Parent Pages new website

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

Songs for kiddywinks often perform the basic function of getting them to shut up and go to sleep. Others go beyond the call of duty to entertain, challenge and inform.

By Jon Dennis

The best children’s music has to withstand extreme repetition, since kids insist on hearing songs again and again. That immediately rules out the likes of the Chipmunks, Ronald and Donald and Pinky and Perky, since sped-up voices are scientifically proven to drive parents into an apoplectic rage. Much music made for children music is utilitarian. There are songs that teach them essential information, that help them learn to read or improve their physical coordination skills.  Or in the case of lullabies, help them sleep. Lullabies fulfil that basic human need. Parents have always sung simple, repetitive and soothing songs to their children to get them to drop off and Brahms’s lullaby, written 150 years ago, is one of the most enduring. In fact, judging by its use everywhere from cartoons to music boxes, it’s the default lullaby.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

The scene is set for a romantic evening: champagne is cooling and crisp bed sheets are turned down. From the bar of the five-star Mayfair hotel drifts schmaltzy piano music. Outside, the London skyline twinkles.

By FRANCES HARDY
Last updated at 9:16 AM on 17th February 2011

Frances Benning, 29, knows she will have sex tonight. She has scheduled the event meticulously; planned every detail with military precision — for her sole purpose is to become pregnant. But the man she has chosen to be the father of her baby is neither her husband, nor her partner nor, even, a long-term friend. In fact, he is Toby, a sperm donor she met for the first time just a few hours ago. Toby, 30, who is affluent and handsome with a glamorous job in the film industry, and Frances — attractive, articulate and privately-educated — were introduced via a website that matches potential sperm donors with would-be mothers.….Continue Reading

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Justin Bieber has his mother Pattie Mallette to thank for getting him noticed after he was named international breakthrough act at the Brit Awards.

8:00AM GMT 16 Feb 2011

She uploaded footage on YouTube of her son performing, and the Canadian singer became an internet sensation. As Bieber Fever went global, Usher and Justin Timberlake were said to be engaged in a bidding war over the young singer. The Canadian, who is now 16, signed to Island Def Jam records under Usher’s guidance and enjoyed a worldwide hit with his debut album My World in 2009.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Rastamouse becomes biggest children’s TV hit since Teletubbies.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 11:20 PM on 12th February 2011

• Children’s show wins adult audience – some of whom believe references to ‘cheese’ are drugs code

He treads in the illustrious footsteps of other rodent childhood heroes – think Danger Mouse, Jerry and even Roland Rat – and CBeebies’ Rastamouse is becoming the biggest children’s television hit in years.

The music-playing Rastafarian skateboarder, with his fellow crimefighters Zoomer and Scratchy, make up Da Easy Crew, described as a ‘crime-fighting, mystery-solving, special agent reggae band’.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Elton John ‘enrols seven-week-old son Zachary in exclusive prep school favoured by royals’

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 1:09 AM on 12th February 2011

He’s just seven weeks old – but Elton John is already planning baby Zachary’s school career. And it looks as though his son will be given every opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps when it comes to honing his musical skills. According to reports, the singer songwriter – who became a father at the end of last year when the baby was born to a surrogate – has already put Zachary’s name down for an exclusive prep school which trains the Queen’s choirboys.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A whole generation of music fans are suffering from ‘iPod-itis’ – ringing in the ears – from playing music too loud, a doctor has revealed.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 5:08 PM on 11th February 2011

n particular danger are those who play their music at full blast on their daily commute. These are the people at risk going deaf in later life, top audiologist Dr Tony Kay has warned.According to Dr Tony Kay, senior chief audiologist at a Liverpool hospital, the number of young music lovers visiting the clinic with hearing complaints has increased dramatically in the last two years.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

Recommendation part of a government review which aims to have all children learn a musical instrument in school.

