Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Education Secretary Michael Gove is investigating the possibility of regional pay for teachers. He has also labelled campaigners against turning a school into an academy as “Trots”.
• Poor teachers should be denied pay rises to stop underperformance being “rewarded”, the head of the schools watchdog has said.
• Professor Dylan Wiliam of London University’s Institute of Education is challenging Ofsted to show some “integrity” by subjecting its school inspections to an evaluation of their reliability and publishing the findings.
• Ofsted is to introduce no notice inspection for child protection services. The new child protection framework will come into effect in May.
• Urgent action is needed to protect children and teachers from exposure to deadly asbestos in schools, MPs have warned.
• While it may be frustrating for a teacher attempting to control a class, researchers say blurting out the answers can be good for pupils.
• Pupils expelled from school for dealing drugs, attacking other children and carrying weapons are being allowed back into lessons against teachers’ wishes.
• A for-profit company is setting up private schools that claim to offer the same quality education as top public schools but for half the price.
• A council in east London is drawing up plans to convert an empty Woolworths store into a classroom and teach children in two shifts, in emergency measures across Britain to cope with a dramatic increase in primary school age children.
• This article questions the current timetable of school holidays. Should schools run all year round?

Curriculum and Exams:

• The Telegraph has launched its ‘Make Britain Count’ numeracy campaign. Find out how you can get involved here.
• Courses in subjects such as horse care, customer service, nail technology and practical office skills will no longer be listed as “equivalent” to GCSEs under new plans.
• Estyn chief inspector’s report shows 40% of pupils start secondary school in Wales with a reading age of six months below their actual age.
• Pupils should be assessed using multiple choice questions, project work and oral tests as part of a shake-up of A-levels, the qualifications regulator has suggested.
• Ofsted has released new resources to support the improvement of teaching and learning in history in schools.

Other News:

• A £2bn a year programme to provide free childcare is failing to have a long-term impact on education standards, according to the spending watchdog.
• Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers have voted to back the government’s revised pensions deal.
• A college is planning a new evening course entirely devoted to taking better photographs on an iPhone.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 1st to 29th February - National Heart Month
• 4th February - World Cancer Day
• 4th February - National Libraries Day
• 4th February - Unicef Day for Change
• 6th February - Go Green Week
• 7th February - Safer Internet Day
• 7th February - Charles Dickens’ Birthday

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. My wife and I have just had our first child, Joseph Warner, so he has been taking up lots of my time

Here are links to the latest teaching news and events:

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Gordon Brown is making an impassioned call for the international community to make education a higher priority – and to make a co-ordinated plan to achieve universal primary education by 2015.
• One in three of the children around the world who do not have access to primary education have a disability, says a report from the charity Sightsavers.
• The equivalent of more than 3,200 new primary schools will be needed by the end of the decade as the pupil population soars to a 50-year high, it emerged today.
• The public have responded enthusiastically to a Twitter appeal for questions for MPs to ask the Education Secretary, Michael Gove.
• Just one in 15 (6.5%) pupils starting secondary school in England “behind” for their age goes on to get five good GCSEs including English and maths, official data shows. In response to this, Brian Lightman, the General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders disagrees with the charge that schools are not helping some of their pupils.
• Two grammar schools are at the top of this year’s secondary school league tables for England. The BBC has also written this article about the academy finding itself at the bottom of the league tables and the difficult job that the head teacher and staff face. However, schools minister Nick Gibb has said he wants to stop schools prioritising their rankings in exam league tables over ensuring a good education for all their pupils.
• Almost eight-in-10 teenagers are being steered away from tough academic GCSEs amid fresh warnings that schools across England are “wasting talent”.
• Teachers at a primary school in Birmingham have gone on strike for a second time over plans to turn it into an academy.
• Primary school pupils at a Leeds school are being given anger management classes to curb bad behaviour, an Ofsted report has revealed.
• Teachers are having sleepless nights about whether to report suspected victims of child neglect, a report for a charity says.
• More than one in 10 school teachers accused of misconduct last year had used social networking sites and email to forge inappropriate relationships with their pupils, an analysis of disciplinary cases has found.
• More than 1,000 private schools are to be subjected to tough new inspections after Ofsted warned that teaching was “seldom inspiring”.
• Pupils at a south London secondary school were surprised when Bill Gates turned up to give a special talk.
• The anti-monarchy group Republic is warning schools they may break the law if they take part in a cooking contest to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Universities:

• Universities are increasingly axing courses in traditional academic disciplines such as science in favour of the performing arts, media studies and photography, according to research.
• Universities are being ordered to effectively cut 15,000 student places, it has emerged, prompting claims that many well-qualified applicants will miss out.
• Almost a third of major companies are struggling to fill vacancies, despite record numbers of graduates searching for jobs, according to research.

