Education department seeks list of 'problem kids'

With multiple incidents highlighting lack of children's security being reported from NCR region, the Gautam, Budh Nagar education department has asked all the government and private schools to share a list of students with "criminal tendency/unruly behaviour" so that they can be counselled against such behaviour.
In a letter issued to all the schools on December 6, officials have said that the list of students will be kept strictly confidential and "correct guidance" will be given to them.
                                               

"Considering the increasing number of cases of criminal intent among students, you are requested to provide a list of the students with criminal tendency or unruly behaviour which will be kept confidential so that they can be given correct guidance after discussion with higher officials," reads the letter.
While the government schools have said that they do not have any such children studying in the school, most of the private ones have not replied to the letter, leave alone submitting such a list.

Frowning at the order, schools have however said that demarcating a child as having a "criminal bent of mind" can have multiple repercussions and it was next to impossible to keep the names of such children as "confidential" and suggested that a common workshop be held for the purpose of counselling.
"We have replied asking the DIOS office, how they can define a child having a criminal intent. These are very sensitive cases. These letters come only in the wake of some incident like the Ryan Bhondsi case. However, such a counselling needs to be consistent. Rather than doing this with few students, there should be a common counselling workshop with the students. But are the authorities equipped to follow up on them?," Asha Prabhakar, Secretary, Unaided Recognised Public Schools Association (URPSA) told TOI.

Rima Dey, Principal, Savitribai Phule Inter College said that such an act is extremely difficult to keep confidential.
"Parents will object to it and question what crime the children have done that they are being demarcated as having criminal tendency. They will seek proof for the same. These things can spread like fire by word of mouth in residential institutions," she said.
Officials however said that their intent was to keep the activity totally among officers and not even at the clerk-level.
"Our motive is to provide such children with counselling or guidance by counsellors from NGOs," DIOS PK Upadhyay told TOI.

Spread education, remove child labour

BHUBANESWAR: Minister of State for Labour and Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Sushant Singh on Sunday emphasised on education and massive awareness to eliminate child labour which is the worst form of violence on children.“We all need to work together to eradicate child labour and bring them to mainstream through education. The State Government is taking up various steps for welfare of children. But we all need to work together to end the menace,” he said while flagging off a human chain, signature campaign and a walk against child labour organised by child rights organisation People’s Cultural Centre in association with Labour Directorate.
                                                 

Child labour not only affects a child’s health,  it impacts his/her ability to receive schooling and perform academically. When children are forced by their families to work, they no longer have the time to attend school.Stating that child abuse is a major cause of concern, which creates barrier for free growth of children, former Labour Commissioner Ashwini Das stressed on coordination and convergence between different departments and key stakeholders to curb it.

Hundreds of students from different colleges participated in the walk from Ram Mandir to Lower PMG and signature campaign and human chain at Station Square. Meanwhile, with incidents of child abuse assuming alarming proportion in the State, World Vision India, a humanitarian organisation working for child protection, has launched its national campaign in Odisha with an aim to end sexual abuse and exploitation of children by 2021.

Odisha ranked fourth in list of worst rate of child sexual abuse in the country which stands second in world. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, 109 cases were registered under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act in the State in 2014. Similarly, of 10,854 cases of child rapes in the country during 2015, about 1,052 cases were registered in Odisha, which ranked third.

The true cost of excluding a child: £370,000

Permanent exclusion from school usually marks the end of a long struggle to keep a child in mainstream education. Unfortunately, it often also marks the beginning of a life of unemployment, poor health and crime. In addition to the inestimable/immeasurable costs suffered by the child, IPPR’s recent comprehensive study into school exclusions estimates that each cohort of excluded pupils goes on to cost the public purse an additional £2.1 billion, in benefits, healthcare and criminal justice costs.
                                               

Unsurprisingly, the impact on employment prospects is significant and immediate. An excluded child is nine times more likely than their non-excluded peers to be NEET (not in sustained employment, education or training) six months after their GCSEs. A 2014 Department for Education report found a marginal return of £150,000 over a life-time, just for getting two good GCSEs compared to getting none at all. Most excluded children don’t even sit two GCSEs.

However, our report also explains that this is likely to be a gross under-estimate. Large numbers of children are effectively excluded from school, but do not appear in official statistics. This happens via a combination of informal exclusions and some illegal practices, meaning the total number of excluded children could be many times that officially recorded.

