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"I am of an age where if, as a child, you said you were bored the answer was likely to be, "Only boring people are bored," and be left to find something to do. There was always something to do, go outside and throw a tennis ball against a wall, go out on your bike, do some colouring, play with the Lego, do a jigsaw OR if you really got bored do your homework or tidy your bedroom! Nowadays it seems that the majority of children do not often seem to say that they are bored. They don't often have to find their own entertainment, use their imagination or even have several hours at a time that are not pre-filled with activities. Parents (normally) want to do their best for their children. Charlie wants to do football - that's 5:30 on Wednesday, Sammie wants to do ballet - that's 4:00 on Thursday, extra maths, Judo, trampolining, swimming, cubs… the list goes on, frequently only limited by the time to fit the activities for 2/3/4 children into a week."

"Researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) have proven, for the first time in history, that physical fitness in children may affect their brain structure, which in turn may have an influence on their academic performance. More specifically, the researchers have confirmed that physical fitness in children (especially aerobic capacity and motor ability) is associated with a greater volume of grey matter in several cortical and subcortical brain regions."

"Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which affects the ability to adopt the automatic reflexes needed to read and write. Several studies have sought to identify the source of the problems encountered by individuals with dyslexia when they read. Little attention, however, has been paid to the mechanisms involved in writing. Sonia Kandel, Professor at the GIPSA-Lab of the Université Grenoble Alpes (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes/Grenoble INP) and her team [1] decided to look at the purely motor aspects of writing in children diagnosed with dyslexia. Their results show that orthographic processing in children with dyslexia is so laborious that it can modify or impair writing skills, despite the absence of dysgraphia in these children. The findings of this study are published in the November 2017 edition of Cognitive Neuropsychology."

"In a world first, breakthrough research from La Trobe University has shown that toddlers with autism are just as capable of learning important life skills through early-intervention delivered in mainstream pre-schools as in specialised settings. Over a period of three years, 44 children aged between 15 and 32 months were randomly assigned to classrooms that included only children with autism or to classrooms with typically developing peers."

Free booklet (online, PDF, or hardcopy) in English and Spanish with helpful information for parents to help children cope with violence and disasters.

A list of books curated by teachers which have helped get children into reading books for pleasure

"@shiv53: How Computer Games Help Children Learn http://t.co/sfEzmQTg"

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is the world's largest organization working on behalf of young children with nearly 80,000 members, a national network of more than 300 state and local Affiliates, and a growing global alliance of like-minded organizations.

'Amid the buzz over the Facebook IPO, the ever-evolving theories about how Twitter is reshaping our communications and speculation about where the next social media-enabled protest or revolution will occur, there is an important question we've largely ignored. What are the real effects of all this on the huge segment of the population most affected by social media themselves: our children and our teens?'

There is a startling new report just released by the Pan American Development Foundation, reporting that almost 225,000 Haitian children have been forced into child slavery in Haiti as a result of poverty. Most of the children - nearly 2/3 in fact - are young girls, and are subjected to extreme physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.

"Adventure activities are every child's birthright. I also think they are every child's educational entitlement. And I think, like Maria Kutschera, we should be speaking truth to power and aver the rights of children to experience adventure even where parents (and politicians) will misguidedly negate them."

"Here are my 10 reasons why I will continue giving my children handheld devices, and all other forms of technology as well."

Teacher discussion summary and archive full of ideas to get children reading for pleasure

In these times of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA), in this Post Truth era, what do our children most need from their education? How do we best prepare them for their future?

"Research in the past several years has shown that children can outgrow a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), once considered a lifelong condition. In a new study, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health Systemhave found that the vast majority of such children still have difficulties that require therapeutic and educational support. The study was published online today in the Journal of Child Neurology."

"Participation in team sports is associated with fewer depressive symptoms in children, whereas non-sport activities have no association with symptoms, according to a study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. The association was found only for boys. The findings suggest that exercise could have anti-depressant effects in adolescents. "These interesting results provide important clues as to how exercise benefits mood in children and reveals the important role that gender plays in these effects," said Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging."

"Children of similar cognitive ability have very different chances of educational success; it still depends on their parents' economic, socio-cultural and educational resources. This contradicts a commonly held view that these days that our education system has developed enough to give everyone a fighting chance. The researchers, led by Dr. Erzsébet Bukodi from Oxford's Department of Social Policy and Intervention, looked at data from cohorts of children born in three decades: 1950s, 1970s and 1990s. They found significant evidence of a wastage of talent. Individuals with high levels of cognitive ability but who are disadvantaged in their social origins are persistently unable to translate their ability into educational attainment to the same extent as their more advantaged counterparts."

I am concerned with whether Schools are protecting themselves OR schools are protecting children…when it comes to digital media... Some thoughts...

youtube video showing Peruvian children contributing wikipedia content.