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Rishi Sunak to propose maths for all pupils up to age 18

2023-01-03

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/03/rishi-sunak-to-propose-maths-for-all-pupils-up-to-age-18

PM to set out plan to enhance numeracy for pupils in England in first policy speech of 2023 Rishi Sunak will announce plans for all pupils in England to study maths up to the age of 18 to tackle innumeracy and better equip them for the modern workplace as he sets out his priorities for the year ahead. In his first speech of 2023, the prime minister will expand on his ambitions for Britain amid concern from some Tory MPs that he lacks a big vision for the country and could be consumed instead by battling a series of crises around the cost of living, the health service and strikes. He has already announced proposals for a new “baccalaureate”, replacing A-levels, during the Conservative leadership contest, which would see students continue with compulsory English and maths until 18, but sit fewer exams at 16. No 10 sources suggested he would make further policy announcements in the central London speech, highlighting the economy, the NHS and small boats crossing the Channel as areas that he regarded as priorities for the remainder of this parliament. However, Sunak’s decision to pre-brief an education announcement, rather than focusing on the state of the NHS this winter – with overcrowded A&E departments and long waits for a hospital bed, patients being treated in corridors, and 30-hour waits in ambulances outside hospitals – may be met with surprise. Under Sunak’s plans, maths to 18 would be provided through different routes, rather than just A-levels. He was expected to say: “This is personal for me. Every opportunity I’ve had in life began with the education I was so fortunate to receive. And it’s the single most important reason why I came into politics: to give every child the highest possible standard of education.” He will add: “Right now, just half of all 16–19 year-olds study any maths at all. Yet in a world where data is everywhere and statistics underpin every job, our children’s jobs will require more analytical skills than ever before. And letting our children out into the world without those skills is letting our children down.” The policy would only apply to pupils in England, as education is a devolved issue. Labour criticised the “empty pledge”, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, saying: “The prime minister needs to show his working. “He cannot deliver this reheated, empty pledge without more maths teachers, yet the government has missed their target for new maths teachers year after year, with existing teachers leaving in their droves. “Now, maths attainment gaps are widening yet Rishi Sunak as chancellor said the country had ‘maxed out’ on Covid recovery support for our children. “Labour will end tax breaks for private schools and use the money to invest in 6,500 more teachers, including maths teachers, to drive up standards in this country.” Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called on the government to set out the evidence for extending maths for all students to the age of 18 before embarking upon a significant change affecting future generations, adding: “It is important that this is based on solid research and is not a pet project.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The prime minister is expected to acknowledge that reforming the secondary education system will be tough – but will commit to starting the work of introducing maths to 18 in this parliament, finishing it should the Tories win the next election. However, he was likely to be accused of rehashing old Conservative announcements. A report commissioned in 2011 by David Cameron and Michael Gove, then the education secretary, recommended that all pupils in English schools should study maths up to the age of 18. The review, which was led by TV presenter Carol Vorderman, warned that the change was needed to give children the skills they needed for the workplace. But it was never implemented. About 8 million adults in England have the numeracy skills of primary schoolchildren, according to government figures. Currently only around half of 16-19 year-olds study any maths at all, and the problem is particularly chronic for disadvantaged pupils, 60% of whom do not have basic maths skills at age 16. Yet the UK remains one of the few countries in the world not to require children to study some form of maths up to the age of 18.

Robert Adams obituary

2023-09-12

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/12/robert-adams-obituary

My friend Robert Adams, who has died aged 76, spent most of his working life as a researcher and statistician for examination boards. However, his colleagues will remember him as much for his wit, sociability, wide reading and intellectual curiosity as for his undoubted expertise in statistical analysis. Born in Nuneaton in Warwickshire, Bob was the middle of the three sons of Geoffrey Adams, a quantity surveyor, and Winifred (nee Eling), a housewife. He attended King Edward VI grammar school in the town, then took a mathematics degree at Woolwich Polytechnic (later Thames Polytechnic and now University of Greenwich) in south-east London, followed by a postgraduate diploma in statistics in 1968 at the University of Kent. There he met Pat Birks, and they married in 1970. Bob returned to Woolwich Polytechnic to lecture in what he referred to as “hard sums”, before moving to the research department at the Associated Examining Board in Aldershot, Hampshire, in 1977. Formative work with John Wilmut and others on approaches to grade awarding and the rank ordering of candidates led, in 1981, to a three-year posting with his young family to Mauritius, where he was a visiting fellow at the Mauritius Institute of Education, evaluating the country’s secondary school entrance examination system. Soon after returning to the UK he took up the post of research officer at WJEC, the examination board for Wales, in Cardiff in 1986. During the following decade sweeping changes to examinations – including the introduction of GCSEs, modular A-levels and the new AS-level – meant his expertise was in great demand. Bob’s empathic approach to the varying demands of different subjects endeared him to colleagues, and surely derived from his wide-ranging interests – particularly music and literature. He was a chorister from the age of seven, and from 1968 onwards his rich baritone was much in demand in amateur choirs. Thirteen years as a lay clerk in Llandaff Cathedral choir brought him back to the Anglican choral repertoire he loved, while founding the Kenneth Stoat Singers provided secular outlets for more singing and also cricket, often enlivened by rough Somerset cider. But his love of words manifested itself in a fund of often self-deprecating stories and the production of clerihews, limericks and parodies, which he shared occasionally under the nom de plume of Hieronymus Stoat. A keen crossword solver, he would surprise you in formal meetings by producing a series of anagrams of speakers’ names. In 2006 Bob moved to London to the educational publisher NFER Nelson, before returning to exam board work at Guildford in Surrey, the AEB by this time having become part of the Assessments and Qualifications Alliance, now AQA. In retirement he took up the saxophone and sang with the Welsh Camerata. He is survived by Pat, their daughters, Jenny, Judy and Alison, six grandchildren and his younger brother, David.

UK business groups call for more foreign-language teaching in colleges

2023-01-30

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/30/uk-foreign-language-teaching-colleges-further-education

Exclusive: Report reveals postcode lottery as barely half FE institutions offer some form of language teaching Business groups and language experts are calling on ministers to make linguistic skills a core part of vocational training, after research found young people are unable to study languages at large numbers of further education colleges. A report by the British Academy published on Monday, shows that despite the importance of linguistic skills in many jobs, the ability to learn French, German or Spanish, let alone less common languages, has become a postcode lottery. Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast analysed all 204 further education colleges (FE) in the UK, excluding sixth-form colleges. They found barely half offered some form of language teaching. The picture is even worse in England, where only 70 out of 160 FE colleges taught a modern foreign language. . There is “next to no” language teaching throughout the north-east, north-west, east and south-west of England, the report finds. Out of 17 FE colleges in the east of England, only six offer any form of language learning. Only two of 12 colleges in the north-east of England provide language teaching, and in the north-west, just over half of colleges have no language teaching whatsoever. “Without appropriate action, we risk entrenching regional disparities,” said Neil Kenny, professor of French at the University of Oxford, and lead fellow for languages at the British Academy. In England, the introduction in 2020 of new T-levels – two-year vocational courses which are broadly equivalent to three A-levels – has so far been a missed opportunity, the report finds. Although they have been developed in a range of subjects, “there is no indication that T- levels will be developed in languages or that T-levels will include a language element”, the report states. Business groups and language experts called on the government to take immediate action. Jean Coussins, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for modern languages, said: “It is concerning that in 2023, when the UK should be looking outwards for exporting more, growing the economy and equipping our young people with the necessary skills for the interconnected jobs of the 21st century, we are seeing such regional disparities and ‘cold spots’. “The government needs to create a better strategic framework and funding for languages to encourage FE colleges to invest with confidence,” Lady Coussins said. Eddie Playfair, senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges, which represents FE institutions, said: “Colleges would love to offer more language courses, but that means more investment and more vocational qualification options.” Robert West, the head of education and skills at the CBI, said: “Employer demand for foreign language skills has significantly increased over the last few years, but uptake of these subjects at schools and colleges remains way too low. “This report shows that reversing this trend is critical to increasing the UK’s global competitiveness and to ensuring young people have the high level of cultural awareness that supports a successful career. That means investing in vocational language training at FE colleges, as well as encouraging more young people to study languages at GCSE and A-level. Peter Aldous MP, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on further education and lifelong learning, said: “For Global Britain to remain competitive, the government must ensure future generations can communicate with entrepreneurs across the world, close business deals abroad in people’s native tongue and engage in cutting edge skills sharing with overseas talent. “These privileges should not be the preserve of those who take an academic route, so more flexibility is needed to ensure students on technical paths can also study a language alongside their vocational training.” A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Decisions about what qualifications or courses are offered at FE colleges are matter for individual colleges, based on what works for their local communities. “The department provides funding to FE colleges so young people aged 16 to 19 across the country can study a range of language qualifications including A-levels, AS-levels, and GCSEs alongside vocational qualifications. “Early uptake of languages is key, which is why we launched our language hubs programme which will see thousands more students benefit from high-quality language teaching in school.”

‘Will I be able to avoid swearing at the inspector?’: a headteacher on an Ofsted inspection

2023-12-08

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/08/ofsted-uk-headteacher-experience-school-inspection

An anonymous headteacher writes of the anxiety and long hours involved in their recent graded inspection The phone rings at 9.50am on a Monday. My heart rate is immediately raised. Yes, it’s Ofsted for a graded inspection starting the following day. I have been through many inspections before but this one feels different. The death of Ruth Perry and all the noise in the system about bullying inspectors and cliff-edge judgments have changed the narrative. I speak to the staff and sense a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. I use all my skills and humour to try to defuse this. With my deputy head we then spend 90 minutes, which becomes nearer two hours, on the phone with the lead inspector – the all-powerful arbiter who determines if we are “good” or “requiring improvement”. We upload documents to a “portal”. Months of work has gone into these, yet they are barely referred to during the subsequent inspection. Many teachers work through the evening. Having arrived at school for a normal Monday at 6.45am, I leave after 8pm. Day one of the inspection and we are into “deep dives” of five subject areas. Heads of department present curriculum intent documents and other planning in huge amounts of detail. Panic ensues. The lead inspector, who has already told me the curriculum plans on our website are too brief, does not like some of what we present. By 9.20am a head of department is having a panic attack, red in the face, gulping water and then doing deep-breathing exercises. The stakes are simply too high for him to cope. The inspector cuts short the meeting then tells me all of the documentation he still requires. “This is a major concern,” he adds menacingly. As the day progresses, we get to know who the “nice” inspectors are – experienced former school leaders who want to capture what is great about our school. The lead inspector checks in about my welfare. He asks how I am but doesn’t look me in the eyes. He is typing what I say into his laptop. He is going through the motions of caring. We have our end-of-day team meeting. My deputy headteacher and I sit listening, unable to contribute. It seems to be going OK. After about 90 minutes the lead inspector says: “I have to warn you that tomorrow the outcome of your inspection could be less than good.” Panic stations again. “TCUP” I keep thinking – think calmly under pressure. After they have gone I give all sorts of tasks to the leadership team. It is after 6pm. We work until nearly 9pm and I eat two slices of cold pizza. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Day two. I wake thinking about retirement and rehearse in my mind various speeches I might make. Will I be able to avoid swearing at the lead inspector? A strategy emerges and I decide to challenge and push back. Nothing to lose! In a one-to-one meeting he starts to backtrack. I make some progress. The team think provision for Send (special educational needs and disabilities) is good. They are happier with what they see and hear. We are still jumping through hoops, providing endless bits of paper. Data, analysis and evaluation. Are children attending enough clubs? It is dark at this time of year and they want to go home in daylight. My final meeting with the lead inspector is about the curriculum. He is a compliance checker. Eventually he seems satisfied, but is he really? We then sit again as the team seemingly decide our fate in front of us – though I know full well that they have already made their decision and this is largely a performance. The first judgment, on quality of education, is “good”. Nearly two hours later the overall effectiveness is judged as “good”. I am too relieved to celebrate. I share privately with my deputy head that I was planning to retire if it had all gone wrong. “I was going to resign too,” she blurts out. We are saved. I am too tired to celebrate. I have a cup of tea and go to bed. Accountability and challenge are essential to any system. Ofsted used to be full of serving headteachers carrying out inspections; this was once a largely peer-led process designed to help schools improve. There must be a better way. The stakes are too high and the risk to schools, teachers and headteachers is too great. Ofsted inspections must now be paused until we can create a culture of accountability and caring.

UK students seek compensation for Covid-affected tuition

2023-05-24

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/24/uk-students-seek-compensation-for-covid-affected-tuition

Nearly 1,000 students attempt group action against UCL, accusing it of breaking promises Lawyers representing almost 1,000 current and former students whose studies were affected by Covid and strike action told the high court in London their clients felt “cheated” by their educational experience and should be entitled to seek compensation through the courts. They are seeking to bring a claim against University College London (UCL), accusing it of breaking its “promises” after tuition was moved online and access to libraries and laboratories restricted during the pandemic, with no discount to their “eye-watering” tuition fees. In a case which will be closely watched by other universities, UCL is arguing against students’ attempts to bring a group action through the courts, saying they should pursue their claims through the university’s internal complaints procedure. If they are not satisfied, UCL says they can then take their complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, an independent body set up to review student complaints about higher education providers in England and Wales. At a preliminary hearing on Wednesday before Judge Barbara Fontaine, Anna Boase KC, representing the students, told the court they entered into a bargain with UCL for which they paid handsomely – £9,25o a year in tuition fees and considerably more for international students. “They didn’t get what they bargained for and they seek justice,” she said. In written arguments to the court, Boase said: “These consumers, many of whom are young people, have had enough. Their contract with UCL was, for many, the first substantial contract of their lives and, justifiably, they feel cheated out of their bargain. “The claimants’ case is that, on all versions of the student contract, UCL owed a duty to provide in-person tuition and physical access to facilities.” She said UCL’s “contractual performance fell short of that promised” yet it had not offered students fee discounts “in recognition of its short performance” during the pandemic. The court was told that 924 students have issued claims against UCL, with 2,147 more wishing to have their cases added to the legal action. Law firms Harcus Parker and Asserson claim more than 100,000 students have signed up to a student group claim on a no-win, no-fee basis, potentially seeking compensation from 100 UK universities. John Taylor KC, for UCL, said in written arguments that the alternative complaints procedures were “fair, transparent and accessible”, and could save time and money. He also said the claims against the university needed more detail and had been “formulated at an inappropriately high level of abstraction” given “the disparity of contractual terms, the thousands of programmes and modules, years of study, different strike dates and different effects of Covid-19”. Daniel Amery, a UCL law student, was among those attending court on Wednesday. He said his first two years at university had been severely affected by Covid, with classes on Zoom and limited access to the university campus. “This is arguably one of the biggest investments I will ever make. I feel I’ve been cheated,” he said. UCL issued a statement in which Prof Kathleen Armour, vice-president (Education & Student Experience) said the university had followed UK government guidance during the pandemic, and had provided a “high quality academic experience to students” and minimised the impact of industrial action by university staff. “We respect the right of our students to complain and seek redress if they feel that they have not received the support they expected from us. That is why we have a well-established and free complaints procedure. “We believe the group litigation order is unnecessary and premature as our easily accessible process is the most efficient and swiftest way for our students to resolve any issues with us.” The hearing concluded on Wednesday, and a written ruling will be handed down at a future date. PA contributed to this report

Teachers deserve better, but this strike is not just about pay | Letters

2023-01-31

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/31/teachers-deserve-better-but-this-strike-is-not-just-about-pay

Year 10 pupil Milly Bell and headteacher Elisabeth Broers are united in support of teachers going on strike this week After three years of disrupted education, in the form of home learning, bubbles and incessant mask-wearing, the thing my classmates and I wanted this year was normality. I’m in year 10 – I have never had a “normal” year at secondary school, with schools being closed halfway through the academic year in 2020. We’ve all watched helplessly as our country has emerged from Covid into an economic crisis, clinging to the fact that our education at least had been returned, and that it could only get better. I find it, as many of my peers do, utterly appalling and disgraceful, not that the teachers themselves are striking, but that they feel they need to (Teachers in England at ‘end of their tether’ says union chief, 29 January). Teaching is a noble and brilliant vocation – teachers quite literally mould and nurture the very fabric of our future societies, and yet they have been catastrophically let down by the government. The pay cuts they have received in real terms are shocking, and, frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t strike sooner. Every time I step into a classroom I am conscious that the person educating me is highly intelligent and educated themselves, and could be doubtless fetching a higher salary in a different profession, but they choose to come to my school every day in order to make sure that my future, and that of my classmates, is the best it can be. I thank and commend all teachers for everything they have done over the last few years for young people across the nation, and I hope that this strike action is a wake-up call for those in power and gets them the recognition they deserve.Milly BellLondon Like the education secretary, I am disappointed about this week’s strike action – not that teachers are taking it, but that it has come to this. I have watched my team struggle with this decision over the last few weeks and not one of them is striking over their personal pay packet. We are struggling with the impact of the chronic run-down of education funding and support every single day. I watch young children in meltdown who cannot get an appointment with child and adolescent mental health services. I watch teachers and teaching assistants preparing multiple different lessons for children new to English who have joined the country and their class. I see the special educational needs and disabilities coordinator battle to get support for children with additional needs and the school business manager juggle the budget endlessly to meet the energy costs; the partly funded pay awards and rising costs of everything from food to paper. Despite all this, I see dedicated professional people who come up with amazing ideas to challenge and extend the learning; who give up their free time to run clubs and take trips off site that cost parents as little as possible. I read our great Ofsted report, which says: “Pupils are delighted to be a part of this school. They see it as a warm, welcoming place where they feel that they belong. Pupils said it is like being part of a big family.” Then I go back to begging for money for music support from a charity; asking the local building developers if they will help with the outside areas; and reassuring my staff that I know they are taking action because there are no other options left. Don’t dismiss this as being about salaries.Elisabeth BroersHeadteacher, Robin Hood junior school, Sutton, London

Record number of UK school leavers gain university places through clearing

2023-08-18

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/18/record-number-of-uk-school-leavers-gain-university-places-through-clearing

Ucas says 10,400 had been admitted through clearing by Friday, amid concern over lower grades awarded in England Record numbers of British teenagers have won university places through clearing, as the post-pandemic readjustment of A-level grades meant thousands in England missed out on their initial course offers. The Ucas admissions service said 10,400 UK school leavers had been admitted through its clearing service by Friday, the day after A-level results were published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – a sharp increase on the 6,600 placed at the same point last year. Ucas reported that 205,000 school leavers had gained places at their first or second choices, nearly 10,000 fewer than in 2022. The difference is largely explained by this year’s steep fall in top A-level grades compared with 2022, as fewer entries were awarded A*-B grades. Universities UK said 79% of 18-year-olds had been accepted on their first-choice university course. But there was controversy over the higher grades awarded to sixth formers from Wales and Northern Ireland, where regulators decided to be more generous in their grading to take into account the pandemic’s aftermath. About 88% of applicants in Wales gained their first choice, potentially helped by 34% of A-level entries being awarded A*-A compared with just 26.5% of entries from England. Northern Ireland and Wales both saw higher numbers accepted on to courses than in 2022, while the numbers in England were slightly lower. Jon Coles, the chief executive of the United Learning multi-academy trust and a former director general at the Department for Education, said there was an “indefensible divergence” between England and Wales and Northern Ireland over the grading of this year’s A-levels. Coles called for Westminster to work with the governments in Wales and Northern Ireland to rebuild common regulation on A-levels. Ucas’s figures show that the number of Black sixth formers from the UK accepted on to undergraduate courses also reached record levels, with more than 16,300 this year compared to 15,270 last year. Despite evidence that disadvantaged students were more likely to receive lower grades this year, the Ucas figures also showed there was a slight rise in the number of successful applicants from the most deprived areas. But Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “Increasing numbers of students on free school meals entering university is merely a sign of the rising tide of child poverty.” He added: “Questions must be asked about the fairness of an examination system that has applied different grade standards to different year cohorts of students but also students in the same year.”

‘Face it head on’: Connecticut makes climate change studies compulsory

2022-12-17

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/17/climate-change-studies-connecticut

Enshrining the curriculum in law insulates the subject from budget cuts and culture wars related to the climate crisis Starting next July, Connecticut will become one of the first states in America to mandate climate change studies across its public schools as part of its science curriculum. The new law passed earlier this year comes as part of the state’s attempts to address concerns over the short duration – and in some cases, absence – of climate change studies in classrooms. The requirement follows in the footsteps of New Jersey, which in 2020 became the first state to mandate climate change education across its K-12 learning standards. Currently, nearly 90% of public schools across Connecticut include climate change studies in their curriculums. However, by mandating it as part of state law from grades five to 12, climate education will effectively become protected from budget cuts and climate-denying political views at a time when education in the US has become a serious culture war battleground. “The conservative turn in our country … often starts at a very hyper-local level of local town boards of education. There is this push towards anti-intellectualism, anti-science … anti-reason, and I didn’t want local boards of education to have the power to overturn the curriculum and say, ‘climate change is too political,’” Connecticut state representative Christine Palm told the Guardian. Palm, who is vice chair of the Connecticut general assembly’s environment committee, first launched her legislative efforts to pass a climate education mandate in 2018. Through various surveys and petitions, Palm found that to many students and educators, climate change education is either not being taught at all in schools or not being taught enough. “Anecdotally, I knew that there was no uniform approach and that I felt there should be,” Palm explained. She went on to introduce her climate education bill annually over the last four years until it was finally included in the state budget implementer bill earlier this year. “In the public schools, the program of instruction offered shall include at least the following subject matter, as taught by legally qualified teachers … science, which shall include the climate change curriculum,” the current requirement reads, marking a change in language from “which may” to “which shall”. “It sounds like a simple change, but legislatively makes all the difference between a law and an option,” said Palm. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a set of K-12 science content standards, are currently adopted by Connecticut and include standards pertaining to climate change studies which more educators will rely on as the requirement kicks in next year. So far, only 20 states and DC have adopted the NGSS. “They are based on a framework for K-12 science education and the National Academies’ reports, which are developed by scientists and educators defining … not just what is important to know, but what is the best way for kids to learn science,” said Vanessa Wolbrink, an associate director at NextGenScience. “I think a lot of the time, those who might oppose the teaching of climate science might believe that the standards are kind of subjective or would prevent true objective instruction but it’s really the other way around,” said Wolbrink. “These standards … really emphasize student data analysis and evidence-based argumentation. This emphasis means in order to meet the standards, students are demonstrating critical thinking skills, they’re making these objective arguments with data and evidence,” she explained. Depending on the grade levels, the standards vary. According to the NGSS website, middle school students who demonstrate understanding of the human impact on the environment can “apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment”, among other abilities. Meanwhile, one of the learning goals high school students are expected to meet in regards to climate studies includes the ability to “use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity”. To help educators update their curriculums, Connecticut’s department of environmental protection (DEEP) is providing the state’s department of education with various resources, including those that will complement NGSS. “A primary focus for DEEP is to provide hands-on investigations and data connections that reflect local needs and action. This makes things much more tangible and useful for teachers, as they apply Next Generation Science Standards and common core,” DEEP environmental educator Susan Quincy said, citing another set of academic standards focusing on math and English language arts. As the state prepares for next year’s curriculum changes, experts remain cautious about the ways to relay information on the human-caused climate crisis to young students. A global survey conducted last year amongst 10,000 children and young people across ten countries, including the US, found that 59% of respondents were very or extremely worried about the climate crisis. Over 50% reported feeling emotions including sadness, anxiousness, anger, powerlessness and guilt. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that they think the future is frightening. With climate-related anxiety increasingly spreading among young people, many educators are adamant about not only teaching issues but also solutions. “Working with these young kids, some of the things I think are most important is making sure children get not only accurate information but also hopeful information. We need to make sure that kids learn about solutions and creativity and resilience as much as they learn about causes and effects,” said Lauren Madden, a science educator and professor at the College of New Jersey. Madden also stresses the importance of equity-focused conversations when discussing the climate crisis in classrooms. “We have to acknowledge that climate change does not affect all people equally … There are kids in lower-income communities, communities of color and immigrant communities that experience flooding and power outages and things like that … in a much more magnified way than others,” she said. “It’s critical that when we’re talking to kids at that upper elementary, middle school, high school level, we’re ensuring that we are coming from an equity-based perspective.” With curriculums getting updated, educators such as Margaret Wang are also emphasizing contextual and interdisciplinary learning. As the chief operating officer of SubjectToClimate, an online platform that offers teachers various materials on the climate crisis, Wang helps other educators integrate climate change into their existing teaching materials. “Climate change is a highly interdisciplinary subject of sciences, but there are also … elements of writing [such as] being able to analyze media literacy. There are elements of math [such as] being able to calculate and grasp its effects over time using statistics and science. And there’s art as a way to mobilize collective action towards,” she said. With less than a year left until climate change education is integrated across all of Connecticut’s public schools, lawmakers such as Palm are well-aware of the pushback that such a mandate will receive. Palm said she tends to not get involved in matters involving local boards of education. However, she has in recent years noticed the impact of parents pushing back against educators over certain subjects such as LGBTQ+ rights, slavery and the climate crisis. “In my experience, at least traditionally, [local boards of education] have been extremely bipartisan, hardworking and thoughtful administrators … [but] increasingly, that’s being affected by these vigilante groups of parents coming in and saying … they don’t want kids learning about [these subjects] because it’s too threatening to their delusional way of life,” said Palm. “We absolutely have got to face it head on, and it starts when children are very young. We need to arm them with the tools to be part of a solution to a problem they had no hand in creating.”

‘I have a future’: how Biden’s free community college plan could transform education

2021-07-19

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jul/19/biden-plan-free-community-college-transform-higher-education

Advocates argue the proposal would open doors to students who have historically been excluded from higher education and boost the economy Abdi Yusuf’s first day of middle school was tough. He was 13 years old, and he and his family had recently fled to Texas from South Africa as refugees. Yusuf had just finished the equivalent of third grade in Cape Town but found himself in eighth grade in the US, and remembers trying to decipher a math worksheet and to find a friend amid a sea of unfamiliar faces. “That was really hard because in my school in Africa, I always had friends,” said Yusuf, now 19. In high school, his family moved to Seattle and he started to find his footing, even taking a college-level English class in his senior year. Yusuf dreamed of attending college to become a social worker to help refugees like himself, but after skipping so many grades and being uprooted, his grade point average was low. Questions were looming about how he and his mother, who had three other children at home, could afford college. That’s when he was introduced to Seattle Promise, a program fully launched last year that offers free community college tuition to all of the city’s high school graduates, along with class guidance, an equity stipend and internship opportunities. Yusuf enrolled last fall. “I lost all hope, you know, and because of Seattle Promise, I can go to college now,” he said. The Seattle program is one of at least 350 state and local initiatives across the US launched in recent years offering free tuition and extra support for those attending a community college, which typically consists of a two-year program where students earn an associate’s degree and credits toward a bachelor’s degree. The programs relieve financial burdens on students and their families and have been shown to increase enrollment and completion. In April, Joe Biden unveiled a bold proposal that would implement these programs on a national scale as part of his $1.8tn American Families Plan. Such a plan would remove critical financial barriers and thus fling open the doors to a form of higher education with the largest student body of any type of college and made up of students with some of the greatest economic challenges. “Community colleges meet students where they are,” Biden said at the time. “We can’t afford to exclude so many from continuing their education just because they come from certain areas or income brackets.” The plan is expected to increase educational attainment across the US, according to Mark Huelsman, Policy Fellow at Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. The result would be potentially more people entering the labor force with a credential or diploma, or transferring to a four-year school. And given that more than half of Latinx undergraduates and a little less than half of Black undergraduates attend community college, millions of students of color would undoubtedly benefit. Advocates say the program would also serve to significantly boost the economy. A 2020 report out of Georgetown University found that a national tuition-free program could result in hundreds of billions of dollars in federal and state tax revenue and private after-tax earnings gains. “These benefits would outweigh the costs of tuition-free-college programs, with yearly tax revenue exceeding the annual cost within the first 10 years after a tuition- free program is implemented,” the report stated. After a year battered by Covid-19, in which community college enrollment fell by more than 11%, many in the education community rejoiced at Biden’s plan. “From an economic, enrollment and certainly an equity standpoint, this could have a powerful impact, and could accelerate our progress in not only getting people back in college, but get them educated, and get them redeployed in an ever-changing economy,” said J Noah Brown, president and chief executive of the Association of Community College Trustees. The proposal calls for free community college for first-time students and adult learners. It also includes a $62bn grant program to help “strengthen completion and retention rates” and raises the cap on Pell grants, the federal government’s need-based grant program for undergraduate students, by $1,400 a year. It would be funded primarily through tax hikes on the wealthy. Experts predict it would be an opt-in program: the federal government would cover 75% of tuition while the states that sign on would be responsible for the rest. In Seattle, community college enrollment has more than doubled and graduation rates have reached twice the national average since the Promise program was launched two years ago. Chancellor Shouan Pan of Seattle Colleges praised Biden’s proposal: “It’s only going to help more students who are not in the Promise program.” But others, particularly Republican lawmakers, have resisted, condemning the plan as expensive and directed at a form of higher education that in many states is already low-cost or free, and has worse graduation rates than four-year schools. Lindsey Burke, director for the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, has criticized the proposal for its $109bn price tag, saying it would place a financial burden on taxpayers. During a recent Senate education committee hearing, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina voiced concerns about rewarding states that have not kept their tuition fees low. “‘Make college free’ and ‘cancel debt’ may be good liberal talking points, but back home in North Carolina we’ve already made community college very affordable, and in West Virginia and Arizona they’ve made community college tuition less than the average Pell Grant,” the Republican senator said. However, Tennessee – a deeply red state – was one of the first in the US to launch a tuition-free community college program, and has touted its success. James Snider, Tennessee Promise director, said they now receive applications from about 90% of the state’s graduating high school class. And after expanding to include adult learners in 2018, they credentialed more than 1,200 students in the program within the first year. “When our then governor stood up there and essentially said, ‘I want to be able to tell kindergarteners that you can go to school for free,’ it has power,” said Snider. “And it truly has been a powerful statement for our state. It’s been a powerful movement for our state.” When asked about Biden’s proposal, Snider called it an “excellent idea”. “I think that expanding this across the country can only do good,” he added. Warren Rigby decided to give higher education one more chance, 15 years after dropping out of a four-year college in Pennsylvania because he didn’t have adequate financial aid. This time, he tried a community college. At 35 years old, Rigby enrolled at Hudson County Community College in New Jersey, where he took night classes surrounded by students in similar situations. But taking out loans to pay for the tuition meant adding to the nearly $27,000 he already owed from his initial stint in higher education. So, he said, it was a relief when in his second year, he qualified for the state’s tuition-free college program. “When you go into higher education, whether it be a college or university, you understand that there’s obviously fees that are associated with this,” he said. “But what a lot of students don’t necessarily realize is how quickly they add up.” He graduated last year and will be starting at a four-year college as a political science major in the fall. He said he hopes to get a job in government so he can help make a difference for other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Public community college tuition varies widely between states. California and New Mexico have the least expensive tuition, with price tags under $2,000, while in Vermont the cost tops $8,600, according to College Board. But Huelsman cautioned that just because community colleges have relatively low tuition doesn’t mean they’re low-cost for students. “There’s the cost of living and the cost of childcare and the cost of rent and the cost of books and the cost of supplies and computers, you name it,” he said. “All of these indirect costs tend to build up in a way that makes community college actually quite unaffordable for students.” Biden’s proposal to remove tuition costs while increasing other aid to students could make college truly affordable, Huelsman said. The proposal also focuses resources on students that have historically been overlooked. It opens the free tuition program to the “Dreamers”, the hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought to the US unlawfully as children, but are allowed to live in the country legally. While they may study and work, they can’t access Pell grants and often don’t qualify for institutional aid or even in-state tuition. Biden’s proposal also calls for two years of subsidized tuition for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU) or Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) whose families earn less than $125,000. For students in one of the 35 fully accredited tribal colleges and universities (all of which offer associate’s degrees), where the majority of students are very low-income, free tuition could be transformative. Carrie Billy, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, reports that a community college in North Dakota started offering free tuition and saw its enrollment triple. But she said, given the structure of these institutions, in which the federal government is responsible for operating support, she worries about the financial burden the colleges might bear. . “We’re afraid that with free tuition, our colleges that already have inadequate operating support, can’t do bonding and things like that, are then going to be asked to bear a disproportionate share of the tuition costs,” she said. Lezli Baskerville, president of the not-for-profit National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, questioned whether the proposal’s plan for HBCUs, TCUs and MSIs is the best method for helping a diverse group of students earn a degree. “Additional public debate is necessary with regard to creating an entitlement to the first two years of community college for any students who desire to attain a two-year college degree and not doing the same for those desirous of attaining a four-year degree at an HBCU, TCU, or MSI,” she told the Guardian in an email. For Yusuf, the program in Seattle came at just the right time. But it has not been without its challenges. He struggled in math – failing the class twice – and when school went online because of the pandemic, he took the spring quarter off because he didn’t feel like he was getting the help he needed. However, Yusuf said he was eager to return to school in the fall. He plans to transfer to a four-year university after graduation and then he hopes to fulfill his dream to become a social worker. “Because of Seattle Promise, I feel like I have a long future ahead of me now,” Yusuf said. “I get to go to college. I get to get a job that I’ve always wanted ever since I came here.”

Norma Rinsler obituary

2023-08-27

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/27/norma-rinsler-obituary

My mother, Norma Rinsler, who has died aged 95, was a lecturer in French who rose to become a professor and dean of the faculty of arts at King’s College London, where one of her major achievements was to secure the archives of the Adam International Review literary magazine, which include original pieces of artwork and manuscripts by a number of key 20th-century artists. Norma was born in London to Julian Lee, a carpenter, and Frances (nee Izbitsky), a seamstress. She did well at North London Collegiate school despite her education being disrupted by the second world war, and went on to study at Newnham College, Cambridge. In her first week there she met Michael Rinsler, my father, and gave up her studies to move to London to be with him, marrying in 1948. She completed her degree in French literature in 1951 and later a PhD in 1961, both at University College London. At a time when it was unusual to do so, Norma balanced the task of looking after a young family with university teaching. She started out in 1962 as an assistant lecturer in French at King’s College, moving up to become a lecturer there in 1965. In those days even clearly brilliant academic women were rarely promoted, and it took several years to gain tenure. However, a new head of department brought about a rapid rise to become a reader in 1976 and a professor of French in 1983. In 1987 she was appointed as vice-principal of King’s, and in 1988 she became dean of the faculty of arts, holding that post until her official retirement in 1992. She was also a member of the Universities Funding Council from 1991 to 1993. In retirement she was a subeditor for Modern Poetry in Translation magazine and also worked on translating the notebooks of the French poet Paul Valéry, published as Paul Valéry: Cahiers/Notebooks in 2010. In 1989 the French government had named her Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques for her contribution to the promotion of French culture. Norma was a generous, persistent and skilled teacher. When my father had a stroke at 70 she spent hours with him, day after day, teaching and encouraging him until he could speak and walk again. Their retirement was often spent taking holidays in their caravan, at first on the road and later at a site near Banbury in Oxfordshire. They were avid theatre and concert-goers. After Michael’s death in 2019, Norma remained strong and incisive, completing the Times crossword daily, and was sharp-minded until her final day. She is survived by her three children, Stephen, Susan and me, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

‘A bully’: the billionaire who led calls for Claudine Gay’s Harvard exit

2024-01-04

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/03/bill-ackman-billionaire-attacks-claudine-gay-harvard-twitter-x

US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posts 4,000-word screed decrying ‘racism against white people’ after Gay’s departure Chief among the campaigners celebrating the resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University was a man who arguably did the most to push Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, out the door: Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge-fund manager and Harvard alumnus. Ackman, who accused Gay of antisemitism and plagiarism, was a major player in what increasingly became a rightwing campaign against the Harvard president – who said many of the attacks against her were “fueled by racial animus”. In the past month alone, the 57-year-old has tweeted about Gay, Harvard, or both, more than 100 times to his 1 million followers. On Tuesday, he topped that with a rambling 4,000-word X post about “racism against white people”; universities’ efforts to increase diversity; and accusations that student groups were “supporting terrorism”. Ackman’s campaign came after “years of resentment”, the New York Times reported, in part because his donations to Harvard did not give him greater influence over the university. A previous donor to the Democratic party, Ackman has denied he has rightwing politics. But his campaign has been seized upon by conservatives and a Republican party that have long been resentful of an alleged liberal bias, and of affirmative action efforts, on college campuses and elsewhere – something commenters pointed out after Gay’s resignation. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader and founder of the National Action Network, was among those who blamed Ackman for Gay’s departure, citing the financier’s “relentless campaign against President Gay, not because of her leadership or credentials but because he felt she was a DEI hire”. “President Gay’s resignation is about more than a person or a single incident. This is an attack on every Black woman in this country who’s put a crack in the glass ceiling,” Sharpton said in a statement. The National Action Network was planning to picket outside Ackman’s office in Manhattan, Sharpton said. “If he [Ackman] doesn’t think Black Americans belong in the C-suite, the Ivy League, or any other hallowed halls, we’ll make ourselves at home outside his office,” Sharpton wrote. Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University, wrote on X: “Bill Ackman is a pernicious influence on American education. He thinks his money equals wisdom, and even if it doesn’t, he thinks it gives him the right to bully at will. Time to stand up to people like him. He’s odious.” Gay’s departure came after an appearance before Congress in December, during which Elise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman, quizzed Gay and the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania about alleged antisemitism on their campuses. The three presidents answered questions regarding allegations of on-campus antisemitism related to the Israel-Gaza war when asked by Stefanik whether calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ codes of conduct. Footage of the hearing quickly went viral. The clips largely omitted the context that Stefanik had previously conflated “intifada”, which in Arabic means uprising, with genocide, but the hearing increased the pressure on Gay and her colleagues. The president of UPenn, Elizabeth Magill, resigned four days later. Stefanik would seem an unlikely hero in the movement against alleged antisemitism: in 2022, she refused to rescind her endorsement of fellow New York Republican Carl Paladino after it emerged he had told a radio interviewer that Adolf Hitler was “the kind of leader we need today”. Stefanik has also been criticized for dabbling with the idea of “great replacement theory”, a racist conspiracy theory that alleges politicians are attempting to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants, something Mehdi Hasan, an MSNBC host, alluded to when he addressed Ackman’s conduct. “This is what happens when liberal universities roll over for rightwing, bad-faith bullies. It’s what happens when anyone anywhere rolls over to try and appease a bully. They don’t get appeased. They just come back for more,” Hasan wrote on X in response to Ackman’s missives. Ackman responded that he was “not rightwing”, and reiterated the claim that there had been calls for genocide against Jews on campuses. Hasan replied: “Nobody was calling for the genocide of the Jews. You’re echoing Stefanik’s lies and stunts, which is another reminder of why you’re on the right, like she is. Have you ever criticized Stefanik’s open antisemitism (great replacement, support for Trump, etc) btw? If not, why not?” In her resignation letter, Gay said it had been “frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus”, but it seems Ackman may not be ready to leave the academic alone. After it was reported that Gay would remain on the faculty staff following her resignation, Ackman tweeted: “This makes no sense. How can she continue as a member of the faculty?” Despite Ackman’s claim that his campaign against Gay was not politically motivated, a glimpse into who had been attracted to his crusade could be seen in those who praised Ackman’s screed. Amid a slew of supportive tweets from rightwing accounts was the Virginia Project, a Republican organization which runs a “program on un-American activities” targeting “critical race theory”, “queer theory” and “equity”; a Republican activist and close friend of George Santos; and Monica Crowley, a former Fox News contributor and Trump administration staffer who was previously found by CNN to have plagiarized multiple sources in a book she wrote in 2012.

