Youth & Family Gold Challenge is a new charity challenge, specifically aimed at schools, families, youth groups and 7-15 year olds. It aims to build on the excitement of London 2012 as all of the challengers take on Olympic and Paralympic sports to raise money for charity.

Those taking part can choose from three challenges (5 Sport Challenge, Family Activity Challenge and the 2012km Challenge). By joining the challenges, schools can also win a chance to run 100m in the Olympic Stadium watched by friends, family and a cheering crowd of 20,000!

There are currently over 20,000 registrations on the site and there is currently an incentive where for every 100 registrations, a school will receive 5 places in our Olympic Stadium Parade which will follow the route of the opening ceremony, and include charities, GB Ambassadors and celebrities. Find out more on the official site.

Chance to Shine is a national campaign that aims to bring competitive cricket (and its educational benefits) back to schools. The project provides a coaching and competition programme for groups of primary and secondary schools. They also provide equipment, facility development (including playground markings and non-turf pitches) as well as training for teachers and coaches.

The organisers are currently running an exciting competition. To enter, your Key Stage Two pupils have to design a full-page magazine advert to promote the Spirit of Cricket message of ‘Play Hard, Play Fair, Have Fun’.

The winning advert will be reproduced as a full page advert in the ‘All Out Cricket’ magazine this summer. The top four designs will also win a place for twenty of the winning designer’s classmates to play on the outfield at Lord’s during a Test match!

Find out more about the competition at www.chancetoshine.org/competitionsoc.

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.

This week was a busy week for education-related news! Here are some of the major headlines:

• The government produced a White Paper which reflects the changing ways that governments will support schools. Watch Michael Gove explain about it in this Youtube video:

• According to the DfE site, this reform programme ‘puts teachers at the heart of school improvement and frees schools from central government direction.’ It also sets out: powers for teachers to improve discipline in the classroom; a vision for a transformed school curriculum; the reform of school performance tables; a pupil premium to channel more money to the most deprived children; and plans to develop a fairer and more transparent funding system.’
• General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has explained that the new White Paper ‘represents a major step towards the dismantling of the state education system.’ You can download the White Paper for yourself. The BBC has summarised the plans of the White Paper here and provided further analysis here. The Guardian has also provided their own review of the document and so have the Telegraph. This website allows teachers who disagree with the proposals to take out some of their frustrations on Mr. Gove!
• Other impacts of the White Paper might include millions of pounds being cut from school sixth forms in England, the training of former members of the armed services for work in the classroom, compulsory studying of foreign languages up to the age of 16 and an increase of ‘on the job’ teacher training. However, twice as many academic courses have been rated outstanding, placing doubt on these plans to shift more teacher training into schools.
• Ministers have given more details of plans to bring in reading tests for six-year-olds in England.

Image – Reading in the Morning

• Teachers will be given new powers to discipline pupils as part of a government plan to restore order in classrooms.
• Schoolchildren are increasingly ignorant of British history as teachers scrap traditional lessons in favour of trendy “skills-based” courses, according to academics.
• Many of England’s schools will struggle to maintain the services they now offer in the wake of spending cuts, council leaders have warned.
• Leading sports doctors have strongly criticised the way PE is being taught in English schools. In related news, the British Association of Sports and Exercise Medicine wants all schools to use short exercise routines like the ones shown in this video.
• GCSEs should be taken at the age of 14 – after which pupils could specialise in academic or vocational courses, says a report for an education charity.
• The Telgraph reports that academies are performing worse than other state schools, despite Government plans for a huge expansion of the flagship education programme. In contrast, the DfE site claims that more academies than ever are rated as outstanding.
• Students staged another day of action in protest against proposed increases in university tuition fees.
• This Telegraph article suggests ways that parents can teachers can help their pupils to learn the times tables.
• Head teachers have warned that the timing of the royal wedding could cause problems in schools because it falls just days before the national Sats tests.
• The annual report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education was published.
• Ofsted have warned that tens of thousands of pupils are being subjected to ‘dull and uninspiring’ lessons.
• McDonald’s is introducing its own degree course in business management for its restaurant bosses in the UK.

