficiency?

Everyone should ensure they have:

- enough vitamin D in their diet (the main sources are oily fish, eggs, fortified cereals and breads, milk and cheese)

- adequate exposure to sunlight. According to the Department of Health, you can get enough vitamin D by exposing your arms, head and shoulders to the sun for 15 minutes per day during the summer, when the sun is not at its most harmful.

The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition recently stated that children in high-risk groups should take vitamin D supplements. Now the Government is recommending that when sunshine hours are limited, pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under four take a daily supplement of 10 micrograms.

Families eligible for the Healthy Start scheme can obtain free Healthy Start Vitamins for Women and Healthy Start Children’s Vitamin Drops through their GP or health visitor. Some Primary Care Trusts also sell Healthy Start vitamins to non-beneficiaries for a small cost. Other supplements can be bought at supermarkets and pharmacies.

More Information

- www.healthystart.nhs.uk

- www.nhsdirect. nhs.uk

- The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) report ‘Update on Vitamin D’ is available at www.sacn.gov.uk/reports.

childcaremedia — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:34:32 +0000

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.

childcaremedia — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:22:02 +0000

Being “In Control” — The Possible and Impossible in Parenting

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.

childcaremedia — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:31:22 +0000

Taxis and buses face automatic speed limiting

The device uses satellite tracking and a digital road map to detect the local speed limit

Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

Thousands of taxis, buses and council vehicles could be fitted with devices which prevent them from exceeding the speed limit.The technology – known as Intelligent Speed Adaptation – is being tested by Transport for London in a trial starting this summer on all roads inside the M25.

Drivers of vehicles with ISA will be able select an option which prevents them accelerating over the limit. The vehicle will also automatically slow down if the driver fails to reduce his speed when he passes a sign marking a reduction in the limit.

The device uses satellite tracking and a digital road map to detect the local speed limit.

In addition to the automatic mode, the device has an advisory mode in which the driver is simply informed of the limit and told whether or not he is complying. A smiley ’face’ appears on the sat nav-style unit if the driver is obeying the limit. The face frowns if the motorist goes too fast.

The technology is likely to be offered for sale next year to private motorists. Those with six or nine penalty points may choose to have it installed to avoid an automatic six-month driving ban for receiving 12 points within three years.

Transport for London, which will tomorrow announce a six month trial of ISA, estimates that if two thirds of London drivers use the devices, the number of road casualties in the Capital could be reduced by 10 per cent.

The improvement in road safety could also reduce congestion, a quarter of which is caused by collisions. Vehicles obeying the limit would also consume less fuel and be less polluting.

Even if only a fraction of vehicles were equipped with ISA, they would have a widespread affect on traffic speed because other drivers would have to slow down behind them. However, some motoring groups have voiced concern that ISA vehicles would result in a rise in dangerous overtaking.

TfL’s trial will include a London bus, a licensed taxi and 20 cars driven by road engineers, traffic mangers and highway inspectors.

If the trial demonstrates clear safety and environmental benefits, bus companies and taxi operators could either be obliged to equip their vehicles with ISA or be given incentives to do so.

Results of the trial will be published in the Spring, when the technology will be made available to other organisations. Southwark Council has already expressed an interest in fitting ISA to more than 300 of its vehicles.

Chris Lines, Head of TfL’s London Road Safety Unit, said: ”This innovative technology could help any driver in London avoid the unnecessary penalties of creeping over the speed limit and at the same time will save lives.

“We know the technology works and now we want to know how drivers in all types of vehicles respond to it.

“ISA is intended as a road safety device, but if Londoners embrace this technology we may well see additional benefits including reduced congestion as a result of collisions and reduced vehicle emissions as drivers adopt a smoother driving style.” Councillor Jeff Hook, executive member for environment at Southwark Council, said: “As an Approved Driving Instructor, I understand more than most the pressing need to make our streets safer and the value of speed limits. This technology could revolutionise the way we keep our roads safer in Southwark, and that’s why we’re really interested in this trial and if it’s successful we hope to kit out our entire fleet of nearly three hundred vehicles as soon as funding allows.” Andrew Howard, Head of Road safety at the AA, said: “Drivers are divided in their views of intelligent speed adaptation – some hate it, some want it. Many have questions that will be answered only by trials like those being carried out by TfL.

“The AA welcomes these trials which help build the knowledge base and experience to show whether Intelligent Speed Adaptation can cut collisions, delays and pollution, and to check for potential side-effects.

