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Saturday 16 October 2010

It's going to be a hard winter in 2010 in uk



sources from the bee hives


source


"It's going to be a hard winter. If you thought last year was bad, well, it has nothing on this year," says Gloria Havenhand, staring at one of her 400 beehives.


....


===

she tells me to look at the bees. Hundreds of them are busy blocking up a gap in the bottom of one hive. "I have never ever seen them do that before in 50 years of knowing about bees. They know something we don't know," says 65-year-old Gloria.


===


will it be worse than last year 2009 ? we will see ,.......


..



Beekeeper and retired microbiologist Gloria Havenhand of Troway Hall produces a range of honey-based remedies

:)

medical powers of honey

medical powers of honey



source



Published Date: 29 September 2010



Honey has long been known as the food of the gods, but just how magical are its healing powers? Catherine Scott met queen beekeeper Gloria Havenhand.
"It's going to be a hard winter. If you thought last year was bad, well, it has nothing on this year," says Gloria Havenhand, staring at one of her 400 beehives.

It is a glorious early autumn day in the orchard of Gloria's stunning home in Troway, a hidden gem of a hamlet in North Derbyshire just four miles from junction 30 of the M1. The sun is shining through the laden plum trees and thoughts of snow drifts are far away.

When I query her prediction, she tells me to look at the bees. Hundreds of them are busy blocking up a gap in the bottom of one hive. "I have never ever seen them do that before in 50 years of knowing about bees. They know something we don't know," says 65-year-old Gloria.

Gloria may be eccentric with her wild hair and bright lipstick, from which she is never separated, but the microbiologist knows a thing or two about bees.

"They are my obsession," she confesses. It is not just the taste of honey which fascinates Gloria, although that is an added bonus, it is the medicinal properties the honey has which made her give up her day job as a microbiologist to concentrate on her bees. She now runs Medibee, her company making and selling everything from skin cream to hayfever relief – all, of course, which come from honey. Gloria's book, Honey: Nature's Golden Healer,
out this week, contains everything you ever need to know about honey and bees.

"Bees are fascinating creatures. They collect tree resins and gums to make propolis, which is the greatest antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal system in the world. They use it to plug every crack in the hive. Florence Nightingale used it in the Crimea for healing wounds."

Gloria first got into bees as a child living in a poor mining community in Bolsover. "My grandmother was a herbalist. She had one hive which she kept in next door's garden because she didn't have the space. She'd use the honey to treat wounds and I learnt everything from her. She didn't even have a proper suit; she'd wear a net curtain to protect herself."

Being bright, Gloria passed her 11-plus and went to grammar school which she says was the making of her.

She studied botany, zoology and genetics at Leicester University and initially went into teaching before moving on to the Ministry of Agriculture and then a number of different jobs.

Widowed young with a son, Giles, Gloria met and married steel magnate Donald
and they had a son, Julian, and 25 years ago bought Troway Hall. As well as bees, they grow Christmas trees, which they supply to the Chatsworth estate and others. Donald has an aviary where he keeps budgies.

"The birds and the bees," hoots Gloria.

As well as the gums and resins from the Christmas trees, Gloria's bees get to feast on wild flowers, orchard blossom and heather. "It really is like Fortnum and Mason for bees."

It is this combination which Gloria believes gives her bees' honey such high antibacterial properties.

The entire family is honey mad. Gloria tells me how she got both boys to breast feed by putting honey on her nipples. "Of course, you can't do that any more as regulations say children under one shouldn't have honey," she says in a way which implies that she doesn't think too much of the concerns over the possibility of honey causing infant botulism. It means that nine- month-old granddaughter Unity has yet to experience Granny's honey.

"I have four teaspoons of raw honey a day," says
Gloria. This hasn't gone through the heat treating process of many supermarket honeys.

As a result, it has a slight crust and marbling, which she says is the really good bit where all the antibacterials are, but the supermarkets don't like.

You get the feeling Gloria doesn't have much time for the supermarkets.

