Posts Tagged schools
ETS, SATS and leaves
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 16/07/2008
The past month has the seen the Government’s SATS exam system implode in the bureaucratic equivalent of an ageing star collapsing into a black hole. There were delays to the SATS results and claims that the delays were just to make sure that the release was orderly and complete. Then the release this week was neither orderly nor complete with some results delayed until September and head teachers have been forced to send poorly marked or unmarked exam scripts back to the company, ETS Europe, that is meant to be managing the scheme. There was blood on the radio 4 airwaves this morning as John Humphrys eviscerated Ken Boston for the QCA’s handling of the scheme and it turns out ETS Europe have managed to score a lucrative £156 million 5-year contract to administer the SATS marking.
How do you teach students the state has branded un-teachable?
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 15/04/2008
Gala Launch Night Event – ‘Lessons learnt teaching excluded youth in a boxing academy’
from 6.30pm Thursday 24th April
Williamsons Tavern, Bow Lane
Middle-class families: an existential threat to big government
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 11/04/2008
The news that Poole council used surveillance powers designed to track down terrorists to spy on an ordinary middle-class family they suspected of not living in the correct catchment area for their chosen school is not as surprising as it first seems. The government is, after all, fully aware that there exists in this country an organised group that propagates an infectious ideology which considers government officials to be mere obstacles to their goals. Arranged in tightly knit ‘cells’ (usually of two senior operators and one or more younger members), the group as a whole communicates via an informal network of personal contacts, workplace colleagues and Internet forums.
Not exactly a cultural revolution
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 13/02/2008
School children are to be mandated 5 hours of ‘culture’ a week by the latest government initiative. This hour-per-school-day prescription seems to be the government’s answer to every education issue, as it defines more and more of every state school schedule through Whitehall guidance. This follows on from the five hours of mandated sport a week designed, in part, to tackle obesity. Bureaucrats should be careful not to overdo this wheeze. After all, secondary schools still have to cope with teaching maths and English to pupils who didn’t manage to pick up those basic skills during their …err… compulsory numeracy and literacy hours at primary school!
School Class War Declared
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 16/01/2008
There isn’t that much one can add to this Telegraph report other than to say that it was almost inevitable: independent schools are going to come under increasing regulation in order to ‘justify’ their charitable status. Obviously, merely providing a good standard of education to 500,000 British children just doesn’t cut it anymore as a public benefit. Independent schools have continually shown up state education, if only by drilling their pupils for national exams much more effectively. Now many have started to transcend those standards altogether by taking IGCSEs instead, having found the depth provided by normal GCSE courses an insufficient challenge for their pupils’ abilities. This could not be allowed to go on.
PISA – Show’s over: international study exposes government standards charade
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 05/12/2007
Final straw for government’s education record: world’s most comprehensive assessment of pupil knowledge and skills crushes UK government claims of rising school standards.
- 523 – 495 (28 point decline) from 2000 in reading amongst UK 15 yr olds: a decline from 23 points above the OECD average, to 3 points above average. This is a drop from 7th to 17th place in PISA’s international rankings
- 529 – 495 (34 point decline) from 2000 in maths amongst UK 15 yr olds: a decline from 29 points above average, to 3 points below average. This is a drop from 8th to 24th place in PISA’s international rankings