Blog posts for ‘Teenagers’ 
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Heavy schoolbags risk 'deforming' our children
Wednesday 21 March 2012
The Daily Mail reported last week on a survey run by the organisation BackCare which warns that some children are carrying as much as a quarter of their body weight in their huge schoolbags. This is causing a significantly increased risk of spinal problems. Bags carried on one shoulder or the crook of the arm cause particular health risks. Schools are criticised for not allocating sufficient storage space for their pupils and parents are urged to keep an eye on the situation. Sean...
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Get real... as if!
Friday 17 February 2012
The debate about whether a school is right to ban pupils’ use of slang (Daily Telegraph 14/2/2012 ) seems to me to be missing the point. I’ll get back to why the attempt to ban slang in school is not only futile but also misguided. Let’s start with what this school is trying to achieve.
Like all schools Sheffield Springs Academy wants to improve students’ job prospects – highly laudable, particularly in the current difficult economic situation. It believes students can improve...
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Embracing failure
Monday 6 February 2012
Categories: Education, Growing up, Self-esteem, Teenagers
I remember once standing up to speak at an A level Awards presentation at the school where I was the head, and beginning, ‘Today I want to talk to you about failure…’ I still recall the uncomfortable ripple that went through the assembled audience of Year 13 leavers, their parents, the staff and guests. It was a word we just didn’t use in school. We talked about success all the time, and, if we ever needed to talk about its opposite, we referred to ‘areas for development’ or...
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How can we help girls to be more confident?
Tuesday 3 January 2012
Categories: Education, Parenting, Self-esteem, Teenagers
Our bright, talented, good looking, hardworking girls should be proud of themselves but all too often they lack confidence. Why is this? As parents we may praise, reassure and encourage our daughters but somehow this can fail to penetrate their fragile egos. Once adolescent hormones kick in many girls become self-conscious about their looks, their bodies and their talents. They compare themselves, unfavourably of course, with their peers, with the images they see in the media and their...
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You rule the world...but can't set a bedtime
Wednesday 2 November 2011
Categories: Education, Family Relationships, Parenting, Teenagers
In a recent article in The Sunday Times, Clarissa Farr, the head of St Paul’s girls’ school, talked about the sessions the school is running for parents who welcome help and advice with how best to deal with their teenage daughters. St Paul’s is a selective, academically very highly performing school, with many very bright, talented daughters of men and women who occupy important and influential positions. But parenting can test all of us. As Clarissa says, ‘I have a lot of...
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How will she survive?
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Categories: Growing up, Higher Education, Letting go, Teenagers
Apparently research shows that many university Freshers lack basic life skills, having never before cooked, cleaned or shopped for food. The Independent 26/9/11 We are clearly meant to find this shocking but if we think back to our younger selves could we have said any different? Like nearly 70% of those questioned for Sainsbury’s research I certainly hadn’t paid a utility bill when I was 18. It’s true that, unlike one in five of them, I had cleaned a bath but I too hadn’t done my...
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The demise of teen reading in the UK?
Thursday 8 September 2011
Categories: Education, Media Influence, Teenagers
‘Children in the UK are significantly less likely to read for pleasure than in nations such as Kazakhstan, Albania, Indonesia and Peru according to international research’ announced The Telegraph this week. I wondered whether the nations named in the headline felt mildly offended that they had been chosen to highlight the comparison – the implication being that they are nations we assume not to be particularly literate.
The article bemoans the fact that ‘four in 10 teenagers in...
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The trouble with girls today...
Thursday 12 May 2011
Categories: Growing up, Media Influence, Role Models, Teenagers
The trouble with girls today is that they are obsessed with appearance and possessions. Their role models are pop stars, WAGs, stars of reality shows like X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent and other D list celebrities. And girls just want fame and fortune…
Or do they? A survey by the National Literacy Trust found that around a third of girls aged 8 to 13 simply want to be happy when they grow up. Only a tiny minority, just 3.5%, said they wanted to be famous – how very refreshing and...
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Abstinence lessons for girls?
Monday 9 May 2011
Categories: Education, Growing up, Sexual Relationships, Teenagers
Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, has suggested that schoolgirls between the ages of 13 and 16 should be given lessons in ‘how to say no’ as part of the sex and relationships curriculum.
I know I am not alone in asking why this message should be targeted at girls, rather than at both boys and girls. To me it suggests the disturbing and dangerous idea that girls indulge in or withhold sex as a way of managing and manipulating their relationships with boys. It...
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Subject choice - are some subjects more equal than others?
Thursday 27 January 2011
The sudden introduction of the English Baccalaureate has brought into sharp focus the issue of which subjects pupils “ought” to study. In fact the E Bacc is not a new qualification but an umbrella ‘measure’introduced by the government to assess the performance of maintained schools and to make sure that all pupils study a broad and balanced curriculum at aged 16. This is a laudable aim, but the jury is still out on the details of the subjects included. Many teachers are concerned by...
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Categories
- Careers (13)
- Drugs and Alcohol (3)
- Education (62)
- Extra curricular (11)
- Family Relationships (21)
- Growing up (20)
- Health (13)
- Higher Education (6)
- Homework (6)
- Letting go (5)
- Literacy (1)
- Media Influence (33)
- Parenting (33)
- Personal Safety (10)
- Role Models (25)
- Self-esteem (9)
- Sexual Relationships (5)
- Technology & the Internet (7)
- Teenagers (17)