Whilst
there are many ways to teach grammar and many opinions about how best
to teach it, the vast majority of languages teachers believe that
students need a knowledge of structure if they are to make good progress
and be able to say/write what they want to in the language they are
learning. With that in mind, this collection of teacher resources
focuses on grammar teaching and grammar practice. Often the most
time-consuming of resources to create, I hope this collection will give
teachers inspiration and save them time!
This
would be excellent revision for KS4 too. It’s easy to stop focusing on
the articles during KS3 when you’re meeting lots of new tenses and this
can lead to lots of errors at KS4 with articles.
An
original take on grammar instructions – this resource is written like
instructions to a piece of flatpack furniture from IKEA – it will
definitely appeal to some students (and teachers!)
Very
inventive way to practise tense recognition – students have to unmuddle
2 different stories, one in present and one in the past tense. There
are 2 x different tasks.
This
is always a tricky area for Spanish learners and it’s good to have a
variety of ways to approach it. One of them is sure to help make the
different use of these 2 verbs clear, and this might be it!
More
able GCSE students are encouraged to include some limited use of the
subjunctive mood in their speaking and writing. This sheet offers some
examples.
An
excellent resource including a PPT with 50 verbs,, with sentence-level
examples of their use in different contexts and an accompanying
worksheet. Really thoughtfully and painstakingly put together!
An
excellent PPT resource. Use of the imperfect subjunctive is
contextualised in relevant AS themes that make its meaning and purpose
very clear, and this is followed up by some practice activities.
A
perennial area of difficulty for Spanish learners, this sheet is very
clear and includes many examples of adjectives that take SER and ESTAR
yet carry different meanings.
Every teacher needs to get behaviour right in order to get the
learning started. These free resources for primary and secondary will
help, plus we've got useful expert advice on dealing with common
behaviour problems.
Primary behaviour
Behaviour posters
Sweet but firm reminders to younger children of class rules.
Revised Ofsted Inspection Framework
Teachers TV clip video with the latest (although still changing) standards inspectors look for, including behaviour.
Disaffected sixth-formers
Excellent article with a variety of views about how sixth-formers can be re-engaged.
18-year-old Jessie Tang thinks Chinese pupils'
success at school is 'mostly down to the parents'. Photograph: Graham
Turner for the Guardian
It seems a hugely under-researched phenomenon within English education. But Jessie Tang thinks she has the answer.
"It's
mostly the parents. Chinese parents tend to push their children a lot,
and have really high expectations. I think it's maybe because they did
not have the opportunities that we have these days. They want us to take
advantage of them."
Jessie, 18, an A-level student at Watford
grammar school for girls, whose father arrived in England from Hong
Kong, was being asked about what seems an amazing success story buried
and barely commented upon within English schools' results.
The
statistics relate to the achievement of pupils of Chinese ethnicity,
revealed last autumn in a report by the Equality and Human Rights
Commission on inequality in Britain.
This showed not only that
British Chinese youngsters are the highest performing ethnic group in
England at GCSE, which has been known for years. It also showed that
this group seemed to be singularly successful in achieving that goal of
educational policy-makers everywhere: a narrow performance gap between
those from the poorest homes, and the rest.
Further evidence of
the success of pupils of Chinese heritage came through the world's most
well-known international testing study, Pisa. This found 15-year-olds
from Shanghai, China, easily outperforming those of all other
nationalities.
The domestic statistics show that, at GCSE,
children of Chinese ethnicity – classed simply as "Chinese" in the data –
who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) perform better than the
national average for all pupils, rich and poor.
Not only that, but
FSM Chinese pupils do better than those of most other ethnic
backgrounds, even when compared with children from better-off homes
(those not eligible for free school meals).
A detailed look at the figures makes this clearer. Some 71% of Chinese FSM pupils achieved five good GCSEs, including English and maths, in 2009. For non-FSM Chinese pupils, the figure was 72%.
Every
other ethnic group had a gap of at least 10 percentage points between
children who do not count as eligible for free meals, and those who do.
The gap for white pupils stood at 32 percentage points.
In 2010,
the picture changed slightly, with the gap between Chinese FSM pupils
(68%) and their non-FSM peers (76%) increasing to eight points. But it
still compared very favourably with the equivalent gulf among white
pupils, which was 33 percentage points.
In primary schools, the
picture is similar. Remarkably, in 2009, in English key stage 2 tests,
Chinese FSM pupils outperformed not just their counterparts from other
ethnic groups – easily outstripping white children – but even Chinese
pupils not eligible for free meals.
Michael Gove, the education
secretary, told his party conference last autumn that the performance of
FSM pupils as a whole was a "reproach to our conscience". So what do
Chinese pupils have going for them that other children do not?
Anyone
investigating this subject will be struck by the limited research
available. Only one academic team seems to have looked into British
Chinese pupils' experience in detail in recent years.
The team,
who interviewed 80 Chinese pupils, 30 Chinese parents and 30 teachers in
2005, identified several factors behind the success, although they
stress that not all British Chinese pupils achieve. One explanation,
though, shines through their findings.
Becky Francis, a visiting
professor at King's College London, director of education at the Royal
Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: "Our main argument is
that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a
fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of
differentiating themselves not just within their own group, but from
other ethnic groups as well."
Recent coverage of Amy Chua's book
on "tiger parenting", Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother, has also focused
attention on parenting styles promoting achievement in children of
Chinese ethnicity.
The argument that Chinese families put especial
value on education is sensitive territory, of course, as most parents
would profess a commitment to helping their child do well. Academics
also stress that the numbers of pupils classed as "Chinese" are small –
only 2,236 took GCSEs last year, from a total cohort of nearly 600,000 –
and results should be interpreted cautiously.
However, there is
tentative evidence, both from interviews with parents and from analyses
of background values existing in Chinese culture, that family commitment
to education is particularly strong.
Some 13 of the 30 British
Chinese parents interviewed said their children were also being educated
at Chinese "supplementary schools". These offer tuition in Chinese
language and culture at the weekends.
Several of the parents also
said they paid for tutoring outside school hours. Researchers found that
among British Chinese families this was not related to social class: a
number of working-class parents paid for this, too.
Asked to
respond to the question "Is education important?", all 80 pupils agreed.
High parental expectations also seem to have been a factor in many –
though not all – children's experiences.
One pupil is quoted
saying: "My parents expect me to get the best grades. And if I don't,
then they'll continuously nag at me to do better ... Like if I get a B,
they'll be like, 'Why didn't you get an A?'"
A paper presented at
last year's British Educational Research Association conference,
covering performance across all ethnic groups, found no link between the
occupation of Chinese pupils' parents and their GCSE scores, unlike for
children from all other ethnicities.
Ramesh Kapadia, a visiting
professor at London University's Institute of Education, who presented
the paper, says: "I think within Chinese society, there is an emphasis
on practice. Children are told: 'If you want to learn something,
practise, practise and practise it again and you will get better'. It
may be that this helps to motivate pupils when the rewards can seem a
long way away."
There is a mixed picture overall, though, as to
how far this school success is being translated into employment
prospects. The Equality and Human Rights Commission report found that
British Chinese men and women were twice as likely to be in professional
jobs as their white British counterparts. But average earnings remained
around 11% lower throughout the population than for those classed as
"white Christian".
Whether the Chinese experience can be
replicated among other pupils is debatable. Some might see evidence that
Chinese families emphasise hard work, and the results that follow, as
simple proof that all can succeed, given the right attitude.
However,
Francis says such a view should be treated cautiously, the team's 2005
paper arguing that "Chinese constructions of ethnic identity and
education are very specific". Much research has shown links, generally,
between poverty and underachievement.
Jessie, whose father works
in a takeaway restaurant and whose mother, originally from Malaysia,
works at Heathrow airport, has 12 GCSEs including six A*s and an offer
to read music at Royal Holloway, London. She attended a Chinese
supplementary school from the age of five. She says many Chinese
families are keen on their children pursuing careers in medicine, so she
is "rebelling a bit", but wanted to pursue a subject she enjoys.
The
Department for Education was unable to point to any particular study it
has commissioned to look at British Chinese pupils' success. Given the
scale of that success, it seems surprising that the phenomenon has not
been investigated further
Dominic Lawson from 'The Independent': 'Chinese' mothers... a
lesson to us all. 11.01.2011.
Amy Chua's theories seem to bear fruit. But they run counter to the doctrine of modern Western parenting
Mother knows best; but which mothers know
best of all? According to Amy Chua, a professor at Yale University, the
answer is obvious and irrefutable: Chinese mums. Professor Chua has
produced a book which seeks to prove her point, entitled Battle Hymn of
the Tiger Mother, and last week she trailed it with an essay in The Wall
Street Journal, provocatively headlined: "Why Chinese mothers are
superior".
American parents were duly provoked by Chua's contention that they were
hopelessly lacking in the effort they put into educating their children out
of school hours, and in instilling discipline: well over a thousand comments
hurtled in, many accusing her of racism, and some pointing out that if the
American way was so deficient, why didn't she take herself and her
high-achieving family back to China?
To be fair to Chua, she admitted to using the term "Chinese mother"
loosely: "I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian
parents who qualify. Conversely, I know of some mothers of Chinese heritage,
almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers." But then
she went on: "All the same, even when Western parents think they're
being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For
example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their
children practise their [musical] instruments 30 minutes a day. At the most.
For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and
three that get tough."
That the Chinese style of parenting helps produce the most extraordinary
results can't be doubted. Last month the OECD produced its annual assessment
of global academic performance, based on its own independent testing of
15-year-olds in reading, maths and science. China came top. British
children, by the way, came 25th in reading, 28th in maths, and 16th in
science. Ten years ago Britain came seventh, eighth and fourth in those
categories. These results throw a very cold shower of water over the claims
by the New Labour government that the vast extra sums of public expenditure
they devoted to the infrastructure of the state education system had
improved our international competitiveness.