Ofsted boss warns ‘militant’ activism in schools is a threat to education

2021-06-24

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/24/ofsted-boss-warns-militant-activism-in-schools-is-a-threat-to-education

Amanda Spielman says disputes over issues are leading to abuse of children and teachers The head of the schools watchdog in England has denounced a “militant” new brand of activism in school communities, which she warned was leading to confrontation within and outside the school gates and having a potentially limiting effect on education. Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, raised concerns not only about recent parent and community protests, which have led to children having to cross picket lines to get to school, but also a rise in pupil activism on issues such as racism, climate change and recent developments in the Middle East. In some cases, she said, children and teachers were being subjected to abuse and even violence for being the wrong religion, race or ethnicity, and she said pupils should not be forced to support their peers’ campaigns for fear of being ostracised if they do not. On teachers, Spielman said they should not be policed by “self-appointed moral guardians” who refuse to tolerate alternative viewpoints, or harried on social media to apologise for what they have said or change the way they teach. “What I’m concerned about is not the activism that broadens debate and brings about long-term change, but the militant kind of activism that demands an immediate adherence to a position,” she told an education festival on Thursday. “We are seeing these confrontational approaches both outside and inside schools. It is affecting staff, parents and children and can have a limiting effect on education.” Spielman avoided referring to any cases in detail, but in recent times there have protests outside schools over LGBT and relationships education as well as, at Batley grammar school in West Yorkshire, after an image of the prophet Muhammad was shown in class. The recent Middle East conflict prompted a wave of pro-Palestine protests among pupils in schools and controversy over the staff response, with students being accused of antisemitism and one headteacher describing the Palestinian flag as a “call to arms”. In addition there have been climate change protests by pupils and, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, pupils in England have protested about their experiences of racism, while students at Pimlico Academy in London staged a walkout complaining of discriminatory policies. “This is a difficult problem for schools,” said Spielman. “So much effort goes into encouraging young people to understand and think about their democratic rights, which of course include the right to protest and to campaign for what they believe in. But education must come first. And no child should ever feel targeted or marginalised because intolerance has replaced reasoned debate.” She told sector leaders attending a virtual Festival of Education: “It cannot be right for children to have to cross what amount to picket lines outside their school because one group’s religious beliefs – protected by law – sit uncomfortably with teaching about another group’s sexuality – also protected by law. It cannot be right that the curriculum can be filleted by pressure groups. “And the militant defence of orthodoxies is not confined to adult protests, or to the protected characteristics. We are also seeing more pupil activism in schools, on many fronts. Some of this is about racism, or anti-racism; some is about climate change; some is about issues that are quite remote for most British children, such as the charged and complicated politics of the Middle East. “But in some cases children and teachers are suffering abuse or even violence simply for being who they are: for being the wrong religion, or race or ethnicity. This is completely unacceptable.”

Tory MPs accused of adding fuel to ‘culture war’ in education report

2021-06-21

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/21/tory-mps-accused-of-adding-fuel-to-culture-war-in-education-report

Conservative-dominated committee says schools could be breaking the law by promoting terms such as ‘white privilege’ White working-class pupils have been let down by decades of neglect in the English education system, according to a controversial MPs’ report which says schools could be breaking the law by promoting “divisive” terminology such as “white privilege”. MPs on the Conservative-dominated Commons education committee examined why poor white children underperform compared with other disadvantaged groups, and rejected the government’s view that poverty is solely to blame. Their report, published on Tuesday, claims that “an industry” has emerged to support disadvantaged non-white pupils but the same is not available to white pupils on free school meals, who underperform at every level of the education system from early years through to higher education. The MPs say terms such as white privilege – defined as white people benefiting from particular advantages in society – may have contributed towards systemic neglect of white disadvantaged communities. They accuse the government of muddled thinking and sweeping the problem under the carpet. The report faced immediate opposition, including from among the committee’s own members. Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside and a member of the committee, said she disowned the report and had submitted her own alternative version, which was voted down by the Tory majority. “I’m not happy with quite a lot of information contained in it,” she told the Guardian. “I’m not happy about the whole section on white privilege. The inquiry cherrypicked data. I think they were trying to create a bit of a culture war.” Asked whether she had considered resigning from the committee, she said it had crossed her mind but she wanted to improve educational attainment for all working-class children in disadvantaged communities, adding: “You have to be in it to win it.” Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the committee, said that the concept of “white privilege” would feel alien to many children. “We … desperately need to move away from dealing with racial disparity by using divisive concepts like white privilege that pits one group against another. Disadvantaged white children feel anything but privileged when it comes to education,” he said. “Privilege is the very opposite to what disadvantaged white children enjoy or benefit from in an education system which is now leaving far too many behind.” The report, called “The Forgotten: How White Working-class Pupils Have Been Let Down, and How to Change It”, highlights that in 2018-19, 53% of disadvantaged white British pupils – those eligible for free school meals – met the expected standard of development at the end of the early years foundation stage, one of the lowest proportions of any disadvantaged ethnic group. At GCSE, meanwhile, 17.7% of disadvantaged white British pupils achieved grade 5 or above in English and maths, compared with 22.5% of all pupils eligible for free school meals. White working-class pupils are also the least likely group to go into higher education of any ethnic group other than traveller of Irish heritage and Gypsies/Roma. As well as terminology like white privilege, the report identified persistent multigenerational disadvantage, regional underinvestment, family experience of education and disengagement from the curriculum as factors which may combine to put white-working class pupils at a disadvantage. Halfon accused ministers of failing to recognise the problem. “If the government is serious about closing the overall attainment gap, then the problems faced by the biggest group of disadvantaged pupils can no longer be swept under the carpet,” he said. “Never again should we lazily put the gap down to poverty alone, given that we know free school meal eligible pupils from other ethnic groups consistently outperform their white British peers.” He added: “For decades now white working-class pupils have been let down and neglected by an education system that condemns them to falling behind their peers every step of the way. “White working-class pupils underperform significantly compared to other ethnic groups, but there has been muddled thinking from all governments and a lack of attention and care to help these disadvantaged white pupils in towns across our country.” Maurice Mcleod, chief executive of the thinktank Race on the Agenda, rejected the report’s conclusions. “Today’s education committee report is just the latest government salvo in the culture war it seems hellbent on stoking,” he said. “Instead of honestly accepting that children from all backgrounds have been badly let down by decades of neglect, this report attempts to create unhelpful divides between children based on their race.” Published in the wake of the widely criticised Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, the education committee report also urged schools to consider whether the promotion of politically controversial terminology, including white privilege, is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act 2010. “The Department [for Education] should take steps to ensure that young people are not inadvertently being inducted into political movements when what is required is balanced, age-appropriate discussion and a curriculum that equips young people to thrive in diverse and multicultural communities throughout their lives and work.” Last year Kemi Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, warned that schools that teach pupils that white privilege is an uncontested fact are breaking the law. The MPs made a series of recommendations to government in the new report, including finding “a better way to talk about racial disparities” to avoid pitting different groups against each other. It also recommended the introduction of a strong network of family hubs across the country to encourage parental engagement and mitigate the effects of multi-generational disadvantage. The report also suggested funding should be tailor-made at local level, with initiatives to focus on attracting good teachers to challenging areas, and promotion of vocational and apprenticeship opportunities. Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, questioned why the committee had chosen to enter the debate about the term white privilege. “This does not seem helpful and is likely to divert attention from the rest of the report,” he said. “We have to do better for all disadvantaged pupils – from all ethnic backgrounds … Many communities suffer from multigenerational poverty, insecure employment and lack of opportunity, and it is extremely hard to raise attainment when children and families experience such factors.” A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This government is focused on levelling up opportunity so that no young person is left behind. “That’s why we are providing the biggest uplift to school funding in a decade – £14bn over three years – investing in early years education and targeting our ambitious recovery funding, worth £3bn to date, to support disadvantaged pupils aged two to 19 with their attainment. “The pupil premium is expected to increase to more than £2.5bn this year, through which schools can support pupils with extra teaching, academic support or activities like breakfast clubs or educational trips. Alongside this we are investing in family hubs, transforming technical education and strengthening teacher training in areas that need it most, including our opportunity areas, so that every pupil can go to an excellent school.”

Revealed: richer graduates in England will pay less for degree than poorer students

2023-05-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/13/nurses-teachers-student-loan-reforms-biggest-squeeze

Measures being introduced in August labelled ‘deeply regressive’ and research suggests nurses and teachers could be among the worst affected Read more: Martin Lewis: ‘Don’t call it a student loan’ The government’s student loan reforms will benefit the country’s best-paid graduates at the expense of nursing graduates, teachers and other lower- and middle-income earners, new research reveals. Under the biggest reforms of student loans in England for more than a decade, many lower-paid earners face an increase in their total lifetime repayments of more than £30,000. Meanwhile, the highest-earning graduates will see their lifetime repayments fall on average by £25,000 compared with the previous arrangements, according to an analysis by the economic consultancy London Economics. The research forecasts that a graduate earning £37,000 by 2030 would pay back £63,100 over the course of their career, while a graduate earning £70,000 would pay back just £55,000. Gavan Conlon, a senior partner at London Economics, said: “This is effectively a massive subsidy to predominantly white, predominantly male graduates. It’s deeply regressive.” Patricia Marquis, Royal College of Nursing director for England, said: “These changes are a disgrace and will blatantly disproportionately affect nursing staff. “It means nurses will be paying back their student debt sooner, more of it, and for longer. At a time when there is a recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS, this will only exacerbate it.” Student funding and tuition fees have become big political issues for all the main parties. Labour leader Keir Starmer has confirmed he has dropped his pledge to abolish tuition fees, but has said his party will “set out a fairer solution” in the coming weeks. Many young voters struggling in the cost of living crisis are now turning away from the Tories. The government’s own impact assessment said the student loan reforms were more likely to have a “negative impact” on certain groups, including women, lower earners and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. A House of Lords scrutiny committee has warned the reforms contradict the government’s levelling-up agenda. The Welsh government announced this month that it will not implement the reforms despite historically aligning its student support system with England. It said the measures would “disproportionately” affect women graduates and “benefit the highest earners”. Liz Emerson, chief executive of the Intergenerational Foundation, which promotes the interests of younger and future generations, said: “These reforms will entrench inequality. The only winners will be the best-paid graduates.” Ministers announced a package of reforms in February 2022 that include new loan arrangements for students from 1 August this year, but the full consequences of the changes have become clearer from recent modelling. The reforms extend the repayment period from 30 to 40 years, cut the salary threshold at which payments are made to £25,000 and reduce interest rates on the repayment of the loan to retail price index (RPI) inflation. Graduates repay 9% of their income above the threshold. Ministers say the measures will increase the number of graduates who pay off their loans in their entirety, cutting taxpayer support for student loans from 44p in the pound to as low as 23p in the pound. The average debt of first degree graduates on graduation is about £50,800, according to figures calculated by London Economics. The reforms also affect those who have already graduated. Those who took out loans from 1 September 2012 to 31 July 2023 will have the repayment threshold frozen at £27,295 until 2024/25. It will mean they will end up paying more of their income towards their loans than if the threshold had risen in line with inflation. The lower threshold at which repayments start, and the 40-year repayment period for new borrowers, mean lower- and middle-income earners will now pay significantly more. It means in many cases that lower earners will pay more in total than the best-paid graduates, paying back the loans and more accumulated interest over a longer period. The measures form part of the government’s response to Sir Philip Augar’s review of post-18 education and funding published in May 2019. The review recommended reintroducing maintenance grants for disadvantaged students, but this was not adopted. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Nearly all nursing graduates will face a significant increase in their lifetime loan repayments. For male nurses, average lifetime repayments are expected to increase by £17,600, from £24,400 to £42,000; for women, the increase stands at £15,300, from £10,700 to £26,000, according to forecasts by London Economics. The government’s own figures reveal that lower-paid earners will see total repayments increase by up to 174%. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the reforms may make university less attractive for those who don’t expect to be high earners. “In these reforms, lower earners pay more and higher earners pay less,” said Ben Waltmann, senior research economist at the IFS. “Lower to middle earners like teachers and nurses will lose out the most.” Chloe Field, vice president for higher education at the National Union of Students, said: “This is yet more evidence the current system is failing students, and society more widely. On top of the pitiful maintenance loan increases, which have failed to keep pace with inflation, and have left students at the mercy of the cost of living crisis, we believe a major overhaul is needed.” Officials say that while lifetime repayments will decrease for the highest earners under the new arrangements, the lowest earners will still be required to contribute the least. It says the system is “progressive overall”, that any adverse impact on particular groups is as a result of their lifetime earnings, and “overall the equality impacts are mixed”. A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is important that we have a sustainable student finance system that is fair to students and taxpayers. “We have cut interest rates to RPI only so that new borrowers will not repay more than they originally borrowed, when adjusted for inflation. Through these reforms, more than half of borrowers will repay their loans in full, compared to the current rate of 20%. “To help students who need further support, we have made an additional £15m available, increasing our student premium funding to £276m this academic year.”

How UK private schools’ overseas satellites can bring in large sums

2023-03-12

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/12/how-uk-private-schools-overseas-satellites-can-bring-in-large-sums

Foreign partnership arrangements are common at many charitable private schools Haileybury and Imperial Service College, to give the school its full title, grew out of the East India Company with a mission to train the soldiers and functionaries of Britain’s empire. But in a modern twist, Haileybury’s latest mission is to “provide a rigorous and highly regarded British education in Bangladesh” when it opens a satellite boarding school there later this year, to go with two satellite schools in Kazakhstan. Haileybury describes its relationships with its satellites as “partnerships”. While Haileybury is a registered charity, the income from its overseas operations goes to Haileybury Enterprises Limited (HEL), a subsidiary described as supplying services to the school on “international educational advice and consultancy”. HEL’s accounts for 2020-21 show it made £1.4m from “overseas educational activities”. HEL employs no staff, “as all services were supplied by [Haileybury], for which a fee was charged”. Its major outgoing last year was a gift-aided donation of nearly £1m to Haileybury. Haileybury did not respond to inquiries from the Guardian about its overseas satellites. The school is also a sponsor of a state academy, Haileybury Turnford secondary school in Hertfordshire. Haileybury’s arrangement is common at many other charitable private schools in England. Dulwich College, which has links to a dozen overseas satellites, uses a for-profit subsidiary named DCOE to license the college’s name and intellectual property to a third company, Dulwich College Management International (DCMI), with DCOE donating its taxable profits on to Dulwich College. Dulwich’s charitable accounts state: “DCMI and the international schools it operates are owned and run independently of the College and DCEO.” How much each satellite earns is rarely published, but the Financial Times recently said that a subsidiary “typically takes 2-6% of annual revenues from the licensed local operator then donates this to the UK school”. In some cases, the sums generated are spectacular: Cranleigh school gained £5.85m in 2020-21 from selling the future income from its campus in Abu Dhabi. In Cambodia, The King’s School, Canterbury, is partnering with the developer Vattanac Properties for a 1,500-pupil school within a new “visionary eco-city” named Vattanacville. But not all are a success. Dulwich’s accounts noted: “As a result of the military coup in Myanmar, it was no longer possible to maintain the international schools in Myanmar and all their activities were suspended for the foreseeable future, with a loss to Dulwich College revenues of £90,000.” A report by the Private Education Policy Forum found that of the five wealthiest charitable private schools measured by endowments and investments, including Eton and Winchester, only Rugby has a satellite. Aline Courtois, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath’s department of education who has interviewed staff at satellite schools, said some claimed they had little contact with the parent school and shared few resources. “Some staff felt that their school was just there to raise funds for the UK school,” Courtois said. Defenders of satellite schools in developing countries argue the fees are mainly paid by wealthy expatriates and multinational employers. But Courtois said there was most often a mix of children from expatriate and local families, depending on the location. “In any case it’s still money that could be invested in local schools rather than being sent back to the UK,” Courtois said. School inspection reports suggest wide variations in student origins. While Cranleigh’s Abu Dhabi satellite claims pupils from 79 different nationalities, with a large proportion from the UK and US, a 2022 report on Rugby School Thailand said: “The school serves local, affluent families as well as some from further away in Thailand and a few international pupils.”

Universities rebuked over academic misconduct cases in England and Wales

2023-02-27

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/27/universities-rebuked-over-academic-misconduct-cases-in-england-and-wales

Ombudsman report says students treated unfairly and changes to exams since pandemic created uncertainty Universities have been reprimanded over unfair treatment of students accused of academic misconduct in a report by the higher education ombudsman for England and Wales. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) said changes to assessments, accelerated by the Covid pandemic when university examinations moved online, had led to uncertainty among students about what is and is not allowed. In one anonymised case, a university was ordered to make an apology and pay £6,000 compensation to a student for “severe distress” caused by the inappropriate handling of an allegation of academic misconduct in an online examination. Suspicions were aroused after checks revealed the student had completed the assessment in less than four minutes. The student explained they had prepared draft answers and had been able to quickly adapt these during the assessment. They were asked to do a mock exam on the spot by investigating officers, who decided the student had seen the questions in advance and applied a penalty. The student, who denied the allegation, was so distressed they sought emergency medical help because of suicidal thoughts. They also accused investigators of racism after noting that other accused students, who were white, received a lesser penalty. There have been reports of an increase in the number of plagiarism and academic misconduct cases at universities since the introduction of online exams. Figures obtained by the Times indicate academic malpractice at some Russell Group universities has more than doubled. The OIA, which acts as the final arbiter for student complaints, said it had not seen a significant increase in complaints over academic misconduct cases, but that issues and challenges arising in cases of suspected misconduct had “evolved”. There were many examples of good practice in how universities addressed suspected academic misconduct, the OIA report said. “But we have also seen examples of processes that have not resulted in a fair outcome. “Changes to assessment practices that were accelerated by the pandemic have probably contributed to uncertainty for some students about what is expected and what is permitted.” The report also highlighted the variety of online tools and services available to students, free of charge or paid-for, which could be confusing. “Students may not see a difference between paying for access to a journal article behind a paywall, and paying for a sample of academic writing on the specific topic of a module assessment. “Similarly, students do not always know whether they are permitted to use any proofreading, paraphrasing or translation assistance, or understand whether the service they have used has been inappropriate.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Universities should help students by giving examples of legitimate approaches to research, or services students should not use, the report said. The OIA also suggested students keep drafts of early work as evidence of their own work in case concerns are raised later. The independent adjudicator, Felicity Mitchell, said: “Higher education providers need to have in place fair processes to identify and address academic misconduct to help safeguard the value of the education they offer. “But it’s important to set clear expectations of what is – and is not – allowed in assessments, and to remind students of these expectations during their studies. How providers address misconduct where it is suspected can affect both the fairness of the outcome and the wellbeing of the student involved.”

‘Cultural shift’ since pandemic causing attendance crisis in English schools

2023-01-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/13/cultural-shift-since-pandemic-causing-attendance-crisis-in-english-schools

Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send children to school or willing to let them stay home Headteachers and school leaders are becoming increasingly worried that a “cultural shift” in attitudes is causing a crisis in attendance, with more pupils absent than before the Covid pandemic. Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send children to school and more resistant to efforts to encourage attendance, with school leaders in England warning it may take years to repair national attendance figures. Specialists who spoke to the Guardian said fears around illness had been heightened since the pandemic, and are being driven by worsening support for mental health as well as the strain experienced by the NHS and the cost of living crisis. Their fears are supported by figures from the Department for Education (DfE) showing a sustained increase in authorised and unauthorised absences in state schools across England. Secondary schools appear worst affected, with pupils missing more than 9% of classroom time in the first term of the latest academic year, compared with an average of about 5.4% in the five years between 2014 and 2019. While illnesses accounted for a steep rise in children staying away during December, when many parents were concerned about strep A and scarlet fever outbreaks, the rate of unauthorised absences reported also rose by 70%. Sheila Mouna, the headteacher at St Anne’s and Guardian Angels Catholic primary school in east London, said while parents had become more anxious about their children going to school, others were more willing to let them stay home since the pandemic. “I think there’s been a cultural shift with people working at home, and some people – not all – seem to think their kids did OK at home, so things like that have become ingrained in some parents’ mind. “But children need to be out and about, to be with their friends and learn to socialise. It’s not just academic,” Mouna said. Stuart Lock, the chief executive of the Advantage Schools academy trust in Bedfordshire, said pupil attendance was a matter of concern for all school leaders. “I thought it was a blip. I now think that this is an established crisis that is going to get worse and take years to solve,” Lock said. “I don’t know how we’ll fix this – it feels like there has been a shift, and it isn’t dissimilar to the early 2000s when it was very hard to get a significant number of pupils to attend school regularly.” Lock said the DfE was aware of the national problem and was looking at policies to improve attendance, but added: “I think this is going to be a big challenge for all of us this year.” Stephen Aravena, the attendance and welfare adviser at St Anne’s, said there were pupils who normally have “very good” attendance who were now spending days out of school, with the mental health and resilience of parents as well as children under strain. “The landscape has changed. Pressures like the cost of living, all these things are impacting on families, so that’s brought a whole range of new problems that we need to deal with. We need to find new ways of responding to that,” Aravena said. MPs on parliament’s education select committee are to hold an inquiry next month into the growing rates of persistent absence, questioning education leaders on possible causes including economic disadvantage as well as Covid. Robin Walker, the Conservative MP who chairs the education committee, said: “Missing school can seriously undermine a child’s education and future life chances. It is imperative that we take a nuanced and sympathetic look at the reasons why absence has become a growing problem.” Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, said the absence rates “should set alarm bells ringing”. “The failures of the government’s Covid recovery scheme, plummeting pupil wellbeing and the growing epidemic of mental ill health in our schools is driving non-attendance, which will lead to lower attainment and lower life chances for children and young people,” he said.

England’s crumbling schools are a ‘risk to life’, officials warn No 10

2022-05-14

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/14/england-crumbling-schools-risk-warn-no-10-education-department-treasury

Exclusive: Leak reveals that the education department is battling with the Treasury for £13bn needed for rebuilding projects Many school buildings in England are now in such disrepair they are a “risk to life”, according to internal government documents leaked to the Observer. Emails sent by senior officials working for education secretary Nadhim Zahawi to Downing Street show them raising the alarm on two occasions within the last six weeks. The officials call as a matter of urgency for the Treasury to make extra billions available to increase the number of school rebuilding projects from 50 a year to more than 300. On 30 March, as part of a weekly update to No 10 from the Department for Education (DfE), the senior officials cite the problem of deteriorating school buildings under the heading “upcoming risks and opportunities” . They say: “School buildings: the deteriorating condition of the school estate continues to be a risk, with condition funding flat for FY [financial year] 2022-23, some sites a risk-to-life, too many costly and energy-inefficient repairs rather than rebuilds, and rebuild demand x3 supply.” The same email goes on to make clear how the DfE is battling with the Treasury for £13bn, now available as a result of recent reforms to higher education, to spend on school repairs. “DfE continues to engage HMT to expand the School Rebuilding Programme by a similar amount, as discussed in Spending Review negotiations. This includes increasing the number of School Rebuilding Programme projects a year from 50, to over 300.” On 4 April, the officials raise the alarm again under the same “risks and opportunities” heading and repeat the warning that some school sites are a “risk to life”. The second email adds: “We would like to increase the scale of school rebuilding.” The revelations will pile huge pressure on both No 10 and the Treasury to divert extra billions to keep schools and pupils safe, at a time when they are already facing calls to help millions of people on low incomes get through the cost-of-living crisis. On Saturday, Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, blamed years of Tory cuts to capital spending on schools and said the current problems ranged from dangerous roofs to asbestos. He said: “All children deserve to learn in high quality, safe and comfortable buildings. But in 2022-23, capital funding is £1.9bn less per year in real terms than it was in the last years of the Labour government. If the government had not cut Labour’s school rebuilding programme, £27bn more would have been spent on school and college buildings. So, while any money spent on school buildings is welcome, the scale needs to be judged against what has been cut, which is 50 times larger. “The challenges that need to be addressed are huge. And whether the issue to be addressed is potentially dangerous roofing, retrofitting for energy efficiency and to help meet climate obligations, or basic repairs, the challenge is made all the greater by the presence of asbestos in so many school buildings. The government needs to show much more ambition and urgently address these issues in a strategic way.” An official briefing in the House of Commons library dated March this year and entitled “School Building and Capital Funding” confirms the huge cuts in capital spending since the Tories came to power in 2010. It says: “Spending generally followed a downward trend between 2009-10 and 2013-14 and in the years since spending has fluctuated ... Overall, between 2009-10 and 2021-22, capital spending declined by 25% in cash terms and 29% after adjusting for inflation (2021-22 prices).” In a statement to the Commons in July 2011, the then education secretary, Michael Gove, said the design of the Labour’s Building Schools for the Future Programme “was not as efficient as it could have been”. Gove said it did not prioritise schools in the worst condition and it did not procure new buildings as cheaply as possible. In its place, Gove established the Priority School Building Programme, which he said would be available to “all schools –academies, community schools and voluntary-aided schools – and local authorities that are responsible for the maintenance of a number of schools”. It would, he said, address the problems and be available to schools with the “greatest need”. But the leaked documents confirm a gradual deterioration over the following 11 years, despite repeated warnings that a crisis was approaching. Bridget Phillipson MP, the shadow education secretary, said: “The Conservatives have failed a generation of children by slashing investment in our schools over their 12 years in power. “Their negligence is now putting lives in danger, but still the secretary of state can’t persuade the chancellor to act. Labour would build a Britain where children come first, but the Tories are standing by as England’s schools are falling down.” In 2019 the Guardian reported that more than one in six schools in England still required urgent repairsand cited warnings about schools “crumbling around teachers and pupils”. According to official data at the time, 17% (3,731) of schools were found to have buildings with “elements”, such as a roof, wall or window, in need of immediate action. Of the 21,796 schools for which information was released, 1,313 had elements that were given the worst possible condition, grade D, defined as “life expired and/or serious risk of imminent failure”. A DfE spokesperson said: “The safety of pupils and staff is paramount. We have one of the largest and most comprehensive survey programmes in Europe, and this allows us to assess and manage risk in our buildings. We prioritise buildings where there is a risk to health and safety and have invested £11.3bn since 2015 to improve the condition of school buildings and facilities. In addition, our new School Rebuilding Programme will transform the learning environment at 500 schools over the next decade.”

Ex-Tory minister attacks Sunak plan to limit foreign student numbers

2022-12-21

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/21/ex-tory-minister-attacks-sunak-plan-to-limit-foreign-student-numbers

Justine Greening argues against move to restrict number of international students at British universities Justine Greening, the former Conservative education secretary, has attacked Rishi Sunak’s proposals to limit the number of international students at British universities, arguing that the move could have a “severe negative impact” on the country. In a letter co-signed by 12 university vice-chancellors, Greening urged the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to make the case against new restrictions on students said to be supported by Sunak in the wake of record levels of inward migration. “Reducing the number of international students could have a severe negative impact on Britain’s economy, productivity, and our world-leading universities,” Greening said in the letter. “The obvious cultural contribution and enrichment of UK students’ learning experience is clear, as is the knowledge exchange and research contribution that international students bring to our renowned higher education sector.” Last month, No 10 said Sunak was looking at new restrictions on international students as a way of reducing immigration, including limits on the range of universities to which they could apply, and on their ability to bring along family members. The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “We’re considering all options to make sure the immigration system is delivering, and that does include looking at the issue of student dependants and low-quality degrees.” Greening, who stood down as an MP at the last election, said it was vital that ministers “confirm these plans are off the table as soon as possible”, adding: “The reality is that overseas students pay significantly higher fees, which crucially cross-subsidises the education investment for domestic students.” The letter warns that restricting international applicants to a small pool of selective universities would undermine social mobility and “risks widening the levelling-up gap in the higher education sector” by taking resources out of areas that need it most. “It would be counterproductive from an economic growth perspective to restrict international students from studying and building links in the very areas and regions where levelling up is most needed and where businesses particularly need that higher-skilled workforce to grow,” the group said. The 12 vice-chancellors who signed the letter include the leaders of Southampton and Loughborough universities, as well as Steve West, the vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England and president of the Universities UK group. The group recommends that Keegan support reforming the UK’s migration statistics so that international students are reported separately from other immigrants. “With international students included in net migration numbers, the risk is that it gives a distorted picture of the underlying wider reality on overall longer-term migration,” the letter states.

Irene Schwab obituary

2023-02-03

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/03/irene-schwab-obituary

My mother, Irene Schwab, was an archaeologist, academic and teacher who was committed to radical leftwing projects. Born in Colindale, north London, she was the middle child of Mia (nee Hirschberg) and Peter Schwab, Jewish refugees who fled Germany in the 1930s and became co-directors of a small costume jewellery business in London. After attending Copthall county grammar school in Barnet, Irene studied archaeology at Birmingham University. She went on to excavate sites in Southwark, Orkney and the Middle East, and later led the Inner London Archaeology Unit. In the 80s she shifted careers to run literacy classes at Centerprise, a pioneering community centre, bookshop and publishing house in Dalston, east London. Most students in the Hackney Reading Centre at Centerprise were African-Caribbean, and Irene encouraged them to write and publish in their own voice and language. She recalled in a 2017 oral history of Centerprise encouraging students to think “about varieties of English [as] not being bad or broken, but just different, and that it’s OK to write in the language you speak, whether that’s creole [or] cockney”. During this period she co-wrote Language and Power with Roxy Harris and Lucy Whitman as part of the Afro-Caribbean Language and Literacy Project set up by the Inner London Education Authority. A collection of learning materials, it encouraged its readers to relish the creative power of non-standard varieties of English and their social and historical contexts. In 1985 Irene gave birth to twins, Alexei and me, fathered by the Marxist activist and translator Ed Emery. Irene raised us independently, supported by her community of feminist friends. Then in the 90s came adult literacy teaching at City and Islington College. In 2003 she moved from teacher to trainer, co-developing a postgraduate course for literacy teachers at the Institute of Education. Further co-authored or co-edited books followed, including Teaching Adult Literacy (2010) and Training to Teach Adults English (2015). For a doctorate in education at University College London (2017), she completed a thesis considering how literacy teachers’ initial theoretical training prepared them for the messy realities of the classroom. Outside work, Irene completed a fine art degree at Middlesex University during the late 90s. She also volunteered with the Red Cross international family tracing team, the same organisation that had helped her family leave Germany. She walked and travelled extensively, including trips to the former USSR and Antarctica. She is survived by Alexei and me, her grandchildren, Rosa and Emil, and by her siblings, Susan and Stephen.

UK government suspends engagement with NUS over antisemitism allegations

2022-05-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/13/uk-government-suspends-engagement-with-nus-over-antisemitism-allegations

The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said he was ‘seriously concerned’ by reports of alleged antisemitism within the organisation Ministers have banned official contact with the National Union of Students over long-running allegations of antisemitism within the organisation, despite the NUS’s pledge to work with Jewish students in an internal investigation. The allegations have become a focus for the government since the election of Shaima Dallali as the next NUS president, with groups including the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) raising concerns after alleged historic comments resurfaced. Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, announced the suspension of NUS recognition, saying he was “seriously concerned” by the reports of alleged antisemitism. “Jewish students need to have confidence that this is a body that represents them, and we need to be sure that the student bodies that we engage with are speaking fairly for all students, which is why we are disengaging with the NUS until the issues have been addressed,” Zahawi said. “From the NUS’s initial response to our concerns, I am confident that they are keen to take action and welcome further updates from them.” Michelle Donelan, the minister for higher and further education in England, announced that she had written to the electoral body that oversaw this year’s NUS presidential election, asking for information on how the election was carried out. The NUS represents seven million students at universities and colleges, with 600 student unions affiliated. The suspension only affects its relations with the government in Westminster and not those in other nations. Matt Western, Labour’s shadow universities minister, said it was important that Jewish students felt safe and able to participate in student organisations. “It is important that the NUS is listening, and I hope that the independent inquiry they have rightly set up resolves these issues to the satisfaction of all concerned,” he said. The Department for Education (DfE) said: “Although the NUS has shown a willingness to respond to concerns expressed by ministers, including beginning to kickstart a process of independent investigations, this will need to lead to substantive action. “This decision to disengage from the NUS will be kept under review as the organisation demonstrates it has suitably addressed these issues.” A spokesperson for the NUS said: “We are disappointed that the universities minister has press-released that the DfE will be disengaging from the NUS, rather than seeking to engage with us directly. “Following a complaint about antisemitism, we launched an independent investigation. We will be appointing a QC, in consultation with the Union of Jewish Students, next week. We have sought to undertake the investigation in a serious and proper way, and are working in collaboration with UJS at every step of the way. “Once the QC has been appointed, we will be able to update on the process and timeline. We look forward to working with the government constructively on this matter.” The DfE said that during the suspension, the NUS will be removed from all government groups and replaced with alternative student representatives. The department is asking arm’s-length bodies, including the Office for Students, the higher education regulator, to take similar action. After Dallali’s election earlier this year, the UJS objected to comments she is alleged to have made, including a tweet posted 10 years ago that read: “Khaybar Khaybar O Jews … Muhammad’s army will return Gaza”, referencing a AD628 assault on Jews. Dallali – who is president of the City, University of London students’ union – has apologised for the tweet, saying she is not the same person she was then. In an interview with the Guardian, Dallali, 27, revealed that since her election she had received a lot of Islamophobic and racist abuse online. “Unfortunately, as a black Muslim woman, it is something that I expected, because I’ve seen it happen to other black Muslim women,” she said.

Heads call for end to ‘blunt’ Ofsted ratings in inspections overhaul

2023-01-20

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/20/heads-call-for-end-to-blunt-ofsted-ratings-in-inspections-overhaul

ASCL says grades such as ‘requires improvement’ should be replaced by descriptions of strengths and flaws Headteachers are calling for a radical overhaul of school inspection in England, including the scrapping of ratings such as “good” or “requires improvement”, which they describe as a “woefully blunt” measure of a school’s performance. The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) says the current system, which labels a school either “outstanding”, “good”, “requires improvement” or “inadequate”, fails to reflect the vastly different circumstances in which schools operate, while Ofsted’s inspection regime is “punitive” rather than constructive. The schools watchdog for England is deeply unpopular among many school staff, who say it adds to pressure on leadership teams and is contributing to the recruitment and retention crisis in education. ASCL, which represents 22,000 members in the UK, outlines its proposals in a discussion paper, The Future of Inspection, published on Friday. It comes as the search for a new chief inspector of schools is due to begin, to replace Amanda Spielman at the end of the year. The paper accepts there should be an independent inspectorate, but says Ofsted is losing the trust of the profession. It suggests the current grading system, which can stigmatise schools that receive negative judgments, should be replaced with a narrative description of strengths and weaknesses. ASCL also suggests getting rid of the grades awarded in four inspection areas – quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. “Removing these has the potential to end the unhelpful and misleading practice of reducing a school or college’s performance in key areas to a single word or phrase, and to instead give parents and other stakeholders a more nuanced understanding of what a school or college is doing well and how it could improve,” it says. In addition, ASCL wants schools to be told in which academic year they will be inspected, to reduce the burden of uncertainty. It also wants greater transparency over inspection activity and a review of how pupils’ comments are considered during inspection, and how any pupils’ claims are “triangulated”. ASCL’s general secretary, Geoff Barton, said: “Graded judgments are a woefully blunt tool with which to measure performance, failing to account for the different circumstances under which schools operate. Negative judgments come with huge stigma attached and create a vicious circle that makes improvement more difficult. “We know from speaking to members that the punitive inspection system is contributing to the recruitment and retention crisis in education by adding to the pressure school leaders are under, and by making it more difficult to recruit high-quality staff in the schools which most need them.” Ofsted declined to comment on the report. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Parents rely greatly on schools’ Ofsted ratings to give them confidence in choosing the right school for their child. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of teachers and school staff, 88% of schools are now rated as Good or Outstanding, up from 68% in 2010. “To support schools we have provided an extra £2bn both next year and the year after, which will be the highest real terms spending on schools in history, totalling £58.8bn by 2024-25.”

