Government amendment to children’s wellbeing and schools bill to replace existing guidance with statutory ban
A ban on mobile phones in schools in England is to be introduced by the government to ensure that “critical safeguarding legislation” is passed.
The government will table an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill in the House of Lords after the bill was held up by peers on opposition benches.
Continue reading...Massachusetts liberal arts college laments ‘heartbreaking reality’ and says financial pressures to blame
A Massachusetts liberal arts college is set to close permanently due to low enrollment and financial problems.
The board of trustees of Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in Amherst founded in 1965, pointed to “financial pressures” that have been “compounded by shifting external factors”.
Continue reading...Minister says change for plan 2 and 3 loans in England and Wales will ‘protect borrowers’ from impact of global conflict
Millions of graduates will have the interest on their student loans capped at 6% from September as a temporary measure to protect them from the risk of rising inflation driven by war in the Middle East.
Ministers acted after months of criticism over the loans becoming a “debt trap” that often leave graduates in England and Wales paying tens of thousands more than the original loan amount.
Continue reading...Home Office will use mapping technology and crime data to identify up to 250 schools in areas of greatest risk
Schools across England are to receive dedicated support to prevent knife crime incidents in a hyper-targeted Home Office programme that uses mapping technology to identify areas of risk down to the level of specific groups of streets.
Under the £1.2m scheme – part of a series of initiatives launched under a government pledge to halve knife crime within a decade – a maximum of 250 schools will receive help.
Continue reading...Effort to curb grade inflation, by limiting top marks to 20% of students in a course, is opposed by most students
Harvard’s faculty is set to vote next week on a faculty committee proposal to cap the number of A grades per course in an effort to curb grade inflation.
The proposal, which was first reported earlier this year by the Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, would cap A grades to 20% of students in a course, with an allowance for four additional As. It also would introduce a new internal “average percentile rank” system, which would rely on raw scores rather than grade point average (GPA) to determine honors and awards.
Continue reading...NASUWT says full entitlement should be increased to 26 weeks and paternity pay also improved
Full maternity pay for teachers across the UK should be increased to 26 weeks to help stem the exodus of women in their 30s from classrooms, a union leader has said.
Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said it was a “national scandal” that so many teachers who quit said inadequate maternity support was one of the reasons.
Continue reading...Poll of 10,000 teachers also finds ‘overwhelming’ exam anxiety and rising absenteeism linked to poor mental health
Almost half of primary school teachers are seeing pupils with eating disorders “at least occasionally”, rising to four in five at secondary level, according to a survey by the UK’s largest education union.
The findings emerged in a poll of 10,000 teachers in English state schools about pupils’ mental health, which also revealed “overwhelming” exam anxiety in secondaries and dwindling numbers of counsellors to support students.
Continue reading...Clowns in Bolivia are upset by mandate that stops schools hosting events from which they earn a living
Dozens of clowns have marched through the streets of Bolivia’s capital to protest against a government decree that limits extracurricular activities in schools, threatening their livelihoods.
Wearing full face paint and their signature red noses, the clowns gathered on Monday in front of the ministry of education in La Paz to oppose a decree published in February. The new mandate says schools must comply with 200 days of lessons each year – in effect banning them from hosting the special events where the entertainers are frequently employed.
Continue reading...The Green party leader said Ofsted is a ‘failed institution’ and that teaching should move ‘toward a genuinely collaborative model’
Starmer complained about other parties whipping up division, and he specifically criticised Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, for “complaining about Muslims praying in public”.
Labour, by contrast, values bringing people together, he said.
Continue reading...National Education Union poll finds 89% feel class sizes in England are too big to be ‘properly inclusive’
Oversized classes and inadequate staffing levels are hindering teachers’ capacity to support children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), according to a large survey of state school teachers in England.
Nine out of 10 (89%) of the 10,000 teachers who took part in the poll by the National Education Union (NEU), before its annual conference in Brighton which starts on Monday, said class sizes were too big to be “properly inclusive”.
Continue reading...School dinners have suffered at the hands of politics and economics for almost 50 years
Almost a generation has passed since Jamie Oliver’s four-part Channel 4 documentary series Jamie’s School Dinners exposed the unhealthy reality of the food served to pupils at lunchtime, including – notoriously – fat-heavy, meat-light Turkey Twizzlers. It proved a shaming and effective intervention. His ensuing Feed Me Better campaign led the then prime minister, Tony Blair, to pledge to make school lunches more nutritious and hand schools more money to do that, given the average lunch at that time cost just 45p to make.
Problem solved? Unfortunately not.
