News

News update – September - November 2006:

The newsletter section has not been updated for several months as I have been busy writing a new book – ‘How To Manage Behaviour In Further Education’ – which will be published through Paul Chapman Publishing in February 2007.

For details on this publication, please click here.

Food For Thought

A new healthy eating regime began for schools this term. Schools should now be serving:

·       two portions of fruit and veg daily

·       a non-dairy protein daily – meat, fish, eggs, nuts, pulses

·       fish must be offered twice a week in secondary schools

·       starchy food available daily

·       red meat should be available twice a week

Manufactured meat products must have minimum meat content and shouldn’t have offal in them. There is also a ban on table salt and on the number of deep-fried items available. Strict rules are in place on drinks available and on tuck shop items.

Jamie Oliver has suggested that some parents fill their children’s lunch boxes with junk food. He suggested that around 75% of packed lunches he saw were made up of inappropriate items. The Government has reported that 20% of our children will be obese by 2010. The research involving 3500 children from 10 countries found that in the UK they spend 9.4 hours in front of TV or a computer screen each week. They are second least active in Europe. Between the ages of 7-16 on average a British child will spend 4399 hours watching television or playing computer -  a loss of 183 days.

Weapon Check

According to the Government, schools are able to screen children for weapons using metal detectors. Teachers will be given new powers allowing them to search pupils

for weapons. This is part of Education Secretary Alan Johnson’s policy to ensure schools are “knife and weapon free” zones. Staff will use minimal or no-contact during checks, thus requiring no consent to carry out check, enabling random checks to take place too. If this screening arouses suspicion that a student may be carrying a weapon, then teachers will be able to use powers available to them after implementation of the new Violent Crimes Reduction Bill, including hands-on searches. Screening of students will involve pupils walking through metal detector arches or through using a metal detector wand.

Toxic Childhood

Rising levels of depression and delinquency amongst children in the UK is a grave cause for concern according to a group of authors, teachers and academics.

Children were missing out on childhood because society was forcing them to dress and act like adults. Bad diets, violent images on tv, sedentary play and marketing is causing behaviour problems in children. With children's brains developing they cannot adjust to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change, according to child care expert Dr Penelope Leach:

“They need what developing human beings have always needed including real food, real play, first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives … children are suffering in a fast-moving hyper-competitive culture and faced growing pressure to succeed in an overly academic test driven curriculum”

“It’s clear that the mental health of an unacceptable number of children is being compromised and that this is almost certainly a key factor in the rise of substance abuse, violence and self-harm among young people.”

Smart Capsules

In a trial in Durham over 5000 pupils aged 15-16 years old will be given a combination of omega-3 fish oils and omega-6 evening primrose oil in 6 capsules a day. Dr Madeleine Portwood has stated that this trial will show the same remarkable results as previously. The fish oil supplements improve concentration, behaviour, and learning capacity.

Broken Homes

Prolonged stress can speed up puberty by altering the balance of growth hormones and other chemicals in the body. The trauma of family break up or absentee father can lead to a person being sexually mature faster. This earlier onset of physical maturity is not being matched by emotional development. This can lead to a greater risk of students being open to drug and alcohol abuse or teen pregnancy, self harm and violence.

According to Dr Mark Bellis from John Moore’s Liverpool University adverts for fashion and cosmetics capitalise on teenagers’ earlier maturity by using sexual imagery aimed at them. Computer games rely on interest in fighting and risk taking. Improved diets and nutrition can also lead to the age of puberty falling.

Mobile Addiction

One in six students are so addicted to their mobile phones that they show symptoms associated with gamblers. 90% took their phones with them at all times, and 33% used phone calls to lift their mood. Mobiles can also increase stress levels, according to a report by Dr David Sheffield at the University of Staffordshire.

Speech Problems

350 000 pupils a year are unable to string a sentence together by the age of 5 and are not able to understand a simple instruction. Experts blame the lack of time for parents to spend time talking to their children, loss of family meals, childcare and computer games / television. These findings were based upon a report from the Basic Skills Agency, in Stoke-on-Trent.

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