But, of course, the act of permanent exclusion isn’t responsible for the extent of negative outcomes for excluded children. In most instances, the pupils who reach this stage are already behind their peers, with many (77 per cent) classified as having a special educational need or disability. They are disproportionately likely to have grown up in poverty, to have an unstable home life and to be suffering mental health problems. Often, the last resort of exclusion is used if a child is dangerous to other pupils in their school.

Call for public education campaign to ease pressure on child abuse hotline

SOUTH Australia’s shiny new hospital opened and almost immediately its emergency department was swamped.
                                               

Amid a bad flu season which is stressing hospitals statewide, the desire for a stickybeak at the new RAH attracted some with complaints as minor as a stubbed toe or overactive bladder.

It has prompted authorities to resurrect the “emergency departments are for emergencies” television advertisements first aired in 2015.

The ads urge people to consider visiting a GP or pharmacist instead of unnecessarily clogging up an ED.

A new evaluation by SA Health found they contributed to noticeable falls in people presenting to EDs with minor problems in 2015 and 2016.

Health is one of the most overstretched government departments in SA.

Not far behind is the state’s child protection agency and, in particular, its abuse reporting hotline.

A campaign similar to that deployed for hospitals could better educate people on when to report to the hotline — the equivalent of an emergency department in some sense, given it triages cases.

It could explain to those with concerns about a child that it may be better to speak to a school counsellor or welfare organisation. Previous reports to the hotline have included a child not wearing a hat outside, or being sent to school with “just” a vegemite sandwich for lunch.

The State Government promised to run such a campaign in late 2015, but it never materialised and now it says it’s not necessary.

Instead, it will focus on better training for social workers who assess reports, and those who are legally required to report suspected abuse, such as doctors, police or nurses.

But if the Government has faith that this kind of campaign can work in health, then why not try it for child protection?

Left-handed children 'penalised' by lack of support

Children are still “penalised” for being left-handed with ministers lacking the information to understand the scale of the problem, education campaigners have warned.
                                             

It is also feared a disproportionate number of prisoners are left-handed, with calls to research whether classroom struggles trigger a “downward spiral” in which pupils get low marks, their self-esteem drops and their future opportunities are damaged.

The government has stood firm on the national curriculum, despite campaigners asking for it to include a legal duty for left-handed pupils to receive specific teaching to meet their needs – something which is currently non-statutory guidance.

Education minister Nick Gibb, in a letter responding to concerns, said teachers need to ensure all pupils – including left-handers – receive “whatever specific support they require” to make progress and recognise which youngsters need extra help.

But handwriting experts and politicians believe there is a failure to recognise the difficulties encountered by left-handed youngsters which can hamper their development.

They believe many teachers are unaware about how to spot the signs while improvements to training would enable them to make simple but effective adjustments, such as a how a pupil holds a pen.

A Worcester-based alliance which has campaigned for more than 20 years and has involved – among others – MPs and Mark Stewart, who specialises in helping left-handed children improve their handwriting and offers training to teachers, has been left frustrated by a lack of progress in developing government data and teacher training.

Our children’s education has been wrecked by Sats.

Yet again Sats, the tests taken in primary schools by 10- and 11-year-olds, have been dogged by controversy. Papers have been marked down in some cases this year because the ratio of the dot to the comma in a semicolon has been judged to be not accurate enough (Straight commas lose Sats marks for primary children, 11 July). Many parents reading this will be firstly impressed that their 10- and 11-year-olds know where to place a semicolon and secondly shocked that at this age they should know the exact ratio required.
                                                 

                                               
Yet here is the guidance on the marking of the Spag (spelling, punctuation and grammar) test: “The comma element of the semicolon inserted should be correct in relation to the point of origin, height, depth and orientation.”

This is a test designed and administered by private profiteers Pearson. We have been exposing the harm caused by Sats for years. Our children have had their education wrecked; their nerves have been frayed and their teachers’ love of teaching has been quashed by these damaging tests.

The Manchester Guardian in 1959 quoted Lord Hailsham: “The simplest [Tories] prefer fox-hunting; the wisest, religion.” The quotation omitted that final comma and so altered the meaning of the sentence. So I support the good teaching of punctuation; it adds more to the clarity of a text than spelling. But it is rare to find any writing by a non-professional writer that uses commas consistently, and few ever use semi-colons. Even Sebastian Barry, a great novelist, possibly the best writing in English, uses punctuation in a way that I sometimes find eccentric.