Continue reading...Sociology faculty are refusing to alter syllabi, even as state targets how race, gender and inequality are taught
Across Florida universities, some sociology professors are quietly choosing not to alter their courses in response to new state guidelines restricting how topics like race, gender and sexuality can be discussed. Rather than rewriting syllabi or removing foundational material, as the new demands would call for, they say they are continuing to teach their classes as designed. The professors view the preservation of their curricula not as an act of defiance, but as a professional responsibility to provide students with a full and rigorous education.
In late January, Florida’s department of education introduced what many professors are calling a censored sociology textbook for use in the state’s public colleges and universities, along with a list of proposed guidelines at state schools, restricting various discussions related to systemic discrimination, gender and sexual identity, race-conscious remedies, and the structural causes of inequality. Faculty members say this move reflects a broader effort to narrow academic freedom in higher education and follows several years of legislation aimed at reshaping public university curricula under the banner of combating “woke ideology”.
Continue reading...Adam Tickell, of University of Birmingham, says money is loaned to people who ‘are not really capable of graduating’
A leading vice-chancellor has questioned whether students without A-levels should be eligible for government-backed student loans, as part of an effort to solve England’s university funding crisis.
Adam Tickell, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, said universities face an “almost existential challenge” and falling public support that requires a radical review of higher education funding.
Continue reading...As part of his Maha agenda, health secretary wants schools to incorporate 40 hours of instruction
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr unveiled a new effort on Thursday aimed at increasing the amount of nutrition education taught in medical schools.
For months, Kennedy has urged medical schools to expand their nutrition curriculum and warned that institutions refusing to do so could face cuts to federal funding, while those that adopt the changes may receive public acknowledgment.
Continue reading...Grenade-throwing contests replaced PE and ‘denazification’ speeches became homework. Pavel Talankin’s undercover film about his school’s indoctrination drive won a Bafta and is tipped for an Oscar, but has left him in exile
In order to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary in which many of them have starring roles, pupils at Karabash School No 1 have had to source bootlegged copies, viewing the film in private, on their phones or their laptops.
Last week’s Bafta best documentary win for Mr Nobody Against Putin has been studiously ignored by Russian state media, and the prize the film won at Sundance last year was also met with silence. Staff at the school and government officials in the Kremlin seem united in their desire to pretend that they know nothing about the film.
Continue reading...The education secretary wants a fairer system and the Tories have leapt in with their own plan – but why now?
For anyone who attended university in England in the last 15 or so years, the idea of student loans feeling like some sort of debt trap is hardly news. But three weeks ago, when the journalist Oli Dugmore discussed this on the BBC’s Question Time, it felt like a moment.
It was less the size of the initial debt, he explained, than the way above-inflation interest rates meant the interest charged alone was now almost as much as the original sum. “So was it mis-sold to me?” he asked, rhetorically. “Yes, I’d say so.”
Continue reading...Met urges pupils not to get involved and asks platforms to ban accounts promoting ‘fights’ with images of weapons
Pupils aged 11 to 16 are being encouraged to join in school fights in posts circulating on TikTok and Snapchat, prompting police to urge children not to get involved.
The Metropolitan police have asked social media platforms to ban accounts promoting “school wars”, while headteachers have warned parents about the posts.
Continue reading...Government reviews options for plan 2 loans, such as increasing repayment thresholds, amid growing pressure
Ministers are examining ways to ease the burden of student loans after weeks of pressure over a policy pulling more people into repayments, the Guardian understands.
The Treasury and the Department for Education are reviewing different options to offer relief to graduates with Plan 2 student loans, often paying tens of thousands more than their original loan amount.
Continue reading...Education secretary says education, health and care plans (EHCPs) shouldn’t be the ‘only way’ for children to get help
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been speaking about the Send reforms at an event in Peterborough.
This is what she said about the need for inclusion.
Inclusion is a choice. It is an educational choice, and it is also a political choice because we could duck this challenge, ignore the injustice of a postcode lottery in life chances putting off fixing the Send system yet again.
The system works well for some at least.
We welcome the scale of vision contained in the white paper which has the potential to create an education system that fully values children and young people with additional needs and their families.
We also welcome the commitment to retain statutory education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children and young people whose needs cannot be met through this new model. We know that many parents will welcome the legal requirement for schools to create individual support plans (ISPs) for all children with Send.
Continue reading...Finance campaigner marches on to set and tells Tory leader her policy to cut interest rates will only help top earners
Kemi Badenoch has faced what could be described as the stuff of nightmares for a UK politician being interviewed about a personal finance policy: being ambushed and contradicted live on air by Martin Lewis.
As the Conservative leader was being interviewed on ITV about her party’s plans to cut interest rates for some student loans, Lewis, a campaigner and finance expert, marched on to the set to announce that he completely disagreed.
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