Simple arithmetic

A neighbour asked my husband if he would help his 10 year old daughter who was struggling with maths, in particular with subtraction. After a brief lesson, she was able to tackle her homework with confidence but yesterday she came back to ask for more help. Her teacher had refused to give her a mark for the homework because the answers were correct but she had not used his "correct" method to arrive at them.

My husband uses the same method that I was taught in school in the 1950s - equal addition. He asked the little girl to use that method on this question 8157 - 379. It took her 25 seconds to produce the correct answer:

She then attempted the same question using the school's method. She took 7 minutes to arrive at an answer, which turned out to be incorrect.

Here is the recommended method; it goes through a number of stages, each with the potential to mystify and confuse:

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

The little girl could not do the addition in her head so she had to write out the numbers

 The question hanging around chez Random Distractions all weekend is WHY?

 

Bagpuss for healthy brains

There have been lots of posts paying tribute to Oliver Postgate who died a few days ago. We have all been exchanging memories of The Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and, of course, Bagpuss. It appears, though, that we would have been reading about these national treasures this weekend anyway. According to this article in the Sunday Telegraph, the slow pace of those old stories was ideally suited to the intellectual development of young children.

I know that for every report of a piece of scientific research there is a contradiction waiting to be published, but these results do look pretty convincing. Maybe Teletubbies and In the Night Garden should carry this health warning:

Television affects, among other things, the development of sustained attention, something that is crucial for learning. A report from the American Academy of Pediatrics' journal found that children who watch television between the ages of one and three had a significantly increased risk of developing ADHD-type attention problems by the age of seven.

Moreover, TV viewing between the ages of five and 11 has been linked with short attention span, poor concentration, and being easily distracted later in adolescence.

Of course the solution could be simpler - Bring Back Bagpuss!

Request for information

In June 2007, I wrote about disability and handicap in this post. I have had a request for information in the comments today, but I am unable to help because I do not know about arrangements in America. If anyone could offer advice to 'DL', please leave a reply.

Absurd age-branding of books

Can you tell from this picture which child is the most competent reader?

Can you tell which one loves books and which needs encouragement and support?

Can you tell which child enjoys fairy stories, which likes poetry or which one loves mystery and adventure?

Only a fool would judge a book by its cover and only a bigger fool would attempt to assign books to particular age groups.

And yet, if you look around the book blogs this morning you will see that, based on research done by a marketing company, many publishers are planning to affix stickers with age-bands on the covers of their children's books. You can read more about it on Musings from a Muddy Island, Vulpes Libris, Fidra and by following many of the links recommended on those sites.

As a teacher and a parent, I know that the best gift I could give to a child is a love of books. I know that reading skills are easier for some children to acquire than for others. I know that coming upon a book that is just right for a particular child can spark an enthusiasm which will last for life. Imagine finding just such a book but with the 'wrong' age label, the youngster refusing to read it because it is meant for younger children; opportunity not only lost for this occasion but perhaps for the child's reading future.

All the arguments, from the writers' perspective as well as parents and teachers can be found on the links I've suggested above. Then go to sign the protest on No to age-branding.

I know that I'm fond of absurdities but not this one!

Farewell to Donaldsons

The magnificent building, Donaldson's, has been the centre for the education of deaf children in Scotland since the 1850s.
The history of education for deaf children in Britain begins in Edinburgh. The first school, the Braidwood Academy, was established in Edinburgh in 1760 but moved to England in 1810. Several of the teachers remained to teach in the Edinburgh Institution for the Deaf and Dumb which, in turn merged with Donaldson's Hospital in 1937. Over the years, the name changed from Hospital to School and finally College but it will always be remembered as Donaldson's.

In 1830, James Donaldson, an Edinburgh printer and bookseller, left a legacy for the foundation of Donaldson's Hospital. It has always been an enlightened establishment, having equal numbers of deaf and normally-hearing pupils until 1938 and using sign-language at a time when the rest of Europe had adopted a totally oral education system (to the detriment of the Deaf, but that is a story for another day).

I did my studies in the Education of the Deaf at Oxford, but was greatly influenced by the ethos of Donaldson's and I spent many years campaigning for English educational establishments to adopt Scottish methods and attitudes. I recall a BBC documentary on Donaldson's School, shown some time in the 1970s, which illustrated the 'Donaldson attitude'. The interviewer was speaking to a teacher while her pupils were getting on with their work. As she was speaking , the teacher was simultaneously signing her responses and the interviewer asked her why she was doing that when the children were not included in the conversation. Her explanation was that a class of hearing children could overhear or deliberately listen in to a conversation if they chose to and she wanted Deaf children to have the same opportunity. A small incident but one which had a profound influence on my classroom practice and on everything I've written and spoken about in my professional life since.

Today's edition of See Hear on BBC 2 featured the move of Donaldsons College from the wonderful William Playfair building in Edinburgh to this modern campus in Linlithgow.
The old building, which Queen Victoria considered to be grander than any of her palaces, is going to be 'redeveloped', doubtless into luxury apartments. I'm sure the new facilities at Linlithgow will be excellent but more important will be the transfer of the real spirit of Donaldson's from the old buildings to the new. I wish all the staff and students well in their new home.

You can see this episode of See Hear on BBC iPlayer for the next seven days and it will be shown again in the overnight Sign Zone on BBC 1 on Tues 26/Wed 27 February.

Why testing is undermining education

A number of studies into primary education in England have published reports this week. In one it was claimed that, despite government spending of £500 million on the National Literacy Strategy, reading standards are no better now than they were in the 1950s. Among the other findings are claims that over-testing damages young children and that the current regime of testing, publishing league tables and linking results to funding has been counter-productive.

The government's response is entirely predictable, only accepting the findings of 'independent experts' who produce favourable reports:

But the Government rejected the findings. Lord Adonis, the schools minister, said: "In recent years there have been unambiguous rises in results using standardised tests.
It is only since National Curriculum tests were introduced that there is a solid basis of evidence showing improvement on a consistent basis. These improvements have been validated many times by independent experts." (from Daily Telegraph report 2 Nov.)

Lord Adonis ignores the fact that the Cambridge Primary Review is independent and that its findings echo the concerns of teachers and parents throughout England.

