Toys and Games

Merida The Beautiful… Wait… What??!

 Merida the Beautiful … Wait. What?
 Since when was Merida the beautiful princess? Wasn’t she Merida the Brave? Wasn’t she an anti-princess, a strong and feisty fighter, defender of her own virtue, thank you very much.
British Canadian blogger Sarah Jay takes a closer look at Merida merchandising.

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Language & Literature

A Short Story – The White Dove

Dad walks over to me. He’s carrying several slices of bread.

‘Hi, Grace.’

‘Hi,’ I say, giving him a look which I hope he understands means, I am so not impressed with this new pre-birthday arrangement.

Dad doesn’t seem to have noticed my look. I wonder what he’s doing with the bread.

‘For the ducks,’ he says when he catches me staring at it.

I nod and decide not to mention that I am no longer five years old and that feeding the ducks in the park doesn’t exactly excite me anymore.

‘Right,’ I say, as we head over to the pond.

‘So, Grace, how have you been?’

We sit down on the bench next to the willow tree.

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Popular, School & Career

Tips For Exam Success

Prepare for exams

How to tackle exam stress and emerge still smiling…
Whether it’s SATs, school entrance exams or simply a test of your knowledge at the end of a topic – exams can be scary. They don’t have to be.
English teacher and tutor Allana has witnessed firsthand the effects of exam stress on very capable students – even those who KNOW the answers can get rattled on the big day. 

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Home, Health & Style, Popular

6 Things Kids with Special Needs Wish EVERYONE Would Do

When we published our article 6 Things Parents Wish Their Kids Would Do … and 6 Things Kids Wish Their Parents Would Do, one of our readers got in touch to say we should do one for the things that kids with special needs wish EVERYONE would do. So we asked our followers, and came up with this list.

It was a bit tricky to put the list together, because there are so many different kinds of “special needs”. For some children, their disability is quite well manageable with medication, or with assistance and therapy, and you’d hardly know they had any additional needs.  You may have heard of autism or Asperger’s Syndrome – these are part of the autistic disorder spectrum, a range of conditions that affect how people communicate and relate to people around them. You can’t tell by looking at someone if they have ASD.

Other children have disabilities that are apparent when you meet them, such as those with Down’s Syndrome, which we have covered in more detail here. Or they might use a wheelchair to get around.

What thing do they all have in common? They sometimes get asked really silly questions, and get treated badly by people. Make sure you aren’t one of them, by listening to what the kids (and their parents) had to say!

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