Last week I discussed these figures on BBC Radio 4's World Tonight programme
with Sir Richard Sykes, the former rector of Imperial College; he is
convinced that British exams have become "dumbed down", compared
to those of countries such as India and China, and that as a result we were
living in some sort of fool's paradise.
I also interviewed some pupils from Westminster School, who had been on an
exchange trip to China. Although Westminster is one of the
highest-performing schools in the UK, these pupils were stunned by the
dedication and sheer hard work they had witnessed on their exchange. "It's
a completely different culture and attitude towards work," one of them
told me. The word "culture" was well chosen: that is where family
life plays a dominant role, and where what goes on in schools flows
naturally from the home environment.
This is also where Amy Chua's theories seem to bear fruit; and their validity
can be seen in some remarkable statistics produced last year by our very own
Equalities and Human Rights Commission. The Commission had sought to
discover the extent to which educational outcomes in this country were a
function of economic circumstances, and of race. Accordingly it divided up
results under ethnic categories, but also by whether pupils were eligible
for free school meals.
Among both white and black children, there was a dramatic difference in
outcomes: for example, only 15 per cent of white boys eligible for free
school meals gained five or more A* to C grades at GCSE, compared with 51
per cent among those not eligible. However, among Chinese boys and girls,
those eligible for free school meals did every bit as well as those not so
poor; equally perplexing for those who believe that relative poverty is the
biggest determinant of educational attainment, Chinese pupils on free school
meals, both boys and girls, had far better results overall than white pupils
who were not eligible.
Game, set and match to Professor Chua? I imagine that many British parents who
read the extracts from her book in last weekend's Sunday Times might well
say they would rather have lower-achieving children than follow the recipe
set out in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. For Chua began by stating: "Here
are some of the things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed
to do: attend a sleep-over; watch TV or play computer games; get any grade
less than A; not be the number one student in every subject except gym and
drama; not play the piano or the violin."
Such a regime runs completely counter to the presiding doctrine of modern
Western parenting, at least among the middle classes, which is to do nothing
that might damage their children's sense of self-esteem; and given that it's
not possible for every child to be "the number one student in every
subject", aren't Chua's methods setting children up for potentially
crushing loss of self-esteem when another child comes top?
She, of course, denies it: "Western parents worry a lot about their
children's self-esteem ... For their part, many Chinese secretly believe
that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much
more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their
children turn out badly."
That seems a bit harsh – no parents, except for the most derelict, are content
to see their child turn out "badly". Yet Chua is pressing her
finger on a very sensitive point: could it be that much of the laissez-faire
parenting of the modern West uses the idea of enlightened liberality to give
an intellectual justification for what is actually a form of laziness?
After all, the kind of discipline and perseverance which Amy Chua practised
with her own daughters required an extraordinary amount of effort on her
part – and also a certain amount of conflict with her husband, a
non-Chinese, who might well have thought that she should have been spending
more time with him, and less standing over their daughters while they
practised the violin for three hours in the evening.
Most Western parents would say that all they want is for their children to "be
happy": and if the little darlings are browbeaten in this way, they
surely can't be enjoying themselves – and might grow up to hate their
parents for forcing them to play the violin. Who knows? Happiness is the
most ephemeral of phenomena and certainly not something which can be
achieved at will. Besides, as Freud observed, neurosis is the mother of
creativity.
As for the "Chinese mother", I can't pretend that I am sorry not to
have had one myself. My own mother was extremely indulgent, and sublimely
indifferent to whatever exam results I achieved; my father was more "Chinese",
which was probably necessary for the balance between unconditional affection
and discipline.
Perhaps Amy Chua's children are grateful, too, that one of their parents is
not "Chinese": at least they had someone to run to for sympathy,
when mother's strictures became intolerable. On the other hand, if it's
results you want, then the Chinese mother does indeed know best.
"Dominic Lawson on The Independent" www.theindependent.co.uk
Search all British newspapers: http://dailynewspaper.co.uk/
Amy L. Chua was born 1962 in Champaign, Illinois) is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.
She specializes in the study of international business transactions,
law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law. As
of January 2011, she is most noted for her parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Her latest book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, published in January 2011, is a memoir relating her experience raising two daughters using strict parenting techniques.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Chua, whose ethnic Chinese parents emigrated to the United States from the Philippines, published her third book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in 2011.
The book is a memoir in which Chua explains her views on parenting,
specifically as it relates to her claims of being a typical Chinese
parent. Chua, whose husband is Jewish, has stated that her children can speak Chinese, and they are "raised Jewish".
Wall Street Journal preview and controversy
An article entitled Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior in the Wall Street Journal on January 8, 2011, contained excerpts from her book, in which Chua detailed her views on parenting as a "Chinese Mother".
This piece was controversial, primarily for the very strict
child-rearing regime, but also because it appeared to advocate the
"superiority" of a particular, ethnic approach. Chua listed a number of
rules that she said she enforced on her two daughters. According to the
article they were not allowed to:
attend a sleepover
have a playdate
be in a school play
complain about not being in a school play
watch TV or play computer games
choose their own extracurricular activities
get any grade less than an A
not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
play any instrument other than the piano or violin
not play the piano or violin.
Besides the list above (which was the focus of much of the subsequent
criticism), Chua's main point, the wording of which she borrows from a
study comparing the attitudes of Western American and immigrant Chinese
mothers, was that "[One's] children can be 'the best' students, that
'academic achievement reflects successful parenting,' and that if
children did not excel at school then there was 'a problem' and parents
'were not doing their job.'" This attitude, alternately (and sometimes
confusingly) labeled "Chinese", "Tiger" or "immigrant" is contrasted
favorably with the view she labels "Western" - that a child's
self-esteem is paramount.
To illustrate this difference in approaches, Chua mentioned that she
had, on at least one occasion, called one of her children "garbage", a
translation of a term her own father called her on occasion in her
family's native Hokkien dialect. Particularly controversial was the "Little White Donkey" anecdote where
she described coercing her unwilling younger daughter to learn a
difficult piano piece by threatening to burn her stuffed animals (among
other threats) and then denied her food, water and bathroom breaks
during an all-evening practice session.
The Wall Street Journal article generated a huge response, both positive and negative. Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute,
for instance, argued that "large numbers of talented children
everywhere would profit from Chua's approach, and instead are frittering
away their gifts — they're nice kids, not brats, but they are also
self-indulgent and inclined to make excuses for themselves."In a poll on the Wall Street Journal
website regarding Chua's response to readers, two-thirds of respondents
said the "Demanding Eastern" parenting model is better than the
"Permissive Western" model.
However, despite the substantial acceptance of Amy Chua's points by the
Wall Street Journal article readers, comments posted were predominantly
negative and included charges of racism, classism and cruelty to
children.
Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle felt the excerpts in the Wall Street Journal
article failed to represent the content in Chua's book and states that
"the excerpt was chosen by the editors of the Journal and the
publishers. The editors wanted to make a sensation; the publishers want
to sell books" but "it does not tell the whole story."
Author Amy Gutman felt many have missed the point of Chua's book, which she described as "coming of age",
and states the controversial examples shown in the book "reflect where
Chua started, not who she is today, and passing judgment on her based on
them strikes me as a bit akin to passing judgment on Jane Austen's Emma
for her churlish behavior to Miss Bates. Like Emma's, Chua's narrative
has an arc. It's a coming-of-age story -- where the one to come of age
is the parent." A spokeswoman for the Wall Street Journal told the Columbia Journalism Review
that "[w]e worked extensively with Amy's publisher, as we always do
with book excerpts, and they signed off on the chosen extract in
advance."
According to Slate, almost a century earlier, Boris Sidis made a similar claim to excellent parenting, which his family eventually regretted.The Washington Post, while not as critical, did suggest that "ending a parenting story when one child is only 15 seems premature."MSNBC stated that the article '"reads alternately like a how-to guide, a
satire or a lament."
MSNBC's critical response goes on to state that "The article sounds so
incredible to Western readers – and many Asian ones, too – that many
people thought the whole thing was satire... [but] aspects of her essay
resonated profoundly with many people, especially Chinese Americans –
not necessarily in a good way", citing interviews with Chinese people
who explain that "'When I think about my teenage years, all I can
remember is constant fear, fear that she would find out I had a crush on
a boy, fear that I would fail in a test, fear that she would find out I
had lied to her.'"
Taiwanese political CGI animators Next Media Animation responded with a CGI animation entitled "Western mom Vs. Chinese mom: Who is better?" The animation sums up some of the content of the article as well as the controversy.
A week later, David Brooks of the New York Times,
in an op-ed piece entitled 'Amy Chua is a "Wimp"', stated that he
"believe[s] she's coddling her children. She's protecting them from the
most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn't understand
what's cognitively difficult and what isn't.... Practicing a piece of
music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near
as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing
status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social
norms, navigating the distinction between self and group — these and
other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense
tutoring session or a class at Yale.". He goes on to claim that
"mastering these arduous skills is at the very essence of achievement.
Most people work in groups... Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and Carnegie Mellon have found that groups have a high
collective intelligence when members of a group are good at reading each
others' emotions — when they take turns speaking, when the inputs from
each member are managed fluidly, when they detect each others'
inclinations and strengths. Participating in a well-functioning group is
really hard."
Charing Ball of The Atlanta Post stated that Chua’s parenting
style has "less to do with cultural difference and more to do with
affluent class-ism." Ball felt all the cultural activities Chua insist
on her children are "reflective of the classic cultural snobbery" and
that many struggling working-class families could not afford to educate
their children the same way.
Chua's defense
Chua explained in a follow-up article in the Wall Street Journal
that "my actual book is not a how-to guide; it's a memoir, the story of
our family's journey in two cultures, and my own eventual
transformation as a mother. Much of the book is about my decision to
retreat from the strict "Chinese" approach, after my younger daughter
rebelled at 13."