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

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

• The cost of a university degree has more than tripled in 20 years as thousands of teenagers are priced out of higher education, according to research. There were violent scenes as tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England, with further protests planned for 24th November.
• Michael Gove has announced a review of Key Stage 2 testing. However, the panel appointed to do this lacks expertise in assessment, according Robin Alexander, director of the Cambridge Primary Review.
• Three new measures of pupils’ progress are to be introduced to hold head teachers and ministers to account.
• Almost one in five seven-year-olds in England did not reach government targets for literacy this year, although results improved overall.
• Schools Minister Nick Gibb has stressed the need for a greater focus and emphasis on the teaching of reading and writing in primary schools.
• Traditional school science is being dumbed down as teachers focus on social issues to make lessons more “relevant” to pupils’ lives, according to a leading headmistress.
• Children are being “shortchanged” in school history lessons because key swathes of the past are missing from the curriculum.
• Struggling pupils’ automatic right to one-to-one tuition has been axed in the government’s shake-up of England’s school funding.
• A senior figure in Scottish education has backed the idea of allowing charitable trusts and not-for-profit companies to run schools.
• Michael Gove is scrapping a hugely successful strategy which transformed PE uptake in state schools.

Image – Soccer Practice

• New-style academy schools opened by the Coalition risk fuelling inequality in the education system, according to research. This article in the Telegraph claims that ‘grammar schools are the only hope for our failing education system’.
• Schools will be forced to publish teachers’ salaries, qualifications and sickness rates under Coalition plans to drive up classroom standards. However, ‘teaching unions are outraged by this development.‘
• Almost seven out of 10 teachers believe interactive whiteboards and computers in classrooms are more important than textbooks, according to a survey. More than half of teachers also believe that children with no internet access are seriously disadvantaged in their education.
• Parents have been warned to watch out for signs of excessive texting in their children, amid concerns it poses a new health risk.
• Youngsters who dislike school are twice as likely to be involved in under-age drinking, research suggests.
• No teachers have been fired for incompetence in almost half the local authorities in England during the past five years, according to research from the TES.
• Primary school pupils are playing a simplified version of bridge to improve their maths and social skills.

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

BT has launched Coaching for Life, a free online programme designed to help parents, grandparents, carers and older siblings improve their coaching skills for 6 – 11 year olds through a series of new children’s games.

The site has variations on popular games online (with downloadable and video instructions) which teachers, parents and carers can use with children to add to their coaching skills. Some of the games include Two Touch Football, Dribble & Score, Up & Down Cones, Dribble Tag, Three against Two and Mini Hockey. It looks like a useful resource for PE teachers and those interested in coaching.

Here is another collection of links to the latest education news stories:

• SATs for 11 year olds have too high a margin of error to be used to compare schools in league tables, according to the NUT and ATL, who have urged the government to scrap the tests for Year 6 pupils. The leader of the NUT has given hints that there could be another boycott of the SATs next year, although more notice would be given this time around.
• Trade Unions were outraged by the £200,000 pay package of a primary headteacher in south London. Michael Gove has written to the School Teachers’ Review Body to say that he wanted no headteacher to earn more than the prime minister. The TES have published a related article which explains that rocketing headteacher salaries are justified by the ‘mammoth pay packets of singers and footballing megastars’.