Here are some observations from my years in the education advisory service, where I worked with teachers, pupils and parents in schools and in the home environment:

• While the introduction of the National Curriculum resulted in improved standards in some failing schools, I saw an increasing emphasis on core subjects and teacher-led lessons
• Young children learn best through experience, observation and experimentation. I found that nature walks, collecting items for the science table, play, practical sessions where children try for themselves and talk about what worked and what failed were squeezed out of the timetable because of the amount of time needed for the Literacy and Numeracy strategies. Six year-olds could tell me about prepositions and participles but couldn't describe the wonder of frogspawn and tadpoles.
• Of the 67 schools on my 'patch' there were about ten which took great pride in being among the highest scoring schools in the country on SATS. I could visit these schools on any day and find every class working towards SATS tests, whether they were in a test year or not. The pupils could tell me exactly what level they were on and how much work they would have to do to improve. Year 6 pupils would be given extra lessons to practise on past papers in test conditions.
• 
  Talking with pupils and parents revealed that children felt they were under constant pressure to do well and not to let the school down. The SATS rivalry among some parents was just as bad as that among the ballet and sports team parents.
• Some parents reported children having headaches and sleepless nights because of tests.
• I was under pressure from the heads of these particular schools to advise the removal of children with special educational needs on the grounds that the school could not meet those needs - what they really meant was that these children would bring down their SATS average.
• On the whole, the children in schools where SATS were not taken too seriously were happier and, in my opinion, receiving a richer and more varied education.
• There is no evidence that general standards in the basic skills have improved since the introduction of the national programmes and incentives.

I did not put my own children through the state system; they attended an independent school which does not follow the National Curriculum. They and their peers are well-educated, well-adjusted, hard-working and happy members of society. You might say they would have turned out that way whatever school they had attended because they had caring, involved parents. I would answer PRECISELY! Good education requires the effective co-operation of the school and the parents.

Independent schools do not necessariliy have the best teachers or resources. I have met hundreds of brilliant teachers in the state sector and I have seen resources there that some independent schools would love to have. The difference in the quality of education lies in that word 'independent' - in this case independent of government interference and popular trends. Those schools know what works and they also know that they have the support and co-operation of parents.

My advice to Lord Adonis? Forget your multi-million pound experiments in our children's lives; listen to teachers; listen to parents; advise your colleagues in government to make it possible for parents to be more involved in their children's lives in the early years.

Are we failing our boys?

The current presenter of my favourite Sunday morning radio programme, A Point of View, is American journalist Tim Egan. This morning he addressed the thorny subject of boys in secondary education; he has a personal interest, being the father of a 17 year old. The state of our schools and the behaviour of young people is never far from the headlines here, so it was a relief, in a way, to hear that it is not a uniquely British problem.

For fourth grade read Year 4 and for 12th grade read sixth form, and the following could apply equally to English students:

"At fourth grade, the boys are as smart as girls, judging by the inexact measurement of test scores. In maths and science, fourth graders in the US rank near the top of all students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle. And by 12th grade - senior year in high school - American students are near the bottom in maths and science."

The concerns are the same on both sides of the Atlantic:

The average is dragged down for one big reason - the boys. They fall through the floor. And the question is did we fail them, as parents? Or did our system fail them?

Egan's article is not the usual judgemental piece we expect of journalists, critical of teachers, parents and the youngsters themselves. He observes with the insight of a sympathetic parent:

This summer I was strolling through Boston at midnight with friends, when we came upon thousands of people, many of them looking to be about age 12 or 13, in a huge, excited line waiting to get the latest Harry Potter book. The buzz, the energy in the streets was extraordinary. All these kids, jostling and bouncing off each other, talking excitedly about - a book. Waiting for hours... to read.
For a 12-year-old boy, it's cool to be smart. It's cool to read. It's cool to be a nerd. But then what happens? By age 17, the boys, many of them, would never be caught dead around something "sooo yesterday" as a printed page from a bound volume. Sure, they're forced to read, for school, but that's a different matter.
So, then they go off to college, where the girls far outnumber them. Or they drop out. And they never spend another day in school and -- sad to say -- they're doomed, by the law of averages. For students who never go to college will earn only about $25,000 (£12,500) a year - barely above the poverty line for someone trying to support a family.
But look at them now, age 17, senior year. All that confidence, even with the mumbling, the texting, the grunting, the sniffing. So much tomorrow in their faces. Ah, but it's surface, in my experience. They have outside swagger, these boys, but inside - they're unsure of themselves.

Does he offer any answers? He refers to a speech given by Bill Gates to a National Governors Conference about two years ago, in which he advocated a complete rethinking of our attitude to teenagers:

After the Gates speech, a number of governors around the US held town hall meetings on rethinking the teenager, especially in that senior year. A new
school in California, called High Tech High, was cited as a role model. There, boys aged 16 and 17 said it was the only place where they felt that being smart was cool.
Bill Gates says the problem is that high school was designed for 50 years ago. Nobody would use a 50-year-old mainframe computer, he says, in his inevitable metaphor of choice. But forget about 50 years, many educators and child psychologists say our system is dated by a century or more.
For starters, why do high school students get summers off? This is a relic of the old agrarian age, when boys were needed in the fields throughout the summer and into the harvest. A hundred years ago, one in three jobs in the US was still tied to agriculture. But today it's barely 1%.

Egan acknowledges that there are no easy, one-stop solutions. The problems in the States are the same as ours, and probably the same throughout the western world: a combination of changing family values, outmoded education systems and serious underfunding:

Another question: Should they drive? In all but a few of the states, a driver's licence can be had at age 16. What follows is perhaps the most dangerous year in a teenager's life, especially that of a boy. This year about 6,000 teenagers will die in car accidents in the US - that's more than 50% higher than the death toll among American troops in Iraq over the last four years. In most of Europe, the age is older, and the death rate is far lower.

What to do? In 2005, First Lady Laura Bush started an initiative on boys, an attempt to figure out why - and how - we fail them. It was supposed to be a three-year initiative, pulling together all the experts. But it never went anywhere, after some initial meetings. And maybe that's because we cannot rethink the teenager by wishful thinking from the executive branch of government.

Bill Gates is more direct - investing nearly $2bn (£1bn) to encourage new high schools and to reform existing ones. Now I know, watching a teenage boy over the course of say, a single hour, that it is very difficult for them to stay focused on any one task. Our son has his driver's license. I tell him no texting, no mobile phone conversations, no distractions while driving a 2,000lb vehicle through the
streets. And certainly, no drinking. Sure dad, he says. I'll behave. Just like you did. And here's where parents - mostly baby boomer parents - trip up. We tell the boys to do as I say, not as I did. We know from experience, but it's painful experience, and it can make us look like hypocrites. When I was 17, I lost my two best friends - two guys I had known since grade school - to car accidents. One was driving home late on a Saturday night after drinking a couple beers. The other fell asleep at the wheel. It haunts me still, those deaths.

