ALARM AT RISING DROP-OUT RATE FOR STUDENT TEACHERS

7/25/2008 7:04:00 AM

The Independent 25 July

The drop-out rate for would-be teachers is rising – with modern language and maths courses among those with the worst record.A report out today shows that 15 per cent of all trainees drop out before the end of their course (up from 14 per cent last year) with 28 per cent failing to take up a teaching post once they graduate.The report, an annual survey of teacher training courses by Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson from the University of Buckingham's Centre for Education and Employment, shows fewer modern languages trainees go on to work in the classroom than any other subject – with just 63 per cent ending up in teaching. Classics has the best rate, at 93 per cent.On drop-out rates during the course alone, only 6.9 per cent quit in classics compared with 17.6 per cent in modern languages, 18.5 per cent in maths, 18.7 per cent in religious education and 20 per cent in citizenship.Those who apply for a science or language teaching post are more likely to have lower degree passes than English, history or classics teachers.

Independent

FEW NEW TEACHERS GO FOR ECONOMICS

FT 25 July

Only three graduates in England chose teacher training courses in economics in 2006-07, compared with 84 the previous year. The finding comes from a study by Buckingham university. Professor Alan Smithers said the subject seemed to be "dying out". The government disputed his conclusion, but the low figure will stoke education experts' fears that state schools do not have enough teachers who are expert in the subject. David TurnerCopyright The Financial Times Limited 2008FT

Lead Story | General

TALK TO YOUR 11-YEAR-OLD ABOUT SEX

7/25/2008 7:06:00 AM

The Times 24 July

Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent

Parents should talk to children as young as 11 about sex informally and often if they want them to delay sexual experiences and take fewer risks, according to the Government. A report that will form the basis of a national campaign has identified the ages from 11 to 14 as the essential time for parents to talk about sex and relationships with their children. Once a teenager turns 15 there is little chance that what parents say will have any impact. Research for the report, Everyday Conversations Every Day, conducted by Populus, found that 75 per cent of 11 to 14-year-olds want their parents to talk to them about sex, and 44 per cent do not trust what they hear from friends. Twenty-five per cent said they were confused about the basics of sex despite all they heard in the playground and on television. Times

General

MR BALLS DOESN’T FLEX HIS MUSCLES

7/25/2008 10:54:00 AM

TES 25 July

Ministers who have repeatedly criticised local authorities for failing to take action on low performing schools, have barely used their own powers to intervene, The TES can reveal. Ed Balls, schools secretary, this month announced plans to strengthen his powers to force local councils to issue formal warning notices – which could eventually lead to closure – where schools have “low standards”.

The minister justified this by saying there had only been a “handful” of warning notices issued in the last three years – despite there being a large number of candidate schools. But Mr Balls already has his own extensive powers of intervention which a TES inquiry has revealed have hardly ever been used.
He has been able to require Ofsted to inspect schools he thinks are performing poorly since 1992. But the power has only been used once “in recent years,” say officials.Since 1998, the Secretary of State has had powers to close failing schools. They have never been used. He and his predecessors have been able to send in ‘interim executive boards to replace governing bodies in failing schools since 2002. But that has only happened twice. Mr Balls’ new powers would allow him to force local authorities to bring in “partners” to improve advisory services where they have poorly performing schools. But Maggie Atkinson, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said the Government had always told local authorities their powers should only be used in “dire circumstances”.
“If they are now saying that is not what we meant – fine. But what we went with was what they meant at the time.
“In five years I have issued one formal warning notice. I haven’t issued others because I have had conversations with governors and head teachers including, ‘Don’t you think it’s time you went?’”
But a Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: “Local authorities have a responsibility to intervene where a school is causing concern. We trust authorities to carry out this duty.” TES

