VTESS - News

After-school tutoring 'is like child abuse', says top head

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:28:00 +0000

After-school tutoring 'is like child abuse', says top head

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor, The Telegraph, UK, 27 Dec 2014

Sourced from;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11297516/After-school-tutoring-is-like-child-abuse-says-top-head.html

The president of the National Association of Head Teachers fuels the debate over the private tutoring industry by claiming academic coaching makes children miserable

The number of children being sent to private tutors is increasing, prompting criticism from Gail Larkin, president of the National Association of Head Teachers.

Sending pupils to private tutors for up to two hours after school is tantamount to “child abuse”, according to a head teachers’ leader.

Many pushy parents are making their children “miserable” by subjecting them to academic coaching in the evening, said Gail Larkin, president of the National Association of Head Teachers.

She said large numbers of parents succumbed to the pressure of the “playground parliament” – groups of ambitious mothers congregating outside school – by giving children as young as five unnecessary extra tuition.

Mrs Larkin levelled particular criticism towards Explore Learning – the tutoring company that has opened branches in shopping centres, high streets and Sainsbury’s stores.

The development had normalised after-school and weekend tuition, making it more socially-acceptable for parents, she said.

The number of children being sent to private tutors has reached a record high as pressure on them to get good results grows, according to research

Record number of students receiving private tuition 06 Sep 2013

Premier League psychologist hired to boost exam results 15 Apr 2013

Head warns over 'bunfight' for places at top schools 01 Feb 2013

Pushy middle-class parents 'don't trust schools' 01 Feb 2012

But it was claimed that most children would get more benefit from everyday activities such as swimming, Scouts, football, ballet classes or simply being given time to play in the park.

The comments will reignite the debate over the private tutoring industry, which has boomed in popularity over the last decade.

One study last year suggested a quarter of parents now paid for tuition, up from 18 per cent just five years earlier, usually in preparation for school entrance exams.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mrs Larkin criticised parents who dropped their children into branches of Explore Learning in the evening or at the weekend while they shop.

She described the process as “torture”, adding: “The parents think they are doing something really worthwhile; I think it is child abuse.

“We went into Sainsbury’s the other afternoon… When we came out about 4 o’clock it was full up with kids; kids who had spent a day in school. Straight out of school, straight in there.”

But Bill Mills, the chief executive of Explore Learning, rejected the claims, insisting a university-led evaluation of the company had found its tuition was “beneficial to both boys and girls of all abilities”, with improvements in their confidence levels.

“Explore succeeds best when it not only helps children directly but also helps them to thrive at school,” he said. “It is not just, or even mainly, academic progress that matters most, but also the personal development of children, including gains in confidence, enthusiasm for learning and self-esteem.

“Pressure plays no part in what we do. Children generally see themselves as coming to a club and the motivation for joining comes from them as much as it does from their parents.”

In the New Year, the NAHT will issue the latest in a series of advice leaflets to parents about how they can support their children outside school.

Seven have already been published in a joint project with the charity Family Action covering subjects such as online safety. The three new publications will focus on the importance of praise and reward, improving children’s self-worth and another on special educational needs.

Mrs Larkin, a former Surrey primary head, who now acts as an adviser to other school leaders, said tutoring was being fuelled by a sense of one-upmanship among competitive parents.

“The pressure comes from each other; the ‘playground parliament’ I call it,” she said. “Parents think they have to do it because all of the others are doing it.”

She added: “These parents used to come to me at school and say, ‘do you think I’m a bad parent? Do you think I ought to get a tutor?’ I used to say, ‘no, if your child works hard at school and you help them with the homework we give, you are doing a good job’.”

In some parts of the south-east, the industry is driven by the presence of grammar schools, she said, with “children as young as five being tutored after a day’s schooling” in preparation for entrance exams.

But Mrs Larkin insisted the development was making many children miserable and damaging levels of “self-worth”.

“I have had children in tears because it is the day that they go to their tutor and they don’t want to go,” she said.

She added: “Putting your child in there for two or three hours after school… I think, ‘you poor thing’.

“Wouldn’t they be better off in the park playing after a day in school, or having swimming lessons or going to Brownies, Beavers or Cubs? I’m not saying the parents have got to be with them 24/7 but wouldn’t they be better having a swimming lesson?

