Earlier this month, the Deep End featured a report on Poland’s economic renaissance, but that’s not the only good news from Warsaw. According to Bill Hicks on the BBC news website, Poland is also enjoying an educational renaissance. In the run up to the Euro 2012, the British press portrayed the Poles (along with the […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter There's many a slip between cup and lip, and spin isn't the same as substance. In other words, it's difficult for those not themselves immersed in The Blob, as a former Chief Inspector of Schools used to call our education system, to grasp whether Michael Gove's education reforms will […]
John Bald writes The Left is blazing away at phonics, and especially at the phonics check. They are good at getting on tv and radio, and truth takes a back seat. Michael Rosen on ITV Daybreak, for example, repeatedly said that two thirds of children in the pilot scheme for the check had failed, and […]
A victory for transparency in local government. Cllr Roddie McCuish, the SNP leader of Angus and Bute Council, has announced on the BBC Radio 4's World at One that the council is lifting the ban on school girl Martha Payne photographing her school dinners for her blog. (On her blog she does not call herself […]
John Bald says ending the Ofsted specialist HMI reports for individual subjects would be a mistake So many big stories this week that it's hard to keep up. I'll start with the draft National Curriculum, and Michael Gove's announcement that children are to learn a foreign language from the age of seven. This is an […]
All the relevant 152 councils in England have signed up to the Government's Troubled Families programme. What this really means is that they each now have an incentive to come up with their own programme. The more of the 120,000 families that are "turned round", the more funding the council responsible will get. There will […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter This morning, the Sun on Sunday reported the CBI's frustration at the number of young people leaving education without the skills necessary to hold down a job. The CBI complained about inability to read, write and add up, and pointed to a general culture of educational inadequacy. A CBI survey […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter You can't read the Sunday papers without getting a strong sense that the Tory half of the Coalition is mounting something of a counter-attack. After months of being on the back foot a range of ministers appear to be fighting back… George Osborne and the economy: Top of the pops […]
The model Katie Price and the art curator Sir Nicholas Serota might not appear to have much in common. But they have been brought together by the free schools movement, the magnificence cause of achieving educational excellence through wider parental choice. The Times Educational Supplement reports that Tate has lent its support to the proposed […]
John Bald says the Schools Minister Nick Gibb is making a serious effort to stop the rot in English and maths teaching Ministers of State rarely get much credit, so well done to Schools Minister Nick Gibb for having brought together the people and organisations who produced the phonics catalogue. Nick is also tackling the […]
21,000 copies of the King James Bible have been sent out, one to every state school in the country. The £370,000 cost was raised by private donations. Even those with no interest in religion can scarcely deny the literary significance of this book. The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, spoke on The World at One yesterday […]
A defence of grammar schools from, say, Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail would surprise no one, but when it comes from Mary Ann Sieghart in the Independent feathers are ruffled. Referencing the ongoing debate about social mobility, Sieghart reminds us that education really can make a difference: “…pupils who had free school meals and […]
I was pleased when I heard that Lord Adonis had Ed Miliband's policy advisor as I hoped it would mean the Party resolving to support the Government's policies of allowing free schools to open and more schools to convert to become academies. That would have been good for the Labour Party but it would also […]
John Bald says that for school inspections to work the inspectors need more power over what they see and who they talk to The school was notified on Thursday of an inspection to start the next Tuesday. All staff were ordered to attend over weekend and one was reprimanded for going on a pre-booked excursion […]
As a father to a severely autistic son, Christopher Stevens knows what a learning disability actually involves. He is, therefore, well placed to comment on the shocking statistic that 21 per cent of British children have been labelled with ‘Special Educational Needs’. Writing in the Daily Mail he reveals the reality behind the figures: “In […]