Dutch school bans parents from accessing children's grades to reduce stress
Amsterdam: A secondary school in the Netherlands has reportedly barred parents from accessing grades of their children in a bid to reduce academic stress among students.
According to a report in The Guardian, the school has imposed a month-long pause on sharing the results with 95 percent of parents receptive to the proposal and the parents' council insisting on a 10-week suspension.
Students must meet specific grade average to progress to the next class in Netherlands, which can put considerable pressure on them to maintain high academic performance throughout the year.
Stijn Uittenbogaard, an economics teacher at Jordan - Montessori Lyceum Utrecht, found that a widely used app that shared every grade with the parents increased the stress of children. Uittenbogaard studied nearly half of the children at school and found that when parents checked the app regularly, children rated their stress at 2.7 out of five. Those whose parents were not constantly checking reported a level of two.
"This pressure for students to achieve is really a modern thing in my opinion. When I was at school, there was a report four times a year, but otherwise, you could tell your parents when and what you wanted," Uittenbogaard was quoted as saying by the publication.
"Now parents can get a push notification on their telephones: 'Hey, your child has had a new result,' and the child comes home with their parents sitting ready for a conversation. This is appalling," he added.
Following Uittenbogaard's findings, the school rector, Geert Looyschelder, accepted the proposal. Looyschelder believes that the anxiety with grades in the Dutch education system is hindering the development of essential life skills like empathy and flexibility.
"The fact that parents are looking over the students' shoulders only causes stress. In our education system, we always say: 'You have the right to make mistakes. That's how you learn,” he explained.
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Vande Bharat train window damaged in stone-pelting incident near Kerala’s Palakkad
Palakkad (Kerala) (PTI): A Vande Bharat train operating from Ernakulam to Bengaluru sustained minor damage in a stone-pelting incident a day earlier, police said on Saturday.
The incident occurred near Parali in Palakkad district at around 4.30 pm on Friday, an officer of the Government Railway Police (GRP), Palakkad, said.
“No one was injured in the incident. One of the train’s windows suffered minor damage,” the officer said.
He added that the Railway Protection Force (RPF) has registered a case and launched an investigation.
“GRP and RPF teams are present at Parali as part of the investigation. The stones may have been thrown by a person of unsound mind or someone who was intoxicated,” the officer said.
