Plain Sailing In Schools

It is very tempting after all your hard work over the term and throughout the school year, to just want to flop on a beach somewhere. However, Anthony Seldon writing in the Times Educational Supplement, believes a changes is as good as a rest.

“The summer holidays are clearly vital in restoring your equilibrium,” says Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College. “It is the teacher’s equivalent to a good night’s sleep after you have been up all night at a party, or having a sleepless night worrying about a difficult class.”

Instead of hanging up a hammock and snoozing all summer long, Anthony Seldon suggests to staff in schools – do something energetic, be bold, go outside and holiday in the British Isles.

Do Something Energetic

Physical exhaustion is a great prelude for a good flop. A good tennis match or an impromptu game of rugby in the park can fill an afternoon with fun, and be truly relaxing. Anthony Seldon said lazing by a beach or sleeping in everyday only leads to us feeling we haven’t accomplished very much, and feeling even more lethargic. He suggests playing cricket, trying morris dancing, recreational walking, ball games..or (can you believe) swimming the English Channel!

Be Bold

Try out different destinations or activities to keep your mind sharp and remind yourself to think outside the box. You may have favourite places you like to visit, but there are so many new things to do and see. Here are some of Anthony Sheldon’s ideas for things you may not have tried, but have always wanted to do: rock climbing under the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a ride on a hovercraft, playing in a brass band, visiting Brixton and eating fried plantains, or taking up gardening and hiring an allotment.

Go Outside

So long as you use lots of sunscreen, there is nothing better than being outside in sunny weather. The English weather being what it is however, you might prefer to pack your waterproof and wellies. Whatever you decide, there’s loads to get up to outside. How about: taking in your favourite pub garden, camping in the Lake District, taking a narrowboat ride through the canals of England, painting your garden shed, or visiting Kew Gardens.

Holiday in the British Isles

There are endless destinations on our jewel of an island that can offer you inspiration and life-changing memories. Many of England’s destinations are easily accessible via a short jaunt by rail, car or even bicycle. You could visit the Royal Festival Hall, the English countryside, Bekonscot model village, Lincoln Cathedral, Burgh Island, the English seaside…to name just a few.

As a student of personal development and self improvement, you’ve no doubt come to the understanding that everything you achieve in life is fundamentally determined by your thinking. Thoughts are real things, which lead to a feeling, which lead to an action, which lead to an outcome. This is the basis by which you create your life.

So it stands to reason that no matter what you wish to create in your life, applying a consistent daily practice — a routine — that will promote good thinking habits can only serve you in creating more of what you want in life… and help to make you much more proficient at the same time.

In my experience, I’ve come to see the power of applying five very basic practices into my daily routine that have become strong habits and that have served to strengthen my ability to deliberately apply Law of Attraction in my life.

No doubt you’ve heard of all of these, but have you made them a daily habit for yourself in order to benefit from their combined power? Perhaps not.

If one or more of these elements is missing from your routine, you may find yourself struggling in one or more areas of your life.

1: Regular self improvement time every day.

As John Henry Newman said, “Growth is the only evidence of life.” So contribute to your growth as a leader in your own life by spending focused time on your personal growth and development every day.

Or don’t, in which case you are really choosing to stop living.

Spend even just 20 minutes writing out your goals and affirmations. Listen to a CD. Read an inspiring book. Learn from the masters. Feed yourself every day with positive thoughts and messages.

Begin to integrate these things into your day and develop the habit of doing so daily. By doing so, you are feeding your mind in a positive way.

2: Quiet your mind and then visualize your success every day.

Professional athletes and top business leaders know the power of visualization. Self help teachers through history have extolled the virtues of learning to quiet your mind with meditation.

At least once a day, take the time to quiet your mind and connect with whom you intend to be — the CEO of you, the leader of you, the inspiring leader of your own life who has massive results and success at whatever you choose.

Use a brief meditation to quiet the rampant mind chatter… take a couple of deep breaths, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing for even for just a couple of minutes. That’s all it needs to take.

Then visualize in your mind that you are achieving your goals. The goals needn’t be major; just ensure they reflect something you really want. Is it a new car? Great… visualize yourself looking at new cars. See and enter the dealership in your mind. Sit in the car in the showroom. Visualize yourself taking the car for a test drive. Where are you driving? How does it handle? How does the new car smell? Now visualize completing your offer sheet and choosing all the options you want. Picture yourself picking up the keys and taking delivery of your car.

