Please don’t miss this chance to get extra support for your school. 

Just two minutes of your time.  No donations or fees required.

To rectify the current deficiencies in funding children’s mental health and other emotional and behaviour issues of primary school pupils the All Party Parliamentary Group for a Fit and Healthy Childhood has published the Child Mental Health Charter which builds upon the themes of  the APPG’s 12th  report ‘Children’s Mental Health Beyond the Green Paper: The Role of Practice-Based Evidence.’

On 8 April, Steve McCabe MP, chair of the All Party Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood, tabled a Motion (EDM 2285) at Westminster for new mental health legislation for children, which asks the Prime Minister to honour her pledge to include a new Mental Health Bill in the 2019 Queen’s Speech.  (https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/52806/new-mental-health-legislation-for-children)

The Charter is a blueprint for the Bill. It already has the support of 30 MPs but just as important is your support.  If successful there will be more funding for primary schools to support training and therapy.

Please add your school’s name to the list of growing list of individuals and organisations who are supporting the Charter: https://childmentalhealthcharter.com/

Yours sincerely, cmhc logo
 
Monika Jephcott
Child Mental Health Charter Campaign Leader
mokijep@majemail.com

How can we inform pupils about PSHE without speaking to them?

This is not a trick question.

Most schools use wall art to enhance noticeboards and to ensure that pupils are fully informed about school policy and procedure and also to deliver key messages.

Travelling around the UK we see thousands of posters on school noticeboards on our travels, some of which really do enhance key messages.

The posters within the realms of PSHE often have to be created by schools themselves and therefore don’t have the same flair and design quality as other subjects.

We’ve also not been able to find a company who produce a digital download variation of their posters, for you to print at school.

Whilst a poster arriving delivered is important and time saving, it can also be costly and overlooks the fact that most schools have reprographics who can print posters in any size of premium print quality.

Digital download options in A1-A4 are an option for our PSHE posters and the A4 size starts at £3.99, with an A1 poster costing £7.99 – manageable for almost any PSHE budget.

We have a poster on the facts about bullying, celebrating diversity, facts about drugs and alcohol, revision techniques and a few posters on informed choices.

These are low cost and deliver high impact. You can view all of them here https://qsworkshops.com/product-category/posters/

Of course, all of our posters are available free with one of our workshops. Give me a call or drop me a line if you’d like to discuss this on 020 8088 0717.

Can this calculator take over  from the  Casio FX 83GT Plus?  

The Casio FX 83GT+ has been the UK’s best selling scientific calc…and deservedly so.  It’s been setting the pace in many UK schools and is  the first choice for GCSE exams for many students.

But now there is an alternative…… It’s the Logik LK 83XP which has almost all the features of the FX 83GT Plus (no verify or recurring decimal) and with one big advantage…… it’s dual power.  This combination of battery and solar power prolongs battery life and gives extra reassurance for your students when used in exams.

The LK 83XP has a THREE year guarantee* and is suitable for all exams where a calculator is allowed.  Features include:  252 functions,   “natural (true) display,” check, correct and replay, stats. calculations, prime factorisation, hard plastic keys, slide on case, etc.

It’s a calc which can see your students all the way from year 7 to GCSE and at a surprisingly modest price, from just £5.25 ex vat.

Further details on:  www.signposteducational.co.uk or phone 020 7515 1797  or email: signpost@talk21.com

Signpost Educational Ltd., PO Box 999   London  E14 6SH

The forgotten skill within learning the lack of which is hindering the progress of thousands of children

Imagine a child who has a total grasp of a subject – perhaps history, or geography, or French, or maths.

But now imagine that same child without the ability effectively to communicate her or his knowledge.  As far as the rest of the world is concerned that young person simply hasn’t learned.

Of course this is an extreme case, but in essence every child with poor communication skills has difficulties – not just in self-expression but also in listening and understanding.

In short the child with communication problems has difficulties with every aspect of learning.

And this problem affects a huge number of children.  Ican, for example, has suggested that at least 10% of young people across the UK have communication difficulties severe enough to be hindering their learning, and causing difficulties in areas such as problem-solving and maintaining relationships.

To overcome this problem what is needed is a way for children to learn effective two-way interactive communication so that they can participate both in the formal side of their education and the social side of being at school.

But the problem is, how can this be arranged within the current financial situation?

NLP4kids works in this area with many schools around the UK, and our work includes helping schools access government funding specifically set aside for this sort of project – thus effectively making our services available free of charge to the school.

