Bryony's Blog

The Shrikes’ Call | March 2016 As promised, here is part 2 of Bryony Rheam’s Speech Night presentation. “You don’t have to feel you need to go home and sell off the television set. What you do need to do, is monitor how much time your child spends in front of the TV and the content of what they are watching. Channels like CBeebies are great, channels like Cartoon Network aren’t so great, but whatever the channel – limit it. Make sure your child does not fall asleep in front of the television. And also make sure the TV is only on when someone is watching it. I have been to many homes, where the TV is on in the background from the time you wake up in the morning till the time you go to bed, even if no one is there. The danger with this is that it does not encourage listening skills and has been blamed for the increase in ADD and other behavioural difficulties. Children who are subjected to a lot of noise, learn to cut it out. And, be...

Our guest speaker at Speech Night last year was Bryony Rheam, an old girl of this school and in her own right, an author.  Her address on ‘Reading’ was so thought provoking that we have decided to reproduce the relevant sections in two parts in The Shrike’s Call.  The first of these follows : – “John and I worked in Zambia for seven years at two international schools.   They are run very differently to Zimbabwean schools and are marked by a general laxity in manners and demeanour and an attitude of ‘if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it.’  All this leads to, I’m afraid, is an atmosphere of boredom and apathy.  And, if the pupils are difficult to motivate, the parents are worse!  They can’t pick their children up after 3, they can’t help with play costumes and they feel that events like sports day should take place during school hours so they don’t have to give up a Saturday morning once a year. Personally,I’m tired of pandering to the ...

When I first began teaching fifteen years ago, the school where I worked was not particularly interested in special needs teaching or differentiating between students in a class.  I had a small group of boys that I would take for remedial lessons every week and that was the extent of the help given to them.  Some of these pupils had an educational psychologist's report and were deemed dyslexic, but not much notice was taken by the school - which is not to say that their conditions were ignored, they just weren't given much emphasis and no one was excused from doing anything because of their difficulty. Some educationalists take umbrage at this way of doing things.  The last twenty or so years have seen a considerable change in the way in which learning difficulties are viewed.  Students taking the University of Cambridge's examinations can apply to have a reader (someone who reads the questions out aloud) or a scribe (someone who writes the answers do...