06 | NEWS | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
World Cup set to help kids read
The National Literacy Trust has developed a free World Cup toolkit for schools to inspire young people’s reading. Writen by popular football children’s
author Tom Palmer, Love Football: Love Reading 2014, features ideas, activities, resources and posters that schools, libraries and learning centres at football clubs can use to promote reading through sport. Tom Palmer said: “When I was a boy
it was very difficult to motivate me to read for pleasure. I take part in football writing and projects like this because this is the kind of thing that would have worked for me. And I do it because I think it will work for children today.” During the five weeks of the World
LEFT:
Frank Lampard is supporting the toolkit
Cup, the National Literacy Trust will publish an original children’s story in 26 episodes. Each chapter will be roughly 700 words long (a five- to 10-minute classroom read) and will be published before 8am every weekday from Wednesday 11 June to Monday 14 July, so that schools – and others – can read it aloud during the day. As well as being an ongoing adventure
Study to test effects of tech
A new study, led by Imperial College London, will investigate whether mobile phones affect children’s cognitive development. The Study of Cognition,
Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) is the largest study in the world to address this issue. It will focus on cognitive functions such as memory and atention, which continue to develop into adolescence. Around 70% of 11–12-year-
olds in the UK now own a mobile phone, rising to 90% by age 14. Most research to date on mobile phones has focused on adults and risk of brain cancers. While there is no convincing evidence that radio wave exposures from mobile phones affect health, scientists remain uncertain as to whether children’s developing brains are more vulnerable than adults’ brains, due to their
developing nervous system, enhanced absorption of energy in head tissue, and increased cumulative exposure over their lifetimes. The latest World Health
Organization (WHO) radiofrequency agenda highlights this uncertainty, ranking ‘prospective cohort studies of children and adolescents’, including neurocognitive and behavioural outcomes, as a ‘highest priority research need’. SCAMP is an independent,
three-year study commissioned by the Department of Health, on behalf of multiple funders. Led by researchers from Imperial College London, working with partners from Birkbeck, University of London, and others, it will follow the cognitive development of approximately 2,500 year 7 pupils in participating schools from this September. Current UK health policy
guidelines advise that children under 16 should be
encouraged to use mobile phones for essential purposes only, where possible use a hands-free kit or text and, if calls are really necessary, to keep them short. An NHS leaflet giving this advice was produced in 2011 and that advice still stands. Parents and pupils who
agree to take part in the study will answer questions about the children's use of mobile devices and wireless technologies, well-being and lifestyle in Year 7 and Year 9. Pupils will also undertake classroom- based computerised tasks measuring various cognitive abilities that underpin functions such as memory and atention.
To find out more, or to nominate a school to take part in SCAMP, visit the website at
www.scampstudy.org.
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