£17 billion is spent in England and Wales on dealing with social problems affecting children and young people. The Early Intervention Foundation argues that it would be better spending some of that cash on addressing the root causes of the problems. Read more
Last year Michael Gove appeared to agree that humanism, philosophy and ethics had a proper place in RE teaching. Then came Trojan horse scandal and a new proposal that religious literacy should be increased by teaching two religions; humanism, philosophy and ethics are demoted. Read more from this Observer editorial.
England’s schools are ‘missing’ 1700 women head teachers because too many women are either discriminated against or do not put themselves forward for the role, it is claimed. According to the Future Leaders Trust, official figures show that while 74 per cent of teachers are women, just 65 per cent of headships are held by women. Read more
Are you a visual learner or a kinaesthetic learner? Perhaps you are an auditory learner? Maybe you learn best when implementing a combination of these ‘learning styles’. Over the past 40 years, this theory has garnered support across the education community and has become a much-used teaching tool across the UK. Tom Bennett asks whether it’s time to question the validity not just of this but of other education myths. Read more
it is increasingly clear that Ofsted has become too open to political interference. Both the Labour government and the coalition Government have changed the Ofsted framework regularly (it has changed every year for the past three years), with the consequence that time and money has to be spent on inspectors and schools being trained and retrained accordingly. Is it time to end political interference in Ofsted? Read more
In order to make young children ‘school ready’, the English government is now encouraging parents to place their children in school nurseries shortly after their second birthday. But there is evidence to suggest that this policy might be poorly aligned to the developmental needs of such young children and that it contravenes their underlying human nature. Read more
In the run up to the election, The Guardian is giving readers the chance to grill the main education spokespeople. First up is the Greens’ Samantha Pancheri. Read more
Recently, Durham Free School, made national headlines after an excoriating Ofsted report. The inspection was one of a number of inspections called at short notice on faith schools in the region and there seemed to have been a particular focus on determining whether or not the school taught ‘British values’. The inspectors commented that the school was ‘…failing to prepare students for life in modern Britain’. Just how did Ofsted arrive at this conclusion? Read more