HINDU STATE SCHOOL BEGINNING WORK

6/7/2008 9:26:00 AM

BBC 6 June

Hindus in London will now have a state-funded primary school

The building of England's first Hindu state school is to begin this weekend, with the occasion marked with a religious ceremony and launch event. The Krishna-Avanti primary school in Edgware, north west London, will take its first pupils in September. The first classes will be in temporary accommodation while the school buildings are constructed. Head teacher Naina Parmar said the faith school would contribute to "contemporary British society". "We recognise and take our duty seriously in ensuring that we promote community cohesion, inclusion and value inter-cultural and religious diversity," she said. The £10m primary school will have 236 places, providing a faith school for some of the 40,000 Hindus living in the London Borough of Harrow. BBC

General

TEACHERS FAIL INTERNATIONAL MATHS TEST

6/7/2008 10:07:00 AM

Daily Telegraph 7 June

Teachers in England are worse at sums than their counterparts across the world, according to a new report. Only one in five trainee teachers could correctly answer a question involving the use of logic and reasoning - compared with 97 per cent of Russians. And half of the English trainees got a simple question about square roots wrong, compared to fewer than 10 per cent of teachers in Russia, China and Hungary. The conclusions, in a study by Plymouth University, come just days after researchers condemned the decline of maths education in England, claiming GCSEs had become nothing more than a "tick-box An analysis of maths exams over the last 50 years complained a traditional focus on algebra, geometry and arithmetic had been dropped in favour of questions focusing on real-life situation. In the latest report, Professor David Burghes, director of Plymouth's Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching, said he was alarmed that so many teachers in England got "very basic" maths questions wrong. "England is not at all disgraced by these results, but there are clear topics that we do underperform in," he told the Times Educational Supplement. "We are so far behind other countries and the international average in terms of logic and rigour.DT

General

DIPLOMAS 'WILL FAIL TO PREPARE PUPILS FOR WORK'

6/7/2008 9:49:00 AM

Daily Telegraph 7 June

New diploma qualifications being introduced to rival A-levels have become mired in fresh controversy amid claims they will fail to prepare pupils for the workplace. Teenagers will be able to pass the Government's "work-related" courses without taking part in any relevant work-experience, it was revealed. The qualifications - being taken for the first time in September - have been billed as an attempt to combine traditional academic study and vocational training. Ministers say the courses, in subjects such as media and health, will give 14- to 19-year-olds classroom teaching as well as hands-on experience of the workplace. But it has emerged students will be able to pass the new construction qualification without ever visiting a building site. Students may even be able to do work experience in a travel agent or department store as part of an engineering diploma. Critics said it was further evidence that the controversial qualifications would fail to deliver training valued by employers. It comes as a report branded the diplomas a "disaster waiting to happen". Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said schools did not have the proper equipment or expertise to teach practical skills to the standards demanded by employers. DT

Curriculum / Quality Assurance

VIEW OF MATHS THAT DOESN'T ADD UP

6/7/2008 10:56:00 AM

Letters The Guardian 7 June

Simon Jenkins (Comment, June 6) provides a wonderful glimpse into public ignorance about mathematics, but unfortunately it is an ignorance that Jenkins himself shares. Far from being "a waste of time", mathematics is essential to almost everything in our daily lives - the internet, consumer electronics from TV sets to satnav, the ability of passenger jets to stay in the air, even the buildings we live in and the food we eat. "Students are not stupid," Jenkins writes. "They know where money is to be made". Maybe they do, but Warwick University's mathematics students earn more money, on average, than those studying any other degree subject. Roughly one quarter of the UK's maths graduates go into the financial sector, where their ability to handle technical ideas is highly prized, and rewarded. GH Hardy, quoted as a source for the utter uselessness of mathematics, made that statement in 1940, and was referring only to the purest parts of the research frontier. His views, eccentric even at the time, were hopelessly outdated by 1960, let alone 2008. Number theory, which he praised because it could never be used in warfare, forms the basis of military secret codes; it is also fundamental to the workings of modern digital communications, along with large areas of abstract algebra. The inclusion of mathematics in the national curriculum was not the result of lobbying, but one of the main reasons the curriculum was introduced. If anything, the importance of mathematics to the UK's prosperity is greater today than it was then. By all means we should discuss how to improve its teaching, but an ill-informed series of silly stereotypes is not a constructive contribution.

Professor Ian Stewart
University of Warwick

Curriculum / Quality Assurance

EMPLOYERS ATTACK WORK EXPERIENCE FOR DIPLOMAS

6/7/2008 9:24:00 AM

FT 7 June

The credibility of new work-related diplomas for teenagers suffered another body blow on Friday, after the watchdog charged with keeping up curriculum standards revealed the 10 days’ compulsory “work experience” need not be in a workplace related to the subject.This means that a schoolchild studying for an engineering diploma could work for two weeks at a hairdresser – or a student opting for hair and beauty could spend two days surrounded by ball bearings at an engineering company.The news throws into doubt Whitehall claims that the diplomas – designed to boost productivity by healing England’s centuries-old divide between academic and vocational qualifications – are ideal preparation for the world of work. The Department for Children, Schools and Families will launch the first five diplomas in September.Employers were flummoxed by the revelation from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which is devising the diploma curricula. QCA guidance says work experience should be in a relevant sector “where possible”. A QCA spokesman said relevance was not essential, because other sectors would still teach students about the world of work.But Chris Hannant, head of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “The diploma is meant to prepare the student for work in a specific employment area. Work experience is clearly a key strand of this. But this becomes a weak link if the work experience is not in a relevant field.”Lee Hopley, economist at EEF, which represents engineering companies and other manufacturers, described the decision as “really odd”. As D-Day for the first diplomas approaches, worries about the qualifications have been piling up thick and fast among employers and education experts.FT

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