Professional sprinters will visualize their entire race from entering the starting blocks, right through to the finish line. There’s incredible power in doing that.

You, too, will experience tremendous results just from taking five minutes each day to visualize yourself achieving what you want in specific detail. So find a time when you can be alone for five minutes and do it.

3: Schedule one hour of core time.

Set aside one hour, which you’ve explicitly scheduled in your day, which is your uninterrupted time spent only on activities that will move you closer to your goals.

What are those activities? The more time you spend visualizing, the clearer the path to follow to get there will become. You will find yourself inspired to take actions — your inner voice will begin to guide you.

Perhaps it’s taking a course, or undertaking a project, or starting a home business… whatever the appropriate steps happen to be, they will become clear to you.

Just be sure to set aside the time to actually do them. If you can’t find the time, then get up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later. No matter what, find the hour. And protect that hour jealously.

It is in this time that you ultimately make your dreams come true. It is this time that you are taking the action that needs to be taken.

4: Lead yourself in everything you do.

Set the expectation of leadership in everything you do. What does this mean?

Simply, it means holding yourself accountable for actually doing what you say you intend to do. What’s the one action you can take today that helps to move your forward in the direction of your goals? You already know what it is because you’ve done the visualization. So the next thing for you to do is to actually do it.

Don’t wait for someone else to do it for you. Action is what makes it all come together. Consistently taking the action you’ve identified (which you can do in your scheduled core time) puts you in integrity with yourself and sends a clear signal to the Universe that you’re ready to begin receiving what you want.

5: Mastermind with other people.

Spend time with others who are successful in what they do and are effective leaders. These may be people you already know, such as business associates, friends, or co-workers. Or you may need to start to make new friends and build new networks in your community.

Other leaders are easy to spot. They are successful. Build relationships with them. Exchange ideas. You learn the most from people who are already accomplishing that to which you aspire.

Make a point of hanging around with people who will help you get better. Spend at least 30 minutes masterminding every day. It may take the form of a phone conversation. Or a lunch. Or exchanging emails. Or listening to a presentation. Or joining a club or association.

It doesn’t matter so long as you make a habit of doing some kind of masterminding every day.

Consistently applying these five daily personal development habits will ensure you maintain a healthy mindset and high energy. They will make you more effective in all aspects of your life.

Article written by Warren Wojnowski

6 Week Interactive Online Coaching Programme for Teachers and Support Staff

LIMITED OFFER – ONLY £45/$72

Helping you to unleash your full potential and be happy, fulfilled, successful and stress-free in your job at school.

Boost Your Confidence & Effectiveness In Preparation For The New School Year In September

Exclusively for Summer 2009, the Plain Sailing Coaching Programmes for Teachers and Support Staff are now available for a limited 6 week period during the holidays/vacation.

FOR ONLY £45 you will get 15 online coaching sessions with full interaction from an experienced coach and teacher. The sessions can be completed at your own leisure over the 6 weeks and are available online 24/7.

BE EMPOWERED WITH THE LATEST TOOLS AND STRATEGIES TO HELP YOU:

• cope with the stressful demands and pressures of working in a school;
• gain extra motivation and inspiration to fulfil your roles and responsibilities;
• improve your communication and interpersonal skills;
• manage and prioritise your time more effectively;
• develop healthy and effective relationships with other members of staff, pupils and parents;
• develop a healthier work/life balance;
• identify and eradicate any limiting beliefs that have been holding you back;
• uncover solutions for overcoming low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence…..and much more.

OUTLINE OF THE COACHING PROGRAMME

Stage 1: Introduction to the Journey

An introduction to Plain Sailing Core Programme followed by an overview of the programme and to Coaching Interactive.

Stage 2: Your Background

This will enable your coach to get to know you and the issues currently facing you in school and then tailor suitable interactive sessions for you.

Stage 3: Preparation

This will allow you to thoroughly explore the values and beliefs that are important to you both in education and in your wider life. This will lead to possible options for action.

Stage 4: My Life Mapping Session

You will create a map of your current life in relation to your roles and responsibilities in school. By examining what is important to you and assessing your current status in each area, you will be able to clearly define your dreams and the meaning of the fulfilment of those dreams. You will then be guided to consider what to do, in order to achieve your goals.

