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Have you lost pay due to UK Schools closed due to snow? Claim back your lost earnings!

Schools in Dunstable, South Bedfordshire and all over the UK have been closed for nearly a full week due to snow.

Parents who have chosen to keep their children off school where the school has remained opened during this snowy patch have been told they will be marked as having an unauthorised absence.

So, what are the reasons for the closures? I was told it was due to Health and Safety reasons (as oppose to transport problems).

My personal view is that if teachers and students live within walking distance of the school, then there is no reason for schools to be closed due to snow. You wrap up warm, wear your wellies and stay indoors playtime. This is how it was when I was a child. Schools never closed due to snow.

Meanwhile, I personally have lost 4 days pay this week as I am on a temporary contract. The school I work for has been open all week!

I am claiming back (trying to) my lost pay from the school my children attend which has been closed all week and I recommend all of you who feel this is fair do the same then just maybe this situation which could be the same next week, won't arise in future years.

I have already complained to school governors, Head of the school,the county council and my MP regarding this situation and the councils decision NOT to grit school roads!

If you would like to use the letter below to forward to your council/governors/MP, you have my full permission to do so.

"Dear...........................

The school has now been closed for .............................. due to snow. I am uncertain as to whether the reasons for closure are that teachers cannot travel to school or health and safety reasons. Either way, I as a parent could have reached the school on foot.

I see no reason why children would be considered unsafe at school due to snow as when the conditions are icy and as such far more hazzordous, the school remains open.

I have lost £............. pay this week due to the school closures, and as such I wish to claim reimbursement of my losses from you.

Please advise me as to the correct process for making this claim.

Yours sincerely


....................

Parents of ............................................"

Of course address the letter at the top to the school chief Governor and include your address.

I do not know whether you or I will be successful at recovering lost pay/earnings/money but there is nothing to be lost by asking and you never know we may just get somewhere.

How To Empower Your Kid Through Learning Games

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How To Empower Your Kid Through Kids Learning Games?

by Jane Reynolds

CHILD LEARNING GAME





Did you know that up to age 4, kids have no ability to be aware of that there are alternatives attitudes from their own? In other words, if you are sitting at a table with a three year old and there are 3 objects on the table, the kid will be able to illustrate the objects from their own point of view, but not from how they might look at any other position at the table.

Sound obvious, isn't it? Yet, the point of lots of kids learning games is to teach this important ability. Often, children are capable of this comprehending, however it is not taught correctly and so only develops it later. Kids learning games that engage item recognition are a great way to teach this ability.

Any kids learning games that engage other children should be encouraged, as this is the sole way to educate children that there is more than one point of view besides their own. Kids who show self-centered behavior often simply do not grasp the meaning of that their actions have any outcome besides other than to gratify themselves, and this leads to a reiteration of the self-centered courteous manners.

Educating children to know when they are hurting others, or when they should be sharing one of their toys, is a consequential part of foundation education. Make sure you are selective of each kid learning games, ensuring that they educate positive sociable standards.

See, if your child earn and understands his social skills and make use of them, he will reach self-empowerment. He will turn into a cheerful and successful person.
A socially-empowered child accomplishes so much greatness, mostly due to the other kids that catapult him to success.
He learns the faith and comprehensive encouragement of the other children. He never runs out of help. He can do anything with the all children that support him.

Jane Reynolds is an authority educator in the areas of education. She is also a mother and wrote learning games articles for children. We are sharing the significance of educating your children first-hand through games and toys. The Child Learning Game is an incredibly versatile and globally unique glimpse on the educational learning. It allows you to understand the learning process and get tips for fun education. You will find a new inspirational way of looking towards education and fun process.

Further more info and time-saving tips and parenting strategies to children to learn at home, be successful in school, and grow up healthy, visit us and find out more recommendations for kids learning games activities. Play Is Where The Learning Begins.Originally published on SearchWarp.com for Jane Reynolds Sunday, November 16, 2008

Article Source: How To Empower Your Kid Through Kids Learning Games?

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How to teach children the times tables the fun way!

Times Tables - The Worst Way to Teach Multiplication

by Brian Foley

Magic and Learning


Learning the "multiplication tables" is one of the first traumas that children usually face when learning arithmetic.