‘I know how hard the work is’: parents’ views on the teachers’ strike

2023-02-01

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/01/i-know-how-hard-the-work-is-parents-views-on-the-teachers-strike

Three parents share their views on the strike by tens of thousands of teachers in England and Wales More than 100,000 teachers in England and Wales are taking part in a strike organised by the UK’s largest education union. The UK education secretary, Gillian Keegan, claimed that the majority of schools in England and Wales would remain open. The National Education Union predicted that 85% of schools would be affected, with one survey suggesting that up to one in seven schools would be closed, rising to a quarter in London. Here, three parents discuss how they and their children are being affected by the strike and their views on the action. “We recently moved our three-year-old daughter to a preschool in a primary school, and so we’re affected by today’s strikes. I took the day off work, and my daughter and I joined the teachers on the picket line this morning, brought them some biscuits we’d made, and had a chat. We spent the afternoon in the leisure centre for soft play and swimming. “I’m in a fortunate position that my work is very flexible. [While] taking the day off work is never super easy, I’ve managed to put my phone away and it’s nice to have some more time to spend with my daughter. I appreciate that for others it’s much more complicated. “I wholeheartedly support the teachers’ strikes. I’m concerned that as a country we can’t pay the people we trust daily with our children’s wellbeing and development better. I used to be a primary teacher myself, and I know how hard the work is, how long the days are, and that pay has been eroded.”Michael Watts, 39, software engineer in London “Luckily enough my parents can step in today – they’re at the zoo with the kids, who are six and nine. But they’re not going to be able to step in for every one of four days – I imagine we’ll have to take some time off over coming weeks. We don’t get the holidays the teachers get, you’re limited. And who knows if there’ll be more strike days? Then you’re scrabbling around, taking unpaid leave. “My patience is running out with teachers at the moment. Do they forget Covid, when we were home schooling our children while [we got] a few photocopied lesson plans sent home once a week if we were lucky? Kids missed months of education, it affected a whole generation of kids. Now they are on strike for four days and the school is closed. “We all want 15% pay rises. Teachers, don’t be upset with us parents if you find there is no wine or gift vouchers at Christmas. It’s quite clear you put yourselves first and the children second.” Steve, 45, contracts manager in Merseyside “My children, aged seven and 11, are in primary school and both their classes are off today. They are with their dad, who fortunately has holiday. The school didn’t mention anything about home work – we’re glad to not have to do home schooling again. “I fully support the teachers. It’s ludicrous that successive governments have allowed teaching to be so devalued by failing to deliver attractive pay and benefits, [which would] ensure it’s an appealing career for promising graduates. “I will say though that my husband has a lot of holiday left and we both work mainly from home, so it’s not going to cause us difficulties if the children are off for the odd day. Plus, they are both doing well at school. If I was worried about missing work, losing a day’s pay or their attainment, I might feel differently, so I have sympathy for parents in any of these positions. It is relatively easy for me to be supportive because I won’t take a personal hit.” Sarah McKenna, 41, works for a retail design consultancy in London

‘Cowering to politics’: how AP African American studies became the most controversial course in the US

2023-02-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/13/ap-african-american-studies-florida-ron-desantis

After Florida’s governor vowed to block the class, a revised version – with key writings removed – sparked swift backlash Keziah Ridgeway says teaching African American history is about “being the teacher that I never had”. The Philadelphia public high school teacher remembers growing up learning a “sanitized” version of Black history: MLK, Rosa Parks, maybe Malcolm X. It wasn’t until she pursued a degree in history and “began to read everything I could get my hands on” that she realized how much she had been missing. “African American history, when taught correctly, creates critical thinkers. And it creates children who question: ‘Why are things the way that they are in society?’” Offered in some form at most US colleges and universities, African American studies – an interdisciplinary field that examines the history, culture and politics of Black Americans – isn’t always found in high school curriculums. That could change soon thanks to a new advanced placement (AP) exam by the College Board, the country’s largest standardized test company. High schools are incentivized to offer their AP courses because many colleges and universities grant students credit for passing marks on AP exams. But few AP courses have been as divisive as this one. AP African American studies is the product of nearly a decade of work by the College Board, prominent African American studies scholars and high school educators. A pilot version of the course is being taught by 60 teachers across the country, and the exam won’t officially launch until 2025. But it became a heated national controversy last month after Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, vowed to block schools from teaching the course, saying it violated state law and “significantly lacks educational value”. The Florida education department then cited examples in the pilot of what it termed “woke indoctrination” that would run afoul of recently passed Florida laws that clamp down on class discussions about racism. Among the things Florida objected to: the course’s discussions on reparations, queer studies, feminist thought and intersectionality – referring to the way various systems of oppression are interconnected. The state also singled out the inclusion of writings by Black scholars like Angela Davis (for being a “self-avowed Communist and Marxist”), bell hooks (for using the phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”), and Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality” to describe the way different forms of oppression interconnect. That led to another firestorm last week, when the College Board published a revised framework for the course – on the first day of Black History Month – with those scholars’ writings removed, along with all other secondary sources. The new version also changed Black Lives Matter from a required to an optional topic, and added “Black conservatism” as a potential research subject. The blowback was swift. David J Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, called the move “infuriating”. Crenshaw said that the revisions were reinforcing a system of “segregated education” in the country. Ta-Nehisi Coates, another prominent intellectual struck from the course, said the College Board shouldn’t have to bend to politicians who “just want a curriculum that makes people feel comfortable and feel good about themselves”. The College Board quickly issued a statement denying that the changes were politically motivated, claiming that it had finalized its revisions before DeSantis’s rebuke. However, on Thursday, a leaked letter from the Florida department of education claimed the College Board had been in consistent contact with the DeSantis administration about the course. The letter details numerous complaints made by the administration to the College Board about the teaching of topics such as intersectionality and the social construction of race, claiming that they would not comply with Florida law. The College Board issued a letter of its own denying that the concerns of the administration had in any way shaped the course changes. It said: “We never received written feedback from the Florida education department specifying how the course violates Florida law, despite repeated requests.” Then, in a slightly frantic PR strategy, the College Board released a new letter on Saturday acknowledging it had made “mistakes in the rollout that are being exploited” but wanted to “clear the air and set the record straight”. It went on to accuse the Florida education department of “slander” and said scholarly articles were still to be added to the course. “We should have made clear that contemporary events like the Black Lives Matter movement, reparations, and mass incarceration were optional topics in the pilot course,” it wrote, adding that “Florida is attempting to claim a political victory by taking credit retroactively for changes we ourselves made but that they never suggested to us.” This robust, at times enraged statement, is a contrast in tone to a New York Times interview given by David Coleman, the head of the College Board, on 1 February. Then he justified the removal of works by contemporary Black scholars by saying students might struggle to connect with secondary sources by theorists as they were “quite dense”. Despite what the College Board now says, earlier versions of the syllabus included structural racism, racial capitalism, mass incarceration, reparations, intersectionality and Black Lives Matter as required topics. Later revisions do downgrade these topics to optional, while introducing other new optional topics like Black conservatism. Ridgeway, the Philadelphia public high school teacher, called that “a cop-out”. Her students learn better by reading both primary and secondary sources, and removing scholars like Davis, hooks and Crenshaw would only lead back to the same kind of depoliticized history she was taught growing up, she says. And even if theoretical texts might be dense, teachers can find ways to make them more accessible. “How dare you deprive them of the opportunity to learn from different perspectives of incredible intellectuals within the field?” Ronda Taylor Bullock, a former high school teacher who now runs We Are, a non-profit that provides antiracism training for children, parents and educators, agrees: “The changes that are happening aren’t edits – they’re the erasure of Black voices, Black academics, Black experiences. It’s cowering to white supremacy, cowering to political power, versus recognizing the academic merits of how the curriculum was from the beginning.” But one teacher who has been teaching the pilot course says the uproar is overblown. Melissa Tracy, a Delaware charter school teacher among the 60 chosen for the trial by the College Board, says she’s “still in the process of digesting the new changes”, which “are to be expected in a pilot”. The course is no different than any other AP course she’s taught, “and you can supplement your curriculum as needed with secondary sources, projects, et cetera. That’s always been the case with AP since day one, since I started teaching AP in 2008.” It’s also not the first time that an AP course has been caught in a political maelstrom. In 2014, the Republican National Committee blasted a framework for AP US history as anti-American, saying it “emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects”. That prompted the College Board to issue a revised framework emphasizing that teachers would have leeway to develop their own examples for the course. Adam Laats, a historian of American education, argues that the College Board isn’t so much making political choices as market calculations. “The company makes $96 per student, per test. And the company just wants the maximum number of people to take the maximum number of tests. So they’re bowing to the market pressure that the political pressure represents.” Laats says the College Board’s revisions to AP African American studies reflect its formula for developing products: “The College Board tends to move to the middle in terms of what is already accepted as standard knowledge. In the first draft, they try to hit the middle of the academic community, and then they plan to move to the middle of broader society with the second.” The influence of the college board on US education is on some teachers’ minds. “People are asking more questions about the validity of the College Board, or whether to even support them at this point, considering how they’ve shifted so quickly after the criticism,” Bullock says. Ridgeway says she’s undecided as to whether she will teach the course at her school when it’s offered, though she’s signed up for a training. “But if a lot of it is whitewashed or incorrect, I would be very leery about teaching the material and will probably end up supplementing with my own reading.” Delaware charter school teacher Tracy hopes the skeptics will give the course a chance. She says she’s gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback: “Some of my students are actually frustrated with what is happening in other parts of the country, because they truly believe that all students should have access to the course,” she says. “I have some students who have commented: ‘This is the first time I really see myself in the social studies curriculum.’” And not just the students, but their families. At the beginning of the school year, she spotted one student on her cellphone during the class: “I said: ‘Hey, put that away.’ And she said: ‘Well, I’m recording notes and sharing information with my mom, because she never got to take it. And so she’s taking the course with me.’”

Teachers in England at ‘end of their tether’, says union chief

2023-01-29

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/29/teachers-in-england-at-the-end-of-their-tether-says-union-chief

NEU general secretary says ahead of Wednesday’s strike that teachers are undervalued, underpaid and overworked Teachers are at “the end of their tether”, Mary Bousted of the National Education Union has said, as the government called last-ditch talks on Monday in an attempt to avert this week’s schools strikes in England. Teachers are expected to be among up to half a million workers across the public sector taking strike action on Wednesday 1 February, as Rishi Sunak’s government continues to face a relentless wave of industrial unrest. They will be joined by civil servants across government departments, train drivers and university lecturers and staff. The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has summoned the education unions for discussions on Monday afternoon, but Bousted, the NEU’s joint general secretary, told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that she saw little sign of movement from ministers. “I don’t see that the government at the moment is serious about negotiating; and we would not have got to this point if they had started to negotiate with us last October, when we first decided to ballot our members,” she said. “Teachers are at the end of their tether. They are undervalued, they feel underpaid, they are completely overworked.” The NEU is demanding an above-inflation pay rise, fully funded by the Treasury so that schools are not forced to dip into already tight budgets. Bousted added that the NEU had signed up more than 34,000 new members since the result of the strike ballot was announced. “That shows the strength of feeling,” she said. Keegan’s remit covers England. Welsh teachers are also striking on Wednesday, and rolling teachers’ strikes have been under way in Scotland. The National Association of Head Teachers announced last week that it would reballot its members on industrial action if pay talks with the DfE broke down or failed to reach a conclusion. The strike ballot that the NAHT began last year failed to reach the 50% voting threshold, with many members complaining that they were unable to vote because of disruption to postal services. The NAHT also published its evidence to the School Teacher Review Board independent pay body for next year’s (2023-24) pay round, which said increasing numbers of school leaders were leaving the profession. Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, have repeatedly insisted they are not willing to reopen the current year’s settlements for public sector workers, claiming that doing so could stoke inflation. Teachers were awarded an average of about 5%, but with inflation in double digits, that amounted to a significant real-terms pay cut for many. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently calculated that senior teachers had in effect seen their pay decline by £6,600 since 2010. When the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, was asked on Sunday about the possibility that the teachers’ strike could be averted, he said: “Gillian [Keegan] is a warm, determined, thoughtful and caring secretary of state. She has been looking forensically at the issues that we have in education. She wants to avoid the need for strike action.” The shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said she did not want to see the schools strikes go ahead, but she understood teachers’ concerns. “This isn’t just about pay. It’s about the fact that they feel undervalued and under-appreciated for the work that they do,” she said. “Like all parents, I’m concerned about the disruption that will cause. But the only reason these strikes are happening is because government ministers haven’t been serious about negotiating.” The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) is stepping up its campaign of industrial action on Wednesday, with all of the 100,000 members whose ballots met the threshold for industrial action going on strike in unison. The PCS has previously targeted specific departments and agencies separately. Scores of government employers are expected to be affected, from Border Force to the Department for Work and Pensions. The TUC will use Wednesday’s widespread stoppages to step up its campaign against the government’s anti-strikes legislation. Ministers have not yet published a formal impact assessment of the bill – usually provided to MPs alongside legislation – and the TUC is accusing the government of trying to “keep MPs in the dark”. Its general secretary, Paul Nowak, said: “This spiteful legislation would mean that when workers democratically vote to strike, they can be forced to work and sacked if they don’t comply. “The minimum service levels bill is undemocratic, unworkable and almost certainly illegal. And crucially it will likely poison industrial relations and exacerbate disputes rather than help resolve them. Labour has tabled a string of amendments to the legislation, which is due to be debated in the House of Commons on Monday, including one aimed at preventing striking workers from being sacked. The party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: “Conservative MPs face a clear choice today over whether they will vote to safeguard rights at work or rip up key workers’ protections from unfair dismissal. Labour is looking to force them to go back to the drawing board with this dog’s dinner of a bill that will do nothing to resolve disputes and instead risks pouring petrol on the fire.”

Ilse Ryder obituary

2023-04-03

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/03/ilse-ryder-obituary

My friend and former colleague Ilse Ryder, who has died aged 94, fled to the UK from Czechoslovakia just before the second world war and later became a maths teacher in the London area, working in that role until her retirement in the early 1990s. Ilse was born in Brüx in Czechoslovakia, the only child of Ernst Stein, a lawyer, and his wife, Elise (nee Grunfeld), a mathematician. Her parents separated when she was seven, after which she moved to Vienna with her mother and then to Prague in 1938. Ilse and other Jewish children were airlifted out of Prague to London in January 1939 by the Barbican Mission to the Jews. There are photos of 10-year-old Ilse arriving at Croydon airport in a beige coat and pixie hat, looking determinedly ahead with her penetrating dark eyes and holding tightly the hand of a young boy, Peter Needham, who became a friend for life. Some months later her mother followed Ilse to Britain, finding work as a domestic servant in Blackheath, south-east London. Initially Ilse was brought up by missionaries and then attended several church schools, staying with her mother at weekends. At 17 she won a scholarship to St Hugh’s College, Oxford, from where she graduated with a degree in mathematics. She worked first as an actuary before doing some Oxbridge entrance coaching for pupils at a school in Suffolk and then, in 1956, becoming a maths teacher at Cheadle Hulme school in Cheshire. There she met Leslie Ryder, a fellow teacher, and they were married in 1958. After a move in the late 60s to London so that Leslie could become an inspector for the Inner London Education Authority, Ilse taught at Wandsworth school until switching to Kingston College of Further Education in 1976, where we worked together and where her responsibilities included oversight of Oxbridge applications from the mathematics department. She also played a key role in initiatives to encourage teenage girls to move into science and engineering, staying at the college until retirement in 1992. Ilse was a determined woman with insatiable curiosity, particularly for music, literature and politics. Even in her late 80s she would travel alone to Austria to a Schubertiad, or to Dubrovnik to hear her favourite performers, the Capuçon brothers. Just before Covid-19 she relearned Czech and travelled alone to the Czech Republic to be part of a family reunion in front of the house in Brüx where she had lived as a child. She also volunteered for a range of charities focused on the needs of refugees, and did campaigning work for the Labour party. Leslie died in 2007. Ilse is survived by their two sons, Nick and Jon, and two grandchildren, Matt and Charlie.

Schools across England close as teachers vow to continue strikes

2023-04-27

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/27/schools-across-england-close-as-teachers-vow-to-continue-strikes

NEU members highlight pay erosion as well as high workload and crumbling school facilities Thousands of schools across England were fully or partially closed as teachers vowed to continue taking strike action until the government resumed talks over pay and working conditions. The national strike by members of the National Education Union, the largest teachers’ union in England, was the fourth since February, with a fifth national strike scheduled for next Tuesday. Only pupils taking GCSEs, A-levels or equivalent qualifications were exempted from the strike action after the union allowed headteachers to make local agreements to keep classes open for those taking exams next month. There was palpable anger among the hundreds of NEU members who attended the union’s rally at Oxford town hall, amid complaints of pay being eroded by inflation, as well as high workload and crumbling school facilities due to budget cuts. Natalia Rappak, a modern foreign languages secondary school teacher and NEU workplace rep, said: “Why am I angry? It’s because my payslip doesn’t compensate me for the dedication, effort and sheer number of hours I put into my work.” She added: “If all else fails we can all just move to Scotland and earn £10,000 a year more,” referring to the recent agreement whereby teachers in Scotland receive an average pay rise of more than 14% by January 2024. Joe Wilson, an NEU delegate and primary school teacher, said: “We currently have raw sewage coming out in our school … Can we afford to fix it? No.” Instead, Wilson said, the school’s headteacher had to clean up the sewage. “We should ask the prime minister to come to our school and sweep it up,” he said. In England the government offered teachers a £1,000 one-off payment alongside an average 4.5% pay rise next year after talks with the teaching unions. But members of all four unions, the NEU, the NASUWT teaching union, the National Association of Head Teachers and the Association of School and College Leaders have all rejected the pay offer by substantial margins. Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has refused to reopen talks with the unions, saying she will wait until she receives recommendations from the independent school teachers’ review body for the 2023-24 pay award. Mary Bousted told the Oxford rally that teachers were leaving the profession because of pay, and were unable to be replaced because the government continued to miss its own targets on graduate recruitment. The NEU’s joint general secretary said: “With this government I’m not going to say it’s a question of fairness. I’m going to say, Gillian, it’s a question of supply and demand, and as a Tory you should know all about supply and demand. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “There’s no supply. We are running out of teachers.” Bousted said she was told by a parent that her son was taking GCSE chemistry this year but had not had a teacher for two years, and had instead been learning from worksheets. “This is disastrous and that’s why we are on strike today,” Bousted said. The Department for Education’s latest targets include a 26% increase in the number of secondary teachers it hopes to recruit, to make up for years of under-recruitment. The National Foundation for Educational Research said this month’s recruitment figures suggested the government was likely to meet less than half of its 26,000 secondary teachers target. A spokesperson for the DfE said bursaries and scholarships had been extended to boost recruitment in specialist subjects, with the department recognising that “there are significant challenges to recruit teachers especially in high-demand subjects”.

Number of EU students enrolling in UK universities halves post-Brexit

2023-01-27

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/27/number-eu-students-enrolling-uk-universities-down-half-since-brexit

Data shows sharp decline in students from Italy, Germany and France with Brexit seen as primary deterrent The number of EU students enrolling in British universities has more than halved since Brexit – with sharp declines in scholars from Italy, Germany and France, figures reveal. Brexit is seen as the primary deterrent, with home fees and student finance no longer available to EU students who do not already live in the UK with settled or pre-settled status. “The significant decrease shown in EU first-year student enrolments can be attributed to changes in fees eligibility,” said the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which has published the data for the first full post-Brexit year. Before Brexit, students paid home fees of just over £9,000 and had student finance available. Fees have risen as high as £38,000 after Brexit. The number of students from the EU who enrolled for the first year of an undergraduate or postgraduate course was down from 66,680 the year before Brexit came into force, 2020, to 31,000 in 2021. This was the first year EU students were treated the same as those coming from China or India. But the impact of Brexit is deepest at undergraduate level, with just 13,155 EU students enrolling in 2021 for the first year of a primary degree compared with 37,530 the year before, according to official data. Universities say the loss of undergraduates removes diversity from the classroom and weakens the finances of colleges who could rely on EU students being in college for three or four-year courses – unlike many of the new international students who are coming for one-year postgraduate courses. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) figures shows that overall there are still 120,000 EU students in the system, down from 152,000 in 2020-21. This includes students who enrolled before Brexit and are completing their courses. The loss of students at postgraduate level is a significant blow as it acted as a pipeline to the science sector, with students a vital part of Horizon and other cutting-edge developments in fields such as medical research and astronomy. HESA data shows the number of postgraduate students from the EU went down to 14,000 from 24,000 in 2017-18 and the number of research students halving to 2,260 from 4,650 over the same period. HESA data also shows the biggest exodus of students post-Brexit as being from Italy, Germany and France. Ireland had replaced France as the No 1 source of EU students, said HESA, with just under 10,000 students enrolled in the UK in 2021-22, similar to the numbers in 2017-18. More than 2,000 of those are enrolled in Northern Ireland universities. The number of Chinese students has risen from 107,000 in 2017-2018 to 151,000 last year. Universities UK said the increase in students from outside the EU had not offset the exodus of EU students at undergraduate level, weakening financial stability in some third-level education and reducing diversity across some subject areas. “The decline in postgraduate taught and postgraduate research student numbers as the students transition to international fees is a cause for concern in terms of the pipeline of research talent for the UK.” The figures show “very clearly the impact of the sort of loss of freedom of movement and the change in European students fee status, but also, and critically for undergraduates, the loss of access to student loans”, said Charley Robinson, the head of global mobility policy at Universities UK. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (Ucas), which has more up-to-date data based on course applications, suggests the decline in EU students will continue, with EU resident applications for undergraduate courses in 2022-23 at 24,000 compared with 53,000 in 2016. By the time EU students had considered their options and made their choice, this number dropped considerably, with just 11,300 taking up places in the UK, many of those likely to be from Ireland. Before Brexit, EU undergraduate students across the bloc paid whatever domestic students paid, ranging from nothing in Scotland to £9,250 a year in England. They must now pay fees paid by non-EU students, which, according to Study UK and the British Council, can vary from £11,400 to £38,000 a year. Brexit also excludes EU students from student loans with new immigration rules requiring non-Irish European students to obtain visas and proof that they can support themselves with access to £1,334 a month for courses in London and £1,024 a month for courses outside London. A Department for Education spokesperson said a drop in the numbers of EU students was “expected … due to a range of factors” including Brexit. “EU students remain an important part of our international education strategy ambition of hosting at least 600,000 students a year and generating £35bn in exports for the UK economy, both by 2030,” they added. This article was amended on 27 January 2023. An earlier version said that tuition fees for domestic students in the UK were £9,250 a year. In fact the amount varies by nation; this has been corrected.

Inspiring lessons from one headteacher | Letter

2022-09-08

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/08/inspiring-lessons-from-one-headteacher

Blaine Stothard and Barbara France repond to a long read on how a primary school in Oxford is striving to give children the education they deserve against the odds I found this long read (‘Parents are frightened for themselves and for their children’: an inspirational school in impossible times, 6 September) both inspiring and depressing. Inspiring, because of the leadership and pedagogical knowledge and understanding of Sue Vermes and her team – the best of committed and trained professionals. Depressing because of what it tells us about the continuing impact of austerity and not-to-be-contested ideological convictions of governments over the past 12 years, here exemplified by the imposition of phonics. The education story told here is replicated across the spectrum of public sector services. The role of inequality is mentioned, the depressing aspects being its continued presence in the UK and the lack of political acknowledgement – perhaps denial – of its existence and influence. Much government comment is about what, not why. It’s probably too much to expect that those who voted for the new government and prime minister could be asked to read this piece.Blaine Stothard London As a retired headteacher, how I empathised with headteacher Sue Vermes in her striving to give the children of Rose Hill primary a fair go at things. Not for the first time did I shed tears of anger and frustration at the machinations of a government that cares little about the wellbeing or education of our children. Bring on your campaign, Sue. Barbara France Arnside, Cumbria Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

Teacher shortage could worsen after DfE rejects dozens of training courses

2022-12-09

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/09/teacher-shortage-worsen-dfe-rejects-dozens-established-trainers

Only 179 out of 240 existing teacher training courses have been accredited under DfE’s new standards from 2024 England’s teacher shortage could worsen after the government rejected appeals by dozens of established providers to gain official accreditation for their initial teacher training courses. Only 179 out of 240 existing courses have been accredited by the Department for Education (DfE) under its new standards for initial teacher training from 2024, and the DfE has now turned down all appeals from courses that missed out, including those run by the universities of Durham, Sussex and UWE Bristol. The decision has left providers considering legal action against the DfE, and set off a scramble to form partnerships with accredited providers or be forced to close courses. The Education Policy Institute (EPI), a thinktank, says about 68 courses failed to gain accreditation, putting 4,400 training places under threat – including 600 places for trainees in high demand subjects such as science, maths and technology. The changes are part of an overhaul of teacher training provision in England, which forced all current providers to apply for accreditation and created a National Institute of Teaching that aims to gain degree-awarding powers. But the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) said the appeals process was “seriously flawed” and could lead to providers that have been supplying schools with excellent teachers for many years being forced to withdraw. Emma Hollis, of the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers, said: “The implication is we are losing a significant number of high-quality providers. Incredibly, these include many who have been judged good or outstanding by Ofsted. “We can only hope the expertise of committed, hardworking and experienced staff is not lost from the sector altogether.” Last week it was revealed the DfE had missed its own targets for teacher recruitment this year, with overall numbers in training down by 20% to 29,000, compared with 36,000 trainees recruited last year. Recruitment for secondary school subjects was described as “catastrophic”, with only 59% of the government’s target being reached. Rachel Hewitt, the chief executive of the MillionPlus group representing modern universities, called on the DfE to “pause and undertake a review of this process as a matter of urgency before the country loses much needed teacher education providers for good”. Hewitt said she was concerned that many providers had lost their appeals despite strong track records. “MillionPlus and others within the sector have repeatedly warned that failure to award accreditation to well-established, high-quality university providers … is a serious own goal for the government,” she said. The EPI’s figures suggest that some regions will be more heavily affected, with the north-east and north-west of England at risk of losing about 1,000 training places, making it harder for local schools to recruit newly qualified teachers. The courses rejected by the DfE included those run by the University of Cumbria’s institute of education. Prof Julie Mennell, the university’s vice chancellor, said she was disappointed by the decision but hoped Cumbria would continue training teachers until it could win accreditation. “We are in very positive discussions with a world-class education provider, and we look forward to sharing the focus and ambition of this proposed collaboration in the coming days and weeks,” Mennell said. A spokesperson for the DfE said education was a top priority for the government, with an extra £2bn for schools for each of the next two years included in the autumn statement. “Historically, the number of initial teacher training providers has not impacted the number of teachers recruited into our schools and our investment will enable school leaders to continue to invest in high quality teaching and tutoring for those who need it most,” the DfE said.

‘We need to know the child is safe’: why UK schools are hiring truancy officers

2023-06-28

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/28/we-need-to-know-child-is-safe-why-schools-hiring-officers-crack-uk-truancy

Since the pandemic, more parents are keeping children at home. Queen’s Park primary, Bedford, is one of the state schools trying to reverse the trend Nadia Qayyum and Anne Greaves are patrolling the streets of Bedford, hoping to solve their next case. “A car’s in the driveway, looks like someone’s home,” Nadia says as they prepare to knock on the front door and ask questions.An anxious-looking woman answers the door. “Hello, is everything all right? Where have you been? We’ve been trying to get hold of you,” Qayyum asks in a friendly but firm tone.It is a missing person investigation, of a certain kind. Greaves and Qayyum are part of a new breed of education welfare and attendance officers increasingly being employed by state schools across England with the urgent task of repairing the fall-off in student attendance since the Covid pandemic.The pair work for Queen’s Park academy, a large primary school in Bedford, and are on the frontline dealing with a national issue: convincing parents that the best place for their child is in school regularly, and then investigating when that doesn’t happen.This Tuesday the pair are visiting the home of a pupil who is absent for a second consecutive day and whose parents have not been in touch. Multiple phone calls to the parents have not been answered – and concern deepened when a call to a parent’s mobile had an international ringtone. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “First and foremost, it’s a safeguarding issue. We need to know the child is safe, wherever they are,” Greaves later explains.This case has a happy ending: the family had been to France for a half-term holiday and only came back that morning. The mother gives a long explanation about their phones not working abroad and assures Qayyum and Greaves that her child will be in school the next morning.The second visit is to the home of a boy after a cryptic message was sent to the school saying he was not coming in. Although it was his first day of absence, the pair are concerned, partly because the vague message appeared to come from the boy himself and offered no reason, but also because he has a poor previous record for attendance.This time when they knock on the front door, the boy’s father answers. His son is asleep upstairs, and the pair ask if they can see him. Shortly afterwards, looking dishevelled and pale, the boy appears. “What’s the matter?” he is asked. “I woke up sick,” he replies.After a few more questions he is told to come back to school tomorrow when he is feeling better. “Any problems, Dad, he needs to go to the doctor, and let us know,” Qayyum tells the father.Since the pandemic, according to Qayyum and Greaves, parents seem more willing to keep children at home for minor illnesses or anxiety than before – and less willing to be strict with children who have other ideas.The education welfare and attendance officers start their day at 8.30am, greeting children as they arrive at school and talking to parents. Then they wait for teachers to take the roll and note absences, while checking on messages from parents.“If it’s quite vague, like ‘they are unwell’, then we follow up with a call to the parents. If it’s just a headache, we suggest they give some Calpol and then send them in. Sometimes it’s not even a headache, it’s waking up late,” said Greaves.“Sometimes we have parents who call us and say: ‘please help, I’ve tried everything, she won’t go,’ so we go and see what we can do. That’s part of our job, helping families get over the barriers that they or their children face,” said Qayyum.By 9.30am they have a good idea which pupils are absent, and start making phone calls to parents to check. The school’s policy is for all parents to be contacted, and for home visits to check on absences when the pupil has been off for two consecutive days without prior explanation. Children thought to be vulnerable or with a history of absence receive a visit immediately.Since the pandemic, Queen’s Park academy has made great efforts to ensure parents and pupils know that being in the classroom is their top priority. One successful tactic has been to enlist pupils who were serial absentees as attendance monitors. The role only involves delivering messages to teachers but it seems to work. “It gives them the feeling of responsibility, and they are really proud of it,” said Qayyum.Sometimes the school’s efforts to get daily attendance up to national pre-pandemic levels are frustrated by parents taking their children on unauthorised holidays, including some who are off for up to four weeks during term.The school tells parents that they will be fined – up to the maximum £60 a parent, for each child – for unauthorised holidays, but the prospect of saving hundreds of pounds by travelling outside the peak holiday periods is powerful.“We get the parents to come in, we sit them down and we say: this is not good for your children, they need to be in the classroom and learning. And we tell them that they will definitely be fined. But they have already budgeted for the fine, it makes no difference,” said Qayyum.

London to offer free school meals to all primary pupils for a year

2023-02-19

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/19/london-to-offer-free-school-meals-to-all-primary-pupils-for-a-year

Exclusive: Sadiq Khan’s plan, spurred by ministers’ ‘failure to act’, will save families about £440 for every child Free school meals will be offered to all primary school pupils across London for a year under plans by Sadiq Khan to tackle what he said was a failure by ministers to step up support during the cost of living crisis. The move will come into force from September, saving families about £440 for every child and benefiting 270,000 children, City Hall estimates. The mayor, who himself received free school meals as a boy, said he hoped the move would help “reduce the stigma that can be associated with being singled out as low-income” and boost take-up among families who needed the help most. Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren live in poverty but are not eligible for free school meals because of the government’s “restrictive” eligibility criteria, the mayor’s office said. A household on universal credit must make less than £7,400 a year – after tax and not including benefits – to be eligible. Khan’s one-off proposal, worth £130m and funded from higher-than-expected business rates income, is designed to fill that gap by making free meals universal across London primary schools. “The cost of living crisis means families and children across our city are in desperate need of additional support,” Khan said, before a visit to his old school, Fircroft primary in Tooting, south London. “I have repeatedly urged the government to provide free school meals to help already stretched families, but they have simply failed to act.” Khan said he knew “from personal experience that free school meals are a lifeline”, as his parents relied on them to give his family “a little extra breathing room financially”, and free meals could be “gamechanging” for others struggling to make ends meet. The mayor, who has said he intends to seek a third term in 2024, said the free meals would ensure parents “aren’t worrying about how they’re going to feed their children” and would stop them going hungry in the classroom so they could better concentrate on their studies. Charities and unions welcomed the move. Victoria Benson, the chief executive of the single parent charity Gingerbread, called it a “huge relief” given many children had “gone without basic essentials because household budgets have been stretched beyond breaking point”. Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, described it as a “much-needed lifeline” and hit out at a “decade of economic mismanagement from the government”. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Some London boroughs – including Islington, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets – already offer free primary school meals universally, and Westminster started offering them for 18 months from January. The average cost of a hot school meal for a primary school child was estimated by City Hall to be between £2.25 and £2.35; because children are expected to attend school for 190 days a year, the saving per child for families is projected to be about £440. An official announcement will be made on 23 February, as part of Khan’s final budget before the mayoral election scheduled for 2 May 2024. A Department for Education spokesperson said that since 2010, the number of children receiving a free meal at school had increased by more than 2 million, given the introduction of universal infant free school meals and “generous protections” put in place as benefit recipients move across to universal credit. They stressed that more than a third of pupils in England received free school meals in education settings, compared with 1.1 million in 2009, with investment in the National School Breakfast Programme to extend it for another year.

Not just Raac: the newly built English schools also closing over safety fears

2023-09-06

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/06/not-just-raac-newly-built-english-schools-closing-safety-fears

While crumbling concrete dominated headlines, the modern, modular construction methods used to make three new schools also failed Just days before the government suddenly ordered schools in England to close buildings at risk of collapse due to the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), another – somewhat smaller – school buildings story hit the headlines. Three virtually brand-new schools were suddenly told to close by the Department for Education (DfE) with immediate effect because of safety fears. A further two primary schools, it later emerged, had to be demolished before completion. The schools minister, Nick Gibb, was forced to admit there were issues with the structural integrity of the buildings and said they may not be able to withstand extreme events, including severe weather or being hit by a vehicle. Raac had played no part. While school buildings affected by Raac are generally much older – the material was widely used in the UK from the 1950s to the 1990s – these condemned school buildings were modern and built using the latest modular, off-site construction methods now favoured by the government. Yet they too failed. As a result, Sir Frederick Gibberd college in Harlow, Essex, which opened in 2021 having cost £29m to build, was ordered to close its main building and sports hall. Buckton Fields primary school in Northampton, which opened two years ago, was advised not to reopen, and Haygrove school, an academy in Bridgwater, Somerset, was told to close its main building, only completed in October 2020. With the condition of the school estate in England fast deteriorating, the DfE launched a £3bn programme in January 2020 to upgrade using “modern methods of construction”, involving off-site construction of modules that would be transported to site and then assembled. The benefits of such a system are that construction is quick – limiting disruption for pupils – and cost-effective. Building sites are much safer as much of the work happens off-site in a factory, and the quality is likely to be higher as it is made in a controlled environment. The closure of these new schools suggests it is not totally foolproof, however. The DfE identified a specific contractor, Caledonian Modular, which was involved with all the affected schools and has since gone out of business. It is now reviewing other DfE contracts, as well as those in other departments, to identify where Caledonian Modular may have been involved. Dr Lee Cunningham, a reader in structural engineering at the University of Manchester, said: “First and foremost, inherently there should not be a problem with modular construction if it’s done right.” Any issues are more likely to arise from construction defects, rather than design. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “Prefabrication remains attractive, not just for cost and speed of construction, but also for safety. In terms of site safety, the more that you can do in a controlled environment, in a factory, the better the quality of the product, but also, usually, the safer the processes are.” Michal Drewniok, a lecturer in civil engineering at the University of Leeds, agreed. “In general, modular construction is a good and efficient method of construction,” he said. “The quality of every single element is much better than elements that are actually made on the construction site. What really matters is the precision of assembling the different parts and proper maintenance.”

‘Child identifying as cat’ controversy: from TikTok video to media frenzy

2023-06-23

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/23/child-identifying-as-cat-controversy-from-a-tiktok-video-to-media-frenzy

Tory calls for urgent investigation raise eyebrows as Rye college says no pupil identifies ‘as a cat or any other animal’ It started off innocuously enough – a leaked snippet of teenage pupils at a school debating whether a person could identify as a cat. But within days, and thanks to a media frenzy, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer were being asked about the remarks. And by the end of the week, Kemi Badenoch was demanding the school be urgently investigated by Ofsted in case there were safeguarding issues. All this, despite the school itself saying no children had identified “as a cat or any other animal”. The controversy began when a student secretly recorded the discussion involving year 8 pupils at Rye college in East Sussex. In the excerpt posted to TikTok, a pupil describes the idea of another pupil identifying as a cow or cat as “crazy” and extends her remarks to include biological sex and gender as binary. A teacher is heard telling the student that their views were “despicable”, threatening to report them to a senior colleague and saying: “If you don’t like it, you need to go to a different school.” The audio was prominently reported by the Sun, and the Daily Mail began warning of outbreaks of so-called “furries” in schools. The prime minister’s spokesperson got involved, telling journalists: “Teachers … should also not be teaching contested opinions as fact or shutting down valid discussions and debates.” Asked whether a child could identify as a cat, a spokesperson for Keir Starmer said: “I think children should be told to identify as children.” By midweek the Department for Education had dispatched a civil servant to Rye college, while Katharine Birbalsingh, the headteacher of Michaela community school, was telling the Daily Telegraph she knew of a school where a pupil identified as “a gay male hologram” and a private school where “a bunch of girls identify as cats”. “It starts from when they are babies or toddlers and we give them a choice of food, rather than showing them to eat what’s in front of them,” Birbalsingh said. But the school has said that “no children at Rye college identifies as a cat or any other animal” and apologised to parents for the handling of the original discussion. Natasha Devon, a campaigner and broadcaster who was the DfE’s first “mental health champion”, said the controversy risked creating a dangerous climate in schools for both pupils and teachers. “I feel like it’s been blown totally out proportion. To be clear, I’m in three schools a week all over the UK. I’ve never met a pupil, I’ve never met a teacher or a parent, who has ever talked about anybody identifying as a cat. And if they did, I would assume it was a teenager messing about. “So it’s definitely not a trend in the way that it has been presented. And this is very much about trying to delegitimise those young people who are trans,” Devon said. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Devon agreed that the staff member involved “could have handled it better” but said it highlighted the pressure many teachers had been placed under. “There’s a lot of fear now around what you can and can’t say in a classroom and not being able to answer young people’s inquiries honestly. “What teachers should do is provide a factual counterpoint to a lot of what students are seeing on social media around sex and relationships education. And teachers are not able to do that effectively, because they’re so worried about the consequences of something being taken out of context and then a parent writing on Facebook and it being picked up by the tabloids,” Devon said. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders and a former headteacher, said: “There is a need for a sense of proportion here. This involves an incident at one school in which the trust has already met with the DfE to share an update on the events that took place, and the school has said that no pupils identify as a cat or any other animal. “Now we have politicians, including the minister for women and equalities, weighing in over this matter in a manner that is unnecessary, unhelpful and smacks of grandstanding. “To be clear, we have never heard of any issues arising at any schools over children identifying as animals. However, there are 9 million children in England’s schools so all sorts of discussions are bound to crop up in classrooms. Teachers and leaders are very good at dealing with whatever situation arises.” Barton said it underlined the need for the government to publish its promised guidance on transgender pupils in England, which ASCL first sought five years ago. “It is of the utmost importance that this guidance – which we believe to be imminent – is genuinely helpful and supportive to schools and pupils, and that it is not intolerant and burdensome,” he said. Ofsted inspected Rye college in January this year and rated it as good, with inspectors praising the school’s “robust” safeguarding and its “high quality” staff training. Asked about Badenoch’s request for a new inspection, a spokesperson for Ofsted said: “We are considering the letter but we don’t have anything further to add at this point.”

US school shootings double in a year to reach historic high

2023-09-14

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/14/us-school-shootings-record-rise-dramatic

Figures for 2021-22 covering elementary and secondary schools show a total of 327 shootings, 188 of which ended with casualties Schools in the United States are suffering an alarming rise in shootings, according to new federal data that shows the number of incidents reaching a historic peak for the second year running. Data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) records that in 2021-22 public and private schools, spanning both elementary and secondary levels, incurred a total of 327 shootings – a record high. The incidents involved a gun being brandished and fired or a bullet hitting school property. Of the 327 events, chronicled by NCES as part of its annual crime and safety report, 188 ended with casualties, and of those some 57 caused deaths. The rash of shootings amounts to a doubling of incidents on the year before, which was itself higher than any year since records began 25 years ago. In 2020-21, covering the start of the pandemic, there were a total of 146 school shootings, 93 of which caused casualties (including 43 with deaths). The number of shootings that led to no deaths or injuries also showed a startling increase. In 2021-22, there were 139 shootings without casualties, more than double the 53 registered the year before. The rise in recorded shootings is so dramatic between the two most recent years for which figures have been compiled that the NCES warns that the data should be interpreted “with caution”. Yet the data is likely to heighten concern about the safety of American schools, and intensify calls for more rigorous gun controls. The NCES report shows that public schools across the country have already ramped up extraordinary security measures over the past decade. Some 97% of schools now control access to their premises, 91% use security cameras, and 65% have security staff present at least one day a week. The proportion of schools that provide mental health assessments to evaluate students for mental health disorders has also risen to more than half. Sarah Burd-Sharps, of the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement that the new figures were distressing. “The threat of gun violence at our schools and in our communities has become a constant in our children’s lives, yet school shootings are not inevitable – they are the result of years of policy inaction.” The new federal report stops short of providing figures for 2022-23, the year in which the mass shooting in the Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, left 19 students and two teachers dead. Though the latest incidents have yet to be processed by the federal agency, shootings continue to occur in schools with troubling frequency. On Tuesday, a student was killed and two others injured at St Helena high school in Greensburg, Louisiana, after an active shooter opened fire. The report gives granular detail on the type of shooters involved and the situations in which the incidents occur. Almost all shooters were male, and by far the largest proportion of them were minors – more than 70% of active shooters were aged 12 to 18. The most common scenario was an escalation of a dispute, accounting for 28% of the shootings lodged in 2021-22. Drive-by shootings amounted to 12%, illegal activity 9%, accidental firing of a weapon 5%, and intentional property damage also 5%.

