One minute we’re being told that children are eating too much and now there’s evidence that secondary school pupils are ‘not eating enough’…

The School Food Trust recommends that students should get a third of their daily nutritional intake from their lunchtime meal, but research suggests that most are currently only getting a quarter.

The School Food Trust recently completed a report on children’s nutritional habits at school, and the results have caused concern that pupils aren’t getting enough food at lunchtime. Not getting enough fuel at lunchtime means that pupils can’t concentrate as well in the afternoon. One of the main issues is that there are too many choices on offer and so often pupils don’t eat the right sort of foods to prepare them for the afternoon.

According to the School Food Trust, “The secondary school environment is more complex than primary, and the style of food service makes it more challenging to ensure that pupils are making healthy choices whilst catering for their needs at lunchtime.” And “despite huge improvements to what’s on the menu, teenagers are still not choosing food combinations that will give them enough energy and nutrients to stay alert all afternoon.”

The good news is that since new nutritional guidelines were put in place, double the number of children are now eating fruit and vegetables on a daily basis. There are also fewer unhealthy foods on the menu. In 2004, 43% of school pupils ate chips with their lunchtime meals, but this dropped to just 7% in 2011.

It is fantastic to hear that school students are generally eating healthier foods, but now we need to make sure that they are given guidance about balancing their nutritional intake so that they get a range of nutrients that will provide them with the energy they need to concentrate and work hard in the afternoon.

Mr Oliver is back in the news again after expressing his anger at Michael Gove, and accusing him of allowing nutritional standards in academy schools to plummet.

Thanks to Jamie’s amazing work a few years ago, which began with the programme Jamie’s School Dinners, the last government made radical changes to the nutritional guidelines for food served in schools. Since 2008, schools have been improving the quality of the food on offer to students, however it seems that standards are slipping, much to the disappointment of Oliver.
According to Oliver, education secretary Michael Gove is “playing with fire” by allowing academy schools to ignore nutritional guidelines. It is no secret that Britain is getting fatter; with approximately a third of children being classed as ‘overweight’ and obesity costs the economy millions of pounds every year. For the future of the UK, it is vital that we feed younger generations (and ourselves!) healthy food.

Oliver told the Observer Food Monthly Magazine that he has “nothing against [Gove] personally…but the health of millions of children could be affected by this one man”
. Gove is reluctant to impose guidelines on the head teachers of academies because he says he trusts the head teachers to deliver the best to their pupils.

However, many head teachers seem to have the schools’ bank balance, rather than their pupil’s health in mind, allowing vending machines into schools because they are so profitable. It has been reported by the Guardian that vending machines can bring in up to £14,000 a year to a school. So it is easy to see how money-hungry heads might want to keep them in their schools. Most state schools are only allowed vending machines that sell healthy snacks such as nuts, fruit and water, but academies are currently allowed to have those offering chocolate bars, crisps and other unhealthy items.

Jamie Oliver, whose explicit and vociferous comments against Gove’s attitude include: “This mantra that we are not going to tell [academy] schools what to do just isn’t good enough in the midst of the biggest obesity epidemic ever…The public health of 5 million children should not be left to luck or chance.” is not the only one applying pressure on the education secretary. Tory MP Zac Goldsmith tabled a motion in praise of Oliver’s campaign and the motion, which asks for academies and free schools to “adhere to the standards for school food so that the one million children now attending these schools can benefit from this commitment to their health and wellbeing”. So far 54 members of parliament have signed the motion.

I very much hope that Michael Gove does indeed take notice of the mounting pressure, and in the interests of the health of current students and future generations, he stops allowing nutritional standards to slip.

When I was at school I remember there being a real sense that English revision was different from other types of revision. For maths and physics you could revise formulae and equations, for French you could memorise vocab and grammar tables and for English… well, could you even revise English? Weren’t you just good at it or not?
After doing an English degree and tutoring English for quite a while now, I am absolutely adamant that there are many extremely effective ways to revise for your English exams, and here are some top tips for anyone who’s struggling to think of ways to prepare for their literature examinations.
1. Look at the journey of a particular character in a novel or a play. You can make lists of facts about them, what they say about themselves, what others say, key quotations, who they are related to in the text and how, and how they develop across the narrative.

2. Make spider diagrams around key themes in the text and quotations that back up your thoughts about how the writer explores a particular idea.

