UK tax authority says thousands have received emails seeking bank details
Thousands of university students have been targeted with fake tax refund emails in an attempt to steal their banking and personal details, HM Revenue and Customs has said.
The tax authority has received thousands of fraud reports over the last few weeks in what it said was the first scam directly targeting university students in such high volumes.
Continue reading...‘Insurgent’ school at University of Sunderland aims to break class barriers
A medical school at the University of Sunderland is to launch next year with the aim of breaking down social barriers to medicine and training a new generation of working-class doctors.
The university’s vice chancellor, Sir David Bell, likened Sunderland to an “insurgent” in medicine, established under the umbrella of government policy to widen participation in education.
Continue reading...A new book gathers words that face extinction. Surely they’re worth saving
News stories about language and the way we use it are rarely edifying, and usually intensely vexatious: the custodians of grammar merrily set about their showing off; the more liberal-minded do their best to convince us that the likes of “cakeism” and “gammon” – two of the words of 2018, according to the Oxford Dictionaries – are signs of vibrancy and growth.
The fogeyish wistfulness and the determined digging-in involved in these spats are by now so reliably tedious, there’d be more pleasure and interest in listening to John Humphrys interview himself.
Continue reading...There’s no genetic reason women should be disadvantaged in the workplace – unless someone is looking for it
In a week of dismaying news, there was a ray of sunshine: a scientific breakthrough with the potential to change lives. Men and women’s brains have finally been proved, by actual scientists, in a massive study, to be completely different! This, you gathered, was the substance of a prominently reported new study that made the front page of the Times: “Men and women really do think differently, say scientists.”
In another paper, the headline specified how: “The sex divide: female empathy vs male logic”. Dr Varun Warrier, of the research team, was widely quoted, saying: “These sex differences in the typical population are very clear.”
Continue reading...Controversial ideas are fine, but don’t do it anonymously
Do academics need a journal that allows them to publish papers anonymously? The proposed Journal of Controversial Ideas“would enable people whose ideas might get them in trouble either with the left or with the right or with their own university administration, to publish under a pseudonym,” suggested Jeff McMahan, professor of moral philosophy at Oxford University and a driving force behind the project.
There are certainly a growing number of controversies over academic papers. When the journal Hypatia published philosopher Rebecca Tuvel’s In Defense of Transracialism, critics attacked its supposed transphobia and demanded its retraction. The journal apologised and the editors resigned.
Continue reading...When children’s lunch is reduced to cold food and biscuits, something is seriously awry
The UN poverty envoy has just been in Britain on a fact-finding mission, and reported on “mean-spirited and often callous” austerity policies, noting how levels of child poverty are “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster”. It’s no real surprise then to find schools on the frontline, starting with the food they are able to provide.
While primary schools have provided free lunches to pupils since 2014, school meals have been hit by funding problems and increased food prices. The Soil Association reports that school caterers in England are facing price hikes as high as 20% for fresh fruit and vegetables, and 14% for eggs. Which has led to many schools opting to provide cold food only, and this can include cheaper meat, biscuits and custard puddings.
Continue reading...Michelle Obama wasn’t expecting the overwhelming emotion she felt when she visited Elizabeth Garrett Anderson school in 2009. “I wasn’t fully prepared to feel what I did,” she writes in her memoir Becoming. “The building itself was nothing special – a boxy brick building on a nondescript street. But as I settled into a folding chair onstage and started watching the performance … something inside me began to quake. I almost felt myself falling backward into my own past.”
Sabrina Chowdhury, now 25 and a primary school teacher, was one of a handful of Year 11 girls picked to greet the first lady on that bright April morning. “Obviously I was nervous,” she says. “Meeting new people was always nerve-racking at that age, and this was the first lady of the United States. It was an adrenaline-fuelled experience but she had a very warm demeanour. She looked kind and not intimidating at all – she made you feel comfortable in her presence quite quickly.”
Continue reading...Shine your inner light bulb on these geometrical gems
UPDATE: Read the solutions here
Hi guzzlers.
Today’s puzzles are about the shade, by which I mean the shaded areas in the geometrical diagrams below. The images are to be studied and contemplated, until the pleasurable moment of insight arrives…
Continue reading...The solutions to today’s puzzles
Earlier today I set you five puzzles from More Geometry Snacks. Here are the questions each followed by two methods of solution. Sometimes the simple action of drawing in a few extra lines reveals the solution clearly.
1. A point inside a square is connected to its four vertices. What fraction of the square is shaded?
Continue reading...Students from prestigious all-boys St Michael’s College were charged related to a video posted on the internet
Six students from a prestigious private all-boys Catholic school in Toronto have been arrested and charged after a video showing an alleged sexual assault by members of the school’s football team was posted on the internet.
The students from Saint Michael’s College were charged on Monday with assault, gang sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon.
Continue reading...Idea part of plan that aims to address growing attainment gap in England
Experts seeking to address male academic underachievement among boys and young men are calling for the introduction of a “take your son into university day” in an effort to increase male participation in higher education.