Exam marking boycott by UK university staff could delay graduations this summer

2023-04-18

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/18/exam-marking-boycott-hit-graduations-university-college-union

University and College Union to go ahead with industrial action after members reject offer on pay and working conditions Students face potential delays in their degree results and graduations this summer after the University and College Union said it would go ahead with industrial action over pay that could result in exams and essays being left unmarked. While UCU members called a halt to the union’s long-running dispute over pensions, after 85% voted to accept a deal to improve retirement benefits, they also voted to reject an offer on pay and working conditions, triggering the marking boycott starting on Thursday. Jo Grady, the UCU’s general secretary, said employers needed to return to negotiations to avoid delays caused by the assessment boycott by members working at 145 UK universities. “University staff have been clear that they want a better deal, and it is in the interests of employers to make an enhanced offer and prevent serious disruption hitting graduations,” Grady said. The rejected proposal would have committed employers to a consultation on ending the use of zero-hours contracts, as well as further negotiations on other forms of casual contracts, closing equality pay gaps and reducing workloads. The deal included an earlier pay increase of between 5% and 8% made earlier this year. The boycott means that exam results or coursework marks could be delayed, leaving some students unable to graduate before the end of the academic year unless institutions opt to award degrees using previous marks. The UCU will hold a special meeting of its higher education branch this week to consider further steps over pay, which may include strike action. Last month UCU members were on strike for six days, and voted to renew the union’s strike mandate for a further six months. Raj Jethwa, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, said the rejection of the pay offer was “disappointing but not surprising” after UCU advised members to vote against acceptance. Jethwa suggested that the union’s membership was split over the deal, with only a third of its members voting in consultative ballot to reject the offer, despite employers taking part in talks with UCU on working conditions through the Acas conciliation service. “Although two-thirds of academics are not actually members of UCU or any union, any threat to hurt students by not assessing their work through the marking and assessment boycott is taken extremely seriously. Despite consistent feedback from higher education institutions confirming low and isolated industrial action impacts, institutions will again prioritise mitigations to support students,” Jethwa said. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Grady hailed the end of the pensions dispute as a life-changing victory for the union. “When we launched our pensions dispute, university vice-chancellors doubted us, and government ministers criticised us,” Grady said. “We were told it was impossible to win back a stolen pension, but today UCU members have proven that it can be done, and we have taken a giant step towards a historic victory that will change lives.”. The pensions deal aims to overturn substantial cuts in retirement income imposed through the universities superannuation scheme last year, which UCU claimed would reduce average benefits by 35%. This article was amended on 20 April 2023. An earlier version said that UCU members rejected a proposal on ending the use of zero-hours contracts and other forms of casual contracts; this should have made clear it was a consultation on this issue that was voted against. Also, UCU members were on strike for six days in March, not three.

Ofsted accused of ‘misleading’ inquest into death of teacher Ruth Perry

2023-12-02

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/02/ofsted-misled-inquest-death-teacher-ruth-perry-training-claim

Inspectors say claims made to coroner about wellbeing training following death of Reading headteacher are ‘nonsense’ School inspectors have accused their employer, Ofsted, of misleading the court during last week’s inquest into the death of headteacher Ruth Perry, the Observer can reveal. Over the past week the inquest has heard from Perry’s colleagues that she “looked extremely distressed and upset” and was unable to speak coherently only a few hours into the inspection. The chair of governors and two deputy headteachers at her primary school in Reading have told the coroner that there was a “direct link” between the inspection and Perry’s subsequent mental deterioration and death earlier this year. A key element of Ofsted’s evidence has been the claim that reducing teacher stress is a “core value” on which inspectors were trained. Asked on the first day of the inquest whether there was specific training in place for inspectors at the time of Perry’s inspection last November about what to do if they saw a teacher in distress, Chris Russell, Ofsted’s national director of education, told the court: “That is something that very much comes into our training.” However, this weekend inspectors told the Observer they believe this was misleading. A secondary headteacher who resigned as an inspector earlier this year, speaking anonymously, said: “It is nonsense that inspectors received training on headteacher wellbeing or reducing stress. That didn’t happen.” The Observer has spoken to five inspectors who were working for Ofsted when Perry’s primary school in Reading was inspected, all of whom said they received no training on detecting, managing or reducing stress or distress. A senior Ofsted insider also confirmed that no training was given on these issues at that time. When asked by the Observer, Ofsted did not confirm or deny misleading about training. It said, however, that the coroner has now directed them to provide written evidence of training materials which they agreed to do. The secondary headteacher claimed that while he was still an inspector his own school was inspected by a “brutal” lead inspector who “absolutely destroyed” good teaching staff, and left him feeling panic and despair about his own future. He said one subject head at his school had a “terrifying” hour and a half interview. “The inspector didn’t notice she was physically shaking for the entire 90 minutes,” he claimed. He described the pressure Ofsted places on heads as “absolutely awful”. “In my experience Ofsted is not preparing inspection teams for having difficult conversations with some humanity,” he added. Julie Price-Grimshaw, a former inspector who now helps schools prepare for inspections, said: “There is no training. It is not a core value of Ofsted’s to try to reduce stress.” Price-Grimshaw said she talked to colleagues this week, some of whom are still serving as inspectors and others who left recently. “I asked them if there was any training about empathy or reducing stress at the time of Ruth’s inspection and they all said no. People even checked back in their training materials. There was nothing.” A current inspector told the Observer he had spoken to a senior Ofsted insider last week who agreed there was no training on stress at the time of Perry’s inspection. “Neither of us can recall any training,” he said. “In Ofsted’s conference this September there was a reference to having a bedside manner but this wasn’t explored any further.” Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion The headteacher of a primary school in the north of England, who asked not to be named, said of her recent traumatic inspection: “To say my inspector walked in with a ‘god complex’ would be an understatement. He had no interest in mental health and wellbeing.” She said she cried during one meeting when the inspector started using the word “inadequate” about her school, and she also claims that “he literally rolled his eyes at me but kept going”. A newly qualified teacher on her staff cried uncontrollably after allegedly being grilled by the inspector, telling the head repeatedly that she had let the school down. The head confronted the inspector about this but recalled: “He didn’t care. He just said she was right to be upset because she didn’t know what she was doing.” Headrest, a charitable helpline for headteachers, said it found Ofsted was the single biggest cause of poor mental health in school leaders and the subject of most of the crisis calls they receive. Its founder, Andrew Morrish, a former inspector, said: “To be told by a stranger who has never been in your school before that it is failing is devastating. It feels incredibly personal. You can’t defend yourself.” Dave McPartlin, headteacher of Flakefleet primary school in Fleetwood, Lancashire, said: “I see what Ofsted pressure is doing to my colleagues and I’ve felt what it is doing to my own mental health. Enough is enough.” A spokesperson for Ofsted said: “We were deeply saddened by the death of Ruth Perry and our thoughts remain with her loved ones and the community at Caversham Primary School.” They added Ofsted had listened to the public debate on inspections and announced “measures to improve aspects of the work” this summer.

David Lyon obituary

2023-08-02

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/02/david-lyon-obituary

My husband, David Lyon, who has died aged 87, spent his working life in further education as one of the youngest and then one of the longest-serving college principals in Britain. His first job, in Kenya in 1960, involved inspecting and teaching in remote schools. While he lived there he started to research the development of African government in Kenya between 1900 and 1962, which led to a PhD from Nottingham University in 1966. Returning to the UK in 1962 he became a teacher at colleges in Derby, Harlow and Nottingham before becoming principal of Grantham College in Lincolnshire in 1971, aged 36. After his first marriage, to Pamela (nee Reed), ended in divorce, he moved to Chesterfield College of Technology in Derbyshire as principal in 1979 and was reappointed when it merged with Chesterfield College of Art in 1984, becoming one of the larger colleges in the Midlands. We met there when I was a head of department, and we were married in December 1985. David was born in Hong Kong, to David Lyon, an electrical engineer, and Rene (nee Griffiths), a housewife and later a secretary, before moving in 1940 to India, where his brother, Peter, was born. The family moved back to England when David was 11 years old. He attended Wallasey grammar school in Merseyside and Sir George Monoux grammar school in Walthamstow, London, and then graduated in economics in 1958 from Nottingham University. He was a boxing blue at university, and became a British universities boxing champion in 1958. David returned to university after his retirement in 2000, obtaining a first-class honours degree in Spanish and Hispanic studies, aged 72, from Sheffield. This was followed by a master’s in history, also from Sheffield. His research for it in Andalucía and the Basque Country led to his book Bitter Justice being published by the University of Nevada when he was 82. David had been a Samaritan and a local magistrate as a young man in Grantham. In later life, he served on the Derbyshire family practitioners committee, which decided whether young women could be released from care, became a trustee of Ashgate Hospice care and was an elected governor of Chesterfield Royal hospital. He also taught Spanish and the Spanish civil war to part-time groups for the Workers’ Educational Association and the U3A (University of the Third Age). David is survived by me, his children, Heather and Jane, from his marriage to Pamela, and grandchildren, David, Miranda, Eduard, Isabella, Pablo and Luisa.

Guidance on political impartiality in English classrooms ‘confusing’ say teachers’ unions

2022-02-17

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/feb/17/guidance-on-political-impartiality-in-english-classrooms-confusing-say-teachers-unions

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi warns against promoting contested theories as fact New guidance on political impartiality in the classroom is confusing and likely to scare teachers in England away from tackling important subjects such as climate change and racism, according to education unions. The guidance issued by the Department for Education says that recent historical events “which are particularly contentious and disputed”, such as “many topics relating to empire and imperialism”, should be taught “in a balanced manner”. The DfE’s guidance singles out the Black Lives Matter movement, saying that while teachers should be clear “that racism has no place in our society”, the demands of campaigning organisations such as BLM “go beyond the basic shared principle that racism is unacceptable”. In teaching of scientific facts around climate change, teachers are told they should not provide balance in the form of misinformation or unsubstantiated claims. However, the guidance goes on to state that “where teaching covers the potential solutions for tackling climate change, this may constitute a political issue”. Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, said: “I don’t want there to be any barriers – real or perceived – to teachers’ vital work in this space, which is why I am reinforcing that no subject is off-limits in the classroom, as long as it is treated in an age-appropriate way, with sensitivity and respect, and without promoting contested theories as fact.” But Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said that the guidance “does not so much clarify existing guidance as add new layers of mystification and complexity to it” for teachers and school leaders. “This could induce such a level of uncertainty and caution in schools about ‘political issues’ that they are less likely to engage with them,” Bousted said. “The losers in the DfE’s 34-page game of obfuscation about what is and is not a ‘political’ issue will be the students who are denied the opportunity to engage with the most challenging issues of our time. “The warning lights that the government is flashing around climate change, racism, world poverty and the legacy of empire as topics of exploration are more likely to decrease students’ engagement with learning than to stimulate it.” The DfE guidance – which contains no new statutory requirements and is based on existing legal duties – avoids defining “political issues”, stating that ethical debates are not political issues if they are “shared principles that underpin our society”, such as freedom of speech or challenging racism. Instead, school leaders and teachers are told to use “reasonable judgment to determine what is and is not a ‘political issue’”. The guidance also warns against reliance on teaching material provided by external agencies. In one scenario of teaching about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the document says teachers need to ensure that any external resources used are impartial. When teaching younger pupils about “significant” political figures, “including those who have controversial and contested legacies”, schools are advised “to focus on teaching about what these figures are most renowned for and factual information about them if teachers think pupils may not be able to understand the contested nature of more complex analyses of their lives, beliefs and actions”. More complex discussions about controversial figures “might be reserved for older pupils who are more likely to be able to understand and engage in this debate”. The Association of School and College Leaders said it would be “studying the guidance carefully to understand its implications”. “The vast majority of teachers are very good at managing these discussions in a way that is balanced and impartial. We welcome anything which helps them to navigate this difficult territory. However, we are keen that this should not be over-prescriptive as it could have the unintended consequence of deterring open discussions,” the ASCL said.

Schools in England seeing more pupil absences on Fridays

2023-03-08

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/07/schools-in-england-seeing-more-pupil-absences-on-fridays

Change in parents’ work patterns since Covid may have led to pupils staying home Schools in England are experiencing “a huge amount” of pupil absence on Fridays, with many children staying at home with their parents and caregivers after a shift in attitudes since Covid, MPs have been told. Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, told the education committee that persistent absence from schools was “one of the issues of our age” and called for a “razor sharp focus” on the problem. The committee heard that mental health issues, disadvantage and unmet special educational needs and disabilities were significant factors behind increased persistent absence in schools since the Covid crisis. De Souza said she had data analysis that showed 818,000 of the 1.6 million children who were persistently absent across the autumn and spring terms in 2021-22 were off school for reasons other than illness. “I think that’s very serious,” she said. She also told MPs that discussions with families had revealed a number of additional reasons why children were missing school. “One is because of online learning in Covid, there’s a little bit of, ‘Well, why can’t we just have online learning’. So that attitude has come through a bit.” She also pointed to analysis of attendance data – before and after Covid – provided by a number of large multi-academy trusts, which showed a jump in the number of pupils not attending school on Fridays, a trend that did not exist before the pandemic. “We’re seeing a huge amount of Friday absence that wasn’t there before,” she told the committee. “Parents are at home on Fridays. We’ve had evidence from kids: ‘Well, you know, mum and dad are at home, stay at home.’” More parents are working from home as patterns changed as a result of the Covid crisis. MPs also heard that a “cultural shift” away from schools as purely places of academic learning with a new emphasis on enrichment activities and pastoral care could help improve attendance. Alice Wilcock, the head of education at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) thinktank, said increased academic pressure to catch up, plus the feeling that activities pupils enjoyed such as sport or music were being squeezed out of the curriculum, were fostering a disengagement from education. She called for a particular focus on severe absence, where pupils miss more than 50% of school sessions, and said the CSJ had pointed out that numbers multiplied over the past 10 years to 118,000 children. As of autumn 2020, more than 1,000 schools had an entire class-worth of children who were severely absent. Meanwhile, long waiting lists for child and adolescent mental health services meant pupils with anxiety and other mental health disorders that make attendance difficult were in effect “being pushed out of school”, MPs were told. A separate report, published by the children’s commissioner’s office on Wednesday, found that average waiting times between children being referred to mental health services and starting treatment had increased for the first time since 2017. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion According to the commissioner’s analysis, they have risen from 32 days in 2020-21 to 40 days in 2021-22. It highlighted the so-called postcode lottery parents still face, with stark differences in waiting times depending on where you live, from 13 days in Leicester to 80 in Sunderland. De Souza noted the high proportion of girls detained under the Mental Health Act. Of the 869 children detained in 2021-2, 71% were female, the commissioner’s analysis showed. Overall, however, there had been a fall in the number of children detained, sectioned, or admitted to inpatient mental health wards. The commissioner said: “It’s clear that mental health support for children across the country is patchy, despite some good progress made by the NHS in the years leading up to the pandemic.” A government spokesperson said: “We are already investing £2.3bn a year into mental health services, meaning an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access NHS-funded mental health support they need by 2024. “Support in school is vital, and we are committed to increasing the number of mental health teams to almost 400 by April 2023, providing support to 3 million children and young people.”

Rosemary Hobsbaum obituary

2023-08-20

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/20/rosemary-hobsbaum-obituary

My mother, Rosemary Hobsbaum, who has died aged 86, was an English teacher and student guidance counsellor with a great love of literature and art. She was born in Ilfracombe, north Devon. Her father, John Phillips, a maths teacher, died when she was four, leaving her mother, Hilda (nee Moore), a violin teacher, on her own. Money was in short supply. At Ilfracombe grammar school Rosemary developed a love for English literature. Through literature Rosemary realised there was more to life – and that academia offered her a way out. She applied to Somerville College, Oxford, to study English and was accepted. At Oxford, Rosemary found her tribe and she also met George Singleton, her future husband. She graduated in 1958 and they married the following year, settling in Glasgow, where she trained at Jordanhill Teacher Training College. She had found her vocation and loved teaching in the newly forged comprehensive schools of the city. After her first position at Knightswood secondary school, she settled at North Kelvinside school in 1962 and stayed there for a decade. At teacher training college she became friends with a young art teacher, Alasdair Gray, who went on to achieve great success as a writer and artist. Rosemary and George were among the first to commission works by him, including a portrait of them both and a large black and white mural for the stairwell in their home, which still survives in the house to this day. Rosemary and George divorced in 1974. In 1976 Rosemary married the poet and critic Philip Hobsbaum. Their 30-year marriage was powered by their shared love of literature – Philip called her his “anima candida” (“pure soul”). Meanwhile Rosemary became not only an excellent English teacher but also moved into the guidance field, helping many students through their tough high school years. In 1974 she moved to Colston secondary school, where she became deputy principal of guidance. In 1990 she took up a deputy principal of guidance post at Hillhead high school. She also referred many students for Oxbridge applications. She retired in 2000. In retirement she was a director of the Citizens theatre. As a great advocate for theatre in education, she chaperoned many groups of children to see performances. She was a Labour party member and took an active role, delivering leaflets and attending meetings up until her final years. In 2005, after Philip died, Rosemary moved to Reading to be near her daughter Mary. She read many books a week. She loved cinema, theatre and art. After I went to Toronto in 2006, she travelled to Canada often to visit. She also met a new partner, Norman Hixson, a neighbour in her retirement flats, and enjoyed several happy years with him until his death in 2022. She is survived by her daughters, Mary and me, and by four grandchildren, Amy, Jacob, Gregor and Sam.

Lack of psychologists hits pupils with special educational needs

2021-08-29

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/29/lack-of-psychologists-hits-pupils-with-special-educational-needs

Councils are struggling to complete children’s education and care plans before the new school year because of a shortage of specialists Councils in England are struggling to assess the level of support children with special educational needs require because of a shortage of educational psychologists, with the start of the school year just days away. Education, health and care plans (EHCPs) set out the extra provision that children with high special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are legally entitled to. To decide whether to provide an EHCP, and what should go in it, councils must carry out an assessment, sourcing advice and information from an educational psychologist. But a letter sent to parents this month by North Yorkshire county council indicates that most local authorities in England do not have enough of these specialists to provide essential reports. The letter said the council was “currently experiencing significant difficulties” completing assessments within the statutory limit of 20 weeks. “Over the last year, educational psychology staff have retired, been on maternity leave or have moved into new roles and despite three ambitious recruitment campaigns, we have been unable to recruit to the various posts. “This is not an issue purely for North Yorkshire; the Department for Education have been monitoring educational psychology capacity during the pandemic and the current data identifies that 70% of local authorities are operating with reduced educational psychology capacity.” The result is likely to be that children with conditions such as autism, will start the new school year without the necessary support in place. The Department for Education said that the 70% figure quoted by North Yorkshire was a snapshot from earlier this year rather than showing the current picture, but would not provide an updated figure, describing it as unpublished internal analysis. But David Collingwood, president of the Association of Educational Psychologists, said the figure is “probably accurate, given the number of advertisements we carry”. Collingwood said the shortage was due to rising numbers of EHCP assessments, “which causes inappropriate workload demands, leading to stress, and educational psychologists leave to work on a private basis, or take up casual employment in an effort to look after their own wellbeing… Much of this is due to budgetary issues in the public sector.” “Educational psychology assessments are usually crucial in developing a comprehensive EHCP so any delay in [their] advice matters. Some authorities have had to outsource a large number of statutory assessments; others are working a long way behind statutory schedules.” Helen Page is having to go to a tribunal to get her daughter’s additional support added to her EHCP so that it is legally protected. “She’s not had ed psych [educational psychology]input for two years, but the school doesn’t have the resources to get the ed psych in for every child that needs it,” she said. “Provision can’t be added to the EHCP without their recommendation and I’ve ended up going round and round in circles. “She finds the classroom and other students’ behaviour unmanageable and she will start to tell them off and it’s led to bullying. In some lessons she has a [teaching assistant] who provides behavioural support to the class and it’s reduced her anxiety hugely and she’s a different child. I want that putting into the EHCP. But they won’t do that because there is no professional recommendation.” Anntoinette Bramble, of the Local Government Association, said: “Since the extension of the eligibility for Send support in 2014, councils have seen a near 50% rise in children and young people with education, health and care plans, with more than 130 children and young people starting support plans with their council every day. “This has not been accompanied by an adequate increase in funding. Many councils are finding they’re struggling to recruit and retain staff like educational psychologists, when they can find more favourable salaries via other employers, including the NHS. “The government need to urgently conclude their long-awaited review into Send support and ensure it works effectively for everyone. This should be accompanied by sufficient long-term funding in the spending review later this year so councils and their partners can give the support to children and young people with special educational needs that they deserve.” North Yorkshire council did not respond to a request for comment.

Schools call for end to ‘archaic’ daily worship following UK census results

2022-12-03

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/03/schools-call-for-end-to-archaic-daily-worship-following-uk-census-results

With fewer than half the population in England and Wales describing themselves as Christian, there are calls to end religious assemblies Daily worship in schools should end, according to teachers and education experts who have branded the legal requirement “archaic” now that England is not predominantly Christian. The 2021 census revealed last week that for the first time fewer than half the population in England and Wales described themselves as Christian, while 37% said they had “no religion”. Currently, all state schools are legally required to provide an act of “collective worship” that is “broadly Christian” every day. Many heads admit privately they no longer stick to this, preferring to run less religious assemblies more relevant to their diverse student bodies. But Nick Gibb, the schools minister, confirmed last year that his department would investigate any alleged breach of this requirement. Prof Russell Sandberg, an expert on law and religion at Cardiff University, said: “The legal framework is stuck in the 1940s. The census underlines that requiring a daily act of worship is utterly archaic and discriminatory.” Nikki McGee, lead teacher on religious education for the Inspiration trust, which runs 18 schools in Norfolk, said: “The collective worship is pretty much meaningless in schools that are not faith based. The census results show it is archaic.” Mark Shepstone, assistant head at Bungay high school in Suffolk, said the requirement for collective worship is “simply ignored” in a lot of schools, and called for the government to drop it completely following the census results. “In the schools I have worked in since 2007, there’s never been a daily act of collective worship,” he said. “We still do assemblies and they will often have a moral message, but they aren’t daily.” He added that he could count on one hand the number of Christian assemblies he had seen in 15 years. The head of a secondary school in the south-west, who asked not to be named, said most school leaders of non-faith schools fudged the law when planning assemblies. “We all dance around it, but in truth it’s not collective worship. It’s more like group pastoral messaging.” The law on collective worship was passed in 1944, along with a requirement for all students to study religious education. Parents and sixth formers can now opt out of these, but many education experts say it is time for the government to rethink all its policies on religion in schools. Sandberg called the census “a wake-up call” for ministers. “There is a squeamishness in Westminster about discussing it because of the historical power of religion,” he said “But the law breaches children’s human rights because they have no choice.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion He said that, because more than a third of schools are faith based, with religious schools especially prevalent at primary level, many children will be having a Christian education that they wouldn’t choose. “If your local school is faith based, the religious ethos pervades everything and you can’t opt out,” he added. A spokesperson for the Department for Education said there are no plans to review this law. She said: “Collective worship encourages pupils to reflect on the concept of belief and the role it plays in society. Schools are able to tailor their provision to suit their pupils’ needs.”

Progressives are resisting rightwing book banning campaigns – and are winning

2022-03-22

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/22/educators-resisting-rightwing-book-banning

Advocates defeated a reactionary measure in Indiana, suggesting a growing backlash against education censorship The right wing in America has spent the past 18 months waging an increasingly vocal war on education, banning books and restricting the discussions teachers can have in classrooms, usually when it comes to issues like racism or sexuality. That could be starting to change, however, as progressives have won a series of victories in some states, suggesting a backlash against education censorship could be on the way. So far in 2022 the left has forced Republicans in Indiana to abandon legislation that would have placed severe restrictions on what teachers can say in classrooms, while in New Hampshire liberal candidates won sweeping victories against conservative “anti-critical race theory” candidates in school board elections. Critical race theory is an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society, but it has become a catch-all buzzword on the right. The progressive wins are a development that looked unlikely as the right wing, often through organizations with connections to wealthy Republican donors, has introduced bill after bill in states across the country. The campaign has successfully banned books, predominantly pertaining to issues of race or sexuality, from school districts, while some states have already banned discussion of the modern-day impact of historical racism in the US. In Indiana, education advocates celebrated in late February after HB1134, a bill which the Indianapolis Star reported would have restricted how teachers could discuss racial inequality and sexual orientation, was defeated. The bill had passed the Indiana house in January, but amid concerted protests led by the Indiana State Teachers Association the legislation was watered down before it made it to the Republican-controlled senate, which ultimately said it did not have the votes to pass the bill. “Every day we had folks that came to Indianapolis,” said Keith Gambill, president of ISTA. “I think it was just that constant drumbeat from our organization and the other organizations that stood in solidarity with us that made the difference.” It helped that the Indiana senate had previously torpedoed its own version of the house legislation. In early January one Republican senator said teachers “need to be impartial” when discussing subjects including nazism and fascism, prompting national headlines and widespread backlash. The death of HB1134 was an important victory for Indiana teachers, but Gambill said there had still been consequences. “What we are finding both in the state of Indiana and nationally is that we are losing educators at an alarming rate. “Some of that certainly is on pay, but that’s not the only thing that is driving the exodus. When you have bills such as this that continue to just be this wedge issue, invading your workspace, folks start looking around saying: ‘These other companies are hiring and I have all of the qualifications.’” The Indiana legislation mirrored rightwing efforts in other states to drive honest discussion of race and sexuality from classrooms. PEN America, a non-profit organization that works to protect freedom of expression, said 155 bills that would censor what teachers can say or teach in classrooms were introduced in 38 states in 2021, while 2022 has seen a “steep rise” in the introduction of what PEN America calls “gag orders”. In Florida a “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would ban discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, is expected to be signed into law by Ron DeSantis, the state’s governor. The bill would allow parents to file lawsuits against school boards if they believe policies violate the law. A bill being considered in Kansas would change the state’s obscenity law, making it a class B misdemeanor for a teacher to use any material which depicts “homosexuality” in a classroom, while looming legislation in Arizona would allow parents to sue teachers and school districts for perceived violations of parental rights. While the right wing has rallied around the issue of classroom censorship, there is little evidence that a majority of parents are demanding a crackdown on what their children can read, or be taught. In February a CNN poll found that only 12% of Americans believed parents “should have the most sway over which library books are on the shelves and how American history is taught”. Far from there being a popular uprising against what teachers are imparting to students, the censorship efforts have frequently been pushed by conservative groups with ties to deep-pocketed rightwing donors. Groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education have been instrumental in book banning attempts in the US, often presenting themselves as small, “grassroots” efforts, while in reality they have links to prominent, wealthy Republicans. Those groups have had success in several states by packing school boards, which have substantial say over what can be taught in schools, but there are signs that a shift may be coming. In New Hampshire, teaching advocates celebrated a big win in March after progressive candidates swept to victory in school board elections around the state. Granite State Progress backed 30 candidates in the elections, with 29 of those successful, some in traditionally conservative districts. Zandra Rice Hawkins, the group’s executive director, said the group had been inundated with calls from organizations and school board candidates around the country who are keen to replicate the success. She is hopeful that there could be further victories, and a rejection of the right wing’s draconian censorship efforts, to come. “We think that what happened here in New Hampshire is a sign of things to come across our state and across the nation,” Rice Hawkins said. “Public education is a bedrock of democracy, and so many people are aware of that and I think the things that are happening now, talks of banning books and other things like that, that’s got a lot of people paying attention, and frankly this GOP strategy of trying to drive a wedge between parents and communities and their public schools is going to backfire in a major way.”

Gavin Williamson’s new job is an insult to teachers using food banks | Letters

2022-07-03

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jul/03/gavin-williamsons-new-job-is-an-insult-to-teachers-using-food-banks

Yvonne Williams and Les Bright on the former education secretary taking a £50,000-a-year second job as a teaching strike looms The government’s pay offer to teachers so far is derisory (Teaching unions warn of strikes in England despite reports of improved pay offer, 1 July). What makes it even more insulting is the news that Gavin Williamson, education secretary during the lockdowns, is about to earn £50,000 a year for a part-time second job advising an education firm chaired by a Tory donor, which has itself given large sums to the party (Report, 29 June). Teachers could not have done more; Williamson could hardly have done less. Guidance from the Department for Education routinely arrived just in time to blight holidays and weekends, laptops for students in digital poverty were delivered so slowly that some were still waiting a year later. Goodness knows that there’s enough micromanagement of teachers, so surely there could have been some nudging of suppliers and civil servants to get resources out on time. But it’s not just the lack of recognition for services that teachers rendered to children which piled on crippling overtime to their workload. It’s the impact of decades of pay freezes that have taken some teachers from the heights of the Houghton pay award in the 1970s to the food banks of 2022.Yvonne WilliamsRyde, Isle of Wight In securing a job paying £625 per hour, Gavin Williamson is a beacon of hope for many people struggling to manage during these inflationary times. Perhaps he could tell us where this “job” was advertised so that we can keep our eyes peeled for further opportunities?Les BrightExeter, Devon Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

Disabled children disproportionately affected by UK cost of living crisis

2023-06-04

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/04/disabled-children-disproportionately-affected-uk-cost-of-living-crisis

Families who have extra costs because of a child’s disability are going without electricity or heating Disabled children are being forced to go without electricity or heating because their families are being disproportionately harmed by the cost-of-living crisis, according to research by a children’s charity. The Childhood Trust said that the rising cost of energy bills and other inflation was affecting the families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) even more than their mainstream counterparts. Families with Send children needed an extra £581 a month on average before the pandemic – the equivalent of a £10,000 a year pay rise before tax for average earners – to have the same standard of living as those without special needs, according to the trust’s report, People don’t understand. “Adjusted for inflation, that [£581 figure] is going to be much higher now,” said Laurence Guinness, chief executive of the Childhood Trust, which supports more than 200 grassroots charities. “We know everyone’s been disadvantaged, but I think the data tells us that kids with Send are suffering disproportionately, which is really alarming because they are our most vulnerable. “During Covid old people were disproportionately affected – they were dying in care homes at alarming rates. This is another scenario akin to that where the weakest, the most vulnerable, the ones who should get the most support and protection are in fact massively lacking support and [are] invisible.” Today, the Childhood Trust launched its Champions for Children appeal, a two-week fundraising campaign aiming to raise £3.5m for a year-long comprehensive programme of services for 100,000 vulnerable and disadvantaged children. For its research the trust surveyed social workers, charities and children with Send and their parents, and discovered that children had been forced to miss meals because of the cost-of-living crisis or had struggled to keep the heating going. Some had missed school several times over the past three months and reported being bullied in mainstream settings. Raising a child with special needs is more expensive because things that other parents take for granted become much harder. Children might need a hoist to get them in or out of a wheelchair, an electric adjustable bed to avoid injury or a dedicated fridge for medicines – adding to a family’s electricity bill. Other extra costs include specialist transport, medical equipment and sanitary protection. Social workers told researchers they were also less able to provide specialised transport, arrange day trips or provide personal care or medical equipment. More than half said that it had become harder for parents to simply secure a diagnosis. “There’s been times when the [pre-paid] electricity [meter] has gone off completely,” said Sylvia, a single mother in London whose 18-year-old son is autistic, has ADHD, a heart defect and knee problems that add up to about 15 hospital appointments a year. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “I’m fortunate that I can use the credit card for emergencies but it still has to be paid. It feels like I’m digging my way out of a hole every day.” Each year the council rejects her requests for improvements to his Education Health and Care Plan. It took four years until the bathroom was modified to become a wet room. Her son is not yet able to sit his SATs – usually done by children finishing primary education – and she would like to find extra tuition for him. And the rising cost of food and fuel means going out for treats is almost impossible. “I would really like some support, some respite,” Sylvia said. “I’m constantly on the go and it’s impacting my son’s behaviour – you can see the scraps of frustration around why he can’t do the things his friends are doing, because we just can’t afford it.” The solution advocated by Guinness is to support charities such as TAG Youth Club, which offers Send children in south-west London activities including wheelchair parkour, disabled skiing, rock climbing, fencing, archery, Ninja Warrior training and cooking. Membership has soared from 98 to 246 this year according to chief executive Giles Hobart. “It’s because we offer affordable activities,” Hobart said. “Parents before were looking at things like theme parks and now they’re too expensive. We just ask for a donation.” TAG is unusual because it accepts children with any kind of need or disability, so children with Down’s syndrome can mix with autistic children rather than staying in the same group all the time. During the cooking classes, TAG makes sure that the students cook extra meals. “They get put in microwavable pots and we say ‘There’s some spare meals if anyone wants one’. People don’t want to be seen to have handouts. But all the meals go.” He said funders such as the GLA and the National Lottery Fund often only gave grants for limited periods of a few years. “They expect to give you a three-year grant then carry on. But a lot of organisations shut down and they have to find another one. We started because another club closed down. It’s a vicious circle.”

Ruth Perry ‘amazed’ more heads did not kill themselves, inquest hears

2023-12-01

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/01/ruth-perry-was-amazed-other-heads-didnt-kill-themselves-inquest-hears

Hearing into death of Caversham primary school head was also told she thought Ofsted inspections were ‘inhumane’ Ruth Perry told an NHS clinician she was “amazed” that more headteachers did not take their own lives as a result of Ofsted inspections during a conversation a few weeks before her death, an inquest has heard. “This is the most inhumane system. It’s totally wrong that one person is made to feel like this. I’m amazed that there are not more heads killing themselves,” Perry said during treatment she received for her mental health struggles following Ofsted’s inspection of her school. She added: “Ofsted needs to change.” The inquest, at Reading coroner’s court, also heard from Perry’s GP and other medical professionals from whom she sought help as her mental health deteriorated following Ofsted’s inspection of Caversham primary school in Reading, where Perry was head teacher. Ofsted downgraded the school from “outstanding” to “inadequate” over safeguarding procedures, and Perry’s family said she took her own life as a result. Daniel Buckley, a senior mental health practitioner at Prospect Park psychiatric hospital in Reading, and Dr Thomas Back, Perry’s GP, told Berkshire’s senior coroner, Heidi Connor, that the Ofsted inspection played a role in her death. Buckley said that Perry told him that Ofsted’s confidentiality requirements meant she could not reveal the result of the inspection, and that was one of her “chief concerns”. Under Ofsted’s rules, school leaders are told the results of an inspection and shown draft copies of the Ofsted report, but are forbidden to reveal or discuss the report or judgment publicly. The inspection took place in mid-November, but the results had not been published by the time of her death in early January. Dr Back told the inquest that Perry had no history of mental health problems in the previous 30 years, but he had repeated consultations with her after she was diagnosed with an “acute stress reaction” after the inspection. By the end of the year, Dr Back said Perry’s condition had “definitely taken a downward turn” but that she insisted on returning to work after Christmas. Perry was “frustrated that she couldn’t move forward” without the Ofsted judgment being published. Asked by the coroner if the delay in publication was linked to her death, Dr Back said: “I think so, because it meant that she didn’t have that release from what she was experiencing, all the fears she had built up, and what the release of the inspection details would have on her.” A statement by Jonathan Perry, Ruth Perry’s husband, also charted her mental deterioration while she was waiting for the Ofsted report to be made public. Jonathan Perry said his wife “was terrified that she would lose her job. She knew that an inadequate judgment meant the end of most headteachers’ careers. She kept repeating that she’d let everyone down, her staff, the school’s children and parents, and her family.” Jonathan Perry said she was also scared that her own children would be bullied, and even that Caversham house prices would go down when the school lost its outstanding grade, making others in the community angry with her. The weekend after the inspection, Ruth Perry reported “dark thoughts”, so the pair went to Prospect Park hospital to seek help, but she was unable to trust staff to keep the Ofsted result confidential. “When we got home from the hospital, Ruth Googled, ‘What do headteachers do when they have an inadequate Ofsted judgment?’ She wanted to find some practical advice and suggestions; instead, she found, shockingly, reports of several deaths by suicide,” Jonathan Perry stated. Perry also found it “unbearable” to show prospective parents around the school. “She had to show parents around what they thought was an outstanding school, that people fought to get their children into, when all the time she knew that, according to Ofsted, it was inadequate,” Jonathan Perry said. Brian Grady, head of education for Reading borough council, said he considered challenging Ofsted’s results, but told the inquest he felt there was little chance of success. “I couldn’t challenge those rules because Ofsted set those rules,” Grady said. The inquest continues on Monday, and the coroner’s report is expected on Thursday. Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s outgoing chief inspector, was confronted by a delegate at a conference in Bournemouth, who accused her of failing to “understand the impact that your inspections have on local authorities or schools, because they’re afraid to tell you”. Spielman replied that Ofsted “absolutely recognise the anxiety that can build up”, but insisted that its inspections were meant to be “constructive and fair and professional”. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Where will future Tracey Beakers go after arts and humanities courses are axed? | Letters

2022-07-01

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jul/01/where-will-future-tracey-beakers-go-after-arts-and-humanities-courses-are-axed

Tim Atkins derides the cultural and human vandalism in higher education, and Susan Anderson defends the choices made at Sheffield Hallam University Your editorial on the threat to the arts and humanities (29 June) hits the nail on the head in its analysis of what’s wrong with both government and university policy. However, while it discusses Sheffield Hallam University closing its English literature course, it does not mention the greatest act of cultural and human vandalism currently taking place. This is happening at the University of Roehampton, where 226 academics have been told their jobs no longer exist, and a huge fire-and-rehire programme has been rolled out. The dozen or so programmes being axed and the vast number being cut back are some of the best-performing in the country. The former Roehampton chancellor Jacqueline Wilson’s most famous character, Tracey Beaker, would be a typical working-class humanities student at Roehampton, possibly studying creative writing. And yet the creative writing BA is one of many that are being closed. It’s a profitable and successful course. Where will the thousands of Tracey Beakers go now that the assault on working-class universities and the range of opportunities they provide is taking place all over the country?Dr Tim AtkinsNew Malden, London We at Sheffield Hallam University agree that English is central to well-rounded education provision, and a key element of a thriving culture and society. The study of literature will remain at the heart of our BA English degree, alongside the study of language and creative writing. We’re confident that our refreshed English programme will enable students to have the maximum possible choice in shaping their exploration of the subject, guided by our team of world-leading researchers.Dr Susan AndersonHead of English, Sheffield Hallam University Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

Undergraduates to be catch-up tutors for disadvantaged pupils in England

2023-01-08

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/08/undergraduates-to-be-catch-up-tutors-for-disadvantaged-pupils-in-england

Student volunteers will be trained to teach groups of up to three children who fell behind during pandemic University undergraduates are being trained to tutor disadvantaged pupils who have fallen behind as a result of the Covid pandemic, in a new pilot set up to boost education recovery efforts in England’s schools. Student volunteers are given training, including a series of lectures, before being assigned to a school where they teach small groups of up to three children once a week to try to plug learning gaps. The trial, which is currently focused on boosting literacy, has been set up by the University of Exeter and is still in its early stages, but the team behind it hope it will be replicated at other universities and rolled out in schools across the country. The project is independent of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), the government’s flagship education recovery policy, which offers subsidised tutoring to children who are struggling to catch up after the disruption of Covid and lockdown. After a troubled start, the NTP met its pledge to deliver 2 million tutoring courses last year, but still fell short of its target to reach disadvantaged pupils who were more severely affected by the Covid disruption. There are also concerns about future uptake once the subsidy paid by the government is cut from 60% to 25% in 2023. Meanwhile, the attainment gap between wealthier pupils and their poorer classmates is getting wider since the pandemic and more needs to be done to help disadvantaged young people catch up, according to Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at Exeter, who has helped develop the undergraduate tutoring programme with local headteacher Lindsay Skinner. “This is part of our efforts to recover in terms of education post-pandemic, to address some of the stark learning gaps that have emerged,” he said. “One of the issues the NTP has struggled with is supply of high-quality tutors. All these universities have lots of young, highly qualified people.” The scheme would also help universities to fulfil government expectations that they should be working with local schools to raise attainment, particularly among disadvantaged pupils. For the undergraduates involved in the Exeter scheme, the training and tutoring constitutes a credit towards their degree. Exeter is also looking to trial an alternative model, under which students are paid for their services. Currently the Exeter undergraduates are working with students aged 11 and 12 at St Jamessecondary school in the city, but the aim is to involve more pupils and undergraduates next year, focusing on different subjects and skills. Sophie Errington, who is studying Spanish at Exeter, has just completed a term of tutoring at St James’s, and enjoyed it so much, she is now considering training to become a teacher. “It’s been a really, really rewarding experience,” she said. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “It’s been so good to interact with these kids. Seeing them grow in confidence has been really, really good. It’s also been really good for my English.” The children’s attainment will be compared before and after tuition to measure its impact. The minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, Robert Halfon, said: “This is a fantastic initiative, and I am hugely grateful to the University of Exeter for their proactive support to help catch up children in their community. “Tutoring is a key component to our catch-up strategy, and this is a great example of how students can help to play their part.”

