Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:
- A top-performing education system identified by the Government as an example to follow has introduced curriculum reforms sharply at odds with Michael Gove’s strict focus on “essential” subject knowledge.
- Geography is declining in many of England’s schools as pupils turn away from a subject they find “boring and irrelevant”, inspectors have said. Read the Ofsted report here.
- MPs have warned that boring lessons are fuelling bad behaviour in the classroom as unruly children “muck about” to kill time.
- Politicians may be keen to measure schools’ effectiveness, but the quality of the school environment is only half of the story, researchers have found. Academics at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry say the genetic factors children bring to the classroom are just as influential.
- Traditional boys’ schools are “near extinction” as growing numbers of headmasters axe single-sex education to admit girls, according to research.
- Plans to give teachers the protection of anonymity following serious accusations made by students were put forward yesterday as the Government published its second piece of schools legislation.
- Schools are unlikely to be able to close the achievement gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds, say researchers.
- Pupils in Wales would rather go hungry than eat free school meals because of the stigma of poverty.
- National reading tests are to be introduced as part of a shake-up to Wales’ schools system announced by the education minister.
Image – Concentration
- Two-fifths of students from England accepted on to university degree courses last year achieved lower grades than two Es at A-level, a thinktank has shown.
- Applications to secondary teacher training courses have collapsed, prompting fears of a recruitment crisis within five years. It is also thought that teacher training places will be reduced significantly and generous grants to tempt students into the classroom will be cut as the Coalition steps up its austerity drive.
- A new university that teaches students in some of the most remote classrooms in Britain with one of the world’s largest videoconferencing networks has been formally launched in Inverness.
- UK children watch an average of more than two and a half hours of television a day and spend an hour and 50 minutes online a day, a poll suggests.
- Northern Ireland Education Minister Caitriona Ruane has ordered a review into why hundreds of schools closed during the heavy snowfall in December.
- A controversial website is continuing to let British children post online messages which campaigners say amount to “vicious” cyber-bullying.
- Former Play School presenter Floella Benjamin has urged ministers and broadcasters to “wake up” to a “crisis” in children’s television programming.
- A secondary school teacher has written an award-winning play set in a tough city school.
Next week’s Teaching Events include:
- 1st to 28th February – National Heart Month
- 7th to 14th February – Go Green Week
- 8th February - Safer Internet Day
- 11th February – National Doodle Day
- 12th February – Darwin Day