“They should be going and having piano lessons, or music, or singing in a choir. I used to say to parents, ‘just go for a walk in the woods’. I think children are under so much pressure these days.”

She insisted parents should play a larger part in educating their children in the home, even if they lead busy lives.

"I think it is part of parenting to help children with their homework, even if you’re not very able yourself," she said. "It is part of your role and we are too busy absolving parents of their responsibilities instead of supporting them. As the National Association of Head Teachers, I think our role is to support the parents in bringing up their children in all aspects of their childhood."

Comments

VTESS advocate the need for tutorial and educational support. A tutor often helps a child who is struggling with their studies, or needs a boost to do better at school or do well in an exam (perhaps an entrance exam or a particular subject at VCE level). Sometimes a tutor is taken on to stretch a child with an exceptional ability in a subject. Because the tutor works with a child in a more focused way than would be possible in a class of 25 or 30 children, a lot can often be achieved in a short time.

VTESS also encourages and facilitates opportunities for parents and carers to support and help children with homework, improve strengths and weaknesses, praise and reward and meet social, emotional and behavioural needs.

VTESS does not cater to or encourage pushy parents who make their children “miserable” by subjecting them to academic coaching. Our tutorial services are targeted and meet the individual needs of each student.

October 10 - Mental Health Day

Mon, 09 Oct 2017 20:41:00 +0000

Connecting with others is important for our health and survival. Research tells us that feeling connected, valued and loved by others gives us a sense of security, support, purpose and happiness. Close connections and good relationships with others allows us to enjoy the good times in our lives and helps us deal with the hard experiences we face. This is important for all of us! Unfortunately in today’s society, we have many demands on our attention and time, and more people experience loneliness in Australia than ever before. For those experiencing or living with mental illness, loneliness can be far worse as individuals can face social exclusion, stigma and discrimination. As social beings, this can affect all aspects of our wellbeing.

Comments

In October 2017, the theme for Mental Health Month focuses on the importance of social connections in:

The author encourages each of us to journey toward better mental health and our ability to cope with life’s challenges.

At VTESS, we encourage children and adults to enact this today and everyday. As adults, we need to work with children to support them to improve their social connections, overall mental health and wellbeing, and build resilience.

Source

http://mentalhealthmonth.wayahead.org.au/share-the-journey-2017-mental-health-month-theme/

Australian Students are Becoming Increasingly Disengaged at School – Here’s Why

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:35:00 +0000

Australian Students are Becoming Increasingly Disengaged at School – Here’s Why

Author

Pearl Subban

Faculty of Education, Monash University

Sourced from:

http://theconversation.com/australian-students-are-becoming-increasingly-disengaged-at-school-heres-why-51570

Around one in five Australian school students don’t find school engaging, which means they are less likely to learn properly.. It’s an issue that tends to worsen as students become older.

A study showed that in year 7, 70% of students observed found school engaging, but in year 9, this dropped to 55%.

Part of the reason is that the brightest kids are not being challenged enough, leading to students becoming disconnected and disengaged from their studies.

Disengagement has resulted in Australian classrooms becoming rowdier and bullying becoming more prevalent.

A 2012 study revealed that just 60% of students in South Australian secondary schools found school engaging. While over two thirds of teachers reported disengaged behaviours on an “almost daily basis”.

Why are students not engaged at school?

There are many possible reasons for disengagement. Among these are the possibilities that the tasks being set are too challenging or too boring resulting in students being easily distracted; or that lessons being taught are perceived as uninteresting or irrelevant.

This has marked implications for the academic progress of these students, who are then at risk of dropping out of school prior to completion.

Disengagement can lead to dropping out

Around 25% of disengaged young people do not complete school, with some variation nationally from primary to secondary school. This should be concerning.

Of the 25% who did not complete school in 2013-14, one in four students indicated that they did not like school, with some indicating that their disinterest was on account of not doing well.

Of concern is the quietly disengaged student, who sometimes goes unnoticed because they are usually compliant, but not as productive as they could be.

(The above article is an abridged version to comply with copyright terms)

Comments

Teachers are the key to ensuring students are engaged in their education. Engaged students are keen to perform well, achieve highly, and consequently look forward to successful post-school lives. In contrast, disengagement can lead to poorer academic performance for some students, and therefore limited success.