‘Strategic misstep’: arts education cuts risk UK cultural leadership, government told

2021-05-12

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/12/tragic-misstep-arts-education-cuts-risk-uk-cultural-leadership-government-told

Arts sector leaders speak out against proposed 50% funding cut for arts subjects at universities in open letter The UK’s position as a cultural leader is at risk if proposed 50% cuts to arts subjects at universities go ahead, arts sector leaders have told the government in an open letter opposing the move. The letter – organised by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network and signed by 300 art world figures, including Sonia Boyce and the directors of all four Tate locations – said the plan to halve the amount spent on some arts subjects was a “strategic misstep”. The current plan would affect courses – including music, dance, drama and performing arts; art and design; media studies; and archaeology – that were deemed to not be “strategic priorities” after a consultation by the Office for Students (OfS) and the education secretary, Gavin Williamson. “The current proposal may limit the availability and accessibility of places on arts courses and result in fewer courses being offered,” the letter reads. “This will have a detrimental impact on our ability to retain our world leading position, attract inward investment through our cultural capital and our share of the global art market.” The letter added that the plan was a “strategic misstep” and contradicted the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s strategy laid out in its Here for Culture campaign. Signatories included Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate, Ralph Rugoff, the director of the Hayward Gallery, and dozens of academics and artists from around the UK, including Boyce, who will represent Britain at next year’s Venice Biennale. The letter asked that the policy is revoked in order to ensure the continuation of “a UK success story”. “If you believe that innovation is a strategic priority, you will not cut higher education funding to the arts – but better recognise our value as integral to the fourth Industrial Revolution,” it stated. The cuts will come from an overall teaching budget of £1.47bn, with a student on an affected course seeing their funding fall from £243 to £121.50. Signatories of the letter and other opponents of the proposal, including musician Jarvis Cocker, have said that will deter those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and leave arts subjects as the preserve of wealthy students. An OfS spokesperson said: “The proposed changes relate to a small fraction of how these courses are funded, equating to a reduction of £120 per student, or 1% of overall funding. Alongside this we plan to maintain funds to support disadvantaged students, and to boost funding for specialist institutions by £10m. “The OfS has a fixed funding budget that is set by government. This will have to stretch further in the coming years with significant growth forecast in student numbers – particularly for courses that are expensive to teach like medicine and nursing. In this context we need to make difficult decisions about how to prioritise our increasingly constrained budget. We will carefully consider all responses to our consultation before making any final decisions on changes to our funding.” This article was amended on 12 May 2021. The letter refers to the proposed cuts as a “strategic misstep”, not a “tragic misstep” as the headline and text of an earlier version said. It was further amended on 28 May 2021 to correct a reference to the Venice Biennale at which Sonia Boyce will represent Britain; it takes place in 2022, not “this year” as previously said.

John Sayer obituary

2022-11-25

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/25/john-sayer-obituary

My father, John Sayer, who has died aged 91, was a headteacher, a vice-chair of the General Teaching Council of England and Wales (GTC), and an educator who was passionate about international cooperation between universities. He was born in Romford, Essex, to Hilda (nee Salmons), a bookkeeper, and Arthur Sayer, a railway clerk. A keen choirboy at Boxley church, he later sang bass solo in choirs wherever life took him. John gained an open scholarship from Maidstone grammar in Kent to Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1951, to read French and German. His love of Racine led decades later to his books Jean Racine: Life and Legend (2006) and Jean Racine: Echoes Across Europe (2020). At university he joined the Labour party and remained a lifelong member, though he stopped active campaigning after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also joined a pan-European student movement, Amical, where he met Ilserose Heyd, from Hamburg University. The group exchanged ideas and crossed borders peacefully to the call of “Vive L’Europe!”. John and Ilserose married in 1955 at the Friends’ meeting house in Oxford. John’s way of making the world a better place was through education. He taught French and German at Itchen grammar school, Southampton (1955-59), and was head of German, deputy head, and headteacher at schools in Somerset, before becoming principal of the huge, multi-site Banbury school (part of which is now Wykham Park academy) in Oxfordshire in 1973. In 1979, he was elected president of the Secondary Heads Association (now the Association of School and College Leaders). He campaigned for a GTC throughout the 1980s and was one of its founders in 1988, becoming its vice-chair in 1994. His book, The General Teaching Council, was published in 2000. He continued his work, as director of the education management unit at the University of London (1985-91) and as a research fellow at Oxford University’s department of education (from 1990), where he developed the programme Schools for Democracy in Europe. There, in 1991, he became project director of Trans-European Mobility Programmes for University Studies (Tempus), an initiative that encouraged cooperation between higher education institutions in European countries inside and outside the EU, in his case Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Russia. As a result of his work with Tempus he became an honorary professor at Perm State University in Russia in 1995. Ilserose died in 2020. John is survived by their children, my brother Christopher and me, and grandchildren, Jamie, Jennifer and Dominic.

Record number of UK university staff striking over pay, says union

2022-11-24

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/24/more-than-70000-uk-university-staff-go-on-strike-over-pay-and-pensions

Lecturers, librarians and researchers join picket lines as UCU says staff are at ‘breaking point’ The University and College Union (UCU) has claimed that record numbers of its members took part in picket lines at universities around the UK, on the first day of strikes affecting more than 150 higher education institutions. An estimated 70,000 striking researchers, academics and administrators were joined by students on Thursday, as well as caterers, cleaners and other support staff from the Unison and Unite unions who are also striking for better pay and working conditions at a number of universities. Jo Grady, UCU’s general secretary, joined about 100 union members and students picketing an entrance to the University of Manchester on Thursday morning, saying staff were “at breaking point” and had no alternative. She said: “Pay is abysmal, falling 25% since 2009. Our pensions have been cut 35% despite the fact the scheme is in surplus and we could easily restore that cut. And we also have a system where a third of academic staff – 90,000 people – are employed on insecure contracts. “Staff are working weekends as routine to keep the show on the road. There is nothing else we can do other than take strike action to change the sector.” The industrial action means that as many as 2.5 million students face disruption to their education in what has been billed as the biggest strike in the history of UK higher education. The strike continues on Friday and next Wednesday, and further action is planned. UCU’s demands include a pay rise in recognition of the cost of living crisis, after this year’s 3% interest rate increase, and an end to insecure and short-term contracts. On pensions, UCU wants employers to reverse revisions imposed this year that it claims will lead to the average member losing 35% of their future retirement income. However, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) claimed that there were only “isolated levels of disruption” on the first morning of the strike. Raj Jethwa, UCEA’s chief executive, said: “Despite the initial feedback from higher education institutions suggesting low and isolated impact on students, it is saddening if even a single student misses out on a lecture because of industrial action, especially when UCEA is consulting on an early start to the 2023-24 pay negotiations to address cost of living concerns. He said: “Strike action will do nothing to support students, staff or the many HE institutions working hard to avoid redundancies or maintain staffing levels.” Jethwa said UCU’s demand for a 13.6% pay increase was “unrealistic” and would cost institutions in the region of £1.5bn. “UCU leaders must provide its members with a realistic and fair assessment of what is achievable because strike action does not create new sector money,” he said. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The UCU campaign is part of a wave of escalating strikes taking place across the UK this winter, including action by tens of thousands of teachers in Scotland, who were also striking on Thursday and have scheduled more dates for next year. Unison members at 19 universities are also taking strike action, after they rejected a 3% pay offer earlier this year. Mike Short, Unison’s head of education, said: “Low pay has been a massive, growing problem in the university sector for more than a decade. The cost of living crisis is pushing people to the brink. University support staff can’t even cover the basics. They have had enough and are quitting the sector for jobs on better pay.” Unite members at 10 UK universities are also on strike, arguing that the 3% pay offer was a steep real-terms pay cut. Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said: “The universities and the UCEA know they can afford to put forward a better offer than the one that has been imposed and that is what they must do.” The National Union of Students (NUS) says it is supporting the campus strikes, despite the impact it will have on its members. Chloe Field, its vice-president for higher education, said: “We have always been clear that staff working conditions are students’ learning conditions, and for more than a decade both have come under attack from a sector that puts profits above education.” But Robert Halfon, the minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education in England, said it was “hugely disappointing” for students who had already suffered during the pandemic to face further disruption. “I urge all sides to work together so that students do not suffer with further learning loss,” he said.

Rise in school absences since Covid driven by anxiety and lack of support, say English councils

2023-04-23

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/23/rise-in-school-absences-since-covid-driven-by-anxiety-and-lack-of-support-say-english-councils

Evidence to MPs claims parents more cautious about sending children to school with minor ailments Increased anxiety and lack of mental health support are driving a steep increase in children missing school since the Covid pandemic, with some children “struggling to leave home”, according to councils in England. Local authorities are also highlighting budget pressures that have forced cuts in school support staff, with some schools trying to “manage” students out of classrooms or disguising their attendance records, while others are “off-rolling” students to artificially boost school exam results. Evidence presented to MPs on the Commons education select committee claims parents are more cautious about sending their children to school with minor ailments as a result of public health messaging during the pandemic. The submissions from local authorities come as policymakers and school leaders are grappling with how to bring down sustained levels of absences in classrooms. The latest attendance data from the Department for Education (DfE) revealed that absences in the spring term this year were still 50% higher than before the pandemic, while in 2021-22 more than one in five secondary pupils were “persistently absent” for missing 10% or more of sessions. In its evidence to the committee, which is holding an investigation into school absence, Essex council said: “Anxiety and mental health concerns are one of the most significant drivers behind our recent increase in persistent/severe absence from school. “We have noted a significant growth in the cohort of children and families who struggle to leave their home. Some of these families were experiencing anxiety prior to the pandemic but many of the current mental health and anxiety presentations appear to have developed during the pandemic/lockdown periods.” The council said mental health support services were unable to cope with the growing number of cases. “As a result, our schools report a significant growth in the cohort of children who either do not attend school whilst they await their assessment and treatment or have persistent/severe absence patterns which can be difficult to challenge,” it said. The Local Government Association (LGA) said schools had been forced to make cuts in pastoral support, making it harder to encourage vulnerable children to attend. “Some schools have managed these pressures by practices to influence which students are admitted or practices designed to manage children out of the school, such as the inappropriate use of attendance codes, part-time timetables, informal exclusions, off-rolling, and inappropriate use of permanent exclusion,” the LGA said in its evidence. The LGA said there were “increasing numbers of children in the mainstream school system with additional needs that can cause barriers to school attendance”, including trauma, deprivation and poverty. Essex council said public health advice issued during the pandemic had “reconditioned” attitudes in favour of keeping children off. “Some parents/families, who valued good school attendance prior to Covid, may now allow their children to remain at home with minor ailments which they would previously have considered invalid,” it said. The DfE’s plans to reduce absences include local authorities making greater use of legal powers to enforce attendance. Councils told MPs that while they supported the DfE’s aims, they lacked the resources to carry them out. “Many local attendance teams are already operating at stretched capacity. Councils have consistently fed back to us that they fundamentally lack the capacity and resources within their school attendance teams to fulfil the new duties given the increase in the number of schools they will be working with,” the LGA said. Essex said the DfE’s plans would require it to have 40 attendance officers, compared with the eight it can afford to employ. “We will not be able to achieve this level of staffing without additional ringfenced funding,” the council stated.

Ofsted chief admits to ‘culture of fear’ around England’s school inspections

2023-04-23

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/23/ofsted-chief-amanda-spielman-admits-to-culture-of-fear-around-englands-school-inspections

Amanda Spielman says for vast majority of schools ‘it’s a positive and affirming experience’ The head of Ofsted has admitted that “a culture of fear” exists around England’s school inspections but said she had no reason to doubt the system of school gradings that has been blamed for the death of a headteacher. Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools in England, made the comments in her first interview since the death of the Berkshire headteacher Ruth Perry following a critical Ofsted report that abruptly downgraded Perry’s school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”. Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg if there was a “culture of fear around Ofsted” among teachers, Spielman said: “I certainly acknowledge that it exists,” but went on to blame it on the “tiny proportion” of schools that were rated inadequate after Ofsted inspections. “For the vast majority of schools, I know that it’s a positive and affirming experience,” Spielman said. “It’s designed to be a constructive, professional dialogue.” Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, told the programme: “There is no doubt in my family’s mind at all that Ruth killed herself because of that Ofsted inspection. She was fine beforehand, she was not fine during and after it. So it is a potentially dangerous system.” Spielman defended the inspection at Caversham primary school, which rated the school as good in four out of five categories but downgraded it to inadequate because of poor safeguarding training. “From what I’ve seen, I don’t have any reason to doubt the inspection,” Spielman said. She also defended the use of single overall grades such as inadequate: “Yes, they are synthesised into an overall judgment. That’s partly to help parents, we know that parents like the clarity and simplicity of the model. “It’s also because the wider system of school accountability that government operates does use those overall judgement. So it’s not for us to say we’re going to fundamentally change the grading system. That would have to be a bigger government decision.” Spielman also suggested Ofsted was being blamed because of “unhappiness” in schools over ongoing funding and pay disputes with the government. “There’s clearly a lot of bad feeling around. And when there is bad feeling around, Ofsted often becomes a sort of lightning rod through which the tensions and frustrations can be discharged,” Spielman said. “We’re just one part of the system. We’re not the regulator. We don’t make decisions about what happens with school. We are just the inspectorate, going to look and see whether children are getting the experience they should in schools.” Perry’s family have said they have had no contact from either Ofsted or the Department for Education following her death in January, which will be the subject of a coroner’s inquiry. Spielman said her organisation had not approached Perry’s family since her death, saying it was a “delicate balance”. “Of course, we’d be more than happy to speak to them if they would like to, we haven’t wanted to intrude on their grief. We haven’t had any approach. But we haven’t ignored anything and would happily speak to them,” Spielman said. Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said Ofsted’s system of inspection was not working. “The problem is that Ofsted doesn’t inspect all schools fairly, and Ofsted doesn’t know whether it raises qualities in schools at all. It has no research to back up the claims it makes about getting schools to be better at teaching and learning. “And the problem that teachers and leaders have is that they’ve got no idea which inspection team will turn up at their school - one which will do a decent inspection or one which will be aggressive and demeaning,” she said.

Rightwing extremists defeated by Democrats in US school board elections

2023-04-21

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/21/school-board-elections-illinois-wisconsin-republicans-lose

Proposed Ofsted changes ‘totally inadequate’, say family of Ruth Perry

2023-04-21

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/21/proposed-ofsted-changes-totally-inadequate-say-family-of-ruth-perry

Headteacher’s suicide has led to calls for reform but chief inspector says one-word grades ‘integral’ The family of a headteacher who killed herself have labelled Ofsted’s proposed changes to its school inspection regime “totally inadequate” and accused it of being deaf to calls for meaningful reform. Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector, has offered a series of changes including greater support for school leaders undergoing inspections, after the death of Ruth Perry, whose family said killed herself after a critical Ofsted inspection. Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, said Spielman and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, were “defending the indefensible” over Ofsted inspections, and that neither had been in contact with the family. This week, Keegan said she would be happy to meet the family, in response to a question from Matt Rodda, the Labour MP for Perry’s constituency. “My sister’s death demonstrates the tragically high stakes, and yet Ofsted has so far done nothing. This latest response from the chief inspector for schools is yet again totally insensitive to the situation and deaf to the urgency of the calls for change,” Waters said. “Ofsted has marked its own homework and is telling us that everything is under control. I think many people would score Ofsted’s current system as ‘requires improvement’ and their response to calls for reform as ‘totally inadequate’.” Waters asked Keegan to commission a review of the inspection conducted at her sister’s school, as well as an independent review of Ofsted’s culture and structure. The changes proposed by Spielman would allow schools to more quickly fix errors in safeguarding procedures, and improve the complaints procedure by allowing heads to lodge objections during inspections. But Spielman said she backed the use of one-word inspection grades to summarise inspection reports as “an integral part” of England’s school system. Perry’s death followed an Ofsted inspection that downgraded her school, Caversham primary school in Berkshire, from the highest rating of outstanding to the lowest grade, inadequate. In her first major intervention since Perry’s family went public with the background relating to her death, Spielman said: “I certainly recognise that distilling all that a school is and does into a single word makes some in the sector uncomfortable, particularly when there are consequences of the grade awarded. “[The] government uses Ofsted’s overall grade to determine how best to support improvement. We also know that many parents find the grading system useful, whether that’s in choosing a school or to understand the one their child attends.” Spielman’s comments were backed by Keegan, who said: “Parents rightly want to know how their child’s school is doing and I fully support our approach to providing a clear one-word rating to inform their decisions.” But headteachers said they were not placated by Spielman’s proposals. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Ofsted has completely lost the trust of leaders and teachers, and it will take a great deal more than this to gain their confidence and ensure that the inspection system works in a way that is effective rather than being punitive and counterproductive.” Barton added: “Despite the chief inspector’s insistence that the grading system plays an integral part in the school system, the truth is that it is the grading system that is the single biggest problem. It reduces everything that a school does to a blunt single-word description, and when this is below good, it is deeply stigmatising and damaging to the school concerned. “It ends careers and makes school improvement harder to secure. In what mad world can anyone seriously think this is a good thing? Ruth Perry’s death has shone a light on a problem which has been going on for years and the time for real reform is long overdue.” The revelations around Perry’s death have caused Ofsted to come in for heavy criticism over the way it inspects schools, with the National Education Union and NASUWT teaching unions calling for the inspectorate to be abolished.

‘This will be the end of nurseries’: preschools in England warn of closures amid free childcare expansion plan

2023-03-19

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/19/this-will-be-the-end-of-nurseries-preschools-in-england-warn-of-closures-amid-free-childcare-expansion-plan

Jeremy Hunt has been told his budget giveaway will have a ‘catastrophic’ effect without more funding A key plan to expand free childcare will “absolutely guarantee” the closure of more nurseries, the departure of staff and a fall in places if there is not a substantial increase in the funding behind it, Jeremy Hunt has been warned. An eye-catching pledge for a huge expansion of free childcare provision was a main giveaway in the chancellor’s budget last week. However, while childcare providers have welcomed extra help for parents, nurseries across England, speaking to the Observer, said that the plan risked having a “catastrophic” impact on the sector without an overhauling of central funding. “This will be the end of nurseries,” said Mel Hart, owner of Albion House nursery and the Old School nursery in Grantham, Lincolnshire. “We are already underfunded by approximately £2.50 per hour, per child for the three and four-year-olds. Over 5,000 nurseries are said to have closed in the last year. If more are struggling financially, more will also close. Then there will be nowhere for children to go so that parents can go to work.” The budget plan will see 30 hours a week of free childcare given to all children aged from nine months to four years, though its introduction will be staggered. At present, parents of three and four-year-olds can claim 15 or 30 hours of free childcare, depending on their circumstances. Hunt promised an increase of free hours funding of £204m from this September, eventually rising to £288m next year. However, it is well below independent estimates of the costs nurseries face and full funding details have not been revealed. The system now effectively relies on the fees paid by the parents of younger children offsetting the underfunding of “free” hours handed to older ones. But under Hunt’s plan, the expansion of free hours would prevent that happening. Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association, said: “The more funded children that [nurseries] are taking, the more losses they’re making. On average, providers lose £2.20-2.30 per child, per hour. That’s the gap at the moment. Unless proper funding follows, all we’re doing is exacerbating the problem.” Jo Morris of Playsteps nursery in Swindon, Wiltshire, said that under the funding levels now, there was a gap of £87,700 a year between the costs of caring for the 57 children on free hours and the state funding provided. “We’ve had to cross-subsidise from the parents who do pay,” she said. “When access to free hours is expanded, you can imagine that the losses for us and other nurseries and childminders could be catastrophic.” Olivia Foley of the Hungry Caterpillar nurseries, most of which are in London, said it was already difficult to fill vacancies, as the work was hard and wages already higher elsewhere – even before any further spending squeeze. “We have got so many vacancies; we’ve got nurseries where we’re holding registration down to around 60% because we just can’t get the staff,” she said. “The idea that we’re going to be able to provide all these additional places – unless there’s a workforce development plan, there just won’t be the staff to deliver it.” Caroline Nutting of the Little Acorns preschool in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, said: “We would have to make redundancies, have less staff and the care and high standard provision would end up being affected.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Sarah Jacomb, owner of the Toybox day nursery in East Grinstead, West Sussex, said the idea of free hours was “simply not true and very misleading”. She backed helping parents, but added: “Parents are now expecting free childcare and are oblivious to the fact that nurseries will have to somehow bridge the gap between what the government will pay them and what it actually costs them.” Insiders are now demanding meetings with the chancellor and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to seek reassurances that there would be a big increase in funding for free childcare hours. The change means the state is now effectively overseeing the financial viability of vast swathes of the sector. Neil Leitch, head of education charity the Early Years Alliance, said: “The levels of funding and the 30-hour expansion plans announced in the budget show the government has underestimated just how serious the issues facing the early years sector are. We urge the Treasury to engage in discussions with us so, together, we can work out how these plans will work in practice.” Department sources said the childcare offer was the single biggest investment in England ever and that, by 2027-28, it would be spending more than £8bn every year on free hours and early education. Keegan said in Grazia last week: “We’re paying more to the providers so, logically, because they were asking for that, they could pay people. We think that they will make sure it’s attractive.”

One in five pupils in England were persistently absent in past school year

2023-03-16

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/16/one-in-five-pupils-in-england-were-persistently-absent-in-past-school-year

Covid and other illnesses main reasons for attendance drop compared with pre-pandemic, according to DfE figures One in five pupils in England were reported as persistently absent during the last school year, with Covid and other illnesses the biggest contributors to soaring classroom absence rates compared with pre-pandemic years. The figures from the Department for Education (DfE) showed the aftermath of the pandemic continued to significantly affect state school attendance into the summer of 2022. The national absence rate of 7.6% was well above the rates of 4%-5% before Covid. Illness accounted for nearly 60% of the absences, including pupils who had tested positive for Covid, with the proportion of children absent through illness close to twice the rate seen before the pandemic. The DfE also reported an increase in unauthorised absences, from 1.3% in 2020-21 to 2.1% in 2021-22. The figures showed that 22% of state school pupils were missing for more than 10% of sessions, about 19 days or more during the school year, leading to them being classed as “persistently absent” under the DfE’s definitions. While children eligible for free school meals were absent for 37% of sessions, the fastest increase came among children not eligible, whose absence rate more than doubled to 17.5% compared with the previous two school years. Unauthorised holidays played no role in the increases, despite speculation that parents have become more willing to take their children away during term time. The figures showed unauthorised holidays amounted to just 0.4% of sessions last year, the same rate recorded between 2016 and 2020. A DfE spokesperson said the “vast majority” of children were in school and learning. “We work closely with schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities to identify pupils who are at risk of becoming or who are persistently absent and [are] working together to support those children to return to regular and consistent education,” the department said. After concerns were raised at the high and persistent levels of absence since the pandemic and school-related closures, the DfE has started a number of initiatives, including hiring dedicated attendance advisers, creating “attendance hubs” to share best practice, and pilot programmes such as one in Middlesbrough, aiming to tackle underlying causes including bullying or mental health issues by giving support to persistently and severely absent pupils. However, more recent data from the current academic year suggested illness and unauthorised absences remained a problem for many schools. Headteachers have said a “cultural shift” meant parents were more likely to allow children to stay at home. Data compiled by independent research found a third of 15-year-olds have been persistently absent from classrooms in the autumn term of the current school year. Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, recently claimed schools were “seeing a huge amount of Friday absence that wasn’t there before” because of parents working from home.

Anatomy is a vital part of the medical curriculum | Letters

2023-07-10

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jul/10/anatomy-is-a-vital-part-of-the-medical-curriculum

The study of structure of the human body is being sidelined in medical courses, warns Bernard Moxham Prof Chris Ward is right to point out that “softer skills” in the medical course cannot be readily learned in the classroom (Letters, 4 July). However, the opinion that instead of “memorising lots of anatomy” the subject should be learned as it becomes clinically relevant, may speak of the medical course in the very dim and distant past but not of the present. Over the past 20 years, anatomy has been cut to the point that it is now merely a tiny fragment of the average medical course, with available surveys suggesting that it amounts to just over three full weeks (120 hours) of tuition. Given a five-year medical course over two semesters of 15 weeks each, it thus contributes to only 2.2% of the entire course. Furthermore, much anatomy is now taught in integrative courses with clinical exposure to ensure clinical relevance. As concerning is the idea that anatomy only involves memorisation. Practical anatomy (with radiology, surface anatomy, clinical cases, and ultrasound imagery) nowadays emphasises the acquisition of the softer skills by encouraging experiential learning, teamwork, use of clinical instruments and clean working practices, consideration of issues around death (who wants the student to see death for the first time on the ward?), and medical humanities (including ethics and appreciation of the benefit of the creative arts in the culture of medicine). Advocates of, and apologists for, the four-year medical course have fallen for the mistaken view that “just in time” education can deliver benefits. But, like its economic/business counterpart, it is set to fail. This failure stems from an overly instrumentalist approach where being a learned practitioner is downgraded only in the interests of getting stethoscopes on wards and in surgeries. There is evidence that laypersons (patients) would downgrade their esteem of the medical profession if they considered that anatomy was not a significant part of the medical curriculum. How much esteem medical authorities and professionals internationally would give UK medical practitioners who only have four years of tuition (involving 2.2% of time given to the normal structure of the human body) should be even more worrying.Bernard MoxhamEmeritus professor of anatomy, Cardiff University Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Children with mild anxiety better off in school, says Chris Whitty

2023-09-05

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/05/children-with-mild-anxiety-better-off-in-school-says-chris-whitty

Chief medical officer for England says long absences unhelpful, amid concern over attendance post-Covid Children with mild and moderate anxiety are likely to be better off attending school because long periods of absence can make symptoms worse, the chief medical officer for England has said. Amid mounting concern in government about the crisis in pupil attendance since Covid, Prof Chris Whitty has written to schools to reassure parents that anxiety can be a normal part of growing up and that being in lessons can help. As the new school term got under way across England, Whitty said it was also appropriate for parents to send children to school with mild respiratory illnesses, including cold symptoms such as a minor cough, runny nose or sore throat. He said they should not be sent to school if they had a temperature of 38C or above. Details of the letter emerged as the government’s preferred candidate to take over as Ofsted’s chief inspector of schools and children’s services in England called for an urgent review of increased absence in schools since Covid. Sir Martyn Oliver, the chief executive of the Outwood Grange academies trust (OGAT), said this week’s hot weather and “some of the issues we are reading in the news” – taken to mean the Raac crisis in school buildings – were likely to further dent attendance. Giving evidence to a pre-appointment hearing of the Commons education committee, he said: “Right now I desperately need Ofsted to do a thematic dive into attendance – right now.” He added: “It’s too late.” According to headteachers, anxiety is one of the key reasons behind increased pupil absence. Whitty’s letter, which was also signed by other health leaders, is intended to help parents assess whether their child is well enough to be in school. “Worry and mild or moderate anxiety, whilst sometimes difficult emotions, can be a normal part of growing up for many children and young people,” the letter said. “Being in school can often help alleviate the underlying issues. A prolonged period of absence is likely to heighten a child’s anxiety about attending in the future, rather than reduce it.” More than a fifth (22.3%) of pupils in England were persistently absent from school, missing at least 10% of their sessions, in 2022-23, according to official government data, up from 10.9% in 2018-19, before the pandemic. Julie McCulloch, the director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Many persistently absent pupils are struggling with profound problems which have been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. What they need is more specialist, pastoral and mental health support.” Oliver, who will begin a five-year term at the schools inspectorate in January if his appointment is confirmed, told MPs that Ofsted should be working to spread best practice from schools with good attendance. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion He promised an “empathetic” approach at Ofsted, after widespread calls for reform after the death of the headteacher Ruth Perry. He also defended the use of suspensions in schools. A Guardian investigation in 2018 found that OGAT academies had some of the highest suspension and exclusion rates in England, with 41% of pupils at Outwood Academy Ormesby in Middlesbrough suspended for at least a day in the previous school year. Oliver rejected the suggestion that he was a “zero-tolerance” leader and said suspensions at his schools – which he said were among the most challenging in the country – were very short, at a day and a half on average. He objected to use of the phrase “isolation booths”, where children are taken if their behaviour is disrupting others, saying: “It’s not isolation. It’s a reflection room.”

‘Dark thoughts’: how Ruth Perry’s resolve fell apart after Ofsted visit

2023-12-07

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/07/ruth-perry-reading-headteacher-after-ofsted-visit

Experienced Reading headteacher suffered rapid psychological decline after stressful inspectors’ visit Ruth Perry was the headteacher of one of Reading’s most popular primary schools for 13 years, the same school that she had attended as a child. Staff and colleagues described her as a rock: talented, capable and compassionate. Her GP testified that she had had no mental health issues over the previous 30 years. But it took just two hours of an Ofsted inspection on the morning of 15 November last year to dissolve Ruth Perry’s capability and resolve, and turn her into a shaking, tearful wreck, barely able to speak. People who had worked alongside her for a decade said they had never seen her so upset. By the inspection’s second day, staff recalled that in meetings Perry “looked at the ground and just made a low, moaning sound”. Despite Perry’s obvious distress, the inspectors continued and came to the conclusion that she most feared: because of gaps in the school’s safeguarding records, Caversham primary school would be downgraded from outstanding to inadequate. The inspectors departed but for Perry the mental torture was just arriving. By the next weekend, her husband reported, Perry confessed to “dark thoughts”, and they sought help, first at a psychiatric hospital and then her GP. As an experienced headteacher, Perry knew that an inadequate grade was more than just a blot on her CV. For a school such as Caversham, maintained by the local authority, it meant being converted into an academy and its leadership replaced. For Perry as an individual it meant losing her job and perhaps even her career. Ofsted’s rules on confidentiality, however, reinforced the torment. Perry was strictly forbidden to discuss Ofsted’s judgment or inspection report before its publication, other than with a few of the school’s senior staff and governors. Perry found herself unable to share the most significant factor in her mental deterioration with psychiatric counsellors, for fear of further punishment by Ofsted. Jonathan Perry reported that as “a very honest person”, Ruth found it unbearable to show prospective parents around the school while hiding the knowledge that Ofsted was shortly to declare it inadequate. She even worried that local house prices would fall as a result, making the wider community angry at her. Perry’s GP said that as weeks passed without the Ofsted results being published, Perry’s worst fears continued to build with no prospect of release. Jonathan Perry noted: “The Christmas holidays were awful for the whole family … Ruth became more isolated and distressed, constantly going over the same worries in her mind but unable to do anything about them.” Instead, worried about losing her job, Perry and her family decided to pull out of purchasing the house they had wanted to buy – her husband’s childhood home that Ruth had once looked forward to renovating. The new year came and went; Perry returned to work at the start of term. Ofsted’s inspection report had still not been published by the time she killed herself at home on 8 January this year. Perry’s death shocked the Caversham community, but Perry’s family and supporters took their grief and outrage to a national stage with a stunning declaration in March this year: that Ruth had died as a “direct result” of Ofsted’s inspection. Julia Waters, Ruth’s sister, set aside her grieving to go public with accusations that Ofsted’s inspection format was dangerous. Waters warned: “What happened to Ruth could happen again.” That set off a flood of responses from school leaders and teachers – and former Ofsted chief inspectors – who testified to the harrowing levels of stress that the inspection regime in England heaped upon headteachers – and at the lack of support they received during and after the inspections, leading many to quit teaching. As Perry’s death sparked calls for reform, Ofsted’s leadership seemed slow to respond. The changes it offered were derided by Perry’s family and leading teaching unions in England as insubstantial and of not going far enough to satisfy their concerns. But what the five days of Perry’s inquest made clear was the remorseless nature of Ofsted’s inspections and their consequences. Heidi Connor, Berkshire’s senior coroner, repeatedly asked Ofsted’s witnesses when and how an inspection could be paused or suspended if a headteacher, like Perry, was in acute distress. Ofsted’s indirect answers left Connor to wonder aloud whether a paused inspection was a “mystical creature”. Similarly, Ofsted struggled to answer questions about what training its inspectors had been given to protect the wellbeing of school leaders. Chris Russell, Ofsted’s national director for education, when pressed by Connor, finally admitted that “there is no guidance” for dealing with headteachers in distress. The three inspectors who visited Perry’s school all agreed it was normal for their visits to cause “tears, upset, frustration” among staff, as though it was an acceptable part of an inspection. When Perry was unable to speak during one meeting, an inspector described it as “the distress of somebody who had just been told that what they had been doing was not OK”. But the same inspector, on her way out of the school for the last time, turned to one of Perry’s colleagues and said: “Make sure you look after Ruth.” In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Teachers say they no longer want police based in schools after Child Q outrage

2022-04-11

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/apr/11/teachers-say-they-no-longer-want-police-based-in-schools-after-child-q-outrage

National Education Union members also vote for removal of senior Met police officers involved in the case Teachers said they no longer want police to be stationed in schools after outrage over the treatment of Child Q, as National Education Union members voted for the removal of the senior Met police officers involved in the case. Delegates to the NEU’s annual conference backed a motion that said calling the police to deal with pupils “must be a last resort” for schools and teachers. A succession of speakers told the conference that Child Q’s experience – where she was strip-searched by police at her school – was not an isolated case for black pupils, who were more likely to be affected by police stationed under the safer schools officer (SSO) policy. A national outcry followed last month when it emerged that the 15-year-old girl had been strip-searched by Met officers at her school after a false accusation that she possessed cannabis. No cannabis was found. “What happened to Child Q cannot be allowed to ever happen again,” said Carly Slingsby, a teacher from Hackney, the local authority that includes Child Q’s school. “We need to close the doors and school gates to the police so that our children will know they won’t be the next Child Q.” Slingsby said schools were selected to have an SSO based on the proportion of pupils on free school meals, absentee rates and the number of children with social workers: “These officers have made up their mind about our children before they even set foot in the school.” Louise Lewis, an NEU executive member and teacher from Kirklees, said her heart broke when she read about Child Q’s experiences. “For staff in schools, the policies and systems in place for schools to protect this child failed in the worst way possible, as did the police. Unfortunately this was not an isolated incident by the police, and that’s why we need change now,” Lewis said. “These figures and incidents are alarming and therefore, as the largest education union in the UK, it’s important we stand with Child Q and support her drive for change.” Neil Dhanda, a teacher from Redbridge, told delegates at the conference in Bournemouth that the Child Q case “should raise questions about whether police should be in schools at all”. “As shocking as it is, this is not the only example of harm caused by police presence. There are similarly affected families who are concerned that police in schools have a disproportionate impact on black children. “Schools should not be policed and children should not be criminalised. This only serves to limit their educational and life opportunities, feeding a school-to-prison pipeline that unfairly impacts working-class and black students.” Kevin Courtney, the union’s joint general secretary, said: “This has to stop, and the NEU is calling on the police to stop searching children and on the government to consult widely about revised behaviour guidance, which has child safeguarding front and centre. In his opening speech to the conference, the NEU president, Daniel Kebede, said the Child Q case highlighted “a growing trend in which police are ever-present in schools”, leading to the increased criminalisation of children. “Some say I’m wrong and police can provide a pastoral role, but I don’t think that’s right. They degraded, abused and humiliated Child Q,” Kebede said. Noting that Child Q had not been in possession of drugs, Kebede said: “I know a place where 11 in 12 toilets tested positive for cocaine. It’s a place where there is a 24-hour police presence. It’s called the Houses of Parliament. Why are [the Met] strip-searching children and not strip-searching MPs?”

Diana Chambers obituary

2022-10-25

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/25/diana-chambers-obituary

My mother, Diana Chambers, who has died aged 80 after a short illness, was first and foremost an inspiring educator, committed to ensuring that all her pupils (especially girls) achieved their potential at the secondary schools she worked at. Diana graduated in French from Birmingham University, before qualifying as a teacher at St Peter’s College, Saltley. At university, she met Peter Chambers, a postgraduate sociologist, from Manchester and they married in 1962. Peter was head of education at West Midlands College while Diana built her teaching career, at Streetly and Dartmouth high schools. In 1976, Peter became vice-principal at Bradford College and the family moved to Yorkshire. Diana’s early misgivings were soon allayed by her love of the Yorkshire countryside and her role as deputy head at Nab Wood school (now Dixons Cottingley academy). In 1987 she became head at Skipton girls’ high school, so she and Peter decided to make Skipton their home. For nine years they had what Peter described as “our time”, enjoying the community and countryside until Peter died of stomach cancer in 1996. Diana loved leading the high school, continuing to play a major role in education in Yorkshire after her retirement. As pro-chancellor of the University of Bradford, which awarded her an honorary doctorate, she presided over degree ceremonies and was always delighted by the breadth and diversity of the students. She served as chair of the Diocesan Board of Education for nearly 10 years from 2003, and was both chair and governor at several schools including Immanuel college in Bradford, Upper Wharfedale school in Threshfield, and Aireville school (now the Skipton academy). She was a tireless champion of the schools she worked with. Diana had deep Christian values, becoming a canon at Bradford Cathedral and a member of the parochial church council at Holy Trinity, Skipton. A Soroptimist for more than 30 years, she was a committed contributor to the Skipton community, helping to run the child contact centre and the food bank. Born in Leicester, the youngest of four daughters of Gwendolen (nee Potter), a housewife, and Robert Hempton, who fought in Holland during the second world war and then worked in the civil service, Diana was educated at Wyggeston grammar school for girls in the city. I was born in 1963 and my sister, Rachel, in 1967. Mum and Dad shared an abiding love of France, its food and wine, its people and its language, and even in later years Mum continued to drive herself around France visiting friends. Always up for a challenge, Mum was never slow in sharing her opinion. She was warm, big-hearted and fun, and loved to share a bottle of wine (preferably fizzy) with friends. Her grandchildren were her joy, and she loved dogs – there was always a beloved sheltie by her side. Diana is survived by her children, Rachel and me, her grandchildren, Eleanor and Alastair, and her sister Bridget.

