States are investing considerable amounts of money in pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds. A new study finds that the quality of interactions between teachers and children plays a key role in accounting for gains in children’s development when compared to typical quality indicators such as teachers’ education, class size, and child-to-teacher ratio.

The study suggests that efforts to promote interactions with teachers that are instructionally and emotionally supportive can help children gain the most benefit from their pre-K experience and be more ready for school.

"These results provide compelling evidence that young children’s learning in pre-K occurs in large part through high-quality emotional and instructional interactions with teachers," according to Andrew J. Mashburn, senior research scientist at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia and the lead author of the study. "This helps parents, teachers, and program administrators understand the specific features of pre-K programs that directly support children’s academic, language and social development," Mashburn said.

"These results also have important implications for state policy-makers who are deciding how to design and regulate pre-K programs in ways that truly benefit children. Efforts that focus on the quality of instructional and emotional interactions within pre-K classrooms appear to have the potential to improve children’s development, more so than the traditional approaches of class size, teacher qualifications and student-teacher ratios" "Given that other studies have found the quality of instructional and emotional interactions in pre-K classrooms to be average at best, these results point to the importance of working to improve teacher-child classroom interactions."

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Teenagers today face increasing pressures and demands from school and home. New research has found that stress at home affects adolescents’ school life, and vice versa. What’s more, that stress lasts for two days and affects academic performance across the high school years.

The research, carried out at the University of California, Los Angeles, examined the implications of stress in adolescents’ daily lives, looked at the spillover between daily family stressors and school problems among an ethically diverse group of 589 9th-grade students in the Los Angeles area. The teenagers reported their daily family and school experiences in a diary every day for two weeks, completing a checklist that assessed conflict with parents, family demands, learning difficulties, school attendance, and other experiences.

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KUSA - In a world that revolves around structure, more parents nationwide are letting their kids learn without structure, and they say it is working.

“We found out that it was more helpful for him to learn if he got to pick and choose what he wanted to learn,” said Kawai Brown.

Brown prefers the term child-led learning. She homeschooled her sons in the method, which allows them to decide what to learn and when.

“It’s basically, do whatever you want for school,” said 9-year-old Dustin Brown. “You can do math. You can do science. You can do anything. You can read another book.”

Dustin typically spends most of his morning outside. During the snowstorms, he spent his days building a makeshift hill in his front yard to snowboard and sled on. Then, he would spend time breaking up the ice on his sidewalk before finally deciding to sit down and do some work.

Homeschooling grows in popularity. 9NEWS at 10 p.m. 2/27/07

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Truancy statistics show that more than 348,000 pupils in England are classified as being at risk of becoming "persistent truants".

 

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7385275.stm

Dear all,
We have done it!
The effe managed to get a Hearing in the European Parliament,
Just for our colloquium, on Thursday 15th of May.
But not enough…
It will be the Chairwoman of the Cultural and Education Committee herself that will host this hearing
But not enough…
The President of the Education Council will be present as well
But not enough…
Mr. Figel’, the Commissioner for Education of the European Commission will also be present
But not enough…
These three most important people in Brussels when it comes to education will be there only FOR US
They want to hear the results of our colloquium and our propositions for future policy in the field of Early School Leaving
And they are willing to respond to our questions!!

For all details of the conference, including an application form
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The Problem and A Solution

This two-part essay was written by my unschooled teen son for his Composition I college class. Zach has been radically unschooled for the past five years and relaxed homeschooled prior to that. He’s never been to school except to play clarinet in a band and beginning this last January he decided he wanted to enroll in a writing course at our local community college. Video games are his number one passion with writing a close second.

In his essay, Zach writes about how it felt to be a child who wanted to please no one more than his mother but also a child who’s passion I did not value or respect. Parts of Zach’s essay were difficult for me to read but I knew the truth of it already and I knew that he had an important message to communicate to the mothers and fathers of the world. The sting of reading about the damage my old ways inflicted on my child were soothed in the knowledge that I’ve seen the error of my ways and have worked hard to repair our relationship I now know the beauty, peace, and extraordinary amount of learning, embracing his interests has brought to both of our lives.