General

WE NEED MORE APPRENTICES, SAY TORIES

7/24/2008 6:59:00 AM

The Guardian 23 July

Schools and colleges would encourage thousands more young people into "practical" occupations under a Tory government, David Cameron said today.The leader of the opposition said it was often being left to chance as to whether young people found out about apprenticeships at local or national firms.He promised £180m to fund a careers adviser in every secondary school and college in the country. He also pledged £100m for a new "all-age" careers advice centre.Cameron vowed to create 100,000 more apprenticeships and to give small and medium businesses in England £2,000 for each apprentice they trained. Speaking at the launch of his party's "training and apprenticeship revolution", he said the plans would "cut down the cost of social failure and bring down taxes".He said: "Getting skills right is about strengthening society and strengthening the economy."He said the number of young people not in education, employment or training had risen by a quarter under Labour.Shadow skills minister, John Hayes, said: "If we want to give everyone a chance, then we must get serious about practical learning. Britain has neglected this and is behind other countries such as Germany. We need to re-value skills and crafts. We must elevate practical learning."If we put a high quality careers adviser into every school or college they will encourage more young people to go for a practical route."Guardian

DEMAND FROM EMPLOYERS BOOSTS NVQS

The Guardian 23 July

The number of vocation qualifications awarded in the UK last year rose by over 8%, according to a new study.Healthcare, retail, business, construction and engineering are the top subject areas for people taking the qualifications.The review by education foundation Edge found the growth in people taking vocational qualifications was because of "significant demand" from employers for qualifications that give people the skills they need for work.According to Edge's research, 3.25m vocational qualifications were awarded in 2007, a rise of 8.3% on the previous year and 117% on the numbers five years ago.It found the number of schools awarding vocational qualifications had doubled in the last year, although colleges, private training companies and employers remain the largest providers of practical courses.Success rates for vocational qualifications have also risen, with passes at further education colleges rising to 78% in 2007.For those taking higher education vocational qualifications in colleges the success rate was over 77% – about the same as for higher education overall.The success rate for apprenticeships is 63%.Over half of all NVQ/SVQ awards are achieved by people aged 25 and over, and a quarter by people over 40.Andy Powell, the chief executive of Edge, said: "At long last we can now see a full picture of the many different paths to success available and the sheer numbers achieving vocational qualifications. "This review also highlights the very real benefits that vocational qualifications offer to young people, adults and the economy – providing people with the skills so desperately needed by employers."In the future, the publication of this review will enable the public to judge the numbers of people gaining such vital qualifications and assess the quality of the courses on offer year on year."Guardian

General | FE/HE/ Skills

NEW RIGHT TO 'FLEXITIME' FOR 4.5 MILLION PARENTS

7/23/2008 7:15:00 AM

The Independent 23 July

The government is to encourage more fathers to work part time or flexible hours so that they can spend more time with their children.Ministers will promise to extend the right to request flexible working to an extra 4.5 million people in talks with trade unions and Labour activists this weekend. It is currently available to parents with children up to the age of six, and will be extended to those whose children are up to 16.Senior Labour sources told The Independent yesterday that ministers want to rebalance the party's "family-friendly" policies to recognise the importance for children to see more of their fathers. "The key is to be modern and fair," one said. "Many mums want to work and dads to see their kids, rather than work crazy hours."Ministers believe that, as well as enabling parents to juggle work and families, the move will help society by ensuring that boys in particular have more contact with their fathers. They hope that over the long term this will reduce problems such as knife crime, which some experts have attributed partly to the absence of male role models in many families.Independent