By Jeevan Vasagar, education editor

The most talented graduates of conservatoires will be encouraged to begin their careers by teaching music in schools, as part of a government review intended to encourage every child to learn an instrument. However, ministers are expected to reject a recommendation that music should be included as part of the “English bac” of approved academic subjects which schools will be judged against in league tables. An official review by Darren Henley, managing director of Classic FM, recommends placing the highest achieving music graduates into schools through an expansion of the Teach First scheme which encourages academic high-fliers to work in inner-city schools.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Sir Elton John admits to getting all gooey over baby son Zachary.

By GEORGINA LITTLEJOHN
Last updated at 1:12 PM on 7th February 2011

We last heard from Sir Elton John as he launched an expletive tirade at a string of pop and reality TV stars. But today, the musician had much kinder words to say as he gushed about his baby son Zachary. Speaking on ITV’s Daybreak, he admitted that he had become ‘a gibbering wreck’ in front of his five-week-old boy.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

The government says funding for music in England’s schools will increasingly be targeted at the less well-off in a bid to close a “musical divide between rich and poor”.

7 February 2011 Last updated at 11:09 GMT

Responding to a review of school music, the government announced plans to bring more music graduates into teaching. A National Plan for Music Education has also been promised for later this year. School music funding will remain at £82.5m for next year – the same amount as funded through councils this year. Following this transitional year, the education department says it will work with music services “to manage future budget pressures”.….Continue Reading

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A “domineering” father allegedly strangled his daughter for playing her music too loudly, a court has heard.

3 February 2011 Last updated at 17:07 GMT

Leicester Crown Court was told Gurmeet Singh Ubhi, 54, of Leegomery, Telford, in Shropshire, had been woken by his daughter Amrit’s music last September. Jurors heard they got into a fight when he tried to use the remote control to turn the 24-year-old’s music down. Mr Ubhi, who had just finished working a night shift at the time of the incident, denies the charge.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A ‘domineering’ father with a ‘nasty temper’ allegedly murdered his daughter during an argument about her playing music too loud, a court heard today.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 3:34 PM on 3rd February 2011

Gurmeet Singh Ubhi, 54, strangled his 24-year-old daughter Amrit at the family home in Telford, Shropshire, when he was woken up after he finished working a night shift, Leicester Crown Court was told.

Rachel Brand, prosecuting, said that Ubih, a practising Sikh, got into a struggle with his daughter in the conservatory of the family home in Leegomery last September after he tried to use the remote control to turn down the music.….Continue Reading

Source: INDEPENDENT >> Read full article and comment

Elton John inspired to succeed by ‘uncaring dad’.

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Sir Elton John says being angry about his father inspired him to become a musician. The openly homosexual pop star wishes his father, Stanley, had been “more loving”, but believes his negative feelings towards him gave him the drive to pursue his song writing career. Elton – born Reginald Dwight – told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “I blamed a lot of my lack of self-esteem on him, my problems with weight, my glasses – all these things which are so rooted in your childhood and never go away.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL >> Read full article and comment

Elton John’s father was a bit of a pig – according to the famous musician. He never once went to see his son play; never once gave him ‘that Billy Elliot moment’.

By CAROL SARLER
Last updated at 1:47 AM on 3rd February 2011

Moreover: ‘He was a tough, unemotional man. Hard. He was dismissive, disappointed and finally absent.’

Goldie, he of the blinging teeth, has his inept mother in his sights: ‘I had so much anger towards my mother, it was ruining me,’ he revealed.

Davina McCall resents her mother for sending her to live with her grandmother when she was four: ‘She said she was going on holiday, but I didn’t see her for three months.’….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Elton John, now a proud father, has been juggling bedtime story-telling with work on a new film.

By John Hiscock 6:23PM GMT 01 Feb 2011

Elton John is beaming with bonhomie and has the look of a proud new father about to hand round the cigars as he enters the Beverly Hills hotel suite with his companion David Furnish. They have both been busy, he says, working on a new musical project that is intended solely for the ears of their son Zachary. “We’ve been putting music on his iPod and he now has Chopin, Mozart, Carole King, the Carpenters, James Taylor, me, Linda Ronstadt and even Led Zeppelin lullabies,” laughs the flamboyant singer-composer.….Continue Reading

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Pete Waterman blames the decline of the working-class pop star on snobbery (James Blunt’s parents put (posh) accent on talent in pop class row, 29 January).

