National news
The Guardian view on schools for the future: no thanks to more of the same | Editorial
Friday 6th December 2019The Conservatives’ promise to replace lost funding should not be allowed to mask the paucity of their ideasSchool cuts proved to be an achilles heel for Theresa May in the 2017 election, and Boris Johnson learned from her mistake...
PM's single mother remarks 'disgusting', says Angela Rayner
Friday 6th December 2019Shadow education secretary says comments reveal Tory stigmatisation of working classAngela Rayner, who had her first baby at 16, has launched a furious attack on Boris Johnson for his past comments criticising single mothers...
People listen to Greta Thunberg because of her creativity, not just her science | Lisette Johnston
Friday 6th December 2019Creative subjects are on the decline in schools and universities, yet they are vitally important to societyBlue Planet, Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg are all household names bringing information about serious environmental issues to the masses...
Parties' education promises won't help poorer pupils – study
Friday 6th December 2019Thinktank says Tory, Labour and Lib Dem plans either over-ambitious or misdirectedVoters should not be blinded by the main parties’ spending promises on education as their plans are unlikely to improve results for England’s most disadvantaged children, according to a thinktank...
Watch out, Boris Johnson: students are angry and we're ready to vote against you | Zamzam Ibrahim
Thursday 5th December 2019Students don’t want to live in a world of climate catastrophe, social inequality and funding crises...
Why parents in a school district near the CIA are forcing tech companies to erase kids’ data
Thursday 5th December 2019As families worry for their children’s futures, a district has instituted a yearly data purgeParents at a public school district in Maryland have won a major victory for student privacy: tech companies that work with the school district now have to purge the data they have collected on students once a year...
University pension crisis is result of mania and mismanagement | Letters
Thursday 5th December 2019Defined-benefit pensions could always be afforded, argue Bill Cooke and Peter MuchlinskiThe race-to-the-bottom logic from two former professors of cutting “gold-plated” university pensions to pay for future generations (Letters, 3 December) is uncalled for...
Boris beware: students are angry and we're ready to vote against you | Zamzam Ibrahim
Thursday 5th December 2019Students don’t want to live in a world of climate catastrophe, social inequality and funding crises...
Put Britain’s colonial history on the curriculum – then we’ll know who we really are | Maya Goodfellow
Thursday 5th December 2019Britain’s past weighs on our present: learning about it would mean a better debate about race and migrationMy mum came to the UK from India in 1973, after a chunk of time spent in Uganda, when she was only 13...
Poor children lose out on exercise, research suggests
Thursday 5th December 2019Significant inequalities remain in the areas of family affluence, gender and race, Sport England says...
Tech companies monitor schoolkids across America. These parents are making them delete the data
Thursday 5th December 2019As families worry for their children’s futures, a district not far from the CIA headquarters has instituted a yearly data purgeParents at a public school district in Maryland have won a major victory for student privacy: tech companies that work with the school district now have to purge the data they have collected on students once a year...
Tell us about your run-down school buildings
Thursday 5th December 2019We’d like to hear from teachers and parents about school buildings that are no longer fit for purpose...
New GCSEs 'widen gap between rich and poor'
Thursday 5th December 2019Grades for poorer pupils fell by just over a quarter of a grade across nine subjects compared to their peers - study...
'Off-rolling' hides true extent of disadvantage gap in schools – study
Thursday 5th December 2019Low-achieving pupils not being recorded as they are removed from rolls to raise GCSE resultsThe gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peers in England is much wider than previously estimated, with as many as 9,000 disadvantaged 16-year-olds not taking exams or recorded in school league tables because they cannot be located on school records...
Free breakfasts to form part of Labour plan to 'poverty-proof' schools
Wednesday 4th December 2019Party will also vow to recruit 20,000 more teachers, cap class sizes and spend £7bn on repairs and upgradesLabour is to promise free, healthy breakfasts for all primary-age children as part of a multibillion pound plan to “poverty-proof” England’s schools and boost educational standards...
'Integrate to survive' says primary schools report
Wednesday 4th December 2019Smaller rural schools should consider integrating to ensure their futures, suggests newly published research...
'The Netflixisation of academia': is this the end for university lectures?
