Category: Education

Education and teaching.

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Education

The trouble with Ofsted

Ruth Perry’s death last year was a tragedy. The headteacher had carried the burden of an Ofsted inspection pretty much alone over the Christmas holiday. The sword of Damocles was no longer dangling by a thread, but hurtling towards her. Perry knew that the inspection report was on its way but only one word mattered: inadequate. Unable to discuss the report openly for fear of incurring the wrath of Ofsted, Perry took her own life on 8 January 2023.

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Education

The Social Justice Dilemma in Schools

Social justice sounds like a good thing. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it refers to the fair treatment and equitable status of all individuals and social groups within a state or society. Who could argue with that? I am a teacher, and I have seen social justice enter the education lexicon, but while the terminology is widely used, that does not necessarily mean that it is understood. And even when it is understood, does everyone share the same understanding?

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Education

It’s the right time for GCSE grades to return to pre-Covid levels

For the first time in 27 years, I have no personal stake in the GCSE results that are released this morning. I did not teach Year 11 last year, so I will not be poring over statistics to explain the performance of my class to my superiors in school.

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Education

Unfair A-levels are the best idea we’ve got

A-level results day is the most terrifying moment in anyone’s education. Poor GCSEs can be overlooked by a school that knows their pupils could do well in the sixth form. Degree classifications at university are so broad that one bad paper may well not matter. But A-Levels are brutal. Students who miss their university offer by just one grade in one subject can find themselves rejected without the right of appeal or the means to resit. Their future changes instantly by the barest of margins. 

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Education

The real tragedy of the Nashville school shooting

Three children and three staff have been shot dead at a school in the United States. The pupils who died at the Covenant School in Nashville were all just nine years old. The attacker was Audrey Hale, a 28-year old transgender ex-pupil, who was armed with three guns, including a semi-automatic rifle. Hale was shot dead by police during the incident yesterday morning.*

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Education

How schools are captured by ideological institutions

This week*, Nadeem Zahawi told teachers that they have ‘an important role in preparing children and young people for life in modern Britain, and teaching them about the society and world they grow up in.’

Actually, after 26 years in the classroom, I had worked that out for myself. Children spend significant periods of their lives with their teachers, and we have a huge responsibility that goes far beyond drilling our pupils for exams.

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Children Education

Scotland’s new transgender guidance is a safeguarding nightmare

On Thursday, teachers planning residential trips were told that it was just fine for teenagers of the opposite sex to share a room. 

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Education

Don’t blame teachers for this year’s grade inflation

Today’s A level results are unprecedented, but not unexpected. On Friday, Professor Alan Smithers  of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham said, ‘The early signs are that it will be another bumper year for grades.’ He went on to suggest that this might be, ‘justified as compensation for all the disruption suffered’.

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Education

As a teacher, I believe calls to put cameras in classrooms are wrong. But it’s right to worry about the dangers of indoctrination

Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s push for recording lessons is misplaced – it would be better to tackle the lobby groups that are driving absurd, divisive and dangerous policies into our schools.

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Education

Stonewall’s worrying school guidance

Stonewall’s ‘Diversity Champions’ programme appears to have been haemorrhaging members since an investigation by the university of Essex found that the organisation had been preaching ‘Stonewall Law’ rather than the actual law.

But it is not only corporations, councils and government departments who have been persuaded to part with good money to receive questionable advice. Stonewall’s similarly named ‘Schools and Colleges Champion Programme’ seems to have sucked places of education into the charity’s web as well. As a teacher I know how tight school budgets have become in recent years, but it seems that several schools have still found money to hand over to Stonewall.

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