Tuesday 1 February 2011

I fear it has more to do with the abandonment of musicin state schools. Classical music has seen a similar trend. The profession of opera singer used to produce world-class British artists from all social backgrounds – a voice, after all, is the only musical instrument that you don’t need money to buy. Now singers seem to be recruited from an ever-narrower social stratum.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Every week our relationships expert, Sarah Abell, answers readers’ questions on emotional issues.

By Sarah Abell

Dear Sarah,

For some years my husband and I have spent a week with friends at their house in the south of France while the children stay with in-laws. We have always got on well – although we did have to become accustomed to their ways: after supper they slip off their clothes and go for a swim in the pool. As their guests we follow suit. We have a night-cap either in the pool or beside it and might even play some music and dance a little. Now that I have overcome my initial embarrassment I find it quite liberating and an enjoyable form of escapism, although my husband jokes that it’s all because our host likes to see a lot of his guests. However, our friends have now suggested that next year we bring our children. We have two girls aged 15 and 14 and their two, a boy and a girl are about the same age. But when I suggested that we would have to formalise our evening activities our host said very firmly that he saw no reason to change anything; it was all part of our children’s growing up….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

Our regular column covering the passing of significant – but lesser-reported – people of the past month.

By Nick SerpellObituary Editor, BBC News

But for the theft of a bassoon, Mick Karn might have been a noted classical musician rather than a founder member of one of the most eclectic of rock bands. Born Andonis Michaelides in Cyprus, his family moved to London when he was three and he began playing the violin before switching to the bassoon.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

He became a father for the first time little more than a month ago when his son Zachary was born.

By BEN TODD
Last updated at 1:46 AM on 31st January 2011

Now Sir Elton John has spoken about his relationship with his own father, revealing that he was a disciplinarian who never watched the singer play a concert. Sir Elton, who started playing the piano when he was just three and went on to attend the Royal Academy of Music, said his father Stanley Dwight had no interest in his budding career even though Mr Dwight had also been a keen musician, having played the trumpet. ‘You know, my father never came to hear me play. Not ever,’ said Sir Elton, who was born Reginald Dwight.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

Singer James Blunt’s mother has defended her son against “harsh criticism” from British critics over his public school background.

28 January 2011 Last updated at 13:36 GMT

Jane Blount contacted BBC Radio 4′s Today programme after hearing a feature about an increase in pop stars who have been privately educated. During the report, record producer Pete Waterman said the music industry had become “snobbish”. Mrs Blount said it was unfair Blunt was criticised “because of his background”.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

The mother of singer James Blunt has grumbled about the inverse snobbery her son faces because of his privileged background.

11:10AM GMT 28 Jan 2011

Jane Blount said her son was the subject of ”harsh criticism” from UK critics simply because of his upbringing. The You’re Beautiful singer was educated at two independent schools, including Harrow School, and after graduating from an army-sponsored university place, served as a captain in the Life Guards. Mrs Blount contacted BBC Radio 4′s Today programme today after a feature about the number of chart stars who have been to fee-paying schools, including Lily Allen, Chris Martin and Mumford And Sons.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

These are some suggestions school children have for the perfect school in 2011.

By Dea Birkett

My perfect school would be where we could decide which days we wanted to go to school.  So if sometimes we worked for 10 days in a row we would be able to have a four-day weekend. I know it isn’t possible because we have to learn the same things and sometimes only one pupil would be in. David Cameron did not consult us about cutting funding to our school, which means that I have to pay for my music lessons, which I worked very hard to get a special place for.’

Louis Bradshaw, 12, year 8, Haberdasher’s Aske’s Hatcham college, Lewisham

‘It’s unfair that only the people who are good at writing stories have their stories displayed in the school hall. I think everyone should have their work displayed and the school should, maybe every Friday, display the work so that we can read each others’ work, then write comments as well. That way no one feels left out.’….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Adrianna Bertola’s performance as ‘Matilda’ is heartrending – and very worrying, says Rupert Christiansen.

