This new addition to our NSPCC EduCare range of child protection programmes covers the damaging issue of child neglect. Its launch coincides with an important report* that states that neglect corrodes childhoods, robbing the most vulnerable children of hope, happiness and life chances.

Neglect is the most common reason for a child to be the subject of a child protection plan or on a child protection register in the UK. Almost 1 in 10 young adults had been severely neglected by their parents or guardians during childhood, so it’s vitally important that your staff are fully aware of neglect as a child protection issue.

NSPCC Child Neglect is a fully certificated distance learning programme, available in paper and online. It explores the meaning of neglect, the possible causes and the potential effects it can have on children and young people, as well as how you can play your part in safeguarding them.

Find out more

*Review of Child Neglect 2011, Action for Children

Today, Monday 23 January 2012, is the start of the Chinese New Year, so how is it celebrated and what are its traditions?

Over a sixth of the world’s population mark Chinese New Year, the main Chinese festival which lasts for fifteen days. It’s not a religious event, but rather a time when families join together to celebrate. 

The Chinese use the Lunar calendar which works on a cycle of twelve years, each being named after an animal. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, the only mythical creature to feature and reputedly, the luckiest of all.

Most Chinese people sweep out any ill fortune from the previous year by thoroughly cleaning their houses and then festooning them with lights and red and gold decorations. Gold is the colour of wealth and red the colour of good luck. Red has the added bonus of scaring off the beast Nian who, according to tradition,  comes on the first day of the New Year to eat livestock, crops and especially children. Disaster can be averted by putting food outside the door for it and setting off firecrackers to frighten it away.

Red envelopes containing money are commonly given to children and teenagers, and businesses also give employees bonuses in red envelopes to symbolize wealth and good luck.

The Chinese often mark the New Year with a new haircut, clothes and/or shoes to act as a reminder that it’s a time to forget old grudges and start anew with heartfelt best wishes for everyone. And so say all of us – may the Chinese New Year bring you luck, prosperity and very good health.

The answer is tradition and it goes all the way back to 153B.C. when Janus, a Roman god started the calendar year.

Janus was the god of beginnings and transitions and therefore, also the guardian of entrances and doorways. He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back so that he could look forwards and backwards at the same time.

On the last day of the year, the Romans imagined Janus looking back on the old year and forward to the new. It became a symbolic time to make promises for the new year and to forgive enemies for troubles in the old year. The Romans believed Janus could also forgive them for any ill doings committed in the past year and so they would offer gifts to each other (often olive branches from sacred trees or coins bearing the image of Janus himself), believing Janus would see this and give them good fortune in the year ahead.

May this New Year bring you luck, prosperity and very good health…and don’t feel too bad if you don’t manage to keep your resolutions.

Now that our Advent calendars are nearly empty, have you ever wondered how they came about?

Advent calendars date back to Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century when different ways of counting down the days to Christmas were used. Religious families drew chalk lines on their doors, one for each day, lit a candle or hung up religious pictures. But it is believed that the very first handmade Advent calendar was made in 1851.

Historians argue about the date of the first printed calendar, but many believe it was created by a man called Gerhard Lang who lived in Munich in 1908. As a child, his mother attached sweets to a piece of cardboard for him to take off each December day. When he grew up he became a printer and his printing company (Reichhold & Lang) produced 24 coloured pictures which could be fixed onto a piece of cardboard.

During World War II, calendar production ceased because cardboard was rationed, but it was resumed in 1946 by a German family-run business, Richard Sellmer Verlag (who still produce them). The chocolately ones that children love were first produced in 1958. As this is the last ‘Random Subject’ for 2011, EduCare wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

All around the world, Saturday 10th December 2011 is celebrated as Human Rights Day; a day when we remember the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 63 years ago.

The United Nations came into being in 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, with a stated purpose of bringing peace to all nations of the world. A committee headed by Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, wrote a document which ‘declares’ the rights that everyone in the entire world should have. They called it the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 and it consists of a preamble and 30 articles which set out a broad range of fundamental human rights and freedoms to which all men and women, everywhere in the world are entitled, without any distinction.

The document has been translated into over 380 languages and dialects, making it the most translated document in the world and earning it a place in the Guinness World Records. Today, there are 192 member states of the United Nations, all of whom have signed that they will uphold the Declaration.