General

ED BALLS: SATS? IT'S GAS PRICES THAT COULD WRECK BROWN'S AUTUMN, WARNS HIS GREAT ALLY

7/23/2008 7:23:00 AM

The Independent 23 July

The Schools Secretary outlines his vision for a government mired in troubles

For a cabinet minister at the heart of a storm, Ed Balls is in a calmly expansive mood. The Schools Secretary has faced scathing headlines about exams that have gone unmarked or in some cases marked erratically. But Balls breezes confidently into his large office overlooking Westminster Cathedral and for the next hour and a half reflects in more detail than before on the chaos, as well as his distinct approach to city academies and faith schools. He also gives his candid view on what has gone wrong for Gordon Brown with whom he worked so closely for more than a decade, warning his old friend that the febrile situation will get worse for him in the autumn.On the late delivery of some SAT results, Balls explains the sequence of events. "A contract was negotiated in 2006 with a new firm, ETS Europe. The contract specified different ways for marking and collating results and committed them to bringing forward the timetable for releasing the results. "Back in March the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the body that negotiated the contract, was confident things were on track ... Only at the beginning of July did we hear that the marking was not on track and there were substantial computer problems."He adds another detail. "I had a meeting with Ken Boston, the chief executive of the QCA, on 2 June. I asked him questions about marking, quality assurance and delivery and he reassured me that there had been some issues but that he had sorted them out".Balls awaits the outcome of the independent inquiry this October to make a judgement on what went wrong. I ask him whether he will utter the words "I'm sorry". He chooses not to do so. " We really regret what's happened," he says. "We needed an apology from ETS. They have apologised and rightly so. Of course I accept responsibility. When I knew there was a problem we took two days to investigate what was happening, wrote to the Education Select Committee and set up an independent inquiry. I'm accountable for all of that."Repeatedly he argues that it is important to have bodies acting at "arm's length" from ministers and that it would be the easy option for him to intervene directly now.He reinforces a sense of disdain for the QCA by pointing out that last summer he set up a separate regulator to preside over the quality of exam marking. "If I had not done that the body reassuring us about quality would have been the QCA... If you want to see the case for that policy look at what has happened over the last two weeks".Independent

General | Curriculum / Quality Assurance

MINISTER, YOU FAILED THE TEST

7/22/2008 7:26:00 AM

Michael Gove; The Guardian 22 July

Ed Balls has still to accept a crucial lesson from the Sats fiasco: that he should be held to account for it Of all the frustrations contemporary life brings, few are quite as infuriating as the helpline. When things go wrong, and an organisation has failed, you want to be able to complain directly to a single, accountable individual who will listen sympathetically and then put things right. But one thing you can guarantee about any organisation that has let you down, and boasts about its helpline, is that your complaint will be lost after a series of transferred calls, robotic voices asking you to ring another number, jargon-filled statements and then dead silence. There's nothing at all helpful about the culture of the helpline - it's one of the great oxymorons of our time. Just like ministerial accountability.Thousands of teachers have spent months now ringing one particular helpline and getting no satisfaction. ETS, the company that has been running Sats examinations for all 11- and 14-year-olds, has been guilty of grotesque incompetence from the off. The markers on whom we rely to ensure these tests are robust reported that the system for guaranteeing standardised grades and the efficient delivery of papers was broken from the start. But when they rang the ETS helpline, they got no proper reply. And when we rang the alarm bells in the Commons, ministers did nothing to sort out the situation.Accountability matters when public money is at stake, and children's futures are being decided. Sats are the government's chosen method of making schools accountable to parents. It's important that we have accurate measurements of how children are progressing and how schools are doing so we can identify who needs help, as well as celebrating and learning from success. But accountability is a two-way process.If ministers want schools to be accountable through Sats, ministers must be held accountable when the regime fails. But instead of acknowledging their direct responsibility when tests have gone wrong, as previous ministers such as Estelle Morris did, the team at the Department for Children, Schools and Families is trying to pass the buck to Ken Boston, of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and others.This "it weren't me, miss" approach is not fair on other public servants. It was ministers who designed the Sats regime; it was ministers who overloaded the testing and examination system with huge additional complexity this year; and it was specifically the secretary of state, Ed Balls, who ignored the warning signs over Sats, and instead told the exams watchdog to concentrate on his pet plans for more new tests and an ever more confusing diploma structure.Guardian

General | Curriculum / Quality Assurance

£35BN REVAMP WILL PRODUCE GENERATION OF MEDIOCRE SCHOOLS

7/21/2008 7:17:00 AM

The Guardian 21 July

The biggest school building programme in a generation is on course to produce billions of pounds worth of "mediocre" facilities, an audit conducted by the government's own architecture watchdog has revealed.An estimated eight out of 10 designs for secondary schools proposed under the £35bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative are "mediocre" or "not yet good enough" and less than a fifth are considered to be "good" or "excellent".Among the problems discovered in a detailed review of 40 proposed designs for schools across the country are bullying hotspots in secluded yards, noisy open plan areas which make teaching difficult and classrooms which are too dark or prone to overheating on sunny afternoons. The findings from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) were released following a freedom of information request by the Guardian and represent the latest blow to a flagship New Labour programme which Gordon Brown had promised would deliver schools that are "the best equipped in the world for 21st-century learning". Every one of the country's 3,500 secondary schools is to be improved or rebuilt under the initiative by 2020. Ministers believe there is a positive link between pupil performance and investment in school buildings.The Commons select committee on education has launched an inquiry into the quality of the schools being built under the programme and its chairman, Barry Sheerman MP, said he was alarmed by Cabe's findings. He called on the government to throw out any design unless it is classed as good or excellent.Guardian

