University course made for cheating
Free school offering 'cross-subject' learning approved by Michael Gove
Secondary school that promises to do away with traditional classroom lessons is among new tranche to open next year
An unorthodox secondary school offering "cross-subject projects" rather than traditional classroom lessons, is among the latest tranche of free schools to be approved.
XP school in Doncaster is one of the 102 new free schools given the go-ahead to open next year by Michael Gove, the education secretary, a slight decrease on the 109 schools opening this year.
XP's prospective headteacher, Gwyn ap Harri – a former computer science teacher who went on to start a company selling educational software – says the school's teaching method is based on how learning takes places in the "real world", rather than sitting behind desks.
"We'll be still be teaching the national curriculum, the kids will still be doing GCSEs and A-levels. But the way we deliver the curriculum will be totally different," Harri said.
"If you want, for instance, an investigation into the wildlife in your back garden, there are loads and loads of different subjects you can cover within that. You can do maths in terms of the size of the garden, how many samples you can find, what percentage that is," he said. "Then there's the history of the place, the geography, biology, that sort of thing. So you can learn through a really wide project or expedition."
XP will be unorthodox in other ways too. Admission will be by city-wide lottery, while class sizes will be kept to a tiny 25 pupils, with teachers expected to multitask across subjects. "Teachers want to teach this way," said Harri. "They don't want to just teach GCSE music, they also want to teach art or PE or whatever their passion is."
Announcing the names of the majority of the 102 approved schools, Gove said: "There are many innovators in local communities set on raising standards of education for their children. I am delighted to approve so many of their high-quality plans to open a free school."
Of the 102 new free schools, more than half are in London (46) and the south-east (11). XP will be one of just nine in Yorkshire and Humber, with 13 in the Midlands and three in the south-west of England.
Kevin Brennan, Labour's shadow schools minister, accused the government of "ignoring the crisis in primary places" and setting up schools where there was already a surplus of places.
"Their damaging focus on their own pet projects is failing to put our children first," Brennan said.
The National Union of Teachers general secretary, Christine Blower, said the free schools risked squandering resources. The NUT's analysis claims that the department for education (DfE) has already spent more than £200m on free schools.
"It is time for the government to change tack and allow local authorities to open new schools in areas where there is a genuine need for new places," she said.
According to the DfE's figures, the new schools will eventually offer 130,000 places. Fifteen of them will be designated faith schools, able to select a maximum of 50% of pupils on the basis of religion. One will be the Seva school in Coventry, a co-educational Sikh school for four- to 16-year-olds.
Among the new schools will be the Family school in London, for children with complex psychological, family and mental-health problems, and two schools under the aegis of the National Autistic Society, in east Cheshire and Lambeth.
In Doncaster, the response from prospective parents for XP's unorthodox teaching style has been "really good" according to Harri, with expressions of interest far outstripping its initial intake.
"When you sit down and explain to parents what we are doing, it sounds straightforward, it sounds like common sense. And it makes traditional schools sound a bit crazy," Harri said.
"You won't just learn about bees and why bees are disappearing. You'll make beehives and install them in a local park. We'll have a really strong connection to the community. A massive part of the motivation for the kids to succeed [is that] they will exhibit to the authentic audience, to adults in the real world, rather than doing work that goes into a folder and never gets seen again."
Now XP has been approved, the Education Funding Authority will begin looking for a suitable site. Because it will use a lottery for admissions, Harri said his only concern was that the new school has good transport links.
Harri said he was inspired by a visit to a school in San Diego, High Tech High, which teaches using similar methods, and schools in New England.
After becoming frustrated as a teacher Harri said he created some software to improve teaching – sold through a company named realsmart, which offers licenses for £4,995 – and then thought the technology needed a school to model the techniques. XP will use realsmart's software. "It's the only way we can do it," said Harri.
Richard Adamsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Paul McCartney lends support to free school in Liverpool
One of the Government’s flagship free schools is to be backed by former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and will have the aim of giving primary school children the chance to flourish in the performing arts.
Headteachers told: choose highly paid staff or smaller classes in your schools
Principals must be prepared to make difficult trade-offs, says Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted's chief inspector of schools
Headteachers may face a difficult balancing act between improved wages for their staff or smaller classes for their pupils, Ofsted's chief inspector of schools said on Tuesday.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, speaking at a seminar in London, said tight budgets and performance-related pay meant heads would have to make difficult trade-offs.
