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

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been creating lots of new resources to share on Teaching Ideas. Some of these include:

Writing Inspirations – These images and questions can be used to provide ideas and inspiration for writing in your classroom. They could be used as a lesson starter to develop the children’s imaginations, or as part of writing activities in the main part of your lessons.

Science Inspirations – These resources are similar to the writing inspiration series, but for Science! They could be used to trigger discussions about the particular scientific topics, to review existing knowledge or to introduce new topics to the pupils.

I would love to hear your feedback about these ‘Inspirations’ resources, as I’m am very happy to make some more… to add to the current Writing and Science collections and / or for new subject areas.

Numbers to 20 in French, German and Spanish - If you would like bigger numbers, or similar sets in different languages, please let me know!

As Teaching Ideas continues to grow, I’m also adding new sets of contents pages to organise the resources more clearly. Don’t forget that you can follow the Teaching Ideas RSS feed or join my mailing list to get the latest updates to the site. Thank you!

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

• The new Education bill was published which ‘will help teachers raise standards in schools. It includes measures to root out bad behaviour, tackle underperformance and improve the way in which schools are held to account.’ The BBC has a report about the new Education bill as well as an overview of the main changes that it introduces. As part of the new reforms, the education secretary can order councils to close and give out warning notices to failing schools, teachers will be given greater protection against lying pupils and school inspectors will be banned from snooping in pupils’ lunchboxes.
• Schools could be hit by a national teachers’ strike after one of Britain’s biggest classroom unions threatened industrial action in a row over pensions.
• Many of England’s academies do not have adequate controls to ensure public money is spent properly, MPs have said.
• The number of state secondary school pupils in England learning a language continues to decline, a study suggests. Privately-educated pupils were twice as likely to study languages beyond the age of 14 as those from comprehensive schools last summer.
• Celebrities Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan are launching a book club aimed specifically at children.

• With hundreds of libraries across England earmarked for closure, campaigners fear the humble service may become a soft target for multi-million pound council budget cuts.
• Some 250 Sure Start children’s centres in England could close within a year while many more face budget cuts, two charities have claimed.
• A report in the Telegraph says that a good education should be incentive enough to stay at school. Bribes, like the Education Maintenance Allowance, teach the wrong lesson to young people, according to the writer.
• Delays in young children’s ability to speak and listen properly are leaving them struggling to learn to read and write, Ofsted has warned.
• Children are being prescribed mind-altering “chemical cosh” drugs for conditions such as shyness and mild social anxiety, behaviour experts have warned.
• Ten years ago, Education Guardian held a competition, The School I’d Like, offering children a chance to start setting the agenda for their own education. A new report asks if they got what they wanted.

Next week’s Teaching Events include:

• 24th January to 4th February - Big Schools’ Birdwatch
• 1st to 28th February – National Heart Month
• 2nd February – KS3 ICT is Boring
• 3rd February – Chinese New Year
• 4th February – World Cancer Day
• 4th February – Unicef Day for Climate Change

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

• Snow has dominated the news this week which has resulted in thousands of school closures. Many schools have used the Internet to support learning at home.
• MPs are to vote on controversial plans to raise tuition fees in England on 9 December, ministers have confirmed. Meanwhile, pupils as young as 13 have joined university students in another national day of action against tuition fee increases and Nick Clegg has urged students to reflect on the “true picture” about government plans to raise the fees.
• David Cameron has ordered a rethink on plans to cut funding for school sports in England. A campaign has been set up to Save School Sport Partnerships which you can follow on Twitter and Facebook.
• Plans to shake up the schools system could lead to increased segregation, the Department for Education’s own research warns.
• This report in the Guardian claims that Michael Gove’s policy of devolving power to schools might end up dismantling vital shared services.
• School league tables of pupil performance at just five years old are set to be published under highly controversial government plans to give parents more information.
• The Standards Site is now offline and according to a tweet from @educationgovuk, ‘all relevant content on the standards website is now on www.education.gov.uk‘.

• Research has found that students from comprehensive schools get better degrees than privately educated peers with the same grades.
• Latin will undergo a revival in state schools under Coalition plans to put it on an equal footing with modern foreign languages.
• Almost 100,000 children are being squeezed into “full” schools amid mounting competition for the most sought-after places.
• Instead of increasing benefits for children, new mothers and fathers should be offered parenting classes according to the government’s poverty czar. In related news, conditions for equal parenting in the UK are the fourth worst out of 21 countries measured, according to a new table recently published.
• A new report from Ofsted explains that ‘The best leadership in schools focuses on improving teaching and learning with headteachers seeing this as their core business.’
• Ofsted has said there is “real cause for concern” as 10 local authorities have been found to be inadequate in safeguarding children this year.
• The independence of Ofsted is under serious threat from a parliamentary bill that could enable ministers to “meddle” with – or even abolish – the watchdog, headteachers have warned.
• This report from the TES discusses the need for increased sex education training for teachers.
• Councils are to be charged for carbon emissions and some costs are likely to be passed on to schools.

Visit Teaching Events to find educational events to use in your classroom.

CILT, the National Centre for Languages is running a Primary Teachers’ Project, which gives teachers a chance to spend two weeks in France, Germany or Spain next spring topping up on their language skills and picking up new teaching ideas.

Image – Arc de Triomphe

Teachers spend one week in intensive language and methodology workshops and one week on a work shadowing placement in a primary school. Funding worth up to 2,500 euros is available from the British Council and the deadline for funding applications is Friday 5th November. To find out more, visit CILT’s Primary Teachers’ Project webpage.

Here is a selection of some interesting and educational things that I’ve found recently, via my Twitter network:

• Zooburst – This amazing site lets you make your own 3D augmented reality pop up books (via @relativism, @xannov and @ianaddison).

• Application for Headship - Information and advice for those who need to write a letter of application when applying for a headship (via @andyross75).
• World Atlas Maps – A large collection of blank maps which are very useful for your Geography lessons (via @simonhaughton).
• Becta Archive – The official archive of the Becta website. Use this site to access the useful resources when the Becta site disappears (via @daibarnes).
• Hello Bonjour Hola – A site containing resources for teaching and learning French and Spanish (via @dawnhallybone and @valleseco)

• SchoolToons – Resources to support animation work in the classroom at KS2-4 (via @DrJoolz).
• Tips for New Tweeters – @stuartridout gives some useful advice for those who have just started to use Twitter.
• Year 5 Control Technology Plans – A set of plans, from @simonhaughton, which include the use of Scratch.
• Literacy with ICT (PDF) (from www.edu.gov.mb.ca) - A handbook for parents about using ICT to support learning in Literacy. See the document below (discovered via @TechnologyToday)

Don’t miss Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 in this series! Do you use Twitter? What have you discovered recently?

Image – Montreal Twestival 2009 Cupcakes

EducationApps have been busy building lots of new iPhone and iPod Touch apps for use in education. Here are some of their latest additions:

• Ultimate Times Tables – A fun way for children of all ages to learn their times tables. This has four different types of tests and allows up to five users to save their results.

• French GCSE Revision – This is an interactive way to help students revise their French GCSE vocabulary, with tests, flash cards and a built in dictionary. Watch the app in action with the video below:

EducationApps have developed a number of other applications so look at their site to see their other developments.

MyFrenchResources is an extremely valuable site for teachers of KS3, KS4 and KS5 French. It is full of downloadable resources, all clearly organised by year group and topic. Lots of the KS3 resources might also be useful for older KS2 students.

www.myfrenchresources.com

The site’s Welcome page, also has some useful display and assembly resources for teachers to use. Take a look!