Latest Educational News
Ministers resist calls to abandon exams
by Financial Times, June 11, 2007
Ministers rejected a call from a teaching standards watchdog to scrap national exams for under-16s yesterday, despite increasing pressure to move to a different system of assessing pupils and schools.
The General Teaching Council, an independent regulatory body set up by the government, called for the abolition of the system of Standard Assessment Tests, taken by children in England at the ages of seven, 11 and 14.
Warning that teachers were being forced to "drill" pupils to pass the exams, the council argued that the testing system "added stress" for teachers and children without improving educational standards. In a submission to the Commons' education committee, leaked to The Observer, the council called for the tests to be replaced with a system of random sampling of pupils to check standards.
Employers "want to see better skilled youngsters", rather than caring about test results from pupils aged seven, said Keith Bartley, the councils' chief executive,.
The government is undertaking pilots to see whether testing on fixed dates could be replaced by a system of assessing children when teachers thought they were ready to take the exam.
But ministers flatly rejected any idea of scrapping national tests for under-16s in their entirety. Alan Johnson, the education secretary, defended the system, saying it provided accountability and transparency.
David Davis reignites grammar school row
by Daily Mail, June 11, 2007
A leading Tory has risked re-opening the row over grammar schools by insisting that they do promote social mobility.
Shadow home secretary David Davis's intervention follows uproar in the Conservative Party after David Cameron ruled out a new generation of selective schooling.
The Tory leader has come under intense pressure to disown the suggestion by shadow education secretary David Willetts that grammar schools tend to impede social mobility.
Mr Davis set himself at odds with that view by saying: "My primary interest in this is the simple issue of social mobility - making sure youngsters get the best chances.
"Now, there is more than one way to do that. Grammar schools is one, and where they're there we will continue with them."
School Politics
by Eur Soc, June 11, 2007
A think tank claims that British schools are replacing traditional learning with "fashionable causes"
The report, The Corruption of the Curriculum, claims that "he traditional subject areas have been hi-jacked to promote fashionable causes such as gender awareness, the environment and anti-racism, while teachers are expected to help to achieve the government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students."
"No major subject area has escaped the blight of political interference," the reports authors conclude: In literature, for example, "issues of race and gender... trump the love of language in the works of literature that students are given to study."
It notes that pupils can go through the entire English school system and get top marks "without knowing that Spenser, Milton or Pope ever existed, but having studied Carol Ann Duffy twice, both at GCSE and A-level."
If anything, science teaching is worse. Civitas, who compiled the report, claims that science teaching has more to do with "media studies than hard science."
"Students are asked to discuss issues such as global warming and GM crops, based on media coverage, and to consider whether or not scientists can be trusted," the report continues. So bad is the state syllabus that Independent schools are refusing to teach the current examinations, leading to a form of "educational apartheid". Geography, too, has been cursed with a politically-correct agenda, and is now a vehicle for "global citizenship, with environmentalism as its central theme."
Predictably, history teaching has become a sick joke: "One survey found that half of young people questioned did not know that the Battle of Britain took place in World War II, and thought that either Gandalf, Horatio Hornblower or Christopher Columbus led the battle against the Spanish Armada."
EURSOC needn't spell out the consequences of this self-inflicted destruction of Britain's education system: Editor Frank Furedi writes on "how issues of pedagogy have been subordinated to social engineering and political expediency, as 'Britain's cultural elites prefer to turn every one of their concerns into a school subject': Obesity, sex education, black history and gay history crowd the timetable."
Furedi has previously written on how faith schools are dismissed as "brainwashing", yet the government uses the same techniques on schoolchildren in state schools.
Student debt at record levels
by Channel 4, June 11, 2007
Student debt is reported to have risen above £3 billion for the first time following the introduction of top-up tuition fees.
Figures to be released by the Student Loans Company later this week are expected to show the debt of current students is three times the 1997 level.
The news comes as the Office for Fair Access says the system of student bursaries needs to be overhauled.
The bursaries are supposed to help disadvantaged youngsters go to university, but campaigners argue that bursaries are not working and the money could be better spent on outreach and summer schools.
The system, designed with poorer students in mind, was part of the Government's get out of jail card when it introduced £3,000 tuition fees for universities.
They were part of a package of measures offered by Tony Blair to buy off more than 100 rebel MPs.
SCRAP ALL EXAMS FOR UNDER-16S
by Daily Express, June 11, 2007
Teachers yesterday backed demands to scrap all exams for children under 16.
