Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Train To Learn Plumbing And Electrical Skills

If you want to train to become a plumber, you will benefit from learning accompanying electrical skills.

Once you start working as a plumber, it is likely that you will be working on projects where you will have to install electrical equipment such as showers and extractor fans and it pays to be qualified to do this.

Performing plumbing tasks with electrical equipment in rooms such as bathrooms and kitchens is notifiable to local building control if as a plumber you are not registered onto a Part P scheme as a competent person.

If you are a plumber and want to register onto a Part P scheme, you will need to show that you have the appropriate knowledge about domestic installation of electrical equipment through the achievement of a relevant qualification.

Once, as a plumber, you are registered with the Part P Self-Certification Scheme, you will be qualified to check the safety of an electrical circuit without having to refer the job to local building control.

Furthermore, being Part P registered will enable you to issue an Electrical Installation Certificate that complies with Building Regulation requirements as soon as a project is deemed to be finished.

If the ability to self-certify your own plumbing and electrical work sounds appealing to you, you will need to undertake a series of training courses in order to achieve the relevant qualifications.

The most reputable training centres are able to provide a combined plumbing and electrical package that allows practicing tradesmen to undertake the full scope of your plumbing duties within domestic dwellings.

This combined package should take around ten weeks because it will include teaching of the City & Guilds 6189 level 2 diploma in plumbing and heating entry level qualification along with the appropriate electrical training.

Taking the plumbing 6189 at level 2 is the essential starting point to gaining access to the plumbing industry because it provides the necessary knowledge about modern hearing and drainage domestic appliances.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Successful Money Managers Equals Successful College Students

One of the many skills that adolescents need to take with them to college is how to manage money. Young adults who know how to budget, save, prioritize, and keep track of their spending is more likely to make them successful college experience. Teach these skills, however, can be difficult for many parents because so many adults are not good money managers themselves.

It's never too early to start training children about money, and perhaps train themselves in the process. Parents can begin teaching children as young as four or five to the budget during the holidays or during a trip to your favorite stores. As people age, parents can insist that part of their pocket money went into savings, some for charity, and the rest of discretionary spending for children. By the time children reach adolescence, one of the best tools for teaching money management is to put teens on a budget. First decide who will pay for what-school clothing, sports apparel, footwear, clothing, winter jackets, entertainment, cosmetics, eating out with friends, etc. Once you decide what you would pay, the average price of research. In your opinion, what makes sense to pay for jeans? For T-shirt? For running shoes? For flip-flops? Based on your research, come up with a monthly figure you think is fair.

It takes training, time, and repetition to teach children how to budget, handle credit, understanding a bank account, etc. Have your teenager sit down with you when you pay your monthly household bills. Show him the details: mortgage or rent, utilities, garbage collection, the cost of cable and internet, landline and cellular phone costs, medical costs, etc. Show your teenager gas and grocery receipts to see how much that needs charged every month. The summit is to pull out your credit card bills. Would you pay this every month or only partially, have your teen calculate the interest and late-payment penalties. Credit card charges are usually open their eyes.

If parents can do this when they were teenagers living at home, it will be a smoother transition when teenagers go on to college or whatever he was doing after high school. The students who already understand what he was responsible for the costs likely to be successful in managing their college budgets.

Then consider following the direction of Laura Crowley, a math teacher at John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri. Crowley has students choose a college of their choice and determine the real cost of attending: tuition, room and board, books, transportation costs, recreation expenses, and everything else of haircuts for football tickets. Crowley has the students use the "last to predict the growth rate of tuition increase for each year that they would in college." Total shocks are usually students.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Use Tips To Develop Successful Study Habits

Study tips and test taking strategies would be of great help in excelling in your studies or academics and in passing your examinations as well. As quoted in the famous movie, Three Idiots, "Follow excellence and success will chase you". This is a way of saying, excel in your study habits and test taking strategies as it will make your dreams come true.

In doing so, you have to work on some tips to avoid procrastination. In the succeeding paragraphs, you will be able to check out the tips which could help you in developing a study method and study habits that would be helpful throughout your years of studying.

The first tip is the identification of the place where you will be studying. You should look for a place in your home that has good lighting conditions and enough space in order to cater to your needs. Make sure to maintain the place as organized as possible. Well, most of the students are using their bedroom as the study area. But make sure that you do not lie down while studying as you will only fall asleep.