Wednesday 4th December 2019Universities are increasingly recording lectures, but academics are wary of being spied on or made obsoleteBefore this month’s strikes over low pay and pensions cuts, staff were warned to pause their lecture recordings while they told students that they would be taking part...
How to get kids to read books
Wednesday 4th December 2019Harwich and Dovercourt High School is focused on the benefits that reading books outside the classroom can bring...
Bionic neurons could enable implants to restore failing brain circuits
Tuesday 3rd December 2019Scientists say creation could be used to circumvent nerve damage and help paralysed people regain movementScientists have created artificial neurons that could potentially be implanted into patients to overcome paralysis, restore failing brain circuits, and even connect their minds to machines...
British schoolchildren among least satisfied, says OECD report
Tuesday 3rd December 2019Influential survey reveals UK 15-year-olds reported biggest declines in life satisfactionSchoolchildren in Britain are more likely to be miserable and less likely to think that their lives have meaning compared with children in other countries, according to an influential OECD survey that shows a slight improvement in the UK’s international education performance...
Labour’s broadband plan could radically change young people’s life chances
Tuesday 3rd December 2019Some students currently get betting ads, while their more affluent friends see ones for universitiesResearching the digital lives of teenagers brings with it great highs and lows...
'You only need one yes': how I beat the odds to work in film
Tuesday 3rd December 2019From working on the new James Bond film to interviewing actors, recent graduates reveal how they got a foot in the doorThe film industry is notoriously white, middle class and male-dominated...
Universities warned Cameron in 2011 that trainee cuts would cause nursing shortage
Tuesday 3rd December 2019Ministers turned down pleas over many years and instead predicted over-supply of British nursesUniversities warned the government for years that they needed to train more nurses to avert a staffing crisis – but ministers repeatedly refused, saying nurses would end up unemployed, letters seen by the Guardian show...
Why do Estonian children start school at seven years old?
Tuesday 3rd December 2019The Baltic nation is one of the top performers in global education tests, but how does that process begin?Read full story...
Pisa tests: UK rises in international school rankings
Tuesday 3rd December 2019The UK moves upwards in global school league tables - but with low levels of life satisfaction...
Teachers ask children to ‘tell the truth’. Voters would like the same from the Tories | Michael Rosen
Tuesday 3rd December 2019There has been little chance to grill you about the government’s porky-esque education figuresI don’t know what you did wrong, but the Conservative party team seem to have been be working hard to keep you off our screens as you all seek re-election...
Jewish schools 'pressurise parents to take children out of sex ed lessons'
Tuesday 3rd December 2019Two state-funded schools are accused of pressurising parents to take their children out of lessons...
Police investigate teaching assistant's death after school row
Monday 2nd December 2019School for children with special needs closed after man, 31, was found dead in Bridgend Police are investigating the unexplained death of a teaching assistant following a confrontation at the school where he worked...
Have you had a legal battle with your council over SEN funding?
Monday 2nd December 2019We want to hear from parents and guardians who have been to tribunal to ensure a child’s Education, Health and Care plan or assessment Budget cuts to education and local authorities have seen funding for children with special educational needs fall dramatically in recent years...
UK school reforms to come under scrutiny as world rankings released
Monday 2nd December 2019Pisa tests, measuring standards in key subjects, likely to be ‘spun’ in election campaignThe quality of education in Britain’s schools will come under the microscope amid general election campaigning this week as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) publishes new international rankings of the performance of 15-year-olds in core subjects...
Clear backpacks, monitored emails: life for US students under constant surveillance
Monday 2nd December 2019School shootings have driven a booming school security industry...
From dog-petting to desk yoga: do 'wellbeing weeks' make university less stressful?
Monday 2nd December 2019Debt, academic pressure and social isolation are piling pressure on students, but what’s the best way of boosting mental health?At the “doggy de-stress” drop-in on the main campus at King’s College London (KCL), students queue around the block to sit on bean bags cuddling and taking selfies with rescue dogs...
Seven charts on the £73,000 cost of educating a child
Monday 2nd December 2019A population boom and a spending squeeze has changed the way we spend money on schools...
Everyday flexibility: ‘It’s about empowering people to decide when, where and how they work’
Friday 29th November 2019An investment in new cloud technology by PwC means employees can find balance between work demands and their responsibilities beyond the officeWhen mother-of-three Sharon Noble was collecting her daughters from school recently, a friend commented on the fact that she doesn’t work, envying her ability to be there for everything from the school run to sports day...
