Eleven Plus Education News Service
Eleven Plus News - We trawl through numerous news websites so that you don't have to! Please find a selection of interesting news articles on Independent, Private, Grammar, Secondary schools and Universities. Contributions welcome, please write to
11plus-news@ElevenPlusExams.co.uk.
English spelling "truely atrosious", says academic
Reuters - 8th Aug 08
Embaressed by yor spelling? Never you mind. Fed up with his students' complete inability to spell common English correctly, a British academic has suggested it may be time to accept "variant spellings" as legitimate.
Rather than grammarians getting in a huff about "argument" being spelled "arguement" or "opportunity" as "opertunity", why not accept anything that's phonetically (fonetickly anyone?) correct as long as it can be understood?
"Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea," Ken Smith, a criminology lecturer at Bucks New University, wrote in the Times Higher Education Supplement.
"University teachers should simply accept as variant spelling those words our students most commonly misspell."
To kickstart his proposal, Smith suggested 10 common misspellings that should immediately be accepted into the pantheon of variants, including "ignor", "occured", "thier", "truely", "speach" and "twelth" (it should be "twelfth").
GCSE exam strikes false note with Albarn
Guardian - 8th Aug 08
But it is now possible, it has emerged, to gain an A grade in GCSE music through every big exam board without being able to read or write music. It is a development that has aroused the ire of musicians, and not all of them classical traditionalists. Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur and co-creator of Gorillaz, argues that schoolchildren should be "forced" to learn staff notation.
"The idea of it being completely absent from the most important exams of your childhood is disgraceful," he told BBC Music magazine. "I used to write for small orchestras when I was 15. I sold my soul to the devil and became a pop star and forgot about it, but in the past few years I have got back into orchestration after an almost 20-year hiatus. I'm so slow now, and if I'd just kept it [up]. I think anyone interested in music should be forced to learn that discipline.
"If you don't learn to read music, then there's a whole tradition that becomes very exclusive and shouldn't be," added Albarn, whose opera Monkey was staged at the Royal Opera House.
However, according to Richard Baker, head of composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, understanding staff notation is far from a sine qua non of musical excellence. "It depends what you believe a secondary school musical education is for," he said. "If it's about accessing the western classical tradition, then of course you need to learn staff notation. If you think it's about giving children some understanding of a wide range of musical traditions, then teachers should have the flexibility to talk about other ways in which music is transmitted. If students are learning to play western classical instruments, then they will learn to read staff notation. But if they're learning uilleann pipes, or tabla it's arguably less important.
Lecturer's surprise at spelling controversy
Bucks Free Press - 8th Aug 08
"Perhaps people don't read quite as much as they used to or because most people don't go to grammar schools any more and they don't get taught this kind of thing."
He said grammar school pupils would "go to a lot of trouble to learn how to spell these words".
He added: "I don't see why, in the 21st century, we should go on spelling a word like opportunity the way we do just because that's the way we spell it."
'Stark divide' between rich and poor areas as gulf between schools ...
Daily Mail - 7th Aug 08
Five local councils have been exposed for failing to enter a single state school pupil for GCSE physics.
An investigation by the Conservatives into educational inequality claimed that children's prospects are still largely determined by the location of their home and their family background.
The report said that not a single pupil took the physics GCSE last year in Islington, Darlington, Blackpool, Kensington and Chelsea and Rutland.
Instead pupils took a generic 'double science' or 'single science' qualification seen as inferior preparation for A-levels compared to GCSEs in the three sciences separately.
In 12 local authorities, less than a quarter of pupils attempted GCSEs in the four core subjects of English, maths, science and a modern language.
These include Hartlepool, Kingston-upon-Hull, Barking and Dagenham, Middlesbrough and Knowsley.
The Tories say the data highlights both geographical and social inequality and a 'stark divide in achievement between the most well-off children and the rest'.
It claims there has been a widening of the gap between the richest and poorest pupils, driven by the domination by the middle-classes of the best primary and secondary schools.
‘I’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’. Or maybe not
Times - 7th Aug 08
For those who have always struggled to remember the exceptions to the “i” before “e” spelling rule: don’t bother.