A testing time for schools to do better | Letter

2022-10-28

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/28/a-testing-time-for-schools-to-do-better

Helping children achieve higher scores in exams does not do much for most of those living in poverty, writes Simon Gibbs The latest reports about children’s performance in schools (GCSE grades gap for disadvantaged pupils in England widest in a decade, 20 October) is another indictment of the quality of education in England today. That it is not to diminish the achievements of students who gain high grades; those who are well supported at home and in school are fortunate. But the measurement of what needs to be done for others is not a simple matter nor is it susceptible to the crude metrics of “progress scores”. There is clearly a large socio-economically defined group of children and young people who are currently disenfranchised from education in mainstream schools. Attendance data and the proportion of this group who are deemed to have special educational needs seem to indicate that the educational curriculum has little value, attraction or meaning for them. It is good that Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, recognises the need for a recovery plan. But before we embark on planning, or simply putting more money into education, it would be wise to consider what the underlying purpose of education might be. It seems to me that the aim of helping children achieve higher scores in tests is not appropriate or valid and, as current evidence demonstrates, using it as the goal does not do much for most children living in poverty. This data is a further symptom of a need for a fundamental debate about the purposes of education so that we can, in due course, transform it. Teachers, children and young people (the citizens of tomorrow), as well as large sections of society, deserve more from education than the results of tests. The quality of education and how it could help us all learn more about each other and help us grow as citizens is worth further thought.Simon GibbsEmeritus professor of inclusive educational psychology and philosophy, Newcastle University

Labour to ditch its promise to abolish tuition fees in England

2023-05-02

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/02/labour-to-ditch-its-promise-to-abolish-tuition-fees-in-england-keir-starmer

Keir Starmer says party will set out ‘fairer solution’ to funding university fees in coming weeks Keir Starmer has said Labour is set to ditch its longstanding commitment to abolish university tuition fees in England, arguing it was necessary to “move on” from the idea because of the economic situation. Starmer said his party was “looking at options” for how to fund universities, but made it clear the existing promise to get rid of student-paid tuition fees, one of the pledges he made when standing to lead Labour in 2020, was being dropped. “We are likely to move on from that commitment because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation,” the Labour leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “You and others would be quizzing me hard if I just simply said I’m going to ignore the current economic situation and just press on with something, notwithstanding the cost.” He continued: “We are looking at options for how we fund these fees. The current system is unfair, it doesn’t really work for students, doesn’t work for universities.” Labour would, he said, “set out a fairer solution” in the coming weeks. Dropping the 2020 pledge should not be taken to mean “us accepting for a moment that the current system is fair or that it is working”, Starmer added. The announcement prompted criticism from Labour Students, whose vice-chair, Fabiha Askari, said ditching the policy would be “seen by young people as a massive betrayal of our futures, and risks alienating Labour from our party’s own core vote”. Momentum, the left-leaning Labour group, said Starmer risked a “Nick Clegg moment”, a reference to the decision by the former Liberal Democrat leader during the coalition with the Conservatives to change policy and embrace student fees. However, a poll of students in England for the Higher Education Policy Institute showed that only 28% want Labour to abolish tuition fees, with views otherwise largely split on keeping the current system or reducing fees. It is the latest among a series of the 10 pledges Starmer made to Labour members when he was standing to replace Jeremy Corbyn that he has since either dropped altogether or somewhat fudged. Other pledges that have been subsequently rolled back from or watered down include one to ensure “public services should be in public hands”, to defend the free movement of people from the EU, and to stand “shoulder to shoulder with trade unions”. Starmer told Radio 4 these were “very important pledges I made, the vast majority of which stand”, while arguing that some had been overtaken by events. “One of them was, for example, defend free movement as we leave the EU,” he said. “Well, we’ve left the EU, so we’re in a different situation. So that’s clear.” Others within Labour, particularly on the left of the party, dispute this and have argued Starmer made a series of pledges intended to secure the votes of a party membership then still tilted towards the ideas of Corbyn. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The decision to drop the abolition of tuition fees is nonetheless not unexpected given the estimate £9bn-plus annual cost of removing them in England. Advocates of ditching the policy have argued that scrapping tuition fees would be economically regressive given the fact that university students tend to be disproportionately from better-off backgrounds, and are likely to earn more when they graduate. There are also arguments that the amount of money involved could do more good elsewhere in education, for example in recruiting and retaining teachers. Opponents of the scheme note that it saddles students with tens of thousands of pounds in debt, which they pay off at above-market-level interest rates, with many graduates forecast to never pay off the loan. Universities have also warned that the cap on fees, set at £9,250 a year since 2017, means rising costs elsewhere means they lose thousands of pounds annually per student. Some sector analysts have warned that universities could end up offering fewer places to UK students, instead focusing on international students and postgraduates, where the fees are not capped.

Men need to do their share in education | Letter

2021-02-21

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/feb/21/men-need-to-do-their-share-in-education

Fiona Carnie suggests we should acknowledge the importance that both parents play in children’s education Fathers’ involvement in their children’s education is consistently shown to result in better educational outcomes for young people, as well as leading to more positive attitudes, greater enjoyment, better behaviour and – critically – a reduced risk of exclusion (Women doing more home schooling during lockdown than men, 19 February). This applies to primary and secondary education, and relates to the involvement of non-resident fathers as well as fathers in two-parent families. Men clearly need to step up to the mark. But there is also a need for employers to recognise this crucial role and allow time off for fathers – as well as mothers – to play their part and to attend school meetings and consultations. A cultural change is needed in the UK to acknowledge the all-important role that both parents play in nurturing the next generation, and to give them the necessary support in fulfilling it. As the pandemic has clearly shown, schools cannot educate children on their own.Fiona CarnieAlternatives in Education

Making sense of the decline in school attendance | Letters

2023-07-02

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jul/02/making-sense-of-the-decline-in-school-attendance

An inappropriate curriculum has a part to play, says Michael Pyke. Plus, Peter Downes suggests the emphasis on Stem subjects is counterproductive Sally Weale provides an excellent summary of reasons for the alarming decline in school attendance (From Covid to poverty: why pupil absence in England is rising, 28 June). However, there is also an underlying and chronic reason for this: throughout this century, but especially since 2010, school has become an increasingly uncongenial experience for children. In one recent survey, 39% of 11- to 14-year-olds said that they disliked school, a figure that rose to 52% for 15- and 16-year-olds. The reasons why it has become an unsatisfactory experience are not hard to discern: lack of resources; an inappropriate curriculum, the teaching of which is almost entirely geared to external examinations; the disappearance of practical and creative activities; an increase in bullying and feelings of inadequacy promoted by social media platforms; overworked and exhausted teachers who have no time to deal with these problems or even recognise, let alone attend to, the needs of individual children, and who increasingly leave the profession at the first opportunity. The pandemic may have brought the issue of declining school attendance into focus, but the seeds of this mess were sown long ago by ignorant politicians. Michael PykeThe Campaign for State Education Your article rightly draws attention to the dangers of the decreasing importance of arts and culture in the school curriculum (Labour accuses UK government of ‘stifling children’s creativity’, 25 June). The current government’s policy of emphasising science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem subjects) threatens the future of the creative and cultural sectors in the economy and could be counterproductive in its impact on academic achievements in schools. Several organisations researched this topic in the 1990s and concluded that the availability of art, drama and music in a school actually appears to contribute to better performance in the basic academic subjects. Pupils enjoy school more when they can take part in plays and musical activities. Pupils who actually enjoy going to school tend to do better in their basic subjects. Being battered hour after hour by Stem subjects does not necessarily improve performance in those subjects.Peter DownesFormer president, Association of School and College Leaders Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Headteachers fight for funds to shore up England’s dilapidated classrooms

2022-05-14

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/14/headteachers-funds-england-dilapidated-classrooms

Hundreds of schools are queueing for cash to replace leaky roofs and failing heating. Yet each year only 50 will get money to rebuild When it rains, the pupils at Wales high school, south Yorkshire, know to look out for numerous obstacles as they move around the building - buckets, lots of buckets. “On a rainy day, it’s commonplace to see a dozen buckets around the school,” said headteacher Pepe Di’Iasio. “You can’t do anything long term. We’re just patching over the roof and doing the various things that we can. We have flat roofs, asbestos throughout the place and an old energy system that uses heavy amounts. We have a building that we heat up every day and the heating goes straight up out of the roof.” Inspectors have told him that his school, in Kiveton Park, near Rotherham, is among the bottom 200 in terms of its condition. Yet with only 50 schools accepted for the government’s school rebuilding plan each year, most of those will have to wait. “When you consider the increased energy costs at the moment, that’s waiting another year when energy costs have increased by over 100% and students are in inadequate buildings,” Di’Iasio said. When the Labour MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, visited a local outstanding school, she was amazed at what she was shown. Education at All Saints Roman Catholic school is highly regarded, but Maskell was left in no doubt that it was no environment for teaching. “Music takes place in an old aircraft hangar, which is freezing cold or boiling hot in the summer,” she said. “You’ve got the gym, where feet are going through the floors. There are issues with water ingress. It’s a place with a fantastic history, but for a modern school today, it doesn’t serve that purpose.” The school is also among those to have made a bid for funding. Yet while a lucky few will be successful, it is now clear that both teachers across the country and figures within Whitehall believe a far bigger pot of money is needed. Education figures track the problems back to big cuts to the budgets for school buildings back in 2010. “When I took over 13 years ago, we had real problems,” said Paul Gosling, headteacher at Exeter Road community primary school in Exmouth, Devon. “We had a pitched roof and water running down three of the classroom walls when it rained. “It was a sorry state, there were bits of asbestos in places, making it difficult to do any remedial work. The whole roof needed a replacement. We were given a quote of £700,000 for it. We used to have about £45,000 capital funding, but in 2010, that was reduced. Our £45,000 went down to £7,000 – I did say to my governors that we’ve got to save up for 100 years, then we can do the roof.” When water started running over electricity boxes and the school sought help from the local MP, it was granted funds for rebuilding work, which was finished last year. But as regional branch secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, he is aware of many other schools that haven’t been so lucky. “One school has three temporary classrooms that are rotting and falling apart, and not fit for 21st century education. Devon has a stock of 300-odd schools. In a two-year period, we were only one of four schools getting that sort of major investment. There’s no way that system of pooling the money is going to address the needs that we’ve got. There are many schools that are falling into some real disrepair.” The bill for school repairs certainly seems to be growing. Last year, an official audit found that schools in England face a repair bill of more than £11bn, almost double some previous estimates. Several teachers also pointed out that the current system for funding repairs was inefficient. Schools often spent money patching up their buildings, shortly before they were finally granted funding for a rebuild. They said schools should be told about funding awards further in advance. Maskell said that she was aware of other schools in her constituency facing similar problems to All Saints. She, too, said that spiking energy costs were making the situation even more urgent. “Many have old heating systems. With the cost of living going up, you’re going to end up heating up York – and you’re going to pay for it. “All Saints is a fantastic school. It does remarkably well and has a reputation for caring and supporting its pupils. You just think, if it had a decent school environment, too, what more could be achieved there,” Maskell said.

Zahawi to overhaul Covid catchup tutoring after criticism of provider

2022-03-11

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/11/zahawi-to-overhaul-covid-catchup-tutoring-after-criticism-of-provider

Education secretary says money will shift to English schools following complaints Randstad had missed targets The national tutoring programme is to be overhauled after criticism of the catchup scheme for schools in England, with the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, promising further changes, including shifting funding towards headteachers. Zahawi said he was transferring £65m away from the NTP, including from Randstad, the Dutch service provider, to schools, in an address at the annual conference of the Association of School and College leaders. New figures from the Department for Education (DfE) showed that schools undertook the vast majority of catchup tuition under the government’s programme to help pupils recover learning opportunities lost during the pandemic. “I know that many of you have had challenges with the programme. I have listened and I have heard and we are making improvements as I speak to you today,” Zahawi said. “That includes the immediate transfer of up to £65m into school-led tutoring from the other two routes. It’s become clear to me that by far the most popular route is the one run by the schools.” Geoff Barton, ASCL general secretary, said: “It has taken far too long for the government to recognise this fact but it has got there in the end. The £65m extra funding announced today will help schools roll out the support that so many children and young people need to recover after two years of learning blighted by the pandemic.” Zahawi said it was “incredible” that 1 million tutoring courses had began since the NTP was launched in autumn 2020. The figures from the DfE showed that since September 2021 schools had started 532,000 tutoring courses, while the external tutor-led programme administered by Randstad had provided just 114,000. A further 74,000 courses had been started by school-based academic mentors funded by the government. The DfE claimed the NTP was still “on track” to meet its target of 2 million courses by the end of the year. The parts of the tutoring programme administered by Randstad have been heavily criticised for failing to meet targets in enrolling disadvantaged students, thought most likely to have lost out on learning during the pandemic. MPs on the education select committee on Friday said children in England faced “an epidemic of educational inequality” over the scheme’s failures, and said Randstad should have its DfE contract terminated unless it improved. The DfE announced further changes to the NTP, including allowing tutors recruited by Randstad to teach up to six children instead of a maximum of three in a group. The DfE also dropped a requirement that academic mentors hired under the scheme needed to be graduates, and now they need only to have A-levels. Randstad has been approached for comment. In response to the criticism by MPs on the education select committee, it said: “We have been working in partnership with the Department for Education, schools and tuition partners to look at how we can improve the programme moving forward to best serve the needs of schools.” Zahawi’s speech included insights in the white paper on schools that the government is to publish in the coming weeks. He said he wanted all schools in England to become academies and join multi-academy trusts: “I see the future as involving all schools being part of a strong trust, and I will say more about this in my white paper. “What I will say now is that I underline the word ‘strong’, because we mustn’t sugarcoat this – some trusts are not high performing. The white paper will set out how I plan to deal with that challenge as well.” On Saturday the conference is to be addressed by Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, who is expected to outline her concerns about the recent increase in the number of children in England being home schooled. “We need to recognise that home education is very hard. Most parents aren’t equipped to do it and if they are motivated by their own or their child’s anxiety, rather than a deeply held desire to home-educate, the outcomes for their child are unlikely to be great,” Spielman will say.

Ukraine refugees may struggle to find places in English schools, councils say

2022-03-05

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/05/ukraine-refugees-may-struggle-to-find-places-in-english-schools-councils-say

‘Our heart goes out to them, but we need help,’ says Nottingham’s education chief Today is Nigo’s second day at school in a new country. She is eyes down, head to head with one of the specialist staff at the Bluecoat Beechdale academy in Nottingham, poring over an English text as her language skills are assessed. But Nigo – not her real name – isn’t new to the UK. She has been in Nottingham for 16 months since arriving here from Pakistan. “I applied to another school but they rejected me,” she says. “And my mother was sick, so then I stayed home and looked after her and my brothers.” Fortunately for Nigo, she did eventually make a successful application to Beechdale – but her experience is far from unique. Many of Nottingham’s secondary schools are full, and that presents real problems for pupils who arrive in the UK mid-year. Of five teenagers we meet in the school’s English as an additional language (EAL) department, not one has found a school place in less than six months. It’s a pressing issue. Waves of refugees have come to the city in the past few years from Syria, Afghanistan and Hong Kong, and it is now preparing for new arrivals from Ukraine. In a fragmented, academised system, no one has the power to force schools to take pupils, especially if they are already full. Nottingham’s director of education services, along with others from around England, is asking the Department for Education for assurances about the Ukrainian refugees: how will they be funded? And if some academies don’t want to take them, who will make them? Bluecoat Beechdale academy welcomes new arrivals, whether or not they are seeking asylum. It has recently become one of the first two schools in Nottingham to be designated Schools of Sanctuary, along with another in the same trust. That means it is now part of a national network of 300 schools recognised for their work in welcoming refugees and in raising awareness of the problems facing children in the asylum system. Facilities put in place here to support refugees, along with other new arrivals, have included buddies to help them settle in, a room for prayers during Ramadan and help with uniforms. The four pupils we meet alongside Nigo have all volunteered to be “ambassadors” for the School of Sanctuary. No distinctions are made here between refugee pupils and others, and we are not told which students are refugees. The four in the group are Hana, who is 14 and from Eritrea; Bita – not her real name – also 14 and from Iran; Abubaker, who is 13 and from Eritrea; and Angel, who’s 15 and was born in Italy, though her parents came from Ghana. There’s a sense that having initially been rejected by the education system is a part of their shared experience. “You have to apply and they take you through a year-long process,” Angel says. “Most schools reject you. I didn’t have a choice; you just have to go to the school that gets you admitted. Basically I stopped going to school in year 4, so I skipped two years of primary school and came straight to secondary school.” These four have had another common experience, too: in the absence of formal lessons, they learned English from a children’s channel called Tiny Pop TV. “It was frustrating and boring, you have to stay at home all day with nothing to do,” says Hana. “We didn’t know anything about social media, so we just used to watch TV stars and learn English from them.” The others all nod – singing along with the lyrics of songs was a big help, they say. As a result, at least they arrived in school with some of the English skills they should have been taught. There is a sense of companionship among the group, but the trust’s EAL coordinator, Cherry Pearce, is concerned others who should be here are stuck at home. She was approached recently by a local refugee charity, asking if she could provide teaching time or support for 28 Afghan children who have been living for months in hotel accommodation with their families, but she was already so overstretched she had to decline. The city has now found school places for all these pupils, but Pearce says the system is broken. “The process seems to be one where massive obstacles are in place. If we find there’s a child at home who doesn’t have a place we can report it, but that’s all we can do,” she says. Often they find out by chance that a child is out of school: “I had a student whose cousin was in our year 9, and they brought her to the year 6 induction day. We taught her until she was old enough to start secondary.” The problem is exercising the city’s senior education officials, along with their colleagues elsewhere. Nick Lee, the director of education services for Nottingham city council, is full of praise for the work of the Archdale Learning Trust, of which Beechdale and the city’s other School of Sanctuary, Bluecoat Aspley, are part. But he recognises there is a wider problem. The authority has faced challenges in ensuring refugee pupils are in school, he says. In the case of some people who have arrived from Hong Kong, it has been forced to pay for taxis to ferry them to schools under the neighbouring Nottinghamshire authority because their local schools are full. The city has also set up a unique facility to educate EAL pupils aged 14-18 after recognising they face particular problems: secondaries are reluctant to take pupils in GCSE years for fear of depressing their exam scores, and further education colleges cannot always meet the needs of those who arrive aged 16 or 17. Lee says: “Often the response from schools is that they are full. There’s a whole host of reasons for that, but where it stems from is the fact that the local authority has not been allowed to create new schools. When a child arrives in the city as a refugee, the schools are full. The lack of central coordination of in-year admissions is a huge headache, and means children do go under the radar.” Nottingham has a large, well-established Ukrainian community, so it is inevitable there will be new refugees arriving in the coming days and weeks. And Lee is concerned that the next group of refugees should not have to face the same problems as their predecessors. “We still have pockets of really poor practice, and that’s what we are trying to root out and work through,” he says. “I will be talking to the DfE, and will be very strongly making the point that our secondary capacity is really, really challenged. “Our heart goes out to them, and we want absolutely to respond and to be part of the solution. But we need help. And others will be saying exactly the same.” Specifically, he says schools will need extra funding because they do not automatically receive money for children who arrive after an annual census date in January. And he would like to be able to work with the regional schools commissioner to direct academy schools to take pupils where necessary. The DfE chose not to respond to his comments. In a statement, it said: “We stand with Ukraine, and we have been working at pace to launch the Ukraine family scheme, allowing families to be reunited. We are working swiftly across government to help local authorities provide the support needed for those who arrive from Ukraine.” Back at Beechdale, Pearce fears there must already be other children in the city who have been turned down by secondary schools and who do not know where to turn. “Unless you know who to contact, the system must be completely impossible to negotiate,” she says. “It’s terrifying to think who might be slipping through the net.”

Ministers criticised over England’s school buildings as woman injured

2023-02-28

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/27/government-criticised-school-buildings-england-woman-injured

Government urged to take action to address condition of school estate ‘before anyone else is harmed’ The government has been accused of “a complete dereliction of duty” over the state of school buildings in England after a woman sustained a serious head injury when a large piece of cladding fell off while she was waiting to pick up her children. The incident at Dore primary school in Sheffield, which was raised in the House of Commons on Monday, came at a time of growing concern about the deteriorating condition of the school estate, and warnings that some buildings are in danger of collapse. The injured woman had to take three weeks off work, has undergone an MRI scan and has tinnitus as a result of the incident in January. “I did not see it come off. I heard a bit of a crack, and then something hit me in the face,” she said. Carla, who did not wish to give her full name, was waiting in front of the school for her two children, aged eight and 10, near one of the exits used by pupils, when the 12-15ft-long fascia board with 4in nails fell off and struck her on the head. “It is horrifying that we’ve got to this point,” she said. “Our children’s school buildings are literally falling apart and it feels like it is only a matter of time before something even more serious happens. “My injuries are bad enough but the fact that this could so easily have been a child doesn’t bear thinking about. I know the school is doing everything they can, but I also know that they don’t have the funds. It feels like this is a warning sign for the government and I really hope it isn’t ignored.” The school, which was judged “outstanding” by Ofsted in 2015, declined to comment. This month, seven unions wrote to the government demanding immediate action to address the “shocking” state of school buildings in England after years of inadequate investment. The Department for Education acknowledged the crisis in its latest annual report, which raised the risk level of buildings collapsing from “critical” to “critical – very likely”. Last week, the government confirmed that at least 39 state schools in England had been forced to close either partially or entirely in the past three years because one or more buildings had been deemed unsafe. Olivia Blake, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, who raised Carla’s case in parliament during education questions, said parents and teachers at the school were concerned about the safety of the building and the impact of repair costs on the school’s already overstretched budget. “It is a complete dereliction of duty. Thirteen years of reckless Conservative cuts to schools’ capital spending budgets have left us in this situation. Now my constituent is paying the price. Ministers need to take urgent action to address this crisis before anyone else is harmed.” The schools minister, Nick Gibb, responding in the Commons to Blake’s question and others on deteriorating school buildings, said increased numbers of structural issues had been identified through continued monitoring and surveying of the school estate. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “We can and do improve the life expectancy of school buildings by careful maintenance and upgrades over time. That is why we have a 10-year rebuilding programme and why we allocate significant capital funding each year. And whenever the department is made aware of a dangerous building, immediate action is taken.” Councillors Mick Rooney and Dawn Dale, co-chairs of the education, children and families policy committee at Sheffield city council, said government funding for school buildings was woefully inadequate. “We are aware of an unfortunate incident that took place at Dore primary school where a piece of cladding fell from the roof, due to high winds, and hit a member of the public. This wasn’t caused by a lack of repairs to the roof. The cladding was urgently made safe after the incident and cones and exclusion zones were put in place. “Although the incident was not linked to the state of the building, like many other cities, Sheffield certainly needs much more funding to maintain its schools properly. We know from the building condition surveys carried out at all of our schools, that a further £100m spend is needed on our school buildings, £45m of which is considered to be urgent need. We are currently only allocated £3.5m by government each year. Clearly, this is woefully inadequate and of concern to us.”

Private schools wanting to opt out of GCSEs ‘unable to produce the results’

2023-09-14

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/14/private-schools-wanting-to-opt-out-of-gsces-unable-to-produce-the-results

Former social mobility tsar Katharine Birbalsingh says proposals come amid fears English state sector is catching up Private schools want to opt out of GCSE exams because state schools in England are catching up with their results, the government’s former social mobility tsar Katharine Birbalsingh has said. Commenting on moves by Latymer upper school in London and Bedales school in Hampshire to curb pupils taking GCSEs other than English and maths, Birbalsingh accused the schools of trying to hide their failures to achieve consistently high grades. “I would argue that Latymer and other private schools are failing their pupils. They have a highly selective intake and they are unable to produce the results at GCSE, which is why they are making these changes,” Birbalsingh told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “People think that they get high results – [but] we are on their tails with regards to their results.” Michaela community school, the free school in Brent, north London, founded by Birbalsingh, is one of England’s highest performing state schools at GCSEs despite a comprehensive intake and a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals. Ian Emerson, the deputy head teacher of Latymer upper, a private school charging £24,000 a year, said that GCSEs “confine and stifle” students’ learning. “[GCSEs] reward rote learning rather than deep or original thinking, and they do not effectively teach students the core skills that are sought out by employers in the modern workplace,” Emerson said. But Birbalsingh said parents should be suspicious of private schools that opt to limit GCSEs and replace them with internally assessed courses. Creating private qualifications would “advantage richer pupils, the pupils that can afford £25,000 a year over the normal kids in state schools. And they will then get the jobs and get the positions of authority out there, having not achieved any kind of national standard,” Birbalsingh claimed. Bedales, which charges £33,000 a year for day pupils, has since 2006 cut back on the number of GCSEs taken by its pupils, replacing them with its own assessed courses. But it and Latymer upper have recently said they would go further and have students take just English and maths, with options for taking GCSE sciences and languages. While few other independent schools are likely to follow, most private schools already opt to take so-called iGCSE exams as an alternative to the GCSEs prescribed for state schools. Julie Robinson, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said: “Independent school exam results continue to be very high across the board and the majority still choose to use the standard exams available to all schools. “However, given the concerns that many across education have about GCSEs, it is unsurprising that a small handful of schools have chosen to explore what an alternative could look like.” Steve Chalke of the Oasis academy chain of state schools, said Birbalsignh’s remarks were “completely unfair and totally inaccurate”, and said state schools as well as private ones were calling for an overhaul of GCSEs. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “The [current] system suits some children who love sitting at desks, who have got instant recall,” Chalke said. Criticisms of the role and structure of GCSEs have been brewing for several years. Last month the Tony Blair Institute called for both GCSEs and A-levels to be scrapped and replaced with qualifications that “encourage breadth of learning as well as more critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaborative problem-solving”. But Birbalsingh rejected the claims that GCSEs stifled creativity or critical thinking. “When you are writing essays about Macbeth, you cannot rote learn that. You have to understand the play, you have to be able to take it apart and write your own independent thinking in those essays,” Birbalsingh said. “It is absolutely the case that GCSEs are rigorous and they test a variety of skills. And we have a national benchmark, not only to judge children but also to judge schools. “And when schools don’t meet those benchmarks they shouldn’t be allowed to then change them and say: well actually we don’t like the benchmark.”

GCSE results reveal further gaps in educational attainment

2021-08-12

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/12/gcse-results-reveal-gap-between-selective-and-state-schools

Trend follows independent schools’ stronger A-level gains, though record number in England overall have high GCSE grades GCSE results this year have revealed a widening attainment gap between pupils at selective schools and those from other state schools. In particular the gap affecting disadvantaged children was branded “unforgiveable” by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer. It followed the trend in A-levels this week when pupils at independent schools stretched ahead of their state school counterparts in achieving top grades. With about 600,000 pupils in England receiving GCSE results awarded by teacher assessment in place of formal exams, record numbers celebrated a string of high grades, as did many 16-year-olds in Wales and Northern Ireland. While the overall proportion of those gaining grades 4 and above – equivalent to a C – remained little changed compared with 2020, 30% of entries this year received grades 7 or above, equivalent to A and A*s. The growth in top grades was well below the rise in top grades awarded to A-level candidates this week. But the proportion of grades 7 and above were almost 40% higher than in 2019, the last time national exams went ahead. The increase in grades has particularly benefited state grammar schools, which select pupils based on academic ability; they awarded top grades to 68% of their entries. Secondary moderns – comprehensive schools in selective regions such as Kent – saw the attainment gap widen despite their own improved results, rising from 44 percentage points behind grammar schools in 2019 to 48 percentage points this year, in terms of top grades. Unlike with A-level results, grammar schools often outperform those in the independent sector in GCSEs because many private schools choose to take international or IGCSEs or similar qualifications rather than the exams regulated by government agencies. Among pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds those on free school meals this year received double the rate of top grades gained in 2019. But the gap between them and those not on free school meals increased from eight percentage points to 12. The attainment gap also widened, including grades 4 and above, reversing the gains enjoyed by disadvantaged pupils from teacher-assessed grades awarded in 2020. Starmer said such inequality in attainment was “unforgivable” and repeated his call for Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, to resign. Nick Gibb, the schools minister, insisted that formal exams would return next year. But Tom Richmond, a former Department for Education adviser who heads the EDSK thinktank, said: “The potential devaluation of GCSE grades also raises more questions about whether spending almost £200m a year getting hundreds of thousands of pupils to take up to 30 hours of GCSE exams at age 16 is still necessary, particularly when young people have to stay in education or training until aged 18.” But success stories included three pupils at Tauheedul Islam Girls’ high school, in Blackburn, who received grade 9s across all 13 subjects they had entered – among only 16 pupils in England who gained straight 9s in 12 or more courses. Girls outperformed boys in getting the highest proportion of top grades in maths for the first time but their overall lead across all subjects shrank, with 80% of entries by girls gaining grade 4 or above compared with 73% of boys. The number of girls taking science courses at GCSE increased this year in the subjects of physics, biology and chemistry, with girls making up more than half the number of entrants on the three science courses in year 11. Prof Ulrike Tillmann, of the Royal Society’s education committee, welcomed the increase in pupils taking separate science subjects but was concerned that the number of girls taking computing had continued to fall during the pandemic. “It is important to closely monitor how the pandemic has affected longstanding inequalities in attainment across regions, demographics and socio-economic groups. As we saw with A-level results, an attainment gap persists between pupils receiving free school meals and their counterparts, and this and any other variations should be a focus in the catch-up programme.” Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers union, said: “Young people and their teachers urgently need the detail of what measures are to be adopted for next year, along with what contingency plans will be in place in the event that exams cannot go ahead as planned, so that they have the best possible opportunity to plan, prepare and achieve their best.” In the compulsory subjects of maths and English there were small increases in pupils gaining grade 4 and above, with pass rates of 77.9% and 80.9% respectively, up by less than one percent each. Despite the modest increase the Education Policy Institute noted that an additional 85,000 entries in English and 71,000 entries in mathematics were awarded a grade 4 or above compared with 2019. In England, those who fail to reach a grade 4 have to retake maths and English while at school or college. There was good news for those succeeding in their second or third attempts; about 39% of students aged over 16 gained at least a grade 4 in maths, compared with 22% in 2019, while 43% got at least a grade 4 in English. In Wales, there was a dip in the proportion of pupils gaining C or above, to 73.6%, but the rate of entries gaining the top A* and A grades increased from 25.5% to 28.7%. The Welsh education minister, Jeremy Miles, told students: “You’ve had everything thrown at you over the last 18 months – periods in lockdown, time away from your friends and families, and times where you’ve missed out on many of the social activities you should be enjoying. You’ve shown tremendous resilience to overcome all of these challenges.” In Northern Ireland, the proportion of entries awarded As increased to a fraction under 40%, while the 89.6% of entries achieving C or above was slightly lower than in 2020. While pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland all take GCSEs, the devolution of education to each nation’s governments has meant the course content, grading and methods of assessment have diverged substantially, making any UK-wide comparisons difficult.

More than a third of UK school support staff helping pupils pay for food – survey

2022-11-25

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/25/more-than-a-third-of-uk-school-support-staff-helping-pupils-pay-for-food-survey

Many have also used their own money to buy pupils stationery or uniforms while struggling with their own bills School support staff are dipping into their own pockets to help pay for food, stationery and uniforms for needy pupils, while skipping meals and taking on multiple jobs to pay their own bills, a union survey has found. The poll by Unison revealed that teaching assistants (TA), catering and cleaning workers, librarians and sports coaches, who are among the lowest-paid workers in the sector, are struggling to pay their own bills, but still stepping up to support pupils. Nearly all the 6,700 respondents (98%) to the UK-wide survey said they were worried their pay would not cover spiralling living costs, yet more than a third (35%) said they had helped pay for food or packed lunches for pupils. More than one in five (23%) have used their own money to pay for books, pens and pencils for their students, while 30% have helped struggling families with the cost of school uniforms. One in eight school support staff have themselves had to use food banks in the past year and may need to turn to them again, or are relying on family to help. More than a quarter have taken second or third jobs to make ends meet – including work in security, supermarkets, delivery driving, hospitality, beauty, tuition, cleaning and care. Almost half said they were actively seeking better-paid work elsewhere – often in retail – because they cannot make ends meet on their current salary, Unison said. Recruitment websites currently advertise TA jobs at around £80-£100 a day in London. More than two in five of those who took part in the survey had borrowed money in the past year to help with family finances. Others have tried to keep bills down by buying extra blankets (55%), heating a single room (31%), or not using heating at all despite needing it for health reasons (30%). Meanwhile 8% were using public spaces to keep warm and avoid using their own heating. The survey highlights a number of cases, including that of Geoff (not his real name), who supports children with special educational needs and has worked in schools for more than 20 years. He said: “I work two jobs to make ends meet and have one day off a month. I can’t afford to put the heating on. Instead I bought an electric blanket that costs a penny an hour to keep me warm. There’s no incentive to do this job apart from the love of education and the pupils.” Sue (again, not her real name) has been a teaching assistant for 10 years and is thinking of quitting the sector. “I have a three-year-old and I’m struggling to pay for childcare. We live with my parents because we’re trying to buy a house, but our mortgage offer was withdrawn because we couldn’t afford the higher payments. I’m considering taking another job or quitting work altogether.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Unison’s head of education, Mike Short, said: “Even though education workers are experiencing tough times themselves, they’re still helping less fortunate pupils and their families. That speaks volumes about their generosity and dedication, but it should never have come to this. The government should be hanging its head in shame.” The poll was carried out from 20 October to 1 November, with the majority of responses from staff working in primary schools (59%), followed by secondary schools (24%), special schools (11%), nurseries (5%) and pupil referral units (1%). A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are incredibly grateful for the work of all support staff in education and understand the pressures many are facing at the moment due to the challenges of recession and high inflation. “Whilst decisions over pay are for individual schools, the core schools budget will be boosted by £2bn in each of the next two years, thanks to the chancellor’s autumn statement. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has already highlighted the uplift will allow school spending to return to at least 2010 levels in real terms – the highest spending year in history – meaning in real terms we will be putting more into schools than ever before.”

What’s behind the rise in school absence rates? | Letters

2023-09-10

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/10/why-do-some-children-refuse-to-go-to-school

Phil Revels blames a school system that induces anxiety, another reader says schools practise coercive control and Dr Ian Cunningham advocates self-managed learning While there are a number of reasons why school attendance has crumbled, perhaps a fundamental issue is being overlooked (‘Children are holding a mirror up to us’: why are England’s kids refusing to go to school?, 2 September). When children have experienced freedom of mind and choice during closures, why would they wish to return to police states, largely administered by privatised mini-corporations that control everything from clothes to how to think and express yourself? The fact that 40,000 teachers left the profession for reasons other than retirement in the last year suggests many adults find the stress-inducing conditions and a curriculum that is dull, completely test-orientated and largely irrelevant to the pressing needs of being alive in 2023 unbearable too. It may not be a conscious rebellion among children, but refusal is a reaction to a system that induces anxiety when your individuality is denied. Even the children’s commissioner, after running a hardline academy, has had a rather late epiphany: fun, play and community are vital aspects of education.Phil RevelsWest Bridgford, Nottinghamshire I wonder if it is time to take a deeper look at the current trend in English schools to instil a prison-style discipline approach, and whether this may shed some light on why the number of children refusing to go to school has risen. My 11-year-old started secondary school last week. The school – not our first choice – pride themselves on their hardline strictness, and we were told in introductory meetings that they are so strict “because they care” and that the immediate one-hour detentions for any infraction (fighting, missing homework, forgetting a pen, chatting, wearing the wrong colour hairband) are to “help the children learn”. These phrases are straight out of the coercive control handbook. They even go as far as insisting children bring their full uniform in (both jumper and blazer) on blisteringly hot days – while the teachers freely wear clothes suitable for the weather. When challenged on this, they point to the very visible results of significant improvements in behaviour and attention in class. But I can’t help be left with the question: “At what cost?” If I were forced to go somewhere every day to walk on eggshells, not speak in the corridors, and wear excessive and uncomfortable clothes, without any autonomy over my own toileting, I would very soon need to stop attending and would require significant mental health support to recover. Given people tell me that this approach is now pervasive in secondary schools, is there any wonder that there is an epidemic in children needing support with their mental health?Name and address supplied Gaby Hinsliff’s piece on children refusing to go to school is really important. Interestingly, 14-year-old Dilly, quoted in the article, hit the nail on the head. Her ideal school would be “much more personal, shorter days, no homework and no tests”. Schools can’t deliver this, but small, caring learning communities can. They are springing up all over the country. Our self-managed learning community in Sussex does what Dilly has sensibly identified as the need. We have morning or afternoon programmes for nine- to 17-year-olds, with no imposed teaching, no uniforms, no formal lessons and no imposed timetable – students create their own to-do lists for what they want to learn. And research shows that it works.Dr Ian CunninghamChair of governors, Self Managed Learning College Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Parents: do you keep your child off school on Fridays?

2023-03-08

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/08/uk-parents-do-you-keep-your-child-off-school-on-fridays

We are keen to speak with parents and teachers about why schools are seeing ‘huge’ numbers off children off at the end of the week Schools are seeing a “huge” number of absences on Fridays, the children’s commissioner for England has said. Dame Rachel de Souza told the Commons’ education select committee that the pandemic had affected parents’ attitudes towards attendance. We would like to speak to parents in the UK about this. Other than when they’re unwell, do you ever keep your child off school on a Friday? If so, tell us about why. Did the coronavirus lockdowns and remote working change your views on school attendance? We would also like to hear from teachers about this – is it a trend you have noticed in your school? What do you think is behind it? How is it affecting children’s progress?

Brexit causes collapse in European research funding for Oxbridge

2023-02-04

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/04/brexit-causes-collapse-in-european-research-funding-for-oxbridge-universities

Oxford and Cambridge universities, once given more than £130m a year in total by European research programmes, are now getting £1m annually between them One of the UK’s most prestigious universities has seen its funding from a large European research programme plummet from £62m a year to nothing since Brexit, new figures show. The latest statistics from the European Commission reveal that Cambridge University, which netted €483m (£433m) over the seven years of the last European research funding programme, Horizon 2020, has not received any funding in the first two years of the new Horizon Europe programme. Meanwhile, Oxford, which won €523m from the earlier programme, has only been awarded €2m to date from Horizon Europe. Britain’s associate membership of the €95.5bn Horizon Europe programme was agreed in principle as part of the Brexit trade deal negotiations in 2020, but ratification was disrupted after the UK failed to implement the Northern Ireland protocol. Such funding is vital to UK universities because it enables research collaborations with institutions across Europe and carries considerable international prestige. “For higher education and research, there are no new opportunities and no actual possible upsides from Brexit,” said Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at Oxford. He described Brexit as a “historic error of monumental proportions” and said the new data on Oxford and Cambridge – usually the top performers in Europe – was “very worrying”. The losses reached beyond money, he added, with the UK also becoming less attractive to high-quality European researchers and students. The government has guaranteed it will cover all successful Horizon Europe grants applied for by the end of March, but after watching the political wranglings for more than two years, many academics are now leaving the UK, saying they no longer believe their vital European research partnerships will be protected. In August last year, Professor Augusta McMahon, an archaeologist specialising in the Middle East, left Cambridge University, where she had worked for 26 years, to return to Chicago University. Although she was wooed to the US by what she calls “the best job in my field”, she says Brexit uncertainty was a big factor. “I no longer thought the government would either associate [with Horizon Europe] or provide replacement funding,” she said. With the number of EU students coming to UK universities more than halving since Brexit, she was noticing their decline on campus. Meanwhile, she said fewer European lecturers were applying for jobs here. Professor Paul Pharoah, who researches the genetic epidemiology of ovarian and breast cancer, left Cambridge after 26 years at the end of last year and now works at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. Pharoah, who was involved in two large EU-funded research projects in the past 15 years, said it was becoming much harder to find funding for his field in the UK: “And the lack of opportunity to apply for EU funding made the outlook even more bleak.” Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion Gáspár Jékely, a German professor of neuroscience who was based at Exeter University, started work at Heidelberg University last week. He has taken his high-cachet European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant with him. “The lack of security around European collaborations and funding was one of my reasons for going,” he said. “Recruiting researchers and post-docs from Europe was becoming increasingly hard.” He added: “A colleague of mine at Exeter has just won a prestigious ERC grant, but we don’t know what will happen with it. No one wants to lose a €3m award.” Last April, the ERC gave 150 grant winners in the UK two months to decide whether to move with their grant to a European institution or lose the funding. In the end, UK Research and Innovation, the government research funding organisation, matched the funding of those who stayed, but one in eight left the UK. Vassiliki Papatsiba, an education expert at Cardiff University who has researched the impact of Brexit on universities, said the UK might continue to lose talented researchers this way. “Nearly 50% of ERC UK-based grant winners are nationals of a different country, so that would predispose them to outward mobility,” she said.