By Rupert Christiansen

So much of everybody’s early life is taken up with fantasising of some sort or another that I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised when children turn out to be great actors. Their minds are open and fearless, their memories are unclogged, their energies intense, they play games, they lie: no wonder acting comes as naturally to some of them as solving mathematical equations or playing Liszt’s piano sonata.

Yet there’s also something about it that can unnerve me. Watching children having fun hoofing it in the Shirley Temple or Sound of Music manner is one thing, but I find the spectacle of them exploring a darker emotional range – fear, anxiety, loneliness, shame, yearning, grief – extremely disconcerting.….Continue Reading

Source: INDEPENDENT >> Read full article and comment

Music education will remain the sole preserve of children from well-off families unless the Government pumps more money into the subject, an expert warns today.

By Richard Garner, Education Editor

Cuts to services will mean parents having to make up the shortfall in budgets, said Virginia Haworth-Galt, chief executive of the Federation of Music Services.

A survey by the FMS’s national music participation director, Richard Hall, found that more than one in three (34 per cent) providers of music tuition to schools in England had already issued redundancy notices to staff.

In her first interview since taking up her post, Ms Haworth-Galt said that local authority orchestras and ensembles would be worst affected because they were more likely to be funded by councils, which are bearing the brunt of the Coalition’s funding cuts. “In some areas parents are having to step in and pick up the pieces to ensure provision continues. This is one option where there are cuts. It will mean a lack of access to music for those children from low-income backgrounds.”….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A schoolboy scared away a pack of hungry wolves by playing a heavy metal song at them.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 8:35 AM on 24th January 2011

The music of U.S. band Creed halted the pack as they closed in on Walter Eikrem. He played their song Overcome on his mobile phone and the snarling animals turned and fled. Walter, 13, was walking home from the school bus stop in the town of Rakkestad, Norway, to his farmhouse home when the wolves appeared. He said: ‘I thought at first it was the neighbour’s dogs, but then as I got nearer I saw their yellow eyes and their fangs.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

As actress Nicole Kidman becomes the latest star to take delivery from a surrogate mother, the social and moral boundaries of reproduction are becoming increasingly blurred. Laura Donnelly reports.

By Laura Donnelly 10:00PM GMT 22 Jan 2011

Hollywood stars are good at paying tribute to the production teams who helped them create their latest masterpiece. But last week, when actress Nicole Kidman and her musician husband announced the birth of a baby girl – and thanked the “gestational carrier” in whose womb she grew – they conjured up a Brave New World indeed.

In Aldous Huxley’s chilling dystopia, natural reproduction has been abolished, with children created in bottling factories and decanted, to be brought up in hatcheries and conditioning centres.….Continue Reading

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

Youth unemployment is on the rise, and everything that could help struggling young people back on track is subject to cuts. This could lead to the long-term exclusion of a generation.

By Suzanne Moore

‘It’s so unfair,” is the cri de coeur of every teenager. Everything sucks. No one cares. I hate myself and I want to die. Bedroom door slams. Aren’t they amusing, these giant babies, who think the world revolves around them? With their peculiar music, total self-absorption and fantasies about what the world ought to be like. One of these days they are going to find out …

Find out that they are, perhaps, right? How can anyone read a headline that says “£10bn for Goldman [Sachs] staff as youth unemployment nears 1m” and think it’s not unfair? One in five of the 16-24 age group is out of work and in some areas – certainly where I live – it is much higher. There are no jobs. The most beautifully manicured CV will not get you a minimum-wage job in a pub. Your brilliant degree is meaningless when what employers repeatedly emphasize is “experience”.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Compulsory lessons in subjects such as citizenship, IT, music and design and technology could be axed under a sweeping review of the national curriculum, it emerged today.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

Primary and secondary schools may be given more freedom to drop all but four core subjects as part of a Government plan to raise education standards The shake-up will also strip away the current focus on teaching methods to specify the core knowledge that children should acquire at each key stage.Launching the review on Thursday, the Coalition said English, mathematics, science and physical education must remain compulsory for children of all ages.….Continue Reading

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Dylan Wiliam is known as a teaching guru with some ‘gimmicky’ methods. So how does he rate this government’s chances of improving educational standards, asks Peter Wilby.

