Advanced maths Alevel needed to stretch prodigies
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An advanced form of the maths A-level should be introduced to attract the prodigies who are not stretched by the current qualifications, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said yesterday.Some 60% of teachers they questioned for their latest report on A-level maths said the qualifications had got easier since reforms in 2004. Teachers said pupils were [...]
Popularity of boring geography on wane
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Geography teaching is in decline, with schoolchildren claiming it is “boring and irrelevant” and teachers avoiding field trips due to health and safety concerns, school inspectors report today.Pupils are failing to gain an understanding of climate change, environmentalism and global citizenship through lessons which are too often led by non-specialists, according to the study from [...]
New rival to Alevels due to get goahead from exam watchdog
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The exams watchdog is preparing to back a controversial alternative to A-levels designed to prepare an academic elite for university, it is claimed today.The Cambridge Pre-U is intended to help top-scoring candidates trump their A-level rivals in the rush for the most competitive university places by teaching them traditional exam and study skills over modern [...]
How best to support parents will be key
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Three years ago Ruth Kelly made her first keynote speech as education secretary and pledged to put parents at the heart of education. It was met with a mixture of cynicism and optimism. The idea of parent power was not new, but the renewed emphasis from a politician who was also a young mother gave [...]
School lessons may start later for children born in summer
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Children who are born in the summer could be allowed to start school a year later in an attempt to end their relative underachievement in exams, under plans being considered by the government.Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, yesterday asked Sir Jim Rose, who is conducting a review of the primary curriculum in England, to consider [...]
GCSE success masks fall in pupils picking harder subjects
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Headteachers yesterday blamed school league tables for a dramatic decline in the number of children taking languages.As the government published the latest tables for GCSE and A-levels in England, John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said they created perverse incentives for schools to skew the curriculum for 14- and [...]
Best in the business
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When new teacher Amy Popple discovered her first school placement was to be in Staines, off London’s M25, gloom set in. This was the home of Ali G, TV comedy’s “rude boy”.”I thought I’d find rough white kids trying to act very ‘hip hop’, wearing hoodies, dropping a shoulder, walking with a limp and throwing [...]
All their own work
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Every August, ministers are forced to answer claims that A-levels are getting easier. Though the government counters these charges robustly, it now accepts that the exams have become an inadequate proof of readiness for university.The suggested solution is an “extended project” (EP) that young people can do in addition to their A-level subjects. And it [...]
Becta rewards the innovators
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There are speakers in every corner, one boy from Wyndcliffe school, Birmingham, explained about the school’s podcasting radio station. “They are in every room; everybody can hear it, all around the school.” Then he thought and his eyes lit up: “And all over the world!”Many other children in the past year have experienced what technology [...]
At Bett 2008
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Home accessInternet for all childrenSchools minister Jim Knight will tomorrow announce plans to give every child home internet access during his opening speech at this year’s Bett. Knight will use his address to outline plans to encourage companies such as Microsoft, BT, Sky, Virgin and RM to provide affordable internet access and computer technology. The [...]