3. Annotate key passages in the text. Doing some really close analysis will also throw up fruitful thoughts and then see how you can link these to ideas across the text as a whole.

4. What other books/poems/plays/historical events/political movements etc does the text remind you of? Writers do not write in isolation, they cannot help but be infected by the world around them.

5. Research the context of the text. If you’re reading a book set in communist Russia for instance, then find out more about the country and its history.

6. Compare and contrast poems, if you are studying the corpus of a particular poet, or if you are looking at an anthology of poems.

7. Make essay plans for past essay questions, or make up essay questions of your own. Think of an overall argument, write an introduction and then plan the structure of what your paragraphs would say, making sure you include the quotations you would use to back up your points.

8. Do essays under timed conditions. It is vital that you get lots of timed practice before the exam and doing past papers will reveal your strengths and weaknesses.

9. Brush up on your spelling and grammar, as you don’t want to lose marks for silly mistakes such as getting an apostrophe in the wrong place.

10. Learn some ‘technical’ vocabulary to do with analysing literary texts. Metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, antithesis, juxtaposition etc are all really handy words to know and will impress the examiners.

11. Lastly, don’t forget that you can always call Enjoy Education for help if you get stuck!

It’s nearly Easter weekend, hurrah! And everyone should be on holiday now, so we hope you’re having a great time. At Enjoy Education we love themed projects, and here’s a great few suggestions for things to do this week…
If you’re keen on arts and crafts, and want to do something with an Easter twist, then grab some eggs, glue, paint, old tights and some tea bags…
See if you can make a winning decorated egg. When I was at primary school we had an egg decorating competition and I once received a special commendation for one entry, which was an egg box converted into a little car with two eggy drivers in the front and ‘eggcelerate’ written across the top of the box. Can you think of an eggy pun and make something delightful?
For something not quite as silly, but just as enjoyable, blow out an egg so that you just have the intact shell. Then wrap some leaves/bits of lace/material around the egg to create a pattern. Put the egg in the toe of an old pair of tights and secure the tights with an elastic band. Cut off the excess material. Now boil the parcel in some very strong tea. After a while take out the egg and allow to cool before peeling off the tights and whatever it was you placed on the egg to create a pattern and the tea should have helped to stain a gorgeous decoration on the egg.
If you’re an arts and crafts fan and a chocolate lover you could decorate a chocolate Easter egg with icing from those little squeezey coloured icing tube that you can buy in the baking sections of supermarkets.

Let us know if you have any other fun eggy projects that you want to share… Have fun!

What a glorious weekend we’ve had! I have been so enjoying admiring all of the gorgeous daffodils that have sprung up all over the place and have also been munching (probably too many) hot cross buns.

If you’re looking for some fun things to do and make over the holidays, here are some suggestions for you…

-Make your own daffodils using green straws, card and yellow crepe paper.

-Make a family of Easter bunnies by cutting rabbit shapes out of card, decorating them with beads, bits of material and sequins.

-You can create delicious Easter nests by melting chocolate, mixing in mashed up shredded wheat cereal and then forming little nests in cupcake cases. Once they’ve set, put in some small chocolate eggs. Yummy!

-Here’s a great hot cross bun recipe adapted from one by the Guardian’s Dan Lepard:

Ingredients: 150ml apple juice at room temperature, 1 7g sachet fast-action yeast, 75g wholemeal flour, 150g double cream, 4 tsp mixed spice, 2 medium eggs, 50g honey, 300g mixed dried fruit, 400g strong white flour, 25g cornflour, 1 tsp salt, Oil for kneading
For the cross: 150g plain flour_50ml sunflower oil_125ml water
For the spice glaze: Half a tsp mixed spice and 25g caster sugar
Mix the cider, yeast and wholemeal flour in a bowl and leave to bubble for 30 minutes. In a saucepan, whisk the cream, spice, egg and honey, put over a low heat and stir until just warm, about blood heat. Pour into the yeast mix and add the dried fruit. In another bowl, stir the flour, cornflour and salt, add the yeast mixture, combine to a soft, sticky dough and leave for 10 minutes.
Lightly oil a worktop, and gently knead the dough for 10 seconds. Return to the bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm for an hour, until risen slightly. Divide into 12 roughly 100g pieces, shape into balls and put on a tray lined with nonstick paper. Cover and leave to rise somewhere warm until almost doubled.
Mix the cross ingredients and spoon into a piping bag with a plain 0.75cm nozzle. Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 7, pipe crosses on the buns and bake for 15-18 minutes. Remove and leave until almost cool. Boil the spice, sugar and 25ml water until syrupy, brush over the buns and they’re ready to roll.

