With the increasing number of immigrants becoming citizens of the United Kingdom, our education system has introduced classes to help them develop their understanding and knowledge of what it “means” to be British. These lessons were made compulsory 7 years ago, and in that time the results from the students in the classes have improved. [...]

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It has only been 10 years or so since I sat my A levels, but my, how things have changed! In my GCSE day (oh how I hate to use that sentence!), we had to take the core subjects (English, Maths, all the Sciences) as well as History, Geography and a Technology (cookery for the [...]

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With more and more attention being focused on kids performances at school, parents are increasing feeling the pressure to provide their kids with the best start, making sure they have the knowledge and skills to be able to excel in the classroom.
Studies have showed that by reading to your child from an early age, you [...]

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Richmond Council has accepted Kunskapsskolan as sponsor of 2 schools set to become academies. Kunskapsskolan is a Swedish company already operating 30 secondary schools in Sweden. They are independently run from the state, but still state funded. Kunskapsskolan believes that one size does not fit all when it comes to education and uses an individual [...]

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Ed Balls, Children’s Secretary has been accused of by-passing parliament when naming the new head of Ofqual, the new watchdog overseeing schools qualifications. He has been accused of not allowing MP’s to quiz the new appointee before she was named.
Kathleen Tattersall was named chief regulator of Ofqual, she had previously been chairing the interim Ofqual [...]

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After the Department of Education released there revised child safety rules, the authority safeguarding the system predict the safety vetting list will grow further past the initial 9m, so the database which is already the largest of its kind will cover even more of the population.
The revision which was leased last week, reduced the amount [...]

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Some Academy Schools have been accused of pushing some pupils down, what is seen as easier qualifications, generally the vocational ones to boost the number of high grades the schools achieve. Some of these vocational qualification are whole up to 4 A*-C GCSE grades.
The state funded but independently run schools are exempt from the Freedom [...]

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In Scotland over the past year there has been a drop in the number of teachers. The figure has dropped by 1348, and Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop has blamed the councils for spending money, set aside for teachers on other areas. The councils reply was to state that maintaining the number of teachers in schools [...]

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Under the government’s current plans, in 2011 schools are set to teach pupils about domestic violence. The message will be that domestic violence against women and girls is unacceptable.
It seems to me that this is yet another step towards schools taking over the role of the parent. Schools should be a place for academic [...]

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Some parents who take their children to school in the car are continually causing congestion problems around school entrances. While some park in school car parks reserved for teachers, others are parking in the keep clear areas, which is a danger to other pupils.
One School in Northumberland which is fed up with parents not obeying [...]

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