Stage 5: Your Strengths, Skills & Attributes

By identifying your strengths you will learn how to work with and leverage those strengths in order to fulfil your dreams.

Stage 6: Your Goals

You will get in touch with your calling, the reason why you are here, and identify what makes you truly happy.

Stage 7: Your Personal Values and Beliefs

You will be guided to help identify your core values and beliefs in education and in your job. Once these are clarified, you can make better decisions in order to reach your goals.

Stage 8: Defining & Fulfilling Your Vision

Your vision, beliefs and goals are examined and analysed. Then a plan of action starts to be formulated.

Stage 9: Setting Goals and Objectives

Choose the area you wish to focus on first, and then build a programme with goals and objectives for short, medium or long term. These can be linked to any targets that have already been set for you.

Stage 10: The GROW Web Session

Choose your first target and learn how to expand the options available to you.

Stage 11: Progress Report

You will be guided to routinely assess and report your progress to yourself and your coach.

Stage 12: Review

Complete the questionnaire and converse with your coach on the process you have undergone and the impact it has had. An invitation will follow to further grow using a specific coaching programme tailored for you by your coach.

Stage 13: Using the GROW Model and My Life Map as Ongoing Coaching Tools

It is important to continue growing by re-visiting the GROW Model and your My Life and go through the whole process again for different areas of concern in your job at school.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE AND REGISTER

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE POWER OF ONLINE COACHING

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A PRESENTATION ABOUT INTERACTIVE COACHING

What types of stress do school staff have to deal with?

I am sure you agree that most people have no idea about the amount of stress that teachers and other school staff deal with on a daily basis. Quite often they don’t just have one or two problem children, but an oversized classroom full of them.

Not only do school staff have the stress of dealing with so many diverse children each day, but they also have the enormous pressure of educating and helping to mould these children into productive members of society. With all the rules, regulations, guidelines and performance expectations all around, school staff can have very high levels of stress. Working in schools is very demanding.

More often than not, teachers and other school staff have to take work home overnight or at weekends in order to be well prepared and organised for the next teaching day.

So what exactly can school staff do?

So with all these stressors surrounding them, how can teachers and other school staff manage their stress? First and foremost they must make sure to take good care of themselves. They need to accept that they are human, and as such they are just as fallible as the parents of the children they teach. No one is perfect and we all make mistakes from time to time.

When they do make a mistake then they must accept responsibility for it and move on. One important step in stress management in schools is to foster a close friendship with someone in whom they may freely confide. This will give them an outlet for their frustration so that it is not allowed to fester inside.

Some Stress Busting Tips

Here are some ideas for teachers and other school staff to help reduce their stress to a more manageable level.

1. Eat right

By skipping meals you are depriving your body of the extra nutrients that it needs when faced with large levels of stress.

2. Get plenty of sleep

When you don’t get the rest you need, your body may respond by causing you to be irritable. You may also react poorly to the situations that normally would not cause you to be stressed.

3. Try to exercise

Exercise has been validated as an important stress relief tool. It has also been found to alleviate depression as well, which makes it very powerful in relieving stress.

4. Have a good sense of humour

We all know that laughter is the best for of medicine. There is plenty of medical evidence to prove that people who keep a light heart tend not to feel the effects of stress as strongly as those who have no sense of humour.

Ultimately, you must be aware that stress can be dangerous when you are dealing with a high amount of it on a daily basis. It can take a toll on your body, so it is vital that you find ways to cope and reduce stress in order to live a happier life. So:

5. Learn not to worry

Worrying is a negative way of using our imagination. We often generate scenarios that do not exist, yet we use these scenarios to stress ourselves out. Cutting out worry can greatly reduce stress.

6. Take things slow

We live in a fast-paced world. Almost everyone is impatient. A hectic lifestyle is a stressful lifestyle. Learn to pause, slow your pace, and you will begin to feel better.

7. Find the positive

It is easy to think negatively and put ourselves down in any situation. Start training you brain to find the positive in all situations. A positive attitude will not allow stress to overcome you.

If you would like any more information about beating stress, please do get in touch with me.

Optimism simply means focusing on what can go right. Optimists are happier because they expect and anticipate good things to happen to them in their work life and beyond. They also see the best in every situation.

