Schools
Education Quandary
Published: 15 March 2007
Beckham scores: Why the footballer's academy is a winner
Published: 15 March 2007
Leading article: Johnson is right about diplomas
Published: 15 March 2007
People were astonished last weekend to hear Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, admit frankly that the introduction of the new specialist diplomas, to run alongside GCSEs and A-levels, could go "horribly wrong". It was not that members of the Association of School and College Leaders, at whose conference he was speaking, thought that he had got it wrong. Many had warned that this was likely to be the case since Tony Blair summarily rejected the main recommendation of the inquiry by the former chief inspector of schools Sir Mike Tomlinson into the education of the 14-19 age group (that there should be an overarching diploma to cover both vocational and academic qualifications). Indeed, teachers would have agreed with Johnson's rationale for the scenario - that the diplomas could be seen as a "secondary modern" qualification running alongside the "grammar" qualification of A-levels. So far so good, then. Agreement all round.
Education Quandary
Published: 08 March 2007
Cyril Taylor: Why a lottery is good for school admissions
Published: 08 March 2007
The new admissions code for 2008 will encourage groups of schools to arrange a joint admissions procedure using banding, inner and outer catchment areas, random allocation of places or a lottery, and aptitude tests for up to 10 per cent of pupils.
Leading article: The pre-school lessons to learn
Published: 08 March 2007
The most comprehensive investigation into standards for early-years pupils since the introduction of the foundation stage has unearthed worrying evidence that the speaking and listening skills of four-year-olds are weak when they start compulsory schooling.
Evaluating digital resources for schools
Published: 01 March 2007
Computers In Schools: Early days for primary platforms
Published: 01 March 2007
Joshua Stamp-Simon: Exams suck. We need to take fewer of them
Published: 01 March 2007
We live in an examination culture. Or at least, I do. And it sucks. If they like you, universities will at best offer a conditional place, dependent on your success in forthcoming A2 exams - for me, history, religious studies, English and maths. Worse, you need respectable GCSE and AS grades for universities to even consider you.
Beyond A-levels: The sixth-formers who write dissertations for fun
Published: 01 March 2007
Education Quandary
Published: 01 March 2007
Leading article: Let's axe these league tables
Published: 01 March 2007
Today is a day of monumental irrelevance for the education world - the day that the national secondary school Key Stage Three league tables are published. The event will pass most people by because very few, if any, national newspapers bother to publish the data. One of the rationales for league tables is that they keep schools on their toes by exposing weak performance, so these league tables fail on that count, as no one knows about them.
Education Quandary
Published: 22 February 2007
Easter revision: The way to resurrect your exam grades
Published: 22 February 2007
Leading article: Proof that parents are teachers too
Published: 22 February 2007
The results of tests taken by all four- and five-year-olds as they start compulsory schooling appear to back up the picture painted by Unicef in its report last week on children's wellbeing. In 13 assessments - ranging from testing skills in maths and reading to observing emotional development - the young children scored less well last year than in 2005. Why is this?
Hilary Wilce: Children's welfare has to be the top priority
Published: 22 February 2007
Unicef study says that the welfare of British children is among the lowest in the developed world. The Government, of course, replies that this is nonsense and that the figures are out of date. It says that great inroads have been made into child poverty and teenage pregnancy.
A pioneering sports project aims to save teenagers in south London from crime
Published: 22 February 2007
It's half-term week at Bacon's College, a mixed comprehensive in Docklands, south London, and the corridors and classrooms are quiet. The sports hall, however, echoes to 30 pairs of teenage feet and half a dozen bouncing basketballs. Next door, in the school's main assembly hall, a dozen table-tennis tables are set up for a training session involving a similar number of local boys and a handful of girls.
Teaching: Too many candidates, too few jobs
Published: 22 February 2007
It's tough in the classroom
Published: 22 February 2007
Leading article: Past masters
Published: 15 February 2007
This week's call by historians for pupils to be given more of a chronological understanding of their past should be heeded. Topic work on its own fails to give pupils an adequate understanding of why events took place. The popular topic of the Second World War is a case in point. You need to understand what happened in the run-up to the declaration of hostilities to make sense of what then happened. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the body responsible for the national curriculum, should listen to the concerns of the Institute of Historical Research in their review of the secondary curriculum.
International Baccalaureate: If it's good enough for the Prime Minister...
Published: 15 February 2007
Education Quandary
Published: 15 February 2007
Tough lessons in ending racial tension
Published: 15 February 2007
Leading article: Curriculum lesson for New Labour
Published: 08 February 2007
Many of the changes to the secondary school curriculum outlined by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) on Monday are welcomed.
Mark Davies: English pupils are the rudest people I've met
Published: 08 February 2007
Teaching is the toughest job is the world. Just before Christmas I finished a term of teaching maths at a middle school and feel I need to tell the world how tough it is. I taught from 1984 to 1989, and cannot believe how much children's behaviour has deteriorated since then.
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