Child Poster: Children Need and Deserve Patience

If it takes a poster to help you remember that children need and deserve your patience and understanding to help them learn, then use this poster to help you.

Here are some more quotes to amuse and inform you.

"School is indeed a training for later life not because it teaches the 3 Rs (more or less), but because it instills the essential cultural nightmare fear of failure, envy of success, and absurdity."

Jules Henry

"Schools have not necessarily much to do with education...they are mainly institutions of control where certain basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school." 

Winston Churchill

“School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught.” Ivan Illich

UK Investment to Reverse falling literacy and maths rates

Secondary state schools in England will today (Thursday) receive £500 per pupil to help every year 7 pupil who did not reach the expected level in literacy and maths when they finished primary school.

The ‘catch-up premium’ will provide intensive tuition for almost 110,000 pupils who have failed to reach the expected level of literacy and maths skills by the time they move to secondary school.

Figures from the Department for Education show that only five per cent of pupils who did not manage to get Level 4 in both English and maths at Key Stage 2 went on to achieve five GCSEs at A* to C, including English and maths.

In order to help these children catch up and strive for better GCSEs, they will receive additional help through either individual tuition or intensive support in small groups.

The extra support is designed to help bring pupils up to speed so they are more likely to succeed at secondary school, rather than falling further behind. By catching up with their classmates, pupils’ motivation will also be boosted, in turn preventing disruptive behaviour that impedes learning for others.

The catch-up premium funding for this academic year (2012/13) will be £54.5 million, and schools will hear today how much they are set to receive.

UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (not known for keeping his promises where Education is involved) said:

The consequences for a pupil being left behind in the basics when they start secondary school can last for the rest of their education.

The catch-up premium money being handed out to schools today will help pupils catch up with their peers as quickly as possible. Every child should have the chance to succeed and get off on the right foot when they start their new school.

UK Schools Minister David Laws (also unreliable on the education front and not known to be able to keep promises) said:

It is vital that every child has a strong grasp of maths and a good reading ability when starting their secondary education. No pupil should be left behind.

Our Year 7 catch-up premium for literacy and maths - £500 for every pupil needing extra help - will ensure that support is best targeted to those who most need it.

Despite a tough economic climate, this Coalition Government is making sure all children get the help they need to succeed.

The catch-up premium will support every Year 7 pupil who has not achieved at least Level 4 – the expected level – at Key Stage 2 in either or both literacy or maths.

In 2012, 13 per cent of pupils in all schools failed to gain a Level 4 in reading and 16 per cent failed to achieve this in maths (109,000 in total).

Schools will have freedom to decide how best to use the catch-up premium, but examples could include:

• Small-group tuition supported by new classroom materials and resources, which could take place at lunchtimes or after school. 
• Holiday support to deliver intensive catch-up over a short period. 
• Additional services and materials to add to those provided by the school, such as tutor services or proven computer-based learning or online support.

Notes to be aware of

Payments to local authorities will be made today (Thursday 31 January). Payments to academies and Free Schools will be made on 1 February.

Funding for the catch-up premium is a maximum of £500 per pupil. Almost half of the pupils who are matched with funding are also eligible for the Pupil Premium, which is focused on disadvantaged pupils.

Schools are free to determine how best to use the funding, but Ofsted inspectors will consider how schools are using the premium when inspecting schools. They will also monitor how effectively schools report to parents on whether or not students are meeting national expectations.

Dyslexia: Teaching in Specialised Schools - CReSTeD

Click on the picture to visit their website

Dyslexia: Reading Program ineffective for Students with Learning Difficulties

A new report from the What Works Clearinghouse questions the effectiveness of a longstanding, widely used reading program, developed by McGraw-Hill, for students with learning disabilities.

In a report this month, the WWC found that there is evidence that Reading Mastery has "no discernible effects on reading comprehension and potentially negative effects on alphabetics, reading fluency, and writing for students with learning disabilities."

Looking at the 17 studies about Reading Mastery Classic and Reading Mastery Signature, specifically for students with learning disabilities, the WWC found two of them met its research standards.

Reading Mastery is used in all 50 US states and internationally, and more than 6,500 schools across the country use Reading Mastery Signature, McGraw-Hill said.

The cost per student, the WWC said, during the first year of implementation ranges from $200 to $300 and pays for materials including storybooks, textbooks, workbooks and textbooks. Buying a full set of teaching materials costs between $650 and $1,000 per grade level.

The research in these studies included 113 students with learning disabilities in 2nd through 5th grades from schools in the southeast.

In a typical Reading Mastery lesson, there are seven to nine short activities that address skills such as phonemic awareness, letter-sound correspondence, sounding out words, word recognition, vocabulary, oral reading fluency, and comprehension.

Teachers get scripted lessons to keep students on task, and students who struggle get remedial lessons.

McGraw-Hill cited other research that it says supports its confidence in Reading Mastery's effectiveness.

"For more than 40 years, Reading Mastery has supported the development of struggling readers in grades preK-5 through Direct Instruction," McGraw-Hill spokesman Brian Belardi said.

