Category: Education and training

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Fine words but few new ideas for further education

Mick Fletcher

It was a surprise when one of the big new announcements made by a desperate Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party Conference was a reform of further education. It was less of a surprise that the proposal was hastily conceived and not thought through. Calling a qualification designed for England an Advanced British Standard illustrates […]

Taxing private schools: coherent strategy or counterproductive?

Emma Monk

Since Labour announced their plans to either remove the charitable status of private schools, or add VAT to school fees, social media and right-wing outlets have been awash with people claiming it wouldn’t raise any money in reality, or it would cause untold private schools failing and ‘flooding’ the state sector with students. I thought […]

‘Critical risk to life’: concrete AND the Conservatives

Anthea Simmons

So here we are again. In the middle of yet another ‘how long have they known and why did they do nothing about it’ saga. The RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) scandal demonstrates the same callous disregard for the lives outside the circles of the privileged few as did the care home tragedy during Covid. […]

SEND: the next big Conservative crisis

@AdamHighcliffe

Dozens of UK councils face bankruptcy in 2026. In response, the government is forcing them to slash their Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) budgets. This will needlessly put at risk thousands of SEND children. The plan won’t work. But there’s a simple way out. How did this crisis arise? Since 2010, local authorities have […]

Sunak’s cynical pay stunt: banks win, working people lose

Richard Murphy

Rishi Sunk has said that this year’s public sector pay awards have been agreed in full but with no new or additional funding to cover them. There is literally no economic sense in this whatsoever. Pay rises of around 6 per cent for education and health have been announced – with there being no room […]

The very first Somerscience Festival! Save the day: Monday May 1 2023

Chris Ambrose

Colleen Bower has a mission. With her background in education, she is concerned that young people in South Somerset – a largely rural population – are missing out on experience of, and access to, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM subjects). Over time, she has got together with local councillors and many organisations and businesses […]

A quiet burial for Tory failure in Somerset

Mick Fletcher

Somerset’s politicians can’t sneak anything past Mick Fletcher when it comes to further and adult education… Tucked away at chapter 12, in a document only of interest to specialists in further education, is evidence of another quiet failure of Tory dogma. In a routine administrative update from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) two […]

Mandatory mathematics – do Sunak’s sums add up?

Mick Fletcher
Maths teacher

Mick Fletcher on another back-of-the-envelope policy. There are some huge issues in the Prime Minister’s in-tray. The health service is facing its worst ever crisis; the economic cost of Brexit is increasingly evident and falling living standards are driving mounting social unrest. In a rational world it would make no sense at all for Rishi […]

The UK fails to value our English language sector and students – letter to the editor

Editor-in-chief

Dear Editor Our exports are falling, farmers are discouraged from farming, fishermen from fishing, miners from mining, windfarms are blocked, and the London Stock Exchange has been overtaken by Paris. There is, however, still one profitable sector where the UK is genuinely a world leader – and Bournemouth is its second most important base. Publishing, entertainment, tourism, hospitality, […]

‘Keep the rubbish courses for the Brits’

Mick Fletcher

We have become resigned to the fact that many of the policies pursued by the present administration are inhumane, whether they relate to desperate people seeking asylum or poor children denied free school meals. We have also become accustomed to administrative incompetence – there is no need to think further than the Truss-Kwarteng budget for […]

Academics at Falmouth University say: enough is enough

Tom Scott

Lecturers started a three-day strike today against the use of a subsidiary company to hire staff outside national agreements that underwrite pension, pay and working conditions. This morning I was on a picket line at the entrance to Falmouth University as part of a three-strike with my fellow lecturers there. In the scheme of things, […]

Education in crisis, and it can only get worse

Mick Fletcher

In any sane context the car crash that is Conservative education policy would be enough to bring down a government by itself.  The schools bill before Parliament has been so savaged in the House of Lords that ministers have stripped out 18 of the key clauses, leaving it bereft of its original purpose, yet doing […]

Mickey Mouse, Peppa Pig and the war on empathy

Tom Scott

The government’s trashing of arts education will do great harm to the UK’s ‘soft power’. But as Tom Scott explains, the damage will go deeper than that. A few days ago, I was at a meeting of University and College Union (UCU) delegates from around the country. Hearing from other delegates about the swathe of […]

Miss Snuffy is right about social mobility!

Mick Fletcher

To my surprise, I find myself agreeing with Katharine Birbalsingh, who tweets under the slightly eccentric name of “Miss Snuffy”. Birbalsingh is regularly referred to in the less serious type of newspaper as “Britain’s strictest headmistress” and her views go down well with the Conservative rank and file. I suspect that it is her strong […]

Thanks a million, Eton

Mick Fletcher
Eton by Canaletto

If further proof were needed that ‘levelling up’ is a soundbite rather than a strategy, the proposal for a new cadre of elite sixth forms provides it. Mick Fletcher explains. Trailed as one of the key measures in a programme to address 55 ‘education cold spots’, the aim is apparently “to ensure talented children from […]

Power to the people! Citizen science: what it is and how to get involved

Colin White
SETI screensaver

The power and impact of citizen journalism is something I’m sure you are familiar with and, given that you are, right now, reading from this esteemed site, I’m also sure you fully support the concept. It’s all about concerned citizens playing an active role in democratically reporting, analysing and disseminating news. What is less well-known, […]

Hey! Teachers! Leave the truth alone! Government interference coming to a classroom near you.

Richard Murphy
The teacher puppet from Pink Floyd's The Wall

Requiring teachers to present a view in classes that our government is the benign deliverer of optimal outcomes for society is anything but neutral, but that is what the government is demanding that teachers do. Richard Murphy explores the latest dark initiative from this authoritarian government. The government issued this statement yesterday: New guidance to support teachers […]

Brexit, meritocracy and the retreat from reason

Mick Fletcher
Private Eye cover Leave special

Chris Grey, who blogs about Brexit and related matters, is someone well worth following. A recent post explored the fascinating links between the ‘partygate’ scandals currently engulfing the Johnson administration and the ideas and individuals that drove Vote Leave. It raised again a central paradox of current politics – that while Brexit and populism as […]

Au revoir to au pairs from Europe?

Tamsin Beadman
white black and brown hands on EU flag

“Carrero Blanco was blown up two streets away,” Isabel, my señora, mentioned casually on a chilly Madrid afternoon in December 1983 as we sat in her luxurious flat on Calle Hermosilla. “Have you heard of him? Ten years ago today, ETA blew up his car in Claudio Coello and it flew right over a church. […]

Elite sixth forms: a class idea?

Mick Fletcher
sixth formers in parliament

In a desperate attempt to divert attention from the mess in Downing Street, the government recently announced a flurry of ill-considered ’new’ policies. One was a proposal to develop a cadre of “elite sixth forms” which would “ensure talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to the highest standard of education this country offers.” I […]

Why I’m not returning to teach in Covid-stricken schools

Jane Stevenson
Teacher masked in classroom

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has asked former teachers to return to schools hit by the Omicron wave. Cornwall-based Jane Stevenson explains why she’s not answering this call from a government that has shown no concern for the health and wellbeing of school staff or the children they teach. I am a qualified science teacher who […]

Sidmouth Science Festival 8-17 October

Colin White

Fancy a bit of post-lockdown educational fun? Why not give a Science Festival a try? Think of Sidmouth and what springs to mind? The Regency architecture, perhaps? The wonderful rock formations and colourations of the Jurassic Coast? Or maybe the gorgeous, flamboyant, mad turmoil that is its famous annual folk festival? How about the Sidmouth […]