That popular book, The Dangerous Book for Boys, has become quite the draw for people asking these questions. There is nothing really dangerous about the book, despite the
title. It is a compendium of all the adventurous things that boys like to do. The authors say that boys are naturally drawn to risk. They portray the kind of risk that seems so retro, so harmless - playing in trees, chasing each other on bikes,Tom Sawyer stuff. That world is gone for boys now in their last year
of high school. Their minds may still be Tom Sawyer, but their bodies are men. We used to have rituals for passing on the baton of life, from one stage to the other. Manhood rituals. Knighthood. Bar Mitzvahs. They were formalised in warrior cultures, and then in the military, or church, or in a tribal circle. Now, for the modern urban
family, the choices are limited. Give them the car keys and sigh? Take them to the mountains for a weekend of bonding around a campfire? It's not enough. Perhaps rethinking the teen, in the end, is just that - with considerable anxiety.

You hope their minds, their souls, their hearts catch up to that newly deep voice. You hope.

No solutions then, but an intelligent and thoughtful approach to the subject for a change. Read the full article here.

Language Development Part 3

I have said in earlier posts on language develoment that the government would do better to supply every young family with a dining table than to keep on meddling with the school curriculum. Today's Daily Telegraph features an article by Phil Beadle which contains similar views. He too stresses the importance of family mealtimes as opportunities for building vocabulary, developing communication skills and encouraging children to solve problems. It is an excellent article, putting responsibility for early language development back where it belongs - in the home. It offers lots of ideas for language-building games for families to play.


So, if you are listening, Mr Balls, no more pressure on parents to put their under-four year olds into child care, give a grant for tables to all young parents who cannot afford to buy one and might I suggest that antenatal classes should include tips on how to help babies to develop good language skills.

More from the memory book

I'm really having fun looking through my old books and papers; perhaps retirement isn't so bad, after all.

This is a Christmas card from the early 1970s, made for me by a colleague. I taught a class of ten young deaf children, ranging in age from 4 to 8 years and Ralph taught the older class. Susan was my brilliant assistant.

Ralph succeeded in capturing the idiosyncrasies of each child. I'd love to know how they all developed, they must be around 40 years old now. Imagine all that dopiness, bashfulness, grumpiness, sleepiness and happiness in adult form. Is Dave still a football supporter? Did Jon ever get rid of those allergies? Is Lee G. a hooligan and Lee B. a doctor? The only story that I did see to the end is that of the third Lee, the Herder, and that was a sad one. I hope the rest are thriving.

Boundaries

Today I found my first white hair, lying atop my dark brown tresses. At first I thought it was a piece of cotton thread but close examination showed it was a human hair and, since what remains of the MM's hair is short and grey, it was undoubtedly mine. I retreated, shaken, from the bathroom and began to contemplate life and aging. I decided I had two choices: to dash off to the hairdresser for my first hair dye or to celebrate this symbolic entrance into the realm of maturity and wisdom.

Retiring undefeated (I hope) from the latest round with my son on the issue of performance tests for teachers, I began to wonder if I have contributed anything memorable or even recognisably mine, during my career. Just as bleakness was edging towards despair, I logged on to Thought experiments and came across a post from Philip Walling, quoting from a 1940s book on child behaviour:

In the 1940s Dr. D. W. Winnicott who was at the time, the chairman of the British Institute of Psycho-Analysis, wrote a paper on 'The Problem of Homeless Children'. His view was that the child requires to have its original feeling of infinity closely delimited and its life confined within a circle. 'If the laws established by a child's parents prove unreliable, if the child can break them with impunity, the feeling of infinity becomes an abyss of nothingness and sets up acute distress and indeed despair in the child.' he looks elsewhere for his circle of authority and tests the law personified by his teachers and later by the police. The young delinquent values and loves the policeman.'

There it was, the underlying motif of my career: the importance of boundaries. I will probably be remembered, if at all, as a boundary bore. In working with children, with parents and with teachers, I have always emphasised the need for setting boundaries and having routines. I felt a real frisson of recognition when I read: 'the child requires to have its original feeling of infinity closely delimited and its life confined within a circle'

A few years ago, I was invited to attend an award ceremony at the British Museum. The occasion was to celebrate the achievements of young Deaf adults who had won Jack Ashley Millennium Awards. I was there as the guest of one of my former pupils but I recognised another face among the 100 youngsters receiving their awards: Oliver, a young man in his late 20s, whom I hadn't seen since he was about 5 years old. I had worked with him and his mother when he was an outstandingly beautiful but naughty toddler and I'd lost touch when we moved to Devon. His mother rang me a few days after the awards to tell me how well Oliver had done at school and university and, with the help of his award money, in setting up a web design company. 'Of course, he wouldn't have achieved any of it if you hadn't made me set boundaries,' she said. 'I'll never forget what you said' ... here my heart faltered, what on earth had I said that someone remembered 25 years later? .... 'I used to let him get away with murder because he was deaf and he was so beautiful and charming and made everyone laugh. Then you said he'll have a hard enough time being deaf without being a deaf brat, set some boundaries.'

I can't remember having that particular conversation but I'm glad I did and that it worked for Oliver. I now realise that 'setting boundaries' is my philosophy of life. I used to amaze my children with tales of the rules we had at home and school, they thought some of them were hilarious, such as getting a detention if seen walking down the school drive without wearing gloves. They found it really hard to believe some of the restrictions at the convent college I attended in the 1960s. It was an all-female college and men were not allowed into the accommodation blocks except at the beginning and end of term, when fathers and brothers were allowed in to carry luggage; even though the students were aged 18 to 21, we had to be in by 10pm, with two 11pm passes per term. If we wanted to stay out until midnight or to go away for a weekend, we had to have written permission from our parents. The college was in Southampton, where the night clubs and dock area are separated from the High Street shops and coffee bars by the mediaeval Bargate; the college rule was that students could not go Below Bar after 7pm. I can't remember what the penalties were for breaking any of the rules; we were such a law-abiding lot that there probably hadn't been a need for the nuns to think of any.

Apart from the disbelief and amusement these stories provide, I have always seen them as a means of illustrating the problems in today's society. Our rules were silly and trivial so breaking them was a silly or trivial offence. Breaking rules, pushing at boundaries is an essential part of growing up and we had safe boundaries to cross: hitching up your uniform skirt to knee level instead of the regulation two inches below doesn't sound much, but it gave a thrill of rebelliousness. Returning to my old college a few years ago, I found that not only the nuns but also all the rules had gone. The accommodation is now 'unisex' and many of the students cohabit. No-one worries about locking-up times and lights-out but there are occasional drug-busting raids.

