Ucas is open for university applications for 2019. Here’s all you need to know
Maybe it’s all you’ve been thinking about through years of school lessons, or maybe you’ve just started wondering whether uni could be for you – either way, it’s time to crack the application process. You’re going to come across confusing-sounding buzzwords and acronyms, and “Ucas” will become the most-used four letter word in your vocab – but the process is fairly simple.
How do I apply?
Continue reading...The answers to today’s puzzles
In my puzzle column earlier today I set you the following puzzles:
1. Can you cut the shape below into two identical parts using one single line? The line does not have to be straight.
Continue reading...Charities, teaching unions and medical colleges accuse UK government of ignoring young people
Children’s services from Sure Start to schools and NHS mental health are at breaking point, according to a coalition of 120 organisations that have called on the chancellor to invest in young people in the budget next week.
An open letter to Philip Hammond and Theresa May from a group of charities, teaching unions and medical colleges accuses the government of ignoring children and young people in its spending plans.
Continue reading...Yet again a report has come out showing that children who have books to read outside of school are well equipped to access education. The study, published in the journal Social Science Research, shows children with access to more books developed a direct positive relationship with literacy, numeracy and even IT skills in later years.
You know this already, though, because it says so in Reading: the Next Steps, [pdf] produced by your very own department in 2015.
Continue reading...Dr Frankenstinker, Professor Branestawm … How can little girls become academics when all the role models are men?
Women! Pah!” scoffs a character in the comic book Dan Dare, on hearing that his new colleague for a space trip to Venus is – SHOCK! HORROR! – a woman. Cool, calm and collected, Prof Jocelyn Mabel Peabody doesn’t see “what all the fuss is about”, as she faces a lineup of appalled male faces.
Peabody is more than competent. “I’m a first class geologist, botanist, agriculturist … and a qualified space pilot as well,” she observes dryly. Who better to evaluate whether Venus might offer a food source that could save life on Earth?
Continue reading...Childhood is being ruined in the UK, and the education system under Theresa May’s government is largely to blame. That is the central message of a new book, The British Betrayal of Childhood, published this week by the former children’s commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green.
“Is there a crisis in childhood in Britain? My answer is an unequivocal yes,” says Aynsley-Green. “Mrs May’s government is not doing enough for children, especially in education.”
Continue reading...Dozens of scientists write letter to May and Juncker setting out their concerns
A coalition of Nobel laureates has said a hard Brexit could cripple UK science, in a letter to Theresa May and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
The letter, signed by 29 Nobel prizewinners and six Fields medallists, says the UK “must now strive to ensure that as little harm as possible is done to research”.
Continue reading...An innovative Rust Belt school district prepares students for industrial jobs – but also competition from robots
The high school students clustered around a 4ft-tall red robot with long arms and cartoonish eyes. A so-called collaborative robot, programmed to work with humans at the Prent Corporation, a packaging company, it looked cute, not intimidating.
But on this “Manufacturing Day”, which in the last few years has given local high schoolers the chance to don safety goggles and step inside factory walls, the robot delivered a not-so-subtle reminder that their teachers have tried to drill into them: the unskilled jobs that paid earlier generations so well are dwindling, gone offshore and to robots like this one.
Continue reading...Pupils with special educational needs are denied opportunities by ‘broken’ system, experts say
Thousands of children with special educational needs and disabilities are waiting for a school place or are being educated at home, and many more are excluded, prompting fears that schools in England are becoming less inclusive.
According to Guardian analysis of Department for Education statistics, just under 4,500 pupils with statutory rights to special needs support were awaiting suitable provision or being home-schooled at the start of the year.
Continue reading...All too often, sustainability is treated as a one-off topic, rather than a practice to be embraced by all
When Amy McCranor got her first job in fashion, she didn’t like what she saw. During a trial period at an e-commerce fashion brand, she witnessed a rapid turnover of unhappy staff, garments sewn with competitors’ labels entered into the inventory, and stock priced at impossibly low figures. So exploitative were overseas manufacturing costs that anything priced over £5 brought in a comfortable profit for the company.
It all caused her to question whether she had a place in the fashion industry at all. “I think it’s wrong,” McCranor says. “It’s a minefield for fashion graduates because you just think, how can I do what I want without feeling like a hypocrite? And I really did feel like one being there.” McCranor left the brand and sought opportunities beyond fashion. “I’ve worked out what I stand for morally, ethically, creatively,” she says. “I can now take a stand early on in my career.”
Continue reading...OECD study advises not clustering poor children would improve social mobility
Disadvantaged pupils do much better in schools where they are in a minority, research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has found.
