Q&A

Q: I've just gone through one long summer of organising summer courses for my two children. Although I have very good help in the home, I was afraid they would be bored. It has been an expensive time as well and I wonder are they any better off in the end?

Working parent

There is no doubt but there are restrictions on the freedom of today's children to play in an unstructured way, with free-ranging activities away from adult supervision.

Children need this space in the outdoors away from adults with nature acting as prompter for imaginative play. They need some time on their own.

They don't need the continuous string of frenzied activity which they experience during term time. They need a break to mess around in a stream, curl up and read a book, doodle or dawdle, have time to be alone, time to think, be creative, improvise for themselves.

If, as you say, you have good home help, you should use that help to provide your children with the opportunity to get to the sea, woods, parks and give them space to play creatively but still under supervision by a reliable adult. Once they have a bit of time to think and discover for themselves what interests them, I would have no problem sending them off to language classes, cookery classes, sailing, drawing etc. But having these back-to-back with the school terms is surely destroying the opportunity for creative play. You, as a parent, would enjoy seeing what your children can achieve by improvising and extending their activities.

Q: Just recently, I have encountered a new experience for me - a child in my class whose father is in prison. What is the best way to handle this situation?

Young Clare teacher

Many schools do not have any recognised procedure for supporting the children of a prisoner. Yet the child may be bullied or become the subject of gossip among other children.

As we all know, children can be very cruel. There may be name-calling and other cruelties. Sometimes it seems that the child may even be more punished than the offender.

At least you know the child's parent is in prison and can understand why, but this reason why can be difficult for a child to understand.

This child needs great support and understanding and, even though he/she may seem to be getting along fairly well, the trauma could emerge later. The child may think people are talking about him/her and not looking after his/her welfare as regards teasing, gossip, name-calling etc.

If you explain that you understand, and will be there to support and help with work and feelings and any little problems about book money, lunches, school trips etc, then you will be providing what is needed most - emotional security. At least this child has been in your school for some years and you know the circumstances.

It would also help it you talk to your pupil's mother and get a feeling for the home situation. Is there a home school liaison teacher/ officer who could help?

It's much more difficult if a child comes into a new school. Parents often decide to change school in these circumstances and nobody realises why this child has really been moved from another area.

You need to know and understand why. If the child is still being upset by other children, you may have to approach this very frankly with the other families and children.

The child may become withdrawn and disruptive because life has changed for the worse. If you can explain that this is not the child's fault but the result of a crime, he/she may begin to accept that. The child may feel worse after prison visits or when the mother is feeling down.

If he/she can just talk to you and you can show that you understand, it will be an enormous relief and help. You could then help to make decisions that affect the child's life - who else in school should be told about the situation; who could help the child to understand better; what younger brother and sisters need to know.

The London-based Save the Children group has published a teacher's pack called Working with Children of Prisoners which is available at £7.50 stg. Details from Save the Children Publications - phone 0044 171 7035400.

Q: I'm just into the first year of a four-year degree course and we've been told that some of the final years will be helping us for certain parts of the course for this term. Is this right? Will they be qualified enough to do this?

Dublin student

This type of peer-assisted learning is quite widespread in the United States where undergraduates help first years with specific problem-solving classes as well as schemes where postgraduates teach undergraduates.

This is being tried in some British colleges. For instance, at the philosophy department of Leeds University first years have a tutor-less tutorial conducted by a second- or third-year student (proctorial) followed by a regular tutorial by a post-graduate student and a lecture by a staff member.

It helps students to think for themselves and depend on themselves to come up with answers. However, these second- and third-year students are trained specifically for this scheme to help them run the proctorial properly and not to teach in the traditional sense.

Imperial College, London, goes further by not alone sending students on on-the job training courses but also by providing a teaching supervisor for them - probably more than is being done for university teaching staff generally.

Undergraduate mentoring is also being used in American colleges such as the University of Missouri - Kansas City. This is now being tried out in more than 25 British universities.

While it's quite common for post-graduate students to give tutorials in Ireland, final-year students would not normally be involved in this way.

You say the final-year students will be helping for specific parts of the course. Why don't you wait and see what exactly will be done at these sessions? I'm sure they are not replacing lectures but are supplementing them. If there is any difficulty, appoint a class representative, go to the lecturer involved and failing that go to the dean of the faculty.

Queries can be answered only through this column and not by phone or post. Write to Sile Sheehy, Education & Living, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 - or by email to education@irish-times.ie