When I read of pupils being bullied by text messages and on websites, when I hear of knife attacks and muggings, of verbal and physical attacks on teachers, I don't think today's youngsters are any worse than we were, I think that they are pushing and finding no boundaries to limit them.

I'm just off to book that hairdresser's appointment, I must set some boundaries for my greying hair!

When does a disability become a handicap?

The hottest news in Devon this week has been Totnes MP Anthony Steen parking his car in a space reserved for disabled drivers at Newton Abbot railway station. He might have got away with a fixed penalty if a Liberal Democrat MP had not recognised the car and an opportunity to make mischief, and called in the press. Mr Steen then dug himself into a deep pit by trying to justify his actions, claiming that there are too many reserved spaces for 'handicapped' people, a comment he repeated on local radio.

'Handicapped' is certainly not a PC word today and, thankfully, it is not an appropriate one to use for the majority of people living with disabilities. With greater public awareness and understanding, better access to transport and buildings and a range of modern technical aids, it is possible for many people with disabilities to travel, work and enjoy a full social life. Things may not be perfect but they have certainly improved and Mr Steen does himself no favours in displaying his ignorance and his prejudice. The Conservative party has been quick to disassociate itself from his remarks.

So what is the difference between a disability and a handicap and does the terminology matter? To the outsider it may appear to be a trivial matter of semantics but it is, in fact, a heavily loaded subject. It has to do with self-image and public perception; expectations and rights. People with disabilities have had as hard a struggle for equality as have ethnic minorities and homosexuals. The Disability Discrimination Act (1995) is still in its infancy, with many employers and public institutions moving very slowly towards its implementation and the rights of deaf people were only offically recognised in 2003, with the legal acceptance of British Sign Language.

One of the most famous people with a disability is Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, who has won many medals as an athlete and has proved herself as a charming, intelligent and witty television presenter; her abilities are outstanding but she is a wheelchair user and, as such, would be 'handicapped' if she needed to get to the second floor of a building with no lift. The handicap element of most physical disabilities could be removed or reduced by careful planning.

On the other hand, there are some disabilities which are handicapping by their very nature: these are disabilities which prevent or restrict communication. I am most familiar with deafness, but I would include autism and some mental disorders. Deafness affects the person who is deaf and also the person trying to communicate with him. (I'm not referring here to great-uncle Jim, who shouts a lot, misunderstands what you say and drowns out your music with the screeching feedback from his hearing aid - that is tedious but can be dealt with.) I mean those who are Deaf with a capital D, the born deaf, who may have little or no speech or whose speech is difficult to understand. I have sometimes intervened in situations where a Deaf person has been trying to find information in a shop, railway station or airport and in every case it has been the hearing person who has appeared to be the most handicapped, terrified by their inability to communicate.

With the wonders of modern medicine, the number of babies with disabilities is increasing. That seems to be a paradox but it is a fact; very premature babies and some with conditions that previously would have had a high mortality rate are surviving, many of them with long-term complex disabilities. Social and education policies favour full inclusion for all people, so 'handicap' has to be concept of the past, replaced by a positive attitude towards living with disability. I'm not sure how we accommodate Mr Steen's inability to get to the station in time to find a parking space, perhaps by voting for someone else at the next election?

Education, the softest target of all

I was disheartened this week to find that Thought experiments and The Daily Duck had joined in the national sport of teacher-bashing while I was away. I imagine Bryan Appleyard was a student in the days when intellectual snobs identified themselves by bleating 'Those who can do, those who can't teach,' ignoring the fact that good teachers had made their Oxbridge dream a reality. I didn't know that teachers were held in the same contempt in America.



Everyone is an education expert. Almost everyone attended school, so they all know the score: teachers work short days, get long holidays and are all Lefties. Teachers are to blame when children misbehave or fail but are to claim no credit when their pupils do well - we all know that's only because the exams are easier.



Education is the favoured punchbag of politicians and the media. It suffers more interference, criticism and lack of support than any other area of public life, even the NHS. I am amazed that anyone ever wants to enter the teaching profession and am never surprised when people leave.



I've been engaged in education for most of my 61 years, as a pupil, student, teacher, parent, governor and adviser and I have seen fashions and trends come and go, not at the instigation of teachers but of politicians. The expertise and experience of teachers are ignored when policies are devised, the teachers just have to implement what the government decides is a possible vote-catcher.



A look at a few of the most recent government interventions illustrates what teachers have to face on a regular basis:

• Private schools should lend teachers to comprehensives. (Private schools are able to select their pupils from families who can not only afford the fees but who, on the whole, recognise the value of education and support their children and the school. Class sizes are much smaller than in state schools. Private schools do not have to follow the National Curriculum or impose SATs on their pupils. I suspect that 99% of teachers in the private sector would not survive teaching a single lesson in an inner-city comprehensive school. The experiment would provide some entertainment for the state school staff, though.)*
  


• Teachers should not ask children to put their hands up in class. (Teachers know how to suck eggs.)*


• Teachers should frisk pupils for knives. (Teachers' lives have been ruined by false accusations of physical or sexual abuse of a pupil, this crazy idea would give malicious pupils even more power.)* *My comments

If politicians and the press would show a little respect for the teaching profession, and let teachers get on with teaching instead of testing, if they would support instead of undermining them, then most schools would sort themselves out. Teachers know that children have different needs and interests and different levels of support at home, if they didn't have unrealistic targets to meet, they would be free to help pupils fulfil their potential, whatever that might be.

Young People Part 2 Language Development

Following my brief look at the changing pattern of family life in Britain, I'd like to turn my attention to children's language development, since the two are inextricably linked.

Human babies are amazing creatures: given normal hearing and average cognitive ability, they progress from 'mewling and puking' to being masters of their mother tongue(s) in less than four years. After infancy, new language is learned in a different way, which most of us find quite difficult. Whether we subscribe to the Chomsky or the Bruner theory of first language acquisition, or think, as I do, that the truth lies in a combination of the two, there is no questioning the fact that all over the world, in primitive tribes and civilised societies, babies acquire speech and language in a seemingly effortless way.

So why is delayed language development among children of school-entry age the major concern of those involved in Early Years education in Britain today? Communication difficulties affect social and educational progress and are frequently associated with behavioural difficulties in children of secondary school age. The usual suspects of television, working mothers or simply being a boy have been blamed and in Australia the answer has been discovered in middle ear infections. In fact all of these issues can be seen to be inter-related.