-Make some beautiful decorations by boiling an egg and then painting it with jolly patterns.

-Set up an Easter egg hunt for your friends. Make sure you remember how many eggs you’ve hidden though!

Enjoy!

Before making big decisions it’s always a good idea to think things through thoroughly. There’s a time and a place for spontaneity, but on the whole I’ve found that education-related decisions need particularly careful consideration.

While it’s one thing to make decisions about your own life, making decisions that will directly involve other people is a whole other ball game, and sometimes we need a little help before landing on a particular choice.

Over the weekend I read that the Daycare Trust is going to publish an invaluable guide for parents who are in the process of finding the right childminder or nursery for their children. Ofsted do inspect nurseries, but their categories are very broad (‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘satisfactory’ and ‘poor’), so arguably not specific enough to be really helpful for parents. Sandra Mathers, who is a lead researcher at Oxford University’s Department of Education told the BBC’s Judith Burns, “Ofsted grades cannot necessarily be relied upon as a complete measure of quality, and may need to be completed by other measures”.

The Daycare Trust’s guide will be published on Tuesday, but here is a preview of some of the questions that they suggest that parents consider when looking for the right nursery:

How well qualified are staff?
What is the daily routine?
What if my child is unhappy?
Will my child’s culture be reflected?
Can I get involved?
How will I hear about my child’s progress?
What about emergencies?
What if I am late picking up?
What is the food like?
What about special needs?
Where do children sleep or rest?
Can I afford the cost?

It’s also a great idea to talk to as many parents with children currently at nursery school to find out about their experience of a particular nursery. However, what’s right for one child won’t suit another, so even if another parent raves about a certain nursery, make sure that you’re confident that it’s the best place for your kids.

How much homework is too much? And how little is not enough?

In 1998 the Labour government introduced guidelines outlining how much homework they believed was appropriate for school students. The recommendations were: an hour a week for five to seven-year-olds, steadily rising to 2.5 hours a night for 14-16 year-olds. Although the department of Education believes in the importance of homework; a spokesperson for the DofE has said that homework is “part and parcel of a good education”, Michael Gove is scrapping the existing guidelines.

It is believed that the guidelines are being abolished after so many parents have complained that too much homework is severely encroaching on family time and children’s opportunities to play sport and do extra curricular activities. Homework will not be scrapped all together, but now head teachers will decide how much is appropriate.

The general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Russell Hobby commented to the BBC, “Homework is like most things in education – it is quality that counts, not quantity. If homework is properly connected to lessons, and regularly marked, it works. Just setting large volumes of homework for the sake of meeting targets does not work. Sensible discretion on the part of head teachers, to ensure the schools’ homework policy reinforces their teaching strategy, is fine.”

I agree entirely with Hobby’s comments. There is no point just doing homework for the sake of it; it needs to be set for a specific reason and really needs to serve the educational needs of the students. At the first secondary school I attended, there was a lot of trouble with disruptive students and the homework was often to just finish what was set in class, but most people did not get around to doing. As a diligent student, I had usually done the work and so had very little homework, but could have done with being set further challenges. For those who had not done the work it was necessary to catch up, so that was appropriate for them, but not for others who did bother to pay attention in class.

I hope that teachers will take this opportunity to review how much homework they set and make sure they set a decent amount, which will challenge students, but not overwhelm them and prevent them from doing other beneficial activities or going to bed at a decent time. Moreover, I also very much hope that teachers will think about what exactly it is that they are asking students to do and why.

The days of children asking their parents to help them with homework appear to be ebbing away rather rapidly, according to a survey carried out for Birmingham Science City. The results of the study, which asked 500 British children who they ask for help when they have a question, were published on the BBC’s news website at the end of last week.

The popularity of Google and other internet search engines is really rather astonishing, with 54% of the children asked saying that the internet is the first place they look when they have a question. Parents are less than half as popular as the internet, with only 26% saying that they would ask their parents first if they had a query. Even less popular are teachers, and a mere 3% would ask their teacher first if they had a question or problem in need of solving.