"You can't have both – you can't have small classes, small groups and a highly-paid staff," Wilshaw told a seminar hosted by Reform, a rightwing thinktank.
Wilshaw referred to his experience when headteacher of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, east London.
He said he told his own staff room: "I want to reward those of you who are prepared to commit yourself to the school and do a good job in the classroom. To do that might mean we have larger classes."
Wilshaw said headteachers could win staff over by offering improved pay while arguing that "we are going to have to reorganise the way we organise our curriculum, and our group sizes within the school".
The comments came as the Department for Education (DfE) prepares to rewrite state school teachers' terms and conditions in England, scrapping annual increases and giving headteachers the power to award performance-related pay rises.
"The good heads know they have got these additional freedoms and will reorganise," Wilshaw said.
In response, a DfE spokesman said it expected headteachers to be able to judge what was best for their pupils.
"It is vital that schools can recruit and reward the best teachers. We are reforming pay so schools can attract and retain the best teachers who have the greatest impact on their pupils' achievements," he said.
Recent research suggests that the quality of teachers in schools has a greater impact on performance than smaller class sizes.
Reform earlier this week published a study, Must do Better, arguing that education spending budgets could sustain an 18% cut without hurting classroom standards.
Wilshaw – who has long been a vocal supporter of rewarding teachers on merit – agreed classroom performance should be linked to pay.
"It's a nonsense that we see failing schools where most [teachers] are at the top of the scale – and that's something that inspectors comment on," he said.
Richard Adamsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Reforms to teachers’ pay ‘will mean bigger class sizes’
Children will face larger class sizes as a result of the plan to let heads award higher pay rises to good teachers, the chief schools inspector has warned.
Ofsted chief: raise class sizes to pay top staff more money
My best history lesson: teaching Northern Ireland and the Troubles
To immerse his students, James Cannon pulled out the PE bibs and created a classroom divide
I have always found teaching about Northern Ireland and the Troubles difficult. An intensely complicated back story makes it a fairly sticky subject. Others; the Battle of Hastings, the Gunpowder Plot or the outbreak of the first world war, do not require as heavy a discussion to understand the pretext of why events unfolded as they did. Cue the football bibs.
Period five dawned, always a joy with year 9, but I knew they would be unable to resist getting involved in what was planned. The room was split into four sections to replicate the four provinces, and students were placed in what would be their "homeland" for that part of the lesson. Each province was allocated a different colour bib depending on what religion they were, and were then given examples of how people were forced to live in Ireland in the early 20th century. Feedback was instantly given as students voiced their displeasure about being forced into different types of work based on their religion, and animosity grew towards the Ulster section of the room who enjoyed the luxuries that British rule brought.
Along came the Home Rule Bill of 1920 which pleased some of our groups, and bibs were then swapped as we all became part of the Ulster province. We were well into the lesson at this point, and there had been no mention of copying learning objectives or underlining titles; two of the drier aspects of learning and teaching that we too often get caught up in. Students were engaged, focused, and well in the mindset of their Irish counterparts. Learning was in the air.
As we now focused on the Ulster province, most of the class donned a yellow Protestant bib, while a few others were given green Catholic bibs. Who was happy with the new arrangement and partition of Ireland, and who was not? More scenarios were discussed and the greens got more and more frustrated. "Why can't they just move into the south?" said one yellow. "Would you move?" I asked. The silence was deafening.
The class then started to look at how some may respond to the situation. The difference between peaceful and violent protest, the impact it could have on others and the virtues of both were shared. Students even brought examples from other subjects to the table. "In RE, we looked at how Martin Luther King insisted on peaceful protest, but Malcolm X did not," said Mollie.
We then got back into groups and each student was given a character card, showing their religion and where they lived. Each had a to write a short diary extract about their lives in Ireland and then share it with a friend; the views, needless to say, often conflicted. We finished off with some tweets that might have been following the Home Rule Bill of 1920; which were most amusing especially when accompanied by the hashtags. Here are a few examples:
"Hmmm so the Brits have just renamed our beautiful country ..." #northernireland
"Not sure this will have the required impact ..."#theremaybetroubleahead
@irishcatholic_official "I live in ulster, consider myself irish, but am still ruled by the brits???" #notfair #selfgovernment
@northernprotestant: "woop woop loving this new rule" #iLOVElloydgeorge
Having been around the class and talked to the students, I gauged that their understanding was good, but I guess you can never really be sure until they are actually required to apply the knowledge. It was then – when I posed questions in the next lesson about the motives behind the IRA – that students were able to recall what they had done the week before to help them answer.
