Education & schools work update
Headlines from the world of education and schools work:
- Lenny Henry trades red nose for mortarboard: One of the country’s most popular comedians, Lenny Henry, is starting a PhD having left school aged 16 with barely a qualification more than 30 years ago. Henry, a stand-up comedian and actor – and longstanding presenter on the annual TV charity fundraiser Comic Relief – has enrolled on a four-year doctorate in screenwriting at the University of London’s Royal Holloway.
- Boys ‘less likely to be told off’ by mothers: Mothers are much more likely to give daughters a hard time for misbehaving than their sons, according to research.
- Head teacher shocks pupils by eating spider: He has been recognised as one of the country’s leading head teachers whose methods have helped achieve enviable results at his schools.
- One in six primary school pupils not fulfilling potential in maths and English: One in six pupils are failing to make the expected progress in English or maths by the time they leave primary school, the government revealed.
- Students ‘drink less than workers’: A survey suggests that students are more responsible drinkers than young adult workers. A poll of around 1,700 young people reveals that students are more likely to drink less, and less likely to find it acceptable to end up in hospital due to alcohol.
- Are parents to blame for bad behaviour in schools?: Education experts have told MPs that many parents set a bad example to their children, for example, by encouraging them to ‘hit back’. Parents are undermining teachers’ efforts to improve children’s behaviour by setting a bad example, MPs heard.
- Child poverty: study shows fifth of UK youngsters severely affected: Project charting health and education prospects for 14,000 UK children finds child poverty on the rise. A fifth of seven-year-olds in the UK live in “severe poverty” with both parents together earning less than half the average national income, a major report reveals.
- Government pulls plug on Teachers TV: Co-owners Ten Alps and ITN say they hope to keep online training site going despite loss of £10m contract. The Department for Education has pulled the plug on Teachers TV, the online training site for British schoolteachers.
- Compulsory citizenship lessons ‘may be axed’: Compulsory citizenship lessons in secondary schools could be scrapped under a review of the national curriculum.
- Thousands of five-year-olds ‘playing truant’: More than 4,000 five-year-olds are skipping school every day as truancy rates among young children soar to a record high.
- Quarter of boys ‘have special educational needs’: A quarter of boys are being diagnosed with special needs, figures show, despite fears the label is being used to disguise poor teaching.
- Record university applications see 200,000 miss out: Nearly three in 10 potential students were denied a place at university this year, Ucas statistics show.
- Class size ruling pleases Edinburgh education chiefs: Edinburgh’s education chiefs are celebrating after a legal limit of 25 pupils for primary one classes was approved by the Scottish Parliament.
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