Wouldbe students checked on Facebook
Posted by admin
A Cambridge University admissions tutor has admitted he checks up on students applying to his college by browsing their Facebook profiles. Dr Richard Barnes, senior tutor at Emmanuel College, confessed in the college magazine.”This has been the year in which I joined Facebook,” he wrote. “I have to confess that I actually joined to see [...]
State teachers views of Oxbridge stop pupils from applying
Posted by admin
Teachers at state-run secondary schools are out of touch about the number of pupils from their sector who apply successfully to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, according to a survey today.More than a third think that fewer than 20% of Oxbridge students come from state schools, even though the latest figures show that the figure is [...]
School lessons may start later for children born in summer
Posted by admin
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 [...]
Best in the business
Posted by admin
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 [...]
Looking ahead
Posted by admin
The mince pies may be just a delicious memory and the new year resolutions already broken, but I am going to stick my neck out and make a few predictions for the year ahead.A review of school governanceLast July the government published a green paper called The Governance of Britain, which says: “The government currently [...]
Read all about it
Posted by admin
How do you define national character? That was the task of history lecturer Dr Peter Mandler from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, when researching his latest work The English National Character. Widely accepted definitions were hard to pin down but after conventional searches failed he finally struck gold - after a word search in the [...]
A degree of deception
Posted by admin
There was a time when a backstreet education meant sending off a coupon in a magazine and getting back a certificate from the University of Nowhere. These quick-buck “degree mills” have given way to a much more sophisticated and lucrative kind of operation. Today’s bogus universities have fronts so elaborate and “professors” so convincing that [...]
A league table to worry us all
Posted by admin
The results of the third phase of Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) make interesting reading. Every three years, Pisa tests 400,000 15-year-olds from 54 countries in reading, maths and science. Like all international assessments, Pisa has methodological and statistical limitations. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), however, uses elaborate procedures to ensure [...]
At Bett 2008
Posted by admin
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 [...]
Bridge to belief
Posted by admin
Some of the most challenging students a school can face are those who have been excluded from other schools. But cutting-edge creative technology now being used by New Rush Hall school in Redbridge, London, and a number of other schools, is helping to turn things around for these students.New Rush Hall headteacher John d’Abbro describes [...]
