Tuesday, January 26, 2010
News in brief, January 2010
A summary of recent news in education.
Every state secondary school in England qualifies to receive free books under a new scheme launched by the DSCF this term. Riveting Reads is part of the Everyone’s Reading scheme and is being coordinated with The School Library Association. Each school will be able to choose books from a Riveting Reads list of 260 books. Schools with over 30% of pupils receiving free school meals will be entitled to 25 books. To select free books, schools need to visit the Everyone’s Reading website and register, select their chosen books online and they will be supplied free of charge from Peters Bookselling services, funded by the DCSF. To register or find out more visit the website:
A theme of this year’s New Years Honours List has been described as “local heroes” with a record number of those receiving awards being nominated by the general public. Over 300 of the 615 MBEs awarded were from public nominations. There are eight expert committees overseeing the awards. About 11% of honours this year go to education, including 19 headteachers . A Knighthood was awarded to Professor Sir John Holman, Director of the STEM Programme, for services to education. DBEs were awarded to Dame Marcia Twelftree for services to local and national education, and to Dame Clare Tickell for services to children and families.
To read the full list of those recognised in the list for their work in education , click here.
Kathleen Tattersall has been named chair and chief regulator of new examination regulator for England, Ofqual, by Education Secretary, Ed Balls. Ms Tattersall had been chairing an interim Ofqual since it began work as part of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority last spring.
The latest figures for students taking the new Diploma courses in have been released. 36,000 students were studying Diploma Courses last term in England. There are now 10 Diploma courses available with Creative and Media Diploma course being the most popular with over 9,000 students enrolled. The figure in below the government target of 40,000 students being enrolled by Autumn 2009 but a substantial increase from the figure of just over 11,000 enrolled for Diplomas a year ago.
The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls has pledged commitment to all secondary schools offering Mandarin as part of the standard language curriculum with equal place and status as other languages such as French and German. . One in seven secondary schools in England currently offer their students the opportunity to learn Mandarin. . From this year, seven to 11-year-olds will be entitled to language lessons - and from next year languages will become a compulsory subject in the primary curriculum.
The first evaluation of the wide-scale pilot of the Making Good Progress scheme in England has been published by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The interim report was commissioned by the DCSF and reviews the success of the first year of the two year pilot of the Making Good Progress scheme launched in September 2007. The pilot involves 484 primary and secondary schools across England trialling new ways to assess, report and stimulate progress in schools so no child falls behind in English or maths or gets stuck at any stage. The report finds that the pilot is well established and understood among teachers and heads in pilot schools there are “emerging pockets of excellent practice” with some schools already having a significant impact on progression. It recommends that “ Making Good Progress schools need to focus on greater engagement of parents/carers; strengthen tracking of pupil progress; train more teachers within each pilot school; and use the experience of the leading best to reduce workloads as they pilot becomes fully bedded in “
86% of pilot headteachers believe that one-to-one tuition has increased progression in their school;
68% of parents and carers believe their child enjoys one-to-one tuition;
86% of primary pupils said they were more interested in their school work after tuition; and over six in ten primary and secondary pupils say their results have improved. 92% of headteachers in the pilot said one-to-one tuition had started in their school. On the same day as the report was published a new £15m package to pave the way for the nationwide roll out of one-to-one tuition for children falling behind in English and Mathematics was announced by the DCSF.
The UK Parliament Children, Schools and Families Committee published two reports in December 2009: the Review on Elective Home Education and the report on School Accountability. Summaries of both reports are available on the parliament website.
Kunskapsskolan, which runs 32 schools in Sweden, has been accepted by Richmond Council as sponsor of two schools which will become Academies. These will be the first schools run by Kunskapsskolan in the UK. Kunskapsskolan will set up a charitable trust, the "Learning Schools Trust" to manage the academies, with the council, as co-sponsor, sitting on its board. One of the distinguishing features of the Kunskapsskolan company is the emphasis its schools put on personalised learning. Each student in Kunskapsskolan schools has a personal tutor responsible for his or her academic progress and pastoral care whom they meet every week to discuss their progress, goals and any additional support they need. The two schools in Richmond are planned to open in Autumn 2010 on the existing sites.
Safer Internet Day is a Europe-wide initiative, and is the one day in the year that provides a focus on internet safety issues. There is a range of activities taking place across the continent to help protect young people online. The theme for Safer Internet Day 2010 is 'Think before you post'. This will involve a full week of action in the UK, with activities taking place from Monday 8 February to Friday 12 February. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre have launched a website designed to give schools, teachers, youth workers and child protection specialists ideas and suggestions about how to get involved. CEOP will also be launching new resources to teach online safety to Key Stage 1 children. Safer Internet Day will also see the launch of a public awareness campaign from the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. The Click Clever, Click Safe campaign will highlight a new online 'green cross code': 'Zip it, Block it, Flag it'. The code will outline behaviour that allows young people to enjoy the internet safely. Safer Internet Day: Tuesday 9 February 2010