Teachers need to provide a personalised learning approach. Teaching children in the same way means some of the brightest kids often are not challenged enough. Personalised learning has been identified as one of the essentials to school success. This involves using individually designed strategies which tap into student strengths to help increase the level of student engagement. This could include, using open learning spaces, student negotiated learning plans and behaviour plans.

Teachers need to add sense of purpose to learning. Getting students involved with projects and using real-life scenarios can contribute to a sense of ownership and bring enjoyment to learning. Through these approaches, students are more likely to feel that school is relevant, important and prepares them meaningfully for life outside school.

Teachers need to foster student wellbeing. Positive interactions between teachers and students can help create classroom stability, feelings of security and overall gratification with the learning process. Forming positive relationships at school can also contribute towards a student’s emotional and social wellbeing.

At VTESS, we acknowledge the need for teaching to be engaging and purposeful. Targeted academic and social and emotional goals are to be agreed in collaboration with the student, teacher, parents and carers and recorded and reviewed regularly.

Trauma-informed schools: A must

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 13:15:00 +0000

Trauma-informed schools: A must

Authors

Margaret R. Paccione-Dyszlewski, Ph.D.

Sourced from:

The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter July 2016

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.holmesglen.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=10&sid=bacda41f-d469-4c3b-a5c6-203ac32edd97%40sessionmgr4010

There is hardly a child who crosses the threshold of a school who does not carry with them a reservoir of trauma. Whether this pain is the size of a pencil case, knapsack, or duffel bag, the odds are that some degree of trauma is present and that it hurts.

Schools can no longer be just a place where a child goes just to learn to read and write; they must focus equally on becoming an epicenter of social and emotional development.

(The above article is an abridged version to comply with copyright terms) Comments

Whilst the authors provide data from a variety of reliable U.S. sources, it is safe to assume the findings would be similar in Australia. The article advocates a shift in school culture to become more trauma-informed. Schools that do so, will achieve maximum academic growth.

The article campaigns the need for tutorial and educational support services to also consider trauma informed pedagogy in their practice, to ensure the toxicity of trauma does not impede the potential of learning.

Interrupt Anxiety with Gratitude

Sun, 30 Jul 2017 02:07:00 +0000

Interrupt Anxiety with Gratitude

Author: Sarah Wilson

Sourced from sarahwilson.com

http://www.sarahwilson.com/2017/01/interrupt-anxiety-with-gratitude/

Early this year, Sarah Wilson continued the conversation started in her recent publication; ‘First We Make the Beast Beautiful’. She wrote on the topic of anxiety and gratitude;

I like this. I’ve dug around on the topic of late. Alex Korb writes in The Grateful Brain, ‘Gratitude can have such a powerful impact on your life because it engages your brain in a virtuous cycle. Your brain only has so much power to focus its attention. It cannot easily focus on both positive and negative stimuli.’ Literally, you can’t be grateful and anxious at the same time. You can, thus, derail your anxiety by being grateful. Chuck a bomb under it!

On top of this, research shows gratitude stimulates the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that regulates anxiety.

Korb adds that the brain loves to fall for the confirmation bias – it looks for things that prove what it already believes to be true. ‘So once you start seeing things to be grateful for, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for.’

And thusly interrupting anxiety even more.

I asked Danielle a little more about her anxious thinking.

Me: Why do we get anxious?

DLP: Because every time anxiety shows up, it’s our psyche’s way of saying, “Knock knock, I’ve got something to show you about yourself that you really should see.”

Me: How do you cope with it?

DLP: I get in front of it. I prepare every day with a regular esoteric practice. I meditate every morning.

Me: Tell me more…

DLP: The fuzz and fogginess of anxiety creates a kink in your energy system. And distorts perspective on EVERYTHING. So it’s difficult to reach for courage or positivity when we’re anxious. But reach we must. So that’s why we have to practice for when it comes.

Me: Meditation…and what else helps?

DLP: Breathing exercises. Anxiousness is just ordinary and reasonable fear without the breath. Add in breath and you come back to centre.

Me: The worst upshot of anxiety?

DLP: It tells us the lie that we’re not safe.

(The above article is an abridged version to comply with copyright terms)

Comments

Sarah Wilson’s portrayal of her personal history with anxiety adds glue to the known relationship between anxiety and gratitude, in which anxiety can be regulated and or derailed by gratitude.

