Benjamin Spock “Play is the work of the child.”

1. Play develops children’s physical skills.

Play helps to develop children’s physical ability: strength, stamina, spatial awareness and handeye coordination, in a natural and enjoyable way. 

2. Play enables children to burn off surplus energy.

When young children begin to fidget and lose concentration in the classroom, a morning and afternoon playtime offers the perfect, re-energising activity.

3. Play helps in the development of children’s social skills.

Free play allows children to work in groups, to share, develop empathy, negotiate, listen to others, learn conflict resolution techniques, acquire an understanding of body language and develop self-advocacy. 

4. Play helps children to hone their language skills.

Children’s language develops at a ‘needs must’ level during play. The child will want to communicate with peers, so will experiment with new words, use longer sentences and speak more clearly to make themselves understood.

5. Play is relaxing for children.

Play is fun, providing opportunities for the child to relax, think about things and daydream. 

6. Play is learning.

Play cannot be replaced by formal teaching. Many skills can only be acquired through repeated activity, and when children are enjoying themselves and the activity is fun, they will put in the required practice without thought. When young children play with a ball, they will develop the skills necessary to play cricket, netball or football. When children play on sit and ride toys and scooters, they will develop the balance necessary to ride a bike. 

7. Play reduces stress.

Play enables children to be absorbed in their own interests for long periods of time, acting as an antidote to stress and anxiety.

8. Play allows children to learn about themselves and others. 

Make believe play offers children the chance to act out aspects of their own lives which may be puzzling or frightening. The children can create a world they can master, helping them to conquer their fears and try out new ideas. When pretending to be a teacher, doctor or dentist, they can put themselves in situations they can withdraw from whenever necessary. The ‘dentist’ could look at their teeth and say that everything is fine, that they are too young to visit the dentist and they will mend their mother’s teeth instead, or wave a fairy wand and make everyone’s teeth perfect. Everything is under the child’s control.

9. Play is learning.

Play lays the foundations for later learning. When children paint, colour or play with Lego, beads or plasticine, they are acquiring the fine motor skills necessary for writing. When children play with sand and water, they are developing an understanding of the properties of solids and liquids. Riding a scooter will teach about speed and centres of gravity, roller skating about friction and surfaces, throwing a ball about velocity and angles. It is essential that children’s early learning is practical and based in the real world.

10. Play develops creative thought.

Allowing children time for free play will provide opportunities for them to develop their creative thinking. 

In addition to improving children’s general levels of physical fitness, playing sport provides other, perhaps less obvious, opportunities. Sport will help children to: –

1. Understand the importance of healthy living.

When children are interested in sport, they will be more aware of what a healthy diet looks like, the dangers of smoking, and the consequence of adopting a sedentary life style. 

2. Develop self-discipline and the ability to delay gratification.

Children will learn how to listen carefully, follow instructions, respect other players, develop self-control, self-discipline and concentration. Sporty individuals take a long-term view to their progress, understanding that there is no such thing as a quick fix. 

3. Release stress. 

The hormones that are released when an individual feels under stress are burnt off during physical activity. The hormones do not remain in the body, manifesting themselves in physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches and general malaise. 

4. Develop motivation.

Every child will be able to find a sport to motivate them. The sport will provide targets to work towards. This will give the child experience in planning for the long term, breaking challenges down into small steps, and maintaining effort over time.

5. Develop self-esteem.

Playing sport will always improve a child’s self-confidence. 

6. Cope with failure.

Life is competitive and sport gives children experience of coping with failure in small, manageable doses. Resilience is essential at all levels of sport. 

7. Extend their friendship groups.

Sports clubs offer the child a perfect environment for establishing friendships with others with similar interests. Anyone involved in a sport club outside school will have a wide set of friends. 

8. Feel included.

There is a sport for everyone. Children and young people with Aspergers may prefer individual sports such as swimming, orienteering, climbing and distance running. Those with ADHD will benefit from the development of self control and focus through martial arts. Children with dyspraxia will benefit from sports that encourage the development of core muscles and stability, perhaps dance, trampolining or horse riding.