The second tip is to concentrate in the lecture hall or when you are inside the classroom. Enhance your concentration by taking down notes. There are students who have an auditory learning style. They are the ones good in recalling what the teachers have told them. Jotting down notes is a great way of studying your lessons as it reinforces the points made. With this, you will always be ready for exams and recitations.

The third tip is finding good ways of memorizing and retaining the work covered. The most popular technique that is widely used is the SQ3R method which stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. Make sure that you follow these steps as these will take you to a more organized way of studying.

The fourth tip is sticking to a certain study method. Most experts say that high school students as well as college students are spending about 40 hours every week on their studies. Look at your weekly schedule and do not spend too much time on things that you do not really need to do. At just one look, you can see the number of hours you can allot for studying.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Should Teaching Your Child Involved Longer School Days?

There has been much debate recently as to whether schooldays should be longer. Many feel that school days should be between 9 am and 5pm but would this really be beneficial?

There would certainly be some advantages to lengthening the school day.

For example with there being more working moms now than previously, having children in school for longer hours would certainly help to create a better work life balance for those mums. No more expensive childcare and the peace of mind of knowing that your child is safe and not roaming the streets in gangs.

Many also argue that having longer school hours would help to prepare children for when they have to work long hours in their working career.

One example of a country that has longer school hours, often up to twelve hours a day, is China. They have a compulsory 9 year schooling during which most children often spend more hours at school than their parents do at work. Many would also argue that the strict emphasis that both parents and the government place on educating children in China is the reason that their economy is so strong.

Having longer school days could also provide more time to allocate to non academic activities such as school choirs, orchestras and sports teams. Indeed many school s who do actually offer after school education, often excel in these activities.

However whilst longer school days would certainly help working mums, is it really fair that children's education should consists of having to stay in school for more hours?

Already most school offer extracurricular activities for after school including sports activities that can help working parents but would having after school education involving more educational activities for children offer any real benefits?

Would it really equip children better for the outside working world? Let's be honest people have always managed to adapt to working life without any problems in the past.

Another downside of staying in school for a longer day is that when the children finally have time to play after finishing their homework, they will either be too tired to play or there will no one to play with as all the other children will still be completing their homework too. Therefore their social life could suffer which could also affect their social skills and confidence in the future.

Also teaching your children for longer hours could result in many children becoming tired, especially when they become hungry and therefore lacking concentration to take in further knowledge.

All in all, in my opinion it that it is far better to keep the school day to its current hours. As previously mentioned there are currently many extra curriculum activities offered by most schools which can be taken advantage of by working moms or dads.

Also with working from home now being so popular and with many employers also now offering working parents more flexible working hours, it is becoming easier than ever to work around your children's school hours.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Study of Academic Skills Needed to Succeed

On any given school night, a common question parents ask their teenagers is: "Do you have any homework?" or "Have you studied yet?" What those parents should be asking, is: "Does my child know how to study?" Unfortunately the answer is often no, yet having strong study skills are the key to academic success-whether in middle school, high school, or college.

What often happens in the middle and high school classroom is that a teacher tells students that they need to take notes. After the pens and paper come out, the teacher usually tells the students what to write down. Some students get it, some don't. The students are given a reading assignment to go along with their notes, and sometime later there is a test. The teacher usually does some type of review before the test, but basically the student is on his own to study. Maybe he never read the assignment; maybe he only half listened during the note taking; maybe he only half listened during the review. When he sits down to study, he doesn't have what he needs, probably gets bored, and calls it a night. That does not bode well for how he will do on the test.

It doesn't matter what the subject is, if the student does not understand, or even care, about the correlation between good study skills and good grades, he or she will probably end up a mediocre student at best. And if they want to go to college, keep in mind that a student without good study skills can sink very quickly. Parents should know that college professors must assume that the student comes to class fully aware of the importance of good note taking, effective reading, and paying attention. Those that have those skills succeed in college; those that don't struggle.

The problem, of course, is getting your teenager motivated enough to learn good study techniques and then use them. That is not easy and parents will need to be creative in their efforts to get their teenagers to see the value. If that teenager plans to go to college, be ready to explain to her that reading, note taking, and studying are everyday chores in college-the better prepared she is now, the more likely she will do well in college.