Chua also claimed that "[t]he Journal basically strung together the
most controversial sections of the book. And I had no idea they'd put
that kind of a title on it."
Reaction by Chua's daughter Sophia
On January 17 an open letter from Chua's eldest daughter, Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, to her mother was published in the New York Post.
Sophia's letter defends her parent's child-rearing methods and states
that she and her sister were not oppressed by an "evil mother". She
discusses some of the incidents that have been criticized as unduly
harsh, and explains that they were not as bad as they sound out of
context. She ends the letter saying, "If I died tomorrow, I would die
feeling I've lived my whole life at 110 percent. And for that, Tiger
Mom, thank you."
Clegg and Cable face backlash over tuition fees From ITN: `11.10.2010.
Nick
Clegg and Vince Cable are facing a backbench revolt amid signs that
tuition fees are set to rise considerably under Government reforms of
university funding. Skip related content
The two most senior Liberal Democrat
members of the Government are braced for a backlash from their party's
MPs and activists after the option of a graduate tax was ruled out.
Ministers
appear to have agreed instead to introduce variable interest rates on
student loans so that high-earning graduates can be charged more on
their borrowing while at university. Lower-earners would pay
correspondingly less.
The package is likely also to include lifting the cap on tuition fees from £3,290 to at least £7,000 and possibly higher.
Lord
Browne of Madingley's independent review of student finance, which
reports on Tuesday, is said to recommend removing the cap altogether
and creating a free-for-all, although that would be a highly
controversial option for the Government to adopt.
But any increase in tuition fees at all will prove politically explosive for the Lib Dems,
who campaigned against a rise during the general election. Mr Clegg,
the Lib Dem leader and now Deputy Prime Minister, said in April the
move would be a "disaster".
Mr Cable, the Lib Dem Business
Secretary who has promoted the idea of a graduate tax that would allow
fees and loans to be abolished, wrote to MPs at the weekend saying that
he now accepted Tory criticisms of the idea and it would not be pursued.
Backbench Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland gave warning that he and others from his party would vote against any rise in tuition fees.
In
an interview he said: "It appears that the Government will not now
certainly be pursuing a pure graduate tax, and certainly I think the
fact is there is no easy solution to the structure of student funding,
but that has to separate from the issue of fees and raising the cap on
fees."
"There are many of us, certainly in the Liberal Democrats
and I suspect probably across the House to some extent, who are very
concerned about that and will oppose any attempt to raise fees in the
way that has been leaked from the Browne report."
Damien Green Photo: AFP Immigration rules will help stop extremist exploitation. By
James Kirkup of The Daily Telegraph 07.09.2010. Tougher immigration
rules will make it harder for extremist parties to exploit the issue,
Damian Green, the minister overseeing the policy, has said.
Mr Green, the immigration minister, said that Coalition plans to
cut annual immigration would take the heat out of the political debate
on the issue.
He made the comments in a speech setting out more detail on how the government’s plans will be implemented.
He said ministers will give priority to improving controls over
foreign students and their dependants, more than 300,000 of whom were
granted visas last year.
The Home Office has estimated that one in five foreign students
given entry visas to study where still in the country five years after
completing their courses.
Mr Green said that such apparent abuses of the immigration system
makes it easier for extremists to blame legitimate immigrants for
social problems.
If the UK does not create public confidence in its immigration
system, Mr Green said “we will remain vulnerable to those who want to
find scapegoats for social problems”.
The Coalition will reduce net immigration from outside the EU to tens of thousands, he said. Last year, it was 196,000.
Speaking at the Royal Commonwealth Club, Mr Green said: "We need
steady downward pressure on many routes to long-term immigration in
order to hit our net migration commitment.”
The restriction “will relieve pressure on public services, and stop immigration being such a delicate political issue,” he said
Foreign student numbers to be cut under new visa regime. By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor Daily Telegraph 06.09.2010. Photo: Heathcliffe O'Mally
Foreign students could be blocked from some educational institutions and courses as part of a plan to reduce immigration.
Ministers want to cut the number of overseas students entering
Britain by tens of thousands. More than 362,000 were allowed to study
here in the year to June, an increase of 35 per cent on the previous
year.
Figures show that one in five foreign students is still in Britain
five years after arrival, leading to concerns that student visas are
being exploited as an easy migration route.
Home Office research shows half the foreign students who arrive
each year are not studying degrees, but a range of lesser
qualifications such as A-levels and even GCSEs.
Tens of thousands of foreign students have entered "lower tier" colleges, where it is easier to gain places.
Mr Green said it was "transparently clear" that the immigration
system did not work. He said: "I want a student visa system which
encourages the entry of good students to highly trusted institutions,
but which scrutinises much more closely or cuts out entirely those who
are less beneficial to this country."
Mr Green said that every other immigration route, including giving
visas to foreign wives or husbands, must be reviewed and tightened.
David Cameron has promised to bring net migration, the balance
between those leaving and those arriving, down to the "tens of
thousands". Figures last week showed it rose by a fifth last year to
196,000. The main driver was a sharp increase in the number of foreign
students, to more than 360,000.
Research for the Home Office shows that in 2004, around 186,000
students were granted visas and 21 per cent of them were still here in
2009, meaning they had been able to switch to other routes such as work
permits or marriage, paving the way for them to settle here
permanently. And that is only those known to immigration officials.
Tens of thousands more may have simply overstayed their visa and
disappeared.
Earlier this year, it was estimated that more than one in 10
foreign students was arriving in Britain through bogus or suspect
colleges.
We receive numerous requests as to how to aquire and use knowledge. Many students assume that learning facts, or gathering and learning information is good enough on its own, particularly to pass examinations. But its not as simple as that.
It is true that some exams only require the assimilation of information or facts. The answer to a question may be right or wrong. But many areas of study require an understanding of how to use resources, and apply the information gained, wisely in a given, or different situation.
There is an important relationship between information, knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge management is the hottest subject of the day. The question is: what is this activity called 'Knowledge Management', and why is it so important to each and every one of us?
This Special Featurealso appears on 'Education' , and we hope the following writings, articles, and links offer some emerging perspectives in response to these questions. It is a complex topic, and may require reading and re-reading. It may, we hope, stimulate your own thoughts. As you read on, you can determine whether it all makes any sense or not, and send us your opinion and reactions. Alan Cooper.
Like water, this rising tide of data can be viewed as an abundant, vital and necessary resource. With enough preparation, we should be able to tap into that reservoir -- and ride the wave -- by utilizing new ways to channel raw data into meaningful information. That information, in turn, can then become the knowledge that leads to wisdom. Les Alberthal
Before attempting to address the question of knowledge management, it's probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge, which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. Consider this observation made by Neil Fleming as a basis for thought relating to the following diagram.
A collection of data is not information.
A collection of information is not knowledge.
A collection of knowledge is not wisdom.
A collection of wisdom is not truth.
The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply collections.
Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and has a synergy of its own.
We begin with data, which is just a meaningless point in space and time, without reference to either space or time. It is like an event out of context, a letter out of context, a word out of context.
The key concept here being "out of context." And, since it is out of context, it is without a meaningful relation to anything else. When we encounter a piece of data, if it gets our attention at all, our first action is usually to attempt to find a way to attribute meaning to it.
We do this by associating it with other things. If I see the number 5, I can immediately associate it with cardinal numbers and relate it to being greater than 4 and less than 6, whether this was implied by this particular instance or not. If I see a single word, such as "time," there is a tendency to immediately form associations with previous contexts within which I have found "time" to be meaningful. This might be, "being on time," "a stitch in time saves nine," "time never stops," etc. The implication here is that when there is no context, there is little or no meaning. So, we create context but, more often than not, that context is somewhat akin to conjecture, yet it fabricates meaning.
That a collection of data is not information, as Neil indicated, implies that a collection of data for which there is no relation between the pieces of data is not information. The pieces of data may represent information, yet whether or not it is information depends on the understanding of the one perceiving the data.
I would also tend to say that it depends on the knowledge of the interpreter, but I'm probably getting ahead of myself, since I haven't defined knowledge. What I will say at this point is that the extent of my understanding of the collection of data is dependent on the associations I am able to discern within the collection. And, the associations I am able to discern are dependent on all the associations I have ever been able to realize in the past. Information is quite simply an understanding of the relationships between pieces of data, or between pieces of data and other information.
While information entails an understanding of the relations between data, it generally does not provide a foundation for why the data is what it is, nor an indication as to how the data is likely to change over time. Information has a tendency to be relatively static in time and linear in nature. Information is a relationship between data and, quite simply, is what it is, with great dependence on context for its meaning and with little implication for the future.
Beyond relation there is pattern, where pattern is more than simply a relation of relations. Pattern embodies both a consistency and completeness of relations which, to an extent, creates its own context. Pattern also serves as an Archetype with both an implied repeatability and predictability.
When a pattern relation exists amidst the data and information, the pattern has the potential to represent knowledge. It only becomes knowledge, however, when one is able to realize and understand the patterns and their implications.
The patterns representing knowledge have a tendency to be more self-contextualizing. That is, the pattern tends, to a great extent, to create its own context rather than being context dependent to the same extent that information is. A pattern which represents knowledge also provides, when the pattern is understood, a high level of reliability or predictability as to how the pattern will evolve over time, for patterns are seldom static. Patterns which represent knowledge have a completeness to them that information simply does not contain.
Wisdom arises when one understands the foundational principles responsible for the patterns representing knowledge being what they are. And wisdom, even more so than knowledge, tends to create its own context. I have a preference for referring to these foundational principles as eternal truths, yet I find people have a tendency to be somewhat uncomfortable with this labeling. These foundational principles are universal and completely context independent. Of course, this last statement is sort of a redundant word game, for if the principle was context dependent, then it couldn't be universally true now could it?