“The trials will also allow the views of people who have driven vehicles with the equipment to be gathered and better understood.”

childcaremedia — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:25:03 +0000

From The Sunday Times

May 10, 2009

Emergency plan for independent audit of MPs’ expenses

Suzy Jagger, Politics & Business Correspondent

MPs’ expenses will be scrutinised by a new audit body policed by professional, external accountants under emergency plans being drawn up this weekend, it emerged today.Sir Stuart Bell, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough who is one of those responsible for the current rules governing MPs’ claims, said today: “In all probability tomorrow the Commission will approve a special specific audit unit, hived off from the fees office, independent of the fees office which will verify in future every claim that’s made by any Member of Parliament.”He explained that the plans included hiring professional accountants who were “outside individuals” to comb through and verify new expense claims before signing them off.

Sir Stuart also said that he expected that there will be a statement in the House of Commons tomorrow to apologise to the public over the expenses and second home debacle.

The establishment of a new body to police MP expenses emerged amid a fresh slew of embarrassing expense claims from MPs.

Of those, it emerged today that Kitty Ussher, the Work and Pensions minister, had exploited the lax rules governing parliamentary allowances by carrying out a £20,000 refurbishment of her Brixton home. Even though Ms Ussher had bought the property in South London in 2000 for £273,000, she began claiming for the makeover of the house within a year of being elected and wrote a 12 point letter to the fees office to ascertain how much she could get the taxpayer to cover.

In the letter, she wrote: “The basic situation is that this house was relatively cheap to purchase but requires quite a lot of work. The plumbing in the entire house is strange. There are pipes that are not used. Can we get them removed using the ACA [Additional Costs Allowance]?”

She added: “Most of the ceilings have Artex coverings. Three dimensional swirls. It could be a matter of taste, but this counts as ‘dilapidations’ in my book! Can the ACA pay for the ceilings to be plastered over and repainted.”

When she did file her expenses to the fees office – the body currently responsible for signing them off – she claimed so much in 2006 that she exceeded the £21,634 limit set for MPs. Attached to her expenses was a note: “I am aware this takes us over our limit – please pay as much as you are able!” As a minister, her current salary is £94,228 a year. In the past three years, she claimed more than £60,000 as part of her second homes allowance.

It also emerged today that Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, remortgaged his constituency home for £296,000 – nearly 10 times its purchase price – just before buying a west London house for £3.65 million. While there is no suggestion Mr Blair broke any parliamentary rules, he was able to use the system to claim for interest repayments amounting to almost a third of the new mortgage on his constituency home. The remortgaged amount was enough to cover the deposit on the new London house. A spokesman for Mr Blair said: “There is nothing new in this story. This is just a recycling of known information from a previous Freedom of Information inquiry. The facts are as we said at the time: there was no cost to the taxpayer in this decision.”

Separately, the former Transport Secretary Stephen Byers received more than £125,000 in second home expenses on a London flat which was actually owned by his partner. Mr Byers claimed a total of £126,648 on the property in Camden, north London between 2001 and 2008. This included more than £27,000 on redecoration, maintenance and appliances over five years.

Five Sinn Fein MPs were also facing questions for claiming almost £500,000 in taxpayer funds to cover the cost of running second homes in London, even though they have not taken up their seats in the House of Commons.

It also emerged that John Gummer, the former environment secretary who served in the Thatcher Government, has used the parliamentary expenses system to claim for moles to be removed from his garden in his Suffolk home. Mr Gummer claimed £9,000 a year for gardening, of which £100 was spent in one year for treating moles. Mr Gummer – who became notorious during the BSE crisis in the 1980s for allowing his daughter to be photographed eating a beef burger – has a £60,000 mortgage on his Suffolk grange and claimed £200 a month to pay off interest on the loan, but also more than £20,000 every year from 2004 on other expenses.

childcaremedia — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:30:01 +0000

A down economy and an increased jobless rate is taking its toll on parents who pay child support. The recession is bad enough on the nation’s workers who may lose their jobs. But for those workers who are also obligated to pay child support–something they may find themselves unable to do if they can’t find work–the hardship extends to the custodial parent who may be desperately relying on that money to make ends meet.

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.

childcaremedia — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:28:12 +0000

Summer school used to be associated with remediation only. A kid in summer school meant that he was struggling academically, and required extra summer schooling to catch up with his peers. But no longer. An increasing number of parents are sending their kids to summer school (or using a summer tutor) as a way to keep their skills current over long summer months, to play catch up where they may have struggled with certain concepts or subjects, or to gain an educational advantage for the upcoming school year. Whereas in the past, summer school was sometimes considered “punishment” by kids, with increased specialty instruction, small student-teacher ratios, and enrichment-style learning in many cases, suddenly summer school is often considered “cool!”

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.

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childcaremedia — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:19:42 +0000

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