Lead Story | General | Secondary

THE FALLACY OF THE ‘CHOICE AGENDA’

7/18/2008 7:02:00 AM

Samuel Brittan; FT 18 July

Whenever a particular idea appears to have captured the centre ground of politics it is time to look at it with a beady eye. This applies now to what is sometimes called the “choice agenda”. The idea is that core welfare state services, above all health and education, should remain state financed, but that the users should have a greater choice, for instance, among schools and hospitals. At a minimum they should be able to select among state providers; but in the more daring version, private enterprise providers would be able to compete too, as long as the services remained free at the point of entry.Labour politicians who call themselves Blairite have made this programme their flagship and suspect Gordon Brown, the prime minister, of not being sufficiently keen on it. The same set of notions is just as popular among the self-styled progressive wing of the Conservative party, whose members could hardly wait for Tony Blair to retire so that they could claim the programme as their own.Although sometimes better than nothing, the type of choice envisaged is extremely limited as long as no top-up payments by patients or parents are allowed.FT

General

SPECIAL SCHOOLS SUFFER IN STRIKE

7/18/2008 8:54:00 AM

TES 18 July

One third are disrupted as 220,000 support staff stage two-day walkout over pay

Special schools bore the brunt of a two-day strike by two support staff unions this week, with around a third affected by the action. A survey by The TES suggested that around 350 special schools – out of a total 1,200 in England and Wales – planned to close completely and 50 more anticipated partial closure during the action on Wednesday and Thursday. The Unison and Unite unions expected 620,000 local government workers, including 220,000 teaching assistants, dinner ladies, caretakers and other school support staff, to support the strike over pay.
The disruption in special schools came as no surprise to many: theycan have a ratio of up to three support staff and one teacher per child. Theo Skerritt, a teaching assistant at Richard Cloudesley School in Islington, London, joined a picket on Wednesday. “I do everything from feeding the pupils one-to-one at lunchtime, to delivering aspects of the curriculum,” he said. “It doesn’t take many of the staff to strike for the school to have to close.”
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said support staff working with special needs children in mainstream classes would have their loyalties torn between the union and the children. “Most staff in this situation will have a real tension between the needs of the child and the strike action,” he said. The TES survey indicated that, in addition to the 400 special schools, a further 2,320 primaries and 420 secondaries were closed or partially closed – far fewer than during April’s National Union of Teachers strike, which affected 9,500 schools in total. But as The TES went to press, Unison said around 40 per cent of schools, pre-schools and children’s centres were closed, with severe disruption in conurbations outside London, such as Leeds, Manchester and the North East. In Gateshead, 88 out of 89 schools were thought to be closed, and around two-thirds were shut in Cardiff. But in other areas, such as Cambridgeshire and Wokingham, it was business as usual. Unison claimed that special schools were not “disproportionately affected”. TES

General

ALARM AT RISING DROP-OUT RATE FOR STUDENT TEACHERS

TALK TO YOUR 11-YEAR-OLD ABOUT SEX

MR BALLS DOESN’T FLEX HIS MUSCLES

WE NEED MORE APPRENTICES, SAY TORIES

NEW RIGHT TO 'FLEXITIME' FOR 4.5 MILLION PARENTS

ED BALLS: SATS? IT'S GAS PRICES THAT COULD WRECK BROWN'S AUTUMN, WARNS HIS GREAT ALLY

MINISTER, YOU FAILED THE TEST

£35BN REVAMP WILL PRODUCE GENERATION OF MEDIOCRE SCHOOLS

THE FALLACY OF THE ‘CHOICE AGENDA’

SPECIAL SCHOOLS SUFFER IN STRIKE

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