A two-word term, invented in the 1970s by a French sociologist heavily influenced by Karl Marx, makes an unlikely entrance in Ofsted’s new framework [pdf] for the inspection of schools in England this week. Each institution is now to be judged on the extent to which it builds pupils’ “cultural capital”. What exactly does that…
Tag: Schools
Gap in academic skills of girls and boys widens, show Sats
Girls continue to outperform boys in all subjects by the end of primary school in England, according to the latest key stage 2 test results published by the Department for Education (DfE). The results, from the national curriculum tests and assessments taken by pupils in year six, known as Sats, showed 70% of girls reached…
The Guardian view on testing four-year-olds: wrong again | Editorial
Accountability in education is important. Politicians, acting on the public’s behalf, are right to seek evidence that schools are delivering a good service. So there is nothing wrong, in principle, with gathering information in order to track progress. The problem with the government’s new baseline assessment of four-year-olds – being trialled over the next six…
GCSEs: 10,000 pupils disappear from English schools at ‘critical’ stage
More than 10,000 children in England disappeared from schools at a “critical stage” of their GCSE courses, according to Ofsted, raising fears that schools are continuing to illegally “off-roll” pupils to improve exam results. Analysis published by the schools inspectorate found that 20,000 pupils left or moved state schools between year 10 and year 11,…
Ofsted chief warns teachers over ‘subliminal’ exam anxiety
Teachers risk piling the pressure on their pupils by simply asking them how they are feeling about their exams, the head of the school inspections body Ofsted has said. Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, said merely speaking about tests could subliminally cause a child anxiety. As thousands of youngsters across England and Wales began their…
Everyone welcome: inside the schools that haven’t expelled a child since 2013
Jason Thurley, headteacher at Beacon academy, near Grimsby, leans across the table explaining why yet another of his pupils was excluded before joining the school. “He’d brought in a £1 potato gun. It was at the bottom of his bag and so he goes up to his form tutor and says, ‘I don’t want to…
Teachers assessing pupils could replace formal exams, study says
Assessments by teachers of pupils’ abilities could replace traditional tests and exams such as Sats and GCSEs to reduce costs and “bring joy back to the classroom”, according to new research. In a paper published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers found teacher assessments accurately reflected the ability of their pupils’ performance…
The Guardian view on shrinking breaks: the right to relax | Editorial
Few adults would place shorter break times high up their list of concerns about schools. Some of them may have shone at football but many will remember hours spent pointlessly milling around the playground or, worse, smoking in the toilets? For a minority of children, now as then, breaks are dreadful. If you don’t have…
One in four teachers say pupils are being forced out to boost school rankings
One in four teachers in England say they have witnessed pupils being illegitimately removed from schools, often to artificially boost a school’s performance, according to a new survey published by Ofsted. The figures suggest the practice, known as “off-rolling” – pupils being shunted off a school’s roll in order to manipulate its exam results or…
Education secretary calls on schools to expel fewer pupils
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has called on headteachers in England to expel fewer pupils, as an independent study revealed that almost eight out of 10 children who are permanently excluded come from vulnerable backgrounds. The long-awaited review of exclusions in England, carried out by a former minister for children and families at the Department…
Something is going very wrong for vulnerable kids – but is the school to blame? | Gaby Hinsliff
Whose fault is it that more children are being excluded from schools? Teachers, parents, politicians and seemingly everyone else with a passing interest in children’s long-term happiness have been arguing over this one for years but now a long-awaited review of exclusions from the former schools minister Edward Timpson is shedding some carefully filtered light…
Hinds to seek views on funding for children with special needs
Damian Hinds is to call for a fresh look at educational funding for children with special needs in England, as concerns grow that schools and families are struggling to receive support. The education secretary will make the announcement at a conference of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) on Friday. It comes as the…
We’ll hold badly behaved pupils back a year, say academies
An academy chain has been criticised for saying it will hold pupils back a year if they break school behaviour rules. Outwood Grange Academy Trust (Ogat), which runs 31 schools across the north of England and the East Midlands, has previously been criticised for its high exclusion rate and for putting pupils in isolation for…
‘I cook, clean and fix’: how cuts are forcing headteachers to take on extra roles
They’re angry, they’re eloquent – and they’re no longer willing to sit quietly in the classroom. Eight consecutive years of real-term funding cuts in England have placed headteachers on the frontline of the battle against austerity. Traditionally conservative and apolitical figures have become radical and outspoken campaigners who are prepared to risk repercussions in order…
Why are teachers miserable? Because they’re being held at gunpoint for meaningless data | Jeremy Hannay
Everyone seems to be dancing around the elephant in the room. Jeremy Corbyn is talking about scrapping Sats. The DfE is on the workload warpath. Ofsted is myth-busting itself out of the dark ages into the 21st century, saying it doesn’t care about marking any more. Almost a third of teachers quit in the first…
‘I am called a bad teacher and my students overturn desks and chairs’
Monday Melissa floats around the English department at 3.50pm, not wanting to go home. She lives between her alcoholic mother – who spits at and abuses her – and her nan, who also looks after her five younger siblings and never speaks to her. I give her a novelty cow pencil, which delights her, and…
Minister says spending review will ease pressure on schools
Headteachers in England have been told to endure “the darkest hour” until the Treasury’s spending plans for future school funding are revealed, by an education minister. Nick Gibb, the schools minister for England, hinted in an interview with The House magazine that school leaders should see the benefits of an end to austerity when the…
Messaging apps ‘expose teachers to aggression from parents’
The rapid spread of email and messaging apps has triggered a surge in parents sending aggressive queries to their children’s teachers and demanding immediate answers, according to a teaching union. Chris Keates, the general secretary of NASUWT, said her members had reported an increase in messages being sent via specialist school apps such as Class…
Boys will be boys? How schools can be guilty of gender bias
People tend to be surprised when they first hear what Matt Pinkett does for a living. “They assume I’m a bouncer, or perhaps a barman,” says Pinkett, 33, who shaves his head and has an East End accent. “What do they expect a head of English to look like – should I be wearing a…
If ministers really want to trust teachers it’s time to ditch the number fairies | Michael Rosen
Do you think it is now possible to produce statistics on schools that not only ignore what teachers, headteachers and parents have to say about the children, but don’t even have to be attached to real pupils? Can there be fictive figures, floating above a school like number fairies? I had this thought at a…