We’ve received the following email from the BBC.

Anyone interested please contact them using the e-mail address below:
“Hi,
Sorry to bother you.
I work for the BBC’s Today programme and we were wondering if you’d be able to help us.
There was a story in the news yesterday (11 March 2008) that some schools were breaking the rules […]

The Primary Review findings prove YET AGAIN that politicians don’t listen and would rather toe the party line than to use common sense and admit to errors of judgement. We at EducationState thought we’d do our bit to improve their listening skills by lending them some of these:

Or these:

Great response to a BBC News article about what makes a good teacher.

The following response is indicative of the rest:
“I would have thought that it was quite obvious what makes a good teacher in this day and age. The ability to cope with enormous amounts of administrative paper-work including individual lesson plans for every lesson […]

If you want an insight into how important accent and pronunciation are to learning, check out the latest research on teaching literacy to children.

Seems that we learn words based not on BBC English phonics but according to how we process words. No longer can we allow external assessment as this allows for socio-cultural inequality and […]

Discussions here have led us to conclude that the school/college year needs to change.

We believe terms should be scrapped or shortened. Semesters should stretch through the summer holidays, while teachers and students should be able to choose when they study. Summer course save on heating bills and result in a reduced carbon footprint. Being able […]

If you ever wondered who is/was responsible for Education Policy in the UK then look no further than this man…

Education Reform Lessons from England
An Interview with Sir Michael Barber
Publication Date:
January 13, 2006
England’s education system has undergone rapid and ambitious reform in the past decade. In 1997, a newly-elected Labour […]

Education academic Professor Alan Smithers has said at the recent NUT conference that “unlike previous governments (New Labour) has taken upon itself responsibility for ‘delivery’ through targets and pressure from the centre.
“Schools have been reduced almost to factories for producing test and exam scores.
“But scores are not the product of education in the way that […]

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991

“Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn’t what I do at all. What I teach […]

Why are there so many exam boards? The Edumonolith is the supplier of patronage, we know, but is it really necessary to have exams tailored to every level. Learning doesn’t happen in such a cosy way so why then do we still persist with levels and grades? One exam level to join them all, please. […]

Interesting reading on the Beeb. Reported that there are now 34,000 students being taught at home. They say there is a dispute regarding the figures. But, are we to believe that these figures are any less reliable than those quoted elsewhere?
Are the DfES deliberately sowing the seeds of suspicion in our minds so that we […]

We can only but admire the logic of a system designed to record progress and raise standards that in fact is costing £700 million and rising. Brilliant for those who provide the examinations e.g. Cambridge University, Edexcel, Trinity and so on.

Why is it costing so much? External agencies holding educational establishments to ransom? A National […]

We at EducationState have written of the trials and tribulations of staff and students in education but we think that of all news commented on in recent times the new university entrance exams in the UK are purely and simply an attempt to turn back the clock to the days of educational elitism.

Widely reported in […]

The mass hysteria surrounding the alleged epidemic of British youth destroying the very fabric of society has reached fever pitch. Not wanting to miss out on any political point-scoring, the Tories would love to see soldiers retrained as teachers. Apparently, they don’t think feral youth have it hard enough so they want to really rub […]

Great response to a BBC News article about what makes a good teacher.

The following response is indicative of the rest:
“I would have thought that it was quite obvious what makes a good teacher in this day and age. The ability to cope with enormous amounts of administrative paper-work including individual lesson plans for every lesson […]

Today the BEEB’s very own Mike Baker asks how the reluctant minority can be encouraged to stay on.

We have a great idea: why not ask 16+ boys and girls what they want to study and allow them to do it. Perhaps that why school is so unattractive to so many: they don’t get to choose! […]

Discussions here have led us to conclude that the school/college year needs to change.

We believe terms should be scrapped or shortened. Semesters should stretch through the summer holidays, while teachers and students should be able to choose when they study. Summer course save on heating bills and result in a reduced carbon footprint. Being able […]

If you ever wondered who is/was responsible for Education Policy in the UK then look no further than this man…

Education Reform Lessons from England
An Interview with Sir Michael Barber
Publication Date:
January 13, 2006
England’s education system has undergone rapid and ambitious reform in the past decade. In 1997, a newly-elected Labour […]

Education academic Professor Alan Smithers has said at the recent NUT conference that “unlike previous governments (New Labour) has taken upon itself responsibility for ‘delivery’ through targets and pressure from the centre.
“Schools have been reduced almost to factories for producing test and exam scores.
“But scores are not the product of education in the way that […]

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991

“Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn’t what I do at all. What I teach […]

The ongoing trial of Angela Mason, accused of professional misconduct for secretly filming the antics of her pupils, is typical of current Edumonolith thinking.
Rather than applaud Mrs Mason for reminding the public that pupil behaviour remains a serious issue and still plagues the day-to-day lives of those in the firing line, the local authority and […]

Seems even the unions are in on the IfL scam. They are advising members to join asap when they know that staff in Adult Ed are being press-ganged into joining or threatened with the sack if they don’t.

Aren’t they supposed to have the interests of their members to look after?

A quick trawl of the web offers these timely reminders:
Further education lecturer, Barnet
Diana Whelham
Salary: £26,780
* Leo Benedictus
* Society Guardian,
* Thursday March 20 2003
* Article history
About this article
Close
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday March 20 2003. It […]

Apparently, the IfL fiasco is going from bad to worse. Firstly, FE teaching staff are being served with ultimatums - ’sign-up or lose your job’. Once signed up, however, full-time lecturers with decades of experience but without the necessary hoops, or those with overseas qualifications, are being told in droves that they are no longer […]

In ‘A chance to help shape our own future. Let’s grasp it’ Chris Thomson, governor of an FE college in Brighton, writes that the FE sector is no longer second-best but central to Government plans and we should be congratulating them. ARE YOU FOR REAL? Have you spoken to ANY teaching staff recently?

Another example of […]

Great response to a BBC News article about what makes a good teacher.

The following response is indicative of the rest:
“I would have thought that it was quite obvious what makes a good teacher in this day and age. The ability to cope with enormous amounts of administrative paper-work including individual lesson plans for every lesson […]

EducationState doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about Ed Balls-Up’s new money-wasting, bureaucratic-ridden, job-for-the-boys initiative described below:

“Over 2,000 teachers and trainers have registered as members of the Institute for Learning (IfL) since its new website and online registration facility went live on Saturday 1 September 2007, increasing the professional body’s membership to nearly 5,000.
In […]

It has been brought to our attention that following the lead of Harlow College, Barnet College in North London are also hoping to get one over their employees.

It appears that relationships between senior managers and those lower down the managerial food chain have reached an all-time low. In “College staff ‘bullied’ into new contracts” it […]

We at EducationState have started the new academic year with all the enthusiasm of the last but still face one wrongly-held belief after another.

Take Literacy. Why can’t the powers that be understand that in today’s economy higher-level paper-based skills are not as crucial in the world of work as keyboard-based ones? Clearly, a well-structured essay […]

Recent events have shown that despite ‘increased’ funding in FE, the sector still remains the most fraught.

Staff at Harlow College are currently embroiled in a long-running and bitter feud with the College’s principal regarding revised working conditions and pay. This has led to half of them taking redundancy. Blame has been apportioned but as of […]

The LSC response to the proposals to make education up to the age of 18 in the UK compulsory provided interesting reading.

Strangely, it supports the implementation of compulsion but states at the same time that currently 99 out of 100 16 - 18 year olds are in some form of education, training or employment. Why […]