"Oh yeah, my character last week was a young, Northern Irish Catholic and I can see why a resistance movement became popular in some quarters," said Kieran. Great stuff, I thought.
By trying to develop empathy with my year 9s too, I found they engaged far more effectively with the topic. Northern Ireland is a highly sensitive subject, and during the weeks that followed countless students arrived with tales from home about their parents' and grandparents' opinions on the subject. This is what history at secondary school is about for me; it's not textbooks, or learning objectives, or endless PowerPoints. It's making it relevant to our students, it's making them think for themselves, and it's about getting them to engage.
So next time you're struggling, head for the PE bibs.
James Cannon is the special educational needs co-ordinator at Woodrush High School, Worcestershire. He is interested in creativity and ICT in history. Follow him on Twitter @mrcannonwhs.
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Looking for your next role? Take a look at Guardian jobs for schools for thousands of the latest teaching, leadership and support jobs.guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The UK's diverging school systems
George Gray obituary
Leading authority on the chemistry of liquid crystals whose work led to the development of the ubiquitous LCD
The public gauges scientists by how their research affects everyday lives. The legacy of Professor George Gray, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of liquid crystals, could be measured by the quality of televisions, mobile phones and MP3 players and, at a deeper level, how we communicate with each other, whether through Twitter, Facebook or Skype. George, who has died aged 86, invented stable liquid crystal materials and in doing so unlocked the development of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as everyday consumer items.
He was born in Denny, Scotland, to John, a pharmacist, scientist and botanist, and his wife, Jessie. After graduating with a degree in chemistry from the University of Glasgow in 1946, he moved to University College Hull, an outpost of the University of London, to take up the post of assistant lecturer. With the guidance of Sir Brynmor Jones he studied for his PhD in the new topic of liquid crystals. After graduation he spent the next decade laying down the rules on the design and preparation of liquid crystals formed by organic compounds, culminating with the publication, in 1962, of his book Molecular Structure and the Properties of Liquid Crystals, the first English text on the subject.
By the mid-1960s, George found it difficult to find support for his work on liquid crystals. With provision from the Medical Research Council and Reckitt and Sons (now Reckitt-Benckiser, a Hull-based consumer goods company), he moved his research into the closely related study of the chemistry of the cell walls of bacteria.
Towards the end of the 1960s, there were worries that the licensing of colour cathode ray tubes for TVs was costing the country more money than it took to develop Concorde. John Stonehouse, who was minister for technology and postmaster general, encouraged the scientists at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvern to develop new technologies to replace such devices. Liquid crystals were already in the mind of senior scientist Cyril Hilsum as a leading candidate for exploration in displays, and potential exploitation, if only he could obtain suitable and stable materials.
At a scientific meeting Cyril met George, and subsequently the University of Hull, as it had become in 1954, was awarded a research contract by the Ministry of Defence to investigate "substances exhibiting liquid-crystalline states at room temperatures". George appointed two researchers, Ken Harrison and John Nash, and within two years they had success – not by designing favourable structures into molecules, but by leaving parts out, and so the stable cyanobiphenyls were born. They became the workhorses in the development of modern flat panel displays and inspired the creation of an international industry, such that now there are more liquid crystal displays in the world than there are people.
After the invention of cyanobiphenyls, more developments followed, including materials for colour-change thermometer strips, large screen LCD TVs and the eyepieces of digital cameras. In addition to technological developments, George made many fundamental contributions on the true nature of matter, including discoveries of new liquid crystal phases and their properties. His original research was published in more than 300 scientific papers and patents, and several textbooks.
George spent nearly his entire career in science at Hull, moving to work for Merck Chemicals at Poole in 1990. His research at Hull brought recognition to the university in the Queen's award for technological achievement in 1979, the first award of its type to a university, and, in 2005, a Historical Chemical Landmark was awarded to the university by the Royal Society of Chemistry to commemorate more than 50 years of liquid crystal research.
George won many awards for his research, including the Kyoto prize in 1995, and he became a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Irish Academy of Sciences. He was appointed CBE in 1991. Apart from his many honorary doctorates and medals for research, George was proud to have a train, which regularly ran from Hull to London, named after him.
