Tag: schooling

Children, Exercise, Families, Family Life, Fitness, Food, Gym, Large Families, Learning, Memories, Outdoor Play, Parents, School, Siblings, Sport, teenagers

Celebrating The Small Things:Week Twenty

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This week has been as manic as usual and we’ve all been rushing here there and everywhere but we have had had plenty of small things to celebrate.

When Children Never Cease To Amaze – My eldest son has always been the quiet one, the one that is the hardest to work out and the one that I wish I could shove a fire cracker up his backside most of the time.
It has been the same conversation for the past few years with his teaches – “he is an extremely talented boy who needs to apply himself”. I find this so frustrating as it is so hard to get him engaged and believe me I’ve tried. So when he walked through the door the other day and announced he was putting himself forward for head boy I nearly dropped to the floor. Im really hoping something has finally clicked and he’s going to make the most of his last few years of school.

My Regained Fitness Is Paying Off – Even at my fittest running has never been something I have enjoyed. I find it boring and after suffering with terrible shin splints over the years I pretty much always avoid any kind of distance running.
This weekend I challenged this by taking part in a 5km obstacle run with Izzy and some good friends.
Although running is not my thing my competitive edge took over and I found myself running ahead and trying to complete the course in a good time, I did feel a little bad for leaving Izzy behind!
I completed the course, faced my terrible fear of heights and thoroughly enjoyed every minute.

Sushi In The Sun – After a trip to the shops with Oscar the other day I was quietly laughing to myself about his choice of sushi for lunch.
At the mere age of four it would have been a cheese sandwich and packet of crisps for me and I actually relish the fact that my children have a love of such a wide variety of different foods.

Charity, Children, Education, Exercise, Families, Family Life, Fitness, Hobbies, London, School

Premier League Primary Stars – One Year On Event

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“Be ambitious, be inspiring, be committed and be fair”

As a Mum these are certainly four words that I hope my children go out into the world and fulfil, although sometimes as we know ourselves as adults it can sometimes be a hard task to follow.

These are in fact the words behind the Premier League Primary Stars project that is endeavouring to get primary school aged children to do just this:

Be Ambitious – Work hard and never give top on your goals.
Be inspiring – Set a great example to others.
Be committed – Work well with others and as a team.
Be fair – Treat people equally and work with others.

The other evening I was lucky enough to go along to Premier League Primary Stars – One Year On event to find out a little more about what the project is all about as it’s something I had not heard much about.

The evening kicked off with Ben Shires from CBBC giving us a little back story of the project and most importantly sharing the impact it has already had on so many children. Premier League has already reached out to over 10,000 schools across England and Wales since launching in 2017.

Its aim is to inspire young children to learn and develop important skills such as maths, english and sport through the appeal of Premier League and professional clubs.

This project may seemed aimed at children with a love of football, but it is in fact inclusive of all walks of life and children with a huge variety of different loves and passions; not just sport.

The Premier League are getting really hands on with this project and many famous faces such as Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney have been at the forefront of this campaign and have been along to meet and inspire lots of children. I mean who wouldn’t be impressed with a top footballer coming into school and giving a maths lesson!

We next got the chance to see first hand the impact this project had made on a little boy called Gethyn who was a reluctant learner and struggled with the academic side of schooling. Through the Primary Stars program they managed to channel his love of football into his writing with him compiling his very own match report. Not only has this got him into writing it has also given him the drive to work towards a career in match reporting when he is older which is a fantastic achievement for both Gethyn and Primary Stars.

This project doesn’t finish at the school gates either, there are downloadable games that can be done at home and projects such as the ‘Writing Stars Poetry Competition’ and we had the pleasure of meeting Lauren Child and Cressida Cowell who were two of the judges of the competition; and Amelie and Sadie who were the winners with some of the most amazing poetry for children of only 6 and 11.

The brief of the competition was to create a poem around resilience and as the poems were read aloud by Lauren Child I had a lump in my throat upon hearing Sadie’s poem that was based on her Mother’s battle with cancer.

The completion had a whopping 25,000 entries and from this a new poetry book called ‘Try,Try Again’ has been published including some entries from a few famous names too and is certainly worth a read.

I came away from the evening feeling humbled and inspired at the work and love that has been poured into this worthwhile project that has already and is set to change the lives of so many young children.

I would love to know if you have children that have already taken part in this project or if you think it is something your school should be taking part in.

*collaborated post

Children, Families, Family Life, interiors, Large Families, Learning, Parents, School, Work

Workspaces For Teens

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Give me a newborn over a teenager any day! Oh yes there are the sleepless nights and the endless cycles of feeding but as long as food, comfort and plenty of cuddles are supplied they are pretty much catered for. Teenagers however are a different breed altogether.

I have managed to navigate one child through their teens and she has now made here way into her twenties with both of us coming out the other side pretty much unscathed, however I am now on the same journey with my eldest son who has been completely different to my daughter.

I actually couldn’t ask for a better teen than Archie in so many ways to be honest. He is kind, caring, thoughtful, helpful and aside from the occasional strop he is pretty easy going. However when it comes to schooling its a different matter!

He is punctual, always completes his homework and is very well behaved during class but is a naturally gifted boy that is coasting through school and isn’t fulfilling his potential which is in fact more frustrating than anything else.

If he was messing around or not completing work then this could be dealt with by punishing him, but lack of motivation is a much harder thing to crack as it has to come from him.

He does however have lots of ambitions for jobs that don’t nesseserily need formal education and he has his heart set on this. I love and encourage my children to follow and fulfil their dreams so I am probably a large part to blame for this and need to get his mindset to think in a slightly more practical way without quashing his dreams.

He currently dosent have a area dedicated to learning so I think a workspace where he can keep organised, stay away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the house whilst still building on his teams would be just what he needs right now.

Below I have listed a few of the top things I think are needed to create the perfect working environment for a teen:

Privacy: This is always something that most teens crave and I think its very important to allow their work area to be private and somewhere they can grow their own independence.

Organisation: Organisation isn’t always something that goes hand in hand with teens and many struggle to get this sorted, so a good desk such as the ones from Lionshome will help them to make sure everything has a place of its own, things are to hand as and when they need it and allows enough space for them to carry out all the work that needs to be done.

Limit Distractions And Boost Creativity: Make this area somewhere that is solely for work. Make sure that computer games and any other devices are kept away from this area to limit distractions and allow this area to be a calm, motivating place that allows your teen to be creative, productive and engaged to have a positive effect on their schooling and hopefully whatever career path they wish to follow.

I would love to know how you get your teenage children motivated to work.

*Collaborated post