Crisis, what crisis?
Our Wales editor, Professor Ken Reid, writes about recent events in the Welsh Assembly, from FE and HE funding to the new responsibility given to teachers to safeguard their pupils’ mental health.

What price freedom?
Ian Nash examines whether the creation of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service will mean that colleges may actually be getting the freedom for which they have been striving for over two decades.

Children First
Susan Young reports the views of directors of children’s services on the review of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

Children should tick boxes to pass exams
A new publication from the Centre for Policy Studies claims that written tests in primary schools should be replaced with multiple choice questions.

Letter from Scotia
Our Scotland editor, John Dobie, on the Scottish Executive’s attempts to cope with the predicted fall in headteacher numbers.

Media Watch
Reports on serious case reviews from three authorities where young children have died, and media reaction to the White Paper, New Opportunities: Fair chances for the future.

OECD comparative studies
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s education division has made its mark over the last decade, its PISA survey now established as one of the world’s three top international comparative education programmes. In this OECD supplement, two of its senior officials write about new comparative programmes, two of our journalists explore major OECD reports, and a third perspective is offered by John Bangs, the NUT’s leading policy expert, and Ron Glatter, a senior academic.

Click here for a link to a PDF file of the whole supplement plus extended foot notes to the PIAAC article not available in the magazine.

PIAAC – Assessing adult competencies
Andreas Schleicher of the OECD writes about the OECD’s new strategy for assessing adult competencies, PIAAC, which hopes to undertake its first assessment in 2011 and provide internationally comparative analyses in 2013. Foot notes for this article not available in the magazine are available on a PDF file of the OECD supplement available from a link at the end of the above paragraph.

Lessons from Finland
John Bangs, Assistant Secretary, Education and Equal Opportunities at the NUT, writes about the OECD’s England’s Educational Achievement report, which analyses the UK’s ability to raise educational achievement in the context of PISA.

Improving leadership
Frances Rafferty examines findings from the OECD report Improving School Leadership, which offers solutions to the predicted fall in headteacher numbers.

Keeping the faith
John O’Leary writes about the findings of the OECD’s 2008 Education at a Glance and its implications for British policy.

Where size does matter
Professor Ron Glatter of the Open University writes about England’s patchwork of provision in secondary education, and the influence of the private sector.

Please don’t cling to the ivy
Lyndon Thomson of the OECD writes about the first meeting of national experts charged with the creation of the international Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) programme.

General and Reference Sections

Opinion
John Izbicki remembers a debate in 1998 between Chris Woodhead, former HM chief inspector, and Tim Brighouse, former chief education officer of Birmingham.

People

Document Digest

Reports Digest

Children’s Health
The hidden danger of face-away buggies, calls for compulsory sex education for sixth formers, children’s addiction to television and the internet, and the suggestion that dyslexia is nothing more than “a cruel fiction”.

Mapping the landscape – 16-19
Stephanie Mason, Director of Learning and Skills at Baker Tilly, Jim Clifford, Head of Baker Tilly’s Charity and Education Sector Corporate Finance Team, and Andrew Thomson, former CEO of the Quality Improvement Agency for Lifelong Learning, describe the context and the emerging picture of 16-19 policy.

Document Reviews
Children’s Services editor Chris Waterman reviews 21st Century Schools: a World-Class Education for Every Child, The 2020 Children and Young People’s Workforce, The Children’s Plan One Year On: a progress report, Families in Britain: an evidence paper and A School Report Card, a consultation document from the DCSF. We also review the New Opportunities: Fair chances for the future White Paper.

Events
Our children’s services editor, Chris Waterman, reports from the North of England Education Conference. Sue Jones and Ian Nash report on the Association of Colleges annual conference. Frances Rafferty reports on the Teaching and Learning Research Programme conference. George Low reports on the NIACE conference and John Dobie reports on the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland annual conference.

Conference round-up

Research Section

Research Notes
Our research editor, Michael Marshall, examines criticisms of the use of phonics in the teaching of early reading.

What a waste of money!
In light of the Government’s announcement that it would be scrapping key stage 3 testing, Bill Boyle and Joanna Bragg, of the University of Manchester, argue that measures to increase pupil achievement in the tests had been largely unsuccessful.

Research Digest

Parliament Section

Westminster
Our Parliamentary editor, Nick Kent, reports on the debates on the Queen’s Speech and their legislative and policy implications for the future.

Children’s services – did the Government get the structure wrong?
Our Parliamentary editor, Nick Kent, reports on a debate in the House of Lords on the structure of local authority children’s services departments. Former Conservative Education Secretary Baroness Shepherd believes that the Government was wrong to force the merger of local authority education departments and social services for children.

Phoenix
The Educando website, the Honours list and the Open University