I wonder why teachers are so low on the list; perhaps children feel that their teachers are unapproachable? Or unable to help? Either way, I think that it is very concerning indeed that students are not asking their teachers for help more often.

Although there is evidence to explain why more children do not ask their parents for help: 34% believe that their homework will be too hard for their parents!

Teachers, parents and printed resources are all being eschewed in favour of the internet, proving yet again that we really are living in a digital age. 45% of the 500 children asked have never consulted a printed dictionary, but 91% regularly use search engines. I have to admit that I am a huge fan of the OED online, as it is much easier and quicker to consult the OED online, than dig out a large dictionary. Although I still firmly believe in printed resources as well, and in asking teachers and parents for advice. Sometimes there are questions that I believe a human being, rather than a computer, should answer. What are your thoughts? Would you rather ask Google or a parent or a teacher?

GCSEs are always a hot topic of discussion, but it seems that over the past few weeks they have been in the news more than ever, and examination season isn’t even properly upon us yet.

This morning I read an article which reported that native English speakers are falling considerably behind non-native speakers in GCSE results. This suggests that many British teenagers are becoming increasingly lazy when it comes to preparing for exams, which is very worrying indeed.

Jack Grimston’s report in The Sunday Times published figures showing that 80.8% of students for whom English is not their mother tongue, achieve at least five GCSEs at C grade and above, compared to 80.4% from English-speaking families. Although the percentage difference is quite small, it is strong evidence to show that children from families who have recently immigrated to Britain are extremely dedicated to performing well at school and are starting to take over native students.

According to Grimston’s article, education experts believe that many white working class children have become alienated from school, and that their parents aren’t pushing them to strive for top results. On the other hand, families who have recently arrived in the UK are ambitious to succeed and so place a great deal of energy into encouraging their children to do well at school. While native families take educational opportunities for granted, new residents want to make the most of what’s on offer.

Kevin Collins, who is the CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation told The Sunday Times that he has observed “a disconnect between education and the family [in the white English-speaking community] where perhaps the parents had not done so well, where there had been a breakdown in the relationships between education and the family.”

What I believe to be imperative now that these figures are emerging is to find ways for less motivated students to be inspired and learn from their high-achieving classmates, be they native English speakers or not. If we can find ways for all students to be motivated, engaged and ambitious then standards and results should improve across the board, which is important no matter where your family comes from.

A few weeks ago I found myself walking through the streets of east London, from St Paul’s to the Barbican and then on to Smithfield Market. As well as discovering all sorts of amazing buildings and brilliantly named streets, I chanced upon a London museum I’d never heard of before: the Clockmaker’s Museum. The museum lodges in the Guildhall library and holds an amazing collection of horological instruments. You can find out about extraordinary clocks made in London since 1600 and see watches belonging to many famous historical figures. For more information click here.

This curious discovery led me to wonder about all the other unusual museums that must be tucked away in our wonderful city. Here are a few I’ve found out about that are on my ‘must visit’ list for the next few weeks. If you’re looking for somewhere unusual to go this weekend, why not try out one of the following…

Medical students and aspiring doctors might want to go along to the Royal London Hospital Museum in Whitechapel, where you can see all sorts of early pieces of medical equipment.

They say that the ‘eyes are the windows to the soul’, and at the British Optical Association Museum you can find out all about your peepers, the history of spectacles and even see some eyes belonging to Egyptian mummies!

The Foundling Hospital was supported by many great philanthropic figures such as Handel and Hogarth and it looked after many thousands of abandoned children. Although the original hospital has long been demolished, there’s a museum near the original site, where you can discover stories about London’s abandoned children and see an amazing collection of art and Rococo interiors.

Children and the adults who are young at heart will be delighted and tickled by Pollock’s Toy Museum.

‘Money, money, money, must be funny…’ went the lyrics to the famous ABBA song, and at the Bank of England Museum you can find out all sorts of things about the history of British currency.

The Cuming Museum in Southwark showcases the collection of the Victorian Cuming family, who gathered a fabulous variety of treasures on their travels.

Animal lovers, explorers and historians will adore the Grant Museum of Zoology, which holds hundreds of creatures and specimens, including the skeleton of a Dodo and the corpse of a Tasmanian tiger.

Have you found an exciting and unusual museum or building? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you.