9. Understand the advantages of collaboration and team work. 

Players in any team will listen to the advice of others and take note of their opinions. The team is always more important than the individual.

10. Make independent decisions.

The individual can choose their personal level of challenge within a sport. Sport can be high risk: motocross, pot holing or parkour, or low risk: snooker, darts or archery. Some individuals will gain a sense of achievement from diving from the side of a swimming pool for fifty years without feeling any need to progress to higher diving boards or to introduce turns, twists or somersaults to their dives. 

How do we compensate for the interruptions to children’s education caused by Covid? How will gaps created in children’s knowledge be filled?

Looking back on my own school days, I wonder about the usefulness of many of the topics I studied. So much knowledge turned out to be superfluous to my needs as an adult: rubber farming in Ghana, the construction of a gingham apron, the periodic table, logarithms, and the French pluperfect. 

I have retained information about the different sports we played, along with a mass of historical, geographical, biological and religious facts; although a significant proportion of this knowledge was probably accrued after leaving school out of personal interest. I retain little from Chemistry, Physics, Music or German lessons, although I can appreciate for a lot of people, the reverse might be true.

The modern curriculum is content heavy and could easily be pruned to reduce the amount of topic knowledge that someone, somewhere has deemed essential. No harm would come to pupils if they studied fewer topics within subjects, rather than rattling through an overloaded curriculum at such a pace that there is little time for re-visiting information or delving deeper into areas of specific interest. 

One of the many claims made for our exam-focused curriculum is that it assists in the development of transferable skills: the ability to retain facts, organise information, follow a reasoned argument, answer questions in an appropriate style, write a structured essay, and work under time constraints. Even in practical subjects, such as GCSE P.E, the exam assesses these skills rather than the physical talent one would assume to be vital for success. Presumably the grasp of such transferable skills is thought to prepare the individual for the world of work, in addition to any vocational / professional qualifications they may be required to study in the future.

Perhaps the Covid challenges of the last 18 months present an opportunity to re-balance the curriculum. For starters, I would suggest an alternative range of transferable skills: skills that might prove to be more useful to the individual in the long run: –

1. To develop of a sense of humour. We are all insignificant in the greater scheme of things: we should not get too bogged down with our own importance.
2. To maintain a sense of healthy cynicism towards all things educational. No need for ostentatious shows of rebellion, just a drift towards challenging the educational status quo. School is not the be all and end all of life. School is compulsory for 11 years: the average life span of an adult in the UK is 81 years. 
3. To be willing to voice personal opinions and question established norms. When you believe you have a legitimate point, you have a responsibility to challenge accepted wisdom.
4. To adopt a reasonable work / life balance. Over-work is not a badge of honour, but an unhealthy way to live. We need to put in the required effort, but not to be afraid to go home early or to take all of our holiday entitlement when we need it. 
5. To understand that our self-perception holds us back. When we appreciate that no-one is as critical of ourselves as ourselves, and that no-one cares about our embarrassing moments and trivial failures as much as we do, we are more likely to be motivated to extend the limits of what we believe we can achieve. 

The start of a new term in September is always an important occasion for families: some children will be excited and enthusiastic about returning to school, others less so. 

It is important for adults to remind themselves of the immaturity of children’s emotional systems. Even the most confident child can be thrown by transitions: starting a new school, a change of class or simply a move from summer holiday mode back into the school routine. 

Children’s brains develop slowly from birth through to adulthood, with the average individual’s brain reaching full maturity at twenty-five years of age. One of the last areas to mature is that of ‘executive function’. Executive functioning is the control system of the brain that co-ordinates rational thought and emotional regulation. During childhood and adolescence these two areas develop at different rates. This imbalance explains why children can appear impulsive and thoughtless, but are equally capable of seeing such behaviours as undesirable when they take time to think rationally. 

All children and young people feel emotions keenly: injustice, love, anger, fear, envy, happiness, anxiety and pleasure. Periods of change, such as a new school year, inevitably give rise to mixed emotions. Children may need adult help to rationalise their feelings and get them into perspective.

