According to a leading department store there has been a increase in the number of parents spending £150 or more on items to ensure their child is the best dressed in their school nativity.

 

In what the shop has dubbed "manger chic", panicked mums and dads have apparently been snapping up brand new ivory white bridesmaid dresses, at a cool £40, to transform their little girls into angels, £60 faux fur throws for children lucky enough to be given the role of "sheep", and grey fleecy hooded duffle coats at £14.

When ears are added to the latter it is said to make the perfect "donkey" costume.

The department store who spotted the trend two weeks ago at the start of nativity play rehearsals, puts it down to parents' obsession with getting their children into the best schools.

 

For full report please read article on following link http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2009/dec/03/manger-chic-nativity-plays

Have you organised your Big Breakfast Bonanza?

 

It is not too late to organise your event in support of national childcare week from 2nd to 9th of July. Daycare Trust are in the 15th year of celebrating National childcare week which is sponsored by  www.goodcareguide.co.uk and care.com

 

This year's theme is Families in Focus. Throughout the week we are promoting the benefits of engaging the whole family, including dads and grandparents, in your childcare morning meal. Hold a breakfast party and invite as many dads, mums and grandparents as possible. This will be an opportunity for them to not only help set up and enjoy a breakfast with you, but for you to highlight all the fantastic stuff your setting does with the children. The Big Breakfast Bonanza can also be an opportunity for you to get more parents to sign up for future events or sessions, and perhaps help out more frequently.

 

Organise your breakfast and help Daycare trust to promote the importance of childcare, extended schools, and early years provision for children which helps to strengthen children's play and learning to provide a good foundation for their future. 

The Government is setting up a commission to ascertain how childcare  can be made more accessible and affordable:

 

Recommendations are  that schools across the UK will provide 'wrap around care' in some cases until 8pm. Nannies and childminders will have less 'paperwork to complete and may be able to care for more children than current legislation allows.

 

The aim is to provide more affordable childcare to reduce the financial pressure on working parents that often spend a third of their income on childcare.

 

The debate is whether this is a positive or negative opportunity for parents. Will it enable families to enjoy the benefits of a higher family income and a better standard of living? or are we are becoming a nation where our children are cared for outside the family home and is does this negatively  impact children and the family unit?

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1127647/Childrens-minister-launches-500000-scholarship-scheme-SEN-support-staff/

 

Catherine Gaunt, 18 April 2012, 1:23pm

 

A new Government scholarship scheme for teaching assistants who work with children with special educational needs and disabilities will pay up to £2,000 towards the costs of taking a degree-level qualification.

 

 

The £500,000 SEN Support Scholarship programme aims to boost the skills of hundreds of teaching assistants and school staff by funding 50 per cent of the costs of a range of degree-level courses and qualifications focussing on specific needs such as autism and dyslexia.

 

Applicants must be qualified to 'A' level or equivalent or hold Higher Level Teaching Assistant status.

 

Launching the programme, children’s minister Sarah Teather said, ‘This is about getting the best from school staff. These scholarships identify and train talented professionals, with the potential to develop their specialist knowledge further and pursue a teaching career in the future of they want.’

She added, ‘We know that support staff can make a real difference to the achievement of pupils with SEN and disabilities. They are never a substitute for a qualified teacher – but we know that when used effectively, they are vital to giving the most vulnerable pupils the support they need to get the most out of school.’

 

Applications open on 30 May and close on 17 May with the first scholarships awarded later this year.

Scholarships will be awarded to the highest scoring applicants whose applications meet the criteria. Applications will be scrutinised and scored by the Teaching Agency and Department for Education, and assessment will be externally verified.

 

Ms Teather also confirmed funding in 2012/13 to train 100 new special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOS) though the masters-level National Award for SEN co-ordination.

 

The scheme has been extended following the recent review into alternative provision by Government expert on behaviour Charlie Taylor to include qualified teachers working in pupil referral units.

The Government is shortly to publish its response and next steps to the consultation on last year’s SEN Green Paper which put forward proposals to raise the quality of SEN education and support.

 

The education union Voice, commenting on the programme, said there was a need for specialised training for all teaching assistants working with children with SEN and disabilities.

 

General Secretary Philip Parkin said, 'Although better late than never, this is too little too late and rather limited in scope.

 

'The scheme targets only the elite – or "talented" as the DfE describes them – those teaching assistants (TAs) who are already well-qualified, with "A" levels or equivalent qualifications or who hold higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) status.

