What does the future hold for poor kids in UK? By Morin Okenla

THE gap between the haves and have-nots in Britain is often clearest in the very place where the divide is supposed to be bridged: the nation’s schools. The lucky few whose parents can afford to educate them privately gain good exam results and sail into university. In the state-school system, meanwhile, standards are patchy, and comprehensive schools in the poorest areas tend to get the worst results. A new book by Katharine Birbalsingh (pictured), a teacher who rose to prominence after describing the failings of the state system at the Conservative Party conference in October, helps to explain why.


“To Miss With Love” is a lightly fictionalised account of Ms Birbalsingh’s experiences of teaching poor, urban children. It traces the erratic progress of pupils called Furious, Cavalier, Deranged, Stoic and Wholesome; they are steered by the teacher-narrator, Ms Snuffleupagus, whose colleagues hold dramatically different views on how to teach. “Snuffy” struggles, and mostly fails, to make her pupils realise that, once they have left school, they will have to compete for college places and jobs with luckier and better-qualified youngsters.

Ms Birbalsingh depicts what Michael Gove, the education secretary, likes to call “the soft bigotry of low expectations” (a phrase he borrowed). By choosing not to challenge poor children to behave better and work harder, she suggests, teachers condemn them to a bleak future. The evidence supports the view that failure is too readily tolerated. Almost half of all pupils leave school without passing five GCSEs, including English and maths, with acceptable grades. Yet inspectors judge most schools to be adequate: 89% of secondary schools visited last year were deemed satisfactory or better.

Teachers who criticise the comprehensive system are typically accused of undermining it. The fear is that middle-class parents who are alerted to the awfulness of their local school will opt out. There is some truth in that: rich urbanites tend to flee to the suburbs and beyond as their children approach school age. Ms Birbalsingh—whose family is Jamaican, and who was educated at a comprehensive school before going to Oxford—argues that concealing poor standards perpetuates them.

One of the reasons for the plight of the characters in her book is that their actions have few immediate consequences. Ms Birbalsingh did not get off so lightly: after her speech she was in effect suspended from her job. She later quit, and has struggled to find another post in the state sector; she is now planning to open a new state-funded “free school” in Lambeth. The school she left was already in trouble, having been judged unsatisfactory by inspectors. It has since proved terminally unpopular with parents and is due to close by 2013.

Source:
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=18284003

5 Ways to Lose Weight Faster by Morin Okenla

After reading a good deal of stories and following various tips from friends, I finally decided to create my own way to lose weight and I lost 20kg of weight over two years - here is what I did which can help anyone trying to lose weight:


1. Eat breakfast. Eating in the morning gets your digestive system active and ready to handle the food you eat throughout the rest of the day. Never skip a meal, it slows down your digestive system and causes your bowels to store up fat instead of using it up.




2. Never eat after 7pm. When you eat later at night, food tends to digest slowly and stay put in your stomach until daybreak when you become more active. This may make you belly get bigger.


3. Drink warm water regularly, especially when you think you are feeling hungry, drink a glass of water. Warm water makes it easier for your food to digest and also helps keep you full.


4. Exercise. Regular gently exercise such as jogging and sit ups is good for you. Exercise helps lower body fat, it makes you more mentally alert, it invigorates you, reduces the risks of hypertension, heart disease and helps get rid of depression. When you exercise, fat stored in your body is converted into energy, waste products such as urea and toxins are extracted through sweat, so your body looks trimmer, lean and you feel healthier.


5. Divide your meals times into four equal parts. Eat at regular intervals; say about two hours apart and roughly the same amount of food. Don’t wait to be hungry before you eat.


6. Dish out the amount of food you can eat onto your plate, and then divide it into four portions. You are allowed to eat just on portion at a time. The other portions can be put aside for the next three meal times.


7. Use a smaller plate to eat and pack it full of healthy food, like salads, mixed vegetables and protein. Eat the salads before the main meal to fill you up before you eat the main meal.


8. Eat more fibre such as bran flakes for breakfast, lots of vegetables – they will help slow down your rate of digestion and make you feel fuller for longer. Eating less sugar will also help you lose weight and stop you craving for more sugary food.


9. Cut out most types of oil, butter and margarine because they are high in calories. Eat olive oils instead and as little as possible of biscuits, cakes, cookies and processed food which are all packed full of fat.


10. Avoid all types of drink – beers, wine, soft drinks, juices, squashes and so on. Most drinks have large quantities of hidden sugar, high in calories which can be detrimental to losing weight.