By Peter Wilby

Dylan Wiliam once had only one ambition: to become a famous and successful jazz musician. He turned to teaching only so he could raise enough money to buy amplification equipment. He could hardly have imagined then that fame would eventually come his way in the form of two one-hour, peak-time BBC2 documentaries on teaching techniques. Called The Classroom Experiment, they were broadcast last September and featured Wiliam, black-browed, bald and slightly menacing (he looks a bit like one of those Doctor Who characters who’s about to dynamite the universe), chivvying Hertfordshire teachers into using lollipop sticks, coloured cups and mini-whiteboards, and the pupils into doing 15 minutes of exercise in the gym each day before lessons.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

The family of a music teacher who died in a road traffic accident have paid tribute, calling him “larger than life, and full of energy and enthusiasm”.

17 January 2011 Last updated at 14:38 GMT

en Muskett, 25, originally from Bethesda, Gwynedd, died on the A470 at Ganllwyd, Dolgellau on Friday evening. He was head of music at Llanidloes High School, Powys, and taught piano at the Canolfan William Mathias centre in Caernarfon. The centre described him as a very accomplished musician. In a statement, his family said: “Ben was larger than life, and full of energy and enthusiasm.”He will leave a huge void in so many people’s lives.”He excelled at whatever he put his mind to and was passionate about music and teaching.”….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL >> Read full article and comment

The World according to Coco Sumner.

By JON WILDE
Last updated at 1:25 AM on 16th January 2011

The 20-year-old singer on making it on her own, being a feral child and why nearly dying was good for her creativity. The children of famous musicians don’t always have it easy; for every Norah Jones there are a few dozen Julian Lennons. Coco Sumner is hoping to buck the trend. The daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler, she is painfully shy and self-effacing in person, but those qualities belie a fierce determination to make it on her own terms. Growing up on the family’s Wiltshire estate, she showed an early aptitude for music. She has just released her debut album, The Constant, with her band I Blame Coco, and a single, Turn Your Back On Love, is out on February 7. Now 20, she divides her time between London and Wiltshire.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

The teen bride who is fourth wife of RE teacher 33 years her senior hits out.

By ANGELLA JOHNSON
Last updated at 11:21 AM on 16th January 2011

The scene is one of cosy domesticity. Retired teacher Clive Richards reclines on a sofa before a blazing hearth in the Victorian cottage he shares with his wife Jess and his two sons. She is perched on an adjacent armchair, jumping up occasionally to warm herself by the roaring log fire.The sound of children bickering can be heard from one of the three bedrooms. Clive shouts for them to stop arguing and all goes quiet, except for the gentle snoring of Hilda, their five-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

Amy Chua brought up her daughters with an extreme regime that banned TV, drilled academic learning and demanded hours of music practice daily. Then one daughter declared war …

By Heather Hodson

Amy Chua was in a restaurant, celebrating her birthday with her husband and daughters, Sophia, seven, and Lulu, four. “Lulu handed me her ‘surprise’, which turned out to be a card,” writes Chua in her explosive new memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. “More accurately, it was a piece of paper folded crookedly in half, with a big happy face on the front. Inside, ‘Happy Birthday, Mummy! Love, Lulu’ was scrawled in crayon above another happy face. I gave the card back to Lulu. ‘I don’t want this,’ I said. ‘I want a better one – one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.’ I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen and scrawled ‘Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!’ I added a big sour face. … ‘I reject this.’”….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

Al-Kamandjati organisation gives children the chance to learn how to play an instrument and appreciate different cultures.