George was once asked what advice he had for young scientists. He replied: "Science is a difficult field that demands great effort and dedication, but if you are willing to make the effort, there is much to gain."
He married Marjorie Canavan in 1953 and they were a warm, fun-loving couple. Marjorie died two weeks before George. Their daughters Veronica and Caroline survive them. Another daughter, Elizabeth, predeceased them.
• George William Gray, chemist, born 4 September 1926; died 12 May 2013
John GoodbyPeter Raynesguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
FE college teaching 'must improve'
Take a hard look at racism, sexism and homophobia on college campuses | Andrew Longhi
My recent experience at Dartmouth College has shown me that we are still not the society we want to be
Like many universities, Dartmouth College has venerated traditions. The annual Dimensions show – a festive, student-organized musical revue performed to entice admitted, but undecided, students to come to Dartmouth – is one such tradition. Many prospective students decide to attend Dartmouth because of how much they enjoy the performance.
On 19 April, a group of students calling themselves "#Realtalk" interrupted the show, protesting sexual assault, racism, and homophobia at the university. It was a real jolt for the campus community. President Carol Folt cancelled classes on 24 April for the first time since the mid-1980s due to the backlash: a barrage of rape and death threats on social media sites and internet forums. The ugliness and volume of these threats – not to mention the negative PR – convinced the administration that the school was in a state of crisis.
In place of its usual academic schedule, we had a day of reflection that entailed a rally on the college green and a series of facilitated discussions. But even that was not enough to heal us. The school faces a possible Title IX complaint by students and alums who claim that Dartmouth fosters a hostile environment to women, racial minorities, and LGBT students.
Dartmouth is not alone. Similar problems and complaints at Oberlin College, Swarthmore College, Occidental, and Amherst show that Dartmouth is not alone in believing that the campus fosters respect and care for all, when, in reality, it might not. This isn't a Dartmouth problem. It is an American problem.
We are often too fragmented, insular, and uncaring – excluding those who don't fit into our perception of ourselves. At a time when basic American civic responsibilities from voting to jury duty to paying taxes are perceived as burdensome, it should be no surprise that lethargy about cross community dialogue manifests itself at Dartmouth (or any other college campus).
The "#Realtalk" protestors at my school speak for a larger constituency of students who find Dartmouth's traditions, which are both reinvented and reinforced with each incoming class, unhealthy and destructive. The protests and backlash expose our basic tensions. Can Dartmouth shed its more damaging aspects while still remaining Dartmouth? I argue that it can.
College culture introduces many opportunities for inclusivity through personal interactions. After being rejected from the Greek house (aka fraternity) to which I felt affiliated, I adopted a sorority as my house, flippantly joking that I was a "sister" and planned on attending the organization's events uninvited. The women rejected my attempts to get involved. While it was a humorous circumstance, it reminded me that even students aware of social problems unconsciously reinforce our community's deepest sexist assumptions.
We need to listen to each other if we truly are committed to the stakes of "real talk". At this moment, the Dartmouth community is a series of fragmented groups, for example, athletes and members of the Greek community. There are very few shared notions of mutual care.
I am not excusing myself. I don't have concern for community members who operate in circles I perceive as hostile to gays, minorities, and women. Should I care enough to feel a sense of accountability and engage insular communities in dialogue? I absolutely must.
Like many colleges, Dartmouth has a Principle of Community that expects students to respect one another. We passively assume that respect happens. If care were explicitly questioned on campus, then students would engage in discussing these issues consistently and with respect. We would understand criticism as an act of caring and a form of investment, rather than separation. The issues that the protestors mentioned should instigate outrage within every community member, but they haven't.
The Dartmouth motto, vox clamantis in deserto – a voice crying out in the wilderness – is old, yet highly relevant. The protests were a cry in the wilderness, but one that many students did not want to hear. Once we as a student body admit that the presence of care has become a question, then there is an incentive to start to care. We can turn stigma into leadership by making what people recognize as problematic the basis for social transformation.
It is not that Dartmouth students don't care about racism, rape, and homophobia, but the assumed tolerance makes change impossible. Singling out certain fraternities as racist or the protestors as anti-Dartmouth will not move us to a place of social transformation. We are all racist – or sexist, or homophobic – in ways we won't, or can't, acknowledge. We have begun these tough conversations, and I am optimistic that our campus and others can prove that caring is true to those "old traditions".