This year in particular, has been a powerful one for human rights with people protesting against rights violations across the world.  To mark the 2011 anniversary, the United Nations has recognised the “transforming power of social media which has enabled ordinary people to become human rights activists.” It is encouraging everyone to pay tribute to all human rights defenders, everywhere.

What about children and young people?

Children were recognised as rights holders in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but by virtue of their physical and mental immaturity, it was deemed that they needed special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty that was agreed by the United Nations in 1989. It gives children and young people all over the world over 40 major rights. These include the right to a family life, the right to be protected from all sorts of violence, the right to be healthy, the right to have a say and be taken seriously, and the right to have an education that helps them to grow as a person. There are extra rights for children living in very difficult circumstances, including children in trouble with the law, and refugee and asylum-seeking children.

The UK Government signed up to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991 which means it has to do everything possible to put the rights into practice for children in the UK and their performance is monitored.

Schools are, of course, in a prime position to ensure that children’s rights are upheld and promoted and that is why EduCare has teamed up with the NSPCC and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England to produce a four module distance learning programme all about children’s rights and what your organisation can do to promote and protect them.

The programme is available in paper-based or online learning formats starting from £28.50 + VAT. For more information on the programme, please click here.

Alternatively if you subscribe annually to EduCare for Education, an online learning service that keeps your school up-to-date with important and essential duty of care issues, it is included as one of the 14 duty of care learning programmes. For further information or a free trial, please click  here.

As it was BBC Children in Need day recently and that little bear Pudsey fronts it, we wondered how the teddy bear got its name in the first place.

It all began in November 1902 when the American President Theodore Roosevelt (also known as Teddy) went to Mississippi to settle a border dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana. Whilst there he went on a hunting trip and everyone bagged something – except for the President.

The other members of the hunting party found a black bear which, some say, was injured. They tied it to a tree so the President could shoot it, but Roosevelt thought it unsportsmanlike and refused.

The next day, a political cartoonist Clifford Berryman drew a cartoon showing the President refusing to hurt the bear with the caption ‘Drawing the line in Mississippi’ (a double entendre referring to the border dispute and the bear). The cartoon caused a stir and a New York shopkeeper, Morris Michtom, asked his wife to make two stuffed bears for his shop window. People loved them and so Michtom wrote to the President to ask for his permission to call the bears ‘Teddy’s Bear’.

He said ‘yes’ and so the teddy bear was born. All say aah…

We got to wondering how the days of the week got their names. Let’s face it, we run our lives by them – they dictate what we do and when we do it. They can be a source of pleasure or outright panic if there’s a deadline or a dreaded event on the horizon.

Here’s a quick run down:

The word Sunday comes from the Latin ‘dies Solis’ meaning ‘sun’s day’.

Monday is derived from the Anglo- Saxon word ‘monandaeg’, meaning ‘day of the moon’, a translation of the Latin ‘dies lunae’.

When the Romans were in Britain, they named Tuesday after their god of war, Mars. When they left, the Anglo-Saxon Britons upheld the tradition, but named it after their own god of war – Tiw or ‘Tuesday’.

Wednesday is named after Woden, the carrier-off of the dead. The Norse called him Odin.

Thursday was named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder (and son of Odin).

Friday is the Anglo-Saxon ‘frigedaeg’. Frigg’ was the Germanic goddess of beauty and ‘daeg’ is Anglo-Saxon for ‘day’.

Saturday is named after the Roman god of planting and harvest, Saturn.

And weekend means the end of the week. Enjoy!

Bullying in any form in completely unacceptable, but there is one form of bullying that is on the rise and giving cause for particular concern. It’s called cyberbullying and it has been made possible by developments in information and communication technology. It is an indirect form of bullying via mobile phones and the internet and it follows the bullied into their homes so they have nowhere they can feel private or safe. They may not know who is responsible, and cannot easily defend themselves. It can take place at any time and the cyberbullies can, very quickly, communicate their messages to a wide and unknown audience across the world.

Cyberbullies believe they can’t be traced, and therefore do things they might be afraid to do more directly. They may also direct their bullying against adults for example, by making malicious accusations against school staff.

