Children attending school in deprived areas of Britain are being taught mindfulness in order to ease tension and anxiety – and it’s working. The technique has been adapted in areas such as Litherland, Merseyside, where students are continuously exposed to violence and gang activity. Methods of relaxation such as controlled breathing have been helpful to children who internalise feelings, and who may slip beneath a teacher’s radar when in need of support. “If I concentrate…
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The disturbing news footage that emerged yesterday surrounding the Syrian child in Huddersfield being bullied in the school playground highlights once again the need to address all forms of bullying, including cyberbullying. A growing concern about cyberbullying led The Duke of Cambridge to set up the Cyberbullying Taskforce in 2016, an initiative that included leading tech companies and experts in the field of children, the internet and mental health. The Taskforce has since launched several…
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UK schools are being asked to monitor children’s happiness and mental health as part of lessons in relationships, sex and health education. The information will be used to create a ‘happiness index’ which will track young people’s well-being. An annual ‘State of the Nation’ report will be published highlighting mental health trends among the UK’s youth. This will be the first time that mental health will be given the same level of focus as physical…
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The head of strategic development for Ofsted, Amy Finch, has announced that Ofsted’s new framework will make their reports more accessible for parents. From September 2019, Ofsted’s revised framework will aim to improve parental communication by using clearer language and removing any technical jargon in reports. According to Amy Finch, parents have also requested that reports should include the “experience of going to school, and how the school that they send their child to is different from…
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Barclays Bank has forecast that “sharenting” will account for two-thirds of identity fraud among young people by the end of the decade, costing £667m per year. According to the bank’s security specialists, identity fraud has “never been easier” as a result of social media and parents sharing too much information about their children online. Parents often reveal names, ages, date of birth, home addresses, place of birth, mother’s maiden name, schools, the name of pets, sports…
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Young people’s happiness across every single area of their lives has never been lower, research by the Prince’s Trust has found. The national survey shows young people’s wellbeing has fallen over the last 12 months and is at its lowest level since the study was first commissioned in 2009. The survey was conducted with over 2,000 respondents aged 16 to 25 and revealed that three out of five young people regularly feel stressed amid concerns over…
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Paediatric therapists fear that children are increasingly finding it difficult to hold pens and pencils because of an overuse of technology. FK&Y’s Dr Barbie Clarke, interviewed for the article which appeared in the Guardian, has pointed out that there currently appears to be a lack of evidence to confirm this however, and more research is needed to determine the impact of technology on a young child’s ability to write. “We go into many schools and…
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The annual education monitoring report from the United Nation’s education agency, UNESCO, has revealed that 264 million young people do not have access to primary or secondary school. The report suggests that this figure could in fact be even higher, estimating an undercount of 250 million in household surveys across developing countries and the likelihood of another 100 million outside the reach of official statistics, including those living as illegal immigrants in wealthier countries. This…
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The subject of gender stereotypes is being much debated. A new six-year study has found that children are convinced by gender stereotypes by the age of ten. Examples include such beliefs as boys should be brave and adventurous, and girls should be beautiful and protected. The global study gathered data on 10- to 14-year-olds in 15 different countries of varying degrees of wealth and development from across the world, interviewing 450 adolescents and their parents….
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A child’s early experience has a profound influence on their future development. UNICEF has published a report entitled ‘Early Moments Matter for Every Child’, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of children’s first 1,000 days of life for brain development. Its findings suggest that amongst 85 million children under five, the 32 countries taking part in the study do not offer what it calls the three ‘critical policies’ to support children’s early brain…
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