How to help: –

1. Always remember that children’s levels of development vary. One twelve-year-old may have the emotional maturity of a five-year-old, while another has that of a sixteen-year-old. 
2. Supporting children’s development is an on-going process that may seem like banging your head repeatedly against the same brick wall. The adult must be patient and keep reinforcing the same messages.
3. Parents need to be able to self-regulate themselves. If a child is anxious, angry or distressed, they will need the adult to remain calm and supportive.
4. Remember that behaviour is a form of communication and treat it as such. Talk to children about emotions existing as thoughts and feelings, rather than facts. We feel angry, frightened or upset, rather than we are angry, frightened or upset.
5. Children will need acceptable outlets for emotions out of school: sport to burn off excess energy, martial arts for self-control, art and craft for self-expression, combined with plenty of opportunities for relaxation and the pursuit of personal interests and hobbies.
6. It is important that children realise that anxiety and apprehension are a normal part of everyday life. Everyone worries and is anxious sometimes: a degree of stress is positive and helps to galvanise us into action.
7. Parents should make it clear to their children that there is a generous and broad definition of success; and that they value a range of attributes: courage, sensitivity, humour, perceptiveness, kindness, creativity, effort, thoughtfulness and resilience, rather than narrow and restricted definitions of achievement.
8. If a child is opening up about a problem at school, seize the moment and listen to what they have to say: then, if necessary, act on their behalf. Children need their parents when they need them, not when the adult has an inclination to give the child some quality time.
9. Adults should allow the children to pursue their own interests in school, rather than directing them towards what the adult would like them to take up: to be artistic rather than musical, an actor rather than a physicist, a junior librarian rather than a rugby player.
10. There is a delicate balance to be struck between gradually allowing children degrees of independence by extending their comfort zones, and pushing them out of the nest before they are ready.
11. Children need parents who can teach them empathy. All children are self-centred, and parents will need to alert them to the feelings of their peers, to discuss why other children, (and teachers), might behave in the way they do, and to encourage the child to consider situations from the point of view of others.
12. Play is the perfect antidote to stress for all children and teenagers. Ensure the children have generous amounts of free time after school and at weekends, without constant adult intervention or direction. 

Following yet another set of excellent ‘A’ level and GCSE results for girls, Professor Alan Smithers, Advisor to the Commons Education Select Committee, wrote in the Times of his conclusion that ‘girls are cleverer than boys.’ 

However, if women are the cleverer sex, why do so few hold positions of responsibility in politics, business and education?

• 650 MPs were elected in the General Election of 2019: 220 were female. Five of the twenty-two members of the current Cabinet are women.
• The number of female FTSE 100 CEOs has increased since 2012 from four to five. 
• 63% of secondary teaching staff are female, but only 38% of secondary headteachers are women. 

Some reasons for women’s apparent underachievement.

• The portrayal of female and male roles and characteristics in the media. 
• Gender bias established early in life – research shows that from the age of seven years, children assume that boys are cleverer than girls.
• Different attitudes towards the genders – females are praised for diligence and hard work: males for brilliance and talent. 
• Contrasting male / female social behaviour – men boast and compete when bonding; women admit vulnerability to bond. Such different behaviours can lead to misunderstandings: women assume men are competent, and men think women are admitting inadequacy.

Possible solutions: –

In schools. 

Sexism and sexual harassment must be taken as seriously as racism and racial abuse.

Schools must raise pupils’ awareness of the way that the different genders are presented in the media.

Schools must ensure that small groups of boys do not dominate lessons and monopolise teacher attention.

In the home.

Parents should set an example by sharing childcare and domestic responsibility, and avoid perpetuating stereotypes. (Daughters are sensible, sons are risk-takers. Sons are sporty, daughters are pretty. Daughters are kind, sons are excused.) 

Sons should be taught to respect girls; to challenge sexist attitudes and work alongside women to promote gender equality.

In the workplace

Women and men are judged by different standards. Male confidence is often mistaken for competence. If a woman tries to compete by being similarly assertive, their behaviour is interpreted as aggressive and unpleasant.