I spent the last twenty years advising parents and teachers on language development in children with impaired hearing and the twenty years prior to that teaching deaf children. Only 1 per 1000 babies is born with severe sensorineural deafness but as many as 1 in 4 children suffer some degree of temporary hearing loss due to otitis media with effusion (OME), commonly known as 'glue ear.' While the children with permanent deafness were my main concern, I was involved in the assessment of children with glue ear and in advising their parents and teachers on how to minimise the impact of the hearing loss on their educational development. Between 1990 and 2006, the number of referrals I received to assess children with conductive hearing loss caused by glue ear increased from an average of 30 per year to 30 per month. Working with audiologists and paediatricians to discover the reasons for this increase, I concluded that the actual incidence of episodes of glue ear had not increased but the impact on the development of speech and language was greater than in the past.

Having to devise a new way of working in order to cope with the numbers of children being referred from 67 schools scattered over a large rural area, I produced information leaflets for parents, presentations for health and education professionals and a guide on language development for teachers in Early Years settings. Within months, I was overwhelmed by requests to attend meetings and address conferences; sadly, this was not a tribute to my wit and charm but an indication of the level of concern among a range of professionals dealing with ever-rising numbers of children with poor speech and language skills.

Otitis media with effusion, OME or glue ear, is usually a minor medical condition and doctors are right to resist pressure to rush to surgical solutions. It is a condition that requires good management rather than intervention. It is an educational rather than a medical issue. The behavioural and cognitive sequelae of OME were established many years ago by the Dunedin Project and confirmed in many later studies. What has changed in the 33 years since the Dunedin study began is the scale of the problem. As I said earlier, the incidence has not increased but the impact has.

Language development and hearing

(For any outraged scientists who might be reading, this is the Audiology for Dummies version)

This illustration gives an indication of the relative pitch (frequency measured in Hertz) and intensity ('loudness' measured in decibels) of common sounds.

You can see the all-important 'speech banana' which shows the range of speech sounds in the average adult voice.

The white section indicates what would be considered the 'normal' range of hearing responses, with the heavy line representing a typical audiogram for a young child i.e. a similar response to all frequencies at minimal levels.

Responses mainly in the yellow section would indicate a mild hearing loss, the green section a moderate loss and so on. A typical audiogram of a 4 year old with glue ear would show a fairly straight line around 40-45 dBHL. The child would have difficulty in hearing any of the sounds above the line showing his 'threshold of hearing'. (Surgical intervention - myringotomy and insertion of ventilation tubes, 'grommets' - would normally be considered appropriate if the hearing loss was greater than this and persisted for more than 6 months)

The speech banana shows that vowel sounds and the voiced consonants b, m, n, l, g, ng, r, and j are clustered together in the lower frequency and the higher intensity range of the banana. Therefore they are the easiest sounds to hear and those are the first sounds that babies produce in their babbling. It is no mere chance that parents are called dada and mama! You will also see that f, th and s are the highest pitched and the softest sounds; these are the last speech sounds to appear in a child's repertoire and cause difficulties for many children.

In order to learn spoken language, an infant needs to hear clearly articulated speech at a level at least 15 decibels above his threshold of hearing. Imagine you enter a room where the radio is on at a barely perceptible level; if the programme is a discussion of your favourite topic, you will recognise some of the words and begin to make sense of what you hear. On the other hand, if it is in a foreign language or full of technical jargon from a subject you know nothing about, you will pay no attention because it will be a meaningless background noise; if you want to understand, you will turn up the volume. So it is with young children acquiring speech, a very mild hearing loss during the critical period for speech acquisition will disrupt that development.

The impact of modern lifestyles on language acquisition

This is an oversimplified comparison between what I will call 'traditional' childrearing methods and modern lifestyles, most real people are somewhere in the middle:

Babies are prone to brief episodes of very mild hearing loss; their eustachian tubes are narrow and easily blocked by mucus during a cold or when teething. In traditional situations, babies were carried around for most of the time, close to the mother, grandmother or older sibling and the proximity to the speaker compensated for the mild hearing loss. Most modern babies spend a lot of time in carry cots or bouncers at a distance from adult voices so their speech is not heard clearly.

Traditionally, infants spent most of their time in an intimate family setting, hearing and interacting with the same person or small group of people who would adapt their speech to evoke responses from the baby - what is termed 'motherese'. While not correcting the infant's utterances, the mother would automatically model the correct language, we call this the 'maternal reflective' input to language development. Infants in day care, whether nurseries or with childminders, do not get this intimate, individual nurturing treatment.

Modern homes are filled with sound from washing machines and vacuum cleaners to day long television or music in the background. Nurseries are filled with the noise of many children talking, singing and playing. Infants cannot discriminate new speech sounds from background noise, even when their hearing is normal. Glue ear usually has no symptoms other than mild hearing loss and this can easily go undetected because the child responds to the loud noises around it.

Traditionally, children learned a lot of the features of language incidentally e.g. anticipation, turn-taking and rhyming through shared activities like peek-a-boo and nursery rhymes. During my home visits in the last twenty years, I found 7 out of 10 mothers did not know any language games or nursery rhymes and I had to teach them some to use with their toddlers. While Sesame Street, Teletubbies and other children's programmes may be entertaining and can be useful for reinforcing already acquired skills, they are no substitute for child-carer activities.

Another startling change I noticed in modern homes was the lack of a family dining table. Children learn a great deal about how to behave and how to converse during family meals. Adults and older siblings are the role models for language and behaviour and this feature of development is being lost because of poorly designed modern starter homes and TV dinners on trays. It has been interesting to watch the recent spate of reality programmes on television, dealing with 'problem children' or 'problem families'. In every case, the turning point in the programme was when the family started to eat at least one meal a day together at a table.

Managing change

We don't want to go back to the days when women stayed at home, keeping house with washtub, mangle and broom. But we need to look at what else was thrown out when the new labour-saving appliances were introduced. The most obvious change is that women have time to develop interests outside of the home, and some have no choice but to work to pay for all those new appliances. I don't want to pile guilt on mothers who choose or are forced to put their babies into daycare, but I want them to appreciate what has been lost and look at ways of compensating for that loss.

In terms of language acquisition, the main loss has been intimacy. It is in a close, quiet, physical relationship with a carer that babies learn to understand and use spoken language. If possible, therefore, a nanny or childminder with a very small number of children will be a better choice than a nursery with lots of children and many different adults.