By Ana Carbajosa

Ibrahim, Hala and dozens of other children sit and listen in silence, captivated by the ensemble playing a piece of Renaissance music in front of them. When the adults finish their performance, the young listeners slide off their chairs, extract a variety of instruments from their cases and take over the stage. Over the next half hour, the room is filled with the sound of pieces by Bach, Scarlatti and Tielman Susato, a 16th-century Flemish composer.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

She’s only eight and must have been a bundle of nerves as she stepped out onto an ice rink to sing the U.S. national anthem in front of a packed crowd.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 12:59 PM on 14th January 2011

But Elizabeth Hughes, despite the occasional nervous glance, stepped up and gave it her all – even when the microphone cut out. It was as she was hitting the high notes when the sound fell away and a confused look flitted across her face.In the brief silence that followed as the youngster’s voice dropped away there was a nervous laugh from someone in the crowd at the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia.….Continue Reading

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

The coalition government clearly sees music lessons as a luxury we can do without. But evidence suggests music can be beneficial to both overall academic performance and wellbeing.

Posted byHelienne Lindvall

The first things to go when there are governmental budget cuts are”luxuries” such as arts funding. Education secretary Michael Gove’s decision to declare music students ineligible for the new English baccalaureate certificate sends the message that music education is another luxury we can live without. As does cutting the £82.5m a year in funding specifically aimed at providing music education – not to mention the news that one in four councils have already issued redundancies for music teachers. What these decisions appear to ignore are the overall benefits music lessons provide to children and teenagers. Growing up in Sweden, I went to a music school that provided regular academic education with extra lessons in music and choral singing.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

Those who think geniuses are born and not made should think again, says author David Shenk.

13 January 2011 Last updated at 01:36 GMT

Where do athletic and artistic abilities come from? With phrases like “gifted musician”, “natural athlete” and “innate intelligence”, we have long assumed that talent is a genetic thing some of us have and others don’t.

But new science suggests the source of abilities is much more interesting and improvisational. It turns out that everything we are is a developmental process and this includes what we get from our genes.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

As 18-year-old protestor Edward Woollard is jailed for throwing a fire extinguisher at police during the student riots, Peter Stanford applauds a mother’s courage and clear-sightedness in seeking punishment for her son.

By Peter Stanford 7:00AM GMT 12 Jan 2011

A parent’s first instinct is to protect their child. So when there’s an incident in the playground, we all pretend to be objective, give both sides a fair hearing, but nature has predisposed us to side with our offspring. Even if we think they’re at least part way culpable, we seek to take the edge off any outside punishment they may face in the belief that we can put them back on the straight and narrow when we get them home. Then children grow up and, as the adults our teenagers are constantly telling us they have become, there comes a point when they have to bear the adult consequences of their actions. But when is your boy or girl old enough to face the music?….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

There was delicacy amid the din in this concert from Britain’s biggest orchestra. Rating: * * * *

By Ivan Hewett 10:54AM GMT 10 Jan 2011

“Britian’s Biggest Orchestra” is how the National Youth Orchestra dubs itself, which is a mixed blessing. It could imply the orchestra is all power and no subtlety, which as this concert showed is far from the case. Still, first impressions on walking into the Barbican were that a tidal wave of sound was in the offing. Eight trumpets and horns, five harps, 11 double-basses, and everything else in proportion were squeezed on to the Barbican stage for Prokofiev’s exercise in Russian primitivism, the Scythian Suite.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

When my daughter, Ella, turned six last year, she was very excited about a pop music DVD given to her by one of her friends as a birthday present.

By Sophie Raworth
BBC Panorama

She said she’d seen it on children’s television and had been talking to her friends about it. So after much pestering, I sat down on the sofa with my daughter and her younger brother and sister and started to watch it. Pop stars like the Saturdays and Girls Aloud appeared on our screen.

But within minutes I felt deeply uncomfortable. As I watched these videos through the eyes of a young child, I saw heavily made-up girls with huge false eyelashes in really skimpy clothes with lots of cleavage and sexy dance moves. My gut reaction was to switch it off.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Children are being sexualised far too early, and online porn is largely to blame, argues Sophie Raworth.

