Need a revision break? Fancy something tasty and good for you to give you a bit of a boost? Here’s a recipe for some ridiculously easy flapjack-y/granola-bar type things. I don’t technically know what the official difference is, so maybe we should call them flap-olas or something as I have a feeling they are a bit of both!

The first thing to do is to melt some butter in a pan over a low heat, and then stir in either a bit of honey, maple syrup or some dark muscavado sugar (or a combination of the three). Now chuck in some oats, a couple of dessertspoons of flour (this will help stop the flap-olas from being too crumbly and totally falling apart), and then you can add in the really fun stuff…

Have a dig around your cupboards and see if you can find some dried fruit, nuts and seeds. Chopped apricots, raisins, cranberries, prunes, dates etc all work really well and so do almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios. If you’re feeling indulgent you could put some cocoa powder in or some chocolate chips. Stir everything together until you have a sort of oaty-mush that isn’t too dry, so that it will stick together. If it is looking a bit too dry, then squeeze in some more honey.

Now press the mixture into a lined tin and bake it in the oven at 180 for about 20 minutes. Take it out to cool.

If you want to make them extra luxurious you can drizzle some melted dark chocolate on top and sprinkle some seeds/crystallised ginger into the chocolate drizzle. Once the flap-ola is cool you can slice it up and enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

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.

Why is it that starting and finsihing things are the two hardest bits? Once you get going, and you’re in full swing (whatever you’re doing), it’s never as bad as you thought it would be. Psychotherapist Joka Van Wijk, has some great advice for students who find getting stuck into revision rather tricky…

Most of us are extremely good at procrastination, especially if we do not really look forward to what we have to do. It is amazing what our brains can come up with to avoid doing what needs to be done. Suddenly all kinds of tasks take up a sense of priority and we promise ourselves that after the next phone call or cup of tea we will really get started. The strange thing is that procrastination only makes us feel worse and nags away at our minds so we cannot really enjoy what we are doing anyway. By now as so often happens you could be nearly halfway through the day and so it is not really worth starting anything, right? WRONG, it is always worth it to get started!

Despite what people think, everyone has willpower. Think of all the different situations where you had no trouble getting on with something. The difference between procrastinators and non-procrastinators is that non-procrastinators have a strategy.

So make your list and schedule and START whether you will feel like it or not. The secret is not to wait until you’ll feel better first. Make the start first and then the feelings of accomplishment will follow after.

1. Make a list of all the different topics that need to be covered.

2. Break the workload down into manageable tasks. For each task that you have broken up, you will have a beginning and an ending.

3. Make a time table.

4. Start with the topics you’ll least enjoy, it will be great to get them out of the way.

5. Have regular short breaks every 20 minutes or so.

6. Make sure you eat healthy food and get a good night’s sleep, so body and mind can work well together.

It’s time for the Easter holidays to come to an end and give way to the summer term… Here are some things to think about and do as you gear up for the final term of the academic year…

-Do you know where all of your school uniform and sports kit is, does it fit and is anything missing? You might need an extra polo shirt for playing tennis in, or a lighter jacket now that the weather is a bit warmer. Ensure that you’re stocked up with everything you’ll need for the term, froom highlighters and notebooks, to netball socks and swimming hats.

-Have you checked that you’ve done all the homework that was set for the holidays?

-Are there any coursework deadlines rapidly approaching? If so, make sure you are on top of the work, and if not then get on top of it asap!

-How did you get on with your Easter revision? If you have started revising (and you really should have done by now), then why not assess how it went. Did you find effective ways of working this Easter? What can you do again when exam leave arrives and what will you change about the way you’ve been revising? Which topics do you feel you’ve mastered, which are still a challenge and which haven’t you looked at at all yet?

-Make sure you know exactly when all of your exams are and keep your statement of entry in a safe place.

-Make a plan for how you are going to move forward with your revision over the next few weeks.

-Are you going to take up any new sports or hobbies this term? Perhaps you could try your hand at badminton, or get a group of friends together to play rounders on a Sunday afternoon.

-Start thinking about the summer holidays as they will be appearing before you know it. Perhaps you’d like to book an adventure away, do some charity work, find some work experience or even some paid work. Schedule in some fun things so that you’ve got activities to look forward to when the going gets tough at school, and schedule in things that will help you move forward career-wise like placements and experience.

-Make some ‘new term resolutions’ so that you make the most of the next few weeks. Perhaps you’re going to get up a bit earlier so that you’re not in so much of a rush in the morning, or you’re going to always do your homework on the day that it’s set. A few tiny changes to your day will make all the difference.

Have a great term!