Some middle and high schools do offer classes that teach study skills. One example is a program called AVID - Advancement Via Individual Determination. In AVID classes, students learn how to take notes, read for content, study, and organize themselves. It would be worth a call to the counselor's office to see what your teenager's school offers if you feel he does not know how to study.

One effective study method can be self taught-if you can convince your student it is worth the effort. SQR3 (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) uses five clear steps to studying:

   1. First survey, or scan, the whole document. Pay attention to titles and subtitles, to graphs and charts, to bold or italic text.
   2. Question what you've just surveyed. What questions come to mind with each subtitle or chart? What does that italic test make you wonder?
   3. Then thoroughly read each section one at a time, looking for answers to your questions.
   4. Next recite the answers to your questions out loud - speaking the answers helps you remember the information.Then write down the answer.
   5. After you have read and recited each section, do a final review of all your notes, questions, and answers. Make a list of the main points.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

How Educational Resources Have Changed?

As with all advancements in technology, many different sectors are directly influenced by the changes, sometimes for the good and sometimes not. Most industries that are hit first are those of business as these advancements can often affect their operations, marketing and production, etc. However, education in schools, colleges and universities are all influenced by the changes in technology.

We all know that the world was revolutionised with the introduction of computers but they are now more heavily involved in part of many early years' resources. For those in higher education you can understand how the process is a lot easier to integrate and will be more easily adapted. However, concerning really young children who will not be able to quickly learn about computers, the process could prove more challenging.

One of the ways in which this notion has been introduced with outstanding success is via the replacement of traditional white boards, or even chalk boards, with electronic smart boards. These have been specifically designed for classrooms and feature a range of teaching programmes. This simple advancement will allow the children to familiarise themselves with the computer systems, allowing for easy adaption, without putting any pressure or responsibly onto the actual children.

Many of the programmes used by these systems are fun, interactive and also educational, which has been found to help younger children grasp particular concepts a lot easier. They are actively involved within the lesson and you can teach them via topics they are interested in and will want to learn. It has also been found that the use of educational games and sounds has been a success when it comes to teaching more academic levels. They are able incorporate the use of imagery and sounds, combined with words to help adhere to a range of different learning styles.

With more and more educational bodies recognising the different learning styles and how many children learn better using a variety of techniques; audio, visual and kinetic, they have been able to incorporate these factors into differing features of technology. This has allowed teachers to get the most out of classes and the best performance from individual pupils. By addressing this at an early age, where children are prone to soak up information, it can help to push the standards of education forward.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Importance of Outdoor Learning

Traditionally, learning and education has always done indoors in a safe and secure and lean environment, but this has since been revised and look into more detail.

Outside environment is rich in natural space and the dynamic of a lot can be learned through physical processes and interactive. Children of all ages will be able to learn in a fun and healthy environment when some classes are taken outside. Its value as an important lean environment has been recognized by many different pieces of research, and more recently Stage Early Years Foundation (EYFS).

They have been able to summarize the values ​​of the outdoors and have identified the following in particular;

    * Being outdoors has a positive influence on children's welfare and all other aspects of development.
    * The outside of the home offers the opportunity to do things in different ways and at different scales, which is not possible in the room is accessible.
    * They also give children real life experience with the weather, seasons, wildlife and their habitats as well as many other things related to the natural world.
    * They give children the freedom to explore and use their senses and be physically active and alive.

Because of its unique features and characteristics of the outside offer, it will provide children with experiences and activities that can not be easily replicated in the room. It has the same value of learning in a room and provide a basis from which children can actively acquire academic information. They need support from adults who are involved and enthusiastic about the outdoors to show them how important and how it can affect their health and wellbeing; it will seek to ensure that they have a positive opinion from the outside, helping them form a well balanced lifestyle and active.

While teaching in your outdoor environment to actively encourage children to make their own decisions about things, while also giving them the opportunity to freely explore, solve problems and grow in confidence as they create their own experience. They need a lot of time to develop their own skills and find things they are interested in, and things that they do not, something that can only be achieved by giving them time to investigate the accident environment. They will make predictions with a drawing of what they have leaned in the classroom in addition to playing experience, they will be able to actively learn and test these theories because they experience things first hand for themselves.