In walks The Well Planned Day: A Family Homeschool Planner. Goodbye day planner, grocery lists, lessons planners, and family planners. Why? The Well Planned Day puts all of it under one binder or one digital product. I prefer the hard copy since I am still someone who loves to scrawl notes on sticky notes. At least this time the sticky notes are in the section they belong. I love that this planner is exactly what it claims: A Family Homeschool Planner. Everything you need to organize your home and your school is found in this planner. The planner is set up for four children which fits me perfectly since I have four children.

I have searched for a long time to find something I could keep all notes and planning. I grew tired of having to look through a few different planners just to organize my day. I was first introduced to this planner by a friend. I remember catching a glimpse of her planner while at the art museum and I will confess I grew a bit envious. I love the planner so much I almost hate to write in it since it is so beautiful. As my first year putting the planner to active use I am very excited and love planning out the year of lessons. Each month there is a lovely homeschool article to inspire you as well!

Here are Some Amazing Features:

Spiral Bound with Three Hole Drilled to Fit into Binders

Full Year Planner: July 2011 – June 2012

Home Management with weekly cleaning schedule, monthly projects, greeting card registry, and monthly budgeting.

Holiday Organization Section: Greeting card registry, activities and event schedules, gift giving, around town shopping, and internet shopping. Organize and plan for up to 4 children in one convenient book.

Weekly Schedule: Organize your week with class assignments, weekly priorities, prayer requests, dinner menu, and notes.

Month at a Glance: Plan field trips, enrichment activities and books to read

Semester Attendance & Progress Reports

Perforated Report Cards

Menu Planning: Plan weekly meals and shop with perforated shopping lists.

Family Worship: Read through the Bible in a year.

 MONTGOMERY — Retiring state school Superintendent Joe Morton today unveiled a comprehensive plan aimed at teaching Alabama students literacy skills necessary to graduate from college or at least be “job-ready.”

The 62-page “Action Plan for Literacy: Birth Through Grade 12,” compiled by nearly two dozen educators, legislators and consultants from around the state, outlines how the state Department of Education, teachers, parents and the community can accomplish the plan’s goals.

The plan outlines five stages of literacy development and suggests ways family members can help children at each stage.

“The theory is that the gateway to all learning is literacy,” said Morton. “If young people can’t read and read well, they’ll be behind forever.”

Morton said the plan is based on national research conducted by more than 20 federal agencies, universities and education specialists in the field of literacy.

The plan assumes, Morton said, that tackling literacy is a bigger task than the state Department of Education or the Board of Education could undertake alone.

“We don’t get kids until they’re five years old and we only have them 6 1/2 hours a day,” he said. “The idea is to take it out to the community and to build the model, and engage civic clubs, churches, private daycares, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings.”
Morton said he’s hopeful the plan can start being enacted this fall.

Board member Mary Scott Hunter of Huntsville said she admires the plan, but also sees the need for a mathematics component.

“I think it’s a great plan and I think it’s right in line with the work we’ve done on the reading initiative we’ve done so far,” she said.

But, she said, “we need to have this same emphasis in math because math is the language for all the sciences.”

Randy McKinney of Gulf Shores, vice president of the board, said the plan can work if parents and community agencies buy into it. But McKinney said the board is unable to adopt policies that force parents to participate in their child’s development.

Over the past 10 years, the state has made progress in literacy, partially because of the Alabama Reading Initiative, started in 1998, and the 2003 federal No Child Left Behind law.
In 2007, fourth grade students in Alabama made more gains in reading than any other state ever, but even with those historic gains, the state still remains below the national average.

From 2004-08, about 90 Alabama schools with the highest rates of poverty and school failure were eligible to participate in the Alabama Reading First Program. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, an untimed intelligence test that measures vocabulary and provides a quick estimate of scholastic aptitude, was given to entering kindergarten students in those schools.

“Most of these incoming students scored in at-risk category for vocabulary skills with many entering kindergarten with the vocabulary of a three-year-old,” the report said. “It is difficult to make up that language disadvantage.”

One of the report’s finding was that the variation in children’s IQ is relative to the amount of time that parents speak to their children. A child’s academic success at ages 9 and 10 can be attributed to the amount of talk he or she hears from birth to age 3.

St. Bernard School is named for Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a French abbot who lived from 1090 to 1153. It is a Catholic elementary school located in Brooklyn and follows the curriculum set down by New York State.

Classes studied at St. Bernard School include:

• Religion
• Math
• English/Language Arts
• Social Studies
• Science
• Computer/Technology
• Art
• Physical Education
• Music
• Spanish
• Library Science

St. Bernard School is run by the Catholic parish of the same name. Students can participate in the liturgies, the childrens choir, and serve as altar servers. There is also a scouting program at the school and a sports league.

Programs in addition to the basic curriculum include Aquinas Club, Yearbook, Drama Club, Rosary Club, American Girl Club, Anime Club, Model Building Club, Salsa Dance Club, Art Club, Reading Club, Community Service, Art Studio, Technology Studio, Music Studio, and there are plenty more as well.

St. Bernard School opened its doors in 1964. Initially, boys and girls were in separate classes, but since opening the school have moved to co-ed classrooms.