Image – Decus Et Tutamen

• Michael Gove has also published the Department for Education’s key policy commitments and invited the public to hold them to account on delivery.
• The chairman of Ofsted has explained that it is not ‘an absolute disaster’ if schools contain bad teachers.
• The scrapping of school building plans has cost education authorities at least £160m, according to the Local Government Association.
• Empty shops could be converted into schools, saving a third of the cost of starting a new building. Meanwhile, a report from the Auditor General for Wales has said that that school buildings in Wales are in a poor state and there is a long way to go before all of them will be ‘fit for purpose’.
• Reforms that will allow every school to become an academy will be rushed through at a pace usually reserved for emergencies such as anti-terror legislation. However, the Director of Education at Civitas has explained that academies are failing to teach traditional subjects in favour of less challenging qualifications in an effort to drive up results.
• Students will have to pay more for university, possibly through a graduate tax, according to the Business Secretary Vince Cable. University students will also be able to take low-cost two-year degree courses in order to save time and money before entering the world of work.
• Thousands of people could miss out on a university place in the UK this year after 660,953 people applied to start full-time undergraduate courses. The Lecturers Union fears that up to 170,000 people could be disappointed.

Image – Graduation Cake Guy

• The debate about school lunches continues as the chairman of the School Food Trust has criticised parents for filling children’s packed lunches with junk food.
• A Scottish government pledge that all school children receive two hours of physical education a week is not being met, according to new figures.
• A group of primary school children have been honoured by the Royal Society of Chemistry for disproving the theory that spiders are afraid of conkers.
• Do you want to get your children more interested in Maths? Why not find out more about the maths buskers who want to communicate the wonder of maths to people in the street!

ICT Goodies is a free resources sharing community setup and run by teachers. The creator of the site, Andrew Clarke, strongly believes in a culture of sharing good practice. He says:

“If I’ve created some great resources that the kids have enjoyed working with and have clearly made good progress, why would I want to keep them to myself? There are too many teachers out there who have a futile stance about keeping their resources to themselves; yes, you’ve spent lots of time making that PowerPoint, so why not let somebody else get some use out of it?”

www.ictgoodies.com

The site does require you to register, but this is free and easy. Why not sign up and share some of your resources? You can also visit other sites in the ‘Goodies’ franchise… Media Studies Goodies, PE Goodies and Business Goodies.

QuadKids is a new athletics concept designed to give more children the opportunity to participate in and enjoy the benefits of track & field athletics and also to identify the stars of tomorrow. The scheme aims to be inclusive, competitive, quick, fun and simple to run. It is a team based quadrathlon competition where each athlete does a sprint, a middle distance run, a long jump and a throw, and it is primarily targeted at pupils aged between 7 and 13.

The countdown to Sport Relief 2010 kicks off this month with the launch of exciting, free education resources for primary, secondary and early years groups. The resources, spanning the English, physical education and citizenship curriculums, bring alive the stories of young people in the UK and overseas. Sport Relief’s School Kits are available to order for free at www.sportrelief.com/schools. The kits provide teachers with all the tools they need to get set to ‘Rise to the Challenge’ and inspire their students to get active to help some of the world’s poorest people, both at home in the UK and overseas.

Sport Relief’s free to order resources range from lesson and assembly plans to photos, videos and real stories about children and young people supported by Sport Relief funded projects.

Sportacus, from BBC’s LazyTown is back to excite and inspire early years groups with a host of learning ideas. Early years kits will also include a full colour story book, helping children to understand the differences between their lives and those of other children around the world.

For primary and secondary schools, Sport Relief offers English, PE and citizenship lesson ideas and resources for key stages one to four, including lesson plans and activities that will get students thinking like journalists, with a dedicated area on www.sportrelief.com/schools for them to upload their reports on the issues affecting them in their communities, for all to see.

Get Your Socks on for Sport Relief with the Sport Relief Sock Deposit Scheme for schools. An easy way for schools to fundraise, simply pay a deposit for an order of Sport Relief stripy socks from the website and sell the socks in your school. For every pair of Sport Relief socks ordered through the Sock Deposit Scheme, Sainsbury’s is kindly giving one Active Kids voucher to the school. The Sport Relief sock will also be available to buy in UK Sainsbury’s stores for £2.

The Sport Relief fundraising campaign kicks off in January, when schools will be able to find a wealth of ideas to inspire kids of all ages to rise to the challenge and raise money for Sport Relief.

Important date for your diary – 19^th March 2010: Sport Relief Friday across schools in the UK kicks off the Sport Relief weekend of fundraising fun!