If you would like to know more about our work in improving students’ communication skills and about the funding, please do have a look at our communication skills webpage.

To discuss the options without any obligation please do call 0345 3192 666 or 0203 6677 294 or email me at gemma@NLP4Kids.org

Gemma Bailey
Director of NLP4Kids

Introducing the Child Mental Health Charter – Support for Primary Schools

The Child Mental Health Charter was launched on 11th March.  It has evolved from the ‘Children’s Mental Health beyond the Green Paper,’ report published on 30th January 2019 produced by a range of experts and practitioners, members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood.

It enshrines six broadly-based principles which can be used immediately as a definitive set of de-facto standards for all those working therapeutically with children in primary schools with the objective of improving the safety and effectiveness of practice.  It will also enhance the credibility of the school as caring  for their pupils and supporting parents.

More details: https://childmentalhealthcharter.com/

The Charter calls upon the Government to make this the blueprint to reform the 1983 Mental Health Act in 2019. The report also urges that more funding is made available to primary schools for the training of school staff and employment in a therapeutic role, together with joined up working with other services. A campaign has just been launched to gather a large number of supporters to help achieve these objectives more quickly.

Please pledge your school’s support as an organisation at https://childmentalhealthcharter.com/Campaign-Programme There’s no cost.  It will only take a few minutes.

For more details on implementing the principles of the Charter, or a copy of the full report: Info@childmentalhealthcharter.com

Yours sincerely,

Monika Jephcott
Child Mental Health Charter Campaign Leader

Fred Theatre’s amazing line up of in-school performances for 2019-20 is announced, and booking is open

Six marvellous productions – a more inter-active experience – greater learner support

Here at Fred Theatre H.Q. we are very excited about our plans for the upcoming school year. We are bringing back popular productions from this year, adding to them, and making a few changes to what we offer. Altogether, these will give you and your students a more exciting and valuable experience.

We have six amazing productions, for all of which you may reserve dates from today.

Designed with the needs of your GCSE students in mind we have…

A CHRISTMAS CAROL
(available from 14 October to 20 December)

MACBETH
(available from 20 January to 07 February and 24 February to 08 May)

JEKYLL AND HYDE
(available from 24 February to 08 May)

ROMEO AND JULIET
(available from 03 to 14 February and 02 March to 08 May)

New for next year: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
(available from 02 March to 08 May)

And for your younger students…

FRED’S SHAKESPEAREANCE
(available now and throughout the coming year)
Our fun-packed three hour introduction to Shakespeare, his life and works, designed for students who are about to embark on studying the Bard

Six professional actors perform our GCSE text-based productions; we feel a smaller cast compromises quality. All Fred Theatre staff attending your school are DBS checked, trained in child safeguarding and experienced in the idiosyncrasies of in-school performances.

Teachers appreciate our commitment to the text and producing a faithful rendition of the original, just a little shorter! And, all we need to perform at your school is a space approximately 5m x 5m with room (of course) for the audience.

From October, we’re extending our time with you and your students to two hours. This enables us to include an interactive element between the cast and audience as part of the session. During this time there will be a discussion of the play’s themes, characters, how we approached the production, and choices made in rehearsal. There will also be a chance for you and your students to ask questions.

We are equally happy to run this as a continuous two hour session, or include a short break following the performance, whatever you feel will work best for you and your students.

Every student receives a programme that, along with cast and crew details, includes notes on the production and text, as well as support material for them to use in the interactive post-show session. Students will be able to keep these for use in class and as a valuable revision aid.

Also, from October, we will provide you with copies of information sheets, for distribution to students ahead of our being with you. These will provide valuable information about the text and production and we’re sure your students will want to keep them with their class notes to use in revision. These sheets will help build a sense of anticipation ahead of the performance, encouraging students to value our visit to your school, and make the most of their opportunity to learn from it.

As in previous years, we are happy to provide additional workshops if this is of interest to you. These are devised through discussion with you, and delivered by a member of our skilled education team. We can also arrange visits from our directors and artistic director.

To discuss any aspect of a visit from Fred Theatre to your school, please feel free to contact me or a member of our tour administration team. You can call us on 01789 777612 or email:

Helen: helen@fred-theatre.co.uk

Sarah: sarah@fred-theatre.co.uk

We look forward to speaking with you soon, and bringing amazing live performance to your school.

Robert Ball
Artistic Director

ad@fred-theatre.co.uk

PS: We appreciate how tight budgets are, so we’ve been working hard to keep our costs low and add as much value as possible to our offer. We reckon we’re hard to beat!