They threw their support behind plans to abolish SATs for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds.
The National Union of Teachers angered ministers by insisting pupils learn best without the constant stress of tests.
The row over SATs – officially standard assessment tests – erupted after a General Teaching Council suggestion.
Our children are the most examined in the world, facing an average of 70 tests before the age of 16 says the GTC, the independent regulator set up by Labour. The Government disputes the figure but could not produce an alternative.
The GTC proposed a “sampling” system where fewer than one per cent of primary and fewer than three per cent of secondary pupils would sit exams.
End exams for children under 16
by Guardian, June 11, 2007
The watchdog for teaching in England yesterday put itself on a collision course with ministers by calling for all national school tests before the age of 16 to be scrapped.
The intervention by the General Teaching Council for England (GTC), which added new weight to long-running demands for a reduction in the testing regime, was firmly rebuffed by the government and the Conservatives.
The Liberal Democrats backed their demands and Jon Cruddas, one of the candidates for Labour's deputy leadership, said he sympathised with the view that children were overburdened with exams.
Teachers step up pressure for the return of the O-level
by Daily Mail, June 11, 2007
State schools could be given the go-ahead to ditch GCSEs in favour of a tougher exam modelled on, and perhaps even named after, O-levels.
The qualification, currently titled the International GCSE, is already popular in private schools, where it is seen as a better preparation for A-levels.
There was a huge show of support for it in a public consultation this year.
But ministers refused to approve the course for use in state secondary schools and official league tables of results.
Now, however, the Department for Education has indicated that the IGCSE could be approved for state funding - if it is given a new name.
Officials from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government body responsible for accrediting exams, are planning talks with boards which set the exam.
Ministers would face embarrassment if swathes of state schools ditched GCSEs for the new qualification. But they could also seize on it to promote a wider choice for schools, as they recently did with the International Baccalaureate.
Brown stokes Tory schools revolt
by Guardian, June 10, 2007
Gordon Brown attacked David Cameron's drive to change the Conservative Party following the Tory grammar school row.
At a Labour leadership hustings in Cardiff, Mr Brown said the Tories were caught between what they think they should say and "what they really believe".
Conservative leader Mr Cameron has insisted he will "not flinch" from changing his party in the wake of a revolt on grammar schools.
But Mr Brown dismissed attempts to "dress up" the Tories as compassionate conservatives and said they were "obsessed by grammar schools".
Calls for exam shake-up
by ITV, June 10, 2007
Exam chiefs are backing moves which would allow schools to drop GCSEs and teach more traditional O-level-style exams instead.
Growing numbers of private schools are abandoning GCSEs in favour of International GCSEs (iGCSE), which are seen as more challenging and are taught to thousands of pupils overseas.
But the Government has refused to approve iGCSEs for use in English state schools and official league tables, despite a consultation which found huge support for such a move.
Leading independent schools, which have been teaching the harder iGCSEs despite losing out in league table rankings as a result, condemned ministers' "lack of imagination".
However, the Department for Education has ruled that iGCSEs could win official approval if they are given a new name.
Call to scrap tests for under-16s
by BBC, June 10, 2007
The national exams sat by under-16s in England's schools should be scrapped, a teaching standards watchdog has urged.
The General Teaching Council (GTC) believes exams are failing to raise standards and are demoralising children, the Observer reports.
Instead of tests at seven, 11 and 14, the GTC said standards could be checked by monitoring a sample of pupils.
But the Department for Education said parents valued the information gleaned from tests and they would remain.
Exam chiefs back GCSE opt-out bid
by Channel 4, June 10, 2007
Exam chiefs are backing moves which would allow schools to drop GCSEs and teach more traditional O-level-style exams instead.
Growing numbers of private schools are abandoning GCSEs in favour of International GCSEs (iGCSE), which are seen as more challenging and are taught to thousands of pupils overseas.
But the Government has refused to approve iGCSEs for use in English state schools and official league tables, despite a consultation which found huge support for such a move.
Call to ban all school exams for under-16s
by Guardian, June 10, 2007
All national exams should be abolished for children under 16 because the stress caused by over-testing is poisoning attitudes towards education, according to an influential teaching body.
In a remarkable attack on the government's policy of rolling national testing of children from the age of seven, the General Teaching Council is calling for a 'fundamental and urgent review of the testing regime'. In a report it says exams are failing to improve standards, leaving pupils demotivated and stressed and encouraging bored teenagers to drop out of school.