So, in summary the following associations can reasonably be made:
Information relates to description, definition, or perspective (what, who, when, where).
Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or approach (how).
Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or archetype (why).
Now that I have categories I can get hold of, maybe I can figure out what can be managed.
An Example
This example uses a bank savings account to show how data, information, knowledge, and wisdom relate to principal, interest rate, and interest.
Data: The numbers 100 or 5%, completely out of context, are just pieces of data. Interest, principal, and interest rate, out of context, are not much more than data as each has multiple meanings which are context dependent.
Information: If I establish a bank savings account as the basis for context, then interest, principal, and interest rate become meaningful in that context with specific interpretations.
Principal is the amount of money, $100, in the savings account.
Interest rate, 5%, is the factor used by the bank to compute interest on the principal.
Knowledge: If I put $100 in my savings account, and the bank pays 5% interest yearly, then at the end of one year the bank will compute the interest of $5 and add it to my principal and I will have $105 in the bank. This pattern represents knowledge, which, when I understand it, allows me to understand how the pattern will evolve over time and the results it will produce. In understanding the pattern, I know, and what I know is knowledge. If I deposit more money in my account, I will earn more interest, while if I withdraw money from my account, I will earn less interest.
Wisdom: Getting wisdom out of this is a bit tricky, and is, in fact, founded in systems principles. The principle is that any action which produces a result which encourages more of the same action produces an emergent characteristic called growth. And, nothing grows forever for sooner or later growth runs into limits.
If one studied all the individual components of this pattern, which represents knowledge, they would never discover the emergent characteristic of growth. Only when the pattern connects, interacts, and evolves over time, does the principle exhibit the characteristic of growth.
Now, if this knowledge is valid, why doesn't everyone simply become rich by putting money in a savings account and letting it grow?
The answer has to do with the fact that the pattern described above is only a small part of a more elaborate pattern which operates over time. People don't get rich because they either don't put money in a savings account in the first place, or when they do, in time, they find things they need or want more than being rich, so they withdraw money. Withdrawing money depletes the principal and subsequently the interest they earn on that principal. Getting into this any deeper is more of a systems thinking exercise than is appropriate to pursue here.
A Continuum
Note that the sequence data -> information -> knowledge -> wisdom represents an emergent continuum. That is, although data is a discrete entity, the progression to information, to knowledge, and finally to wisdom does not occur in discrete stages of development. One progresses along the continuum as one's understanding develops.
Everything is relative, and one can have partial understanding of the relations that represent information, partial understanding of the patterns that represent knowledge, and partial understanding of the principles which are the foundation of wisdom. As the partial understanding stage.
Extending the Concept
We learn by connecting new information to patterns that we already understand. In doing so, we extend the patterns. So, in my effort to make sense of this continuum, I searched for something to connect it to that already made sense. And, I related it to Csikszentmihalyi's interpretation of complexity.
Csikszentmihalyi provides a definition of complexity based on the degree to which something is simultaneously differentiated and integrated.
His point is that complexity evolves along a corridor and he provides some very interesting examples as to why complexity evolves.
The diagram indicates that what is more highly differentiated and integrated is more complex. While high levels of differentiation without integration promote the complicated, that which is highly integrated, without differentiation, produces mundane. And, it should be rather obvious from personal experience that we tend to avoid the complicated and are uninterested in the mundane.
The complexity that exists between these two alternatives is the path we generally find most attractive.
On 4/27/05 Robert Lamb commented that Csikszentmihalyi's labeling could be is bit clearer if "Differentiation" was replaced by "Many Components" and "Integration" was replaced by Highly Interconnected." Robert also commented that "Common Sense" might be another label for "Mundane." If the mundane is something we seem to avoid paying attention to then "Common Sense" might often be a very appropriate label. Thanks Robert.
What I found really interesting was the view that resulted when I dropped this diagram on top of the one at the beginning of this article. It seemed that "Integrated" and "Understanding" immediately correlated to each other. There was also a real awareness that "Context Independence" related to "Differentiated." Overall, the continuum of data to wisdom seemed to correlate exactly to Csikszentmihalyi's model of evolving complexity.
I now end up with a perception that wisdom is sort of simplified complexity.
Knowledge Management: Bah Humbug!
When I first became interested in knowledge as a concept, and then knowledge management, it was because of the connections I made between my system studies and the data, information, knowledge, and wisdom descriptions already stated. Saying that I became interested is a bit of an understatement as I'm generally either not interested or obsessed, and seldom anywhere in between.
Then, after a couple months I managed to catch myself, with the help of Mike Davidson, as to the indirection I was pursuing.
I managed to survive the Formula Fifties, the Sensitive Sixties, the Strategic Seventies, and the Excellent Eighties to exist in the Nanosecond Nineties, and for a time I thought I was headed for the Learning Organizational Oh's of the next decade.
The misdirection I was caught up in was a focus on Knowledge Management not as a means, but as an end in itself. Yes, knowledge management is important, and I'll address reasons why shortly. But knowledge management should simply be one of many cooperating means to an end, not the end in itself, unless your job turns out to be corporate knowledge management director or chief knowledge officer. I'm quite sure it will come to this, for in some ways we are predictably consistent.
I associate the cause of my indirection with the many companies I have been associated with in the past. These companies had pursued TQM or reengineering, not in support of what they were trying to accomplish, but as ends in themselves because they simply didn't know what they were really trying to accomplish. And, since they didn't know what they were really trying to accomplish, the misdirection was actually a relief, and pursued with a passion­­it just didn't get them anywhere in particular.
According to Mike Davidson, and I agree with him, what's really important is:
Mission: What are we trying to accomplish?
Competition: How do we gain a competitive edge?
Performance: How do we deliver the results?
Change: How do we cope with change?
As such, knowledge management, and everything else for that matter, is important only to the extent that it enhances an organization's ability and capacity to deal with, and develop in, these four dimensions.
The Value of Knowledge Management
In an organizational context, data represents facts or values of results, and relations between data and other relations have the capacity to represent information. Patterns of relations of data and information and other patterns have the capacity to represent knowledge.
For the representation to be of any utility it must be understood, and when understood the representation is information or knowledge to the one that understands. Yet, what is the real value of information and knowledge, and what does it mean to manage it?
Without associations we have little chance of understanding anything. We understand things based on the associations we are able to discern. If someone says that sales started at $100,000 per quarter and have been rising 20% per quarter for the last four quarters, I am somewhat confident that sales are now about $207,000 per quarter. I am confident because I know what "rising 20% per quarter" means and I can do the maths.
Yet, if someone asks what sales are apt to be next quarter, I would have to say, "It depends!" I would have to say this because although I have data and information, I have no knowledge.
This is a trap that many fall into, because they don't understand that data doesn't predict trends of data. What predicts trends of data is the activity that is responsible for the data.
To be able to estimate the sales for next quarter, I would need information about the competition, market size, extent of market saturation, current backlog, customer satisfaction levels associated with current product delivery, current production capacity, the extent of capacity utilization, and a whole host of other things. When I was able to amass sufficient data and information to form a complete pattern that I understood, I would have knowledge, and would then be somewhat comfortable estimating the sales for next quarter. Anything less would be just fantasy!
In this example what needs to be managed to create value is the data that defines past results, the data and information associated with the organization, it's market, it's customers, and it's competition, and the patterns which relate all these items to enable a reliable level of predictability of the future.What I would refer to as knowledge management would be the capture, retention, and reuse of the foundation for imparting an understanding of how all these pieces fit together and how to convey them meaningfully to some other person.
The value of Knowledge Management relates directly to the effectiveness with which the managed knowledge enables the members of the organization to deal with today's situations and effectively envision and create their future. Without on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed based on what the individual or group brings to the situation with them.
With on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed with the sum total of everything anyone in the organization has ever learned about a situation of a similar nature. Which approach would you perceive would make a more effective organization?
References
Alberthal, Les. Remarks to the Financial Executives Institute, October 23, 1995, Dallas, TX
Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, Bantam, 1988
Richard Lambert said the education system is producing results 'we ought to be ashamed of'. Photograph: Sarah Lee
The education system is failing pupils from poorer homes and producing exam results which "we ought to be ashamed of", according to the head of the most powerful group representing business leaders.
In an interview with the Guardian, Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI, says that money is being wasted in English schools, which have among the most generous government funding in the world but exam results that are beginning to trail behind competitor countries.
The problems are rooted in a "culture of low aspiration" that predates the current government, but Labour has spent too much time "messing around" with the education system and its high spending strategy has been inefficient, he claims.
"If you look at all the data you see as a country we spend a lot on educating kids, but the outcomes aren't great. There's a very long tail of under-performance. I think this is more than an educational issue, it's a social and cultural issue as well," he said. "Part of the story is the correlation between deprivation and poor academic outcomes, which are more marked in this country than we ought to be able to contemplate. We ought to be ashamed of the numbers."
His intervention comes amid growing concerns about school standards after prominent business leaders have publicly decried the education system.
Lambert said he was voicing concerns because employers were struggling to recruit people with the right skills – even in the recession – and that many organisations had to give remedial classes in the 3Rs to employees. But he said his decision to speak out was also prompted by concerns business leaders have about social ills, such as illiteracy.
"I've been to lots of amazing schools, I've seen amazing teachers doing amazing things, so you think there must be more to it. There must be social, cultural pressures, aspirational gaps," he said.
"The OECD figures show we have more drunkenness in students than any other country in the OECD, we have the fourth highest cohort of Neets [people not in employment, education or training] after Turkey, Italy and Mexico, that can't be something we can be proud of.
