| Teaching News and Events (23/6/12) Posted: 23 Jun 2012 02:00 AM PDT  Here are links to some of this week’s education-related news: Schools: - Education Secretary Michael Gove is reported to be preparing to replace GCSEs for England from autumn 2014 and also to bring in a simpler exam for less academic teenagers. However, the Deputy Prime Minister is planning to block the plans and teaching unions have described the changes as ‘ludicrous’.
- Maths should be compulsory for all pupils up to the age of 18 – and should be taught separately from the exam system, says an MP’s report.
- More than two-thirds of primary teachers do not think the national curriculum changes proposed last week will do anything to help their teaching, a joint poll by TES and the NAHT heads' union suggests.
- More than 550,000 children aged 5-6 were the first to take the government's contentious phonics screening test this week. Their headteachers' response to the dubious honour was, unsurprisingly, that the exercise was little more than a waste of time and money.
- The number of infants taught in classes of more than 30 pupils has almost doubled in just four years, potentially jeopardising children's long-term development.
- Growing numbers of children are being turned off books by the end of primary school because of the influence of the internet and lack of reading in the home, according to research.
- School inspectors have expressed fresh concern at literacy standards among 11 to 14-year-old pupils in Wales.
- Teachers are failing to fully crackdown on racist and homophobic name-calling in schools despite mounting concerns over bullying, according to Ofsted.
- English schoolchildren are the worst in Europe at speaking foreign languages, research suggests, sparking Government claims that a decline in pupils' communication skills risks damaging the economy.
- The number of schoolchildren speaking English as a second language has topped one million for the first time, prompting fresh claims that immigration is placing a significant "burden" on the state education system.
- Teenagers' maths skills have declined sharply over the last 30 years, research shows, leaving a generation of school leavers unfit for the demands of university and the workplace.
- A-levels should be strengthened by only allowing one re-sit, replacing “modules” with end-of-year exams and increasing university involvement, says the exam watchdog, Ofqual.
- Headteachers and senior doctors are calling for needy children to receive a free breakfast at school after a survey found almost half of teachers have brought food in for pupils who arrive at school with empty stomachs.
- There is an urgent need to increase activity levels in primary school children in order to prevent health problems later in life, according to scientists.
 Other News: 
Next week's Teaching Events include: 
 |
