-
Latest Blog Posts
- What curriculum do young people need? July 23, 2020
- School reopening? top scientists say not yet May 25, 2020
- Sending England back to work and back to school? May 11, 2020
- Too early to reopen schools : look at Europe April 30, 2020
- Ofsted : unreliable, destructive, beyond repair December 5, 2019
Follow us on Twitter
My TweetsTags
- academies
- accountability pressures
- apprenticeships
- assessment alternatives
- baseline tests
- British values
- buildings
- childhood
- Children's Zones
- class size
- College of Teaching
- community
- comprehensive schools
- coronavirus
- creativity
- culture
- Curriculum
- disadvantage
- early education
- Education Reform Act
- English
- extremism
- feedback
- formative assessment
- free schools
- GCSE
- governors
- grammar
- grammar schools
- history
- inclusion
- inspection
- IQ
- Islamophobia
- language
- literacy
- local authority
- local democracy
- mental health
- migration
- Muslims
- National Curriculum
- nurseries
- Ofsted
- phonics
- phonics check
- PISA
- politicians
- poverty
- Prevent
- privatisation
- profit
- racism
- school closures
- school finance
- secondary moderns
- self-evaluation
- Shanghai
- signatories
- South Korea
- special educational needs
- spoken language
- streaming and setting
- stress
- Sure Start
- talk
- teacher education
- terac
- testing
- trust
- universities
- Vocational education
- welfare
- workload
- youth unemployment
Categories
Tag Archives: comprehensive schools
Grammar schools: increasing inequality
Schools were only just back after the summer when Theresa May announced her intention to increase the number of grammar schools. Will this Government stop at nothing to undermine the principle of a good education for every child? This announcement … Continue reading
BACC to a grammar and prep school curriculum?
by Dr Valerie Coultas, School of Education, Kingston University The Conservative government’s changes in the curriculum and testing are presented as radical, forward looking, and creating greater opportunities for all. In reality the new curriculum in the primary school, the new GCSE … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum
Tagged comprehensive schools, grammar, National Curriculum, politicians
Leave a comment
A future going backwards (part 2)
by Professor Sally Tomlinson, University of Oxford What a complex and fragmented collection of schools existed in 19th Century England. Voluntary philanthropic initiatives, struggles between the Anglican church and Dissenters, middle class reformers, business interests, and public schools for the … Continue reading
Posted in Governance, Uncategorized
Tagged academies, comprehensive schools, history, local authority
Leave a comment
A future going backwards (part 1)
by Professor Sally Tomlinson, University of Oxford So here we are in the 21st century seeing an education system being shaped on 19th century patterns rather than a system for the future. In those days, a combination of religious and … Continue reading
Posted in Social Justice
Tagged academies, comprehensive schools, history, IQ, politicians, privatisation, Vocational education
Leave a comment
Abolishing grammar schools is not enough
by Patrick Yarker Education secretary Nicky Morgan has agreed that Weald of Kent Grammar School, a single-sex academy in Tonbridge, can open a new building in Sevenoaks. This is officially an ‘annexe’ even though it is 10 miles away. The … Continue reading
Children deserve more than slums in the sky
by Terry Wrigley School provision now in England is built on the dreams of Conservative thinkers of the 1970s and 1980s, but the dream is fast becoming a nightmare. Neoliberal ideologists in the Conservative Party thought they could dispense with … Continue reading
English for the Few or English for the Many?
by Valerie Coultas (Kingston University) Introduction There is nothing very new in Michael Gove’s culturally elitist attitudes to English teaching and the comprehensive ideal. He joins a long line of those who have always been opposed to the basic principles … Continue reading
Are giant secondary schools the answer?
by Terry Wrigley The news that a shortage of school places has led to giant secondary schools provides further evidence of the chaos resulting from the Government’s failure to plan. No one can feign surprise at the growing population, but … Continue reading
Posted in Governance
Tagged comprehensive schools, disadvantage, free schools, local authority, PISA, politicians, Shanghai
Leave a comment
English for the many or the few
The hatred of Conservative education ministers for democratic ideas about language connects with their broader opposition to comprehensive education. There is nothing very new in their elitist attitudes to English teaching or indeed to comprehensive education. Many of their ideas … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum, Uncategorized
Tagged comprehensive schools, English, grammar, language
Leave a comment
Labour’s education manifesto: academies, local authorities and the rest?
by Professor Richard Hatcher, Birmingham City University On April 13 Labour published its election manifesto on education, A better plan for education. It claims that ‘Over the past four and a half years Labour has worked closely with the education and … Continue reading
Reclaiming Schools 