Become a foster carer
This year around 24,000 young people aged from babies to teens will be living in out-of-home care due to a range of domestic issues. As a result, foster carers are urgently needed and Fostering NSW is calling on caring and stable people to help care for a young person in their home. Foster carers play a vital role and by giving these children safe and caring homes, either short or long-term, help to change their lives for the better. If you would like to know more about becoming a foster carer, call 1800 236 783 or visit www.fosteringnsw.com.au/.
Schools A to Z
The latest release of a website for students and parents can be found at the Department of Education's Parents and carers section.
Tweens
If you're familiar with ripsticks, Sims, Wii, know your child's bestie and have chosen either team Jacob or team Edward, then your little prince or princess has probably grown into a "tweenager".
Tweens are aged from 9-14 years. They are in the middle years — no longer children and not yet teenagers but somewhere between, hence the term "tweens" or "tweenagers".
During these years there is a rush of hormones, peers become more important and tweens become more independent. They move to high school, maybe get their first girlfriend, boyfriend or job, and risk falling victim to advertisers, acne and bullying.
Until recently the early childhood and teenage years had taken the limelight with researchers, governments, and even parents focusing on these critical times. It now appears that the tween years have the potential to be a turning point in young people's lives for better or worse— a time of great opportunity, but also a time of great vulnerability, and more!
Study techniques
From late-nighter to highlighter — help for high school study
Once our kids hit high school, most of us are at a bit of a loss to know exactly how to help them with their study and revision. The truth is that kids need to learn to learn. Their school will help them to learn these skills along the way, but it is good to know a bit about how you can help by knowing your child's learning style and supporting them to use the best study approaches to help them.
If you want to help your high schooler study, prepare to have your house covered with flashcards, coloured highlighters, sticky notes, lists, mind maps, diagrams and mnemonic rhymes — it's all good stuff!
Jennifer Weal, deputy principal of Cherrybrook Technology High School, says students need to be taught what revision is and how to do it. She herself has taught many of her students how to be successful studiers. She believes it's essential they establish effective study habits from the beginning.
In teaching study skills, we are trying to teach students to:
- know how to learn(so that they can think or inquire for themselves)
- learn to plan and manage time and tasks (this is an essential lifelong skill)
- make study part of a balanced program of work, exercise and play.
Girl power - saying no to peer pressure
Your daughter's school friends are her closest confidants and her meanest critics. Experts on teen girl angst, Dannielle Miller and Michael Carr-Gregg, share their wisdom on taking the heat out of peer pressure.
Find out where your daughter gets her messages from Girls place far more pressure on themselves than they receive from their peers, says Dannielle Miller, author of The Butterfly Effect. Their friends will comment on body image and shape, sexuality and whether she is perceived by the peer group as being beautiful. This adds to the "inner angst" a teenager may be dealing with, says Dannielle. "Peer-girl pressuring is a reflection of the pressure that's placed on girls more broadly within society," she says.
Girls are not only meant to be beautiful, popular, smart and successful, there is also pressure on them to act like "Paris Hilton-type wannabes", she says.
Ask your daughter to think about the media and broader social influences and whether they're the types of messages she really identifies with. Quite often you will find that they're not.
Education Tax Refund
This information was provided to the P&C by Sophie Morgan, Office of Hon Robert McClelland MP, Member for Barton, Attorney-General.
All the relevant information can be found at the Australian Taxation Office website.
This link is relating specifically to how much you can claim.
Neither school fees or donations to schools or associated bodies are tax deductible.