The Blog

The launch of a new form of educational textbook didn’t quite meet the mark. The new iBook from Apple certainly has games and gadgetry on-board but the revolutionary opportunity didn’t materialise. Not yet. Maybe an initial  financial blessing to school budgets who would have to buy countless iBooks to capture the benefits. In the meantime [...]

Ed Miliband’s recent comments in Davos suggested 20th century capitalism is failing 21st century society through the adequacies of the educational system. The world is being poorly prepared to operate outside of banking and profound greed.
One of the key roles in government opposition is to say it as it is. But it is a great [...]

More  games currently being played by the Educational Secretary. Micheal Gove wants any changes to the GCSE programme to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are offered the same chance to excel. Currently only four per cent of poor children  achieved the Government’s new English Baccalaureate, which requires at least a C in English, [...]

Applications at UK universities have taken a tumble. Not from a lack of interest in further education but a deep routed concern over the implications of the tuition fees. The government’s strategy that the £9,000 per year tuition fee would not be repaid until the graduate is earning has taken its toll as existing graduates [...]

The world is dominated by new forms of communication that have emerged and swept into global application within the space of eight years. Why are we then seeing governments still unable to introduce the radical reforms needed to turn maths, English literacy and science education into a similar success story?
The World Wide Web, Twitter, Facebook, [...]

Whilst school performance is measured on league tables the chances of some form of exam manipulation is extremely high. Teacher’s remuneration, head teacher kudos and Ofsted storm troopers are all focused on the position of the school relative to its contemporises and DfE criteria. The flaw in this approach is the children being educated appear [...]

Letter cubes is a new teaching resource pocket word dice that helps with English literacy in an educational game that can be played by any number of players or teams. It consists of 12 letter dice, each with a score value. Each player takes a turn to throw the 12 dice then [...]

The ever popular Talking Dice series from keen2learn has been extended to include a new selection pack. This range of teaching resources is designed to stimulate talking, discussion and story writing in children and adults. A real benefit is this can be achieved in any language.

Developed by teachers as a quick and enjoyable way to [...]

Young children often struggle to understand their feelings and insecurities when dealing with other children. A key is to encourage them through educational Feel Good Board games which open up with a chance to express themselves and see they are not that different from other children. This reassurance and encouragement is an important part of [...]

An old adage but talking about the news with children at home and in the classroom boosts awareness and ability. Reading and rationalisation is extended leading to an overall improvement in educational standards in other subjects.
Discussion around the meal table can be a little terse with teenagers. Where do you start the conversation? By turning [...]

The crusade, by David Cameron and Michael Gove the educational secretary, to get Independent schools to take on the educational management of state schools is wrong. David Laws, the ex-Liberal Democrat educational spokesman claimed the core function of an independent school was to the parents who pay the school fees. Depleting this resource by transferring [...]

Hang on to your hats Apple, Samsung and HP; children are best not to switch on their smartphones. Children should not get their hands on any hand held device until they are at least 15 years old. They should also limit playing educational games on their computer to around one hour a day. So says [...]

In an approach to gain interest in a maths educational question a teacher in the USA used a questionable approach that involves a slave in the story line. Sent out to around 100 students the homework assignment has caused ructions with the educational authorities, parents and teachers.
The maths lesson sought to emphasis a piece of [...]

The national curriculum will make continue to make certain subjects compulsory until students reach the age of 16 years. Although expected to be reformed, lessons in history, geography and modern foreign languages are set to continue. This will come as shock for those children who historically have dropped these subjects at the age of 14 [...]

In a similar fashion to the UK; despite a staggering investment in teaching resources over the past 20 years, the USA has similarly slipped down the educational league tables. Not good for a world leader but can the USA educational authorities learn from theleague  trend setters in  Asia.
Certainly the curriculum and teaching methods evolving in [...]

Educational Funds Dry Up More In Better Off Areas
The Institute of Fiscal Studies has completed some maths sums into the educational funding of schools. The review, completed in October 2011 revealed educational spending is set to fall at the fastest rate since the 1950’s.
Due to the way the educational budgets are allocated, with a bias [...]

The educational ICT exhibition, the BETT show in London, was the platform to announce a shakeup in the information communication and technology (ICT) curriculum. Michael Gove stated that the current content in ICT was “demotivating and dull.”  The outmoded format was to be replaced from September 2012 to allow teachers to update the content and [...]

Could it be we are about to witness a paradigm shift in educational technology as Apple announce a new main stream teaching resource.
On January 19th at the Guggenheim museum Apple will unveiled a new approach in the role of text books in the classroom. The Apple in the ” Big Apple” appears to be the core theme! [...]

The niceties of syntax have been played in a new educational onslaught in schools. Educational games are being played with schools rather than in them. Instead of being classified as “satisfactory,” schools with a poor record of educational achievement will be regarded by Ofsted as “requiring improvement.” This places around 6,000 extra schools in the [...]

Tony Blair perhaps epitomises why careers in teaching fails. Around 50 per cent of new teachers leave the profession within five years. A staggering statistic that leaves schools struggling to recruit the long term leaders of tomorrow. A hidden downside is the number of poor teachers that abound possibly kept on  in educational employment because [...]

The Teach First concept was first launched in 2002 to attract top graduates to strengthen the teaching resources in our schools. Not a huge success at the time as within five years all the recruits had left education.
Despite this setback Teach First still exists and is gearing up for another onslaught. The process of recruiting, [...]

British ex Prime Minister Tony Blair once emphasised a crucial part of his political manifesto in a speech; “education, education, education.”  So good he named it thrice. But twenty years on little has been achieved. Plenty of educational initiatives have been and gone taking a Kings ransom with them. Teachers have introduced change, reinforced it, [...]

The imposition of tuition fees has hit the popularity of British universities. Compounding the downturn of 23,000 British students applying to UK universities compared to last year, European students are also reluctant to apply.
Seeing the UK academia as no longer value for money has led to a 10.7 per cent drop in students from Europe [...]

Poor schools face the sword of Damocles; buck up or become an Academy. If this is the salvation why aren’t the majority of schools operating as academies and why is there such a fuss over the conversion? The department of education seem hell bent on switching as many schools as possible over yet the teaching [...]

A population surge expected by 2015 will place a huge burden on the educational load in primary schools. Around 450,000 extra children will enter the schooling system placing intense pressure on the teaching resources especially in urban areas.
In areas of London, notably Barking, the forecast increase will result in a demand for 12 new schools. [...]

The teaching resources in Namibia  teach children in English as the first language used in schools. In a country that has 30 languages, 14 of which are official, the use of English has been seen as an essential element of a child’s education since 1990. The decision to adopt English was a brave move in [...]

The vital need for early years education can be summarised in a Jesuit maxim; ” Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.” No mention of late developers or the essential need for a degree, the maxim sets the vital building blocks [...]

Is there a benefit in bilingual education in the now global markets. Certainly learning in a foreign language helps significantly to understand a new language but there are equal concerns that the second language approach is an expensive option that could detract from main stream learning. More….

The shock that the UK government has wasted 32 billion pounds in the last two years has many of us reeling. At around twice the potential budget savings the chancellor is seeking it is a staggering waste of cash. Cancelled school rebuilding programmes pall into insignificance as a savings option. The strategic  impact on [...]

The shadow educational secretary Stephen Twigg suggests that the school day should be made longer to prepare children for adult life in the workplace. He claims feedback from employers suggest concerns that a third of school leavers are poorly prepared for work.
The education conference in Leeds provided the platform to launch the “School to work” [...]