Andrew Longhiguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Labour pledges to beef up teaching standards in further education colleges
Labour today pledged to beef up teaching standards in the nation's further education colleges as part of a drive to improve numeracy and literacy standards.
One British household in 10 has £1m assets
UK now has around 2.5m millionaire households, boosted by pensions and house prices, according to new book
One British household in every 10 now has total assets exceeding £1m, according to a new book based on work at the London School of Economics published on Wednesday.
Wealth in the UK crunched the findings from a comprehensive official survey that took place between 2008 and 2010, and found that 10% of households had total wealth of £967,200 or more.
The lead author, Prof John Hills – who previously headed Whitehall's National Equality Panel – says a subsequent surge in stock markets, London house prices and the valuation of occupational pensions will "have pushed the entry point into that wealthiest tenth over the million-pound mark today".
In the midst of a slump without end, news that Britain now has around 2.5m "millionaire households" may seem surprising. But over the decades since Frank Sinatra asked Celeste Holm: "Who wants the bother of a country estate?", general inflation has obviously done a great deal of work in devaluing the millionaire currency.
But surging house prices and – more recently – rocketing valuations of pensions have boosted Britain's wealth far beyond its overall earning power. Back in the 1960s, Britons' non-pension wealth was only about twice national income; by the mid-noughties Britons were instead worth four times what they earned.
Hills explains: "It is not that there are millions of people with millions of pounds in the bank, but rather that London property prices and – for those lucky professionals who retain them – final salary pensions have quietly made technical millionaires out of many who would only consider themselves as solidly middle-class."
The previous official Wealth and Assets Survey, which covered 2006 through to 2008, implied that the top 10% had total wealth of £853,000 or more. With house prices having fluctuated without much trend since then, at least outside London, Hills believes that the most important force that has subsequently pushed up the wealth of the well-to-do has been lax monetary policy.
"With rock-bottom interest rates and quantitative easing … any given fixed pension that has been promised for the future is now worth more, in terms of the money you would have to set aside to fund it today."
The valuations can be considerable: in the light of the 2006-08 data, actuaries at Hazell Carr calculated for the Guardian that the pension of a career police inspector on the point of retirement could be worth £1.3m.
Just as striking as the rocketing level of wealth at the top end, however, is the continuing gulf between the haves and have-nots. Inequality in British pay is familiar, but it is dwarfed by inequality in wealth: whereas the top tenth of households brings home roughly 10 times as much as the poorest tenth in annual income, the top 10% own 850 times as much as the bottom tenth. And if around one in 10 are in millionaire territory, then another one in 10 households – at the opposite end of the scale – have a total net worth of less than £12,600, the poorest among them actually saddled with a negative valuation on account of debt.
As in interpreting the figures for the wealthiest, it is important to remember that the definition of assets here is designed to be all-encompassing. As well as money in the bank it includes housing, pensions, vehicles, personal possessions such as furniture and jewellery – even the average of £1,300 that nearly 6% of households claim to have locked up in personalised number plates (making for a supposed total of £1.46bn).
With such a sweeping definition of wealth, Hills regards the implications of so many families having so little as frightening. If those with low or negative wealth were all youngsters, who had not yet had a chance to save or buy durable goods, then that would be one thing – much of the problem would then be expected to solve itself over time.
But what is really troubling, he says, is that "it's not just young people who have little or no assets. There are large parts of the population who have few if any assets, right across the age range."
Among households headed by an adult aged 55-64, for example, one in 10 have accumulated worldly and financial assets worth less than £29,000. A couple seeking to buy a joint index-linked annuity with that sort of pension fund would struggle to secure an income of £1,000 a year. In practice, seeing as much of that money will often be tied up in fixtures, furnishings and other personal effects, it is likely to leave next to nothing to contribute towards retirement. Hills warns: "A great chunk of the population is approaching retirement with no property, no assets to speak of, and no security beyond the state pension and safety net."
He also warns against the complacent temptation to regard the great surge in wealth at the top end as a "purely paper" phenomenon, arguing instead that it will have implications for social mobility for a long time to come.