Other News:

• It may be possible to detect autism at a much earlier age than previously thought, according to an international team of researchers.
• Apple aims to drive the use of electronic textbooks in the classroom by making it easier for publishers to create interactive titles.
• Digital literacy must be extended to adults too, says Martha Lane Fox, to improve employment prospects. Children would be the best teachers.
• Rio’s gearing up for the 2016 Olympics and Schools World Service have been to see how life is changing for young people living in the favelas.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 16th to 30th January - RSPB Big Schools’ Birdwatch
• 23rd to 29th January - Food Allergy and Intolerance Week
• 28th January - Data Privacy Day
• 31st January - Up Helly Aa
• 31st January - National Bug Busting Day
• 1st to 29th February - National Heart Month
• 4th February - World Cancer Day
• 4th February - National Libraries Day
• 4th February - Unicef Day for Change

Happy New Year!

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• The education secretary is being urged to ditch regulations limiting infant class sizes to 30 pupils, in order to save money.
• Education Secretary Michael Gove has accused those who oppose his academies programme of being “happy with failure”.
• The Education Secretary loses the concentration of his young audience shortly after beginning his defence of academies.
• Dozens of teachers facing allegations of incompetence and misconduct will escape official hearings owing to the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England, new figures suggest.
• A third of parents are so unhappy with their child’s school they would advise other families not to send their children there, new figures from Ofsted have revealed.
• Schools are routinely cheating Ofsted inspections by bribing pupils, sending troublemakers home and rehearsing lessons, teachers have warned. Read the response from Ofsted here.
• The school day should be lengthened to prepare pupils for work, says Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg.
• Too many exams are ruining children’s enjoyment of their time at school, a former schools adviser has said.
• How well children perform in the classroom could be linked to how physically active they are, suggests a Dutch review of previous studies.
• Children who grow up without a daily routine of set bedtimes and mealtimes do worse at school, a report suggests.
• The Commission on School Reform has urged Scottish schools to abandon what it called the “bog standard” model of comprehensive education.
• Schools are being encouraged by the UK’s top scientific body to bring cutting edge science into the classroom.

Universities:

• University application numbers could be making a sharp recovery – according to figures from a university.
• A new type of privately-funded science and technology university has been announced by the universities minister.

Other News:

• Children’s access to smartphones and computers should be limited to stop them becoming “addicted” to electronic gadgets, according to a schools’ leader.

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• There is no hard evidence that schools in England are slipping behind other countries, says an academic study.
• Schools which fail to improve within six years of being classed “satisfactory” should be relabelled inconsistent and pushed harder to improve, a report says.
• The qualification currently required for head teachers in England’s state schools will no longer be compulsory, the government has announced. Read the official announcement here.
• Michael Gove signalled a significant shift in approach last week when he admitted that he and his ministerial colleagues were guilty of being “behind the curve” when it came to technology in schools.
• The number of Scottish teachers has continued to fall, the latest education statistics have revealed.
• The test-run of a new primary school reading check suggests two-thirds of pupils are likely to fail it when it is introduced in England next year.
• Almost four million children in the UK do not own a book, according to a report by the National Literacy Trust.

Exams and Testing:

• The government is calling for a reform of the exam system, after inquiries were launched in England and Wales into claims of cheating. Read the response from the Department for Education here.
• More than 38,000 exam entries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were regraded after schools asked for re-marks, the exams watchdog Ofqual says.

Universities:

• Changes to university funding could reduce the number of people getting qualifications in science, technology and engineering, MPs have been told.
• Business leaders are warning that students in the UK are lagging behind in developing an international outlook needed for a globalised economy.