The case for optimism is a very strong one indeed. Optimists are happier, more successful, healthier, experience less stress, have better relationships and live longer. Crucially, there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that pessimists can learn to be more optimistic.

Optimism is all about how you explain the world around you. Psychologists call this your explanatory style. Your explanatory style refers to the way in which you explain the events that happen in your life, and the meaning you give to that explanation.

Your explanatory style is more than likely to determine the decisions you make and actions you take in your life. Optimists define themselves by their strengths and successes, and because of this they expect good things to happen to them. Pessimists on the other hand define themselves by their weaknesses and failures, and therefore don’t expect good things to happen to them.

In order to become more optimistic, there are two things you need to work on:

1. Close down your pessimism patterns

2.  Open up your optimism opportunities

Closing down your pessimism patterns means minimising the space you allow for negative thought patterns, and maximising the space you allow for positive thought patterns.

Martin Seligman, a renowned expert in optimism, uses the following techniques to get you out of a negative frame of mind. These act as quick fixes in moving your thinking from a negative perspective to a positive one. So, next time you start thinking negatively, ask yourself which of these techniques would work best for you.

• Remind yourself regularly off things that you have done well and are proud of.

• Activate an internal STOP mechanism, which means you shout STOP yourself if you start thinking negatively.

• Practise a positive thinking mantra – in other words, affirm positive statements about yourself.

• Stop berating yourself. Commit to accepting and learning from your mistakes.

• Write down your negative thoughts. This is a good way of getting them out there, rather than niggling away in your head.

• Write down your positive thinking mantra and keep it with you.

• Have a stack of positive thoughts at the ready. Write them down if necessary.

Quick fixes are important because optimistic (and pessimistic) thought patterns can turn into fixed ways of thinking. However, a more long-term approach to challenging your pessimistic thought patterns will reap long-term benefits.

Optimism is much more than positive thinking. While positive thinking can enhance certain situations, it does not overall improve your life experience. Optimism, on the other hand, has been shown to enhance both specific and general well-being.

Also, you need to proactively choose to be happy and seeing the good in situations. Train yourself to think “I am going to find something positive in this situation”, and you will be guaranteed great results. Try it, and see how it goes. I would love to hear more about your views on this subject, so please leave a response here.

Please get in touch with me if you would like more support with being optimistic, or try the free interactive coaching session by clicking on the blue banner on the Homepage.

There is little doubt that a key role of being a teacher is to listen carefully to what the students have to say. However, most research based on classroom observations suggests that there is often a lack of quality time for teachers to listen. This may be due to time constraints and the pressure felt by teacher to do most of their teaching through speaking, but it is also partially because they haven’t learned how to listen effectively.

Naturally, there are many occasions when teachers have an opportunity to hear a student speak, including their formal responses to open-ended questions, class discussions, and informal conversations. If teachers are convinced that young people learn through the process of expressing their thoughts and benefit from being taken seriously by the teacher, then quality time spent listening to them is more than justified.

The art of listening does not come naturally to everyone. We all have to persevere to become good listeners as it is a very important element of good communication, and ultimately is a vital teaching skill for every teacher.

As teachers, it is important to recognise that:

• young people have important things to say;
• it is courteous and polite to listen carefully;
• it models appropriate behaviour for the students to emulate;
• it enables teachers and other adults to learn more about what the students know and understand;
• other students learn from what their peers say;
• an adult at school may be the only person in the student’s life prepared to show an interest in them;
• young people need opportunities to talk about their interests, concerns and opinions;
• every young person appreciates an attentive adult;
• it helps to deepen the relationship between the teacher and the student.

It would be unfair to say that only teachers prefer to talk rather than listen to what others have to say, as this is probably preferable for most adults in whatever walk of life. However, there is little doubt that listening has to be learned and practised. Furthermore, it is possible for teachers to actually stop hearing, because their minds are elsewhere. The brain needs to be alert and focused for quality listening to take place. Listening relies on both self-discipline and being convinced that the speaker has something worth hearing.

In order for teachers to become better listeners, they need to be able to minimise any possible distractions. Distractions can come from the immediate environment, from the listener’s mind, and from the speaker. These distractions can be reduced by employing certain strategies. The teacher needs to be able to shut out environmental distractions and concentrate on the student’s words. By closely following the words, the teacher can mentally summarise the key points. Keeping eye contact can also help to minimise distractions.

