Schools
The Primary Review: Other Primary Schools and Ours:
What Can We Learn From International Comparison?
Three More Research Reports from the Primary Review
Official summaries from the Primary Review
What the papers have said:
Our children tested to destruction:
English primary school pupils subjected to more tests than in any other country
By Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent, The Independent. Published: Friday, 8 February 2008
Primary school pupils have to deal with unprecedented levels of pressure as they face tests more frequently, at a younger age, and in more subjects than children from any other country, according to one of the biggest international education inquiries in decades.
The damning indictment of England's primary education system revealed that the country's children are now the most tested in the world.[Read more..]
Same story covered in other papers:
BBC Education: England young 'among most tested'
Daily Telegraph: Starting school at 4 'no help to children'
The Times: Children 'too young for school at 4'
TES: Tests fixation sets England apart
School literacy scheme attacked
BBC News website. Published Friday, 2 November 2007
Costly literacy schemes in England have not paid off, with children's reading skills barely improved since the 1950s, an independent inquiry suggests.
The £500m spent has had a "relatively small impact", according to the Cambridge-based Primary Review.
Interim reports from the two-year inquiry also criticise national tests, saying teachers' views should be used.[Read more..]
School admissions 'must be fair'
BBC News website. Published Thursday, 1 November 2007
Strategies that can upset "articulate parents" are needed to make school admissions fairer, a watchdog says. Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, said sought-after schools could "cream off" children in neighbouring areas. It meant some schools are left with too many children from deprived homes.[Read more..]
More than 1,200 children start term without school place
By Richard Garner, Education Editor, The Independent. Published: 27 August 2007
Hundreds of children will be spending the first week of the new school year at home because they still do not have a school place. A survey of local education authorities by The Independent reveals more than 1,000 children have not had school places accepted by their parents. A total of 351 children in the 45 authorities who replied to the survey still did not have a school to go to. If the figures are representative of councils in England as a whole, it would mean about 1,200 children will be at home when they should be at school.[Read more..]
Back to school: The first lesson is don't panic!
Guardian Education. Published Saturday 25th August 2007
The September heebie-jeebies can strike the calmest children, says Cassandra Jardine, especially at a new school. With the start of term only days away, the clouds are starting to gather. [Read more..]
Teens 'cannot function in work'
BBC News. Published Monday 20th August 2007
More than half of employers say school leavers often cannot function in the workplace due to a lack of basic maths and literacy, a survey suggests. [Read more..]
One in five 11-year-olds cannot read or write
BY Graeme Paton, Education Correspondent. Published Wednesday, 8th August 2007
One in five children left primary school this year with a poor grasp of the Three Rs, the Government said today. Exam results for 11-year-olds revealed that 120,000 cannot read or write properly and almost 140,000 are unable to do sums.[Read more..]
Do primary schools let boys down?
BY Hannah Goff, BBC News education reporter. Published Thursday, 5 July 2007
By the age of seven more than a quarter of boys need special help with their education, the latest figures show. Is there something inherently wrong with a large chunk of one of the sexes - or are primary schools simply letting boys down? [Read more..]
School scans children's prints
BBC News, Wednesday, 4 July 2007
A Bristol academy is to scan students' fingerprints to allow them to get their lunch.
The £20,000 scheme will be launched at the City Academy - the first to be built in the city - from September.[Read more..]
Call to ban all school exams for under-16s
By Anushka Asthana, Education Correspondent, The Observer. Published Sunday June 10, 2007
All national exams should be abolished for children under 16 because the stress caused by over-testing is poisoning attitudes towards education, according to an influential teaching body.
In a remarkable attack on the government's policy of rolling national testing of children from the age of seven, the General Teaching Council is calling for a 'fundamental and urgent review of the testing regime'. In a report it says exams are failing to improve standards, leaving pupils demotivated and stressed and encouraging bored teenagers to drop out of school.[Read more..]
'What can people do when the state system fails them?'
By Julie Henry and Caroline McClatchey, Sunday Telegraph. Published Sunday 4th March 2007
Despite government rhetoric, alternatives to a 'bog standard' comprehensive education remain strictly limited - but there is hope [Read more..]
Fewer teens at literacy standard
BBC News, Thursday, 1 March 2007
Fewer of England's 14-year-olds reached the expected literacy standard in tests last year, final figures confirm.[Read more..]
Schools fail to hit basics target
by Gary Eason, Education editor, BBC News website. Published 11th January 2007
Five hundred secondary schools in England did not meet the government's minimum target for GCSE attainment, the annual performance tables show.[Read more..]
Families
