Academy schools: the verdict by Jim Knight and John Bangs
Jim Knight and John Bangs deliver contrasting opinions on the PricewaterhouseCoopers evaluation of academy schools
Scottish Baccalaureates disputed
Opposition parties have raised concerns that new qualifications in science and languages for Scottish high school students overcrowd the curriculum.
From next year, pupils will be able to take Baccalaureates combining and extending existing qualifications.
Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop says the courses should encourage more students to take such subjects and help them move to [...]
Despite sponsors and high pay for teachers, there is no ‘academy effect’
A five-year inquiry into the government’s academies programme has concluded that there is no “academy effect” and while results in the schools have improved overall, GCSE marks reveal a mixed picture.
The 130 academy schools are benefiting from expert sponsors, state of the art buildings, and being able to pay teachers above the odds. But [...]
Future Education Spending Brought Forward
School modernisation projects worth £800m are being brought forward as part of the government’s drive to revitalise the economy.
The Chancellor’s pre-Budget report promised to accelerate planned spending to “renew primary and secondary schools” in England.
It will mean local authorities will have until Christmas to ask to bring forward school spending plans.
These will [...]
Peter Kingston on colleges’ fast track approach to qualifications
The bill allowing further education colleges to award their own foundation degrees (FD) faced some turbulence as it passed through the House of Lords a couple of years ago. Some peers with university connections were clearly fearful about what they saw as the thin end of a long wedge that would skewer higher education’s jealously [...]
Third of Colleges rated ‘outstanding’
Nearly a third of all colleges are now rated outstanding, after the numbers earning top marks in inspections soared last year.
Ofsted’s annual report shows that 32 per cent of colleges were given the top rating in the past year, compared to 19 per cent the year before.
It now means that 71 per cent of colleges [...]
Diploma in engineering will be accepted at Oxbridge
The universities of Cambridge and Oxford will accept the advanced diploma in engineering for entry to its undergraduate engineering courses.
The move by the elite universities will give the government’s flagship qualification a welcome boost after the numbers taking up diplomas this September were lower than expected.
Diploma students could apply next year to start courses at [...]
Confusion over GCSE print error
Tens of thousands of GCSE students have faced confusion because of a printing error in a physics exam.
Exam board AQA sent out a faulty grid on which students were meant to write answers to multiple choice questions.
It says the problem affects a modular physics paper, but a school has told BBC News of [...]
Student grant firm fired for delays
Now Capita, which took over Sats contract earlier this year, takes charge of 16-18 student payments
The company blamed for delayed grant payments to thousands of college students has lost its six-year contract, it has just been announced.
Further Reading: Guardian
Company behind student grant delays has contract terminated
The company blamed for delayed grant payments to hundreds of thousands of students this year has lost its contract.
Liberata’s contract was “discontinued” five years early after it failed to pay education maintenance allowance (EMA) grants of up to £30 a week on time.
The data processing company Capita has been appointed by the Learning and Skills [...]
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