Children can cope with change when we focus on their strengths, not their failings.
Children can cope with change when we focus on their strengths, not their failings.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders writing in the TES (April 3rd 20200 was looking ahead to the time when 10 million children and 1.3 million staff get back to school; “When schools return it will not be ‘business as usual’ …. many of our pupils will be deeply anxious about the crisis in general and their own family […]
Solutions Focused Coaching in schools – new for 2020 January 2020 As children return to school after the winter break, the experiences they carry with them will span the range from the ideal family get-together to something far away from that. For some children it won’t have been the best time in their life and it may well show in how they make their return […]
Understanding the meaning of stress is the key to preventing exclusion
Recently the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Knife Crime produced their report “Back to school? Breaking the Link between School Exclusions and Knife Crime”. The cross-party group of MPs and peers investigated knife-crime, how it connects to children lives and to various aspects of Government driven policy and practice. The report urged the Government to reform school exclusions, warning that being expelled can be […]
What does a World Mental Health Day or a Child Mental Health Week mean for children who struggle in school, affected by the the push and pull of other people’s demands and the consequences of adverse experiences in their lives? Often they’re the ones who seem to ignore your helping hand, who shout and cry for attention, who hurt themselves or withdraw into their […]
Or spoil the child? When is enough enough and when is it too much? When practices run counter to what we know from recent and current research evidence on educating children with individual needs, differences and diversity, we need to look closely at what’s going on. I wrote this heading and the article below earlier this year. This week I read in […]
I have been thinking about how children respond to the messages we, as adults, transmit to them when something goes wrong. In school if we punish them when they cross a bondary, break a rule, make a mistake, mess about, what is the emotional message that we’re sending them as we open the conversation? How does the use of emotional force play out from their […]
The next few weeks will be a testing time for children moving class and moving schools. Most of them, from toddlers to teens, will come through it by finding themselves and their place, and settling into their relationships with people around them. They can look back at their summer holidays with happy memories, refreshed and eager to be back in school. And some of them […]
Discipline and authority in schools – a bumpy ride? When is enough enough and when is it too much? When practices run counter to what we know from recent research evidence on educating children with individual needs, differences and diversity, we need to look closely at what’s going on. From Jonathan Haidt and Pamela Paresky quoted in the Guardian recently: “ ‘By mollycoddling our children, we’re fuelling mental […]