TIPS TO HELP TEACHERS BECOME BETTER LISTENERS

• Develop a real interest in the speaker and what he/she has to say

• Try not to pre-empt what the speaker is going to say and fill the unspoken words

• Try to think carefully about what the words mean to the speaker

• Mentally, summarise the key points and ideas that the speaker is expressing

• Concentrate on the words and ideas that are being expressed

• Ask questions for further clarification of what is being said

• Try to understand what meaning is being conveyed beyond the actual words

• Listen with an open mind and don’t jump to conclusions

• Repeat key phrases every so often in a tone that conveys interest

• Use effective oral responses, such as “I see” or “Yes of course”

• Look directly at the speaker with reassurance

• Try not to contradict or argue with what the speaker is saying

• Allow the speaker to confirm, clarify or modify the key points

If you would like to add any points to this list or share your views on being a good listener, then it would be great to hear from you. Just leave a response here.

If you need further help with your listening skills, then please do get in touch with me or try the free interactive coaching session, by clicking on the blue banner on the homepage. I look forward to hearing from you.

Have you heard about Byron Katie and her transformative practice for all those interested in spiritual growth and personal development?

Byron Katie has known great pain and suffering in her life. In highly unusual circumstances she woke up one morning to a sudden and dramatic shift in awareness, which brought her an inner clarity. Since then she has been travelling the world demonstrating the value and simplicity of four very special questions, and how they work.

Byron’s practice, known simply as The Work, allows you to go inside yourself and find your own happiness, to experience what already exists within you, unchanging, immovable, ever-present, ever-waiting. She strongly believes that anyone is capable of ending their own suffering, whatever it may be. Have a go at the following exercise, which very much sums up what The Work is all about and can be applied to many situations.

Choose a person or situation and write down, using short, simple sentences, who or what it is. Point the finger of blame or judgement outward. Write from your present position and your point of view.

1. Who angers or saddens or disappoints you? What is it about them that you didn’t or still don’t like?

2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?

3. Do you need anything from them? What do they need to give you or do in order for you to be happy?

4. What do you think of them? Make a list.

5. What is it that you don’t ever want to experience with that person, thing or situation again?

Now, one by one, put each of your answers up against the four questions below, and then turn around the statement you’re working on. Throughout the process, practice being open to possibilities beyond what you think you know. This is a way of discovering your don’t -know mind. Keep asking the question and wait. Let the answer find you.

Here are the four questions of The Work:

1. Is it true?

Take your time. There is no right or wrong answer. Just listen for your answer.

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

This is an opportunity to go into the unknown, to find the answers that live beneath what we think we know.

3. How do you react when you think that thought?

Make a list. How do you treat yourself, how do you treat the person you’ve written about, when you think that thought? What do you do? Be specific.

4. What would you do without the thought?

Close your eyes and wait. Imagine yourself just for a moment without that thought. What do you see? How does it feel? How is the situation different?

Now turn it around – rewrite the statement. This time write it as if it were written about you. Where you have written someone’s name, put yourself. Instead of “he” or “she”, put “I”. Consider whether or not the turn-around statement is as true as or truer than your original statement.

Now it’s time for you to continue applying the four questions and the turnaround to your own judgements, one at a time. Read all the sentences that you originally wrote and then one by one investigate each statement by asking yourself the four questions.

For more information about Byron Katie and The Work visit www.thework.org. If you would like try her online coaching programme, just click on Start Now! on the banner below. Good luck with The Work.

Please leave a response if you would like to ask me any questions about The Work, or indeed if you would like to share your experiences of implementing it.

Visualisation is an incredibly powerful technique to help you make important changes in your life. It involves trying to picture, in as much detail as possible, the results that you want.

The boxer Muhammad Ali used this technique frequently. He called it a ‘future history’. When Ali agreed to fight somebody, he would run through the fight in his imagination right up to the moment when he had won. He would then freeze the winning mental image and become aware of all the senses as if he were there at that very moment. His future history was experienced in such detail that subconsciously he believed it had already happened.

You can use this technique on anything in your life. For example, on a day at work – what do you absolutely intend to achieve today? Or if you’ve got into the habit of letting weekends slip away not having done very much, you can use this technique to change all that. How would you like things to be on Sunday night when the weekend comes to an end? How would you like to be feeling? How about the other people in your life? Partners? Children?