 

'There remains a real need for the majority of TAs involved in special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) work – those employed at levels one or two, many of whom will be minimally qualified – to gain access to appropriate specialised training. Regrettably, this initiative does nothing for them.

 

The UK’s biggest charity event for under 5s!

 

 

The Big Toddle is a short sponsored walk for toddlers that helps the UK’s most disadvantaged under 5s.

 

Whether you're a nursery, a parent or a childminder, you can organise your own Toddle any time of the year. Join the Big Toddle 2012.

 

Around half a million children get ready to Toddle each year, and this year it’s Superhero-themed so why not power up and join in the super fun?

 

Go to the link today - my little boy is registered to complete the big toddle - will be a great family day out!!

 

Regisiter today to help disadvataged children under the age of 5.

 

With millions of tourists set to visit Britain this summer for the Queen’s Jubilee and Olympic Games, ITV1s Tonight programme examines the fears of health officials that we could be facing a widespread outbreak of Measles.

 

 

One part of the country already reporting a tenfold increase in cases. 

 

“The increase in measles is one of the most serious events in this decade - if we look at all the infectious diseases this is the most prominent increase, so I’m very concerned.

 

– Marc Sprenger, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

 

Other contagious childhood illnesses, like Whooping Cough and Mumps, are also on the rise.

 

Yet doctors say these diseases couldhave been all-but confined to history – were it not for the fact that millions of children aren’t being fully immunised.

 

In an exclusive Netmums survey of 2000 people Tonight found that 45% of people don’t consider vaccines to be completely safe.

 

Tonight investigates the effect Dr Andrew Wakefield’s report linking Autism to the triple MMR vaccine had on immunization rates and speaks to parents who have chosen to opt out of all vaccinations.

 

Mum Nicola Adolphe told us:

 

“If I give a vaccine and something went wrong, I might never be able to get that back… that's not a risk I’d like to take. I believe that things like breastfeeding, good food, good diet, exercise sunshine fresh air and hygiene are much more vital to health. 

 

But the Health Protection Agency warn that by choosing not to immunise you not only put your child at risk but other children. 

 

“If for whatever reason your children aren’t vaccinated you are not only putting your children at risk your children could potentially expose other individuals their friends other members of the family. 

 

I think any parent would feel dreadful if your child exposed another child who then suffered some serious complications from vaccine preventable disease.

 

– Dr Mary Ramsey, Health Protection Agency

 

Tonight speaks to parents Dawn and Dave Benson whose five week-old daughter Eliza May died of whooping cough last December.

 

 

Babies are routinely vaccinated against this highly contagious airborne disease at 8 weeks – Eliza Mae was too young to be vaccinated.

 

Her parents believe the drop in immunization rates is the reason why their little girl came into contact with the disease and became infected.

 

Mr Benson told us:

 

“The message that needs to go out to other parents... it’s not just getting their children vaccinated - it’s about the whole of the country and looking after everybody else in the country.

 

Tax and benefit changes announced over the past 18 months will come into force on Friday, affecting millions.

 

The amount of income that is tax free is to rise by £630 to £8,105. The value of some benefits will rise by 5.2%, linked to inflation last September.

 

But the time couples with children will have to work to qualify for working tax credits will rise from 16 to 24 hours.

Labour said it would "clobber" families but the government said there would be 15 times as many winners as losers. 

 

The beginning of the tax year on 6 April will see a significant number of changes to tax and benefits - affecting personal and family finances.

 

Measures which were announced by the government in the 2011 Budget, as well as last year's autumn statement, are only now taking effect.

 

They range from increasing the first chunk of income that is tax free - known as the personal allowance - to the annual upgrading of benefits, as well as specific spending cuts.

 

Among the most important changes are:

 

Benefits such as jobseeker's allowance, income support, disability benefits, maternity benefits and incapacity benefit are rising by 5.2% - in line with the CPI measure of inflation last September (announced in November 2011)

 

Other than a few exceptions, couples with children will have to work for 24 hours a week between them, not 16, in order to qualify for working tax credit. One member of the couple will have to work for at least 16 hours a week (announced in November 2011.

 

The child element of child tax credits is to rise by £135 but the couple and lone-parent elements of working tax credit are being frozen (announced in November 2011)

 

The tax-free personal allowance for those under 65 will rise by £630 to £8,105 (announced in March 2011)

 

For 65- to 74-year-olds, the personal allowance rises from £9,940 to £10,500 (announced in March 2011)

 

Tax experts have urged Revenue and Customs to write to all those affected to alert them about the changes.