Free schools, grammar schools, faith schools, private schools… there all sorts of different kinds of schools, and now two football schools are being set up. Well, schools founded by football clubs…

Karren Brady, currently best known as Alan Sugar’s right-hand woman on The Apprentice, and also famous for being the first woman to run a football club (she took over at Birmingham City aged only 23, which is pretty extraordinary really), is the mastermind behind plans to set up a school in connection to West Ham. The location of the West Ham Academy is currently in discussion, but Education Secretary Michael Gove is backing the plans, and Brady is extremely keen to get the school off the ground.

Brady is particularly keen on helping to get more women into the business sector and sees setting up a school as a way to do so. She was quoted in the Sunday Times as saying. ‘I would love to do an all-girls’ school but I probably wouldn’t be allowed…[but] I would like 50% of the pupils to be girls. When I arrived at West Ham (where she is currently vice-chairwoman) there were no senior women at all. Now 50% of the management team are women, which I think is the least percentage that it should be. Someone opened a door for me; my job is to hold that door open to get as many women through it as possible.”

The plans for the West Ham-supported school are not purely football-related, but will help students to acquire skills in areas that are really useful off the pitch, such as finance, sponsorship, marketing and retail. The hope is that the students will have career options, without necessarily needing to go to university and get a degree after doing their A Levels.

Over in Merseyside, Everton football club is setting up another school, and the first pupils will walk through the gates in September. To start with there will be 120 pupils aged 14-19, and then will gradually expand in following years. Although prospective pupils have been warned that lessons will not all be out on the pitch with star players and that they will need to attend a full range of classes. Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for real Education told the Sunday Times, ‘the children who attend will need to be able to distinguish between the celebrity status of the club and the realities of education, which means working hard. Provided pupils don’t confuse the two, the schools should be able to bring real benefits.’

I am very intrigued indeed about the future of the schools and wish them every success!

Without being totally fashion-obsessed – in fact I rarely buy clothes to be ‘on trend’ – I do believe in the importance of wearing things that make you feel good, especially for exams and interviews. When I took my finals at university I always put on a pair of high heels and some red lipstick because they made me feel confident! Wearing tracksuit bottoms and an old hoodie makes me feel dozy, and so I’d never wear slouchy things for an exam or assessment. So I was intrigued to read an article by the BBC’s Hannah Richardson on how dressing up and playing make believe games as a young child can help academic results!
The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education project has been monitoring a group of 3,000 children in order to try and uncover the factors that lead to success at school. According to the research, parents who encourage their children to play make-believe games, learn nursery rhymes, read stories and play with letters and shapes are much more likely to do well at both primary and secondary school.
Another important factor is regular homework. There was a bit of a ‘to do’ recently when the government scrapped homework guidelines, leaving schools to decide how much work they give their pupils to do at home. This study shows that it really is important for children to do some work at home in order to support work done at school.
The study places great emphasis on the role of parents in children’s learning and says, “If parents focus on their children’s learning when they are very young it raises their attainment at Key Stage 2 on average by a whole national curriculum level, which is equivalent to about three years of school.”
So, if you have young children encourage them to play games that stimulate their imagination and make sure you encourage them to do some maths and English activities as well, as it will put them in great stead for the future.

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!

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!

Last week I wrote about the number of British students applying for places at universities in America, and now the US is back on the blog as it sounds like exciting things are happening at an inner city school in the Big Apple.

A project called ‘iZone’ (aka Innovation Zone) has been launched in order to try and transform struggling inner city schools. In Sean Coughlan’s article for the BBC about the project, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York is quoted as saying, “The challenge we face is nothing less than transforming our schools from assembly-line factories into centres of innovation.”

The project has got ambitious aims and intends to find ways of offering more tailor-made education for students, reinvent ways of learning and find out how technology can be used most effectively in classrooms. There is a concern in many New York schools that the current system is very far from serving the needs of each individual student. In my opinion it is impossible to find a ‘one size fits all’ system for students, but it is encouraging to see that projects such as iZone are working hard to try and improve the quality of education for the diverse students attending inner city schools.

Brooke Jackson, who is the principal of the NYC Lab School in Manhattan is acutely aware of the variety of her pupils’ needs and has said “We have students who are ready for graduate level work now – and we have students who will not make progress unless they’re in a three to one staff situation. Having them in a class of 30 is not going to get results.” Ms Jackson is particularly keen to finding new patterns and timetables, and so is experimenting with new ideas as part of the iZone project. Yoga, sharing school facilities, improving social awareness and encouraging self-motivation are all things that Jackson is exploring in her school.

IZone currently has three main strands of focus: the curriculum, integrating online learning and assessing innovation. 81 schools are currently involved in the project, but there are plans to expand to 400 schools by 2014.

The project sounds fascinating, challenging and potentially very beneficial for students. It will be interesting to see how things progress and what the impact of it will be.

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.