"There is an absolutely straight correlation between GCSE results and free school meals, a straight line so the most deprived get the worst results." The current government was not to blame for all the problems, he said. "Where would you like to start? In the 1960s? With Mrs Thatcher? I would be critical of the government in the way that policy has seemed like a bit of a kaleidoscope. There are lots of initiatives, quite complex initiatives like the diplomas programme. Very, very complicated. I would hate to be a headteacher having to handle diplomas and GCSEs and A-levels and not quite knowing the extent to which they are going to be sustained or not sustained. I do think there has been a lot of messing around."
Earlier this year the Tesco chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, attacked "woefully low" standards in Britain's education system and blamed the government for a surplus of quangos and guidelines. In December Ofsted concluded that despite overall improvements in the number of schools rated good or outstanding, a third of schools are still not good enough. The chief inspector blamed a "stubborn core" of poor teaching for hampering progress.
Earlier this month a breakdown of GCSE results revealed sustained improvements in GCSE results over the past three years. However, it also revealed that children eligible for free school meals are half as likely as other pupils to get five good GCSEs and results of white working class boys were slightly worse this year compared with last year.
The schools secretary, Ed Balls, said Lambert had failed to recognise the vast improvements in schools and that English schools were now performing very well compared with schools in other developed countries, in maths and sciences.
"We have seen unprecedented steady and consistent improvement at all ages in the last 12 years after decades of stagnation. Yes, this has cost money but the entire school estate needed redeveloping to replace the tens of thousands of temporary classrooms with new, modern learning environments; teachers needed fair pay rises following years of low salaries and teacher shortages; and class sizes were too big for proper learning.
"I understand producer concerns about initiatives. But public sector reform is vital to ensure every school is a good school, every child is supported to learn and businesses get the skills they need.We make no apology for changing a system that was failing two-thirds of pupils with only a fortunate third, usually those from relatively well-off families, getting the basic five good GCSEs with English and maths.
"All our major policies are drawn up with agreement from most of the major teaching unions and we always consider the impact of policies on hard working schools up and down the country.
"Of course every individual business leader is entitled to his or her opinion. But I know from the business leaders I talk to across the country that most are very happy with the education system, especially the extra numbers of young people we are getting to stay on and further their education and our focus on the basics of English and maths."
Universities tell Gordon Brown: cuts will bring us to our knees
Exclusive Top colleges warn order to save £2.5bn will wreck 'jewel in crown'
The Russell Group warns cuts to universities, like Cambridge, above, threaten to reduce a 'gold standard' system to one that is 'silver, bronze or worse'. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Top universities accuse Gordon Brown of jeopardising 800 years of higher education, warning that they could quickly be "brought to their knees" by the government's spending cuts of up to £2.5bn, thereby damaging Britain's ability to recover from recession.
In a withering attack, the leaders of the Russell Group of 20 leading universities say: "It has taken more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems, and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it to its knees."
Writing in the Guardian, they say: "If government targets these huge cuts on university budgets they will have a devastating effect not only on students and staff, but also on our international competitiveness, national economy and ability to recover from recession ... cuts of this magnitude in overall funding will impact on the sustainability of our research and cannot fail to affect even the most outstanding universities."
The group, which includes Warwick, Liverpool and Glasgow universities as well as Oxford and Cambridge, say that ministers have failed to appreciate one of the "jewels in the country's crown".
"Perhaps the prime minister should consider what his international counterparts regard as being priorities … an investment of €11bn in higher education in France ... Germany pumped a total of €18bn into promoting world-class research alongside university education, whilst Barack Obama ploughed an additional $21bn into federal science spending, as well as announcing a decade-long budget doubling $42.6bn for science, technology and energy.
"There seems to be a greater focus on cutting the funding of higher education than almost anything else. The funding of the health service, police and schools are all currently 'protected' – which presumably reflects their perceived importance at the ballot box."
Wendy Piatt, the group's director general, and Michael Arthur, its chair and the vice-chancellor of Leeds University, warn that at least 30 institutions could disappear, and the rest face possible "meltdown".
The intervention comes amid accusations that the cabinet is split over whether to be more open about the need for spending cuts. Ed Balls, Gordon Brown's closest ally and the schools secretary, played down a split, but revealed that last summer he had argued the need to be more upfront.
The cuts to universities, a third of their annual spend, threaten to reduce a "gold standard" system to one that is "silver, bronze or worse", the top universities warn.
Piatt and Arthur said: "Sadly, the UK can no longer claim to be world-leading in many fields of endeavour. What a great shame it would be to undermine one of the few spheres, namely our universities, in which we do actually still excel.
"We live in a world where ideas, innovation and entrepreneurialism are key to prosperity and wellbeing. As bastions of knowledge and creativity, our universities are critical to supporting this agenda for the next 800 years. This is a defining moment in our country's history. If politicians don't act now, they will be faced with meltdown in a sector vital to our national prosperity.
"If government targets these huge cuts on university budgets, they will have a devastating effect not only on students and staff, but also on our international competitiveness, national economy and ability to recover from recession."
Speaking on the Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Arthur said there was little point in ministers saving the schools budget from cuts "if there aren't universities to take [school leavers] in". He said he recognised the government could not protect every area from cuts, but that universities were a "special case".
He said: "I think we accept as a sector that we have to take a share of responsibility, but so far higher education, particularly in the pre-budget report, has been one of the areas that has been singled out and we think that is a big mistake, particularly if we want to drive the economy forwards.
"We are an absolute cornerstone of British society; the part of the engine that drives the economy of the nation. We supply highly-skilled graduates to the knowledge economy and we provide ideas, research and innovation. We do have a special case to make."
In last month's pre-budget report, ministers announced they would slash £600m by 2013. This is on top of £180m the government asked universities to find in "efficiency savings" by 2011, and a further £135m asked for in the same period by Lord Mandelson, the business secretary who is responsible for universities.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that even deeper cuts of 12.3% over 2011/12 are needed for ministers to achieve their target of halving national debt by 2013. This would mean an extra £1.6bn of cuts to the science and universities budget.
David Lammy, the higher education minister, said the Russell analysis was "as surprising as it is misleading. We currently invest around £15bn in higher education every year. And the fact is that government's teaching and research funding – even after the £180m efficiency savings and the reductions in December's grant letter – will grow between 2009-10 and 2010-11."
He added: "I'm proud there are now more students than ever before in our history attending university. We maintain our commitment to the importance of higher education precisely because we know how essential its success is to opportunity and to our successful future economic growth.
"We are minimising the effect on the frontline by making savings on capital budgets, asking the sector for further efficiency savings and by asking the Higher Education Funding Council for England to look to reduce funding which will not impact on teaching.
"We are absolutely clear that a high quality student experience with excellent teaching is vital to maintaining the world class higher education we enjoy in this country today."
The Tory spokesman on higher education, David Willetts, said he could not promise to reverse the cuts if his party was in power. A Conservative government would encourage universities to reduce overheads by relying more on charitable donations, he said.
Steve Smith, president of Universities UK - the umbrella group for vice-chancellors - has said the cut would force universities to deny places to thousands of students. It comes as a review is underway into whether tuition fees, now £3,225 a year, should rise to at least £5,000.
Students 'have 10 minute attention span' 12.01.2010.
University students have an average attention span of just 10 minutes, a survey has found.
Many are ill-equipped to deal with either academic life or the world of work, the poll of 1,000 students discovered.
A third blamed the fact that they could only concentrate for 10 minutes in lectures on being overworked and a consequent lack of sleep.
One in six (17 per cent) said they had to prioritise the part-time work they undertook to help fund their studies, over their lectures.
And one in five (21 per cent) said their paid work was making it difficult to complete their academic assignments on time, the survey carried out last month for Olympus, the technology company, found. Perhaps as startling was the finding that one in 10 feared their degree would be a waste of money.
Nearly half said they would end university with large debts and almost a quarter said they did not think their university education would help them stand out as a potential employee.
Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, told BBC News: "Given that students are graduating with record levels of debt, and job prospects are at an all-time low, it is no surprise that so many are having to take on part-time work which is adversely affecting their studies."
Ed Balls accused of wasting £1bn on red tape
Education bill criticised as bureaucratic and pointless
The schools secretary Ed Balls was today accused of wasting more than £1bn on red tape for parents and teachers – a month after he told schools to turn off lights to save money.
An education bill, which will have its second reading in the Commons today, would cost the public £1.1bn over a decade if it becomes law, government statistics compiled by the Liberal Democrats show.
The Children, Schools and Families bill has been heavily criticised by parents, professors and teachers who dismiss much of it as "bureaucratic" and "pointless".
The National Union of Teachers warned that one of the bill's clauses, which forces teachers to hold a licence to practise, would be an "entirely unnecessary, pointless hurdle". The government's figures show this measure alone would cost the public £94m over a decade – over £9m each year.
Another clause, which compels every parent who home educates their child to register with their local authority, would cost £191m over ten years – over £19m each year. It would give local authorities the power to refuse parents the right to educate their children at home.
More than 900 parents, scholars and teachers have written a letter, published in the Guardian today, condemning the register as a bureaucratic intrusion by the state into their children's education.
The letter's signatories include the author Anne Fine and the clinical psychologist Oliver James. They write: "If enacted, the bill would – for the first time – transfer responsibility for a child's education from the parents to the state. We believe this is a matter of great concern to everyone.
"A change in the law is unnecessary. Parents are already required by law to provide an education suitable to the age, aptitude and ability of their children, and to any special educational needs they may have. Local authorities already have the power to take action if parents do not do this."
Other clauses in the bill would introduce New York-style report cards for primary and secondary schools. These would include test scores, ratings of how quickly children progress at a school and measures of how happy they are according to parent and pupil surveys.
The report cards would set the public back £27.4m over a decade. But teachers' leaders say they could go too far and over-simplify a school's success.