"Inflation in house prices underlies the burgeoning wealth at the top end of the scale, and seeing as most of us are still living in the same old houses it is easy to regard this as an illusion. But that would be a mistake: whether through downsizing, inheritance or equity release, this notional wealth gets cashed in at some stage. And whether it is spent on a comfortable retirement or on master's degrees or deposits to help buy property in the right place, it will certainly have major implications for the life chances of some – but not others – in the next generation, and the one after that. The scale of the increase in wealth over the last 20 years makes the wins and losses from this lottery far bigger than it was in the past."
Wealth in the UK: Distribution, Accumulation and Policy, is published by Oxford University Press, and launched at the London School of Economics on Wednesday
Tom Clarkguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
UK higher education: let's not follow the leader but develop our own vision
UK universities need an alternative to the US technology meme that says higher education is broken, says Saint John Walker
An avalanche is coming. Education is broken. Classrooms kill creativity. Higher education is a rotten tree being hit by lightning.
All these things have been said about higher education recently (Clay Shirky wrote the last one if you're interested). In fact, when I playfully did a Google search on "higher education is doomed", it returned some 2 million results. Those who work in teaching, especially in higher education, have had a rough time of it recently. It seems everyone's got it in for them and everyone has a prognosis of what to do about it.
To paraphrase Monty Python, you'd think the university system had kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, gone to meet its maker, joined the bleeding choir invisible. But I disagree. I actually think that higher education system's vital signs are quite healthy even if I do think (to spin out the Palin-Cleese exchange a little further), it's probably been too busy pining for the fjords.
Higher education is often criticised for what it hasn't done rather than what it has.To quote the IPPR report, 'An Avalanche is Coming': "Nothing looked more impervious to revolutionary change than Brezhnev's Soviet Union in 1980, yet just over a decade later it was gone. The hegemony of the Catholic Church in Ireland looked unshakable in 1990, but two decades later it was gone". You get the subtle suggestion – higher education hasn't moved with the times, it needs glasnost and perestroika.
One of the biggest snowballs in this supposed avalanche is the MOOC (massive open online courses) phenomenon which has captured the imagination of so many observers. It's a rather simple and utopian ideal: education for all, free, delivered to your laptop, time-shifted to your schedule not the university timetable. It's also the notion of unlocking quality knowledge from elite campuses like MIT, Stanford, Harvard and UCLA that makes it such a seductive idea.
This story is also inextricably linked to the Silicon Valley meme of technology for good, and the alluring narratives of disruption and technical fixes that will create a new culture of mass learning. One of the noticeable things about this vision of the future is that it is (the launch of FutureLearn withstanding) very much an American story, and it's easy to see the reasons why.
According to the US Department of Education, student debt is now over $1 trillion, and an estimated 53.6% of degree-holders in the US are jobless or underemployed. The contract between higher education and the learner, who is willing to put up with short-term debt to get a great career, has broken down. There is a crisis of confidence.
Add to this mix the prediction that the edutech space is set to be worth $107bn (£70bn) by 2015 and you have a powerful impetus for change. It's often said when America sneezes, Europe catches a cold. Will that be the case in the higher education sphere too?
The European Union registered an unprecedented youth unemployment rate of 22.8% in September 2012, and in the UK 40% of graduates cannot find graduate-level work two years after their degrees. But student debt, despite recent changes, is nowhere near as extreme as in the US.
So, we have a different motive for our changes to education in the UK. We shouldn't just accept US-style MOOCs as a solution that also fits our national landscape. There are alternative narratives, different stories, and a more British vision of higher education that could be articulated.
We could use the language of complementing and collaborating a little more, rather than the US narratives of disruption, competition and overhaul. Let's critically evaluate the disruptive possibilities – good and bad – of MOOCs, and create our own hybrids to energise our particular university ecosystem.
Of course we too need edutech companies, entrepreneurs and educational venture capitalists. But here's my idea for a few acronyms that we Brits should create: POOCs, or Personal Open Offline Complements – real human gatherings based at scale; OAFs, or Open Access Funnels, that lead disenfranchised people from online courses to the real valuable experience of being part of a community at a physical place of learning; and how about hybrid apprenticeship and degree mixes?
There are plenty more acronyms we could create together. Let's include the most receptive and agile universities in those debates, treating them like a living breathing partner, rather than that poor old Norwegian Blue parrot with its feet nailed to its perch.
Saint John Walker is head of development at Creative Skillset, the UK skills council for the creative industries – follow it on Twitter @skillsetssc
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, become a member of the Higher Education Network.