Here are some examples:

• text messages that are threatening or spread discomforting rumours

• still images and video clips captured on and circulated by mobile phone to cause embarrassment to the subject, who may not even be aware they have been photographed or filmed – this includes “happy slapping”: videoed physical attacks

• threatening emails, often using a fictitious name or someone else’s name

• anonymous, silent calls or abusive messages to mobile phones – sometimes the bullied person’s phone is stolen and used to harass others, who then think the owner of the phone is responsible

• using instant messaging to convey threats or insults in real-time conversations

• defamatory messages broadcast on websites, blogs and personal or social networking websites

• menacing or upsetting responses in chat rooms.

Here is some guidance on how to generate awareness of cyberbullying and ensure that children and young people realise how very damaging it is:

Communicate to children and young people by devising a lesson about this form of bullying -

• Include lots of video links that show how deeply children and young people can be affected by it.

• Have a ‘tell a teacher’ policy so that children feel they are not suffering alone

• Ask children and young people to show any nasty messages they receive to their parents or a teacher and tell them never to respond to an abusive message or text – what the bully wants most is a reply.

• Teach children about the consequences of their actions and what they can do about the actions of people they know; they need to understand that silence, when others are being hurt, is totally unacceptable

• Teach them about how to report bullying using the reporting mechanisms on social networking sites and chat rooms etc.

You could also communicate to the whole school, for example, make cyberbullying the subject of a whole school or year group assembly.

Communicate to parents and carers –

Perhaps write an article for your school newsletter to tell parents/carers about the dangers of cyberbullying and how they can be on the look out for it. Ask them to be aware of their child’s internet activity and tell them to use the newsletter article as a way to start a conversation with their child about the dangers of cyberbullying. Make it clear to parents/carers that they should report bullying to the school if they believe any other pupils at the school are involved.

Put the article on your school website, along with your school anti-bullying policy which will detail the measures in place to tackle all bullying, including cyberbullying.

There is an extensive range of information, as well as tools and tips for children and young people of all ages on the website of the ‘Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre’ at: http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk Use the link to encourage parents/carers to take a look at how they can educate their children to stay safe online. Better still, encourage parents/carers and children to look at it together.

For teachers, support staff and all adults in your school –

The EduCare for Education online learning service includes an NSPCC EduCare programme on Preventing Bullying Behaviour. For more information, please visit: http://www.educare.co.uk/education

[Cue spooky noise] Whooo… read no further if you’re easily unnerved  because today we mark Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints’ Day. But what are its origins?

The festival has been celebrated in Britain for centuries as Samhain (pronounced sow-in) and has its origins in ancient pagan Celtic traditions. They believed (and some still do) that it was the time of year when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is at its thinnest, meaning that spirits of the dead could easily wander the earth to mingle amongst us.

And the pumpkins? An Irish folk tale tells of Jack, a stingy farmer who trapped the Devil up a tree and only released him when he promised not to take his soul when he died. When Jack did eventually pop off, he had been so very bad during his life that whilst he couldn’t go to hell, he couldn’t get into heaven either and was condemned to an eternity of wandering the darkness between heaven and hell with just an ember in a hollowed out turnip as his only means of light. If you’ve ever tried carving a turnip, you’ll know it’s nigh on impossible, so pumpkins are used today to show evil Jack’s face – hence the term Jack-o’-Lantern.

Good luck with that apple bobbing later on…

This week Sydney Opera House celebrates its 38th birthday.

But who would have thought that such an iconic building would have been the result of a competition, and even then the winning design nearly didn’t make it.

In 1956, the New South Wales Premier announced an international competition for the design of an opera house for Sydney and 200 entries were received. Apparently, there were four judges but one was late and turned up after the other three had started their evaluations. The judge who was late flicked through the ‘rejected’ pile and saw Jørn Utzon’s entry lying there and declared it to be ‘outstanding’.

This beautiful building has been formally recognised as one of the most extraordinary places on Earth with its inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Their expert committee report said: “Sydney Opera House stands by itself as one of the indisputable masterpieces of human creativity, not only in the 20th century but in the history of humankind.”

Fellow architect, Louis Kahn said of it: “The light didn’t know how beautiful it was, until it was reflected off this building.”

Born in Copenhagen in 1918, Jørn Utzon died peacefully in his sleep in 2008.