"The vast majority of anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that Reading Mastery has a positive, meaningful impact on improving student learning."


Contact:Brian Belardi
McGraw-Hill Education
(212) 904-4827
brian_belardi@mcgraw-hill.com

Dyslexia action: Dyslexia Still Matters - PetitionBuzz

Dyslexia Action are calling for a National Dyslexia and Literacy Strategy to enable the best evidence and solutions to be brought forward to increase the literacy standards in all UK schools. 

Our schools and teachers need our support, with access to training and expertise to better enable them to support the learning needs of children with dyslexia and literacy difficulties.

In the light of planned reforms of the Special Educational Needs system and considering other key changes, we put forward positive suggestions and solutions in our report 'Dyslexia still matters'. 

This Dyslexia Action report looks at the situation for children with dyslexia and literacy difficulties in our schools today.

It explores the progress that has been made and examines what still needs to be done to ensure school is positive and rewarding.

To read the full report, please visit www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk 

Go to Pettition Buzz to sign the petition: Dyslexia Still Matters - PetitionBuzz

Philip Schultz Reads from My Dyslexia - YouTube

The 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author of My Dyslexia, Philip Schultz, reads from his book at the National Center for Learning Disabilities "Celebrating Our Schools" Luncheon. Visit www.ncld.org for more insightful learning disabilities information.

With Dyslexia, Words Failed Me and Then Saved Me - Philip Schultz

Philip Schultz is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the author of the forthcoming memoir “My Dyslexia.” 

I was well into middle age when one of my children, then in the second grade, was found to be dyslexic. I had never known the name for it, but I recognized immediately that the symptoms were also mine. When I was his age I’d already all but given up on myself.

Repeating third grade at a new school, after having been asked to leave my old one for hitting kids who made fun of my perceived stupidity, I was placed in the “dummy class.” There were three of us, separated from our classmates at a table in the corner of the room.

One day, the teacher, who seldom spoke to us since it was understood that most of what she taught was beyond the reach of our intelligence, placed books in our hands and whispered that we should sit there quietly “pretending to read.” The principal was coming.

It was not the most outlandish thing she might’ve said, given how little was known about learning disabilities in the early 1950s, and how little training a teacher in the poorest section of Rochester would have received. And her request seemed reasonable to me.

I couldn’t tie my shoes, tell time or left from right, or recreate musical notes or words. I not only couldn’t read but often couldn’t hear or understand what was being said to me — by the time I’d processed the beginning of a sentence, the teacher was well on her way through a second or third.

When I did have something to say I couldn’t find the words with which to say it, or if I could, forgot how to pronounce them.

My situation then seemed hopeless; I had no idea what a learning disability was, or that it had nothing to do with intelligence. Being asked to pretend I wasn’t as stupid as I feared made perfect sense. Only in recollection does the pain of such a moment make itself felt.

Read more of this article here: With Dyslexia, Words Failed Me and Then Saved Me

UK Schools Rating System to be Cheapened

Under new rules, UK school inspectors will listen to primary school pupils read. 

Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Fewer UK schools will be rated outstanding from next year, inspectors have said. The move comes after Michael Gove, the UK coalition education secretary, said many schools awarded the ranking did not deserve it.

Under rules coming into force in January, UK school inspectors will pay more attention to pupils' behaviour, the quality of teaching, and children's ability to read.

They will also spend more time scrutinising whether schools are narrowing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

Miriam Rosen, Ofsted's chief inspector, said she expected it would become "more difficult to achieve the accolade of outstanding".

Education Audit: Ofsted's most recent annual report, published in November, showed that 13% of schools in England were rated as Outstanding, 43% were Good, 37% were Satisfactory and 8% were Inadequate.

Earlier this month Gove told a conference on UK school leadership that it was "a worry to me that so many UK schools are still judged as Outstanding overall when they have not achieved an Outstanding in their teaching and learning".

Inspectors give an overall rating to schools, but also give individual verdicts on teaching and learning. Ofsted figures show that of 3,577 schools judged outstanding overall at their latest inspection, 923 would have been ranked as good or very good at teaching.

The UK coalition government has instructed Ofsted to dramatically reduce the inspection categories to four: the achievement of pupils; the quality of teaching and learning; the effectiveness of the leadership and management; and standards of behaviour and safety..

Schools will no longer receive separate verdicts on whether they are doing their best to achieve community cohesion or safeguard their pupils.

Resources for Schools | Stamp Out Stigma of Mental Health

Resources for Schools | Stamp Out Stigma of mental Health

Service Dogs and Their Place

Dog helps stabilize autistic boy's life, but Hillsboro school says not in the classroom | Washington County News - – OregonLive.com

The U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating a complaint filed by Disability Rights Oregon on behalf of the Givenses. The outcome could affect other families in Oregon that hope to use autism service dogs in schools.

The argument pits special education law against the Americans With Disabilities Act. Although the district argues that the dog is not necessary for Scooter's classroom education, the family says the dog improves the boy's access to his education by keeping him calm