On the eve of World Teachers’ Day, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief David Smith visited the Department of Education to deliver messages from hundreds of teachers who wrote to the Guardian during the teacher takeover
Children are disconnected enough from nature as it is. By choosing fear over fact, these London schools only makes things worse
It should be a cause for celebration. In one of the most nature-denuded countries on the planet, in its most wildlife-starved city, on #worldanimalday, a rampaging creature caused the closure of four schools. Species other than humans are thriving in London!
What terrifying creature has caused four headteachers to close their schools? A tiger escaped from a zoo? Britain’s first wild wolf for four centuries? A mastodon going berserk after being reconstructed by mad scientists? The first great white shark to be spotted in the Thames?
A vote to avoid applause sparked ridicule, but the practice is not new and helps those with sensory issues
Such was the furore this week over the story of Manchester University students voting to replace clapping with silent “jazz hands” that it caught the attention of Jeb Bush, the brother of the former US president George W Bush.
At 4.20pm on 26 April 1983, in the state dining room at the White House, then president Ronald Reagan accepted a report from a panel of the country’s leading educators, offered a couple of lighthearted quips and spoke of a school system in “the grip of a crisis”. It was the Sputnik moment of American education, a visceral warning about a global superpower falling behind its rivals.
The report, A Nation at Risk, sounded the alarm about the quality of American schools and the potential for looming disaster. “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people,” it said.
Study says the government’s research rating framework is distorting university pay
British universities are imitating Premier League football clubs by poaching “superstar” talent, rewarding an elite group of professors with higher pay in order to boost their research rankings, according to a study.
The research by a trio of economists at the University of Nottingham found the government’s research excellence framework (REF) – which rates departments by academic publications and impact – appears to have skewed pay towards professors with the most prolific output.
Manchester students’ vote to replace clapping is based on concern for others. What’s wrong with that?
What is the point of clapping? Sitting in the packed overspill hall at Conservative party conference this week, watching Theresa May do her thing via a screen rather than live in person, the surprising thing was that people still clapped, even though they must have known the speaker couldn’t actually hear them. They might as well have been screaming into the void, or sitting in stony silence. But so deeply ingrained is the habit that this ghostly audience still reacted exactly as it would have done in the hall: dutiful smatterings of applause where they know they’re meant to show approval, more enthusiastic spanking of hands for the bits they actually like. There’s something curiously satisfying about applauding things that move us, so much so that trying to stop yourself feels awkward and frustrating.
Ironically, that’s roughly how some autistic people also feel about flapping their hands, or rocking back and forwards, or other so-called stimming behaviours that may come out when excited, or anxious, or overwhelmed by noise and lights and stimuli. The difference is that clapping is thoroughly acceptable in polite society and stimming isn’t, so some autistic people spend a great deal of energy trying to suppress the urge in a way that must feel pretty awkward and frustrating too. And it’s this question of who should be accommodating whom – how far it’s up to neurological square pegs to cram themselves into the round holes provided, and how far it’s up to the rest of us to make more generous allowances – that is at the heart of an otherwise rather madly overblown argument about clapping.
If you want top marks, some parts of the UK – and some schools – do better than others
For those still to sit A-levels or Highers, where you live and which school you go to can profoundly influence results day. Time to tell Mum and Dad to move house.
It’s a contested field, the exams – how they are marked and how results are analysed shifting like quicksand from one year to the next. It takes months for the results to be properly analysed, though we already know Northern Ireland (with 85% A*-C results) beat England and Wales this year, as it did last, when south-east England came second (with 79.1%).
As Oktoberfest climaxes across Europe, we find a Czech brewery that employs disabled workers, funds a primary school and brews an IPA named after Gandhi
Beer might come with a head, but it doesn’t often come with a heart. But nestled in the Bohemian hinterland, the Pivovar Chříč is not your average brewery.
For one thing, it is staffed almost entirely by mentally and physically impaired workers. For another, it diverts all its profits to funding a primary school.
Even with evidence of abuse or self-harm many children are turned away, report finds
More children than ever are seeking specialist mental health treatment in England but tens of thousands are being turned away despite evidence of self-harm or abuse, according to a report.
An investigation by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) found that referrals to children’s mental health services in England had increased by 26% over the last five years – but nearly one in four were rejected, meaning that at least 55,000 children were not accepted for treatment in 2017-18.
Edinburgh University is using workshops and gameshows to address growing problem
In a classics lecture hall at the University of Edinburgh an enthusiastic compère bounds on to the stage to welcome the 70 or so fresh-faced students who have gathered for a very different type of seminar. “Well done,” she tells them. “I can guarantee you that just by coming here tonight you will automatically become better in bed.”
