On Primary Matters,Because Primary Matters

The list of achievements of NSEAD is significant, but this paper suggests that the lack of primary membership, standing at 4% at the time of writing, is a loss to both the Society, and the primary sector. In order to meets its objects as written in the constitution, the Society needs to represent art, craft and design education in all sectors. The paper underlines the value of education in art and design in the primary sector, and suggests that misunderstandings that exist about the nature of and importance on the activity of young children, particularly in relation to play, are indeed misunderstandings and need to be addressed.     

Comparison of 1 and 2 days per week of strength training in children

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of 1 and 2 days per week of strength training on upper body strength, lower body strength, and motor performance ability in children. Twenty-one girls and 34 boys between the ages of 7.1 and 12.3 years volunteered to participate in this study. Participants strength trained either once per week (n = 22) or twice per week (n = 20) for 8 weeks at a community-based youth fitness center. Each training session consisted of a single set of 10-15 repetitions on 12 exercises using child-size weight machines. Thirteen children who did not strength train served as age-matched controls. One repetition maximum (1RM) strength on the chest press and leg press, handgrip strength, long jump, vertical jump, and flexibility were assessed at baseline and posttraining. Only participants who strength trained twice per week made significantly greater gains in 1RM chest press strength, compared to the control group (11.5 and 4.4% respectively, p < .05). Participants who trained once and twice per week made gains in 1RM leg press strength (14.2 and 24.7%, respectively) that were significantly greater than control group gains (2.4%). On average, participants who strength trained once per week achieved 67% of the 1RM strength gains. No significant differences between groups were observed on other outcome measures. These findings support the concept that muscular strength can be improved during the childhood years and favor a training frequency of twice per week for children participating in an introductory strength training program.     

ADHD,parent perspectives and parent–teacher relationships: grounds for conflict

Educational policy and the school effectiveness movement often involve rhetoric about the benefit of parent involvement in schools, but high‐quality relationships between parents and teachers are not always straightforwardly achieved, and this may be particularly true in the case of parents of children presenting with academic problems and/or social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. A systematic review of qualitative research was conducted to explore the school‐related experiences of parents of pupils diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Six studies reported in seven papers met the inclusion criteria. High‐quality parent–teacher relationships were found to be the exception, with mothers feeling silenced and criticised. Findings show commonalities with wider research about parents, but identify additional grounds for conflict resulting from parental blame for pupils' disruptive behaviour, and the ambivalent nature of the concept of ADHD.     

Can You Be a PESCaterian Among the Fort Worth Stockyards?

Yes you can, but you don’t have to eat only fish! All you have to do is follow the progress of the Protocol for Exchanging Serial Content (PESC) Working Group. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) charged this group with delivering a recommended practice that will improve the interactions among libraries, archives, indexing services, content aggregators, publishers, and content creators, all needing to exchange serial data and work with digital files of serials. It will help them process a wide range of files that may be text based, image based, text with images, or some other combination, coded in a variety of file formats such as XML, EPUB, HTML, PDF, or ONIX. Laurie Kaplan discussed the PESC Working Group’s approach to this challenge.