Children, especially boys, are prone to develop glue ear between the ages of 18 and 24 months and again around 5 years of age. The symptoms may not be startlingly obvious, look out for lack of response to quiet sounds, and a decrease in vocalisation in younger infants, and for older children turning up the volume on the television, misunderstanding or apparently ignoring instructions, lack of attention or daydreaming, lots of 'what' or pardon?' Often children with glue ear are mistakenly labelled unco-operative or slow learners.

Temporary episodes of hearing loss can be managed by letting everyone who deals with the child know about it. Always get the child's attention before giving an instruction or information e.g. 'Johnny, it's time for bed. Go and brush your teeth.' is more likely to get the desired response than 'Off you go to bed now and remember to brush your teeth, Johnny.' When nursery teachers adopt this way of speaking to all the children in their care, they find a noticeable improvement in behaviour; in fact, it is an improvement in communication. Get close to the child when speaking, to compensate for the reduced hearing level. Check that information has been received correctly. Make allowance for the fact that a child with even a mild hearing loss has to concentrate harder and so will tire easily.

Those children who are arriving at school at age 5 with delayed language need lots of activities that they missed out on in early infancy to encourage language development. There are lots of books available (including mine!) with ideas for parents, carers and teachers to help them do what our grandparents did as a matter of course.

More on our young people

In the aftermath of yesterday's tragic events at Virginia Tech University, journalists and politicians will do the inevitable public hand-wringing and searching for scapegoats. Parents, teachers, liberals, pop musicians et al will come in for their usual dose of blame and I daresay that some of it will be deserved. But what will be proved or, more to the point, what will be solved?

A few weeks ago, I promised Adelephant a post on my views on some of the problems in our schools and homes. I've heard that Adelephant's laptop has been stolen, so I hope the insurance stumps up for a replacement soon so that we can get a lively debate going.

Many years as an adviser to schools and families gave me opportunities to observe social changes at close hand. I am not opposed to change or progress but not all change is progress, just as not all progress is to the benefit of everyone. There has been rapid and dramatic change in many areas of life during the years since the Second World War and I think it is the rapidity that underlies our problems. We have not had the luxury of time to accommodate change, to evaluate and sort out the difficulties before the next set of changes; this has left two generations with unsure foundations.

Here are a few of my observations, obviously somewhat generalised and over-simplified but I have to start somewhere. I'll tackle different aspects in separate posts:

Part one: Family life

The 1960s in Britain were the 'we've never had it so good' years. Post-war austerity was over, there was high employment, better health and education. Thanks to government grants, thousands of working-class youngsters were able to go to college and enter professions previously the preserve of the middle classes. As a result, there was a breaking up of the traditional family, where generations lived in the same area and supported each other from cradle to grave. Instead of following his father down the mines, on the farm or in the factory, Jimmy went to a college many miles away, looked for a job there, married and started a family, isolated from his roots. At the same time, girls were being encouraged to think of careers before marriage and they started to move away from the traditional support of mothers, grandmothers and aunts with all their acquired wisdom of home-making and child-rearing.

So, we have many more advantages in education, travel, employment, health and freedom of choice balanced against the loss of the extended family for physical and moral support and the handing on of basic parenting skills.

The apparent outcomes for society include old people becoming a 'burden on the state' instead of being cared for within the family; increased pressure on marriages/partnerships when parents have no-one to look to for advice or support, leading to increased rates of divorce or separation; a decline in any sense of community or belonging.

The current generation of young mothers has a new set of pressures from the government and the media. On the one hand they have the government telling them to put babies into daycare and to go back to work and on the other, conflicting 'experts' telling them that staying at home to bring up baby is the best or the worst thing to do.

How to address the problems? We have charitable schemes like Home-Start, which sends volunteers to give the advice grandma used to give; the government sponsored Sure Start scheme offers similar support in the poorest inner city areas and some local authorities provide parenting classes for the most troubled or troublesome families. These schemes are all effective but a mere drop in the ocean of need.

These are some of the most significant issues I had to address in my work with families:

• lack of organisation and time management - no set bedtimes, homework not supervised, children choosing what and when to eat
• poor or inconsistent discipline - children not having recognised boundaries and no consistent rewards and punishments, resulting in children not understanding what is right and wrong because it differs from day to day
• no family mealtimes - the majority of homes I went to in the last fifteen years had no dining table, meals were taken on trays in front of the television or family members grazed on a succession of snacks and takeaway food
• lack of family time - many of the families I was involved with either did no activities together or else the children were involved in so many clubs, teams and societies that they had no time just to play or to do things as a family
• lack of quiet - in many homes the television forms a frequently unnoticed background of sound throughout the day; children don't learn to listen and to pay attention when they are constantly bombarded with meaningless sound
• lack of incentive to do well - many children never hear themselves or their work praised: success breeds success and indifference or too much criticism leads to 'am I bovvered?'

Tomorrow: language development and our schools

Performance targets for our primary schools

I've just been sorting through some old papers and came across a newspaper cutting from about 1990. I've googled the author and found him to be an American poet/philosopher called Robert Fulghum. If the government is serious about tackling the growing antisocial behaviour of our youth, they could do worse than scrap all the performance targets and indicators they have put in place over the last decade and let teachers get on with what they used to do so well to produce results like these:

All I ever really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten
By Robert Fulghum

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in a sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things that I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup – they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all…. the whole world…. had milk and cookies about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and in the other nations to always put things back where we found them, and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Death in the playgrounds

In 1968, ten year old Mary Bell killed two small boys. The horrified nation sighed with relief when psychiatrists said her behaviour was psychopathic and she was therefore not responsible for her actions. No-one wanted to believe a child could be responsible for cold-blooded murder. The next great shock was in 1993, when two year old Jamie Bulger was abducted and murdered by two ten year old boys in Liverpool. These cases, twenty-five years apart, were headline news for months; ten years ago the killing of children by children was a rare occurrence in Britain.

Earlier this month there were eight fatal stabbings of schoolchildren within four days and a non-fatal stabbing perpetrated by a seven year old. While the media shows grieving families and conducts debates on 'the new knife-carrying culture', there is not the same sense of horror about these crimes. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary (whatever that is) said on television: “These are still, even though they are more prevalent than we’d like, relatively isolated incidents which cause extraordinary grief and agony in particular communities.” Perhaps she will become more concerned if the next stabbing occurs in her own 'particular community'. The whole of society should feel extraordinary grief and agony over the violent death of a child, especially when the killing has been carried out by another child.