Scents and sensibility
by Telegraph, June 9, 2007
Forget Ascot or Wimbledon, an invitation to go on a school trip is a much bigger social carrot for parents this half of term. The reasons we mothers like to go on these outings are many. Mostly we do it because we think our children might be proud of us (we never even consider it could cramp their style).
It also gives us a chance to see which children we should never consider letting over our own thresholds and, with luck, we get to talk to the teachers about something other than homework. But don't imagine it is just another jolly. There are some rules that need observing before you board the minibus.
Lucky break for the boarder
by Telegraph, June 9, 2007
When our children returned from university and their travels to re-establish themselves at home, my wife and I immediately waved goodbye again. Now it was our turn; we were going away to boarding school.
After a career of more than 20 years teaching in the state sector, and being head of a west London comprehensive, I was on my way to Le Rosey in Switzerland. This exclusive boarding school is the alma mater of the Shah of Iran, Prince Rainier, the Duke of Kent, the Aga Khan, King Farouk and, more recently, the sons and daughters of celebrities.
We'd had a little to do with boarding schools over the years and I was to run the English department while my wife became housemother to 63 girls from more than 30 countries.
There was the excitement of the holiday-like journey across northern France, down into Geneva and along the lake to the château, looking across towards Mont Blanc.
There were new colleagues to meet and a new way of conducting a school to discover. For four days we settled ourselves into a large empty building until the trunks appeared scattered along the corridors and 60 teenage voices filled the house.
What were they like, these new arrivals? Forget the celebrity names and flashy clothes. We found children: quiet ones, assertive ones, excitable ones, one or two who were sad and one or two who wanted to be devious.
Some thought that they had style and some thought they were special but within a few days they were all immersed in a social melting pot and, although fundamentally unchanged, they were subtly different.
They fitted in, more or less. Some of them would turn out to be incredibly hard-working. Most of them were fun and so were some of their parents.
One boy, the adopted son of an American father, had a voice that closely resembled his dad's. I mentioned this one day. "Oh," said his father. "That's easy - DNA transfer." I was puzzled. "Through the palm of my hand." I frowned."Yeah, the DNA got transferred every time I paddled his butt."
If this varied multitude had been our children, would we have chosen boarding-school life for them? Parents who travel the world in their jobs have little choice but what about the rest of us? Most children thrive and make lifelong friends; a few don't. How can you know which group your children will fall into?
Start by asking yourself whether or nave hot they are ready to leome. Although their departure may suit you, it might not suit them.
Curse of Pandora's lunchbox
by Telegraph, June 9, 2007
Twenty years ago, a school packed lunch would have consisted of a Penguin biscuit, a packet of crisps with a salt sachet inside and a white-bread sandwich with too much Marmite. But now, like everything else in modern parenting, it's not so easy.
The contents of that Thomas the Tank Engine or Scooby Doo lunchbox could leave your child ostracised, starving or furious and could even have you called into the headteacher's office. As a result, many parents are succumbing to a new condition: Tupperware Anxiety.
Tupperware Anxiety (or TA) takes many forms. First there is the fear that your child may feel you haven't taken enough trouble. "You want them to open their box and for it to be a little gift of love to them," says Lisa Hynes who lives in Oxford with her three children.
"They're away from you all day and it's a moment when you can be with them again. The problem was that I was filling their lunchboxes so full they could hardly carry them. They had a smoothie, an apple juice, two sandwiches, some dips, two bits of fruit and one small treat. A friend finally said to me: 'You're overdoing the love.'"
Next is the anxiety induced by trying to find a compromise between what you want your child to eat - hummus with carrot sticks and mango and kiwi slices - and what your child would like to eat: Dairylea Dippers and Fruit Shoots.
Anna, mother of Grace and Lily, finally had to admit she had got the balance wrong when Grace started stealing from other children's boxes. "Because the girls don't each a lot of fruit and vegetables at home, I was determined to fill their boxes with healthy food so they could catch up with their five a day. A teacher had to tell me that Grace had taken a Hungry Hippo from another girl's lunchbox and suggested that I could let my children have the odd treat as well."
Care needed when planning any alternatives for the 11-plus test
by Belfast Telegraph, June 9, 2007
Care needed when planning any alternatives for the 11-plus test
While I am pleased with the ending of the 11-plus as a mechanism for the selection of pupils into post-primary education, as an academic I am disappointed and concerned about the lack of clarity regarding alternatives.
The need for academic selection as a mechanism of entry into schools that choose to retain it must be a priority for the new Assembly.
