We do talk about these things in our house but I realised that we don’t talk about them as much as we should. As a parent of boys, I am in the fortunate position of having slightly less pressure on them to conform in terms of body image – we end up talking to them more about the terrible values and comments of certain radio hosts or sporting ‘heroes’.

When I started to talk about this yesterday again I realised how much more talking I need to do. Mr 9 is still too immature to really take in the whole message and commented that girls wear bikinis on the beach “so what’s the difference?”. Mr 13 was quite thoughtful about it and agreed that there is too much pressure on young women to be a certain way because of images they see in the media; he also said “but most girls won’t know that Lea Michele isn’t a teenager – they’ll just think she’s the age she is in Glee.” Mr 15 from whom I expected the most mature response made a few glib remarks and was not prepared to engage in the discussion because he “likes the photo” on the cover of Cosmopolitan.

An interesting mix of responses probably partly reflective of temperament, hormones and age but a good reminder to a mother of boys that these issues need to be spoken about in our house just as frequently.

Jan, that’s a great contribution to the public information – thank you – and also a great indication of how the message about review and improvement of teacher performance is not getting out there to the public. In many cases that message is being highjacked by the stories of what goes wrong in education of course. I hope you will keep commenting here so that the facts are explained.

I guess though, the reality is that parents in the public education system and the private education system see some teachers that are not performing to the levels that they as parents expect – I agree that sometimes those expectations are misinformed or unrealistic. However, I do think that there are still many parents who are educated and informed enough to have their views listened to and considered.

Our kids have been very fortunate in their public education with the quality of the schools and the teachers but I do know of many stories where that is not the case. So whilst the policies may be rigourous, the practice is not always – and I suspect this has a lot to do with the lack of support and resources given to Principals, teachers and schools – and I include in that a sufficient budget for professional development. If 89% of parents are saying that public schools should be given more money – we know there is something terribly wrong.

I have heard fabulous things about the funding and success of education in Scandinavian countries from a friend who studies education; I would love these examples to be looked at by the Federal government also when formulating education policy. I have been told (unsure if correct) that the current policy-makers look mainly to US examples (and NY in particular) for best practices in education?

And finally, whilst the PDHPE curriculum does require teachers to address the emotional wellbeing of children in the curriculum I do know that in most classrooms and schools there is little time and few resources allocated to do this in an explicit way. Teachers care deeply about their students emotional wellbeing but for EI to be part of the curriculum in any meaningful way, education policy across Australia needs to include an evidence-based social and emotional learning curriculum and provide teachers with time and resources for training and implementation. Okay, getting back down off my soapbox now. Many thanks Jan.

Meredith, that’s partly the issue in this news story isn’t it really – you can’t tell what’s going on in a celebrity’s family by only watching what goes on at award ceremonies. And this story will sell lots of books one day.

I heard that Prime Minister Gillard is warning of a dire shortage of skilled tradespeople in Australia so Mr 4 might be able to earn a movie star’s income one day cashing in on this. But don’t stage-pipe-mother him into please Bern.

Yes agree that’s an important thing for us all to think about – a close friend was talking to me about this yesterday and saying nepotism happens in all sorts of professions; think kids of famous sporting heroes and then later all the advantages you get if your parent is a lawyer, doctor or otherwise well-connected professional. But the thing about the entertainment industry is that you can start young, and that’s where this fine line comes in. I like your phrase “keep alert for any changes in ambition”.

And I’m pleased you can die happy but hang around for a little longer for the next time I need your multi-faceted knowledge base please.