What is Holistic Education?

Fri, 14 Jul 2017 13:54:00 +0000

What is Holistic Education?

Author: TeAchnology

Sourced from: http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/methods/holistic/

Holistic Education is a methodology which focuses on preparing students to meet any challenges they may face in life and in their academic career. The most important theories behind holistic education are learning about oneself, developing health relationships and positive social behaviors, social and emotional development, resilience, and the ability to view beauty, experience transcendence, and truth.

Holistic Education takes current cultural influences such as the media and music and teaches younger people how to be human, since said cultural influences do not. It conceptualizes questions regarding the biggest challenges in life and how to overcome obstacles, achieve success, and what basic concepts need to be learned first in order to accomplish all of those later on in life.

Understanding that support which once came from traditional families, religion, or old tribes no longer exists, holistic education seeks to modify learning of human goodness, personal greatness, and the joy of living both in trials and in successes. Pressure from competition in school, after-school activities, and the social pressure to look a certain way, as well as the violence which typically accompanies school children both physically, psychologically, and emotionally, takes away from a child's ability to learn. Holistic education rectifies this.

Holistic education notes that children need to not only develop academically, but develop the ability to survive in the modern world. They need to be able to rise and meet challenges presented to them in the future and contribute to the world in which they live. This type of learning is said to begin during childhood. Children need to learn to first value themselves, their worth, and recognize their abilities and how to be able to do what they want in life. Doing what they want ties into the relationships that they build and how they treat those relationships. Holistic education teaches children about their immediate relationships with their friends and family as well as social development, health, and intellectual development. The idea of resilience is a learned quality, not one which is inherent and thus children must be taught to face difficulties in life and overcome them. The last concept inspires children to observe truths, natural beauty, and the meaning of life.

(The above article is an abridged version to comply with copyright terms)

Comments

VTESS agree with the author’s view of holistic education. Teaching and learning is more than just academic achievement. Teaching should also involve having a positive impact on the child, altering their behavior and outlook on life for the better. Study skills should promote respect for self and others and the ability to work in a classroom or with individual tutor support, instead of trying to fight it and being opposed. Teachers need to support student conflict and fear as much as friendship and happiness, as a basic and natural part of life which children need to master to develop and achieve success.

A New Approach to Healing and Growth in the Classroom

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 12:21:00 +0000

Teaching With Strengths in Trauma-Affected Students: A New Approach to Healing and Growth in the Classroom

Tom Brunzell, Lea Waters, and Helen Stokes

Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network in the United States reports that up to 40% of students have experienced, or been witness to, traumatic stressors in their short lifetimes. These include home destabilisation, violence, neglect, sexual abuse, substance abuse, death, and other adverse childhood experiences. The effects of trauma on a child severely compound the ability to self-regulate and sustain healthy relationships. In the classroom, the effects of trauma may manifest as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, reactive attachment, disinhibited social engagement, and/or acute stress disorders.

In this article, we contend that the classroom can be positioned as a powerful place of intervention for posttraumatic healing both in the context of special education and in main- stream classrooms that contain trauma- affected students. The current landscape of trauma-informed practice for primary and secondary classrooms has focused on teaching practices that seek to repair emotional dysregulation and fix broken attachment. In working for more than a decade with mainstream and specialist schools, we have discovered that positive psychology has a role to play in contributing to trauma-informed learning. We argue that combining trauma- informed approaches with positive psychology will empower and enable teachers to promote both healing and growth in their classrooms. This article presents scientific and practice-based evidence to support our claim. We present education interventions aimed to build positive emotions, character strengths, resilient mindsets, and gratitude, and show how these can be embedded in the daily routines of classroom learning to assist struggling students.

Trauma and Students

Trauma has been described as an over- whelming experience that can forever alter one’s belief that the world is good and safe. A simple trauma can be defined as a short- occurrence or one-time event that threatens bodily injury or serious harm (e.g., accidents or natural disasters), which can be accompanied by a social innovations response such as coordinated support from civic organisations. Complex trauma, sometimes referred to as relationship trauma, describes traumatic exposure that can be longer in duration and involve multiple incidents, ongoing personal threat, violence, and violation. Examples include child abuse, neglect, bullying, and sexual or domestic violence. In simple trauma, the victim often receives little blame. For complex traumas, however, the social innovations response may be morally ambiguous or cloaked in shame. In these cases, the child does not receive the same kind of immediate care response given following simple trauma and is often implicated or blamed for the trauma.