Other News:

• Fewer than a fifth of people think they are part of a traditional family, suggests research by a think tank.
• The lowest price for an acceptable Christmas for a low-income family with two children is £182, a study says.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 10th December - Human Rights Day
• 11th December - International Mountain Day
• 13th December - St. Lucia’s Day
• 14th December - Monkey Day
• 16th December - Boston Tea Party

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• MPs have described ministers’ response to their recommendations on science lessons as “hugely disappointing”.
• The teaching of computer science must become more relevant to modern needs, said the government.
• The Government is to set out plans for up to a dozen new specialist schools aimed at providing the “highest quality maths teaching in the world”.
• Funding for literacy and numeracy, which represents about a quarter of the skills budget, is to be reformed amid claims that colleges and training providers are failing to help adults with the greatest problems.
• In the week that hundreds of thousands of heads and teachers staged a national strike, chancellor George Osborne has poured petrol on the flames by indicating his intention to introduce regional pay deals for teachers.
• Ofsted’s next chief inspector set out a controversial raft of policies this week, including plans to condemn schools that give teachers automatic pay rises when not enough lessons are “good” and to assess staff standards of dress.
• Almost three-quarters of England’s councils are reviewing or making cuts to optional school transport services, data suggests.
• Calculators may be restricted in primary schools until children have mastered basic arithmetic including knowing times tables by heart, a minister has said. Read the official announcement by the Department for Education here.

• Nearly half of children who pass grammar school entrance exams are turned away because there are not enough places.
• Sixth-formers could be forced to sit three A-levels in one day under plans to radically overhaul university admissions, a senior examiner has warned.

• Iain Duncan Smith has said tackling child poverty by boosting family income through benefits is a narrow approach which “looks set to have failed”.
• More free places in nursery or childcare are being made available to two-year-olds in England, under plans set out by Chancellor George Osborne.
• A Carmarthenshire sixth-former is a school bus driver, taking 38 pupils to and from his school every day.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 1st to 10th December - Great British Tea Party
• 3rd December - International Day of Persons with Disabilities
• 3rd to 4th December - Tree Dressing Day
• 6th December - St. Nicholas Day
• 8th December - Bodhi Day
• 10th December - Human Rights Day

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• The Coalition Government’s Education Bill has been granted Royal Assent. This completes the legislative framework for the Government’s key education reforms, and paves the way for important changes in schools in England. These changes have been reported in The Telegraph and on the BBC News site.
• Britain is facing a “hidden crisis” because schools in prosperous areas are failing to push middle-class children to reach their full potential, David Cameron has warned.
• Plans to alter education funding could boost the budgets of some schools, while others see theirs reduced, the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests.
• Wales’ largest teaching union has accused Education Minister Leighton Andrews of political interference which is having a detrimental impact on teachers’ ability to do their jobs.
• Thousands of private school teachers could shift to the state sector under Government plans to cut them out of a public pensions scheme, a study suggests.
• Children risk being left with a poor understanding of key subjects because of failures in the way teachers are trained, according to a leading headmistress.
• Hundreds of thousands of pupils in England could be missing out on extra cash for their schools according to the Department for Education.
• Children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have made remarkable progress in attainment, behaviour and attendance under a Government-funded pilot, according to a new report published this week.
• Heads are “out of date” and their old-fashioned attitudes are preventing thousands of talented women from working at the chalkface, according to the chief executive of the Training and Development Agency for Schools.
• Ofsted have released a new report entitled ‘Good practice in primary mathematics: evidence from 20 successful schools’, which looks at how 20 schools successfully taught arithmetic, a key component of mathematics.

Universities:

• The new chairman of a group of leading research universities has warned against treating students as “consumers purchasing degree certificates”.
• The Business Secretary Vince Cable says he is hearing reports that some universities are blocking colleges’ attempts to offer cheaper degrees.
• More than 850 university students entered a competition to design mobile phone applications to pass on information on everything from education league tables to finding a school.