Another of the bill's clauses promises parents legal guarantees to give their child the right to a good school. This would cost £1.65m each year. Headteachers have warned that schools face an avalanche of litigation if this becomes legislation.
The estimated cost of the different clauses in the bill appear in a report for MPs written by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Ministry of Justice published in November.
The bill's second reading comes just over a month after Balls told an education conference in November that schools will be issued with "smart meters" to show how much electricity is being used second by second.
His department said £750m a year could be saved by turning off lights and cutting back on heating. "In a tighter climate when we're not going to get the kind of rises we've seen in recent years, we are going to have to be more efficient," Balls said.
David Laws, the Liberal Democrats education spokesperson, said: "Ed Balls was only recently telling schools to tighten their belts and remember to switch-off their lights. Now he is imposing vast swathes of new bureaucracy on them which could end up costing billions.
"At a time when the priority should be ensuring our schools don't suffer because of the spending squeeze, wasting money in this way is hugely irresponsible."
Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said: "We make no apology for investing in the continued improvement of our education system with guarantees like one-to-one tuition for children falling behind, school report cards to give parents more information on the performance of local schools, tough home-school agreements to enforce good discipline and better alternative provision for excluded children.
"This bill will make a reality of our vision for a 21st Century school system – bringing a new level of parental engagement and responsibility, and giving schools the freedoms and high quality teachers they need to help them deliver for pupils and parents. It will introduce the new primary curriculum, supported by both parents and teachers, and makes Personal, Social, Health and Economic education compulsory. The bill backs our teachers and head teachers and will ensure that every parent has a good local school."
Ofsted fails barrage of inspections
Schools watchdog mauled as critics bite back at 'wasteful' bureaucracy
Former chief inspector of Ofsted*, Sir Mike Tomlinson, has raised new questions about the watchdog's ability to fulfil its role. Photograph: Martin Argles * Office for Standards in Education (England & Wales)
Ofsted is facing a crisis in public confidence as it comes under a series of attacks on its authority this week, with the watchdog accused of being "flawed, wasteful and failing".
The children's services inspectorate will be criticised today by service heads in every local authority in the country, headteachers' leaders and in a damning forthcoming report by MPs on the government's school accountability system.
Its new inspection regime is accused of forcing social work departments to focus on passing inspections instead of looking after children, giving good schools mediocre ratings on routine technical matters – such as fences not being high enough – and more claims that sub-contracted inspectors are not fit for the job.
Pressure further intensifies on the watchdog as a former chief inspector of Ofsted, Sir Mike Tomlinson, today suggests it is struggling after a major expansion two years ago to include responsibility for inspecting children's services as well as schools and childcare.
The attacks come as Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector at Ofsted, prepares to publish the watchdog's own annual report tomorrow after arguably the most difficult year in its history, during which it has been battered by accusations of failings in the Baby Peter case and struggled with its controversial new inspection regimes.
Tomlinson, a respected government adviser who led Ofsted between 2000 and 2002, today raises new questions about Ofsted's ability to fulfil its role. "The question needs to be asked and answered as to whether Ofsted has the appropriate skills and experience to carry out its agenda," he told the Guardian. "Inspection systems that rely too heavily on data and tick-box systems is not what we need. I worry we are heading that way."
The 2007 expansion of Ofsted made it the biggest regulator in England and since then it has introduced new inspection methods for schools and local authorities.
A document drawn up by the Association of Directors of Children's Services, which represents the head of children's departments in English local authorities, claims that new annual performance profiles being developed by Ofsted are "not fit for purpose". Separately schools have expressed concerns about the new school inspection regime under which they cannot be rated good if their exam results are low – regardless of their social context. They can also be marked down on routine matters of safety.
Lawnswood school in Leeds, a rapidly improving school with a good reputation, was penalised after a survey suggested that 1.3% of parents reported their child did not "feel safe" there. A second school was judged to be inadequate because inspectors said the fence around the playground was low enough for children to be abducted and another failed because inspectors were offered coffee before they were asked for identification.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said schools felt they were being "caught out" in inspections. "It's brought in a climate of great anxiety because you don't know whether the inspector will trick you on safeguarding."
A report from a powerful committee of MPs, to be published shortly, also criticises Ofsted for having insufficiently trained inspectors and for relying too much on exam data in their inspection of schools.
Barry Sheerman, chair of the children, schools and families select committee, said schools in challenging areas felt "aggrieved" that even when they were doing well against the odds, they could be failed for low GCSE results.
A spokesman for Ofsted said: "We are disappointed to hear the ADCS criticisms but have to say that their views just don't accord with what we are being told by directors and frontline social workers who have actually experienced our children's services inspections. The feedback we are getting is much more positive."
Internships could tackle soaring unemployment. 2009.07.19.
The Government is being urged to create 5,000 new internship placements in small businesses to tackle "soaring" graduate unemployment.
Internships could tackle soaring unemployment
The Federation of Small Businesses said £3 million should be allocated to market and develop thousands of internships and jobs this year. The move would save the Government £600 for each graduate on such a scheme as they would not be claiming any unemployment benefit, said the federation.
Chairman John Wright said: "Graduate unemployment is set to soar to unprecedented levels this year as businesses struggle to make ends meet and cut back on recruiting university leavers.
"In a graduate internship scheme, graduates can offer key skills to help businesses move forward while at the same time ensuring they are learning new skills and not unemployed at a crucial time in their careers."
A survey of 226 top employers shows a 24.9% fall in vacancies – a slump in recruitment levels not seen since 1991, during the last recession. The fall is much steeper than the 5.4% dip companies predicted in a similar poll in February. According to the survey by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), whose members include Asda, BT, Lloyds and Nestlé, competition for jobs is much fiercer, with an average of 48 applications for every graduate vacancy.
Leading companies have cut hundreds of graduate trainee positions, with IT and banking worst hit, while the average graduate starting salary has been frozen at £25,000. Almost half of employers predict there will be no salary rise next year. Vacancies in engineering, a traditionally buoyant sector, have dropped by 40%. Only in the energy, water and utilities sector have vacancies risen, by 7.1%.
Almost two-thirds of graduate employers (63%) are offering fewer vacancies than last year. Recruiters have 20 vacancies on average this year, compared with 35 in 2008, and more than half of those polled predict no improvement next year; about 11% think it could be even worse.
Carl Gilleard, AGR's chief executive, said: "It's a depressing picture. I have a lot of sympathy for the class of 2009. When they went to university three years ago, the outlook was very different, which makes it a bitter pill to swallow. It's cold comfort for this year's graduates, but the market will turn and growth will reappear. It's positive that most businesses have kept their graduate programmes, which is very different to the last recession."
The findings come on the back of predictions last week that one in 10 of this summer's graduates would be unemployed in six months' time, and echo a Guardian survey that showed university careers offices have been deluged by graduates struggling to find jobs.
A separate survey of 25 of the UK's 100 largest commercial law firms, published today, shows the number of applications for each trainee vacancy has reached 130, a sharp rise from 52 a year ago.
Jacqui Gush, the head of Bournemouth University's graduate employment service, said: "We're advising graduates not to stick to standard applications to the top organisations, but to be more flexible about how and where they apply."
Wes Streeting, the president of the National Union of Students, said: "As the first generation of students to pay top-up fees leaves university with unprecedented debt levels, we now have confirmation that a quarter of graduate vacancies have disappeared, in direct contrast to the overly optimistic and glib predictions that had previously been issued."
The higher education minister, David Lammy, insisted a degree was still a "strong investment" despite the "undoubtedly tough times". "Businesses are recruiting through the downturn, with growth in some areas, so graduates should remain positive about their long-term prospects," he said. "But, like everyone else, graduates are not immune from the effects of a recession."
Too poor for university: Tuition fees are putting off working class students. By Laura Clark 2009.06.05 The proportion of working class students going to university has dropped since tuition fees were brought in. Students from working-class families are taking a smaller share of places at university after the introduction of £3,000-a-year tuition charges in 2006.
Nearly a quarter of all students are failing to finish the courses they start despite a £1billion crackdown on the university drop-out toll, university league tables showed yesterday. Student leaders blamed tuition charges for the figures, and demanded a radical change to university funding.Universities Secretary John Denham admitted he was ‘ disappointed’ by the drop in the proportion of working-class entrants from 29.8 per cent in 2006 to 29.4 per cent the following year.
He blamed poor teaching for the rise in the number of students failing to finish their first year at university and warned that institutions with high drop- out rates would in future be ‘named and shamed’. Mr Denham’s remarks drew an immediate backlash from lecturers, who accused him of an ‘outrageous’ attempt to deflect attention from rising student debt levels and class sizes.
Yesterday’s tables show the dropout toll has risen to more than 70,000 a year even though £1billion over eight years has been earmarked to help universities keep students on courses, for instance through pastoral schemes and personalised teaching'
The toll is worst among students with the lowest entry qualifications and at new universities, which take the lion’s share of so-called ‘nontraditional’ students. Some former polytechnics are losing almost half their students every year.
National Union of Students president Wes Streeting said: ‘ Top-up fees are leaving a generation of students in unprecedented levels of debt.
Young job hunters face a tough summer. By Andrew Levy. 2009.05.26.
Young people face a 'long, hot summer' hunting for work because of the tough jobs outlook, a report has warned. A survey of 500 companies found only one in five was looking to take on 16-year-old school leavers in coming months. One third of firms said they had slashed the number of university leavers they usually employ. A total of 45 per cent of firms revealed they were not planning to recruit from either group until the economic outlook improves.
Gerwyn Davies, of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which carried out the study, said: 'Employers have for a long time had doubts about the employability skills of those leaving education.'
Ruth Elwood, head of recruitment at accountants KPMG, which helped with the study, added students were having to look for jobs while studying for exams. 'It is no longer enough to start thinking about jobs once exams are over,' she said. 'Those who do not already have a place for September are unlikely to find one now, or not in their first-choice profession.'
