The Problem Talk from Twitter this week; A July 2020 report from the then new Children’s Commissioner (England) ‘Vulnerable teenagers; where did it go wrong?’ Shining a light on the extent and impact of child vulnerability in England, focusing in particular on children with undiagnosed mental health issues, those excluded from mainstream education and children in gangs From these conversations there were three clear flashpoints: […]
The important thing about science is not much to obtain new facts but to discover new ways of thinking about them – Sir William Bragg (1862-1942) 21st century behaviour science is presenting us with a wealth of new facts about children and young people, demonstrating the close linkages between their mental health and what they show us through their behaviour. It’s become clear that physical […]
Responding to Covid19 Recently I wrote about the distinctly different responses we could take to the changed practices and new thinking Covid19 is demanding in schools. Option 1, routinely promoted by the DfE, is to put everything into the pre-pandemic box, with the routine use of punishment to control ‘bad’ behaviour, hitting children hard with exclusion as the weapon of choice if they go wrong. […]
Emotional health in childhood ‘is the key to future happiness A London School of Economics study “What Predicts a Successful Life? A Life-course Model of Well-being” (Economic Journal 2014) offered “a completely new perspective on which factors contribute most to a satisfying life”, namely wellbeing, challenging “the basic assumption of educational policy in recent years – that academic achievement matters more than anything else”. (Guardian […]
