A key part of your son or daughter’s course application to UCAS is their personal statement. Medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences are highly competitive subjects, so applicants are strongly encouraged to make sure this has been done to the best of their ability.

Parents or guardians can play a vital role in checking over a personal statement to ensure it is error-free. You can also help your son or daughter by finding out the kinds of things universities are looking for

Karen Martin, from the Admissions & Student Recruitment department at the University of Dundee, points out that the personal statement should highlight transferable skills learned from outside activities.

Ms Martin said: “For example, playing a musical instrument shows sustained commitment and/or the ability to manage your time effectively between juggling school study and music study.

Admissions selectors assess an applicant’s ability to write an essay to university standard – that includes spelling, paragraph and sentence structure.

Ms Martin added: “Applicants must show a strong knowledge of the role of a professional in that career and explain why they have the skills required to be successful in that role.  Examples of relevant work experience, work shadowing or voluntary work should also be included.”

Her advice to prospective students is: “Talk about why you are applying for that subject and what you have done in the recent past that has increased your interest in that subject. Relate everything back to either the course or your aptitude for university study.”

UCAS offers support to complete your application

John Madden said: “If you have anything you want to ask about making the application or what will happen after it has been sent, you can find lots of valuable advice online at www.ucasconnect.com. From here you can post a question to their dedicated social media advisers on Facebook and Twitter.

“You can also see 30-second clips of our customer service advisers answering popular questions and in-depth video guides on UCAStv

(www.ucas.tv) covering a range of issues such as entering qualifications, making sense of offers and using Track.”

You can also contact their Customer Service Unit on 0871 468 0 468 (or 0044 871 468 0 468 from outside the UK).

UCAS has issued advice to applicants and parents ahead of 15 October deadline for those wishing to apply to study medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine/science, or to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge.

Parents and students are reminded that their application must be received at UCAS by midnight (UK time) on 15 October 2011.

UCAS adviser John Madden said: “With the 15 October deadline drawing closer, it’s important to make sure you’re clear on what’s required before the big day whether you’re a student, adviser or parent.”

For those applying through a school or college, he explained: “Remember they need to have received the application before 15 October in order for them to have time to write the reference and check it all over before sending it on to UCAS.”

But they don’t need to make all their choices by 15 October.

Mr Madden added: “You could submit the application with the choices that do need to meet the deadline and then add further choices at a later date by logging onto Track [on the UCAS website].”

This means there is no need for them to rush their other choices if they’re not sure who else they want to apply to yet.

The application deadline for other courses and universities is 15 January 2012, although some art and design courses ask for applications to be in by 24 March.

Applications received by these deadlines are guaranteed to be considered.

An application received after this date (and before 30 June 2012) will still be sent to the universities and colleges. But they will only consider it if there are vacancies.

To make sure you stay up-to-date with the entire application process, sign up to the UCAS newsletter (www.ucas.com/parents/register) aimed specifically at parents and guardians.

We keep tossing back and forth the debate over whether caning should be brought back into schools to deal with unruly pupils, but I think we are asking the wrong questions.

The TES survey that started the present debate reports that half of parents and one out of five pupils would like to see it return.

Were these parents talking about their own children, or other people’s?

And what about the children: when they ticked ‘yes’, were they thinking about their own bottoms, or someone else’s?

Would caning improve behaviour?

Many teachers will be very uncomfortable with the idea and prefer the behaviour management methods that are working quite well at the schools where behaviour is very good – you know, at those schools education minister Michael Gove keeps talking about.

Both his and the previous government have focused on giving teachers more powers to deal with poor behavior. Teachers can use reasonable force to restrain pupils who disrupt the classroom, give out detentions, even at weekends, and search pupils.

Clearly, we already have methods that are working. But other than filling children with dread, I have no idea whether caning produced anything else in the past. However, there is another question we often overlook when we’re talking about reintroducing it as a form of punishment: would it work in schools today?

Caning as a punishment method is counterproductive to the way schools now teach children to think and communicate, anyway.

Besides, and crucially, Mr Gove says the problem is where behaviour is persistently bad and highlights the riots as an example of what some schools have to deal with.

Would caning work to make these pupils behave nicely, or would it produce more violence, and even attacks against teachers?

Show-down at the local secondary

Major assaults on staff have reached a five-year high with 44 having to be rushed to hospital with serious injuries in 2010, said government reports earlier this year.

Persistent disruptive behaviour accounts for nearly a third of all cases of permanent exclusions in secondary schools, and two thirds of teachers say bad behaviour is driving professionals out of the classroom.

I could just imagine some of the news headlines it would produce as schools themselves become, at best, scenes of wrestling matches and, at worst, wild-west shoot-outs between pupils (and some parents) and teachers.

Years ago when the cane ruled, children were not so forthright, expressive and, well, violent, as some seem to be today.

Making caning work would no doubt involve some casualties until persistent offenders could be subdued and tamed under the new regime.

So, who would like to go first at caning some of these pupils?

The fact that Richard Dawkins wants your child to learn evolution prescriptively starting from age five got me thinking again about the dangers of people deciding what your children should be learning, on your behalf.

And why it is very, very important that you make that decision yourself.

There are hundreds of conversations going on behind the doors of self-appointed policy makers, as well as a few of those you appointed, about what your child should be learning.

So, too, are there pop stars, film stars, gangsters and other ‘celebrities’ inadvertently lined up to teach your child a thing or two about what is important in life.

Some of them have had their way too, and are the reason your child wants to listen to a particular type of music or play with a particular type of toy or wear a particular piece of clothing. Continue reading →