Ask ten elementary-school kids to tell you what, say, eight times seven is. Watch as they look up and to their left (or right) and go into, "let's-see" mode. Often you'll hear them say, "Um, ah..." before give you the answer. Generally, there's a lot of hesitation. Only then, do they actually give you the answer. Sometimes it's even correct.


I know, I was one of them. Maybe you were, too. Most children are victimized by the thoughtless, authoritarian, wrong way to teach the "multiplication facts" (what a stupid term!)


Why are "the tables" the wrong way to learn? Maybe I can illustrate it best by analogy. Imagine that you wanted your children to learn the names of all their cousins, aunts and uncles. But you never actually let them meet or play with them. You just showed them pictures of them, and told them to memorize their names.


Each day you'd have them recite the names, over and over again. You'd say, "OK, this is a picture of your great-aunt Beatrice. Her husband was your great-uncle Earnie. They had three children, your uncles Harpo, Zeppo, and Gummo. Harpo married your aunt Leonie...yadda, yadda, yadda.


Boring!


But what if you had them all over for the weekend, and you found out Earnie did magic tricks, Beatrice had been a rodeo queen, Zeppo always wore mismatching socks, Harpo played the, well, you know, Gummo picked his nose and wiped it on his tie, and Leonie could sing like an angel?


Well, then you'd have some relationship with them, wouldn't you? The next time you saw Earnie, you'd ask him to show you a trick. You'd ask his daughter Leonie if she could teach you to sing, and you'd stay away from Gummo's tie.


It turns out that you can build relationships with multiplications, as well. And they have relationships with each other. You already know some of them. Like the relationship of nine to ten. Nine is one less than ten, so when you multiply something by nine, just stick a zero at the end of it, and subtract the original number.


Take the example 8*9. Just stick a zero behind the 8 to get 80. Next, subtract 8 from 80, and you've got 72, which is the correct answer to 8 multiplied by 9.


That is the intuitive way for many people to multiply by 9. So why do they make you stare at the nine-times-table in school? It's boring and fosters no sense of the relationship of nine to the other numbers. It turns multiplication into isolated "multiplication facts" (there's that stupid term again).


If you had children multiply by nine with the subtraction method often enough, they'd know the answers in their bones after awhile. It would take less time than it would to memorize the nine-times-tables by rote, and it would have them actively involved with using the numbers. Imagine that!


This may be hard to digest at first, because learning the "multiplication facts" by rote has been ingrained into the school system for decades. Maybe that is why our children are getting worse and worse at this easy, important skill.


If you're a teacher, you're probably fed up with the bad mojo from the policy-makers. You need to get your own mojo working.


If you are serious about teaching or learning multiplication, you owe it to your child, your students, or yourself to check out the "Numbers Juggling" e-booklet and e-course to learn to multiply at Learn2Multiply.com


Originally published on SearchWarp.com for Brian Foley Monday, November 17, 2008

Article Source: Times Tables - The Worst Way to Teach Multiplication

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Special Education (SEN) What to expect at a Job Interview for Teaching Special Needs Children

Because a special education teacher's job requires far more than just teaching, administrators will seek candidates who are true specialists in the field. If you're hoping to be hired as a special ed teacher, you need to be an expert at the art of adapting lessons, an active advocate for student needs, a professional IEP writer, a wealth of information on student disabilities, and a dedicated individual who is 100% committed to doing whatever it takes to help all students reach their fullest potential.

As with any teaching interview, I recommend you familiarize yourself with possible questions beforehand. This will make the interview questions seem familiar so you'll be more comfortable answering them. You will be asked a series of general teaching questions as well as questions that specifically relate to special ed.

Below are a few thoughts on ways to be prepare for the special education questions that will be asked.