CONCORD, N.H. — Parents of home-schooled children asked lawmakers Tuesday to reject a proposal to increase state oversight of what they teach.

Bill Would Require Home Schools To Submit First-Year Plan

A bill being considered by a House committee would require parents to submit a one-page plan for a home-school student’s first year of education. Supporters said it’s intended to keep children from falling through the cracks.

"To have that initial year be a planning stage, it allows communication between the district and the parents," said Roberta Tenney of the Department of Education.

But home-school parents said the paperwork would deter parents from considering home schooling."It ends up being intimidating to them so that many people who would start home schools just choose not to start," said Chris Hamilton of the Home Education Advisory Council.

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Home Educators across the Uk are being urged to write to their MPs to protest about forthcoming changes to the rules for benefits for lone parents in the UK.  As from November 2008, lone parents are required to switch to the Jobseekers’ Allowance when their youngest child reaches the age of 12, with the prospect of this age being dropped to seven in the future (2010). 

For lone parents who are caring for children with disabilities, or are home educating, these changes to the rules are very significant.  Transferring to Jobseekers’ Allowance means making oneself available for work, and may be patently impossible in the case of a child with complex needs.

I wrote to my MP some months ago when this change was originally discussed in the media, and received some very unsatisfactory replies from the Minister, Caroline Flint.  These seemed not to understand the problems with parents with children with severe disabilities may face in trying to find carers willing or able to care for their child.  In answer to my questions about home educating parents, the Minister suggested that home education need not take place within traditional school hours and therefore could be fitted around the required work - a useful reply for those already trying to argue that case with their local authority, but not much use for those who have children with complex needs.

Many families decide reluctantly to home educate because the alternatives they have been offered are unsuitable for the needs of their children, and some have such complex needs that some sort of respite for the carers in the family is an unattainable dream.  It seems completely outrageous that the Government should expect lone parents in that sort of situation to magically find appropriate (and affordable) childcare for their children in order to free them to take up employment. 

It was strongly suggested in the White Paper which was published last December, that parents fleeing from Domestic violence, parents caring for disabled children and home educating parents should not be subject to "increased conditionality".  That is, they should not be held to the change in rules which is proposed.  However, to date there has been no acceptance that flexibility must be worked into the arrangements for these children, and the situation remains that after Novermber 2008, lone parents must register for Jobseekers’ Allowance and therefore, be free to take up employment, irrespective of their commitments in the home.

If you are in the UK, please write to your MP, soliciting support for these families, and urging them to ask the government to incorporate some flexibility for parents caring for disabled children or home educating.  You may like to use the Write to them website, which assists you in contacting your local representatives.

For more information look at the Freedom for Children to Grow website.

They are sparky, enthusiastic and imaginative, yet have never seen the inside of a school. David Robson meets the ‘home-eds’

How many A* GCSEs would Chung Chung Stockman achieve if she were receiving a conventional education? Twelve? Fifteen?

Chung Chung is 10, going on 11, going on 18, one of those sweetly precocious children who make your heart dance with their wide-eyed curiosity about the world.

"I’ve got a theory," she tells me, "but I don’t think you’ll understand it." Cue a fascinating, breathless discourse on the nature of education.

She’s right: I don’t understand her theory. It’s too idiosyncratic. But I know a clever cookie when I see one.

Hua Hua, her eight-year-old brother, is no slouch either. My eye strays to the bookshelves of the converted warehouse in Rotherhithe where they live, opposite a film studio. Good grief, Hua Hua isn’t reading Proust, is he?

Child’s play: the delightfully confident Hua Hua

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During the last two years we have held conferences and have invited speakers from other countries to participate. This year we decided to concentrate more on the issues concerning the situation in Estonia and the day-to-day life of home educating families. Hence, we will organise a summer camp instead of a conference and try and make it more informal so that everyone would have time to share experiences and get to know each other better.

The Summer Camp will be held from 26.-27. July at Unipiha Elementary School, Tartu County.