The study's release coincided with a report from the Prince's Trust which found youth charities are being overwhelmed by demand - as donations dry up.
David Willetts unleashes dinosaurs, space and a giant sponge
In a speech at the Royal
Institution today, science minister David Willetts revealed how the
government plans to win over children and save British science
David Willetts puts his faith in space, dinosaurs and the 'absorptive capacity' of British science. Click on the pic to enlarge. Image: Cian O'Luanaigh/Guardian
Space and dinosaurs. That's what the new coalition government's science policymakers will be focusing on to get kids into science.
We've all been there. You're at the Natural History Museum
trying to impress your girlfriend with your in-depth scientific
knowledge. You confidently announce that the skeleton in front of you
is "A Velociraptor, honey, like the ones off Jurassic Park".
It only takes a second to be upstaged by a five-year-old.
"I think you'll find it's Deinonychus, actually,"
announces the nearby child. "And they got it wrong in the films anyway,
most of the dinosaurs were from the Cretaceous period not the
Jurassic."
The kid gives you a withering look and walks off with your date.
The coalition government's minister for universities and science David Willetts says he understands those kids. Delivering his first major speech on science policy
at the Royal Institution today, he said: "The two best ways of getting
young people into science are space and dinosaurs. So that's what I
intend to focus on."
At a press briefing before the speech, Willets said: "One of the
contributions that we can make in my department to science and schools
is the sheer excitement to kids getting interested in science." He said
public engagement events like the Atlantis space shuttle astronauts' current UK tour were a great way to get young people hooked.
The question remains whether young people will get excited about
science after a speech that favoured "hard-headed economic arguments"
over blue-sky research. "It seems to me that sometimes ... an appeal
to a sort of chauvinist sense of Britain being first is not necessarily
the argument that is most persuasive to ... work out whether public
money should be spent," said Willetts. "What I personally find more
persuasive is the argument – it's got a kind of clunky word, someone in
this room will be able to think of a much better name for it – what is
called 'absorptive capacity'."
Willetts said that Britain should have the capacity to absorb
and learn from excellent science going on elsewhere in the world, even
if "world-breaking science" wasn't generated here.
Britain currently carries out about 5% of the world's research,
and scores well on measures of quality. "If you're doing your own
cutting-edge research," said Willetts, "it does actually increase your
capacity as well to benefit from cutting-edge research going on
elsewhere."
So we need a better term for "absorptive capacity". Might I
suggest The Science Sponge. It's cheap, it's effective and it certainly
ain't clunky.
Here's how the Sponge works. The cutting edge research gets done
by other nations, then Britain sponges off all their hard work to soak
up the benefits. The Sponge also cleans up all those nasty research
laboratories that cost so much money, leaving the economy squeaky
clean. Genius.
Willetts said he didn't think the cuts in the school building programme would greatly affect the concentration of the next generation of scientists as they sit in their lessons.
"You can have inspiring science lessons in school buildings,
even if they've been around for quite a while." Public engagement with
science events were "as important for getting young people studying
science as the exact age of the building in which the science lessons
take place," he added.
Willetts viewed the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review as an
opportunity for a strategic approach to science spending. "Rather than
just kind of equal misery everywhere ... it may be better to get out of
some activities altogether," he said. "But it's early days and those
are decisions still to be taken.
He did have good news for budding mathematicians, however.
"Virtually anything with maths in it is an incredibly good lifetime
investment," he said.
So it remains to be seen which sciences the Sponge will clean up first.
Over the centuries, mankind has developed thousands of ways to communicate eternal truths. The complex interplay of voice and orchestra in classical opera gave full rein to Mozart's genius. The delicate rhyme scheme of the 14-line sonnet, in Shakespeare's hands, produced some of the most sublime poetry ever written. And authors from Macaulay to Churchill have used the powerful drama of great narrative history to make us understand the soul of our nation.
But none of these methods of communicating quite measures up to the Government's needs. Instead of teaching our children the glories of the past, or introducing them to the best that has been thought and written, ministers want our children to 'Twitter'.
Twitter, for those who have not yet encountered it, is a new form of texting - it's an electronic means of instantly communicating your thoughts and feelings to all and sundry over the internet - provided they can be contained in just 140 characters. A leaked report this week has revealed that putting Twitter at the heart of the primary curriculum is central to the Government's plans for our schools.
In one revealing vignette, we see so much of what is wrong with education today. We used to get students to sit three-hour essay exams to demonstrate their knowledge.
Now the Government just asks them to send a brief text message. Ministers appear to want an engagement with Shakespearean tragedy to amount to simply typing out: '2B OR NOT 2B' on your mobile phone.
This Government is giving our children turkey twizzler teaching - classes are served up insubstantial gobbets of the latest fashionable fad which neither nourish their curiosity nor feed their mind. The tragedy (if that isn't too old-fashioned a concept for ministers) of it all is that the man in charge of our education system is, himself, formidably intelligent - and well-educated to boot.
Ed Balls, the secretary of state for what used to be the Department of Education but which has been revealingly renamed the Department for Children, Schools and Families, spent most of his early life in elite educational institutions.
Shadow Secretary for Education Michael Gove believes Ed Balls is aiming for the leadership race instead of focusing on schools
His father taught at Eton for a time and Ed went to the highly selective Nottingham High School, then Oxford and Harvard universities. He shone at all three institutions and everyone who has seen him at work, even political opponents like myself, can see a highly skilled brain operating.
Instead of devoting his talents to really improving our education system, Mr Balls has used his time in charge of our schools to play to the Left-wing gallery and position himself for the Labour Party leadership.
There are huge problems in our education system. Forty per cent of children leave primary school unable to read, write and add up properly. One in five children leave school without a single proper pass at GCSE. We have slipped down the international educational league tables in literacy, maths and science.
While 26,000 students got three As at A-level last year, the number of boys from the bottom sixth of society who got those good passes was just 65. Independent schools, which educate just seven per cent of children, have more pupils getting three As at A-level than all the comprehensives in the country put together.
The very best independent schools are abandoning state-run GCSEs because they believe they have been dumbed down, and are offering their own, more stretching exams. Tackling this level of educational under-achievement requires hard political work.
Crucially, it means taking on the forces of political correctness at the heart of the educational establishment. These are the people who want to dump history and geography from our primary schools, who tried to write Churchill out of the national curriculum, who think a tough question for GCSE science students is asking whether grilled fish is a healthier food than battered sausages.
Just today another devastating report lays bare the extent of the slip in science standards. But instead of facing down the bureaucrats and academics who have presided over a deterioration in standards, Ed has directed all his fire against those standing up for excellence. Last year, he launched a vicious and unprovoked attack on church schools and Jewish schools, which are hugely popular with aspirational parents, knowing it would go down well with Labour's Left.
He has undermined Alevels as the gold-standard qualification. And he has given in to those in the unions who wanted to fetter our fastest-improving state schools, the independent-style academies.
Academy heads have gone public about the Leftward lurch in Labour policy, but Mr Balls seems concerned only about enhancing his role as the Cabinet's leading class warrior.
True to form, he has also attacked grammars and independent schools, accusing those headmasters with profound worries about dumbed-down exams of engaging in a ' marketing exercise'.
Even though the Prime Minister is in distant South America, Mr Brown cannot have missed the crashing sound of Mr Ball's tanks manoeuvring on to the Treasury lawn. If the Prime Minister doesn't discipline his protege for this naked power grab, then we can all safely assume that, after the G20 summit in London next week, Alistair Darling's next appointment will be with his P45.
Our children deserve better than to be neglected onlookers in a political drama, and an educational quality that has been forgotten.
University tuition fees 'need to rise to £6,500'
University tuition fees should more than double to £6,500, according to vice-chancellors. By Graeme Paton, Education Editor (Daily Telegraph - London). 2009.03.17. Universities have warned that the existing cap need to rise to make British institutions more competitive. Send your comments to us at the above e-mail link They need to rise significantly to maintain decent teaching standards at institutions across England, it was claimed. It comes despite warnings from accountants that a similar rise would lead to average student debts of £32,000. Related Articles:
The conclusions are made in a report published by Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, ahead of an official Government review of tuition fees later this year. Critics warned that any major increase would prove hugely unpopular with students and would hit those from middle-class families hardest because many are ineligible for grants.
Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: "In the context of the current recession, it is extremely arrogant for university vice chancellors to be fantasising about charging their students even higher fees and plunging them into over £32,000 of debt. "This UUK report assumes that higher fees are inevitable, and that the shambolic current system of student support will remain in place."
At the moment, students are charged up to £3,145-a-year in fees. Those from households earning less than £25,000 are eligible for a full grant of £2,835 and at least two thirds of undergraduates get at least some subsidy. Students can also take out low-interest Government loans. But some universities have already warned that the existing cap needs to rise to make British institutions more competitive.
In the latest report, UUK commissioned accountants to map out a series of seven "scenarios" that could happen when Labour reviews existing fee levels. Twelve vice-chancellors were also interviewed as part of the study. It is likely to pile pressure on ministers to consider a fee rise.
The report said if fees increased to £5,000-a-year - and the existing student loan system remained - students would be hit by average debts of £26,412 by 2016. If fees increased to £7,000 the average debt would hit £32,462, it warned.
Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, which represents 20 leading universities, said: "There is a growing consensus that without increased investment, there is a real danger that the success of our world-leading universities will not be sustained. In a difficult economic climate there is even greater urgency to find additional funding."
From canings to Ofsted: a teacher's view of a lifetime of change in his school
Yorkshire
teacher Alan Hemsworth is retiring after 40 years at the same school,
putting him in a unique position to offer views on an education system
in flux
Teacher Alan Hemsworth began his career at King James’s School in
Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in September 1971. Photograph: Andy Hall for
the Observer
Alan Hemsworth walked into King James's School in Knaresborough,
North Yorkshire, in September 1971 to begin a career as a German
teacher. He was 23.