One university lecturer has become so fed up with correcting his students’ atrocious spelling that he has launched a crusade for the most common “variant spellings” - otherwise known as spelling mistakes - to be fully accepted into common usage.
Instead of complaining about the state of education as he corrects the same spelling mistakes in undergraduate essays year after year, Ken Smith, a criminologist at Bucks New University, has a much simpler solution.
“Either we go on beating ourselves and our students up over this problem, or we simply give everyone a break and accept these variant spellings as such,” he suggests today in an article in The Times Higher Education Supplement.
Grammar school reprimanded over treatment of autistic boy
ATL - 6th Aug 08
The Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex, has ruled that a grammar school in Lincolnshire should have made special provisions for an autistic pupil sitting its entrance exam.
Kings Grammar School incorrectly recorded that the boy only suffered from dyslexia, failing to take note of his other conditions including autism, dyspraxia and attention deficit disorder.
As a result, he was put in an unfamiliar room with other candidates to sit the 11-plus exam and ended up in floods of tears after becoming disorientated.
He was unable to complete the test and had a screaming fit when he left the room.
The boy's mother is quoted in the report as saying: 'We knew he would struggle with the change in surroundings. Our primary school head teacher suggested we ask if he could sit the test there, or at least in a room on his own. But when I went to the school I was told, 'No, we don't make any allowances'.'
Ms Seex stated that the school broke disability discrimination laws and has ordered it to apologise to the family and offer £50 in vouchers.
What to do if grades disappoint
BBC - 5th Aug 08
Short of a grade or two? Olympic marathons come to mind. But they have nothing on that race for a college or university place.
The winning post lies ahead for some - but for others it may be a last-minute dash that is needed to secure a place, if grades disappoint.
So don't hang around if you have lost out. Just make sure that you are ready for that final spurt to the finishing line - should it be needed and you are short of a grade or two.
The victors of the early games were crowned with wreaths from a sacred olive tree that grew behind the temple of Zeus. The winners marched around the grove to the accompaniment of a flute while admirers chanted songs written by a prominent poet.
What an incentive! So not a lot has changed.
School apologises to autistic boy
BBC - 5th Aug 08
A school did not make reasonable adjustments for an autistic boy sitting its 11-plus entrance exam, the Local Government Ombudsman has ruled.
The boy, who has autistic spectrum disorder, failed the exam at King's Grammar School, Grantham, Lincolnshire.
The ombudsman Anne Seex said the school had not considered its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act.
The school has apologised, given the boy a £50 gift token and agreed to handle future cases differently.
UK boys robbed at gunpoint on trip
The Associated Press - 5th Aug 08
A dozen teenage boys from a British grammar school are waiting to be flown back home after being robbed at gunpoint on a trip to Guatemala, their head teacher said.
The boys, who are all aged 16, were travelling on a private bus in a remote mountain area when they were ambushed by a group of bandits who stole around £2,000 in money and valuables.
The teenagers, from the Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were two-thirds of the way into a month-long trip organised by World Challenge Expeditions, where they were carrying out volunteer work in local schools.
Head teacher Simon Everson said on Tuesday: "No one was hurt but they will be coming back as soon as flights can be arranged.
"We told the boys we would support them if they wanted to stay or if they wanted to come back and they said they wanted to come back."
Mr Everson said the teenagers were accompanied by two teachers as well as an experienced expedition leader from the organisation.
He added: "It's very rare for this sort of thing to happen I'm told, but all precautions had been taken and everyone, including the boys, had received appropriate training, which they put into practice as soon as it happened."
Autistic boy in tears after he was denied help in 11-plus exam
Times - 5th Aug 08
A ruling that a grammar school had been wrong to refuse to make special provisions for an autistic pupil sitting its entrance examination was welcomed by the boy's mother yesterday.
The boy broke down and wept in the middle of the 11-plus exam after becoming disorientated by the unfamiliar surroundings.
His mother said that, when she appealed against her son being refused a place at the school, one member of the panel had read out a statement saying that autistic people became violent when unable to express themselves.
The boy is described as being very bright, but suffers problems with social communication and struggles to cope with changes in routine.