Dismay at threat of ‘devastating’ job cuts at Birkbeck, University of London

2022-11-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/13/dismay-at-threat-of-devastating-job-cuts-at-birkbeck-university-of-london

Union says warning of 140 possible job losses could trash proud history of ‘distinctive’ institution A campaign is under way to fight “devastating” job cuts at Birkbeck, University of London, which has been described as one of the most distinctive institutions of its kind and “a jewel in the crown” of British higher education. On the eve of its 200th anniversary, staff have been warned of 140 job losses, reportedly to claw back funds to fill a £13m deficit. The University and College Union (UCU) said the cuts threatened to “trash” Birkbeck’s proud history and could jeopardise its contribution to social mobility and lifelong learning. According to UCU, managers emailed staff confirming plans to cut 84 academic and 56 administrative jobs by July 2023, including up to 11 staff in the English, theatre and creative writing (ETC) department, 10 in geography, seven in politics, the same in film, media and cultural studies, six in philosophy, and a further six in language, cultures and applied linguistics. The broadcaster Joan Bakewell who as Birkbeck’s president spent last week presiding over graduations, said: “I am personally most concerned to see the English department suffering so harshly. As a member of the British Academy I share their broader concerns that the humanities across the sector are under threat. I have made my views known to the vice-chancellor. “It seems that the case for the humanities has to be made yet again. While the sciences and hi-tech subjects result in discoveries of immediate application to how we live, the humanities endorse the values that make life itself worth living.” Since the news broke there has been an outpouring of dismay at the proposed cuts, as well as tributes to the distinctive role Birkbeck has played – and continues to play – in higher education, bringing together students from all over the world and all walks of life to study between 6pm and 9pm. Birkbeck began life in 1823 as the London Mechanics’ Institute, with the stated aim of educating the working-classes, and has played a radical and pioneering role in reaching students who otherwise would not have gone to university, with its unique evening study model. One former student recalled studying alongside a stripper from Soho’s Raymond Revue bar and a PR executive, while others have learned in the company of the artist Tracey Emin, adventurer Bear Grylls and actors Daisy Ridley and Simon Bird. A petition against cuts to the English department alone has collected almost 8,000 signatures and a joint letter has been sent by the English Association, the Institute for English Studies and University English, expressing dismay at the proposed cuts, warning they will be “devastating” for the long-term reputation of the college. Dr Masuda Qureshi, posting a picture of her graduation this week, tweeted: “A bitter-sweet moment as I graduated with a PhD from @BirkbeckUoL. The day was overshadowed by the imminent threat to my world-leading department @birkbeck ETC facing 50% staff redundancy. The department MADE me, a brown woman a Dr – cuts will jeopardise this for future gens.” Dame Marina Warner, a writer and professor of English and creative writing at Birkbeck, also tweeted: “We are defending ourselves and our students from the threats – no job cuts in English at Birkbeck, University of London! – Sign the Petition! https://chng.it/dS2j9sw4 via @UKChange” She had been planning to retire, but will now stay on in solidarity with her colleagues. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Describing the cuts as deplorable, she told the Guardian: “Birkbeck has a special place in people’s consciousness. They know that it’s done something rather remarkable for a long time, and that it’s still doing that. And it needs to be fostered and encouraged and invested in, not diminished.” Other leading figures in arts and culture echoed Warner’s dismay at yet another assault on the arts, including the playwright James Graham, whose BBC TV drama Sherwood was a hit recently. “Job losses at Birkbeck & naturally it’s in English & theatre. Culture is a success story & it’s starting to fail,” he tweeted. UCU members, who voted for a motion of no confidence in the senior leadership, blamed “mistakes by senior management”. Critics claim millions have been spent on new buildings, while planning for post-Brexit changes to enrolment has been poor. The vice-chancellor, Prof David Latchman, is among the best-paid university leaders in the country with a salary of more than £385,000. A Birkbeck spokesperson said: “It is untrue that 140 jobs ‘are to be cut’. Birkbeck is consulting on proposals and decisions have not been made about these yet.” The spokesperson said the proposals were part of a wider strategy to respond to changes in demand for different courses, the ways in which students want to learn, and the value of the undergraduate tuition fee that has halved in real terms since 2012. “It would be wholly irresponsible and bad management if we were to ignore these changes and the environmental challenges.” The former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who did a master’s at Birkbeck and is an honorary fellow, has tabled an early day motion calling on the university management to rule out compulsory redundancies. “Birkbeck is a unique institution allowing access to higher education for people who often are not able to take time out from working. “It has been a breeding ground for politicians, civil servants and significant contributors to fields of public service. It’s a place that over the years has changed people’s lives, opening up new vistas and opportunities. We can’t allow it to be decimated in this way.” Another Birkbeck alumnus, the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, said: “Birkbeck is a jewel in the crown for top-quality higher education, especially for people in work seeking a change of direction. In my mid-20s I decided to do a master’s, giving up two nights a week to learn economics at Tottenham Court Road. “So for people seeking high-quality part-time or night-time education I cannot recommend Birkbeck enough. I would urge Conservative ministers to engage urgently with Birkbeck or risk further undermining one of Britain’s leading institutions.” McDonnell and Davey belong to a long and illustrious list of notable Birkbeckians which includes the social reformer Annie Besant (1847-1933), the political leader and advocate of pan-Africanism Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) and Britain’s first Labour prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937). Among those who have taught there are the poet, playwright and literary critic TS Eliot (1888-1965), the professor of aesthetics Roger Scruton (1944-2020) and the historian Eric Hobsbawm, who joined Birkbeck as a lecturer in 1947 and stayed until his death in 2012. This article was amended on 14 November 2022 to include Marina Warner’s title of Dame.

‘No more skewed history’: why Black families homeschooling grew fivefold

2023-02-09

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/09/homeschooling-black-families-parents-us

In culturally affirming settings, children have blossomed and US parents are finding no reason to return to public schools Since she began homeschooling her children in Louisiana in the early 90s, Joyce Burges has watched the practice explode in popularity among families like hers. “Parents nowadays – this woke generation of 25- to 40-year-old parents – their eyes are open. They’re just not having that whitewashed, skewed history any more,” she says. Back when she started homeschooling, it was against the advice of friends and family who questioned how she could teach effectively without a college degree – only a handful of states require homeschool teachers have a GED or high school diploma. She’d decided to teach her son at home after his principal said he was struggling academically and would need to find a new school. “Here I am, Black woman, and our children are not welcomed into the system. So homeschooling was the only option at that time that we had.” Though her son wasn’t expelled for behavioral issues, Black students in general have long been overrepresented in exclusionary practices. It’s especially true for boys. Data from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights show that Black boys in 2017-2018 were expelled and suspended at proportions that were three times their proportion of enrollment. Under a structured regimen of chores and study time, Burges’s son blossomed, and she went on to educate all of her five children at home and co-found, in 2000, along with her husband, the National Black Home Educators organization. She says the organization now serves “hundreds of families a year”, providing them with study plans as well as community. The homeschooling landscape today is vastly different from what it was when Burges was starting out. According to data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, there was a dramatic rise after the start of the pandemic from an estimated 5.4% of school-aged children homeschooling in spring 2020 to 11.1% the following school year. The number of Black families increased more than five times over – from 3.3% to 16.1% – a bigger jump than any other racial group. There’s no single motivating factor driving Black families to homeschool. But those who spoke to the Guardian described being fed up with a public school system that disproportionately punishes Black children, relies heavily on standardized testing and lacks diverse representation in the literature and history books their children are given. As the number of Black families turning to homeschooling grows, they are simultaneously creating communities that allow Black children to learn in a culturally affirming environment, free from the punitive approach of traditional schools. Chris Stewart, a parent, education activist and former member of the Minneapolis school board, has for years been a vocal advocate for the importance of creating such educational environments for students – both as a refuge from systemic racism and a means of empowerment. He recognizes that homeschooled students represent only a small portion of the students in the US, but he sees promise in the frameworks Black families are creating through networks and cooperatives. “While we don’t have robust research to support the idea this is something everybody should be doing, I think we have enough research to say that for many African Americans and people of color, when they put their kids into the safe harbor of learning environments that are created specifically for them, it’s a positive direction to go,” he says. Burges says she’s met a lot of people who perceive homeschooling as primarily an option for white families, a notion she’s never agreed with. “There were definitely a lot of myths – as though those of us who were homeschooling were ‘Benedict Arnolds’ after Martin Luther King Jr fought so hard for public education. But as parents we didn’t wrap our heads around any of that. We just wanted the best possible education for our son,” she says. More recently, Burges has encountered more families who are interested in homeschooling not because they’re fleeing public schools, but because they can give their children the educational experience they deserve at home. With more Black families opting in than ever before, children can also find the community they need to thrive. “Nowadays homeschooling is a much more sophisticated option,” Burges says. “We’re no longer the mom sitting at the kitchen table homeschooling children. You’re seeing moms and dads teaching on cruise ships, grandparents homeschooling kids, families coming together at local parks.” Homeschooling predates the nation’s public education system, says James Dwyer, a professor at William & Mary School of Law and author of Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice. But the modern version began in the 1960s with leftist parents who had grown suspicious of the state and any curriculum it sponsored. The ranks of homeschoolers ballooned during the 1980s, Dwyer says, partly in response to a series of supreme court decisions that banned prayer in schools as well as an increase in youth violence. Homeschooling had a few more growth spurts, but remained largely stable from about 2012 until the pandemic hit. Today, an estimated 3 to 5 million children in the US are homeschooled; the exact number is difficult to pin down due to differences in reporting methods. Dwyer isn’t opposed to homeschooling and says he’s considered the option for his own children. But he says it’s hard to argue homeschooling is a good fit for all students because laws and requirements vary by state – about a dozen states don’t require parents to notify school districts that their children are homeschooled, making it more difficult to track students’ whereabouts and ensure their safety; some states require that homeschool teachers cover basic subjects like math, science and language arts, while others do not, which may create a challenge for monitoring academic progress. There’s also the chance that homeschooling doesn’t work and parents re-enroll their children in public schools, at which point they may have been set back academically. “If parents decide to call it quits and their child loses a year or two of academic advancement, is that a tragedy? Maybe not. But I think we can call it sub-optimal,” Dwyer says. That wasn’t the case for Khadijah Ali-Coleman. She homeschooled her daughter, who enrolled in college classes while she was still in high school, a status known as dual enrollment. Her daughter went on to earn her associate’s degree at 17 and is now in her second year at the University of San Francisco on a full scholarship. For Ali-Coleman, who has spent a decade as a community college educator, teaching dual-enrolled students – who overwhelmingly exhibited skills they needed to be successful in college, such as the confidence to ask questions and the ability to self-pace – confirmed what was missing from traditional education and became the basis of her dissertation. “I wanted my dissertation to focus on African American dual homeschool students, because I think that their practices can be incorporated in pre-college programs for our students whether or not they’re homeschooled,” she says. Along with the University of Georgia researcher Cheryl Fields-Smith, Ali-Coleman co-founded a group called Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, which she describes as a repository of research and a community where parents can share information and best practices free from vendors trying to market new products. In addition to the study skills Ali-Coleman noticed among the dual enrolled students she interviewed, her research revealed something she wasn’t expecting: the students seemed to have an awareness not only of their own cultural identity, but a sense of responsibility to be allies to other Black students. “They were talking about things they just picked up from their parents and hearing their parents engage with other Black people,” she says. “They wanted to make sure that a person felt comfortable in an environment where they were a minority.” Bernita Bradley sees this in the students she serves as a facilitator and partnership manager for Engaged Detroit, a co-op and advocacy network for homeschooling families. “Children thrive where they know that they’re loved. And that becomes, ‘I will learn to love learning what I’m learning,’” she says. Bradley notes the anxiety students have about school when she first starts working with them; she sees it in the way they disengage, hang their head or shrug their shoulders. And she watches them come alive and open up to learning when they trust that the adults around them care about them. She’s watched the same change happen in her own daughter, Victoria, who attended traditional public schools and charter schools. She enjoyed learning but struggled to deal with the disruptions familiar to public schools – one year, Victoria had three different science teachers; she endured bullying and impatient teachers. Victoria had always been one to ask questions in class, but she believes some teachers saw that as a challenge to their authority. “A lot of schools in brown and Black communities have become this space where they want children to fit in this square peg. And, and if they don’t fit in that square peg, then there’s something wrong with you as a child – not our broken system that’s historically failed brown and Black families,” she says. “Homeschooling flipped my thinking about education upside down.” A turning point came when Victoria struggled with a chemistry class and began to check out of her studies. Bradley’s instinct was to pressure her daughter to buckle down, but on the advice of a friend and mentor, she instead asked her daughter what class she wanted to take. Victoria chose forensic science, which Bradley said was more advanced than chemistry. But she flourished; it was no longer a struggle to focus. Victoria came away with a plan to become a criminal psychologist, Bradley says. “I realized I had been doing the same thing that public schools have done to kids. When kids don’t do things the way that they want them to, they shut them down and make it seem like there’s something wrong with them, instead of letting them be guided by their own passion.”

Teachers asked to chip in £1 each for legal case against Ofsted

2023-05-01

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/01/teachers-asked-to-chip-in-1-each-for-legal-case-against-ofsted

Fair Judgement raises funds for case in response to death of Berkshire primary headteacher Ruth Perry A group of senior school leaders is calling on teachers to donate £1 each to launch a legal challenge against Ofsted, pledging to hold the inspectorate to account for “ending careers” and causing a mental health crisis. The vice-president of the Conservative education society, John Bald, a former Ofsted inspector, is fronting a crowdfunding page for the group, which is called Fair Judgement. The leaders fear the inspectorate may seek to punish their schools if they go public. The collective legal challenge is a response to the death of the Berkshire primary headteacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life in January while awaiting an inspection report that downgraded her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”, galvanising teachers to demand change. The case will argue that the whole inspection regime is flawed, and Ofsted is not sufficiently transparent about the criteria it uses to downgrade schools. The group is collecting evidence about “unfair” judgments and their “devastating impact”, from heads, teachers, governors, parents and former inspectors in England. The school leader heading Fair Judgement, who works at a primary school in north-west England and used to be a lawyer, told the Guardian: “There are thousands of people working in education who will be overjoyed to see Ofsted made answerable for the many careers they have ended and the fear and stress they have caused.” Bald, who worked for Ofsted until 2006 and argues the inspectorate operates a “tyranny” over schools, said: “Inspectors are picking up on trivial points of detail, such as gaps in safeguarding administration, and using them to fail a school that is performing well. That is utterly disgraceful.” He gave an example of a school that was downgraded largely because the head had noted down something a parent had said on paper rather than on a computer. A teacher at a secondary school in Surrey, who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, described a recent Ofsted inspection in which the inspector interrupted her lesson to ask her – in front of all her 11- and 12-year-old pupils – to point out the most disadvantaged children. She said: “I was so shocked I just stood there like a goldfish.” The teacher refused to openly point at the children, but offered to show the information on a seating plan, which the inspector refused. This also happened in other classrooms. She said: “At the end of the day they told the head they had asked 10 teachers the same question ‘and only one of them knew’.” The teacher said this assumption was unfair and totally inaccurate. In the past three weeks, more than 3,000 teachers have posted their own inspection horror stories, or talked about how inspections have affected their mental health, on a social media spreadsheet uploaded by a teacher who calls himself Mr P. He said fewer than 1% of comments were positive, despite chief inspector Amanda Spielman’s insistence last weekend that most schools find their inspection a “positive and affirming experience”. Mr P said he had been contacted personally by a number of heads who had been deeply affected by Ruth Perry’s suicide because their own inspection had left them experiencing similar despair. He said: “One told me that at the end of the first day of his inspection on the drive home he was contemplating [suicide], because it all felt so unfair.” Yogi Amin, national head of public law at the legal firm Irwin Mitchell, who is leading the Ofsted case, said many school leaders felt complaining about an unfair inspection report would get them nowhere. He said: “If this is a flawed inspection regime, where is the justice in terms of a fair hearing for schools? What school governing body with a tight budget is going to instruct lawyers to challenge a verdict?” A spokesperson for Ofsted said: “Ensuring children are safe in school is far from ‘trivial’ – it is one of the most important elements of our inspections.” She said a school would be graded inadequate for safeguarding reasons only for “serious concerns” such as failure to complete background checks on staff or not having a robust system to spot signs of abuse. She added: “We are unable to comment on unsubstantiated allegations from anonymous sources, but we would not tolerate poor behaviour from inspectors.” In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Mundher Al-Adhami obituary

2022-05-02

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/02/mundher-al-adhami-obituary

Mundher Al-Adhami, who has died suddenly aged 79, was a maths teacher who moved into research and development. In this work he focused on the structure of progression in learning and on constructing lessons that encourage active engagement in mathematical thinking for all children. A passionate intellectual activist and writer, Mundher was always trying to understand the world and working to improve it, whether in education or Middle Eastern politics. He was a generous collaborator and stimulating friend. Born in Baghdad, he was one of 16 children of Fatima Jawad Asia and Nouman Mohammed Al-Adhami, a grain wholesaler. After attending Markazia high school, he left Iraq to study geophysics at the universities of Moscow and Durham. Throughout his life, he was involved in publishing for and leading Iraqi and Palestinian solidarity movements, and was a member of the BRussells tribunal on the Iraq war. With his second wife, Haifa Zangana, whom he met at a political demonstration in 1988 and married in 1992, he later endowed prizes for Iraqi writers. He had several temporary teaching posts in Durham but the first permanent post was at Elliott school in Putney, south-west London, where he moved to in 1974, then John Archer school in Wandsworth, which later merged into Wandsworth school. When I first met him, he was head of maths there. He then moved to become a key member of the project team of graded assessment in mathematics (Gaim) at King’s College London, developing a teacher-assessed scheme for 11- to 16-year-olds that could be traded in for a final GCSE grade. The job involved researching and trialling a framework of progression in understanding, partly assessed by individual and group problem-solving, and later administering the Gaim GCSE. Two related projects at King’s followed, one secondary and one primary, on cognitive acceleration in mathematics education (Came), working with teachers to develop crafted “thinking maths” lessons based on the Gaim framework and informed by cognitive psychology. All these projects gave rise to published teacher resources and academic books and papers, to which Mundher richly contributed. He continued as chief executive of the educational consultancy Cognitive Acceleration Associates, and founder of the charity Let’s Think Forum, working with schools to improve their teaching of maths. While latterly enjoying his winters in Tunisia, Mundher continued writing, editing and collaborating internationally right up to his death, contributing with his customary wisdom, humanity and passion to both politics and maths teaching. He is survived by Haifa, his two children, Youssef and Rheem, from his first marriage to Helen (nee Vesey), from whom he was divorced, four grandchildren, a stepdaughter, and 10 of his 15 siblings.

Education inequalities exposed by Covid have no quick fix – survey

2021-03-25

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/25/education-inequalities-exposed-by-covid-have-no-quick-fix-survey

Poll reveals grave concern among schools and councils about the scale of learning gaps that have appeared Educational inequalities and deprivation have “mushroomed” during the pandemic to such an extent that children in England need long-term aid rather than “quick” initiatives, according to a wide-reaching survey of school and council leaders. The Local Government Association poll of eight local authorities found schools and councils gravely concerned at the scale of the learning gaps that have appeared, particularly among children with special needs and disabilities, and reports significant pressures on staff and budgets. The report also found cases where councils and schools have been working more closely than in recent years, reversing the separation between the two following the spread of the self-governing academies that have replaced maintained schools since 2010. The authors found that the urgency of the Covid crisis improved information sharing and cooperation to support vulnerable families, and in some cases exposed levels of deprivation and hardship that were previously hidden to schools and local authorities. One school leader said: “I knew [our local area] was poor, but I have been shocked. I have learned how poor some people in our community really are.” The report states: “The challenges thrown up by the pandemic, and cycles of lockdown, had not necessarily created new needs, but rather had exacerbated existing vulnerabilities and widened learning gaps. “This is unlikely to be solved by a quick ‘catch-up’ initiative. Instead, local leaders recognised the need for a long-term offer of the sort of intensive, holistic, joined-up support for families at risk and those who are potentially vulnerable.” The leaders of education and children’s services departments in local authorities including Gateshead, Lincolnshire and Leicester reported “extreme fatigue, the risk of burnout, and the strain on local resources, both human and financial”, including notable increases in the number of families claiming free school meals and schools reporting higher spending on IT, cleaning and staff costs. Local leaders also revealed a “strained relationship between central and local government”, and complained of plans being developed without consultation and sudden policy shifts announced without warning. One case highlighted by the report was “the breakdown in trust caused by the decisions and advice given around remote learning and school closures before and after the Christmas holidays”, under which primary schools in some parts of the country opened for a day before central government told them to close again. Judith Blake, the chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said: “The impacts of Covid-19 will be with us for years to come. They will show up in economic hardship, mental health issues, attainment gaps and more, and it will be up to councils, schools and their partners to support children and their families to navigate these challenges. “We need to tackle head-on the inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. This requires a long-term strategy and funding to target the most vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils.” School leaders reported that operating under lockdown had forged new networks for all schools. One school leader said cooperation in their area had worked because “there is a spirit of teamwork. We are not divided along the lines of academies and maintained schools because we understand the dynamics of our local communities”. Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Covid has both highlighted and exacerbated the huge problem of poverty and inequality in our country. Children are returning to school needing not just academic help but a wide range of pastoral, mental health and wellbeing support too. “Unfortunately a simple return to ‘normal’ isn’t going to solve things, and it isn’t going to be a quick job.”

One in five students at top universities consider dropping out over cost of living

2023-03-12

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/12/one-in-five-students-at-top-universities-consider-dropping-out-over-cost-of-living

A quarter are regularly going without food and other essentials, a new Russell Group Students’ Unions study reveals One in five students at Russell Group universities are considering dropping out because of the cost of living crisis, and a quarter are regularly going without food and other essentials, the Observer can reveal. In the largest study of its kind, new research by the Russell Group Students’ Unions – which represents 24 of Britain’s most elite higher education institutions, including Oxbridge, UCL and Edinburgh – for the first time lays bare the devastating impact soaring prices are having on all but the richest students. More than half of those surveyed said their academic performance had suffered as a result of the cost of living crisis. Students reported having to take on additional paid work to cover costs, concentration issues caused by poor nourishment and financial stress, and skipping lectures because they couldn’t afford travel fares. Researchers said unless urgent action is taken, the damage being done by the crisis could lead to universities being “only open to the most privileged” – undoing decades of progress on broadening higher education access. Dr Tim Bradshaw, the Russell Group’s chief executive, condemned the “worrying” findings, which he expects to worsen, and called for the government to take urgent action in Wednesday’s budget by addressing “flaws in the maintenance loans system” and raising loans in line with inflation since 2020/21. The group also called on the government to consider reintroducing maintenance grants for the most disadvantaged students and to review the parental threshold for maximum loan support, which has been frozen since 2008. The survey of more than 8,500 students, carried out in the first two months of this year, found that the proportion of students who were considering dropping out rose to more than three in 10 among the most socioeconomically disadvantaged. Among those most likely to leave were students from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds and disabled and part-time students. International students, who are not permitted to work more than 20 hours a week, have also been badly affected. Dani Bradford, policy and research manager at Students’ Union UCL, who led the research, said: “We’re really running a risk where our university system is only open to the most privileged.” It was only among students with a family household income of £75,000-plus that they saw a considerable decrease in the numbers considering dropping out. The average respondent fell below the UK poverty line, she said, and only £2 a week above the UK level of destitution, after paying for housing. “It’s not just that they can’t go out and get coffee or socialise, it’s this very real level of quite severe poverty that a lot of our students are finding themselves in – and with no avenue to get out,” said Bradford. Students reported feeling suicidal, suffering from severe anxiety and loneliness. Some said their families were not turning on the heating at home so that their student children could eat. “It’s almost been normalised the suffering of students,” said Bradford, adding that many are at risk of eviction and not eating for several days. First year UCL student Sophie Bush, 20, says she has seriously thought about dropping out of her history and philosophy of science course because of the soaring cost of living. Bush, who is from Essex and living in university accommodation in London, wants to do a Masters and PhD but has realised finances might make it impossible. “I’m having to give up on certain parts of my goals and orientate it in a different way because I just won’t be able to tangibly afford it, which is really sad.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion She has got a part-time job waitressing and is trying to save funds for next year so that she can continue with her studies, but she still feels vulnerable and is unsure how she will fund next year. Bush, who has Crohn’s disease, said the cost of living crisis is making her sicker because she has been so anxious and stressed. University is not what she imagined, and students, she said, are “at breaking point”. “I know that if it gets any worse, I will be at breaking point. I have cried so many tears over money.” Finnish student Evgenia Glantzi, who is doing a masters in intellectual property law at Edinburgh, is working 25-30 hours a week in retail to meet mounting costs, and sometimes has to miss lectures. The 24-year-old said that, coming from a low-income background, she sees graduating as a way of getting a good job. But, she said: “It would be so much easier to quit”. Life as a European student has already become much harder since Brexit, she said, which has made “everything so much more complicated”. “We were welcome here before Brexit. It feels like now the government just wants us out.” The Department for Education said many universities are “stepping up” support efforts and urged students who are worried to “speak to their university before considering dropping out”. A spokesperson said: “We recognise many students are struggling with the cost of living, which is why we have made an additional £15m available to help students who need additional support, increasing our student premium funding to £276m this academic year.”

High court to consider whether universities owe students legal duty of care

2023-11-20

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/nov/20/high-court-to-consider-whether-universities-owe-students-legal-duty-of-care

Campaigners say move would save lives and bring England and Wales in line with other countries The high court is to consider for the first time whether universities owe a legal duty of care to their students, which campaigners argue would save lives and bring England and Wales in line with other countries. The landmark hearing next month comes at a time of widespread concern about declining student mental health and a number of widely reported suicides, including that of Natasha Abrahart, 20, who was a second year physics student at Bristol University when she killed herself in 2018. Bereaved families, including Natasha’s parents, Robert and Margaret Abrahart, argue a statutory duty of care would oblige university staff to exercise reasonable care and avoid acts that could foreseeably cause students harm. In May last year, the Abraharts successfully sued Bristol University under the Equality Act for not taking reasonable care of their daughter’s wellbeing, health and safety. Natasha, who had chronic social anxiety, took her own life a day before she was due to give an oral exam in front of teachers and fellow students. The Abraharts were awarded £50,000 in damages by the county court and have been granted permission by the high court to appeal against a separate finding that the university did not owe their daughter a legal duty of care under the law of negligence. The three-day hearing, which is due to start on 11 December in Bristol, will also consider an appeal by Bristol University against the earlier finding that it breached the Equality Act. In a separate move, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been granted permission to intervene in what it described as a “landmark legal case” that could have far-reaching implications. A University of Bristol spokesperson said the circumstances of Natasha’s death were not disputed. “In appealing, we are seeking absolute clarity for the higher education sector around the application of the Equality Act when staff do not know a student has a disability, or when it has yet to be diagnosed. “We hope it will also enable us to provide transparency to students and their families about how we support them and to give all university staff across the country the confidence to do that properly.” The legal duty of care issue was debated in Westminster this year after parents and supporters gathered more than 128,000 signatures in a parliamentary petition calling for its introduction. At the end, however, the government said it had no plans for new legislation. Robert Abrahart, a retired university lecturer from Nottingham, said: “Like many other parents we were appalled to learn that universities don’t already owe a legal duty to exercise reasonable care and skill in the way they treat their students. We are delighted that the high court has agreed to consider whether such a duty should now be imposed. If this happens it will not only save lives but it will bring universities in England and Wales into line with their counterparts in Australia and the USA.” Margaret Abrahart, a retired psychological wellbeing practitioner, added: “We need something positive to come from the nightmare of Natasha’s death. We have petitioned parliament, we’ve spoken with political parties, and now we’re trying to do what we can through the courts. We don’t expect universities to treat students like children and don’t think lecturers should have parental responsibility. We just want to see a common sense legal duty on universities to take reasonable steps not to harm their students.” Gus Silverman, of the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn, who is representing the Abraharts, said: “The University of Bristol told the county court that it didn’t owe any relevant duty to care for its students under the law of negligence. Now the high court will consider, for the first time, whether that is correct.” Bristol University said its staff helped Natasha with a referral to both the NHS and the university’s disability services, and suggested alternative options for her academic assessment to alleviate her anxiety. “However the judgment suggests they should have gone further than this, although Natasha’s mental health difficulties had not been diagnosed. Understandably, this has caused considerable anxiety as it puts a major additional burden on staff who are primarily educators, not healthcare professionals,” the spokesperson said. “Collectively, we are deeply concerned by the increase of mental health issues amongst our young people nationally and are determined to do our very best to support any student who is struggling with their mental health through the provision of a wide range of services. At the same time, it is important that students and their families are clear on what universities can and cannot do, and that students receive appropriate specialist care under the NHS should they need it.” Universities UK, which speaks on behalf of more than 140 institutions, said in an earlier briefing that universities already had a general duty of care to their students not to cause harm by careless acts or omissions. “We do not believe a further statutory duty would be the best approach to improve outcomes for students.” In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

UK students skipping meals because of cost of living crisis

2023-01-26

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/26/uk-students-skipping-meals-because-of-cost-of-living-crisis

One in four students say they are in danger of dropping out of university – survey Students are skipping meals and relying on hardship funds and family support because of the cost of living crisis, with one in four saying they are in danger of dropping out of university, according to a survey. Research carried out for the Sutton Trust found nearly a quarter of the 1,000 UK students interviewed said they were “less likely” to be able to complete their degree because of cost pressures, while one in three from working class families said they were cutting down on food to save money. While nearly half of students have approached their families for extra help, many of those from disadvantaged or poorer backgrounds said they were less likely or unable to do so. One student, currently studying in England, said in an interview they were only eating two meals a day, spending less on food shopping and working part-time to pay their bills, despite receiving a full maintenance loan and bursary from their university. “The cost of living crisis is making me worried and stressed as I’ve now had to sacrifice my study time to get a job to support my financial needs. “Balancing all-day university clinical placements and working is impacting my academics. I come from a low-income household so I haven’t got the ability to ask my family for financial support,” the student said. Another student, from the south-west of England, said they had approached their university for hardship funds: “I found the process of applying for the funds quite long-winded – the application required several months of bank statements, as well as letters from student finance, as evidence of my entitlement. “From there, I had to wait almost a month for a response. I was fortunate to receive some money, however it’s not a system I could trust if I needed support in an emergency.” “Now more than ever, I feel that the government are expecting parents and families to help support students and young people. This is not an option for me.” Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust, which campaigns to improve social mobility through education, said it was “scandalous” that students are skipping meals and cutting back on essentials. “To make sure that students can afford to fully take part in their course and wider university life, the Sutton Trust is calling for the government to urgently review the amount of funding and support available to students,” Lampl said. Students in England will receive an increase of just 2.8% in their maintenance loans if they continue studying in September, raising the average loan by around £200. The Welsh government has said it will increase maintenance loans and grants for its students by more than 9%. A spokesperson for England’s Department for Education said: “We recognise students continue to face financial challenges, which is why we are increasing loans and grants for living and other costs for a further year. “To support universities to top up their own hardship funds we are also making an additional £15m available. This will bring the total available to universities to draw on in supporting their students in hardship to £276m this academic year.” But the Sutton Trust noted that £41m of the £276m was reserved for the disabled students’ pupil premium, with the remainder designated “to support successful student outcomes,” such as widening participation and outreach activities, making it unlikely to be used for hardship funds. The additional £15m amounts to just £67 for each undergraduate from the most deprived parts of England, according to the trust. Matt Western, Labour’s shadow higher education minister, said: “The scale of the crisis has been building for months after the Conservatives crashed the economy, yet ministers have failed to take the action necessary to support students.”

Proportion of top degree grades in England could fall by nearly 25%

2022-07-05

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jul/05/proportion-of-top-degree-grades-in-england-could-fall-by-nearly-25

Universities say they want to reverse the grade inflation seen during the Covid pandemic The proportion of top degree grades awarded to undergraduates in England could fall by nearly 25% after universities said they want to reverse the grade inflation seen during the Covid pandemic. Universities UK and GuildHE, representing institutions across the higher education sector, have jointly announced plans to return to pre-pandemic levels of firsts and 2:1s being awarded over the next two years. Universities have been criticised by ministers and the higher education regulator for year-on-year increases in the proportions of top grades awarded, and the Office for Students (OfS) accused universities of damaging the reputation of higher education. By the end of this year, universities are expected to publish degree outcome statements setting out how they intend to bring future awards into line with the proportion of first and upper second class degrees awarded in 2019. The impact of the measures would reduce the proportion of first class degrees awarded by nearly 25%. Anthony McClaran, the vice-chancellor of St Mary’s University, Twickenham and chair of GuildHE, said: “During the pandemic we have rightly recognised the disruption that students have faced and supported students’ achievement to be recognised as flexibly as possible. “As we emerge from the pandemic it is time to redouble our focus on protecting academic standards and take strong action to ensure we maintain the wider confidence and trust in the system.” Universities UK said that measures to make sure students “were not unfairly disadvantaged during the unique circumstances of the pandemic” contributed to the steep increases in firsts and 2:1s awarded. In 2021, nearly 38% of undergraduates in England were awarded a first, more than double the 16% awarded firsts a decade earlier, and well above the 29% awarded before the pandemic. Last year a combined 84% of students achieved a first or upper second, compared with 67% a decade earlier. The OfS analysis of awards made in 2021 claimed that more than half of first class degrees could not be explained by “observable factors” such as student attainment or social background. Steve West, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of UWE Bristol, said students who graduated over the last three years “should feel proud of, and confident in, the qualifications they worked hard to achieve”. Michelle Donelan, the higher education minister for England, said she was “delighted” by the announcement. “Just as the government is restoring pre-pandemic grading at GCSE and A-level by 2023, today’s statement will ensure that universities are also eliminating the grade inflation that occurred over the pandemic, and on the same timetable,” she said. “Hard-working students deserve to know that earning a first or upper second really counts and that it carries weight with employers, who in turn should be able to trust in the high value and rigorous assessment of university courses.”

Ronald Clarke obituary

2022-11-25

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/25/ronald-clarke-obituary

My father, Ronald Clarke, who has died aged 89, was an education officer who helped design courses in public administration for developing economies. Born in Poole, Dorset, the only son of Doris (nee Clarke), a Post Office clerk, and Harold, a surveyor with Poole city council, Ron went to Bournemouth boys’ grammar school and loved playing piano duets with his father. As a teenager, he found soulmates in the local Methodist church youth group; his religious faith ebbed away over the decades. National service in 1952 was the turning point in his life. He was accepted as an officer cadet on the Russian interpreters’ course, which was based in Cambridge and Bodmin. His year’s intake included Michael Frayn and Alan Bennett, and our family photographs include a shot of this cohort grinning after a production in Russian of Gogol’s The Government Inspector. The Russian course gave Ron an introduction to Cambridge University life, and he applied to Fitzwilliam House (now Fitzwilliam College) to study English. In his final year he met Betty Milligan, a primary school teacher, and they married in 1958. By the time he graduated in 1957, his eyes were set on wider horizons. He applied to the Colonial Office for a post in Uganda as an education officer and moved to London to do the overseas-oriented PGCE course at the Institute of Education. From 1958 to 1970 he and Betty lived in Uganda, where Ron worked as director of extra-mural studies at Makerere University in Kampala, and where they had their four children. Between 1971 and 1974 he worked at Chancellor College in Malawi. Then the family left Africa for a new life in Manchester. Ron’s work in educational outreach in Africa was the basis of the PhD he completed there in 1981. He also worked abroad in this period, evaluating schools in Nepal and Sierra Leone (mainly for Official Development Assistance, run by the British Council) and helping to establish a new university in Mauritius. Our house in Withington was often filled with visiting fellows from all over the world. Ron’s love of landscape and hillwalking filtered down to all his children, and was a reason for moving to Malvern when he retired, in 2003. There, he became a chair and trustee of the development education charity Beacons, inspiring young people to change the world. He is survived by Betty, by my siblings, Julian, Rachel, Jonathan, and me, and by his grandchildren Natasha, Phoebe, Jenna, Laura and Gregory.

Margaret Copley obituary

2023-02-16

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/16/margaret-copley-obituary

My wife, Margaret Copley, who has died aged 80, was a social worker who helped to introduce new models of caring for children into the UK. Born in Leeds to Agnes (nee Conboy) and Frank Quinn, a gardener, she was one of six children, the youngest of whom became the chef Michael Quinn. Margaret went to St Mary’s Roman Catholic grammar school in Leeds, leaving at 16 so that she could work to help the family’s finances. She did various clerical jobs until, at 22, she was given the opportunity to go as a volunteer with the Grail, a Roman Catholic lay order of women, to Lebanon. There she worked at a school for the profoundly deaf, an experience that she said was the making of her. On her return to Leeds in 1965, she worked with Leeds Diocesan Catholic Rescue for a year before applying for a place on the new Home Office letter of recognition course at Leeds University - the first three-year course in the UK for childcare officers and probation officers in the UK. At the beginning of her second year, she went on a placement to Leeds city council’s care of children department, where we met. In 1970 she prepared for our marriage, Roman Catholic and Methodist, with the same determination, careful thought and sense of humour that she demonstrated in her life and work. It was while working at the multidisciplinary Family Advisory Centre in Liverpool, in 1979, that Margaret helped to introduce Portage – a home-visiting educational service – into the UK. She joined a country-wide group of educational psychologists and social workers who saw that Portage could support the parents of preschool children with special educational needs or disability. Along with two colleagues, she developed a home-visiting service in the city. In 1986 she was appointed to run a Portage service in Knowsley and there, alongside the home-visiting service on a one-to-one basis, she adapted the model to work with parents in groups. To help her in the task, she trained as a teacher of adults, enabling her to help professionals across the north-west in Portage. The outcome of her work in Knowsley was that a number of parents recognised their own potential and went back into education, some to degree level. Margaret herself obtained a master’s in education as a result of this work. She is survived by me, our three children, Jonathan, Judith and Daniel, and four grandchildren, Idris, Isabel, Nye and George.

MPs call on Jeremy Hunt to extend free school meals to all primary pupils

2023-03-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/13/cross-party-mps-call-on-jeremy-hunt-to-extend-free-school-meals-to-all-primary-pupils-in-uk

Campaign coordinated by Labour MP Zarah Sultana calls for every child to have access to a daily hot meal The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has been urged to use his spring budget to extend free school meals for all primary pupils. The Scottish government has committed to providing free school meals for all primary schoolchildren, while in Wales the rollout of universal primary free school meals began in September. But in England, only in London will all primary pupils get access to free hot meals for a year starting in September. All children in England can get free school meals until the end of year 2. At least 55 MPs from various parties have signed the letter to Hunt, which was coordinated by the Labour backbencher Zarah Sultana, calling for every child to have access to a hot healthy meal each day. The letter has also been signed by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan; the Labour chair of the DWP select committee, Stephen Timms; the backbench Labour MP Hilary Benn; the Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron; the independent MP Jeremy Corbyn; the Greens’ Caroline Lucas; and the North of Tyne mayor, Jamie Driscoll. It says: “The spiralling [cost of living] crisis is seen in our schools, with heartbreaking accounts of seven-year-olds stashing food from breakfast clubs for later in the day and children pretending to eat from empty lunchboxes.” Last month, Khan announced plans to offer all London primary schoolchildren free meals for one year, to tackle what he said was a failure by ministers to step up support during the cost of living crisis. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion He said he knew “from personal experience that free school meals are a lifeline”, as his parents relied on them to give his family “a little extra breathing room financially”, and free meals could be “gamechanging” for others struggling to make ends meet. Households in England receiving universal credit and earning below £7,400 a year before benefits and after tax qualify for free school meals. In Northern Ireland, the family earnings threshold is £14,000 after tax and before benefits. Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, is taking her private member’s bill through parliament. The free school meals for all bill will have its second reading in parliament on Friday 24 March. She said: “Only the Westminster government can end this postcode lottery, but instead the Conservatives are focused on whipping up fear and scapegoating refugees. I am calling on the government to embrace this opportunity to extend free school meals to all primary school pupils and address the injustice of child poverty.” A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Since 2010, the number of children receiving a free meal at school has increased by more than 2 million, thanks to the introduction of universal infant free school meals plus generous protections put in place as benefit recipients move across to universal credit. “Over a third of pupils in England now receive free school meals in education settings, compared with one in six in 2010, and we have made a further investment in the national school breakfast programme to extend the programme for another year, backed by up to £30m. “We have also acted on energy costs through the energy price guarantee, saving a typical household over £900 this winter. The energy bills support scheme is also providing a £400 discount to millions of households this winter, and further support is available for the most vulnerable who will receive up to £1,350 in 2023-24.”

