March 2004

This month in the newsletter we pick up on last month's piece on fatty acids and brain function, provide a detailed case study of a school's community developments, provide news of the first ever on-line psychology of soccer course and our usual round up of news and events. Alite Ltd are seeking to employ a full-time Operations Manager. Details are provided below. Perhaps you know someone who would like to join us?

Omega 3 fatty acids

Your mother always said that eating more fish would make you more brainy. Is there any possible truth in this?

In a scientific study on more than 100 children - selected on the basis that they were not fulfilling their potential - from 12 Durham schools, children were required to take a course of capsules with their meals for the duration of six months. The capsules given to children in the trial contained oils high in Omega 3 fats, which are found naturally in oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines and in some plant crops such as rape seed. The children were subjected to regular tests to measure their co-ordination, concentration and academic ability.

Omega 3 fatty acids are known to help prevent heart disease and they can improve the condition of some patients with depression and bipolar disorder. But their effects on brainpower have not been investigated in the same depth.

The Durham trial was conducted by Dr Alex Richardson, of the University of Oxford and Madeleine Portwood, an educational psychologist for Durham LEA.

The results have not yet been published, but they are expected to show a statistically significant improvement in school performance in the group of children given Omega 3 supplements: according to Portwood, about 40% of children showed some clear improvement.

Richardson believes that conditions such as dyspraxia ¿ characterised by poor physical co-ordination ¿ dyslexia and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) form a spectrum of associated conditions with some of the same underlying causes.

ñClinically, there is about 50% overlap between dyspraxia and dyslexia,î says Richardson, ñand both show a similar overlap with ADHD.î

The Omega 3 fatty acid used in the Durham trial was Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). It may play an equally crucial role in brain function. EPA is found only at very low levels in the cell membranes; it seems to have a functional, rather than a structural role. EPA helps the body manufacture important substances which help improve blood flow around the body. They also seem to have controlling effects on hormones and the immune system, both of which are known to affect brain function.

Western diets contain very little Omega 3 fatty acid. Hydrogenation, the process used to give foods a long shelf life, removes them. But certain people may break down Omega 3 fatty acids faster than others. Some of the children who showed greatest improvement in the Durham trial might fall into this category.

But some quarters of the medical research community are deeply sceptical about the usefulness of so-called complementary therapies - the category of treatment in which fish oil supplements are often lumped.

Professor Richard Olson, a developmental psychologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder and an expert on the treatment of dyslexia, urged caution over a ïquick fix' syndrome towards the treatment of learning disorders.

ñI hope they're right. I'm just sceptical of easy answers because there have been various schemes in the past and parents [with dyslexic children] go out and spend a lot of money on them. For many children with dyslexia, improvement can only be achieved with a lot of hard work,î says Olson. .

Curriculum enrichment and the community

In this article, Mairi McLeod, Community Teacher at Beavers Community Primary School , Hounslow, describes their extended curriculum and approach to accelerated learning:

Children at Beavers are engaged in an extended curriculum where they are given the opportunity to further explore their areas of interest. Many of these pupils are attending the classes in their own time and there have been requests for more. Children are becoming self motivated and some are leading clubs in their own specialist areas. This wider curriculum approach is not only available for the pupils, there is an extensive community programme in place offering a wide range of Adult Education and family learning courses for parents and the wider community.

We are applying the lessons of Accelerated and brain-based learning which describe the conditions that are essential for the brain to function well. School has to be a fun place with lots of opportunity for our learners to laugh (this releases endorphins which promotes a feeling of wellbeing and triggers memory responses). There must be scope to relax for both teachers and learners. Children must be leaders in their own right and feel confident and secure to express their own opinions and develop and extend their thinking abilities. As part of the Community Teacher role we have presented INSET on Accelerated Learning to all teaching staff and created a file of ideas for all classes.

This innovative approach to learning greatly enhances self-esteem of both parents and children. It results in co-operative team work at all levels and raises pupil attainment. Parents are engaged in the learning process and are more able to support the school ethos.

The school recently achieved the Healthy Schools award and the Basic Skills kite mark for numeracy and literacy. We provide a Breakfast club for targetted families and an After School Hours scheme for up to 40 children. Brain Breaks are now being used in all classes.

The following initiatives are some which are currently being provided via the community programme:

•  Volunteer reading mentors from industry working with individual children.

•  Regular input from peer tutors from Secondary schools

•  Peer tutors from Brentford School for Girls

•  Creative Mentoring project with professional artists coming in to work with small groups of identified children to create a living piece of art work in different parts of the school.

