LET THE PRESSURE OFF
I am forced to allow my children to be educated in our over-ambitious and stressful education system. How can I change this?
My sons are five and nearly four. My eldest, is on the SEN register because he is not coping with the school's extreme expectations. I have been told that he is immature, can't work independently and has poor fine motor control.
Perhaps if he was allowed to play freely until he was six or seven, he'd develop fine motor skills along with the other skills required to take on structured teaching, such as gross motor, attention/concentration, listening, language and communication and sharing attention from adults.
He is taken out of PE to work in small groups on literacy. Clearly, literacy skills are more important than fine motor. He has been referred from school and assessed by an educational psychologist, speech and language therapist, neurologist (for suspected Petit-Mal because he switches off at school) and a paediatrician. No difficulties have been highlighted and it must have cost the NHS a fortune! The school has now referred him to an occupational therapist to aid his fine motor skills. Being an SEN teacher myself, I know I will be advised to get out the playdough, cutting and gluing, which we already do. What a shame there isn't time to do this at school.
I'm lucky that my son switches off at school. Some of his peers are anxious and cry on arrival.
I need to work, so can't home tutor my children, and I'd rather they enjoyed the social side of school. How can I insist that this curriculum and pressure is not applied to my children?
Caroline Parker, Hanworth
Letter of the week wins £30 worth of books
WHAT CIS PROVIDES
Roger Bell's letter (11 September) shows a marked lack of understanding of what Children's Information Services provide. They provide accurate information on childcare as well as services for children, young people and families in their local area. In Sheffield our team of dedicated and knowledgeable staff support on average 17,000 people a year through face-to-face access, active community outreach and events. We support in excess of 65,000 people through our websites and provide a brokerage service for parents finding it difficult to access childcare by liaising with service providers.
We operate a specialist service based at Ryegate Children's Hospital for children with disabilities, their families and the professionals who support them.
We manage the local workforce development campaign, raising awareness of childcare training and careers, and support nurseries to find appropriately skilled staff. We widely advertise vacancies free of charge.
In short, we support and market Mr Bell's nursery through all of these and at no cost except the occasional phone call to update details. I hope that justifies our existence!
Sharron Baroudi, chief executive, Sheffield Information Link
HOMECARE DIPLOMA
I want to inform readers about the Council for Awards in Children's Care and Education's Diploma in Home-based Childcare mentioned in Nursery World (Work Matters, 11 September).
The National Childminding Association promotes training and continuing professional development that is accessible for home-based childcare workers. In 2006 NCMA developed the DHC, in partnership with CACHE. It consists of five units which are broken down to make each milestone more manageable. NCMA runs all its courses and workshops at times and places convenient for childminders, mainly in the evenings and weekends. It can also be accessed via distance learning with the National Extension College, which enables childcarers to gain a professional qualification from their home with online, e-mail and telephone support.
Ideally, unit one should be completed first, then the others can be completed in any order. Each unit requires 30 hours of study time. A certificate is issued after each unit.
Further information is available from www.nec.ac.uk or www.ncma.org.uk.
Jane Morrison, professional development officer, NCMA
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letter.nw@haymarket.com, 020 8267 8402.