Facilities include a computer lab, a library, a state-of-the-art science lab, and an auditorium/gymnasium. St. Bernard School also utilizes SMARTboards in the classroom.

An English “Ivy League” consisting of just a handful of leading universities could develop as a result of Government plans to shake-up higher education, figures suggest. Just 12 top universities take more bright students than the remainding 145 combined. 

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

6:33PM BST 13 Jul 2011

Data published for the first time shows that more than half of students with the best A-level grades are currentl;y concentrated in just 12 elite institutions.

Some 26,121 out of 50,712 students who gained at least two As and a B took up places at a dozen of the country’s top universities, including Manchester, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge and Nottingham.

The remainder of bright students living in the UK are shared between some 145 other universities, further education colleges and specialist art and music institutions, according to data published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

The disclosure underlines the extent to which a small number of elite institutions dominate higher education in England.

It also suggests these universities will be best placed to expand even further as part of Government plans to allow institutions to admit unlimited numbers of the brightest undergraduates.

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Under the current system, universities have their total numbers of students capped by Government.

But proposals set out in last month’s Higher Education White Paper will allow universities to recruit as many AAB students as they wish from 2012.

The move comes as part of a plan to generate more competition between universities and give students a greater choice over where to study.

The reforms are expected to starve mid-ranking competitors of many top recruits – possibly forcing them to lower their fees from the maximum £9,000.

Today, a leading academic warned that the move also risked discriminating against students from deprived backgrounds who are considerably less likely to gain good grades.

Sir Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, said these institutions should be allowed to make use of “contextual admissions” – a system in which pupils from poor-performing schools are admitted with lower A-level grades to recognise the extra effort they make to get good results.

“Proposals to create more places for students with at least AAB A-level grades must explicitly allow universities to use contextual data in the admissions process,” he said.

“In terms of the most selective courses, it remains the case that some under-represented students often do not have the grades required. It’s critical therefore that the sector continues its outreach work.”

Data from Hefce shows the number and proportion of top students admitted to each university in 2009/10.

It shows that the highest number of AAB students attend Manchester, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, Leeds, Exeter, Bristol, Warwick, Birmingham, Sheffield and Southampton.

Figures also show 99 per cent of Oxford and Cambridge’s UK students in 2009/10 achieved at least AAB – the highest rate in the country.

Imperial College in London admitted 944 students with AAB, equating to 96 per cent of their intake, while 93 per cent of students at the London School of Economics – 617 in total – had these grades.

Institutions with high proportions of AAB students are the most likely to benefit from the Coalition’s higher education reforms, although some may not take advantage of it.

Pregnant with her second child, Amanda Barnett (right) ponders her future Tuesday after being laid off from Memphis City Schools.

Amanda Barnett is due to have her baby in eight days, a girl she has already named Hailey.

The doctors have told her that Hailey will likely face kidney issues, something that may well require surgery.

So it was even more devastating for Barnett to find out Tuesday afternoon that, after two years teaching in Memphis City Schools, she was suddenly out of a job.

Barnett, who taught English at Manassas High, was one of 46 teachers laid off Tuesday, the third mass layoff of MCS employees so far this summer.

Perhaps Barnett will now be able to make use of the bundle of headache and antacid medicines included in her severance packet.

“It’s frustration. Before today, we all expected to get positions,” said the 26-year-old Barnett. “In my state right now, who’s going to hire someone who can barely walk across a room?”

This summer, MCS has laid off more than 250 employees, beginning with the dismissal of 95 vocational instructors in early June. That cut more than half the staff in career fields including business technology (51 jobs) and marketing (16 jobs). They also eliminated smaller programs in fashion and orthopedic shoe repair, calling them obsolete.

That was followed by the dismissal of about 127 managers and clerical workers in mid-June.

District officials said earlier this year that they were facing a $100 million shortfall for next year. They blamed that deficit on a combination of rising costs, lower tax collections and millions in stimulus dollars that expired at the end of June.

Keith Williams, president of the Memphis teachers union, worries that the cuts will force students into study halls because there won’t be enough teachers to cover the schedule.

“They cut the class offerings and they are cutting staff, but we will still have the same number of students. That’s a formula I can’t figure out,” he said.

Most of those laid off Tuesday taught English, history, social studies or vocational subjects. All of those laid off had been with MCS for less than two years.

District officials said that some of those laid off could be rehired as current teachers retire, resign or face prolonged health issues.

“We are evaluating on a weekly basis the number of surplus teachers by subject and the number of vacancies by subject,” said Joe Hettler of the district’s Strategic Teacher Recruitment and Staffing office.

That’s little comfort to those who were fired Tuesday.

The teachers laid off were told via e-mail and telephone to report to the former Messick High School. Some suspected what was coming, but others remained hopeful.

That is, until MCS labor relations coordinator Chantay Branch started speaking.

“Unfortunately, I am here to officially inform you that you have been identified for layoffs,” she said. “We have more teachers than we do positions.”

One of those who hoped for the best was Bob Brown, who taught geography at Mitchell High last year.

Brown came to Memphis last year from Johnson City in East Tennessee, he said, after being recruited by MCS for his experience working in inner-city schools.

“Here’s what irritates me about this. … They told me in April I was coming back,” said Brown, 56. “Before I left for the summer, they said, ‘Don’t take another job. We want you here.’”