500,000 buttons and counting for Waterlooville school’s Holocaust project

I well remember seeing the 2004 movie “Paper Clips” that has so inspired these pupils and their button collection.

The movie is a documentary about the children of the Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee who try to collect 6 million paper clips representing the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis. They did this whilst studying the Holocaust.

I wish the pupils of Oaklands Catholic School, in Waterlooville, well in their endeavour and hope that the additional publicity that I can gain for them through this post goes to help with their button collection.

500,000 buttons and counting for Waterlooville school’s Holocaust project – Education – Portsmouth News.

Headteacher in Forest of Dean vows to shop parents over pupils web use, including social networking

Paul Woodward is to be applauded. His is a voice in the wilderness.

A primary school head has threatened to shop parents to social services if they allow his pupils to use Facebook and other networking sites.

Paul Woodward is concerned that youngsters who use the sites risk being exposed to porn and online grooming.

He has warned parents that persistently letting children flout Facebook’s 13-plus age rule could warrant investigation by child protection teams.

He estimates that at least 60 per cent of the 270-plus children at his school in the Forest of Dean have access to social networking sites.

Reporting parents to social services is, on the face of it, a bit extreme. However, where the parents have been informed and they take no action then I think he is justified.

Mr Woodward, a branch secretary for the National Association of Head Teachers, the country’s biggest heads’ union, yesterday demanded a ban on children setting up social media accounts – because of the risk of accessing inappropriate material.

Unfortunately a ban would be a waste of time. How on earth could this be policed. The only way to stop the underaged from gaining access is to enforce some kind of  control based round a credit card or some other kind of ID that can be validated on line.I believe that Facebook themselves would not want to do this unless they could actually charge a nominal fee for the  for the privilege.

Of course there will always be the kid that steals, sorry, borrows his parents card to bypass these controls.Just take a look at how six-year-old  Jake Sadler ran up a bill totalling nearly £1,000 while playing a game on his parents’ iPad.

Then there are the parents who are either too stupid to recognise the risks or choose to give in to their kids pestering for a quiet life.

Mr Woodward should also be a tad cautious before tagging parents as persistent offenders.

There are many kids out there who routinely create more than one facebook account. There is the one they keep for parents and family access. Strange that they don’t seem to access this account from one week to the next and they only have a few “friends”. Strange that their mobile is constantly pinging and buzzing as they chat with their “friends”. I have first hand experience of this having stumbled on my granddaughters facebook presence on which she has over 2500 “friends”. This is despite the fact that she has been on the receiving end of the dark side of Facebook and claimed to have ditched her Facebook account. Her public, to the family, Facebook account only has a few hundred “friends”.

Many parents lack awareness of the potential dangers to children from the variety of links and ‘apps’ that can be accessed through Facebook and other sites, he warned.

As soon as his school becomes aware a child has a Facebook account it contacts the company to get the profile blocked.

Now this is an action which I think deserves more support. I wonder how quickly the likes of Facebook are at shutting down these accounts. In the past they have been somewhat reticent.

Many of the comments received for this article on the MailOnline website have derided Woodward’s stance.

This is too far. He is a head teacher and should stick to teaching not snooping. I thought we wanted an end to big government and its snooping or is only when it serves us that we agree with it.

This is not snooping. This is trying to protect our children.

When I was a pupil my parents had an expectation that the school, to which they had entrusted me  for five days of the week, would provide me with the same protection that they did for the rest of the week. Nowadays there is an apparent expectation that teachers are only there to teach the subject matter.

Maybe he should concentrate on teaching rather than parenting! Interesting how DM have two opposing articles written from the same perspective.. Anyway, if he cares about children being exposed to the horrors of Facebook why not do that old-fashioned thing and TEACH about the dangers rather than sit in some sort of arrogant pious judgement of others.

Teach them about the dangers, that’s a laugh. Our schools are doing such a grand job of teaching about the dangers of drugs, getting pregnant and so forth lets put the responsibility on them to teach about the dangers of the Facebook and the internet.

I’m not criticizing the schools. I think they have an impossible task and they don’t get the support of the parents.

No I think that Mr Woodward has the right approach. Keep on shopping the underage kids to Facebook. Keep on warning the parents.

Ultimately it’s the parents responsibility but when they don’t step up to the mark then thank god for people like Paul Woodward.

Headteacher in Forest of Dean vows to shop parents over pupils¿ web use, including social networking | Mail Online.

‘Extreme’ haircut gets Leigh Park teenager kicked out of his lessons – That’s Tough

‘Extreme’ haircut gets Leigh Park teenager kicked out of his lessons.

Once again the News is printing non stories. Since when did a disobedient child become news worthy ? Since they have, I felt the urge to comment.

The 15-year-old, who lives with his parents at Cheriton Close, Leigh Park, said: ‘It’s stupid because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my hair.

‘It’s fashionable and a lot of my friends have the same haircut, yet I’m the only one who has been punished.

I’ve got news for you, Master Davies, nobody cares if you think there’s anything wrong with your hair or not.  All schools have rules regarding dress. Not all of them enforce those rules as firmly as Park Community School, perhaps they should.

Personally I think that there are probably other issues behind this story. At least one of the comments attached to the article indicate issues with this lad outside of school.

‘I feel gutted because now I’m not in lessons with my friends and it’s going to be harder to concentrate on my work being sat alone.’

Why does being in a quiet room on your own make concentration difficult ? Surely having no mates to distract you, no mates for you to play about with, should help the concentration.

Billy’s mum Jackie Davies said: ‘The school is being pedantic.

Mrs Davies, That’s their job. Look it up.

Many people will argue that the style of his hair is not important when weighed against his education. In life we run into many such rules and we chooses to comply or resist. Whatever we choose we have to accept that there are consequences.

Headteacher Chris Anders said: ‘We’re an outstanding school and proud of our high standards.

‘Parents are well aware of the uniform policy and support it.

‘It’s always a shame when students do not follow rules but as adults working with children and young people we know it is important to be clear about the consequences of actions and to follow through when rules are broken.’

Just once in a while I would like to hear that parents of perfidious miscreants are actually supporting the schools, the teachers and the idea that their child goes to school to learn, not for some spurious fashion parade.

‘Extreme’ haircut gets Leigh Park teenager kicked out of his lessons – Education – Portsmouth News.