The Big Question: Why are fewer pupils studying history, and what can be done about it?
Why are we asking this now?
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, put out a press release embargoed for a quiet day of the year, saying that new Government figures revealed that fewer than one in three 16-year-olds were sitting GCSE history. According to the statistics, which [...]
Some Academies ‘a quarter empty’
Some Academies - the independent state schools the government says are “popular with parents” - have hundreds of empty places.
Surplus capacity can be inevitable as new Academies fill, usually replacing existing schools in deprived areas.
But there are more than 2,600 empty desks in Academies that have been open for years, official figures suggest.
Seven have more [...]
Let universities design new A-levels, Tories say
The Conservatives are considering moves to sideline the existing A-level, amid concerns they produce students who expect to be spoon-fed through university and fail to stretch the brightest pupils.
Universities would be encouraged to club together to design tougher alternatives, said the shadow secretary of state for higher education, David Willetts.
One in four A-level papers were [...]
Ten things never to say to a teenager
Son or daughter failing to knuckle down to the revision? Maybe you are partly to blame …
You’re going blue in the face. For months, you’ve been issuing warnings to your teenager. You’ve nagged and pleaded, you’ve explained that time is running out. You’ve supplied all necessary books and materials. You’ve printed out past papers going [...]
College voices: The modern apprentice
Michael Jones’s self-belief kept him going through the bad times
I missed a lot of school when I was growing up because we had problems at home.
I was bright at primary school, particularly in sciences and maths. I was also a good footballer. But the other children teased me about my home life. I was [...]
Colleges set to bear the brunt of cuts
Will further education funds once again be diverted to cover overspending on university grants?
As the hazy picture of next year’s further education budget comes into sharper focus, a familiar suspicion is starting to creep through the sector. Colleges would appear once again to be propping up their higher education cousins. It certainly looks as though [...]
Mock exam has same questions as real A-level
By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:38PM BST 16 May 2009
The first question in section B, asking them to “explain the difference between a family and a household” was instantly familiar.
Exactly the same question is contained in a mock exam in Chapter 5 of a course guide written by [...]
‘Dragon’ academy teaches teenagers who quit school to become tycoons
An academy that encourages young entrepreneurs to run their own business at the age of 16 has been swamped by applications. There have been more than five candidates for every one of the 28 places at the new National Enterprise Academy, a business school set up by Peter Jones, the multi-millionaire.
Jones, a judge on Dragons’ [...]
New qualifications are rushed in too quickly, says exam watchdog
New qualifications are introduced into the national education system before they have been properly tried out, the chief exam regulator said today.
In future, new or changed qualifications and exams must not be launched unless they have been thoroughly tested for at least two years, said Kathleen Tattersall, head of Ofqual.
She understood the desire of ministers [...]
Diplomas invalid for many top university courses
Only 40% of courses at universities in one group will accept diplomas for entry, says Ucas
Teenagers taking the first of the government’s diplomas will be denied access to a large proportion of undergraduate courses at top UK universities, it emerged today.
Diplomas in construction, engineering, health, IT and media will be awarded in summer 2010 and [...]
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