Margaret Thatcher was education secretary. The old system of grammar schools and secondary moderns was in the process of being scrapped and a new breed of comprehensives was rising in their place.
He probably did not expect still to be there 39 years later –
after the winter of discontent, Thatcher's rise and fall, the end of
the cold war, Black Wednesday, the death of Princess Diana, New Labour,
9/11, the Iraq war, the election of a black US president, eight prime
ministers and 19 secretaries of state. But he was – until Friday, when
he finally retired.
He bows out at a time when education is rarely out of the news.
Britain's schools are a top priority for the coalition government,
which showed off its academies bill and "free schools" plan before
being mired in controversy over proposals to axe the rebuilding of
classrooms and other infrastructure. And there has been a fierce debate
about the quality of teaching – amid allegations that too many "bad" teachers are being allowed to remain in post.
After four decades, Hemsworth is remarkably well-placed to offer a
view on life in Britain's state education system. "I have survived,
reasonably intact, with a smile on my face," he says, after a
thoughtful pause. "I feel really privileged to be in the best job in
the world. But it is time to move on."
The enthusiasm remains as he describes, in a broad Yorkshire
accent, how he has loved his time at King James's. There have been
highs (36 German exchanges with Knaresborough's twin town of Bebra,
pupils gaining places at Oxbridge, hysterical laughter in the
staffroom) and lows (the advent of Ofsted, "targets", league tables –
and once lashing out in anger and hitting a child).
We sit down to talk inside the languages department – in which
shiny floors squeak underfoot and glass-fronted displays are covered
with pictures of children on trips abroad.
Asked to compare the classroom of 2010 to the one he entered in
1971, Hemsworth starts with the basics. "There is no blackboard, there
is no dust, there is no chalk. Instead, there is a computer and
smart-board in every room. The desks and chairs are arranged according
to teacher and pupils' wishes. It used to be in rows, with boys on one
side and girls on the other."
In his first years at the school, boys did woodwork and dominated
the sciences, while girls went to sewing lessons and tended towards the
arts and humanities. No more, he says, talking of boys in cookery
classes and girls in craft. There are plenty of other changes, too.
When Hemsworth began, teachers expected "silence and obedience"
and children generally complied. "There were some truculent ones in the
1970s, but the bulk of kids were much less in your face. The corridors
were certainly quieter, the classrooms were quieter. They are much more
confident now – and I am not saying this is in a negative sense. They
do not accept any more, but question things."
They also swear more, he admits. In the 1970s, it would be
exceptional to hear a child hurl verbal abuse – including the rudest
words – at a teacher, but now it is far more common. Hemsworth says he
is still "shocked" by bad language after an upbringing that was
somewhat "Victorian", on a council estate in South Yorkshire with no
indoor toilet, a bed shared with his brother, and a mother who stayed
at home and carried out the domestic chores. In that world, "dad's
word" – and the teacher's – "went".
His first year at King James's was also its first year as a
comprehensive school, bringing together the old grammar on the site and
two secondary moderns. He admits that there were teething problems as
the separate tribes of children were drawn together.
"They were already in their clans, there was already a pattern of
behaviour, so I think many members of staff, especially in the grammar
school, were very apprehensive. There were divisions – academic
divisions, attitude divisions. There were frictions occasionally
between the kids – the occasional fight, children establishing their
territory. But overall it worked amazingly well, and a lot of credit
goes to the head."
He remembers an early discussion among staff about how to address
boys in this new world. "Do we call them Smith, Jones and Brown – as in
the grammar schools – or Tom and Jerry?" he mimics. In the end, a
decision was taken to stick with first names – "revolutionary
thinking", says Hemsworth, laughing.
At first there was corporal punishment, he says, describing "lads"
being summoned to their canings. "Some teachers took a great big run up
and whacked them – I think they enjoyed it," he says. "Not the kids,
but the teachers." Others, including him, hated it. "It did no good
whatsoever. The kids would have a sore backside, but they would also
have a bit of status."
By the early 1980s, the memories of the grammar school were starting to fade as its last teachers retired.
As Hemsworth talks it becomes clear that while – physically – it
is the same King James's in which he has always taught, the school
today is unrecognisable from the one he joined.
The memories pour out: when the school closed because of a lack of
coal during the miners' strikes; an "incandescent" headteacher
hollering in the staffroom; setting up the Bebra exchange with an
English teacher in Germany; walking out with the National Union of
Teachers in the 1980s; arriving back from a school trip at 2am and
disrupting a burglary. Then there was the lowest point – "the scariest
moment of my life" – when he reacted angrily and hit a child. "I lost
my cool because I was a nice teacher, trying to be liberal. This kid
was winding me up, answering back, but then I lost my temper and hit
him, around the head."
Hemsworth remembers thinking: "Oh my God – what have I done?" and
that his career was over. In fact, the pupil's parents decided to take
it no further. He knows things would be very different now – when male
teachers are afraid to pat a girl on the back and say well done, or
stay in a room alone with her. "That is really sad," he says.
In 2010, children even look different, he says. "The corridors are
very narrow and there is a bit of a joke that you get more crushed
these days because the kids are bigger. They are taller on average, and
a lot are overweight."
With the increasing influences of television and advertising, the
other big change is that children are much more aware of how they look,
he says. "In the 1970s, the girls wore A-line and long kilts," says
Hemsworth, placing his hand at his knee. "If you see them now, they are
like belts. And there is more makeup, dangling earrings, hair out of
place, and so on."
Even the staffroom chat has been transformed. In the past, it "was
more relaxed, there was intellectual talk, there was football talk,
rugby talk, talk about husbands or wives or about families, there was
talk about the kids in the school, there was talk about the headmaster
behind his back". Nowadays, teachers sit in separate rooms, preparing
lessons and marking.
So what has changed? "The Baker act stands out in my mind," he
says of the 1988 Education Act that heralded the start of the national
curriculum. "It brought in league tables, more regular inspections – Ofsted. I
hate league tables – I think they are so destructive – and it has a
spin-off in the classroom, because then everything becomes focused on
results, results, results."
Hemsworth says all schools feel under pressure and focus
relentlessly on the children whose grades are at the D-C borderline.
"Ofsted is always lurking. It is quite scary at times. Results day –
most teachers in this school are very anxious about the results." And
children, too, are more stressed, he says.
Hemsworth blames Labour for bringing in a rigid structure of
lessons. "If you get inspected now and you are not doing that, you get
failed." But he is no fan of the coalition government's "free schools"
because he fears they will harm existing comprehensives. King James's
longest-serving languages teacher confesses that he left the school
with tears in his eyes on Friday. But he also left with a settled
conclusion about the country's education system.
"I believe profoundly in comprehensive schools – we help all the
kids, whether they are rich or poor. The grammar system was good for
me: at the time, I would have hated to go to a secondary modern that
did not teach languages, but if it was today I could have that same
opportunity in a school like this. I do prefer the comprehensive
system."
EDUCATION REFORMS
■ The largest expansion of the comprehensive schools system
– which saw grammar schools and secondary moderns merge – happened in
the early 1970s when Margaret Thatcher was secretary of state for
education.
■ Thatcher earned the scorn of the left in 1971, long before she
became leader of the Conservative party. The decision to end universal
free school milk earned her the nickname Milk Snatcher.
■ The most significant piece of legislation affecting schools came
in 1988 with the Education Reform Act. This paved the way for the national curriculum, which in turn led to national tests and league tables.
■ At the 1996 Labour conference, Tony Blair set out his three priorities should he be elected prime minister: "Education, education, education". Under his premiership came the first academies.
■ Education is also a priority for the coalition with plans to
allow any school to apply for academy status. In addition, parents,
teachers and charitable groups can get together to set up free schools.
ee
Translate http://www.translatorbar.com Easy to translate text, webpages and documents into and from a choice of 53 language. Six easy steps...
18-year-old Jessie Tang thinks Chinese pupils'
success at school is 'mostly down to the parents'. Photograph: Graham
Turner for the Guardian
Amy Chua
Damien Green Photo: AFP Immigration rules will help stop extremist exploitation. By
James Kirkup of The Daily Telegraph 07.09.2010. Tougher immigration
rules will make it harder for extremist parties to exploit the issue,
Damian Green, the minister overseeing the policy, has said. 
Foreign student numbers to be cut under new visa regime. By 
Developing a Context
The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply collections. 
If one studied all the individual components of this pattern, which represents knowledge, they would never discover the emergent characteristic of growth. Only when the pattern connects, interacts, and evolves over time, does the principle exhibit the characteristic of growth.
Csikszentmihalyi provides a definition of complexity based on the degree to which something is simultaneously differentiated and integrated. 
What I found really interesting was the view that resulted when I dropped this diagram on top of the one at the beginning of this article. It seemed that "Integrated" and "Understanding" immediately correlated to each other. There was also a real awareness that "Context Independence" related to "Differentiated." Overall, the continuum of data to wisdom seemed to correlate exactly to Csikszentmihalyi's model of evolving complexity.
Former chief inspector of Ofsted*, Sir Mike Tomlinson, has raised new questions about the watchdog's ability to fulfil its role. Photograph: Martin Argles * Office for Standards in Education (England & Wales)
Young job hunters face a tough summer. By 
Shadow Secretary for Education 
Universities have warned that the existing cap need to rise to make British institutions more competitive. Send your comments to us at the above e-mail link They need to rise significantly to maintain decent teaching standards at institutions across England, it was claimed. It comes despite warnings from accountants that a similar rise would lead to average student debts of £32,000. Related Articles:
Anushka Asthan The Observer
Teacher Alan Hemsworth began his career at King James’s School in
Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in September 1971. Photograph: Andy Hall for
the Observer