1. Be prepared to comprehend and respond to all of the jargon, acronyms, and special requirements of special education. You should know exactly how an IEP and/or CSE meeting is conducted. You need to speak and act as though you are very familiar with IEP meetings, CSE meetings, child study meetings and any other special education committees the school may have. Understand how least restrictive environment works. Know what services and support the school district does and does not offer.
2. Be sure you understand and are able to talk about a wide range of disabilities. Familiarize yourself with Asperger's/autism, ADHD, emotional disorders, processing delays, speech disorders, physical handicaps, and every other common disability children may be classified with in the district.
3. Emphasize your ability to work cooperatively with colleagues. Special education teachers are usually required to work closely with and/or team teach with regular education teachers. They'll also be communicating regularly with special education administration, social workers or counselors, PT/OT teachers, and resource teachers. There's a lot of specialized teamwork involved in educating children with special needs. You need to understand your role in acting as an advocate for each of your students and in meeting their social and academic needs.
4. Know how to utilize support staff. Oftentimes special education students will have teachers' aides or assistants. Be sure you know how to use the support staff in a professional way the benefits the student. You don't want the child to become dependent on a teacher's aide for doing simple tasks that he/she can perform himself. On the other hand, you want to be sure the student is receiving the full support he/she needs.
5. Be sure you're an expert in differentiation. While all teachers should differentiate their lessons based on their students' needs, special education teachers need to be especially confident in their ability to adapt lessons to meet the very unique needs of their students. You simply can't teach a concept and expect every child to be doing the same work, the same way. You need to individualize instruction so that it is presented in a way that all of your students can learn. You will not be able to look at the school's curriculum or instructional materials and use them as-is. You'll need to show that you can adapt your resources to meet the learning needs of your students.

Final thoughts: To succeed in a special education interview, you need to be able to talk-the-talk, understand how to be an advocate for special needs students, fully understand responsibilities associated with the job, and be willing to go above and beyond to meet the unique instructional needs of classified students.

For additional information about finding teaching jobs, the teacher interview process, common teacher interview questions and answers, building a teaching portfolio, and resume and cover letter information, you may want to download a copy of "Guide to Getting a Teaching Job" from iwantateachingjob.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Wei is the author of Guide to Getting the Teaching Job of Your Dreams. It's a $20 eBook that describes everything you need to know about teacher applications, teaching interview process, common teacher interview questions and answers, building a teaching portfolio, resume and cover letter information, and lots more!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_W

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Teaching Ideas for the First Day of School!

As teachers eye their empty classrooms the day before school starts where not a creature is stirring and hopefully not a mouse, teachers are filled with anticipation about what they will get for the upcoming school year. Will they get a group of students that will be easy to teach? Will they get the supplies and support they need to be effective? Will they get ideas to do their tasks as teachers better? Of all the questions teachers may ponder, three are crucial to consider for a successful year. Those three questions are as follows.

1. How can I establish positive relationships with my students?

The quicker you learn the names of your students and get a sense of their personalities the better. My favorite activity for building rapport and community in my class is to have students fill out a questionnaire about themselves on the first day of school. The questionnaire is divided into section A and section B.

The questions in section A are for record keeping purposes such as the name of the student, the name of the parent or guardian, home telephone number etc. In contrast, the questions in section B are fun, get-acquainted questions such as: If you could be a part of a TV show which show would you select and why? Each student is expected to share an answer to a question from section B aloud to the class. After each student has shared, I collect the questionnaires and file them in my records.

2. How can I maintain good classroom management?

Student behavior is easiest to manage during the first few days of school. To help maintain this ease in management, students need to understand how you expect them to behave in class and the consequences for not acting appropriately. Teachers should create a practical, well thought-out classroom management tool to help them enforce the rules consistently throughout the year. This classroom management tool should achieve the following goals:

a. remind students of the class rules on a regular basis,
b. provide the teacher with a systematic way to acknowledge appropriate behavior and discourage inappropriate behavior through consequences
c. produce a visual or a document that students and/or parents can view that tracks the progress of how students are adhering to class rules

I highly recommend that teachers explain and use their classroom management tool on the first day of school to build a routine of appropriate behavior in their class.

3. What should I teach first?

Most students start the school year eager and ready to learn. But like anyone else, students want to enjoy the learning process and feel connected to what they are learning. Teachers should try to make their first few lessons or unit very engaging. Engaging students does not require that your lessons be over-the-top fun or easy. Instead, engaging lessons are thought-provoking and provide students with opportunities to express their thoughts and ideas.

This can be achieved by connecting the content of your lesson to an interesting theme. For example, for my ninth grade English class, I usually start with the novel, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. One theme that I use to capture the attention of my students is how instant wealth can change the life of a person. If students deem your class to be engaging during the first weeks of school, they will be easier to teach when you do have to conduct a dull lesson every now and then later in the year.

