SCHOOLS GET ULTIMATUM: IMPROVE OR FACE CLOSURE

6/8/2008 10:53:00 AM

The Observer 8 June

Hundreds of the worst performing secondary schools in England will be given an ultimatum by the government this week: improve or face being shut down. Ministers will tell local authorities they have 50 days, until the end of the summer term, to produce detailed 'action plans' for each of the 638 secondary schools where fewer than three out of 10 pupils achieve five good GCSEs - the government's 'floor target'. Once the plans have been submitted the schools will have less than three years to transform or face being closed down, merged or turned into privately run academies. Despite billions of pounds being spent on education since Labour came to power in 1997, almost 60 per cent of pupils - 3.9 million over 10 years - have left school without gaining five C grades at GCSE, including in English and maths. One million teenagers have failed even to achieve five G grades. The promise to turn around poor performing schools comes only days after ministers warned that failing hospitals could be placed in the control of private healthcare managers. The major announcements are part of a government attempt to claw back some political ground from the Conservative party, which is pulling ahead in the polls. Labour's crushing defeat in the Crewe and Nantwich byelection, a previously safe seat, left the party and Prime Minister Gordon Brown bruised and humiliated. Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said: 'Schools have improved massively since 1997. But there are still too many where under a third of pupils get five good GCSEs, including English and maths. With all the support on offer for parents and schools, no child is on a pre-determined path to low results - whatever their background and wherever they go to school.' Balls will demand to see specific proposals from the 134 out of 150 local authorities that oversee the underachieving schools. He will also call on governors to set up meetings to review what they need to do to get above the target, which is seen as an absolute minimum.Observer

Lead Story | General

SCHOOLS FORCED TO TAKE VIOLENT PUPILS

6/8/2008 10:56:00 AM

Sunday Telegraph 8 June

Thousands of violent and disruptive pupils are escaping expulsion and being passed on to new schools instead, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose. Pupils who have threatened classmates with knives and attacked teachers are among those being moved to neighbouring schools rather than being permanently excluded. Teachers say the tactic is ruining the education of well-behaved children and accuse councils of using it to reduce their official exclusion figures. Information obtained by The Sunday Telegraph from 60 local authorities shows that 1,789 disruptive pupils were transferred to other schools last year in a practice called "managed moves". Across Britain, the total is estimated to be more than 4,500 – a threefold increase since 2004/05.

Sun Tel

LACK OF HONESTY FAILS STATE PUPILS

Leader; Daily Telegraph 8 June

When will Labour be honest with parents about state schools? The report we have published on exclusions is another example of the lengths to which the Government goes to fool parents into believing the sector is in a healthier condition than it really is. When the behaviour of violent pupils has plumbed intolerable depths in one school, they are not taken out of the system so that they no longer disrupt the education of children who want to learn. They are merely shuffled to another comprehensive - where they often go on to wreck lessons for a different set of pupils. Ministers claim that school exclusions have decreased "by 25 per cent" in the decade since they came to power. In fact, disruptive behaviour worthy of exclusion has increased significantly in that period. The truth has been hidden by the Government's method of measuring it: in official statistics, the transfer of a violently disruptive pupil from one standard school to another does not count as an "exclusion".The pupils at the receiving school know all about it, however. According to one education official, such moves "cause widespread misery and disenchantment for the pupils who have to sit in class with sometimes very aggressive, unpleasant and threatening pupils".DT

General

ENGLISH IS TOO HARD TO READ FOR CHILDREN

6/8/2008 10:55:00 AM

The Observer 8 June

Baffling spelling system is blamed as literacy falls short of level in other European nations. The English spelling system is 'absolutely, unspeakably awful'. That is the conclusion of new research that has found that children face 800 words by the age of 11 that hinder their reading because of the way they are spelt. Monkey, asparagus, spinach, caterpillar, dwarf, banana, handkerchief, pliers, soldiers, stomach, petal and telescope have all been included on the long list of words that baffle children because they contain letter combinations that are more commonly pronounced in a different way. The words have all been identified as problematic for reading, as opposed to writing, because of their 'phonic unreliability', according to the study The Most Costly English Spellings. It was presented yesterday at the conference of the Spelling Society, held at Coventry University. Masha Bell, the literacy researcher who carried out the work, argued that there were 200 words on the list that could be improved by simply dropping 'surplus letters' such as the 'i' in friend or the 'u' in shoulder. 'English has an absolutely, unspeakably awful spelling system,' said Bell, a former English teacher and author of the book Understanding English Spelling. 'It is the worst of all the alphabetical languages. It is unique in that there are not just spelling problems but reading problems. They do not exist anywhere else.' Bell argued that the spelling system was a huge financial burden on schools and was to blame for poor literacy results compared with the rest of Europe. In Finland, where words are more likelyto be pronounced as they look, children learn to read fluently within three months, she said. In the UK, academics have found that it takes three years for a child to acquire a basic level of competence. The tricky spellings make English particularly difficult for children with dyslexia and those from disadvantaged families, who are less likely to be read to regularly by their parents.Observer

General | Curriculum / Quality Assurance

UNIVERSITIES ‘INFLATE DEGREES’ TO BOOST STATUS

6/8/2008 12:57:00 PM

The Sunday Times 8 June

University academics claim they are under pressure to upgrade degrees to at least a 2:1 to boost their institutions’ position in league tables. Liverpool was named as one of the alleged culprits by one leading academic, while another senior don claims league tables were “a key factor” in increasing the numbers of firsts and 2:1s awarded at one of Britain’s top 10 universities. Other lecturers said they were also coming under strong pressure to upgrade degrees from students paying tuition fees who were worried that their career prospects would be blighted if they failed to achieve a 2:1. Jonathan Bate, professor of English at Warwick University, said that before he left his previous job at Liverpool in 2003 he was told that improving the university’s league table position depended on increasing the number of firsts and upper second class degrees awarded. In The Sunday Times University Guide league table about 10% of a university’s score depends on its proportion of top degrees. Rankings can have a strong effect on, for example, the calibre of applicants to universities. Bate, speaking in today’s News Review, says: “There are universities where instructions go round to staff reminding them that awarding more top-class degrees will push their institution up both the national and international league tables. When I was a professor at Liverpool University heads of departments were given exactly this message.” Universities have complained repeatedly about “grade inflation” at A-level making it increasingly difficult to choose between candidates with three As, but new figures show that the same phenomenon has occurred with degrees. Sun Times

FE/HE/ Skills

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SCHOOLS GET ULTIMATUM: IMPROVE OR FACE CLOSURE

SCHOOLS FORCED TO TAKE VIOLENT PUPILS

ENGLISH IS TOO HARD TO READ FOR CHILDREN

UNIVERSITIES ‘INFLATE DEGREES’ TO BOOST STATUS

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