She isn't in it for the money. She is in it because of her love of bees and a desire to spread the word. Much of
the profit she makes and some of the proceeds of her book go to Sheffield Children's Hospital after she was moved by a customer whose little girl was dying there. "I think everyone should have a teaspoon half- an-hour before they go to bed. It helps bring your heart rate down and helps you sleep," she says slipping a teaspoon into my coffee.

And it seems to work for her. With boundless energy Gloria employs three people at Troway and still does most of the harvesting herself.

Dressed in a special bee suit, gaffer tapes at the
wrist and ankles, still wearing her lipstick of course, Gloria lifts the lid of her hives to harvest the golden honey within.

Unlike many beekeepers Gloria leaves half of the honey for her bees. "You have to look after your bees. You will lose some, of course you will, but my bees are very healthy because we know how to look after them."

Gloria is concerned about the rise in the number of people taking up bee- keeping as a hobby.

"I am not against people becoming beekeepers but they think if they get a hive, fill it with bees and go on a two-day course then they know how to keep bees. I have been keeping bees for decades and I am still learning. If people want to become beekeepers then I think they should be mentored by an experienced beekeeper for at least a year. They are wonderful creatures but they are also lethal."

Gloria tells me how just a few weeks ago she got stung around 70 times from an angry hive.

"I had to harvest the honey that day as it was full to bursting. But I shouldn't have done it, the bees weren't happy."

The angry bees chased Gloria for half a mile and despite her best endeavours she was stung.

But some people see the sting as a good thing. As well as people coming to Troway Hall to buy honey and various medicinal creams and ointments or ailments including eczema and arthritis, Gloria is also visited by MS sufferers.

"Some people believe the sting can help. In some countries apitherapy is registered as a medicine."

She recalls how one young woman with MS visited her and put her arms and face in the hive, only for the bees to move away from her and refuse to sting her.

"They didn't want to catch whatever she had. They knew," says Gloria. It is the scientist in her which is fascinated by this type of occurrence as well as the current desire of her bees to block up their hive in preparation for winter.

And she is not the only scientist to add weigh to her belief in the bee. Dr Milton Wainwright, senior lecturer in molecular biology at Sheffield University, is a fan and has written the preface to her book and is even quoted on her jars of honey.

"The academic profession should pay more attention to enthusiasts like Gloria," says Dr Wainwright.

Gloria believes the discovery of penicillin sounded the death knell for honey as a medicine. But she is now seeing a resurgence
in demand.

"Society has a lot to learn from bees," concludes Gloria, looking adoringly at her hives.

I for one will be buying extra jumpers this winter, just in case Gloria's bees have got it right.

www.medibee.co.uk

Honey: Nature's Golden Healer by Gloria Havenhand (£12.99, Kyle Cathie) is available from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. P&P is £2.75.


www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. P&P is £2.75.


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  • Last Updated: 29 September 2010 10:11 AM

dyscalculia, which is the maths equivalent of dyslexia.



source


I wouldn't attempt to tell you what to do as a parent but I will say one thing. It makes me very angry to think of a child of ten feeling that she is not good enough for what is clearly a better resourced or motivated educational setting. At ten years old I too failed a similar test in Gloucestershire (in 1979) which meant I could not go to the local grammar school and instead faced going to a very scruffy, demotivated school next door. My parents who were not in well paid jobs worked extremely hard to pay for me to go to the local independent girls school where I arrived thinking I was probably not bright enough to be there.

At about 15 years old something changed for me - I started to be more focused and could concentrate better and did well in my O levels. ... I went into the sixth form and gained 3 a grades in A levels and won a place to read English at Oxford University where I gained a good 2.1. This was the girl who like your daughter at 10 was labelled a failure. ...