Forget Oxbridge: St Andrews knocks top universities off perch

2022-09-24

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/24/stoxbridge-st-andrews-overtakes-oxford-cambridge-guardian-university-guide

Latest Guardian University Guide shows leading trio are in league of their own for undergraduate courses Oxbridge is being replaced at the apex of UK universities by “Stoxbridge” after St Andrews overtook Oxford and Cambridge at the top of the latest Guardian University Guide. It is the first time the Fife university has been ranked highest in the Guardian’s annual guide to undergraduate courses, pushing Oxford into second and Cambridge into third. Detailed analysis of the rankings – which includes data on student satisfaction and attainment, graduate outcomes and staff-student ratios – shows that the three universities are in a league of their own, with only fractional differences separating first and third places, but a much larger gap to their rivals, such as Imperial College London. Dame Sally Mapstone, the vice-chancellor and principal of St Andrews, said: “I hope that St Andrews’ terrific students and all of my hard-working colleagues will feel the recognition of this very significant achievement. They entirely deserve it. “The amalgam of our strengths in the key areas which the Guardian measures has set us narrowly ahead of some of the very best universities in the world. For a small Scottish university to shake the established order repeatedly is a great tribute to everyone who works and studies here.” St Andrews is the third-oldest university in the UK, with its foundation in 1413 predated only by Oxford and Cambridge, whose earliest royal charters were awarded in the 13th century. The Stoxbridge trio also dominate the individual rankings for undergraduate subjects in the Guardian guide: Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews take first place in 30 out of the 66 subject areas. Cambridge leads the way in 15 subjects but St Andrews is ranked first in a string of major subject areas, including history, economics, chemistry and English. Matt Hiely-Rayner, who compiled the guide, said there was little to separate the three Stoxbridge members, with the narrowest difference between first and third place in the guide’s history. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion “What’s clearer is the extent to which these three are removed from the rest of the sector. But between them there isn’t much difference, they are so close that tiny judgments would make a difference in the order,” he said. What benefits St Andrews this year is slightly higher entry grades among incoming undergraduates, as well as high levels of student satisfaction with teaching and the high proportion who go on to graduate employment or further study. “St Andrews offers slightly different subjects than Oxford and Cambridge, and because of that, it has a slightly better performance,” Hiely-Rayner said. Outside of Stoxbridge, there were improved performances by Imperial, which was named the Guardian’s university of the year after rising to fifth place. It has the highest levels of student satisfaction for teaching in England, as well as powerful performances in engineering subjects, including top spot in the new category of aerospace engineering. Imperial also excels in helping students establish their careers. In recent years, more than 94% have found graduate-level positions within 15 months of earning their degrees. The rankings recognise strong improvements in universities across the sector, with several able to celebrate improving their positions. The University of West London is ranked 23rd overall, continuing its climb from 96th in the 2017 guide, thanks to an exceptional performance in student satisfaction surveys. The University of Sunderland has jumped from 92nd to 50th place overall. Record numbers of school leavers are starting undergraduate courses at UK universities this autumn. The unabated demand for higher education and the mini baby boom that began in the mid-2000s is causing increased competition for places across the sector. This article was amended on 24 September 2022. The “Stoxbridge” universities take first place in 30 out of 66 undergraduate subject areas; not 36 subject areas as an earlier version said.

Ofsted chief admits system ‘did not work as well as it should’ after abuse at school

2023-06-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/13/ofsted-chief-says-system-did-not-work-as-well-as-it-should-after-abuse-at-school

Amanda Spielman defends failure to spot mistreatment at residential facility for disabled children as she is grilled by MPs Ofsted’s chief inspector has told MPs its inspection system “did not work as well as it should,” as she defended the watchdog’s failure to spot mistreatment of more than 100 youngsters over several years at a large residential school for disabled children. Amanda Spielman was quizzed by the education select committee over why Ofsted had rated three Doncaster educational facilities run by the Hesley Group as “good” in 2019, despite evidence of a string of complaints and serious incidents going back to 2015. A subsequent investigation into abuse claims at the Hesley homes published in 2022 found a “culture of abuse” in which children were punched, kicked, verbally taunted and inappropriately restrained, including being locked up overnight in bathrooms. Quizzed by Nick Fletcher, Conservative MP for Don Valley, Spielman admitted that although there had been systematic concealing of evidence of abuse, the scandal had showed Ofsted’s inspection system “did not work as well as it should.” There were about 200 complaints and serious incident notifications a year emerging from the three Hesley facilities, but this had not been out of line with the expected volume of such reports for a home of this size, Spielman said, and so the threshold for regulatory intervention had not been met. Ofsted had checked each complaint and had been satisfied with the home’s explanations, she said. A later inspection revealed the notifications and complaints it was made aware of “were only part of the picture” and a large amount of data had been withheld that, had Ofsted known about it, would probably have triggered intervention. “There was deliberate concealment of substantial amounts of information,” Spielman told the committee. The suspension of routine inspection during the Covid-19 lockdown had contributed to “eyes being taken off” vulnerable children, she said. But she admitted Ofsted should have been quicker to spot the problems: “It is a shocking case and I have apologised for the delay. I do believe that we could and should have put together that emerging pattern a few months earlier than we did.” Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Hesley Group, which charged local authorities fees of up to £250,000 a year per child, closed the three Doncaster schools in 2021. Children typically had learning disabilities, autism or complex health needs and often presented with challenging behaviours. A criminal investigation by South Yorkshire police into the instances of abuse is continuing.

‘A real opportunity’: how ChatGPT could help college applicants

2023-08-27

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/27/chatgpt-ai-disadvantaged-college-applicants-affirmative-action

With the end of affirmative action, generative AI could ‘democratize’ admissions by giving students who don’t have tutors or counselors a leg up Chatter about artificial intelligence mostly falls into three basic categories: anxious uncertainty (will it take our jobs?); existential dread (will it kill us all?); and simple pragmatism (can AI write my lesson plan?). In this hazy, liminal, pre-disruption moment, there is little consensus as to whether generative AI is a tool or a threat, and few rules for using it properly. For students, this uncertainty feels especially profound. Bans on AI and claims that using it constitutes cheating are now giving way to concerns that AI use is inevitable and probably should be taught in school. Now, as a new college admissions season kicks into gear, many prospective applicants are wondering: can AI write my personal essay? Should it? Ever since the company OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November, students have been testing the limits of chatbots – generative AI tools powered by language-based algorithms – which can complete essay assignments within minutes. The results tend to be grammatically impeccable but intellectually bland, rife with cliche and misinformation. Yet teachers and school administrators still struggle to separate the more authentic wheat from the automated chaff. Some institutions are investing in AI detection tools, but these are proving spotty at best. In recent tests, popular AI text detectors wrongly flagged articles by non-native English speakers, and some suggested that AI wrote the US constitution. In July OpenAI quietly pulled AI Classifier, its experimental AI detection tool, citing “its low rate of accuracy”. Preventing students from using generative AI in their application essays seems like shoving a genie back in a bottle, but few colleges have offered guidance for how students can use AI ethically. This is partly because academic institutions are still reeling from the recent US supreme court ruling on affirmative action, which struck down a policy that had allowed colleges to consider an applicant’s race in order to increase campus diversity and broaden access to educational opportunity. But it is also because people are generally confused about what generative AI can do and whom it serves. As with any technological innovation in education, the question with AI is not merely whether students will use it unscrupulously. It is also whether AI widens access to real help or simply reinforces the privileges of the lucky few. These questions feel especially urgent now that many selective colleges are giving more weight to admissions essays, which offer a chance for students to set themselves apart from the similarly ambitious, high-scoring hordes. The supreme court’s ruling further bolstered the value of these essays by allowing applicants to use them to discuss their race. As more colleges offer test-optional or test-free admissions, essays are growing more important. In the absence of advice on AI from national bodies for college admissions officers and counselors, a handful of institutions have entered the void. Last month the University of Michigan Law School announced a ban on using AI tools in its application, while Arizona State University Law School said it would allow students to use AI as long as they disclose it. Georgia Tech is rare in offering AI guidance to undergraduate applicants, stating explicitly that tools like ChatGPT can be used “to brainstorm, edit, and refine your ideas”, but “your ultimate submission should be your own”. According to Rick Clark, Georgia Tech’s assistant vice-provost and executive director of undergraduate admission, AI has the potential to “democratize” the admissions process by allowing the kind of back-and-forth drafting process that some students get from attentive parents, expensive tutors or college counselors at small, elite schools. “Here in the state of Georgia the average counselor-to-student ratio is 300 to one, so a lot of people aren’t getting much assistance,” he told me. “This is a real opportunity for students.” Likening AI bans to early concerns that calculators would somehow ruin math, Clark said he hopes Georgia Tech’s approach will “dispel some misplaced paranoia” about generative AI and point a way forward. “What we’re trying to do is say, here’s how you appropriately use these tools, which offer a great way for students to get started, for getting them past the blank page.” He clarified that simply copying and pasting AI-generated text serves no one because the results tend to be flat. Yet with enough tweaks and revisions, he said, collaborating with AI can be “one of the few resources some of these students have, and in that regard it’s absolutely positive”. Although plenty of students and educators remain squeamish about allowing AI into the drafting process, it seems reasonable to hope that these tools could help improve the essays of those who can’t afford outside assistance. Most AI tools are relatively cheap or free, so nearly anyone with a device and an internet connection can use them. Chatbots can suggest topics, offer outlines and rephrase statements. They can also help organize thoughts into paragraphs, which is something most teenagers struggle to do on their own. “I think some people think the personal application essay shouldn’t be gamed in this way, but the system was already a game,” Jeremy Douglas, an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said. “We shouldn’t be telling students, ‘You’re too smart and ethical for that so don’t use it.’ Instead we should tell them that people with privileged access to college hire fancy tutors to gain every advantage possible, so here are tools to help you advocate for yourselves.” In my conversations with various professors, admissions officers and college prep tutors, most agreed that tools like ChatGPT are capable of writing good admissions essays, not great ones, as the results lack the kind of color and specificity that can make these pieces shine. Some apps aim to parrot a user’s distinctive style, but students still need to rework what AI generates to get these essays right. This is where the question of whether AI will truly help underserved students becomes more interesting. In theory, AI-generated language tools should widen access to essay guidance, grammar checks and feedback. In practice, the students who might be best served by these tools are often not learning how to use them effectively. The country’s largest school districts, New York City public schools and the Los Angeles unified school district, initially banned the use of generative AI on school networks and devices, which ensured that only students who had access to devices and the internet at home could take advantage of these tools. Both districts have since announced they are rethinking these bans, but this is not quite the same as helping students understand how best to use ChatGPT. “When students are not given this guidance, there’s a higher risk of them resorting to plagiarism and misusing the tool,” Zachary Cohen, an education consultant and middle school director at the Francis Parker School of Louisville, Kentucky, said. While his school joins some others in the private sector in teaching students how to harness AI to brainstorm ideas, iterate essays and also how to sniff out inaccurate dreck, few public schools have a technology officer on hand to navigate these new and choppy waters. “In this way, we’re setting up marginalized students to fail and wealthier students to succeed.” Writing is hard. Even trained professionals struggle to translate thoughts and feelings into words on a page. Personal essays are especially hard, particularly when there is so much riding on finding that perfect balance between humility and bravado, vulnerability and restraint. Recent studies confirming the very real lifetime value of a degree from a fancy college merely validate concerns about getting these essays right. “I will sit with students and ask questions they don’t know to ask themselves, about who they are and why something happened and then what happened next,” said Irena Smith, a former Stanford admissions officer who now works as a college admissions consultant in Palo Alto. “Not everyone can afford someone who does that.” When some students get their personal statements sculpted by handsomely paid English PhDs, it seems unfair to accuse those who use AI as simply “outsourcing” the hard work. Smith admits to some ambivalence about the service she provides, but doesn’t yet view tools like ChatGPT as serious rivals. Although she suspects the benefits of AI will redound to those who have been taught “what to ask and how to ask it”, she said she hopes this new technology will help all students. “People like me are symptoms of a really broken system,” she said. “So if ChatGPT does write me out of a job, or if colleges change their admissions practices because it becomes impossible to distinguish between a ChatGPT essay and a real student essay, then so much the better.”

Ministers put £15m towards tackling decline in language learning in England

2023-03-03

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/03/ministers-put-15m-towards-tackling-decline-in-language-learning-in-england

Exclusive: University College London to develop language programme in secondary schools over three years Ministers have awarded an almost £15m contract to tackle the systemic decline in the number of pupils in England taking foreign languages at GCSE and A-level. University College London’s Institute of Education will develop and roll out the Department of Education’s £14.9m language programme in primary and secondary schools over the next three years, with a focus on increasing opportunities among disadvantaged pupils. The IoE will establish a National Centre for Languages Education (NCLE) made up of up to 25 lead schools specialising in languages to work with up to 105 partner secondary schools. The centre aims to develop strategies to persuade more boys, as well as pupils with special educational needs or disabilities and other disadvantaged pupils, to choose languages, while up to five schools will be chosen to expand the Home Languages Accreditation project, which helps bilingual pupils gain GCSEs or A-levels in their home or heritage language. The NCLE will also develop an online toolkit for teachers to improve curriculum planning and reliable assessment of language learning to improve the transition from primary to secondary school. The aim is to support the DfE’s English baccalaureate (Ebacc) ambition for 90% of year 10 pupils in state-funded schools to study a combination of core academic subjects including a language by 2025. But statistics from the 2021/2022 academic year showed just 38.7% entered the Ebacc. Nick Gibb, minister for school standards, said: “Our economy needs people who can communicate across the globe and trade with overseas businesses. This programme is about ensuring we have the next generation of young people with the languages needed to compete on the world stage.”About £400,000 is ringfenced to develop German language skills, which the government recognises as a strategically important language to the UK. Entries for German GCSEs and A-levels have plummeted in recent years. The IoE will work with trained German specialist teachers via the Goethe-Institut to increase the number of pupils learning German in both primary and secondary schools. The DfE also announced a review of the syllabus for Chinese A-level to make it easier for non-native speakers, as well as a separate £1.1m expansion to the Mandarin Excellence Programme, with the aim of a further 21 schools participating by September 2024. Language experts cautiously welcomed the announcement, especially the investment in German. Prof Neil Kenny, lead fellow for languages at the British Academy, said: “We urge the government to take care that this new investment in both a Centre for Excellence and in German is not narrow in approach but is shaped by a wide and balanced range of research evidence and of expertise.” Crossbench peer Jean Coussins, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, said it was good the government was taking languages seriously but in order to reach its Ebacc targets, it would “also need to address modern foreign language teacher recruitment (just 34% of target numbers this year)”, and ensure universities stop shutting down language degrees and protect the year abroad. This article was amended on 3 March 2023. Funding for the expansion to the Mandarin Excellence Programme is worth £1.1m, not £11m as stated in an earlier version.

Stress, poor pay, no trust. Who’d be a teacher now? | Letters

2023-01-11

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/11/stress-poor-pay-no-trust-whod-be-a-teacher-now

Readers respond to analysis that showed a third of teachers who qualified in the last decade have left the profession I joined the teaching profession in the mid-1960s for a lifelong career in an optimistic, expanding education service being given increased respect, staffing and other resources. The current situation is very different (Third of England’s teachers who qualified in last decade ‘have left profession’, 9 January). I joined too because of the relatively great but still conditional autonomy offered me to exercise initiative, develop new ideas of my own and “make a difference” to the 46 primary-aged children I taught. That autonomy has now been drastically curtailed by an intrusive, demoralising, distrustful accountability system. As a young teacher, I remember knowing that if my day was boring, unproductive or restrictive, it was my own fault; I could have done things differently. That cannot be said of the experience of many recently qualified teachers who have left the profession. Perhaps their premature departure could have been prevented if at least some of the characteristics of optimistic 1960s education had been present.Prof Colin RichardsFormer HM inspector of schools There used to be a question posed by teachers to government when I was active in union affairs some 40 years ago: “What do you want me to give up in what I am doing now to make room for what you want me to do in the future?” Ever since the start of my teaching career, which ran from 1966 to 2001, the service has been treated like a petri dish by politicians and so-called experts. The opportunity to create a meaningful state system out of the failure of the postwar tripartite system has been squandered on the altar of innovation. Now, we have a business model in the state sector, or what is left of it, that is clearly no longer fit for purpose. There has been too much reform, in which common sense has been largely thrown out of the window.John MarriottLincoln As the public sector discontent drags on, it’s obvious that no politician is listening to the real issues, which is why the solutions offered by both major parties have no chance of succeeding. Teachers, doctors and nurses pay for their qualifications just to enter their specific professions. The public are getting the fruits of this training free, while graduates pay off both loans and escalating interest. To allow pay to drop so substantially over 12 years demonstrates how little successive governments value hard-won professional knowledge and expertise. Privatising the NHS, replacing one employer with another, will make no impact on recruitment or retention if the pay and conditions remain so poor. And a policy of taxing private education out of existence won’t improve wellbeing in teaching. Too many public sector professionals are concluding that the excessive demands and consequent debilitating stress are a poor return for their initial investment and goodwill. Halting the exodus will take more than shallow exhibitions of gratitude and vacuous promises of professional development. Hard cash is the only answer.Yvonne WilliamsRyde, Isle of Wight If some Tories describe the imposition of VAT on private school fees as “class war”, what term would they use for a deliberate 12-year campaign of impoverishment of millions and undermining, defunding or just removing the services they relied on to make life bearable?Dr Richard TowersSheffield

‘Parents didn’t want their kids to be here’: inside the troubled London school that stopped excluding pupils and restored calm

2024-03-02

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/02/parents-didnt-want-their-kids-to-be-here-inside-the-troubled-london-school-that-stopped-excluding-pupils-and-restored-calm

Headteacher Alan Streeter has turned around Beacon High School, a deprived secondary with a reputation for violence and 300 suspensions a year When headteacher Alan Streeter arrived at Beacon High school in Islington, north London, in 2018 the whole place felt “very tense”. Violence was a serious problem and there were 300 suspensions a year as staff wrestled to control it. Streeter, the fifth head at the school in three years, was faced with “the most stark anti-school feeling” he had encountered in three decades working in London state schools. “There were more children in the corridors than in the classrooms,” he says. “Parents didn’t want their kids to be here.” Six years on, the school has an unexpected air of calm. Pupils, who come mostly from three deprived housing estates nearby, say it is no longer frightening. But far from pushing out anyone deemed to be disruptive, Streeter has instead ushered in an era where “every­one is included”. Suspensions last year were down to 25, only one child was permanently excluded and these sanctions were a last resort after staff had tried everything else first. The school is not alone in embracing this philosophy. This month, London’s violence reduction unit (VRU), set up by mayor Sadiq Khan, announced a new inclusion charter, asking schools across the capital to stem the rising tide of fixed-term and permanent exclusions. There is a clear correlation between children with a history of suspension or exclusion and violence. Lib Peck, the VRU’s director, says kids out of school are twice as likely to carry a knife. “They might get caught up in a gang or exploitation. They might just think a knife will make them safer. We know it will put them more at risk.” There is also evidence that children excluded from school are more likely to commit crimes when they are adults. One in every two people in prison were excluded as children, according to research by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank. The attempt to drive down exclusions has some fierce detractors. They include the government’s own behaviour tsar for England, Tom Bennett, a vocal supporter of tough discipline and silent corridors. Last summer, he wrote in the Spectator about Khan wanting to reduce exclusions, announcing: “London’s schools are about to become less safe.” Streeter is quick to point out that his school was far less safe when suspensions were really high. He describes Bennett’s comments as “the sort of unevidenced thing you hear from people who haven’t actually spent time teaching in schools”. Streeter is adamant that he is not “soft” on discipline, and fully expects young people to follow the rules. On a tour of the school, he frequently stops teenagers with a “Blazer on!” or: “Where are you supposed to be?” In the pastoral wing, four young people sent out of class for up to three days are in the “refocus” room. Such rooms are common in “zero tolerance” schools where suspensions and exclusions are often very high. In some of the strictest academy chains, as pupils scale what is known as the “behaviour ladder”, notching up detentions leads to time in an isolation room, where they sit in a booth facing the wall all day as they work or perform tasks such as copying out dictionary definitions in complete silence. Beacon High’s room is deliberately jollier and less punitive. The walls are crowded with colourful artwork. There are booths where pupils complete work they should be doing in class, but this morning they are sitting at a table in the middle discussing a book that Amanda O’Connor, the room’s coordinator, is reading to them. The book is Holes, a comic novel about a bleak children’s correctional boot camp in the Texas desert. Two boys sheepishly admit they were sent here for fighting. One girl grabbed a teacher’s arm. O’Connor chips in: “We don’t grab you, you don’t grab us – you know that.” They all agree they do not want to end up here again soon, “because it’s so boring”. They want to be back in the playground hanging out with their friends. One accusation thrown at anti-exclusion policies is that they spoil everything for the kids who are not disruptive and want to learn. But GCSE results at the school have been steadily climbing from what Streeter calls “absolutely atrocious” in 2017 to just below national average now (he thinks they will hit that milestone in a year). This matters to him, but he is also frustrated that no one is judging his pupils by how far they have travelled personally. A quarter of them have special educational needs, which is unusually high. Streeter says some leave primary school so far behind that it is a big achievement when they manage to net a 3 (the equivalent of a D in the former grading system) at GCSE. “The system tells them they have failed and that hurts,” he says. “We have to make sure they are successful in other ways.” For many, this will mean learning the social skills they need just as much as GCSE passes, he says. Pupils who will not cope with complete GCSE courses can learn horticulture. Beacon High has a garden on its roof, built as a memorial to Ben Kinsella, a 16-year-old pupil at the school, who was stabbed to death by teenagers in 2008. When Streeter arrived, this “peace garden” was derelict and forgotten. Now it is thriving again and chickens wander between the beds. “Often, poor behaviour is a child saying: ‘Notice me, help me,’” Streeter says. When his staff did trauma-informed education training, they learned that a quarter of young people have experienced trauma. Streeter thinks at his school it is three-quarters. About 70% of his pupils are on free school meals, compared with a national average in England of almost 24%. Many depend on food banks. The school recently set up a crowdfunding page to raise £3,000 for uniforms, because so many pupils could not afford them. Large numbers of families are refugees and asylum seekerscrammed into temporary rooms in hotels. Streeter quotes US educationist Rita Pierson: “I was somebody when I came here, I will be a better somebody when I leave.” Children here, he says, need a champion. “Parents are champions of course but they’ve got a lot going on –and many are struggling.” Outside in the playground, a young man is playing football with a small group of boys. He is the school’s full-time “Becoming a Man” mentor, funded by the Mental Health Foundation charity. It is a space to talk about their emotions and he helps them focus on who they want to be. With its finances as desperately stretched as everyone else’s, the school has tapped into every charitable pot it can find to support pupils’ needs and bring in expertise. Kash, who is in year 9 and used to get in trouble a lot, says he and his mentor would set goals for the week and discuss how to get things “back on track” when it went wrong. “I felt I could talk to her, 100%,” he says. “It was nice, feeling like someone was listening.” Kain, in year 11, thinks the school has helped him to grow up. He used to bunk off lessons a lot and get into fights, but the school signed him up for a programme that rewarded good behaviour with boxing training each week. It changed his attitude. “Teachers can be your friend here,” he explains. “It’s not just having someone to talk to when you’re worried, it’s telling them something you’re excited about too.” He stresses how different the school is now. “It used to be a disaster. Behaviour was bad. It was messy.” Lily, another year 11 pupil, adds: “It’s safe now. I don’t ever feel scared. And there’s always someone you can talk to.” “They put a lot in place for us,” her friend Keira agrees. “If they just kick you out of school, people carry on misbehaving. But here they give people a chance to fix their ways.”

Students face fierce competition as fewer university courses become available

2023-08-10

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/10/students-fierce-competition-fewer-university-courses-available

Ucas tells applicants to act quickly to avoid disappointment, with A-level results due in England, Wales and Northern Ireland next week Students who miss out on their expected exam grades face fierce competition for university places this summer, with fewer vacancies on courses than in previous years. A week before A-level results are published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, several popular universities are reported to be full. This means applicants who fail to meet their grade offers will need to act quickly to secure a place elsewhere, the head of the Ucas admissions service said. A demographic increase has led to a rise in the number of school leavers this year. There has also been a rise in international students. As of Wednesday, Ucas’s clearing service recorded 22,410 courses available at 130 universities, compared with 23,280 this time last year, according to a survey by PA Media. Vacancies are scarcer at Russell Group universities, which tend to demand higher entry grades. Nine of the 24 members of the group recorded no vacancies remaining this year, while the other 15 had just over 2,000 places available between them. Last year, 17 Russell Group universities had 2,358 places remaining the weekend before A-level results were published. Clare Marchant, the chief executive of Ucas, said: “When it comes to results day on 17 August, I think a lot of those highly selective courses at highly selective institutions will go quite quickly. So certainly, my advice to students, our advice at Ucas, is to be pretty quick off the mark if that’s what you’re looking for.” This year there has been a rise in demand by 18-year-olds in the UK for computing courses; the 95,000 applications mark a 33% increase on the 71,000 applications in 2021. As a result, computing has rocketed to the seventh most popular subject. Business and management degrees have the top spot, with 184,000 applications. The increased competition overall has been driven by the larger number of school leavers in the population. The appetite for higher education remains strong despite suggestions by ministers in England that some courses offer “low value” for future earnings. The government has said it will cap the number of places on such courses in the future, although the restrictions are unlikely to be introduced before the next general election. The government’s decision to freeze undergraduate tuition fees in England since 2016 has seen cash-strapped universities increasingly turn to international students – who pay much higher fees – for funding, which in turn has squeezed the number of places available for domestic students. Marchant said: “It’s getting more competitive, which means places are filled up quicker and therefore there are slightly less in clearing and the competitive stuff that is in clearing is likely to go faster. “Every year it’s going to become slightly more competitive, simply because the demographics of 18-year-olds are increasing year on year and we’re still very internationally attractive.” This year’s sixth-formers will be anxiously awaiting their A-level and BTec results next week, which are expected to be less generous than any year since 2019. Results in 2020 and 2021 were awarded by teacher assessment due to the Covid pandemic and saw higher than usual grades awarded, while last year’s results were designed to be midway between the 2021 grades and pre-pandemic results of 2019.

Claire Watkins obituary

2022-03-07

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/07/claire-watkins-obituary

My friend Claire Watkins was an American who devoted more than 30 years to education in Wales after moving to Newport in the 1970s. As headteacher of Maindee infants school, Newport, in the 80s, she encouraged bilingualism, training other schools in the Joan Tough teaching methodologies. Maindee was the first infant school to obtain the Schools’ Curriculum Award, established in 1982 by the Society of Education Officers and the editorial advisory panel of Education magazine to celebrate curriculum design and teaching. Claire then became part of the Gwent county staff development unit in 1991, initially as an adviser to nursery and primary schools. In the late 90s she undertook training to be an inspector of primary schools for Estyn, the Welsh equivalent of Ofsted. Born in Houston, Texas, Claire was the daughter of Emma (nee Vestal) and Emile Emmott, a banker. She attended Bellaire high school in Houston and then Baylor University in Waco, where she obtained her BA in elementary education and English in 1963. After graduation she moved to California and married her childhood sweetheart, Alfred Hildebrand, who was studying at Stanford University, in 1964. In 1967 they moved to Darmstadt, Germany, for Alfred’s work, and Claire taught primary level children at the American military school there. After two years they returned to California, where they adopted Elizabeth and Adam. Claire’s children attended a preschool at Stanford University that was underpinned by active research into child development by the likes of Jerome Bruner and Lilian Katz. Their work greatly influenced Claire; she later brought Katz to Wales as part of the continuing professional development of teachers. Her marriage to Alfred ended in divorce, and after Claire met Richard Watkins, a Welshman who was coaching rugby at Stanford, she moved to Newport when he returned home to study film. They married in 1974 and divorced in 1988. Claire worked in several Newport primary schools; she often spoke of her time at St Julian’s infants school, and she was deputy headteacher at Alway infants school. I first met Claire at Maindee in 1988, while looking for schools for my children. A qualified primary teacher myself, I was so impressed by Claire that I offered to volunteer at the school for an afternoon a week. In the next term a vacancy came up in the school for a reception class teacher and Claire strongarmed me into applying. She became a firm friend and a mentor in my career. After being brought up as a southern Baptist, Claire encountered the Quakers through her husband’s family and became a devout member. While at Maindee she was also introduced to Community House, a Welsh Presbyterian church led by the Rev Cyril Summers. After she retired from teaching in 2006, she became a trustee of Community House when it became a charity. Elizabeth died in 2020. Claire is survived by Adam, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Euan Blair’s edtech firm Multiverse reports sixth straight year of losses

2023-01-04

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/04/euan-blair-edtech-firm-multiverse-reports-sixth-straight-year-of-losses

Company valued last year at £1.4bn says revenues rose almost threefold to £27m Euan Blair’s apprenticeship company, Multiverse, made a pre-tax loss of £14.2m last year – the sixth straight year of losses since the son of the former prime minister set it up in 2016. Despite the losses – including £10.9m in 2021 and just over £5m in 2020 – the company was awarded the coveted tech “unicorn” status when it was valued at £1.4bn in fundraising driven by US venture capital firms in June 2022. That investment valued Blair’s stake in the company at an estimated £420m, far more than his father Tony’s reported £60m fortune. Multiverse, which uses automated predictive software to match apprentices with companies based on their aptitude and attitude rather than grades, reported revenues of £27.3m for the year to 31 March 2022, in accounts filed with Companies House on Wednesday. That was up from £10m in the previous year, and means the company is valued at more than 50 times its sales. The so-called “edtech” company said it expected to claim tax credits of £2.7m against 2022 losses to use against future profits. It also expected to claim £2m in the previous year. Multiverse matches school leavers with more than 300 employers including Google, Facebook, Morgan Stanley and Depop, and provides on-the-job training tailored to the needs of employees, as well as personal coaching and extracurricular activities and societies akin to those at university. It employed 312 people at the time of the accounts being filed. The training is funded by a 0.5% levy placed on companies with an annual payroll bill of more than £3m. This can be spent on their own training costs or transferred to other organisations, such as Multiverse. Blair claims that some young people have turned down places at Oxford to join his scheme. His business, co-founded with his friend Sophie Adelman, offers what he claims is “a genuine, credible alternative that can compete with university”. Tony Blair was elected prime minister in 1997 after promising that his three priorities would be “education, education, education”, and he later set a target of getting 50% of school leavers into university. The target was not hit until 2019. But Euan Blair argues that the nation’s “obsession with the academic as a marker of potential and talent” is holding back people from minority groups and failing to serve the needs of employers in a digital age. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Euan Blair, who studied ancient history at the University of Bristol before going on to Yale, has said he “didn’t love studying”, but when he was growing up, going to university was seen as the only route to a top job. He says he hit upon the idea of setting up a training provider after his first job, at the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Last year he bought a five-storey townhouse in west London for a reported £22m. The seven-bedroom residence, which he shares with his wife, Suzanne Ashman, and their two children, features a two-storey “iceberg” basement with an indoor pool, gym and multi-car garage. A spokesperson for Multiverse said: “We’re at the forefront of growing the number of apprenticeship opportunities in both the UK and the US, doubling the number of apprentices we’re training, expanding our geographic reach, and increasing our team of world-class coaches. “We have made significant investments across all teams at Multiverse to set ourselves up for greater scale in the year ahead. We’re focusing our efforts on supporting a rapidly growing number of apprentices, raising awareness, and building an outstanding alternative to university through apprenticeships.”

‘It takes a mental toll’: students in England priced out of university towns

2023-10-27

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/27/students-in-england-priced-out-of-university-towns

Housing costs forcing undergraduates and master’s students to work long hours or commute Elena Dirik is studying politics and sociology in Bristol, the UK’s most expensive city in which to study after London, and has so far stayed afloat thanks to care-leaver bursaries and working in two jobs. But with housing costs soaring, she is considering a move to south Wales next year. Dirik, 21, wants to be able to focus on her studies for her final year instead of working, after already retaking her first year, but even living in nearby towns such as Newport will be a stretch, with prices increasing as more students move there. “I feel like I get burned out, even having to think about all these things, it does take away a lot of quality time from studying or doing things that are good for you,” she says. She worries that moving away would make life harder. “I’d feel really disconnected and discouraged to carry on because student life is such a massive part of university, being on campus and being able to access services.” On campuses and in towns and cities across the UK, student rents are soaring, while the maintenance loan has barely increased. New research from Unipol suggests that university students in England are left with the equivalent of 50p a week to live on from their loans after paying for accommodation, with costs rising by 15% over the past two years – and more in some areas. Dirik believes she would need the maintenance loan to be about £3,000 higher than the £10,000 she currently receives, which is the maximum amount students can get to cover housing costs and living expenses. Her flatshare costs £800 – the same as a friend is paying in London – and she thinks it is £160 higher than last year’s tenants paid. She had to work for all summer to afford the deposit. Costs were not “something I thought about because I thought, I get the full maintenance loan so it’s not a problem”, she said. “When I first started at Bristol it wasn’t so bad, but now it’s got so bad it’s something I wish I’d considered and something I’d consider now,” she adds. Dante Kornieva, 19, struggled to find accommodation to start her economics and finance degree at the University of Surrey, and eventually resorted to a room that is “much more expensive than I would have liked to pay, especially since it’s outside of London”. The room, for £650 a month, is in a four-bedroom home which she shares with five others, and is located half an hour from her university. Her maintenance loan does not cover the cost of accommodation, but she is lucky that her parents are able to help her with the difference. She knew that Surrey was “infamous for having too little housing”, but “I just wasn’t aware how bad it was”. If she had not enjoyed other aspects of her university experience so much, “I would definitely have regretted [choosing] it based on the housing”. Katie Truman, 21, a master’s student in public policy at the University of Exeter, commutes two and a half hours from her family home in St Austell, Cornwall because she “literally can’t afford to live in Exeter”. Her boyfriend, who does, pays £693 a month in a four-person flatshare. She studied at Exeter for her undergraduate degree and lived in the city, but has noticed rents soar, from £135 a week in halls to £170, while student loans have barely increased. “I’d be able to socialise in the evenings, which I loved, and I can’t do that any more which is a bit rubbish. Travelling up and down is tiring, it does take a mental toll, and it does make you feel you’re missing out on the university experience you’re paying for.” She does not think she would have embarked on a degree if rents had been this high when she started. “There’s a lot of other ways to get into [politics] now without having a degree. I found it really interesting and don’t regret doing it, but I’m not sure I would pay the same amount again.” Sammy Walton, who is studying for a master’s in international development at the University of Birmingham, said that when he started at Birmingham four years ago, a typical houseshare might cost £90 a week, bills included – he’s now paying £120, without bills. He, too, thinks he would have looked at cheaper alternatives had costs been so high when he was applying. Similar to most of his friends, he has worked throughout his education, and does four shifts a week, totalling 25 hours. He said he was not in a position to join a sports team and that it was “tough to manage a social life alongside your studies. It’s such an added stress making sure you have enough money for the bills or food that week.” This article was amended on 31 October 2023 to correct some personal details.

School suspensions rise sharply among disadvantaged children in England

2023-09-13

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/13/school-suspensions-rise-sharply-among-disadvantaged-children-in-england

Analysis shows that since the pandemic those living in poverty were 3.7 times more likely to be sent home than other pupils Increasing numbers of children from poor backgrounds are being suspended from schools in England since the pandemic, according to analysis that estimates more than 3,000 pupils were sent home every day. The analysis was published as teachers, who took part in a separate survey, said verbal and physical abuse from pupils has “increased significantly” post-pandemic, with some having furniture thrown at them, being bitten, spat at, head-butted, punched and kicked. Meanwhile, the latest details from last year’s Sats tests published by the Department for Education (DfE) showed the “disadvantage gap” in results is still significantly higher than pre-pandemic, with too many children from poor backgrounds failing to meet expected standards in primary schools. School suspensions, where a child is removed temporarily because of misbehaviour, have risen overall since Covid – up 30% in 2021-22 compared with 2018-19 - but they have gone up more sharply among disadvantaged children (up 75% v 4% for those not in poverty). According to analysis by a new coalition called Who’s Losing Learning?, for the first time more than half of all suspensions in 2021-22 – the latest available figures from the DfE – involved children from poor backgrounds, who were 3.7 times more likely to be sent home than other children. Both children with social workers and children with special needs were four times more likely to lose learning through being suspended, the coalition said. Repeat suspensions can be a warning sign of future permanent exclusion, when children are told to leave their school forever. The new analysis found the increase in suspensions was highest in the East Midlands (up 57%), followed by the north-west and north-east (both 34%), while inner London saw a 7% increase. Black Caribbean children were 1.5 times more likely to be suspended than their white British peers. Dual-heritage white and black Caribbean children were 1.7 times more likely, and Irish traveller and Roma, Gypsy and Traveller populations were 2.4 times and 3.2 times more likely than white British children respectively. Kiran Gill, the chief executive of The Difference educational charity – one of the coalition members – said: “The Covid-19 pandemic may be over but the pandemic of lost learning in England is growing. “We should all be worried about the social injustice that the most marginalised children – who already have the biggest barriers to opportunity outside of school – are those most likely to be losing learning through absence, suspension and exclusion.” A survey of 6,500 members of the NASUWT teachers’ union found almost nine out of 10 said the number of pupils exhibiting physically violent and abusive behaviours has increased in the last year. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed cited poor socialisation skills following Covid restrictions as key driving factor behind the rise in poor pupil behaviour. More than a third (37%) reported experiencing violence or physical abuse from pupils in the previous 12 months, while 90% reported receiving verbal abuse, including being sworn at, threatened and targeted with racial or sexual insults. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Patrick Roach, the general secretary of NASUWT, said: “While concerns about pupil behaviour are not new, our research indicates an alarming increase in violent and defiant behaviour by some pupils.” Another study by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), published on Wednesday, revealed the financial pressures on schools in England. It found the majority of primary schools are asking for more contributions from parents due to rising financial pressures. Almost half of primaries and special schools, and two-fifths of secondary schools, had or were expecting an in-year deficit in 2022/23, while just under half of mainstream schools expected an in-year deficit resulting in cuts to provision in 2023/24. The DfE said it supports headteachers to take the action necessary to promote good behaviour. “To support schools to do this, we have issued updated guidance on suspensions and permanent exclusions and are clear that extra support should be put in place where children are at risk of being permanently excluded and entering alternative provision.”