The art of noticing

Research carried out by the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre shows a clear link between emotional wellbeing and educational attainment.  You'd expect this to be the case and to be frank hope it to be true too.  Nobody wants to live in a world where success is underpinned by unhappiness.

However dig into the report a little and it unearths some interesting findings - such as. . .

"Children with SEN who engage in awkward behaviour (e.g., blame others for
mistakes, throw tantrums) make greater academic progress from Key Stage 1 to
Key Stage 2 than children who do not engage in awkward behaviour."

In other words if things are stacked against you the best policy is not to comply; you may risk becoming invisible. 

Does this mean the 'Class clown' has the last laugh?  Well perhaps, but only if we give such bland reward to compliance as defining children as 'Middle Ground child' or 'always' children.  True there is only one cake to go around but these findings challenge educators to find more effective ways of giving really rewarding attention to the children in  the middle of the bell curve.