By Sophie Raworth

When my daughter Ella turned six last year, she was given a pop music DVD by one of her friends. After much pestering, I sat down to watch it with her and her younger brother and sister. Pop stars like the Saturdays and Girls Aloud appeared on our screen, and within minutes I felt uncomfortable: I saw heavily made-up girls in skimpy clothes with lots of cleavage showing off sexy dance moves. My gut reaction was to switch it off. I couldn’t cope with my kids being bombarded with those images.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

Education Secretary Michael Gove has hit out at the Musicians’ Union for advising teachers to avoid all physical contact with their pupils.

By Hannah RichardsonBBC News education reporter

A union training video says touching pupils could expose music tutors, who often teach in one-to-one sessions, to charges of inappropriate behaviour.Mr Gove said the advice played to a “culture of fear among adults and children”.But the Musicians’ Union says careers have been ruined by false allegations.It says instrumental music teachers are particularly vulnerable as they are often alone with pupils when they give lessons.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

The education secretary said telling teachers to avoid physical contact with students was ‘playing to a culture of fear’.

By Jessica Shepherd, education correspondent

Education secretary Michael Gove today condemned children’s charities for telling teachers to stop touching pupils during lessons.

Music organisations and the NSPCC have jointly posted a series of videos online called Keeping Children Safe in Music. They are aimed at music teachers and warn them that “it isn’t necessary to touch a student during a demonstration [of how to play an instrument]“.

Gove has written to the organisations arguing that they are “playing to a culture of fear among both adults and children” and “sending out completely the wrong message”. He said he wanted to “restore common sense” to the issue of teachers touching pupils and that it was “proper and necessary” for adults to touch children when they demonstrated how to play an instrument, play sport, break up violence or comfort a child.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Michael Jackson’s former bodyguard described when the singer’s children came into the room where his doctor was performing doomed attempts to save his life.

By Andy Bloxham

Alberto Alvarez, 34, said he was the first security guard to reach Jackson’s room after word came that something was wrong.

He said he saw the “King of Pop” on his bed connected to an intravenous tube and a urinary catheter. His eyes and mouth were open, and Dr Conrad Murray was leaning over him doing one-handed chest compressions to try to revive him.….Continue Reading

Source: INDEPENDENT >> Read full article and comment

The message to emerge from the Department for Education over the Christmas break appears to be one that resistance to the scale of public spending cuts may not be futile after all.

By Richard Garner

Just before Christmas, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced a partial U-turn over the funding of school sport. Originally, all the funding earmarked for school sports partnership was to be axed – provoking an outcry from former Olympic athletes who wondered what kind of message this sent about our commitment to sport in the run-up to the 2012 games.

Then the charity Booktrust was told that all its funding (worth £13million) for imaginative schemes, such as the provision of books to parents of newborn babies in a bid to encourage reading habits at home, was to be axed.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A talented teenage actress has become the latest victim of the swine flu outbreak.

By FIONA MACRAE and ELEANOR HARDING
Last updated at 12:23 PM on 5th January 2011

Olivia Rae Clee-Barnett, 17,  died in the early hours of Sunday and was the sixth victim from Merseyside. The teenager had a passion for music and the theatre and was part of the team that won Sky Tv’s Grease: The School Musical competition in 2009. Shocked friends set up a Facebook page to remember the student, who attended Wallasey School’s sixth form in the Wirral. One wrote: ‘She was drop dead gorgeous, she had friends, a family and a boyfriend who all love her very much.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

Youths on Anglesey have been provided with a £10,000 “shelter” to discourage them from congregating in Llanfachraeth village centre.

2 January 2011 Last updated at 10:49 GMT

The solar-powered construction features lights and a blue tooth connector so that music can be played via the built-in speakers.It is the second shelter on Anglesey.

Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Adrian Williams sought funding after he decided something needed to be done to improve “anti social issues” there.….Continue Reading

A BRAND NEW POP MUSICAL FOR KIDS!
Come and join us in London’s
West End for loads of fun at
The Go!Go!Go! Show this summer.

Source: DAILYMAIL

Ten-year-old Destinee Superstar had, it seems, the makings of a pop sensation from the moment she came out of the womb — or so her mother Sonja Tombling would have you believe.