They laugh, but while the mood at this hour-long “gameshow”, provocatively titled “How to be good in bed”, is fun, the questions it raises are serious: what does sexual consent look like, what is the difference between flirting and harassment, and how do we tackle a culture of sexual violence?
Buckingham University in bid to become Britain’s first ‘drug-free’ campus
A university plans to take the unprecedented step of asking incoming students to sign a contract pledging that they will not take drugs on campus, a vice-chancellor has announced.
Buckingham University, which already allows police sniffer dogs on campus to deter drug use, wants to introduce the rule in an attempt to become Britain’s first “drug-free” campus.
James Murray, whose son took his own life, wants universities to use patterns of data to identify struggling students
In May, when James Murray met his son Ben for lunch in Bristol, he had no idea the 19-year-old student had been kicked out of university. He didn’t realise that, within four days, Ben would have nowhere to stay. By that evening, Ben had become the 10th student to take their own life at the university in an 18-month period.
Murray says he now realises that Ben had been storing up angst and stress for seven months, “and it had come to a head”. He was unaware not only because Ben hadn’t told him, but because Bristol University hadn’t picked up on various clues as to Ben’s mental health problems.
Universities must end the culture of tolerating bad behaviour and of valuing perpetrators more than their victims
How many of us have contemplated the cost of speaking out against bad behaviour and thought, “no, it’s not worth it”? And how often as a result do perpetrators – great and small – get away with it?
A Guardian investigation revealed that nearly 300 academics had been accused of bullying in universities. This can be devastating for victims, particularly if there is a power imbalance. The fear of recrimination and victimisation (such as loss of authorship on papers or damning letters of reference) mean that often people feel it is preferable to keep their heads down, however painful it may be.
Not now expecting Raab to go to Brussels this week, and any publication from Barnier on Weds might be pretty limited in scope - don't look for breakthrough this week altho the mood music has been much friendlier from Brussels in last few days after the Salzburg bustup
As we leave the EU, we should do so as one nation. The United Kingdom single market must be protected with no new borders between Northern Ireland and Great Britain being created. From day one this has been the DUP’s only red line.
This red line is recognising that Great Britain is Northern Ireland’s biggest market. Over 70% of all goods leaving Belfast port are destined for Great Britain. To create a barrier to that trade would be catastrophic. We want to see an exit deal which means Northern Ireland has unfettered access to and from the GB market but also fully beneficiaries of any new trade deals with the United Kingdom after Brexit.
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, told the SNP conference that, with the majority of Scots paying less income tax than people in the rest of the UK, people are better off with the SNP. He told delegates:
With higher spending on economic development, and the level at which businesses start paying rates kept lower than the rest of the UK, it’s no wonder we’re outstripping the UK’s growth.
Looking at our poll numbers, it brings the pretty obvious conclusion that the people of this country know they are better off with the SNP.
Thinktank research calculates £760 shortfall in funding for each student
An annual £760 shortfall in funding for every sixth form college student has been uncovered as a result of a government spending freeze combined with spiralling costs.
Research by the thinktank London Economics says funding for ages 16-19 education in sixth form colleges has declined by 22% in real terms over the past eight years, resulting in cuts to staff, curriculum and enrichment activities.
Watchdog demands meeting with education department over ‘potentially misleading’ claims about school funding
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has been publicly reprimanded by the UK statistics watchdog over his department’s repeated misuse of data, in particular its “potentially misleading” claims over schools funding.
Outcry over ‘sweeping generalisations’ in Hodder Education sociology book
A GCSE textbook containing stereotypes about Caribbean families has been removed from sale following criticism from MPs and campaign groups.
A passage in AQA GCSE (9-1) Sociology said that Caribbean men were “largely absent” from family situations, without providing any evidence or context to support the claim. After an online backlash, the book’s publisher, Hodder Education, said it was taking the concerns “extremely seriously” and would stop supplying the book for sale.
At least Blair and Gove kept schools top of the agenda – education barely features at party conferences now
It says much about the party conference season that the most arresting education news of last month was the headteacher march on Downing Street over school funding. The 2,000 or so heads were unfairly criticised for being “relentlessly reasonable”, a tactic that was probably wise from their point of view, especially as many acknowledged the personal conflict involved in taking protest action on a school day.
But their attempts to puncture the relentless myth that more money going into education means more money for schools at a time of soaring costs and increasing pupil numbers, at least made a clear point about current political realities.