Last year I took part in some research into dyscalculia, which is the maths equivalent of dyslexia. After 25 years of wondering why I always did so badly in 11 plus exams and number based exams I was told I had dyscalculia. Which explained to some degree my very low score in an exam at 10. It is completely inappropriate to make a snap judgement about children at this age unless you can guarantee that the education those children receive and the expectations that the teachers and school have of them is equal, whether or not they go to a grammar or a secondary school. ...
Charlotte H, London

11-plus result means appeal angst

source




One "reluctant pushy parent" told the BBC News website about her dilemma over whether or not to coach her daughter for the 11-plus test in Buckinghamshire. Now the results are out another problem has arisen ....

118. After weeks of nervous waiting, there it was in black and white: 118.

Three measly points short of the mystical 121 that would have secured our daughter a place at a Bucks grammar school.

"Fantastic, well done, you came so close, only three points away..."

And then a big, silent hug.

Advice

Only minutes before, our happy-go-lucky, eternally optimistic, never-let-anything-get-me-down daughter had been confidently striding out of school waving the official envelope, saying: "This contains my destiny..."

And now it looked like her "destiny" was not the girls' grammar school she'd fallen in love with on the open evening, but the upper school (secondary modern) which had barely registered a blip on her radar.

That's the problem round here. Her head teacher had advised parents against even looking at the grammar schools if the child in question did not stand a chance of passing the 11-plus, to avoid getting their (and our) hopes up.

But our daughter did stand a chance and, of course, everyone wants the best for their child. And in Bucks, the best is perceived by many to be the grammar schools...

Open evenings

It is not the same all over the county, but in our corner there is a girls' grammar and an upper school which are within walking distance but which in many other respects are miles apart.

If she had sailed through there would be no questions, equally if she had fallen miles short - but she has always been in that grey area
The grammar is a much bigger school, with a bigger and probably wealthier parent support structure, and it shows. It boasts "ever-improving facilities", including a spanking new, aircraft-hangar-sized sports hall and shiny performing arts complex.

The much smaller upper school occupies a slightly tired-looking collection of buildings. There is a modest new library but some of the classrooms are housed in what looks like a converted 1970s terrace.

When the schools held their open evenings for prospective pupils, girls at the grammar were well groomed, articulate and proud to be showing off their school.

The pupils we met at the upper school were enjoying an evening hanging around with their mates and were not particularly bothered about enticing new pupils through the school doors.

The grammar achieves fantastic results and has done for years. The upper school is getting good results now - relatively speaking - but look back a bit and that certainly has not always been the case.

'Failure'

So now we are faced with a dilemma. After all the months of hard work (and coaching) that has gone into getting our daughter this far, do we appeal? Or do we accept that because she fell just below this arbitrary 121 that she's "not good enough" to go to a grammar school?

Of course it is not the be-all and end-all. We will support our daughter wherever she goes and do our best to ensure she shines at whatever she does.

But at the moment, it doesn't matter how you dress up the results, how PC you want to be, our daughter has "failed" to get the right number of points. And nobody wants their child to be classed a "failure" at the age of 10.

If she had sailed through there would be no questions, equally if she had fallen miles short. But she has always been in that grey area.

So now we are faced with a very difficult choice: What if we pushed her this far and she has not got what it takes to be a grammar school girl?

She has a real zest for life, an undimmed optimism. Do we want to crush all that out of her by sending her to a school where she'll struggle to keep up? Or would she rise to the challenge?

Or do we send her to a school where she might be top of the form but never stretched beyond her comfort zone?

Have we just been suckered into the Bucks system? Shelling out hundreds of pounds for extra coaching in the belief it would buy our daughter 11-plus success and a grammar school place?

Friends

She is thankfully too young to really understand the significance of her result.

All she cares about is that her closest friends have all passed and she hasn't.

"We are going to appeal," is what she's telling anyone who asks.

As parents we are skilled in the art of expectation management, but her high hopes of success on this one are going to take some managing.

The statistics tell us that just over a third of appeals are successful. So, by clever process of deduction, two thirds are not.

Read the 11-plus internet forums and there is plenty of advice out there.

Listen to the playground gossip and everyone knows someone who won an appeal with less than 118 - or lost an appeal with more.