Not all the youngsters who have committed these crimes are psychopathic, they are responsible for their actions. How have they come to consider that life has so little value? Gang rivalry, bullying and intimidation are not new but killing the rival or outsider is, at least in 'civilised' societies. Is it the fault of parents, schools, television, video games, consumerism? Is there a moral vacuum left by the decline of religion? Whatever the causes, we need to address the problem before all our children are going to school in stab-proof vests.

References, applications and such

This morning I wrote a reference for someone who wants to spend her gap year doing voluntary work. She has applied to two different organisations. The first sent me a booklet to fill in with 60 questions, many of them asking for the same information in slightly different ways and it took me more than two hours to complete. The second sent me a six page booklet about their work and four pages of A4 on what would be expected of the volunteer; it was tedious but at least it left me free to write what I thought would be an effective reference. Having sat on many an interviewing panel, I know which of the references is more likely to be read.

I wonder why it is that organisations, be they charities, universities or employers, have made application procedures so complex? It is hardly surprising that some young people feel under such pressure that they are driven to cheat by downloading advice from the internet. I read recently that 234 Oxbridge applicants plagiarised the same application form. Officials at both universities suspected foul play when one in twenty would-be medical students claimed their interest in science began when 'I accidentally burnt holes in my pyjamas after experimenting with a chemistry set on my eighth birthday.' I would have disqualified them not for cheating, but for showing so little imagination!

The government's latest idiotic scheme to try to ensure that disadvantaged youngsters get preferential treatment from university admissions officers can only make the situation worse. Starting in 2008, students will have to disclose their ethnicity and their parents' profession and qualifications on their application forms. There are probably people already designing helpful websites with euphemisms to disguise what might be seen as privileged backgrounds.

What constitutes privilege? The old grammar school system, coupled with generous university grants, ensured that any youngster with ability and determination could succeed in higher education. Almost all of my friends were, like me, the first of their family to go to university. If fewer children from poor (financially challenged!) backgrounds are going on to university today the government should look to itself for the causes: overcrowded comprehensive schools and crippling student debt. Rigging the entry system will not encourage more applications from this section of society. Let everyone apply on merit, knowing they will have financial support if they need it.

I've made some negative comments about Margaret Thatcher in recent posts but I must confess that I was one of those who voted her into power in the first place. She presented a very attractive and positive view of achievement through hard work. It was such a change from the years of dreary class jealousy and 'let's bring them down' attitude. She tried to import 'the American dream' principle to Britain and it worked for a lot of people. There were also many casualties and this government has to help them, but through support and encouragement, not social engineering.

Modern Foreign Languages

The English are notoriously bad at learning languages, or perhaps we are just bad at teaching them. I have an 'A level' in French, which equipped me for reading Baudelaire, Moliere, Racine and Hugo but didn't help me to converse in French restaurants and shops. 'Hasta luego' is just about all I remember from Spanish 'O level' days but ask me to sing Little brown jug or It's a long way to Tipperary in Latin and I'm still word perfect. That's because my Latin teacher was a 4'10'' terror! Fifty years on, I can recall every moment of my first Latin lesson, I always learned my vocabulary and did my homework on time and the worst day of my life was when I only got 98% in the 'mock' 'O level' exam and had to face the wrath of that teacher.

Successive governments have introduced initiatives to improve language learning in our schools; note, learning and not teaching. The latest idea, to drop French from the curriculum and introduce Mandarin is as potty as all the other schemes we have had over the years. Children don't learn a language because it might possibly be useful to their careers. They learn when they are immersed in it and because it is useful now. There are two ways to ensure success: employs lots of 4'10'' terrors or put a language assistant in every school i.e. a native speaker of the language in question, not necessarily a teacher, who will converse with the pupils.

My husband is using his newly acquired free time to brush up his French and is attending evening classes whereas my MFL learning is via blogosphere: I'm learning Transatlantic English. Yesterday I discovered 'druther' and 'schlep'. I am eagerly awaiting my next lesson!

Trailing clouds of glory

The dust is beginning to settle after the publication of the UNICEF Report Card 7. (From here on to be referred to as 'the report') Yesterday's newspapers carried predictable reactions, with The Guardian taking the 'blame and shame' approach and The Times using the opportunity to attack UNICEF for ... well, basically for existing. There are those who see a sinister anti-capitalist attack behind the report, some who question the age of the data used, or its relevance and some who find the league table and international comparisons odious.

I suspect that each reaction has some measure of justification but I hope the prejudices, defensiveness, anger and guilt will fade and a real debate about the experiences and expectations of children will begin.

I quoted from Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality in my previous post and in the title of this one because that particular stanza presents, in my view, the worst and the best attitudes to childhood. It has the romantic image of the baby, having had a previous, heavenly existence 'trailing clouds of glory' as it arrives, but as the infant becomes a boy, a youth and then a man, the romance fades. Wordsworth might peddle the Lakeland idyll, but I think at heart he was a realist. Sadly, that cannot be said of all who comment on children's issues. There are those who see helpless little angels who need to be protected from every aspect of life and there are those who see potential vandals and hooligans and want tough regulations to keep them in line. Neither attitude is helpful.

The Golden Age
contrary to popular belief, there never was a golden age of childhood, of family life or of education. Politicians in particular like to hark back to better times when children were all well-behaved, ate their greens and excelled at school. Utter nonsense! Not only can we not turn back the clock, we wouldn't really want to if we could. The current fancy in documentaries and literature is that the 1950s was the perfect time to grow up. I was born towards the end of 1945 so remember the fifties well. Like the curate's egg, parts were great but I wouldn't want to go back to smog, rationing, overcrowded classrooms, childhood diseases and all the other post-war conditions that prevailed.

Simple solutions
The report has coincided with the murders of three 15 year olds in London. This has prompted David Cameron to rush in with what he hopes will be a vote-winning answer to the problems of the age - blame fathers and force them to act responsibly. It makes a change from blaming working mothers, single mothers, formula-feeding babies, teachers, video games and all things American. Both Labour and Conservative parties are threatening yet more quick-fix changes to the school curriculum for 14 to 16 year olds; do they really think swapping French for Mandarin will engage the disaffected?

Subjectivity and relativity
Serious criticisms have been made about the report's use of young people's subjective views of well-being and the comparisons of relative rather than real poverty. It was ill-advised of the authors to set their critics such easy targets, nevertheless these sections are of interest to anyone trying to understand the perceived needs of the young. It takes a great deal of maturity to see one's own situation objectively. The 12 year old girl, sobbing because she is the only one who can't afford to go on the school trip, isn't comforted by the thought that she's actually better off than most children in Africa. For kids, everything is subjective and relative.

