Posts Tagged schools
A sticky situation
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education, Health on 19/06/2009
“Health and safety gone mad!” is a cry oft uttered by grumpy ranters; harking back to the good old days, they remember when children boldly scaled the lofty heights of the school oak tree, experimented with explosive chemicals in the lab, and roamed forests without any sign of parental permission slips and supplementary adult protection.
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The reign of the candy cane
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 12/06/2009
Entrepreneurial, or dangerous? Creative, or subversive? This week it was disclosed that staff at a top Merseyside grammar school, St Anselm’s College in Birkenhead, have successfully foiled a plot designed to break Jamie Oliver’s heart: sweet racketeering.
Cause & effect
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 29/05/2009
This week the Conservatives have uncovered statistics showing that the richest 10% of young people in England are almost twice as likely to go to university as the poorest 10%, despite the annual £2.3bn spent in publicly-funded measures to widen access to higher education.
Small classes make a big difference
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 15/05/2009
This week the DCSF showed a rise in the proportion of infant classes with over 30 pupils: a shift from 1.5% to 1.7% since January last year.
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Needs attention
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 08/05/2009
Two depressing findings came out about schools this week. The first is that the number of children on free school meals has risen since last year. The second is that one in five children are now on the special educational needs (SEN) register.
Ineffective efficiency
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 03/04/2009
At the end of last year Civitas published a book on the state of Ofsted’s school inspections; drawing on a range of – to use that technocrat term – ‘stakeholders’’ views, it includes those of a head, a parent and an inspector. One thing iss very clear: the time and resources allocated to school inspections are inadequate. Perhaps surprising to some that any current quango is under-funded, budget inspections are considered to be at the heart of perniciously superficial inspections and unsatisfactorily trained inspectors. Let’s be clear: Ofsted’s very premise is highly flawed and the inspectorate has never been regarded as a good model by educationalists. Nevertheless, the bid to shave off 30 per cent of its budget has exacerbated some of Ofsted’s key weaknesses to the point of rendering it difficult for even its staunchest supporters to justify.