Employers must be aware of the tendency to always appoint similar individuals, and ensure that judgements about employees’ competences are based on concrete evidence rather than self-reported. 

Employers should think about how they describe female employees: attractive, chatty, neurotic. Would they use the same words to describe a male employee?

Fact = Women have to work twice as hard as men to prove themselves. They cannot afford to wing it in the way a man might do, and preparation is key. Women’s contributions in the workplace will be challenged and scrutinised more than that of male colleagues, so they must be absolutely certain of their ground. 

Not everyone, male or female, feels comfortable in a traditional alpha-male environment, but it has proved almost impossible to divert the balance of power away from this small group. Women have to access positions of authority if they are going to be able to use their intelligence to benefit future generations.

(The Matthew Effect = To those that have, shall be given more.)

Corandic.

Corandic is an emurient grof with many fribs: it granks from corite, an olg which cargs like lange. Corite grinkles several other taranaces, which garkers excarp by glarcking the corite and starping it in tranker-clarped strobs. The tarances starp a chark which is exparged with worters, branking a slorp. This slorp is garped through other corusces, finally frasting a pragety, blickard crankle: coranda.

Questions: –

1. What is corandic?
2. What does corandic grank from?
3. How do garkers excarp the tarances from the corite?
4. What does the slorp finally frast?

As can be seen from the nonsense passage above, an understanding of basic sentence structure enables the reader to answer comprehension questions, even when the text and questions are gibberish. Fortunately, an appreciation of the conventions of written language, (or syntax), has many more worthwhile applications, for example, to help a child make a calculated guess when trying to read an unfamiliar word.

The dog growled at the man.

‘Mmm. The word I don’t recognise is growled. The word begins with ‘gr’: gran? green? No, it’s something that the dog is doing to the man, so it’s got to be a verb: grew? grip? It has the smaller word ‘owl’ in the middle: gr – owl? Would that make sense? The word ends in ‘ed’. Gr-owl-ed? The dog growled at the man? Yes, the word must be growled.’

Key point for reading development = Children develop an understanding of syntax, or how words are organised in written sentences, through reading and being read to.

‘Give me a child till he’s seven, and I will show you the man’. (Aristotle)

Aristotle maintained that an individual’s personality is formed before their seventh birthday. The foundations of character are laid early in life, and to become happy and successful adults, babies and young children need the same sort of care: –

• Parents / carers who prioritise the infant’s needs; reacting swiftly to feed, change, comfort and keep the child safe.
• Stability and consistency. All children need predictability and routine in their lives. 
• Pro-active parents / carers. Life presents challenges, but adults should demonstrate problem solving, rather than teach helplessness.

As Aristotle observed, by the time a child is seven years old, many aspects of their character, for example: confidence, self-esteem, problem solving and self-control will have been developed through interactions within their family.

The effect of a child’s life experience on, for example, self-control, is demonstrated by Walter Mischel’s famous ‘Marshmallow Test’. This test was designed to assess pre-school children’s ability to accept delay when receiving a reward. The children were given one marshmallow they could eat immediately, or promised two if they could resist the temptation to eat the first sweet while the adult left the room for a short period. Deferring an immediate pleasure for a greater subsequent reward like this is known as ‘delaying gratification’. Subsequent analysis of Mischel’s experiment acknowledged that the child’s capacity to delay gratification was not an inherent trait as was first thought, but rather related to the child’s prior life experience. 

Key point – The foundation of self-control is trust. Parents who are responsive to children’s needs foster trust.

When the child felt their parents / carers were trustworthy, reliable and dependable, then they could resist the immediate temptation and wait for the second marshmallow confident that the promise would be kept. If, however, the behaviour of the child’s parents / carers was unpredictable and inconsistent, the child would eat the first marshmallow immediately. 

Self-control is one important skill learnt early in life, that plays a major role in resisting temptation in later life: teenagers revising for exams even when they would prefer to go out, adults refusing a second helping in order to lose weight or saying no to a cigarette when trying to give up smoking. 

As Mischel said: ‘We can’t control the world, but we can control how we respond to it.’