Other News:

• Education unions are urging the government to put the issue of youth unemployment at the centre of the political agenda.
• The government has confirmed that there are now 124 fewer Sure Start centres for children than there were when the coalition formed last year.
• A charity is calling on more local councils in England to send vulnerable children to boarding school rather than into care.
• One in three of the children around the world who do not have access to primary education have a disability, suggests research from the charity Sightsavers.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 14th to 25th November - Anti-Bullying Week
• 14th to 20th November - Global Entrepreneurship Week
• 19th November - World Toilet Day
• 19th November - International Men’s Day
• 20th November - Universal Children’s Day
• 21st November - World Television Day
• 21st November - World Hello Day
• 21st to 27th November - Road Safety Week

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, outlines a new recruitment drive for specialist maths and science in primary schools as part of a sweeping reform of the teacher training system in England.
• Nick Clegg has said £7bn will be spent over four years improving the education of England’s poorest children.
• The part that grammar schools play in the education system of Kent has been championed by two MPs from the county.
• State schools will be told to teach the classic English novels they currently ignore in a radical overhaul of what is taught in the classroom.
• Too many children leave school unable to add, subtract and divide after being put off by “flawed” maths lessons, according to a leading examiner.
• Children as young as five will be taught by specialist subject teachers under a Government plan to give pupils the best start to their education.
• A string of big names from the arts world are urging the government to ensure cultural learning is not stripped from schools in England.
• Nearly 12,000 parents were prosecuted and 25 given prison sentences because of their children’s truancy from school last year, figures show.
• Many pupils who sat Standard Grade and Higher exams in Scotland earlier this year struggled with basic skills, according to Scotland’s exams board.
• A game of cricket during the school day can help improve pupils’ behaviour and lead to calmer classrooms, a report suggests.
• Parents in England and Northern Ireland are spending more time reading to their children for pleasure, a survey for the reading scheme Booktime suggests.
• Children whose parents frequently read with them in their first year of school are still showing the benefit when they are 15, says an international study.

Universities:

• Plans for universities in England to compete for some student places should be delayed, a Commons committee says.

Other News:

• Not putting the clocks back would help in the fight against child obesity, a study suggests.
• As many as 140,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds could have free nursery places under a scheme planned to be rolled out in England.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 14th November - World Diabetes Day
• 14th to 20th November - Global Entrepreneurship Week
• 14th to 25th November - Anti-Bullying Week
• 16th November - International Day for Tolerance
• 17th to 19th November - The Design + Technology with ICT Education Show
• 18th November - Children in Need
• 19th November - World Toilet Day
• 19th November - International Men’s Day

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• The head of one of the most successful schools in England is to be named the new chief inspector of schools and children’s services.
• Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has been ‘unsparing in his criticism of the status quo, which is seeing Britain sliding down the international league tables’.
• The head of a private school in Berkshire has said the government’s education targets are turning schools into “exam factories”.
• England’s most disadvantaged pupils are set to benefit from an extra £58 each after the Department for Education announced this year’s Pupil Premium will increase to £488.
• Independent schools have won a long-running legal battle with the Charity Commission on what schools must do to justify their charitable status.
• Parents have begun a campaign to try to save a fee-paying Suffolk school which has announced it is to close at the end of October.
• Tens of thousands of British school teachers have been subjected to false allegations from a pupil that has placed their careers at “significant” risk, new research has suggested.
• Ministers have abandoned plans to remove schools’ duty to work with councils to improve children’s welfare.
• The Children’s Society is calling for better training for teachers so they can help to identify children at risk of running away and take preventive action.
• The number of pupils being given the top A* grade at A-Level could be limited in future, Education Secretary Michael Gove has suggested.
• Teenagers in Britain want to have more say in the content of sex education lessons at school, a survey finds.
• Nearly 2,000 schoolchildren will get the chance to compete in four main Olympic venues before the Games start, in the finals of the 2012 School Games.
• Following last week’s reports about the importance of teaching foreign languages to young children, this article explains that there are problems with the policy.
• GCSE pupils’ reading is more than a year behind the standard of their peers in Shanghai, Korea and Finland, research has revealed.

Further Education:

• Almost half of England’s further education colleges have seen a decline in student numbers – with the drop blamed on the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance.