And then there are the things in your life you don’t want to do – that tax return, that tricky piece of DIY, the difficult phone call you have to make. Visualising how you will feel when the thing is done is a fantastic way to get you focused and motivated. This is one of the major techniques I use with my clients in all my coaching.

So basically, if you don’t like what you see in your life, then you can change it by imagining how you would like it to be. What I would like you to do now is answer the questions below. Write the answers down. The questions are in no particular order, and don’t worry if there is some overlap between the answers to the questions. The main purpose is to get you thinking about the alternatives to what you are doing at the moment. Good luck.

1. How would you like things to be? What would be the best possible outcome when you make the changes you’re going to make?

2. Who are the other people involved in all of this – people like your boss, your spouse or partner, your children, your customers?

3. How would these people be affected if things were to change? What would it mean to them?

4. Would each of them have to buy-in to the change? Would this be a problem if so?

5. Why would they want to buy into it?

6. Why do you want things to change?

7. Imagine life when you have made the transition. What would a typical day/week be like? Be specific. What will you do? What will be your routine?

8. Think of each of the people you have identified in the answer to question 2 above. If you make this change, what will they be saying about you?

9. How will you feel?

10. Will you have changed as a person? If so, how?

11. What will be your ambitions/hopes/dreams once you’ve accomplished this change?

12. Will your standard of living have changed? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

13. Will your view of yourself have changed? If so, how?

14. Do you think it would be difficult to accomplish this change?

15. Would it be worth doing?

16. Could it fail?

17. How would you feel if it did? What would you do?

Has visualisation brought you success and achievement in your life? If so, please leave a response. I would love to find out more.

In the meantime, I strongly recommend you read Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, which has a whole section on visualisation.

Sometimes it can feel as though eating a healthy diet, getting enough exercise and finding the time for yourself is impossible. But learning to live a healthier lifestyle is easy when you change one small thing at a time. Follow this advice and you will soon be full of beans.

1. LET IT BEET

It sounds bizarre but beetroot could be a secret weapon against high blood pressure. The condition is a major cause of heart disease and stroke, but many people aren’t aware they have it as it has no symptoms. Now, researchers from Barts Hospital and the London School of Medicine say drinking 500ml of beetroot juice could dramatically reduce blood pressure after just one hour. So drink up the pink stuff. (Get yourself a juice making machine. I juice 2 apples, 1 raw beetroot and 2 broccoli florets every day. It’s delicious!)

2. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

Us lazy Brits will spend 17 years of our lives on the sofa, with 7 years of that devoted to watching TV. Next time you hear yourself saying, “I haven’t got time to go to the gym” or you opt for ready meals because you’re too busy to cook fresh food, think about switching off the box and doing something healthy instead.

3. DON’T TAKE THE BISCUIT

It may be a good idea to steer clear of the biscuit tin before you go shopping. A team from the University of Singapore recently discovered that the smell of chocolate chip cookies could make women splurge on unnecessary clothes when they hit the shops. The smell activates the part of your brain that wants instant gratification.

4. EMBRACING GOOD HEALTH

Giving your partner a good hug doesn’t just warm the heart, it can protect it too. A study by the University of North Carolina in 2005 found that hugging your other half for 20 seconds could lower blood pressure and reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. High levels of cortisol have been linked to heart disease and other conditions such as diabetes.

5. POURING SALT ON THE WOUND

We eat around 9.5g of salt a day, but the Government wants us to cut this to no more than 6g, as high levels of salt can push up your blood pressure, raising your risk of cardiovascular conditions. Many food labels only list salt as sodium however, but you can do a simple sum to work out the real salt content; just multiply by 2.5. So 0.8g of sodium becomes 2g of salt.

6. SUNNY SIDE UP

Get outside in the sunshine for a natural boost. The sun’s rays on the skin help your body produce vitamin D, which has been shown to fight heart disease, depression, osteoporosis and even some types of cancer. So make the most of the sun when it is around!

7. ONE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER

One of the largest studies into diet and cancer – the Europe-wide EPIC study – found that eating just one extra portion of fruit and vegetables a day could cut your risk of dying early from any cause by 20%.