Hundreds of thousands of students join global climate strikes
Friday 29th November 2019Large turnouts in Madrid before UN summit, and in Sydney after deadly wildfiresHundreds of thousands of young people have taken to the streets from Manila to Copenhagen as part of the latest student climate strikes to demand radical action on the unfolding ecological emergency...
Teaching unions criticise Tory plan for snap Ofsted visits
Friday 29th November 2019Party has proposed longer inspections carried out at no notice for schools in EnglandSchool leaders and teaching unions have reacted with dismay to the Conservative party’s plans for longer and more disruptive Ofsted inspections, with one warning the changes would “do more harm than good” if implemented...
Children across the UK go on strike to demand action on climate
Friday 29th November 2019Pupils to declare December vote a ‘climate election’ as data highlights urgency of crisisChildren and young people in more than 100 towns and cities across the UK are walking out of classrooms on Friday for the latest youth strike to highlight the escalating climate crisis...
I'm striking because insecure academic contracts are ruining my mental health | Sarah Darley
Friday 29th November 2019I love my job, but the yearly search for new work is harming my health and forcing me to put my life on holdThis week, staff in 60 universities across the UK have been on an eight-day strike over pensions, pay and employment conditions...
Smartphone 'addiction': Young people 'panicky' when denied mobiles
Friday 29th November 2019Psychiatrists warn a quarter of young people have addictive behaviour towards their smartphones...
Conservatives pledge to boost Ofsted's power to inspect schools
Thursday 28th November 2019Proposal would mean longer and more detailed checks along with a £10m increase in funding The Conservatives plan to increase Ofsted’s powers to inspect schools in England with longer, more detailed inspection visits and increased fundingin stark contrast with Labour and Liberal Democrat manifesto proposals to abolish the watchdog in its current form...
Secondary teacher recruitment in England falls short of targets
Thursday 28th November 2019Targets missed for seventh year in a row, raising fears of teacher shortages across EnglandThe government has failed to reach its recruitment targets for secondary school teacher trainees for a seventh year in a row, raising fears that schools in England face shortages in key subjects such as maths, physics and foreign languages...
Government falls short on secondary teacher recruitment targets
Thursday 28th November 2019Targets missed for seventh year in a row, raising fears of teacher shortages across EnglandThe government has failed to reach its recruitment targets for secondary school teacher trainees for the seventh year in a row, raising fears that schools in England face shortages in key subjects such as maths, physics and foreign languages...
Bullying: Teachers share their stories in video for pupils
Thursday 28th November 2019Staff at Perins School in Hampshire hope it will help pupils who are being bullied themselves...
Scotland's last all-girls state school to admit boys after long dispute
Thursday 28th November 2019Glasgow councillors vote to change rules at Notre Dame high school despite oppositionScotland’s last remaining single-sex state school will admit boys for the first time in more than a century, following a long-running battle that has split parents, pupils and local residents...
Great Yarmouth Community Trust: Parents 'panicking' over nursery closures
Thursday 28th November 2019About 450 families must find new nursery places for children after a Norfolk and Suffolk chain shut...
Notre Dame: Boys to be admitted to Scotland's last all-girl state school
Thursday 28th November 2019Councillors in Glasgow voted unanimously to allow boys to study at Notre Dame High School from 2021...
Campus constituencies: where do student voters wield the most power?
Thursday 28th November 2019Students may be the least predictable voters of the general election...
'Best time ever': school-leavers have pick of university courses, says Ucas
Thursday 28th November 2019Competition is fierce between institutions recruiting from shrinking pool of 18-year-oldsToday’s school-leavers are enjoying “the best time ever” to take their pick of university courses, thanks to fierce competition between institutions recruiting from a shrinking pool of 18-year-olds, according to the UK’s university admissions administrator...
Want your work experience to become a paid job? Here's my secret | Adrian Chiles
Wednesday 27th November 2019The only thing I have truly excelled at is being an intern...
Kamala Harris school plan: The two hours costing US parents thousands
Tuesday 26th November 2019A proposal to keep US schools open longer has led to a polarised debate over childcare nationwide...
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