By REBECCA HARDY
Last updated at 2:16 AM on 1st January 2011

‘She looked just like Elvis,’ she tells me. ‘She had sideburns and a mass of lovely, dark hair. She began wowing me with her talent musically as soon as she could speak.’

Really? Gosh. I’m clearly in the presence of greatness. But the little girl standing before me looks distinctly ordinary. Like many little girls her age, Mariah Carey, not Elvis, is her role model. But it has to be said she has the sort of wide, toothy grin that could melt the heart of a snowman.Not that she’s played much in the snow over the Christmas holidays. Instead, she’s been rehearsing four days a week for her latest pop video.

For Destinee’s destiny, you see, is to be a child pop star. In fact, Sonja is so convinced by her ten-year-old’s ‘wow’ factor that she’s invested £4,000 of her own money to produce a debut pop single and video called Mumma’s Little Princess — a 47-second video taster of which is receiving a fast-growing number of hits a day on YouTube.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Rose Prince gets a gift-wrapped life lesson from her teenage son this Christmas.

By Rose Prince

* If it’s possible to gift wrap a lesson for a parent, then my fifteen year old son did just that last week. Sometime last year, I vaguely remember telling him that I quite liked a song playing on the radio. So did he, he said. For Christmas he bought me the album. To be honest, I was less than thrilled initially. But then I thought about it and decided that at this point on the journey through the terrifying underworld of adolescent parenting, it might actually help our relationship.

While we endured the ritual rows, we could at least connect through our ‘shared’ taste in the music of his hero, the rapper/soul singer and song writer Plan B, aka Ben Drew, and the artist responsible for my new CD, The Defamation of Strickland Banks. Being a ‘cooler’ mum would, I thought, confound my son’s rejection of all I stand for: such as Radio 4, and belting trousers above and not below his underpants.….Continue Reading

The Show

’GO!GO!GO! NOW, IT’S GREAT!’- (THE SUN)
‘THE KIDS HAD A BLAST’- (VISIT LONDON)
‘SUPERBLY CRAFTED POP SONGS’ – (THE TIMES)

THE GO!GO!GO! SHOW is an all-new family pop musical featuring Holly, Steve, Kirsten, Carl and Gemma, five fantastic new stars making their debut on the West End stage.

There are brand new pop songs, catchy, easy-to-learn dance moves, magic and loads and loads of laughs.

The story is a good old-fashioned caper! It all kicks off when the guys awake one morning to discover that their socks are missing and it soon becomes clear that there’s something smelly going on! They discover that the culprit is a cheeky little creature called the Fluffalope who, it seems, like nothing more that to munch his way through a tasty pile of socks.

And so begins a quest to catch the Fluffalope and stop him eating their socks! On their adventure the guys get to have a sleepover in Holly’s Tree House, pay a visit to sunny Holiday Bay and spend time in the Land of Lost Property, where they meet Mr Baffled who seems completely confused by everything and everybody.

Join Holly, Steve, Kirsten, Gemma and Carl (oh, and Mr. Jones the magical rabbit) on their fantastic adventure and find out if they manage to succeed!

The show is directed by Carole Todd (Dreamboats & Petticoats, Buddy, Dancing In The Streets). She’s the lady who tells everybody what to do and when to do it. She’s a bit like a headmistress.

It is choreographed by Paul Domaine (The Saturdays, Sugababes, Dannii Minogue). He is the man who makes up all the fun dance moves and teaches the guys their routines.

The music is by Mike Stock (one third of the legendary Stock, Aitken & Waterman) and Steve Crosby (who masterminded Steps). They are the chaps who write all the new songs. They sit in a recording studio for long hours and play with lots of buttons and dials on a great big desk.

The original script is by Dean Wilkinson (CBBC, CBeebies, Ant & Dec). He’s the funny man who writes the story. Whatever you do, don’t wander into his imagination. It’s odd in there!

There is interaction for the audience and plenty to enjoy for kids of all ages!

Ready? Steady? Go!Go!Go!
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