Constant change is here to stay
That was a popular bumper sticker in the 1980s, when the UK saw enormous social change. There has been change in every generation but perhaps it was more noticeable then because it was rapid and widespread. We can accommodate incremental change but that period was pretty hectic and many of the basic values and structures of society seemed to be abandoned before new ones were defined. When children experience change in one area of their lives, they need stability in other areas but everything seemed to change at once. The genie won't go back in the bottle, so 'Back to Basics' campaigns are never going to work. We have to look for new solutions to today's problems, not try to turn 21st century children into 1950s models.

Fear and engagement
There is fear in our inner-city schools, on the streets and even in some homes. I keep hearing that adults are afraid of young people: they are afraid of being mugged or stabbed; afraid of being accused of racism or abuse. Young people say they are afraid of each other and bullying is a real element in school life. Fear won't go away unless it is confronted and that can only be done through real engagement between parents and youngsters, teachers and pupils, local communities and their youth groups, pupils with one another.

Complex problems require complex solutions
I hope that there will be a real debate about these issues; even if the report itself is dismissed as flawed, let's use the opportunity it presents to evaluate our provision for young people. In my experience, the majority respond positively when presented with real opportunities and they can be very generous and committed when given a 'cause' to support. Comic Relief will be as well supported as CND and the League against Cruel Sports was in my teenage years. Here are a few of my suggestions for consideration:

• How to help families to help themselves out of poverty? (The fishing rod not the fish approach)
• How to get rid of the fear? (Opportunities for dialogue and engagement in schools and local communities - spend money on video cameras, not ASBOs?)
• How to fill the gap created by movement away from extended families? (Sure Start and Home Start schemes work well but there are not enough)
• How to restore the home as the centre for developing social skills. (Make it financially possible to have a parent at home? Issue every family with a dining table?)
• We've heard a lot about 'stakeholders' in recent years. How can we make youngsters stakeholders in their own communities?

I love young people; I love their humour, generosity and enthusiasm. They deserve the opportunity to fulfil their potential and to develop a real sense of well-being.

The well-being of our children

The publication of the Unicef report Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries' has prompted predictable sensational headlines and sceptical denials from people who haven't looked at the actual report.

The concept of 'well-being' is based on the definition used in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, accepted by virtually every country. It looks at the importance of growing up in a happy, loving family environment, at the right to an adequate standard of living, access to social security, protection from violence and exploitation, access to the highest attainable standard of healthcare and to equitable access to educational opportunity.

The report only addresses those areas where internationally comparable data is available, the sources and dates of which are published. There is one additional area - 'Dimension 6 Subjective well-being' - which is based solely on the children's own perception of well-being. The data refers to children living at home and attending mainstream schools. It does not reflect the situation of children with disabilities, refugees, members of ethnic minorities, those from immigrant families or those living in institutionalised care. While acknowledging these limitations, the authors conclude the report 'breaks new ground in bringing together the best of currently available data and represents a significant step towards a multi-dimensional overview of the state of childhood in a majority of the economically advanced nations of the world.'

The newspaper and television reports that I have seen to date have concentrated on the summary table which gives countries an average ranking position for all six dimensions covered in the study. This shows the Netherlands at the top and the UK at the bottom of the list of 21 countries and the US in 20th position. League tables, as every teacher in England knows, do not provide a complete or helpful picture. However, they do grab our attention and should lead us to a more useful examination of the details of the study.

The information contained in the report will be useful for governments and other agencies in evaluating child-related policies. It could lead to a more effective allocation of resources and the setting of smarter targets. By comparing countries, we can see what is possible, what works and what needs to be addressed.

For my son, and others who may not have the time or inclination to read the report in full, I offer a summary of what each section (or dimension) covers. The detailed results are far more interesting and useful than the averaged results published in the press.

Previous reports in this series have used income poverty as a proxy measure for overall child well-being. In Dimension 1 Material well-being, this study looks at three aspects of poverty:

• relative income poverty
• households without jobs
• reported deprivation

The authors point out that there is no satisfactory measure of poverty, whether relative or 'real.' A low income may be used wisely and fairly and a high income may be squandered on alcohol, gambling or drugs; the child in the latter situation suffers greater privation than one in the former.

Three indicators were used to measure 'deprivation'

• The WHO's Family Affluence Scale which uses the answers to the questions: Does your family own a car, van or truck? Do you have your own bedroom for yourself? During the past 12 months, how many times did you travel on holiday with your family? How many computers does your family own?
• Cultural and educational resources: Which of these do you have at home: a desk for study; a quiet place to work; a computer for schoolwork; educational software; an internet connection; a calculator; a dictionary; school textbooks?
• Fewer than 10 books in the home

Dimension 2 Health and Safety looks at:

• Health at age 0-1 : number of infants dying before age 1 per 1,000 births; percentage of infants born with low birth weight
• Preventative health services : percentage of infants age12 to 23 months immunized against measles, DPT and polio
• Safety : deaths from accidents and injuries per 100,000 aged 0 to 19 years

Dimension 3 Educational well-being looks at:

• School achievement at age 15 : average achievements in reading, mathematics and science
• Beyond basics : percentage aged 15 - 19 remaining in education
• Transition to employment : percentage 15 - 19 not in education, training or employment; percentage of 15 year olds expecting to find low-skilled work

Dimension 4 Relationships:

• Family structure : percentage of children living in single parent families; percentage of children living in stepfamilies
• Family relationships : percentage of children wh oreport eating main meal at a table with parents more than once a week; percentage of children who report that parents spend time 'just talking' to them
• Peer relationships : percentage of 11,13 and 15 year olds who report finding their peers 'kind and helpful'

Dimension 5 Behaviours and risks:

• Health behaviours : percentage of children who eat breakfast; percentage who eat fruit daily; percentage physically active; percentage overweight
• Risk behaviours : percentage of 15 year olds who smoke; percentage who have been drunk more than twice; percentage who use cannabis; percentage having sex by age 15; percentage who use condoms; teenage fertility rate
• Experience of violence : percentage of 11, 13 and 15 year olds involved in fighting in last 12 months; percentage reporting being bullied in last 12 months

Dimension 6 Subjective well-being

• Health: percentage of young people rating their own health as 'fair' or 'poor'
• School life : percentage of young people 'liking school a lot'
• Personal well-being : percentage of children rating themselves above mid-point on a 'Life Satisfaction Scale'; percentage of children reporting negatively about personal well-being