Downhill from Year Five

Children’s well being at school decreases steadily from the last year of primary school, a survey has shown.

The charity Antidote found that in Year Five 82% of children felt school was a place that enables them to feel “Capable, listened to, accepted, safe and included”. But this fell in Year 6 and continued to fall until Year Ten.

The survey of 8000 children in 25 schools showed that the quality of relationships between teachers and students declined after Year 5, but relationships with friends were stable.

It's good to talk

Parents have been urged to find more time to talk to their children.

A poll has found that half the population of the UK spends more than two hours a day watching TV, but less than a third spend two hours talking with our children.

The poll, for children’s communication charity I CAN, found that on an average day 46% of the population spends more than four hours at work, 50% spends more than two hours watching TV, 36 % (mainly women) spend more than two hours on household chores, and just 32% chat with our children for two hours or more.

There are big regional differences in the amount of time we give to talking to children. In Wales, 49% say they do it for two hours a day compared to 24% in London and the South East.

The charity says that more than half of children in some areas of the UK are starting primary school without the basic speech, language and communication skills they need to learn and make friends.

The charity has launched a DVD for families and childcarers on how to develop young children’s communication skills with nursery rhymes, songs, stoeies and “happy chatter”. Chatter Matters, supported by BT Openreach, is available from ICAN. Families pay postage only, and organisations can buy if for £3 a copy.

TA strike closes school

Teaching assistants at a Coventry primary school have closed the school for three days by going on strike.

Unison members at Holbrook Primary School in Coventry voted to join a strike against the local council’s pay policy.

The school closed because without the teaching assistants there were no first aiders on the site according to reports.

The strike is the result of a long standing dispute over the way Coventry is implementing the Single Status Agreement. Although Holbrook teaching assistants have not experienced pay cuts some other council staff have done.

They issued a statement through Unison about their decision. “We are all hard working, loyal and have many years of service… we want the parents, pupils along with our supportive head teacher and teaching colleagues to know that this decision was certainly not taken lightly. We are not striking against our school; we are striking against our employer, Coventry City council.

“As a group of workers we are classed as ‘gainers’ (from the single status agreement) but cannot stand by while other friends and colleagues within the council are losing out.”

Schools "failing poor families"

The education system is failing children from poor families, says a new report.

The study, from the University of Manchester, says white children from poor backgrounds who struggle with literacy are not getting enough support.

It is getting more difficult for poor families to get places in sought-after schools as better-informed parents learn to “play” the admissions system.

Pressure to cut truancy figures means some parents are being encouraged to take their children out of school altogether, leaving them with no education. It estimates that between 10,000 and 50,000 school aged children are currently out of the system.

Report by Mel Ainscow and Alan Dyson University of Manchester Centre for Equity in Education

Boost for supplementary schools

A national centre is to be set up in England to support supplementary schools.

There are more than 5000 supplementary schools run mainly by minority ethnic groups. They teach national curriculum subjects as well as mother tongue languages and ethic history and culture. They are staffed by volunteers, often including qualified teachers.

The new National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education will be jointly funded by the government and a private foundation, the Paul Hamly Foundation. Its aims include building a national network of supplementary schools, helping new supplementary schools get started, and developing a quality framework and code of practice.