Washington, Idaho score well on child health, not so well on education

Washington ranks fifth in the nation for indicators of children’s health in the latest KidsCount annual survey of child well-being, while Idaho’s back in the middle of the pack at 24th.
                                     

Meanwhile, both states’ rankings suffered on education indicators, with Washington ranked 28th among states and Idaho a lowly 43rd. In both states, the report found above-average rates of young children not in preschool and high school students not graduating on time.

In Idaho, nearly 70 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds aren’t attending any formal early education program; in Washington, the figure is 60 percent. Idaho puts no state funding toward early-childhood education; state lawmakers have long debated the issue, but nothing has passed.

Washington’s high marks in children’s health reflect fewer children without health insurance – just 3 percent in 2015, below the national average of 5 percent, and down from 6 percent in 2010 – along with low numbers of low-birthweight babies; teen alcohol or drug abuse; and low child and teen death rates.

Idaho had 6 percent of children without health insurance, down from 11 percent in 2010. And while its figures this year were near the national average, they had improved in all four health indicator areas.

Misha Werschkul, executive director of the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, noted that Washington’s Cover All Kids law created Apple Health for Kids with comprehensive health coverage and uniform eligibility criteria. She said those policy choices are paying off, but potential budget cuts loom.

Washington ranked 24th in the nation for children’s economic well-being, including child poverty rates and teens not in school and not working; Idaho ranked 14th. In Washington, 33 percent of children were living in households with a high housing cost burden in 2015, though that figured had dropped from 43 percent five years earlier. Idaho’s figure was 25 percent.

Home educated school students miss out on disability support services

Every child in NSW has a legal right to access and participate in education, regardless of disability or special needs.
                                               

But Carly Landa said there were "definitely negative consequences" to sending her son to school.

Louie, now 11, went to school for three years before his parents decided to home-school him.

However, the decision to home educate children with disabilities or special needs means they do not receive the support provided to other students - a situation parents want the NSW government to address by funding services.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry into students with a disability or special needs has been told many parents choose home education because schools do not adequately cater to their children's needs.

One parent gave the inquiry a harrowing account of the bullying experienced by her 11-year-old daughter, who has a moderate intellectual disability and autism.

Complaints to the school were given short shrift, the parent said. "Their response was that her being hit was good opportunity to teach the hitter that they shouldn't hit."

The parent said the situation was even worse at another school, where the girl and other girls in her class were indecently assaulted by the boys.

The inquiry, which will conduct its next hearing in Shellharbour on Friday, was told boys in the class would "regularly masturbate" in the classroom, with teachers refusing to take action to stop the behaviour.

The parent said she turned to home education after the Department of Education refused her application for distance education: "I have to rely on a carer payment from Centerlink (sic). My ability to earn an income and provide for my daughter has been devastated."

The HEA's submission included the experience of a parent resorting to home education after her son, who had learning disabilities, suffered escalating violence and bullying at school.

Nicole Rogerson, the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, said successive state governments had paid "lip service" to inclusion.

Hands-on parenting helping kids, not money or location

KIDS with hands-on parents are more likely to succeed regardless of how much money they have or where they are brought up.
                                     

Reaching out to children, talking to them and helping them with their homework matters more than income or background, analysis from the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth shows.

Students with engaged parents are more likely to do well academically, graduate from school and go on to higher education, an ARACY report by Dr Stacey Fox and Dr Anna Olsen from Australian National University has found.

The aspects which appear to matter most include high expectations and aspirations for children, shared reading between children and parents and family conversation.

In the report Drs Fox and Olsen say parent/child talking time is a simple but crucial form of parent engagement.

Children also benefit when their parents provide a positive environment for homework and play a role in school activities.

“A sense of belonging to the school community and participation in school activities can indirectly impact children’s academic outcomes by conveying to children the extent to which parents’ value and support their education,” Drs Fox and Olsen say.

Anton Leschen, Victorian general manager at The Smith Family, said such research illustrates that “a child’s education is about more than what happens in the classroom”.

The Smith Family, which is co-hosting the Australian Parent Engagement conference in June, is looking for more sponsors to expand their Learning for Life program which helps disadvantaged parents support their children’s schooling.

Richmond parents Leanne and Jason Mansfield are very engaged in the school and sporting activities of their daughters Lucy, 10, Chloe, 13 and Charlotte, 15.