In replacing the 11-plus, it is imperative that any replacement meets international standards of reliability and validity.
The only effective alternative that would meet the international standards of reliability and validity is the provision of an examination by the Department of Education, available to those schools who wish to use academic selection as their primary criterion for pupil entry into their school.
This approach could be revolutionised by the use of Computer Adaptive Tests (CAT), which are both reliable and valid and may be administered by an external body. The stress of the test is removed as these may be taken during class on more than one occasion.
Don't forget the 'failures'
by Belfast Telegraph, June 8, 2007
As a complete opponent of the degrading 11-plus test, I was appalled at your mindless disregard for children who 'fail' or who do not take the transfer paper.
Your latest article concerning how the 11-plus 'saved Geoffrey Beattie's life' (Belfast Telegraph, June 4) infuriated me.
While many professionals in today's society did pass their 11-plus, more and more students come out of secondary and integrated schools with astounding results and had previously failed the test! Moreover, success does not simply come from academic excellence, but excellence in other fields too!
What is the message you are attempting to put across? You'll succeed if you get an 'A' in your 11-plus? Wrong! You'll succeed if you put the effort into your studies in post-primary education! As for your catchy slogan: 'Supporting you, supporting your child', can you explain who you are referring to?
UUP's McCrea demands 11+ delay
by UTV, June 8, 2007
he Department of Education is hurtling towards disaster over abolition of the 11-plus, an Assembly member has claimed.
UUP MLA Basil McCrea said the deadline for action was two years away and decision makers would have to delay the switch.
He warned that parents and pupils were facing an uncertain future.
"We are hurtling towards disaster on this, we have run out of time," he said.
"We have people in year five now and we are not going to make it.
"I don`t think that the schools will be able to put together some form of testing that will not be subject to condition review and absolute review and therefore the only option is the extension of the 11-plus."
He was speaking during a meeting of the education committee at Stormont today which is considering the future of the transfer test.
Most unionists favour retention of academic selection while many nationalists and teaching unions argue that it artificially creates a swathe of losers in the system who face a future with diminished career prospects.
Committee members heard evidence from the chief executives of the five education and library boards, which are due to be amalgamated into a central Education and Skills Authority under the Review of Public Administration.
‘Don’t use our 11-year-olds as political pawns’
by Bucks, June 8, 2007
A Tory leader has said he fully supports the Bucks grammar school system, despite the fact that his own daughter had not passed the 11-plus test.
Councillor Tony Green, chairman of the Wycombe Conservative Association, believes the selection system benefits everyone, even though his own daughter would not be attending grammar school after sitting the 11-plus last year.
He said: "Grammar schools are very well suited to some parts of the country. It's a selection system that puts their children into the most appropriate school."
Viewpoint: An answer to the 11-plus question
by Belfast Telegraph, June 8, 2007
As teachers, parents and pupils know, the education system in Northern Ireland has been buffeted by a series of reforms over the years. But the upheaval to date is likely to be eclipsed by the gathering storm over what to do about the 11-plus and academic selection.
Despite all the warnings, time is running out for the Department of Education to devise a system to replace the exam, which is due to be axed in 2008 (after children sit it). As a result, this year's P4 pupils are facing mounting uncertainty, resulting in anxiety for parents and frustration for teachers.
A decision on a new transfer process had been expected during the autumn school term, but the new Minister, Caitriona Ruane, says she is still waiting for the Assembly to take a decision on the issue of selection.
As a result, a consultative document detailing how popular schools could determine their intake in the interim, is now several months overdue. The clock is ticking, and everyone knows that any new system of school admission would need to be tested before it could be introduced.
The Department has already warned that a free-for-all could ensue from 2009, with individual schools being left to set their own admissions criteria. Over-subscribed schools are likely to set their own entrance exams, and some pupils may be obliged to sit two or three of the tests.
Another option, though, would be for the Assembly to decide to extend the life of the 11-plus for another one or two years to give time for any replacement to bed in. The present transfer test has always had its critics, but a limited extension of the present system may yet provide the most stable means of changeover.
The publication by the Belfast Telegraph over the past fortnight of practice 11-plus papers will have reminded many people of the horrors of the exam. There will be little support for retaining the exam indefinitely, but a short extension may provide a helpful breathing space.
Although the 11-plus is on the way out, that does not mean that academic selection should be abandoned. Several less harsh means of assessing pupils' abilities have already been suggested, such as pupil profiling and computerised testing.