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Phonics literacy test for young children 'a waste of time and money'
Test would have minimal, if any, long-term impact on pupils' standards of reading and writing, research shows
The phonics literacy test applied to first-year schoolchildren in England has had a minimal impact on reading and writing standards, according to teachers in a Department for Education-funded survey, leading education unions to describe it as a waste of time and money.
The survey, conducted in the first year that the phonics screening check has been given to all five- and six-year-olds in state-funded primary schools, reveals continued disquiet among teachers and literacy co-ordinators over the usefulness of the test, alongside apparent indifference from parents.
"Most of the teachers interviewed as part of the case-study visits to schools reported that the check would have minimal, if any, impact on the standard of reading and writing in their school in the future," the interim report, conducted by the National Foundation for Education Research, concludes.
A majority – 52% – of school literacy co-ordinators surveyed disagreed with the statement "the phonics screening check provides valuable information for teachers", while only a quarter agreed. Most teachers preferred to use their records or other means of assessment to gauge a child's progress, with only half saying they used the test results to judge whether a pupil needed extra support.
One teacher interviewed in the survey's follow-up case study was quoted as saying: "The check had no impact on me personally. I know exactly where the children are anyway. There were no surprises in the data and [it revealed] nothing we didn't already know."
While many teachers are strong supporters of phonics, a teaching method that involves pupils examining each letter within a word as an individual sound and blending the sounds together in pronunciation, many remain unconvinced of the need for a test or check on children as young as five, or in using the DfE's preferred technique, known as synthetic phonics, exclusively.
Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the survey suggested the check was a waste of money.
"This report will make for very uncomfortable reading by Michael Gove as it has very little to say that is positive about the phonics check," she said. "The NUT agrees with many of the findings, in particular the key conclusions that schools believe the check provides no new information on pupils' ability and that phonics should be used alongside other methods in the teaching of reading."
Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, called the tests a waste of time. "We have seen nonsense words plastered on the walls of good primary schools to get children used to the concept of words that don't make sense. What on Earth are we being forced to teach children?" he said.
The average cost of administering the check was £740 per school, with one school reporting a cost of more than £20,400, although the survey's authors said that figure probably included spending on phonics teaching resources. Others spent £5,000 on teaching supply cover. Schools reported an average of eight hours spent administering the test.
A spokesman for the DfE pointed out that 80% of literacy co-ordinators said the results of the check would enable them to identify children who needed extra help.
"The phonics check ensures children struggling with reading get the help they desperately need. Last year's check – when teachers identified more than 235,000 six-year-olds behind on reading – demonstrated its value," the DfE said.
Teachers were divided over the usefulness of the test for pupils with more advanced levels of reading comprehension, with as many saying the check was inappropriate as those who thought it was appropriate.
The survey also revealed concerns that the use of "pseudo words" in the check may be confusing for advanced readers or children speaking English as an additional language. Made-up words, such as "halp" or "flarp", are included in the check to test a child's ability to blend sounds, rather than rely on reading a word they may already recognise.
Several teachers reported problems over the pseudo words, which comprise 20 of the 40 words tested. "They [the children] tried to make the pseudo words fit something they knew, for example by changing 'proom' to 'groom'," according to one teacher.
Others said children speaking English as an additional language also had difficulty adapting to the pseudo words. According to one teacher some children claimed the made-up words "were real words, like 'desh' – so we don't know whether in their own language that is a real word, or the pronunciation is a real word, and this confused those children".
Children with speech, language or communication difficulties or other learning issues were also reported to have experienced problems with the check, and to have been confused by the pseudo words, while the survey found some evidence of unsuitability of the check for students with severe autism.
The survey of nearly 1,800 teachers and literacy co-ordinators will be repeated this year, along with interviews with parents.
Richard Adamsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
UK shared exam system faces break up
Social work training reforms: it takes five weeks to create a social worker
Frontline, the social work training scheme, has been welcomed, but concerns remain that recruits will go too fast, too soon
Lyn Romeo had no time to celebrate her appointment as England's first chief social worker for adults. Even as the announcement was made last week, she was dealing with the deaths of a man who was "known to services" and his wife on Romeo's patch in Camden, north London.
Social work is tough. The profession is again in the stocks after the conviction of the men involved in the shocking child abuse ring in Oxford, where girls in council care were groomed and abused seemingly at will by local men. But the armchair critics rarely have much idea of what the job entails.