Today’s education debate ignores a child’s starting line: Voices

The first few weeks of new parenthood are a blur. When my three children were born, I was laser-focused on keeping them alive and healthy. I counted wet diapers, performed late-night checks to make sure they were breathing, put them “back to sleep,” and worried about whether they were eating enough.
                                             

Like most parents, I was taught, and maybe even evolutionarily conditioned, to worry about the health of their little bodies. Less obvious, though, was that I also needed to worry about the health of their little brains, which were beginning the most rapid period of growth during their lives.

Too few parents get this message; too few understand the window of rapid brain development that occurs between birth and age 3. And that’s a problem leading to a public health crisis. As many as 85% of American parents are failing to give their children a basic building block that is as key to early brain development as tummy time is to physical development, and which has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 2014: Reading aloud daily right from birth.

By their very design, books make enhancing brain development easy. When you read to a child, you’re bundling together a set of brain-boosting activities: hearing a wide range of vocabulary and complex syntax, bonding and interacting with a parent, hearing stories, having a routine, developing empathy. And while you might be able to let a child chew on, tug, or shake some baby toys on his own, you can’t hand a newborn or older infant a book to read by himself. You, the parent or caring grown-up, must read, interact and snuggle. Books unlock parenting strategies, language that families don’t use every day and, for older babies, pre-literacy skills, such as turning pages and learning to enjoy reading.

Many urgent health and social consequences have been linked to a child's literacy level and correlated with inadequate early exposure to books. From obesity and poor school performance to drug abuse, teen pregnancy and juvenile delinquency, literacy has a significant impact. In this age of many needs but diminishing funds to meet those needs, reading to a child is one of the most cost-effective ways to build a foundation that would give a child a head start in school and life.

Children's commissioner urges halt to education bill

A major overhaul of the education system must be put hold until children are consulted, the Children's Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft says.
               

Judge Becroft told Parliament's Education and Science Select Committee to stop work on the Education Amendment Bill until children have been asked what they want.

If passed unchanged, the bill would give the government the power to set high-level objectives for education and national priorities that schools must follow.

It would create online schools known as COOLs, and make it easier for schools to require five-year-olds to start school at set times during the year.

The select committee was hearing public submissions on the bill, but Judge Becroft said there had been no real consultation with children about its content.

Judge Becroft said New Zealand had signed a UN convention that said children had the right to express their views, especially on matters that affected them.

Other organisations appearing before the committee agreed.

Sarah Te One from lobby group Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa said it was strange the bill made no provision for consulting children over things like the national priorities.

The Education Minister, Hekia Parata, said she was confident learners had had a chance to comment on the proposed changes.

Other submitters to the Education and Science Select Committtee including the Post Primary Teachers Association, the Educational Institute and the Principals Federation opposed plans to allow online schools.

They expressed concern about giving the government the power to set national education priorities.

The Educational Institute's president, Lynda Stuart, said the priorities were likely to become targets that would narrow the education offered by schools.

The president of the Principals Federation, Whetu Cormick, said the priorities needed to be guided by an over-arching vision for education that everybody agreed on.

The president of the Post Primary Teachers Association, Jack Boyle, said the Education Minister must consult with educators and children about the priorities.

He said aspects of the bill, such as the creation of online schools, would undermine quality education.

Children 'at risk' in Christian fundamentalist schools in the UK, warns government watchdog

A number of Christian fundamentalist schools have been downgraded by government inspectors following an investigation by The Independent which revealed children at some schools that follow the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum are taught that LGBT people are inferior and girls must submit to men.
       

The investigation also uncovered historic allegations of corporal punishment, exorcisms being performed on children and schoolgirls being “groomed” for marriage to much older men.

Inspectors say they fear “children are at risk” at some schools after finding in some ACE institutions safeguarding plans to be flawed or non-existent and that staff who come into contact with children sometimes have not undergone background checks to see if they are safe to work with children.

The Independent previously revealed allegations by former pupils that children were subject to serious mistreatment at some of the schools, which are operated by fundamentalist Christian communities and teach more than a thousand pupils at 26 different ACE schools in the UK.

Following The Independent’s investigation, 10 ACE schools were visited by Ofsted inspectors in October and nine of the schools have now been downgraded from “good” or “outstanding” to “inadequate” or “requires improvement”. In inspection reports seen by The Independent, the watchdog raises serious concerns about child protection failures, warning they are failing to meet official safeguarding regulations to protect children. A damning report of one of the schools concludes that “children are at risk”.

However, former pupils have told The Independent that the reports do not go far enough and say the Government must be held to account for allowing the schools to operate for so long. They have called for a government inquiry into how “generations of children were failed”.