•  Out of school hours learning programme: Lunch time and after school football club for junior children and pop dance group for junior girls. 100+ attendance.

•  Family Learning initiatives - Successful termly Family Literacy and Numeracy workshops aimed at Reception and Year One families.

•  Parent talks on the importance of making learning fun ¿ aimed at Reception and Nursery parents. (50+ attended)

•  After School Hours Family Learning: Digital Fun, Enamel Zoo, Keyboarding skills.

•  Feltham FC have provided extremely successful demonstration sessions for Reception, Year One and Two on ball skills.

•  Pre School Youth Music project.

•  Demonstration Gym and Dance sessions have taken place with a Russian trained Gymnast and Ballet coach.

•  Adult Education Programme has been established in conjunction with Adult Education and Sure Start. A minimum of nine classes take place per week including EAL, ICT, Keep-Fit, Holistic Therapy and Childcare.

•  Placements are offered for students attending classroom assistants and NVQ courses.

•  Crèche provision linked to all courses.

•  Parent and Toddler group offered once a week.

•  Key Community is sue s are being addressed via the Beavers Estate Action Group which it is anticipated will gain trust status in order to sustain key community initiatives.

•  Links with the police have extended to include curriculum input and offer of unclaimed bicycles to use as fundraising for PTA.

•  Mobile Library bus is now on site once a week to allow access to all children. Each child will have own library ticket connected to school and will not accrue fines.

•  ICT after school club has been set up with the Feltham CLC tutor.

•  All children to be given personal profile portfolios to record own achievements.

•  35 children will participate in the Kathakali dance workshops and attend a performance in the Treaty center.

•  Individual children attend music tuition in piano, wind instruments and the organ.

The school is moving toward becoming the first ñfull service extended primary school,î in the Borough. We have been successful in accessing funding to build a children's centre on site to accommodate 26 pre school placements. This will be wraparound care. We also anticipate receiving an award from the Football Foundation to build a Sports Pavilion and the Community Teacher and Head Teacher have been working extensively on this bid.

We hope to include a fitness suite, ICT room, conferencing facilities, a seminar room and café in this state of the art building. This will be accessible to the wider community in a move to tackle the many social is sue s prevalent in the community e.g. drug misuse, teenage pregnancy, obesity, racism, unemployment and violence.

Evidence shows through observations, pupil evaluations, parent, staff, mentor and volunteer feedback that this accelerated learning approach impacts greatly on raising attainment.

What can a Headteacher do to raise achievement amongst African Caribbean pupils?

Underachievement amongst African Caribbean school leavers has been well documented. From being well above average up to the end of Key Stage 1 the average performance of pupils, particularly boys, from Key Stage 2 until GCSE declines progressively until their results are 18 percent below the national average. So what can be done to address this waste of skill and human potential? What tools can headteachers use to curb this decline and why has Birmingham begun to see a reversal of this trend?

Gilroy Brown has worked in education for almost 30 years, including 10 years as a head teacher in a multi-cultural inner city primary school. He is now a full-time School Advisor working for the Birmingham Advisory and Support Service as part of their Primary Leadership and Management team. For his case study presentation at Alite 2004 he will share some tools to tackle the difficult subject of racism in education, underachievement of African Caribbean pupils and the positive measures which have been so successfully pioneered in Birmingham.

Gilroy is not pretending to offer a simple solution. ñThe most important contribution I can make is to bring the truth of the situation out into the open and to offer educationalists the tools for them to deal with their individual situations.î Peer pressure, cultural differences between teachers and pupils, a lack of mutual understanding and institutionalised racism are all quoted as contributing is sue s.

In 1998, Birmingham education authority asked Gilroy to manage an ongoing initiative to examine those primary schools that seemed to be bucking the trend and producing high achievers amongst their African Caribbean pupils. The Raising African Caribbean Achievement (RACA) 1 programme examined these schools and built upon their findings. The team has recently finished RACA (2), which has examined the factors that affect the progress, achievement and attitudes of African Caribbean pupils in Key Stage 3. The studies made profound observations ranging from the way pupil behaviour was interpreted, to uncertainty about the boundaries within which a teacher could operate.

Gilroy's is one of the 16 case studies featured at this year's conference, Alite 2004, at the Café Royal, London on 25 th June. In addition to the inspiring case studies, the keynote speakers include Alistair Smith , Lady Marie Stubbs and the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

To register for the conference, please click here