We have a few weeks to gather the evidence to prove our daughter would succeed at grammar school. But what if we are wrong?

We invited your comments on the issues raised. Here is a selection:

My heart goes out to you really and truly because of the so-called choice you have to make. Surely the best school should cater for all pupils, regardless of abilities? You may want to use your previous 'pushy parent' label to secure more for your daughter in the secondary modern - remember that the UNI's now take into consideration what type of school your child has suceeded in -so she may well win out in the end!
V Bodington, Athens, Greece

Can she not transfer to a grammar school in the coming years? In europe this would certainly be possible, provided test results are above a certain standard. Only having one chance to go to grammar school puts unneccessary pressure on children at such a young age.
kat, uk

I suggest you move to a county (like Oxfordshire) where all children can go to one school and be set according to ability! My girls are both exceptional in academic work and do really well at the local comprehensive and none of this rubbish about deciding failure or success at 11! I know it seems drastic but it is only 40 miles up the road and we are talking about your daughters next few years!
Mary Tapper, United Kingdom

In my opinion you should appeal, for the sake of your daughter and the stress you went through. Good luck!
Mrs Tick, Greenwich, London I agree. My 17 year-old daughter has always been in the top sets at our local comprehensive school. Last summer she obtained A grade AS levels and has already had offers from 2 very good universities to study chemistry. All is not lost - consider moving. If most children in an area attend the local comprehensive school your daughter will make friends with people of her own ability.
Angela, Loughborough

My children haven't got to secondary school age yet so I'm not having to make these decisions yet - just hoping the local schools will improve... But surely if, after coaching, a child still falls below the entry level, it tells you that they would struggle to keep up. Wouldn't it be better for a child's confidence to be able to cope with the work than to be struggling and always near the bottom of the class. Or is it that the other children were all groomed by private schools and / or better tutors?
Emma, London

When I took the grammar school test, I too was a couple of measily points short. I was top of the class when I started at the local comprehensive and hated it. My brother was bottom of the class in the local grammer school, which he scraped into and scraped by staying there.

In my opinion, there should be more than a choice between a comprehensive and a grammar. People achive their full potential around others of similar abilities. This happens for the very average person, and the very bright people, but quite-bright and not so bright people aren't going to feel like their education is as good as the majority feel it is.
Jon, Canterbury

You've admitted to pushing up to this point, so I don't really see your dilemna. Of course you must push one more time. Grammar schools are unfair and suck talent and aspiration away from other schools which are then seen as second best. But if you're buying into that by tutoring then entering your daughter for the entrance exams, then go ahead, and go the whole hog. Good luck.
Jane, Cornwall

I wouldn't attempt to tell you what to do as a parent but I will say one thing. It makes me very angry to think of a child of ten feeling that she is not good enough for what is clearly a better resourced or motivated educational setting. At ten years old I too failed a similar test in Gloucestershire (in 1979) which meant I could not go to the local grammar school and instead faced going to a very scruffy, demotivated school next door. My parents who were not in well paid jobs worked extremely hard to pay for me to go to the local independent girls school where I arrived thinking I was probably not bright enough to be there.

At about 15 years old something changed for me - I started to be more focused and could concentrate better and did well in my O levels. ... I went into the sixth form and gained 3 a grades in A levels and won a place to read English at Oxford University where I gained a good 2.1. This was the girl who like your daughter at 10 was labelled a failure. ...

Last year I took part in some research into dyscalculia, which is the maths equivalent of dyslexia. After 25 years of wondering why I always did so badly in 11 plus exams and number based exams I was told I had dyscalculia. Which explained to some degree my very low score in an exam at 10. It is completely inappropriate to make a snap judgement about children at this age unless you can guarantee that the education those children receive and the expectations that the teachers and school have of them is equal, whether or not they go to a grammar or a secondary school. ...
Charlotte H, London

In my experience of living in Kent where the 11-plus is still alive and kicking, it is not good enough to send a bright kid to the local secondary modern if there is a local grammar. The grammar schools push kids to achieve. The secondary moderns, high schools etc, hold the bright kids back as they have to cater to the majority at that school who are not so capable.