A successful classroom imitates that of a thriving community. As with a thriving community, a successful class is place where a person can feel free to be himself or herself without infringing on the rights of others or hampering its productivity. Teachers who give thoughtful consideration to the above questions will lay the foundation for a successful school year despite what they may get on the first day of school.

Tonia Lee is the author of Romeo & Juliet in Urban Slang and Macbeth in Urban Slang.

For a copy of the student questionnaire or classroom management tool Tonia Lee has used successfully in her class, visit http://shakespeareinslang.com and click on free teaching ideas navigation button.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tonia_Lee

Why Do Children Get Depressed and what can we do about it?

When the Bad Mood Stays: Children and Depression

by Chris Horton

Corner Stork Baby Gifts


Some research indicates as many as one in every fifty children in the United States struggles with depression. Persistent feelings of sadness, weariness, and loss of purpose can take a devastating toll on a child's emotional well-being one that ripples out into many other areas of life.

Depression is more likely to affect boys more than girls under the age of ten; around age twelve, the statistics even out. Parents need to watch for depression's warning signs and quickly pursue support if depression seems to be affecting their child.

Depression's symptoms

In addition to the symptoms listed above, children with depression will experience feelings of listlessness, a sense or hopelessness, irritability followed by anger, social withdrawal, fatigue or low levels of energy, and difficulty concentrating and sleeping.

It should be understood that not all children with depression will suffer from all symptoms, nor are all symptoms necessary to qualify as a diagnosis.

Making a diagnosis

As yet there is no conclusive means of diagnosing depression. Experts compile test results based on behavior and expressed feelings and theorize a diagnosis from their findings.

Children who exhibit one or more symptoms for longer than two weeks may have the condition known as clinical depression. Parents should enlist the aid of a doctor to rule out physical symptoms that may be causing the behavior. If those do not reveal the problem, parents can enlist a psychiatrist or clinical social worker for help in making an evaluation. Experts will interview both the child and the parents, attempting to identify depressive events or habits in the child's daily life, before making their determination.

Depression's causes and origins

Medical research has found no single compelling reason for depression, but has instead found warning signs that indicate a high potential for the disease. Genetics play a very strong role: depressed children normally have a close relative who suffers from it as well.

Other mental health problems linked to depression

Children with depression are also to be at an increased risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Conduct Disorder.

An extreme form of mental disorder, called Bipolar Disorder (sometimes "manic depression"), causes the child's moods to swing from depressed to energetically happy, sometimes in very short amounts of time.

Treatment

Mental health experts will usually assign the child antidepressants and possibly a mood stabilizer, to help them manage symptoms. Therapy is also sometimes recommended, so that the child has a means of dealing with the depression's causes.

Corner Stork Baby Gifts presents this article as part of our ongoing commitment to better baby health. We proudly carry a complete selection of baby blankets , unique baby gifts , personalized baby gifts , and even baby shower favors charming enough for any holiday celebration. Visit us online at http://www.cornerstorkbabygifts.com .

Originally published on SearchWarp.com for Chris Horton Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Article Source: When the Bad Mood Stays: Children and Depression

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What do you do when you see a teacher behaving badly?

This is a tricky one. You are a teaching assistant or a TA student and while in the classroom you see the teacher doing something that you know isn't right. Maybe they are bullying a pupil verbally or man handling children, what do you do?

With any situation in a work environment where you seek a colleague doing something you know is wrong it is always going to be difficult addressing this problem.

You could gently approach that person and tell them you noticed them doing ..'xyz' and see how they respond. This is better than accusing them outright or appearing to judge their behaviour. instead you merely state it has been observed.

If you are worried about their reaction or that they may retaliate and try to get you into trouble, then tell the Headteacher. Be aware that there might be loyalty issues with the Headteacher and the teacher so your complaint might not be welcomed.

If your complaint does fall on deaf ears, depending on the incident and the severity of what you saw you can always then go a step higher and alert the Education Authority in your area.

What you must not do is gossip about the teacher and spread rumours around the staffroom. Keep your complain between the three of you!

How to apply Blooms Taxonomy in the classroom

Check this link out here:
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/Dalton.htm#knowledge

It will take you to a great resource detailing how Blooms taxonomy can be applied in the classroom by teachers and TA's alike.