The OECD report suggests the government could boost social mobility by breaking up clusters of pupils between schools and persuading talented teachers to work in impoverished areas.
Continue reading...Parents deliver appeal with 34,000 signatures as MPs hear of need for urgent reforms
Parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have taken their fight for more funding to the heart of Westminster, handing in a petition with 34,000 signatures to the education secretary, Damian Hinds.
They joined forces with teachers, school governors and councillors from all over England, accusing the government of failing to provide sufficient investment for schools and local councils to provide children with adequate SEND support.
Continue reading...The rule by Ninestiles school in Birmingham is arbitrary and cruel – and kids will find a way round it
Top of the things that make me despair this week (there are many options) is the decision by Ninestiles secondary school in Birmingham to enforce silence on “all student movement, including to and from assembly, at lesson changeover and towards communal areas at break and lunch”. It is difficult to think of a more harmful and mean-spirited policy than taking away children’s means of communication for a significant part of the day. It’s a rule that recalls Miss Trunchbull’s sinister control of her pupils, or Gilead’s handmaidens shuffling about, eyes downwards and whispering behind their hands.
These may seem excessive comparisons, but even parents of pupils have described the new diktat as “like a prison”. The lucky children will, however, “be able to speak to each other in designated areas at break and lunch times”. How exciting for them!
Continue reading...For parents, there is nothing worse than worrying about the health and wellbeing of your child. Unfortunately, we have now reached the point where across the UK the air that children are breathing is damaging their health.
In many areas of public health we have rightly taken action to protect children, such as guidelines on what pregnant women can safely consume or banning smoking in cars with children. But when it comes to air pollution we do not know how many of our children are being put at risk just from going to school.
Continue reading...Students’ union to introduce guidelines after outcry over society’s ‘tramps’ night out’
A students’ union has been forced to introduce fancy dress guidelines after a student society held a homelessness-themed party.
The trampolining society at Liverpool John Moores University was criticised after photographs of its annual “tramps’ night out” event were published in the student paper the Liverpool Tab.
Continue reading...The leader of South Africa’s University of the Free State and Sussex’s vice-chancellor on why freedom of speech matters
Free speech on campus never seems to be out of the headlines. This autumn the government is due to publish new guidelines for universities and students, following universities minister Sam Gyimah’s claims that unpopular views are being blocked on campus.
Vice-chancellors insist that debate and contention is alive and well, but what is it like running a university at a time of severe turbulence? How does it feel when your students or your staff are manning the barricades? In the latest in our 2VCs discussion series, Anna Fazackerley talked to Professor Adam Tickell, vice-chancellor of Sussex University, and Professor Francis Petersen, vice-chancellor of South Africa’s University of the Free State, about managing dissent on campus.
Continue reading...Law lecturer Steven Vaughan explains why the best essays take discipline, editing, and teamwork
When Steven Vaughan, a senior law lecturer at University College London, asked students to mark a previous fresher’s work, their feedback was brutal. It just about scraped a 2:2. The students were therefore shocked to discover this “really bad essay” was written by Vaughan himself during his time as an Oxford undergrad. The reassuring point Vaughan was trying to make, of course, is that students shouldn’t worry if they are not turning in perfect essays from day one. Like any skill, essay writing requires practice. Here, Vaughan offers his advice:
MJ: How do law essays differ from other subjects?
Continue reading...The bio-brick created by students in Cape Town mixes urine with sand and bacteria, which they say is a world first
Students in South Africa have created the world’s first brick made from human urine.
The bio-brick was produced by students from Cape Town, who collected urine from specially designed male urinals at the university’s engineering building and mixed it with sand and bacteria.
Continue reading...Guardian investigation reveals inspectors had ‘serious concerns’ in 30 of the 68 local areas inspected
Children and young people with special needs are being failed in almost half of areas in England inspected under new rules, research by the Guardian has found.
Under a system of inspections introduced in 2016, the education watchdog Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission have so far visited 68 local areas to assess whether they meet the needs of those aged 0 to 25 with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).
Inspectors said they had “serious concerns” in 30 cases (44% of those examined), requiring those areas to produce a written statement of action to detail how they would address “significant areas of weakness in the local area’s practice”.
A spokesperson for Ofsted said children and young people who have special educational needs and/or disabilities deserved a better deal.
Continue reading...The Duchess of Sussex stresses the importance of providing women and girls in developing countries with education to ensure economic and social development in a speech at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. She says she was able to attend university only thanks to scholarships, aid programmes and paid work on campus
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