It's a tough challenge and there is concern about the speed at which graduate high flyers and career switchers will be parachuted into the frontline under a new scheme to attract top talent to children's social work. Recruits will go straight into on-the-job training after a summer-school crash course of just five weeks.
Architects of the scheme, which is indeed called Frontline, stress trainees will have full-time supervision by an experienced social worker before they qualify after 12 months. But those wearily familiar with social workers' heavy caseloads know only too well that, in the pressured reality of daily practice, such niceties can be set aside.
Yet there has been a general welcome for Frontline, which is modelled on the Teach First programme to fast track graduates into on-the-job teacher training in challenging schools. While there is no shortage of people wanting to undertake conventional social work training, via (in England) a three-year degree course, their calibre is often questioned.
Talk to anyone who recruits social work graduates and they will readily admit they regard certain university courses with disdain – something that is certain to emerge in a review of training for the Department for Education (DfE) by Sir Martin Narey, the plain-talking former chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's.
The first 100 Frontline recruits will start training in London and Manchester next year. They will be required to do a further 12 months as qualified social workers after their training year, remaining in the same local authority, and will receive a master's degree at the end of the two-year programme. Frontline is being "incubated" by Ark, the international children's charity set up by City financiers, but is receiving £1m upfront from the DfE.
There has been a general welcome, too, for the appointments of Romeo and of Isabelle Trowler as the first chief social worker for children and families. Both women are highly respected "doers" who, perhaps significantly, have risen no higher than assistant director grade in local government.
Trowler co-founded the acclaimed Reclaiming Social Work programme in Hackney, east London, by which small teams operate under consultant social workers with dedicated administrative support. She left Hackney two years ago to set up a consultancy to promote the approach, and, if there is any anxiety about her appointment, it will be how open she is to other thinking. Interviewed for Society Guardian in 2011, Trowler said her programme had to be implemented "with military precision".
A more general anxiety is the binary nature of the social work reforms. The response to the failings exposed by the Baby Peter scandal in 2007 was co-ordinated by a single reform board that led to the creation of a single professional college. Yet we now have two chief social workers; there is talk of a separate Frontline-type scheme for adult services; and Narey's training probe is mirrored on the adult side by another review commissioned by David Croisdale-Appleby, chair of the Skills for Care agency, for the Department of Health.
With about a third of councils now running adult and children's services together, this all seems rather bizarre.
David Brindleguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
School cuts 'no harm to standards'
I love art school because... – your best pictures
We asked you to send in photos via GuardianWitness telling us why you love art school. Here are your best pictures
Guardian readersHappy birthday to us, happy birthday to us…
Guardian Students turns one - and we're dishing out presents to celebrate
Guardian Students celebrates our first birthday tomorrow! Since we launched the site on 22 May last year:
• a student protest march fizzled out at a rainy rally where the NUS president was pelted with eggs
• student activism staged a dramatic recovery thanks to a plucky occupation by Sussex students protesting against privatisation
• girls became a third more likely than boys to go to university
• a student union employee posted film of a couple having sex at a ball all over the internet
• and students filmed each other pouring milk on their heads
We've been busy too, and throughout the day tomorrow we'll be highlighting some of our best bits in a live blog on the Guardian Students site. If you've written for us, keep your eyes peeled: you may feature in our Best of the Blogs.
Rebecca Ratcliffe has interviewed the new leader of the NUS Toni Pearce – and discovered that she's the first president never to have got a university degree. More revelations tomorrow...
But birthdays, let's face it, are all about presents. And we've got heaps to hand out to anyone who has signed up for membership since the very beginning. So take a moment's break from your revision to fill in this little form right now, and you'll be eligible for our prize draws on the hour on Wednesday from 10am-5pm. Easy as that, no multiple choice, no essay questions – just sit back and wait to see if you win one of dozens of really rather marvellous things:
Clothing vouchers from Topshop, Topman and Figleaves, Amazon vouchers from Coventry University, books galore courtesy of our colleagues on Guardian Books, goodies from Noisey, the music channel of Vice, subsriptions to the NME, Cath Kidson vouchers, trips to Alton Towers for you and all your mates and, wait for it, an iPad Mini.
Being one is brilliant! We're toddling off to crash-land face-first in our birthday cake.
Judy FriedbergRebecca Ratcliffeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