The proposal is based on “take your daughter to work day”, which began in 1993 as a way of exposing girls to as wide a range of careers as possible, and aims to address the growing gender gap at British universities where female students outnumber male.
Continue reading...Sir Greg Martin was paid out of proceeds from private leisure centre on school grounds
The former head of a controversial academy is being paid an £850,000 severance package out of proceeds from a private leisure centre run on the school grounds, MPs have heard.
Details of the payment to Sir Greg Martin, the former head of the Durand Academy in Stockwell, south London, emerged on Monday during a hearing of the Commons public accounts committee, which is investigating academy accounts and performance.
Continue reading...English councils’ spend on private hire vehicles in 2018-19 rose by up to 45% amid funding cuts
Councils spent more than £160m last year on taxis and private hire vehicles to transport children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to and from school, according to a survey seen exclusively by the Guardian.
England’s county councils are warning that rising demand for SEND services is “creating budget risks” for local authorities, with school transport costs for children with special needs up by as much as 45% in some areas in the last four years.
Continue reading...The underlying problem with the schools funding crisis is no one has calculated precisely how much schools need
Margaret Thatcher famously knew the price of milk. David Cameron had crib sheets showing the cost of beer in Sheffield and London. But does any politician know the price of a primary or secondary education?
School budgets are squeezed, with some headteachers so cash-strapped they have taken to closing at Friday lunchtime to help balance the books. Others have protested on the streets of London.
Continue reading...Interview Sue Black has a mission: to recruit more women into IT and to fight for their rights
Sue Black is easy to spot in the crowded London pub, thanks to her bright red spiky hair. And as soon as we start talking, she is making me wonder why I chose to focus on the arts and humanities at school. Were my teachers influenced by gender stereotypes; or was I? Will more women consider going into technology in the future?
Black, recently appointed professor in computer science and “technology evangelist” at Durham University, speaks with passion about encouraging women to study and teach computer science.
Continue reading...Parents are finding it harder to let go, and universities are responding by making them ‘part of the team’
As a father of five, Steve West, vice-chancellor of the University of West of England, knows all about parental anxiety. Yet he says parents whose offspring have started university must learn to listen from afar without judging – even if those young adults are experimenting with drugs or drinking heavily.
University may be a door to adulthood, but the parents of today’s students have wedged their feet firmly inside. With parents keen to know that the £9,250-a-year tuition fees are being spent wisely, there is now an established culture of them attending open days. And new research shows that perfectionist parents, who have grown used to managing everything at school, are often not letting go of the reins at university. Some are even organising their offspring’s finances from their laptop at home and booking them doctors’ appointments.
Continue reading...It has become a commonplace of leftwing thought that the New Labour governments were “neoliberal”. The word is thrown around like confetti. But not only has the word itself now become so widely used as to have become almost meaningless, that analysis of Labour’s recent past doesn’t even make sense in its own terms.
A great deal of what Tony Blair did in power was not neoliberal at all, or had neoliberal elements but was aimed in a quite different direction, or was better thought of as social democratic or even socialist. Inexpert and ersatz commentators fill far too much of our airtime and news pages with simplistic nonsense that fails to understand just how complex governing and all governments are, and which has no grasp of scale and scope – only of unconvincing and overheated rhetoric.
Continue reading...The star saxophonist recommends her top five classical pieces
Classical is an insanely broad term used to describe a whole lot of music. It can be unhelpful: some hear the word “classical” and are instantly deterred – young people especially. But I find it’s something you can’t easily put in a box.
Music is an integral part of our society and wellbeing, and has an extraordinary power. It can provide a sense of hope, joy and worth. I try to listen with open ears; the most important thing for me is to experience some sort of emotional reaction or curiosity. There is nothing as electrifying as live music, but we’re also lucky to have instant digital access to a library of musical minds. In this playlist, I have chosen pieces that have caused a strong emotional reaction within me. I really hope you enjoy listening.
Continue reading...Read the T&Cs before submitting your entry
The “Awards”
1. The Guardian University Awards (the “Awards”) recognise excellence in the UK’s best universities and are open to all recognised higher education institutes (those with degree-awarding powers) in the UK. The Awards are not open to employees or agencies of Guardian News and Media Limited (“GNM”), GNM group companies or their family members, or anyone else connected with the creation or administration of the Awards. All entries must be submitted by a representative of the higher education institute to which the entry relates.
2. Entrants to the Awards shall be deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions. For more information about the awards, please see here including the Awards FAQ page.
Continue reading...You may have a great project, but if you don’t sell it well, it runs the risk of being overlooked. Here’s how to stand out among hundreds
You’re probably wondering what it takes to write an entry that leaps to the top of the judges’ pile. What exactly will they be looking for?
Well, the truth is, we want to see examples of work that goes beyond the mundane - something that demonstrates imagination, careful research, courage and stamina. And we want evidence that shows your project changed the lives of those who were affected by it.
Continue reading...