  

Labour said updated figures obtained from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) showed families with children would, on average, be £511 a year worse off as a result.

 

 'Broken promise'

  

The opposition's own figures suggest 212,000 families earning less than £17,000 a year will lose their working tax credits if they cannot increase their total hours to 24 a week while 850,000 households will lose their child tax credit as a result in a reduction in the income limit for one-child families.

  

 

“Families on middle and low incomes are facing a tax credits bombshell ” Ed Balls, Shadow chancellor

 

 The changes in full

 

 

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said: "For all the government's talk about increasing the personal allowance, these independent figures show that while they may be giving one with one hand, they are taking much more away with the other hand."

 

 

 

These changes plus announcements in last month's Budget, such as the cut in the top rate of tax on earnings over £150,000 from 50p to 45p in 2013 and the freezing of personal allowances for the over-65s next year, show the government have the wrong priorities, Labour argue.

 

 

"There do need to be tough decisions on tax, spending and pay," Mr Balls added. "But why are people earning £150,000 soon to get a £3bn tax cut from this out-of-touch government while parents on middle and modest incomes are being clobbered?"

 

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander blamed the previous Labour government for leaving the country's finances in a "catastrophic mess".

 

He said overall the richest 20% of the population were bearing the heaviest burden of tax and spending changes but it would still be difficult for people on lower incomes.

 

But he added: "I think it is right to say, in a situation where you ask a single parent, for example, to work 16 hours a week before they can receive working tax credits, that you ask more of two people.

 

"If you are going to ask a single parent to work two days a week before they can receive working tax credit, I think asking a couple to work three days a week between them is a reasonable position."

 

The government says 24 million people will be £6.50 a week better off from Friday, something Mr Alexander described as "a fair position which encourages and incentivises work".

  

Ministers also point to the fact that the basic state pension is to rise by £5.30 to £107.45 a week on Monday.

  

According to the IFS, pensioner households will be £119 a year better off as a result of the changes this month while working age households without children will be £156 worse off - figures which exclude measures targeting the "very rich".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A team of local commissioners should be employed to identify institutions that should lose their academy status and find headteachers who should be replaced, the incoming head of Ofsted has said.

 

 

As more schools become independent academies, Sir Michael Wilshaw called for the creation of the network of commissioners who would report back on the performance of schools in their area.

 

Wilshaw, who will take up his post as England's new chief education inspector next month, also suggested in an interview with the Times that some school governors should be paid in a bid to improve their performance and that scruffy teachers could be reprimanded.

 

"If we turned up at the doctor's surgery or the lawyer's offices … we would expect them to look professional, it's the same with teachers," he said.

 

He said that the local commissioners would be needed to help with the task of identifying problems as more schools became academies.

 

"I speak as someone who believes in autonomy and who believes in independence and as a great supporter of the academy programme, but we know there will be some academies that won't do well," Wilshaw said.

 

"It is no good just relying on Ofsted to give the judgment. By that time, it is too late. We need some sort of intermediary bodies which can detect when things aren't going well, look at the data and have their ear very close to the ground to determine when there is a certain issue."

 

He added: "These people would be non-political, in other words they would not be like LEAs responsible to a council, they would be people who would report directly to the secretary of state."

 

"The job of the commissioner would be to meet the managing directors, the chief executives of those clusters, report to him or her on the performance of the group. And the commissioner would then make a judgment on whether a school needs to be improved, report to the secretary of state and then bring in other agencies to improve those schools or not."

 

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "We welcome Sir Michael Wilshaw's thoughts on how we can continue to drive up standards in schools."

 

"We have already established the Office of the Schools Commissioner and will take action to deal with any failing school or academy. We have also published more information than ever before about how schools are performing, including their spending and results, so they can be held to account and parents really know what is going on in schools, including academies."

 

Stephen Twigg, Labour's shadow education secretary, said the party will give "serious consideration" to the suggestion in its policy review.

 

He said: "We have been looking at the idea of local schools' commissioners to raise standards and deal with poorly performing schools, whilst protecting autonomy and local accountability."

 

"But the Tory-led government must answer serious questions before bringing in any changes. Will the new posts be accountable to local parents and communities? Will the new superintendents be qualified professionals?"