Other News:

• This TES article explains that the Government’s plans over teachers’ pensions are about to make the situation much worse.
• A children’s charity has said five family intervention projects it runs in England have been closed and two more are at risk because of funding cuts.
• Private tutors, musical instrument teachers and fitness instructors face a clampdown by the taxman trying to catch out after-hours teachers who are paid cash-in-hand by middle class families.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 7th September to 23rd October - Rugby World Cup 2011
• 1st to 31st October - Walk to School Month
• 1st to 31st October - The Big Draw
• 1st to 31st October - Black History Month
• 10th to 16th October - Chocolate Week
• 13th to 20th October - Sukkot
• 13th to 21st October - National Schools Film Week
• 15th October - Global Handwashing Day
• 16th October - World Food Day
• 17th to 23rd October - National Baking Week
• 21st October - National Tea Break
• 21st October - Everybody Writes Day

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Ofsted have published information about how inspections will change from 2012.
• More than one million children are now taught in academies, according to statistics from the Department for Education.
• London’s schools are “sleepwalking” into segregation, with classrooms in some parts of the capital teaching almost exclusively black or Asian pupils, a leading headteacher has warned.
• A decision to scrap traditional GCSE coursework has damaged children’s education and caused chaos in schools, according to the official exams watchdog.
• The chief inspector of prisons has said fewer young people would end up in prison if schools ended their policy of exclusion.
• The school leaving age should be cut to 14, a former chief inspector of schools in England has said.
• School pupils are getting lessons from the catwalk in a bid to banish slovenly behaviour and build up self-esteem.
• Pupils in England who score a D grade “near miss” in maths and English GCSEs will be expected to re-take at the “earliest opportunity”.
• Nearly 2,000 teachers responded to a Guardian Teacher Network survey asking how they feel about their jobs. Many wrote: ‘I love teaching but…’

Universities:

• Britain has better universities than the government realises, the editor of Times Higher Education has said following the publication of its World University Rankings.
• The majority of pupils think teaching at school was better than the teaching they got at university, a survey suggests.
• Students at top universities are facing widespread disruption as tens of thousands of lecturers stage industrial action in a long-running row over pensions.

Other News:

• Teachers and other public sector workers who are approaching retirement face dwindling living standards in later life due to changes to their pensions according to a financial group.
• This photo gallery from the BBC highlights some of the best school buildings around the world.
• Parents are failing to put enough fruit and veg into their children’s packed lunches, health experts have warned.
• Anne Wood, creator of children’s television series In The Night Garden and the Teletubbies, believes TV is often blamed wrongly for children’s inability to express themselves.
• Hawaii is to become the first US state to offer surfing as an official secondary school competition sport.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 7th September to 23rd October  - Rugby World Cup 2011
• 1st to 31st October - Walk to School Month
• 1st to 31st October - The Big Draw
• 1st to 31st October - Black History Month
• 3rd to 9th October - Children’s Book Week
• 4th to 10th October - World Space Week
• 8th October - Yom Kippur
• 13th October - World Sight Day
• 13th to 20th October - Sukkot
• 13th to 31st October - National Schools Film Week
• 14th October - Battle of Hastings

Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news:

Schools:

• Tens of thousands of seven-year-olds are struggling to master the three Rs, official figures show. Read the announcement from the Department for Education here.
• The education secretary, Michael Gove, has proposed that every child aged five or over should be learning a foreign language, and promised to “pull every lever”, including encouraging longer school days, to make it happen.
• Work has begun to train 100 former members of the armed forces to become mentors in schools in England.
• A-level pupils should be ranked by the schools they attend as well as the grades they get, an exam board says.
• This report from the BBC discusses schools that are using 3D technology to support learning.

Inspections:

• School inspections in England will give more scrutiny to the quality of teaching, in a back to basics shake-up by the Ofsted education watchdog. Read the official announcement about the changes here.
• Education Secretary Michael Gove has suggested some schools judged to be “outstanding” do not deserve the accolade.
• Parents are to be encouraged to rate their children’s schools on the Ofsted website.

Other News:

• A quarter of teenagers say they have never received any careers advice, according to a poll.
• Nearly a third of children aged ten or under now have their own mobile phone, according to survey of parents.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 7th September to 23rd October - Rugby World Cup 2011
• 17th September to 2nd October - British Food Fortnight
• 1st to 31st October - Walk to School Month
• 1st October - World Vegetarian Day
• 1st October - Older People’s Day
• 1st to 31st October - Black History Month
• 1st to 31st October - The Big Draw
• 3rd to 9th October - Children’s Book Week
• 4th to 10th October - World Space Week
• 4th October - World Animal Day
• 5th October - World Teachers’ Day
• 5th October - Primary Learning and Teaching with Dylan William and Guy Claxton
• 6th October - National Poetry Day
• 7th October - Jeans for Genes Day
• 7th October - World Smile Day