I wanted to share with you today this wonderful drawing by my grandson Jamie – which goes alongside a brand new Olivia and the Proverbs story. I have always loved the enchantment of children’s drawings – I think they are so special. I adore their colour choices, the creativity and the often hilarious innocence of their artwork. You can’t beat it.

In this new addition to the Olivia and the Proverbs stories, we see Olivia Monkey and her family on holiday at the seaside – the family enjoys all the usual activities that come with a seaside holiday – making sandcastles on the beach, eating ice creams, taking an open-top bus and even a good old fashioned game of crazy golf. But will Olivia Monkey overcome her frustration at this tricky game?

Once again paired with a famous proverb, this story helps young children to understand the world around them and teaches valuable lessons about patience and perseverance.

Good things come to those who wait, after all.

Bullying happens to lots of people, so how can you deal with it?

1. Speak out. Ensure that no-one can ignore the situation. Everyone should be aware of what is happening: subject teachers, parents, form tutors, Heads of Year, lunch time supervisors, school counsellors and peers. This will help everyone: you may be the target this morning, but it will be someone else this afternoon.
2. There is strength in numbers. Seek out anyone else that the bully is picking on. Be supportive, move around together and watch each other’s backs.
3. Report all unacceptable behaviour. Keep a record of the places, dates and times when bullying occurs, and the names of any witnesses. 
4. Every school has an anti-bullying policy. Make reference to these policies when you complain. If you are not satisfied with the response, move your complaint up the school hierarchy: form tutor, Head of Year, Pastoral Head, Head teacher. 
5. Bullying often starts with verbal harassment. If you act early to nip this in the bud, the bully is likely to move on. 
6. Try not react. Walk away as if you haven’t even registered the bully’s presence. If you become distressed or agitated, the bully will feel that they have succeeded.
7. Use avoidance strategies. Be too busy to be bullied: go to the school library at lunch time, attend subject surgeries, join a lunch time club, set up a lunch time club, or volunteer to look after younger pupils during break times.
8. Bullies cannot cope with confident individuals. Act as if you are confident and assertive, even when you don’t feel it. Stand up straight, take up physical space, don’t be apologetic. 
9. Take up Martial Arts. Martial Arts are not about aggression, but about self-control and inner confidence. Martial Arts will teach you to remain calm and composed, even when you feel frightened.
10. Be proactive and informed. Ask other people how they have coped with similar situations. Read articles about bullying. Write a blog to share your experiences, or design anti-bullying posters to put up on classroom noticeboards.

While all young people find transitioning to university challenging, ASD students may find it more challenging than most. Research and preparation are essential.

• Look at the websites of the universities that you are considering: they will provide information of the support the university offers students with additional needs. 
• Contact each university’s Disability Advice Team for the specific detail of their provision. Do they offer counselling and mentoring for students? Do they provide support with independent living or help with the organisation of work /leisure schedules? 
• Research the support available for students through the DSA, (Disabled Students’ Allowances.) These allowances provide funding for appropriate software, 1-1 study tuition, specialist mentoring, and so forth.
• If you decide to tell the university about any diagnoses and previous support, forward the relevant paperwork in good time, then check that it’s arrived safely.
• Visit the universities and go to any Open Days. Look at the Student Support Centre, dining facilities, student halls, the library and local transport routes. 
• Consider accommodation options. Would you prefer a local university; perhaps living at home for a while, then moving into student accommodation at a later date. Weigh up the pros and cons: it can be helpful to have other students around to help with daily routines, like getting to lectures on time, but it may be disruptive if they cook strong smelling snacks in shared kitchens or play loud music late at night. 
• Consider the opportunities available for socialising. Does the university have a Campus Buddy system linking new students with older students; Facebook groups for Freshers or Transition Summer Schools, so that students can get to know each other before term starts. 
• Is there a wide range of clubs and societies? Becoming a member of such associations is a good way to socialise: meetings will have a structure and purpose, rather than being loosely organised social events. Hopefully, university will be a place where you enjoy the company of likeminded people, in addition to gaining the qualifications you need.