8. HOLDING BACK THE YEARS

Add 14 years to your life by following four very easy principles; don’t smoke, take regular exercise, drink sensibly and eat five portions of fruit and veg each day. These simple steps can have a huge impact on your life expectancy, say scientists from Cambridge University. If you only manage one thing, give up smoking as the study found this had the biggest impact on your health.

9. A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Previously experts thought taking 10,000 steps a day was enough to control your weight, but a world-wide study has just established that women up to the age of 40 and men up to 50 need 12,000 steps a day to help shift that middle jiggle. Invest in a pedometer to make sure you’re hitting your target.

10. LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

Become a glass half-full person! Studies have found that those with a positive attitude suffer less from conditions such as heart disease. Find something to laugh at every day to give your feel-good hormone a boost.

I like Number 10 most of all, so why not share some of you ways of bringing more laughter into your life. I would love to know, so please leave a response.

One of the key elements of a good report is knowledge. Teachers deliver programmes of study through a sequence of lessons. As the lessons are being delivered and the pupils are learning, evidence of this learning is being compiled. The evidence may be transitory – through oral questions and answers, discussions and practical work such as that found in subjects like drama or physical education.

Good teachers need to be good assessors. They need to ensure that learning has occurred by assessing the quality of the outcomes from each lesson. In many cases, some recording of the outcomes should take place and the data added to on a regular basis.

A report is a statement that imparts this knowledge of the learning outcomes. It shows that a teacher has looked at the programme of study and has taken from it critical criteria that the pupil has had to meet to succeed in that subject. The teacher reports on this progress over a set period of time and the report refers specifically to this progress. The report encapsulates, for a parent, what the child has done over the school year and how their learning has measured up to the identified criteria and the skills that need to be mastered at the time.

Susan Davies (2006) states that a report should encapsulate and state:

• what has been taught
• what has been learnt
• how the pupil has done in relation to the expected norm for a child of that age
• what strengths the pupil has shown
• what weaknesses need to be addressed by the pupil
• the pupil’s attitude within the subject area towards classwork/homework/independent learning/working with others
• class targets for improvement that should be subject specific.

Ultimately, the report allows parents an insight into learning and ensures that they are part of a partnership made up of pupil, parents and the teacher/school.

The style

Parents are not usually familiar with national curriculum jargon, so it is best to stick to plain English. Reports look more professional if the vocabulary is descriptive and concise, so do avoid using the words ‘good’, ‘well’, ‘bad’ and ‘average’. These words give a very general picture and they are not very informative. Here are some more interesting and useful comments:

• participates sensibly
• grasps new concepts quickly
• loves learning new skills
• understands clearly
• takes pleasure in
• concentrates for long periods
• enjoys being involved in
• lively imagination
• wide general knowledge
• has a wide range of interests
• continues to improve.

The tone

Be aware of not making the whole report too negative. Try to focus on positives as much as possible. Although you have to be honest about thechild’s shortcomings, it is important to highlight their strengths and your tone should displayyour own interest in and care for the child.

Here are some expressions that demonstrate a positive attitude to the pupil:

• I was pleased when…
• I hope he/she will soon…
• I should be delighted if…
• I hope she/he will develop her/his talent for…
• I enjoy teaching X because…
• I wish X well next year.

The following comments can be used to highlight the pupil’s weaknesses without causing too much offence.

For the less able:

• slow but perseveres
• tries hard but needs extra support with
• does his/her best but lacks confidence
• is fairly keen but has a short attention span
• often tries hard but can be careless
• needs a lot of practice at each level
• copes best in a small group
• needs extra practice at each level to keep up with the class
• acquires new skills/concepts after a lot of practice.

For the reluctant learner:

• makes avoidable mistakes
• needs to check his/her work more carefully
• needs to be supervised closely to keep her/him on task
• needs to put in more effort to keep up with the group
• is easily distracted
• often needs to finish off his/her work at break-times

For the child with poor social skills:

• needs to consider other children’s feelings
• has not yet learnt how to make friends
• does not realise that other children will treat him/her exactly as he/she treats them
• does not realise that other children deserve as much attention as him/her
• must learn that he/she will never get his/her own way by giving cheek

Hopefully, these tips and suggestions will make your daunting task of writing reports much easier.

It would be great if you could share your views and ideas, so please do leave a comment. I very much look forward to responding.