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Education Journal No.104 (2007- 5)< |
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Will A-levels ever be scrapped? In the first of his regular monthly articles, Ian Nash, associate FE editor at the TES, where he was editor of the FE Focus section, writes about the hurried introduction of Diplomas and Gordon Brown’s willingness to scrap A-levels. Higher Ground This month John Izbicki looks at a new book on Shakespeare’s fear of exhumation, a chastened Boris Johnson, the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birthday, contraception: the board game, the physics of fashion, how fathers affect women’s choice of partner, and research into the greatest ever jokes. Letter from Scotia Our Scotland editor, John Dobie, looks at the consequences of the departure, prior to the May 2007 elections, of more than a third of the councillors elected at the previous election and the resulting loss of “corporate memory”. A look ahead Our Wales editor, Professor Ken Reid, reports on developments in education following the formation of a coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru. General Section Book Reviews John Izbicki looks at the evidence for climate change and what we can do to stop it, in How to Live a Low-Carbon Life and The Atlas of Climate Change. George Low finds out what makes a great leader in Leadership: Lessons from the Ancient World. Demitri Coryton discovers a rare gem in Humane and Heroic: The life and love of a 19th century country doctor. Richard Beale reviews The Making of a Maverick. We also review the 2007 volume of the Office for National Statistics’ Social Trends, Early Childhood Education and Care: Policy and practice, The Great City Academy Fraud and Websites for Teachers 2007. Obituary We record with regret the death of Jackson Hall, Chief Education Officer of Sunderland 1976-1987. Children’s health This month’s health column covers the reversal of Britain’s long-term trend of ever-rising good health, the need for a new cohort of teachers specially trained to teach moral values and character, the increased risk of becoming overweight for children with working mothers, and a lack of counselling for parentally bereaved children. Opinion Following his article in the previous issue, John Izbicki gives further examples of those who have proven that “it’s never too late” by attending university later in life. Fun Page Reference Section Conferences George Low reports on the launch of the TUC report A New Direction: A review of the school academies programme on 16 July at Congress House in London. The report claims that the Government should review its Academies policy before expanding further and allow local authorities greater control over the programme. Document Reviews The documents reviewed this month are The Work of Ofsted: Sixth report of session from the Select Committee on Education; Tackling Anti–Social Behaviour from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee; and Staying the course: The retention of students in higher education from the National Audit Office. Document Digest Documents covered this month include those from C3 Education, CentreForum, DCSF, Department of Health, DIUS, Estyn, House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, National Audit Office, National Consumer Council, National Science Learning Centre, New Vision Group, Ofsted, Politeia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Public Accounts Committee, Reform, HM Revenue and Customs, TUC, HM Treasury and WHO. Reports Digest Reports from LAs, produced by EMIE at NFER, include those covering youth work quality standards in Cumbria; implementation and evaluation of the Team Around the Child (TAC) programme in Lambeth, and Telford and Wrekin, local authorities; good practice guidelines for child protection in Lewisham; Manchester’s Integrated Commissioning and District Collaboration Project; and the work of the Commissioning Alternative Provision Service (CAPS) in Nottingham. Research Section Research Digest Research Notes Our research editor, Michael Marshall, looks at the controversy surrounding the amount of time lecturers in higher education institutions give to their students in the run-up to a Research Assessment Exercise. The voice of young people Jennie Harland, a research officer for the National Foundation for Educational Research, presents research into whether the drive to include children and young people in decision-making at local, regional and national levels has been effective, and in what ways young people have benefited. Learning skills We report on research from the EPPI-Centre at the University of London, which aimed to help teachers understand not just what works in specific teaching approaches, but why different approaches are successful. Parliament Section It’s all over now Before its demise due to the division of the DfES, the House of Commons Select Committee on Education published a number of reports, as did the Public Accounts Committee and the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. Parliamentary Questions Answers to written parliamentary questions cover local authorities’ capital expenditure on primary and secondary schools in the House of Commons, school transport in the Scottish Parliament and the proximity of phone masts to schools in the Welsh Assembly. Phoenix Alan Wells’ evidence to the Education Select Committee, the creation of unitary councils, and the world’s oldest cog railway. |