23 July 2008
Morris tells Balls to reform Sats
BBC News
Ed Balls should not resign over the Sats problems - but he should use them as an opportunity to overhaul the testing system, says Estelle Morris.
An "inept" contractor was not an issue for ministerial resignations, said Baroness Morris - the last Labour education secretary to quit the job.
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23 July 2008
When pupils are too shy to learn
BBC News
No parent wants their child to be the one left out in the playground - waiting on the sidelines for an invite to join in.
But many may not realise that being very shy can also mean they miss out on learning too.
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10 July 2008
We need to keep governors on board
Education Guardian
One of the highlights of the school calendar in my local primary school is the day when the young musicians go off to play at London's Royal Albert Hall. This year the school's newly formed brass band has also played in the Royal Courts of Justice as well as performing regularly in the neighbourhood. The expansion of music in the school has thrilled parents, many of whom have found their children developing confidence and self-esteem as a result.
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1 July 2008
PM seeks upwardly mobile Britain
10 Downing Street web site
Gordon Brown has set out his vision of an "upwardly mobile" Britain where "everyone can make the most of their potential" through the power of education and knowledge.
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26 June 2008
Will this man make you happy?
Education Guardian
The government's 'happiness tsar', Richard Layard, thinks he knows why we're all so miserable - we're overpaid, over-materialistic and lonely. But, he tells Stuart Jeffries, he has a plan to banish the blues in Britain, once and for all.
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19 June 2008
A Swedish firm has worked out how to make money running free schools
Economist.com
BIG-STATE, social-democratic Sweden seems an odd place to look for a free-market revolution. Yet that is what is under way in the country's schools. Reforms that came into force in 1994 allow pretty much anyone who satisfies basic standards to open a new school and take in children at the state's expense. The local municipality must pay the school what it would have spent educating each child itself-a sum of SKr48,000-70,000 ($8,000-12,000) a year, depending on the child's age and the school's location. Children must be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis-there must be no religious requirements or entrance exams. Nothing extra can be charged for, but making a profit is fine
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9 June 2008
Education in Sweden and Finland
Our friends in the north
Finding the secret to educational success
Economist.com
THE best schools in the world, it is generally agreed, are in Finland. In the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies, which compare 15-year-olds' reading, mathematics and science abilities in more than 50 countries, it routinely comes top. So politicians, academics, think-tankers and teachers from all over the world visit Finnish schools in the hope of discovering the magic ingredient. Journalists come too, and now it's my turn.
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9 June 2008
Turning failure into success
By Hannah Richardson
BBC News education reporter
BBC News
The "poorest-performing schools" in England are being threatened with closure if they do not improve.
But why do schools fail? Do schools, like a rough pub, lose their way, gain a bad reputation which, no matter how hard they try, they find impossible to shake off?
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29 May 2008
Schools to be graded by number of pupils going on to university
The Times Online
Schools would be assessed on how many students they send to university under proposals being put to an influential body set up by the Prime Minister.
University entry data could be used to create rankings of schools according to the number of their pupils who reach higher education.
Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, who is in charge of higher education on the National Council for Educational Excellence (NCEE), will make recommendations at a meeting chaired by Gordon Brown in early July.
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19 May 2008
How migrants fuel Britain's boom town
Education Guardian
At Lea nursery school in Wexham Road, Slough, it's story time. Fourteen children sit on the carpet, attention rapt, as Khairan Nisa reads The Little Red Hen. First, she tells it in English, and then repeats it in Urdu. Finally, her assistant Wioleta Kostecka translates it into her native Polish.
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12 May 2008
These protesters are not dinosaurs by Peter Mortimore
Education Guardian
The latest results of key stage 3 tests show that English pupils continue to improve in English and science. Yet paradoxically, the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests in the same subjects show a systematic decline.
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