A tiny revolution
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Arrive at the entrance to St Mary’s RC primary school in Grangetown, Middlesborough, and you’d think a bomb had gone off. In fact, around half the school has had to be demolished after a devastating arson attack last October causing almost %26pound;1m worth of damage. Currently without hall, ICT suite or library, its 150 pupils [...]
School beckons to a nation in debt
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All of us earnestly hope that a good education will equip our children with meaningful life skills beyond just a competent grasp of the three Rs. But will it be enough to prepare them for a slowing economy? Will our children leave school with even enough financial nous to understand a mobile phone tariff or [...]
David Dabydeen The loosetongued ambassador
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Professor David Dabydeen writes fiction and poetry between midnight and four in the morning, sustained by cigarettes and occasional slurps of red wine. Teaching is for the afternoon and early evening. “Going to his lair in the Warwick humanities building is not unlike visiting a rum shop, but without the rum,” says his friend John [...]
Hundreds of qualifications for teenagers likely to go in vocational diploma reforms
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Ministers have unveiled plans for a largescale cull of qualifications taken by thousands of teenagers every year, to make way for the new vocational diploma.The “spaghetti soup” of 6,500 qualifications currently on offer to teenagers will be streamlined by a new vetting body with powers to assess qualifications and decide whether they should be funded [...]
Grow your own diploma
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Three years after Tony Blair kicked the Tomlinson diploma into the long grass, it is back in a new guise, sneaked in under the wire by a college principal and a canny exam board.While public servants and examiners work against the clock to deliver the government’s three new academic diplomas on top of the original [...]
Just the job for learning
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“Employer engagement” - or getting employers to foot more of the bill for higher education - is the policy catchphrase of the moment, and one the government is pushing.Professor David Eastwood, chief executive of the England funding council, Hefce, announced %26pound;105m to back it up in February, telling the Conference of Northern Universities it was [...]
Remembering 1993 and all that
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To compare the freeing of further education colleges from municipal control 15 years ago today with the fall of the Berlin wall would be absurdly disproportionate, but is tempting. “Back in 1992 if you wanted to upgrade a secretary - bring them on to a higher salary with more responsibility - you had to apply [...]
Make pupils eat healthy canteen food says trust
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Schools should consider “lock-ins” at lunchtime to stop pupils from buying junk food, the School Food Trust said today, but school leaders called the proposals unworkable.A survey by the trust, set up by ministers in 2005 to encourage schoolchildren to eat more healthily, found secondary schools have an average of 23 fast-food outlets within a [...]
Spencer session targets hogs education
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With the legislative session drawing to a close, just three issues — hog confinement, education, and collective bargaining — dominated Saturday’s discussion with area legislators in Spencer.
Even with a standing-room-only crowd of about 75 area residents packing the Spencer City Council chambers, the area’s three Republican legislators saw a relatively calm session with constituents, as [...]
Arts education described as vital: State work force needs creativity
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Wisconsin needs to cultivate an innovative, entrepreneurial work force, and arts education is the key, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton said Friday.
A new task force on arts and creativity, co-chaired by Lawton and state schools Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster, plans to survey arts offerings in Wisconsin schools, hold public hearings around the state, and issue a list [...]