The secondary modern I went to (1982-1987) underestimated what many of their pupils were capable of so many kids did as little undemanding work as possible and left with poor results. Some of these children have achieved more as adults than the school would have predicted. The school did not provide a level of education that they deserved.

I would advise you to appeal and if that does not work, get them into a church school which probably gets better results, or fee pay where the classes are smaller and your child is pushed more. You will also find other caring parents at these schools. The ends justify the means. Grades count - you are judged on these when you apply for popular degree courses or jobs - so she deserves the best chance to achieve.
Lesley, London, UK

I took the grammar school test, I too was a couple of measily points short.

source





When I took the grammar school test, I too was a couple of measily points short. I was top of the class when I started at the local comprehensive and hated it. My brother was bottom of the class in the local grammer school, which he scraped into and scraped by staying there.

In my opinion, there should be more than a choice between a comprehensive and a grammar. People achive their full potential around others of similar abilities. This happens for the very average person, and the very bright people, but quite-bright and not so bright people aren't going to feel like their education is as good as the majority feel it is.
Jon, Canterbury

transfer my child into a grammar school




question from yahoo


Can I transfer my child into a grammar school if she HASN'T passed her 11+?

My daughter is 12 years old and currently attending a comprehensive school (she is year 7) in kent which she hates.
She wants to get into a grammar school, but she didn't pass her 11+.
Is there any way to get her into a grammar school despite the fact she didn't pass her 11+?
BY THE WAY...
I've read about the 13+ (http://www.tuition.com.hk/common-entrance-exam.htm) but I don't know how to apply for it. Apparantly you can get entrance in year nine if you pass.
Please help!?

===

I was in this same position, but I was the child. I too wanted to go to a Grammar school whilst at a Comprehensive school, this was in Year 7. My mother phoned the school and asked whether there was a chance I could join even if I had failed my 11+, I was told there was no way until 6th form. I am now in Year 10 of the same comprehensive school, and to be perfectly honest, I've grown to love it. Your daughter may feel as if she hates the school because she's thinking how things could be so much better if she'd have passed her exam, this is how I felt too. If there is no way she can get into a grammar school, I suggest you make her stay on at the comprehensive school she is currently at, and see how it goes. Perhaps she didn't pass her exam because she's one of a kind (like myself) who cannot work in very pressured environments. If she still doesn't like the school, I suggest you move her to another comprehensive school, but then again, it's easier said than done.


==


With regard to Common Entrance - I presume you realise that this is for entry into British Private/Public schools which have massively high fees. Even if your child passes, they would only have their fees paid if they did well enough to get a scholarship to the school of your choice and even then they usually only allow a percentage of money off the fees.

To enter your child for the exam, I presume you would have to go via one of the Prep Schools which enter children for it. Many senior private schools have their own Prep schools so if you wanted your child to go to one of these they might allow her to sit the CE exam when their own children are sitting it. But really you'd need to contact the school and ask them.

Another route might be for your child to sit a scholarship exam at a private school, which is open to all children, not just those attending Prep schools already. These excams are usually advertised in the press but the best way to find out about them is to phone a school you're interested in and ask them for details.

==

I currently go to a grammar school and i think the best way to solve this would be to contact your local council (or the council where the school is). They sort out everything related to schooling and would be able to provide details of what you can do. Also you can try and contact the school and see what their policy is on accepting people who haven't passed the 11+.

However it may be difficult to attain this and if it isn't possible, i would suggest try and supporting your daughter in any way possible if she really hates it there and there's nothing you can do to change the situation being there for her will make ALL the difference. I used to be stuck at a school i hated.