The American Psychiatric Association advises that directly experiencing a trauma, witnessing a traumatic stressor, learning about trauma events, or exposure to adverse details can lead to enduring, debilitating conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Childhood PTSD can have significant effects on child development, including problems with self-regulation, aggression, attention, dissociation, and physical and motor problems. As part of the PTSD response, the child’s acute alarm reaction when perceiving external threat triggers the body’s stress response systems. When this system is repeatedly triggered it damages key neurological and psychological systems in the long term.

As a consequence of the neurological and psychological damage resulting from trauma, trauma has been shown to lead to disadvantages in a child’s educational journey. Robert F. Anda and colleagues conducted a large epidemiological study of adults who reported adverse childhood experiences in their youth. The study was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the sample was sourced in a large HMO. The study found that individuals who experienced childhood abuse were more likely to have been suspended or expelled, failed a grade, have lower academic achievement assessments, be at significant risk for language delays, and be assigned to special education. Given these alarming rates of school struggle and failure, teachers must have the strategies and support needed to meet the complex needs that students bring to the classroom.

The Need for a Trauma-Informed Teaching Approach

It is important for children who experience trauma to receive therapy by qualified psychologists, psychiatrists, and/or social workers. However, many students and their families lack access, motivation, and ability to successfully participate in therapy and follow treatment plans. For most senior secondary students, access and adherence to treatment may be lacking, but those same young people will choose to attend school in an attempt to meet their needs for social belongingness and opportunities to improve themselves. Help can be gained in some instances by school-based counselling, but we also suggest that teachers are well placed to be front-line trauma healers in the context of the classroom. Although teachers are not therapists or clinicians, and are nei- ther trained nor prepared to delve into personal trauma histories with their students, there are techniques they can use that can have a healing effect. Indeed, the very relationship they form with students can be a key element of healing in and of itself. We believe that schools can be healing institutions—in addition to academic institutions for the 40% of the student population who are adversely affected by trauma.

Bessel van der Kolk of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress Complex Trauma Network identified three critical developmental pathways that are thwarted by trauma: the maturation of specific brain structures at particular ages; physiologic and neuroendocrinologic responses; and the ability to coordinate cognition, affect regulation, and behavior. The resulting consequences of these maladaptive conditions can dramatically affect learning through decreased cognitive capacity, poor memory and concentration, language delays, and the inability to create and sustain positive relationships with peers, teachers, and carers.

Effective classroom teaching approaches must address these underdeveloped neural pathways before attempting to teach in ways that require higher regions in the brain needed for the cognitive integration and memory required in successful academic learning. This statement is based on foundational understandings of trauma’s effects on stress activation and the regulatory capacities of the body’s most basic functions such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. Indeed,classroom learning depends on a well organised and regulated brain or at the very least, moments of regulatory alignment allowing students to access neural resources to meet developmentally appropriate and challenging classroom tasks. To gain a comprehensive understanding of trauma-informed models, we completed a review of the last decade of therapeutic principles adapted for teachers working with trauma-affected students. We found that existing trauma-informed education models include two broad intervention areas for trauma-affected classrooms: healing the dysregulated stress response and addressing attachment capacity.

(The above article is an abridged version to comply with copyright terms)

Comments

At VTESS trauma-informed models of teaching and learning have been employed to connect and engage students in their learning. By focusing on improving self- regulation and building relational capacities, trauma-informed teaching assists struggling students to strengthen their capacity to learn. With proper supports, students can develop the stamina through self-regulation within a relational context to find levels of safety and belonging in the classroom that are necessary to take learning risks.

VTESS also believe that trauma- informed models of teaching and learning can be enhanced by embedding positive education into the classroom. Positive education principles include positive emotion, character strengths, resiliency, and gratitude. By adding positive education techniques to trauma-informed teaching approaches, teachers provide students who are trauma-affected with the opportunity for both healing areas of deficit and growing areas of strength.

The provision of a holistic approach in the provision of tutorial and education support gives VTESS a leading edge, to assist every child to develop and learn for success.