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Paula Spencer Over the past eleven years, policy makers have developed a number of policies that relate to children’s mental health and well being in school; for example – Promoting Children’s Mental Health within Early Years and school Settings (Department for Education and Employment (DFEE 2001), Every Child Matters (DFES 2003) Children and Adolescent Mental […]

One morning during a recent visit to a primary 7 class I watched a young teacher go round the classroom correcting mental arithmetic homework. She leaned across to tick Andrew’s work when he tugged her sleeve, looked up into her face and asked “Miss would you know to look at my face that our daddy […]

Have you ever wondered what ‘beyond the pale’ means? The term pale came to mean the area enclosed by a fence and later just the figurative meaning of ‘the area that is enclosed and safe’. So, to be ‘beyond the pale’ was to be outside the area accepted as ‘home’. In 1791 in Russia Catherine […]

Adolescence has often been defined as a period within the life span when most of the person’s physical, psychological and social characteristics are in a state of transition from childhood to adulthood. This adolescence stage can be described as ‘Identity versus Identity Confusion’. While the adolescent’s sense of identity begins to emerge, he may suffer […]

Have we ever started an educational year with more uncertainty than in 2010? It is true that people who work in education are seasoned campaigners in coping with change and new initiatives but this year it feels worse than usual. One example was two articles recently published in the national media. One in the Times […]

NAPCE membership includes a myriad of members, including primary and secondary teachers, and some who have straddled both phases. I am one of the latter, and have found NAPCE good for the soul when attending conferences, and reading key literature in the past twenty years has enhanced my understanding of my role. I have recently […]