Sunday 3 October 2010

How To Write An Essay

How To Write An Essay










When I was in university, I helped friends by typing and proofreading their essays. I found that most people's writing was decent, but a few had managed to get through high school without learning how to construct a basic paragraph, let alone an entire essay. That was Ontario, where, at the time, high school went to grade 13 and the education system was fairly good. Now I live in the US, where high schools seem to churn out graduates that, for the most part, don't seem to know how to construct an essay. So many students making so many of the same errors must be indicative of a failing by the school system and not a lack of intelligence or ability in the students.

Thus, as a service to my husband's students who sometimes have to write essays, as well as a service to the greater Internet community beyond, I have put together the following tips and instructions on how to construct a good essay for a university class.

These are methods I used successfully in high school and university. While each specific tip or instruction might not suit every writer's personal tastes, it might be wise to try these methods and then alter them rather than to ignore parts entirely. Remember: you shouldn't break rules until you first understand those rules. If you want to do something grammatically incorrect in order to emphasize a point, make sure you know the proper grammar first. Similarly, if you want to approach a topic with a strangely formed essay in order to deliver a surprise to the reader, make sure you first know how to write a properly formed essay first.

Most of the instructions and tips here are geared towards informative essays as opposed to argumentative essays. I believe this information is still relevant to argumentative essays, but the examples used don't tend to follow argumentative structure. For more specific information on argumentative essays, please see Writing Argumentative Essays by Bill Daly. The information I do include specific to argumentative essays is on the writing page.

The lessons provided are as follows:

Part 1 - Research
Part 2 - Proposal
Part 3 - Compiling your notes
Part 4 - Planning the essay
Part 5 - Writing the essay
Part 6 - The finished product
Part 7 - Extras that make essays stand out
Part 8 - Examples of good and bad writing

Remember to schedule your essay well. Don't wait until the last few days to do the research, or you're likely to find all the good books have been signed out already. Don't wait until the last minute to do your writing, because if you discover you're missing a key bit of information, you may not have time to get it. Worse, you might end up feeling ill or having conflicting obligations the night before the essay is due, and no reasonable teacher or professor will give you an extension if you bring them a pathetic excuse such as, "I had to go to work," or "I had a headache." Furthermore, whatever you churn out in the wee hours of the morning is bound to be second-rate at best. Leaving the essay to the last minute is also tempting Murphy to throw in problems such as malfunctioning printers, computer crashes, being out of toner or paper, long lines at the printers on campus, etc. I always aimed to have my essays done one full week before they were due. In some instances, circumstances did prevent completion a week early, but because I had that buffer zone of a week, I never had to hand in something late.

Scheduling also means not trying to finish all the parts of the essay in one day. Your brain and body need rest between research and writing. Your final product will be much better if it is created through diligent use of time. See my page on student responsibilities for more.

And incidentally, the word "quote" is a verb, not a noun. You do not place a "quote" in your essay. You place a "quotation." This is probably not something that will actually come to play in your essay, but it's one of my nitpicky things, so I thought I'd mention it.







Using examples from well-known fiction, discover 4 different approaches to using literature as raw material for your own writing. Each section contains exercises to help you develop.

How the ordinary can be transformed into the extraordinary by using powerful descriptions.

Nurturing expectations in the reader can often dictate their reactions to texts. Discover how challenging people's expectations can provide more creative scope for the writer.

Learn a technique, used by William Shakespeare in his poems, for making characters vivid.

Consider Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre from a different perspective.

how to write hannan in your BIG WRITE at schools



"The impulse to write is almost always fired by reading" Susan Sontag.

Critical reading can help you become a more creative writer. Reading another writer's work























can teach us other ways of thinking about the world, and other ways of writing.








==

Using examples from well-known fiction, discover 4 different approaches to using literature as raw material for your own writing. Each section contains exercises to help you develop.

How the ordinary can be transformed into the extraordinary by using powerful descriptions.

Nurturing expectations in the reader can often dictate their reactions to texts. Discover how challenging people's expectations can provide more creative scope for the writer.

Learn a technique, used by William Shakespeare in his poems, for making characters vivid.

Consider Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre from a different perspective.