I often hear people say that they are “terrible at maths”, but very rarely do I hear them say that they are not great at reading or writing. As teachers I believe that we have a responsibility to make maths relevant to kids, so that it sits alongside reading and writing as a basic skill. Statistically, 26% of children leave primary school after failing to reach the grade expected of them in maths. Why is this significant?
Well, Kip McGrath is holding a national competition to find out what students want to be when they grow up. The results so far show that very little has changed since I was in school; the majority of kids are still unsure about what they want to do with their lives....More...

2012 is the National Year of Reading in Australia. It is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the great English language writers, Charles Dickens. As I sat thinking about this interesting convergence, my gaze was naturally drawn to the wall of books that forms one side of our lounge room. I remembered by husband’s pride as he crafted this great bookshelf, capable of holding hundreds of volumes of literature and knowledge.
Staring at the bookshelf I had to ask myself a question...More...

I’m sorry that I haven’t blogged for a while. I’m back on track now so here goes…
Whilst listening to Radio National this morning I heard the line “60% of jobs that children will apply for in the future haven’t been invented yet.” I’ve been trying to get my head around this all day. Does this mean these jobs will be driven by a technology that doesn’t exist yet? Although, when I think about when I was at school in the dim and distant seventies and eighties, would my younger self have believed that one day people would make a living writing about whatever they wanted in a virtual world that didn’t include books and newspapers? Hmmm, probably not, my younger self may well have a straight-jacket behind her back as she listens politely to my mad older self!
I would love to hear your thoughts on what these future jobs might be. App Developers is certainly a job field that didn’t exist even 2 or 3 years ago. Z-gens now entering the workforce are likely to have business cards (if they still exist!) that will baffle those of us from the earlier alphabet years, even possibly the Y-gens that us X-gens are now so confused by. It’s all alphabet soup to me!
And on the subject of young working minds of the future, can we please ensure that along with the basic academic skills of reading, writing and numeracy, that they are also taught some social skills. I have experienced the two ends of the scale recently.  Two wonderful ladies (18 and 21) speaking at a recent 21st birthday party; you would think they spoke in front of hundreds of people on a daily basis. Calm, mature, funny and engaging, they completely disarmed me and everyone else. 
However, only a few days later I then met a young man of 19 who is hoping to work in a trade. Now, forgive me, bit along with the basic skills of the trade, is there not also a need to occasionally speak with customers? I am sure that this fellow is otherwise charming, and can no doubt Tweet, Facebook and text at the same time along with the rest of his generation, but I was fascinated by his apparent complete inability to open his mouth wide enough to actually let unrestricted sound emerge! “Mmmmmbhmmm” does not a conversation make!
Also on the radio today was a fantastic piece about unlocking creativity in children from an early age. This doesn’t mean turning them in to great artists, it just means enabling them to discover their curiosity and persistence.  Due to the Testing culture we now live in, many teachers feel the pressure to teach the curriculum and get those positive test results. I remember battling as a classroom teacher between delivering the outcomes of the curriculum and looking after the wellbeing of my students. Curiosity and persistence came in to many of my classes, including teaching some very challenging 9 year old boys to sew, make puppets, write a script and put on a puppet show for the junior school. This ticked off design tech, English and drama along with creating some amazing social skills whilst sewing! 
Another, being in a Catholic school, was teaching the kids about Passover by turning the story into a fitness circuit. Travelling between 2 cities was a jogging task, Jesus’ 12th birthday was 12 star jumps and Passover was, you guessed it, leapfrog (Get it? Passing over each other?).  Did I unlock creativity and persistence?   Well if nothing else, I engaged them so they wanted to learn more.
I think perhaps this is why I finally came out of the school education system as I was frustrated by the pressure to perform, taking away much of the creativity that I so desperately wanted to pass on to those kids. Thankfully, now that I my own boss, I can make a difference to my Kip kids, both academically and socially.
I promise not to be away so long next time. Please make time to enjoy the lovely sunshine that has finally returned and good luck with present shopping...More...

A short  blog this week but a ground breaking week for me in many ways...More...

Some people tell me that I am brave for taking the risk of starting a new business. Perhaps, but I think that life is full of risks, as it should be, and avoiding them kind of seems like...well...not living in a strange sort of way. So, when my husband and I started planning a trip to far North Queensland, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to conquer my lifelong fear of the briny deep, ie the Ocean and all that swims beneath her...More...

The past week has felt like a scene from the movie Julie & Julia as I suddenly found myself connected to like-minded people around the world responding to my blog. Blogging is quickly becoming addictive, partly because I get to see my words appear for the world to see, but more so because they appear to be striking a cord with so many people. Yay, I am not the only one that thinks educating children is an amazingly important job!...More...

I am told by head office that it is normal to start a new Kip McGrath centre with perhaps 1 or 2 children, so I was delighted to break the record and open with 15 aged between 5 and 15! After my first official week I can confirm that this business does provide all of the variety, challenges, laughs and rewards promised. More...

Nearly 3 months to the day after I completed my Kip McGrath training, and after an agonizingly long wait for my new premises to become available, I finally opened my doors this past Monday, and here I am blogging after surviving my first week!

And what a week! With very little marketing prior to opening (apart from networking everywhere possible!), in no time I had 16 sets of parents queuing up to have their children assessed! Naïve me, I assumed that the majority would take up the offer of a free assessment and walk away. But no, 100% of the parents enrolled their children, in some cases more than one child! More...