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Helpline calls rise after Savile

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:06:21 +0000

The number of sexual abuse victims calling charity helplines has increased in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, the charities say.

University challenged: Milburn's social mobility report is a starter for 10

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:54:33 +0000

Quantity trumps quality, with multiple recommendations favoured over several key workable ideas, says Graeme Atherton

University Challenge, the progress report on higher education and social mobility released by Alan Milburn last week marks the start of his term heading the new commission on social mobility and child poverty. It has much to commend it and echo many concerns of those working on the ground to deliver a fairer higher education system.

However, as with previous Milburn reports, quantity too often trumps quality, favouring recommendations by volume over working through several key ideas. It is also less radical than it thinks it is. While some of the headline ideas picked up by the media do challenge coalition policy directly, in the main the report fits the coalition's take on access, with its focus on progression to selective universities and narrow view of what social mobility means.

The most provocative idea – bringing back the EMA – is also one of the least thought through. A system of HEIs funding post-16 learners is rife with practical problems and as a substitute for financial support in higher education fails to address the fear of debt which the report highlights as a problem in widening access groups.

Overall, University Challenge is a good starter for 10. It includes ideas that, if brought together into coherent arguments, could be the challenge to HEIs and government that Milburn wants to make. What are these ideas and how could we push them further?

The first is the concept of the student premium. A guaranteed 'pipeline of support' from primary through to higher education for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds is appealing. It could provide a better basis for collaboration between schools and HEIs through a common funding stream. What it will not do is incentivise selective universities to compete for students from widening access backgrounds. There is already a student premium in another name: the widening participation allocation and this does not do this.

To be truly radical, Milburn's report should have suggested that the unlimited recruitment of those with AAB or ABB be abolished and learners from widening participation backgrounds freed from student number controls so that they (rather than the very able who will go to university anyway) become valued by the system.

The report is correct in pointing to the significance of league tables and suggesting the government takes a lead in establishing value-added tables that reflect the qualifications of entrants. But while this would be fairer on many HEIs, will it actually widen access? Taking another of the report's better ideas – the combining of different participation measures into one coherent data set – alongside value-added scores could be the way to go. Access league tables based on the progress HEIs are making over time across a range of under-represented groups could be a powerful way of using information to influence institutional behaviour.

The report rightly places collaboration as central to delivering outreach work and highlights several good examples of how organisations and initiatives are working together. But making collaboration systematic requires more than the spreading of good practice. Again, a focus on improving quality of data, this time to inform shared targets for HEIs on participation at regional level, would be the key to shifting widening participation strategies back to what learners deserve rather than what institutions need.

Alongside individual targets, each HEI could have a shared target for widening access in their own area. HEIs across the mission groups might welcome this as a way of capturing the valuable work they are doing to widen access but which doesn't show up in their performance indicators. For these targets to become a reality though will require not only a more powerful Office for Fair Access (Offa) but a more proactive one that shapes as well as measures institutional behaviour.

The commission that Milburn leads could have a real impact on access in the next five years. But to do so it needs to learn that less is more. Being radical requires a more thought out approach that is willing to go beyond the measures of this and previous governments have done, rather than just reform them.

Graeme Atherton is the head of Access HE, a London wide organisation supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into higher education – follow it on Twitter @AccessHE

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University application figures show first signs of recovering from fees introduction

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:51:53 +0000

The first signs that student university applications are bouncing back after the introduction of £9,000 a year fees emerged today.

Send for the Fixperts: designers helping the public with everyday problems

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:38:11 +0000

Got a problem at home you can't fix yourself? A new designer service might just be able to help

Too often design education funnels bright, imaginative minds towards places where they are the least useful – into the corporate design teams of commercial companies, or the rarefied world of galleries and one-off production. The best people trained in solving problems are rarely connected to the people who have problems to solve.

But a new scheme by designers Daniel Charny and James Carrigan is tackling this, by linking the people with practical knowhow to everyday problems.

"The idea behind Fixperts is to connect designers with people who could do with a little help in their lives, from disabled people to the elderly," says Carrigan, who is also co-founder of Sugru, a self-setting rubber product that lets you fix, modify and improve things. "It's interesting to think what kind of impact a designer can make on somebody's life in about an hour and a half."

Design solutions so far have included a device to help an MS sufferer put in her earrings and fixing the broken joystick on an electric wheelchair.

The project links Fixpert designers to Fixpartners, with the aim of developing a solution in no more than three weeks. The process is filmed and uploaded to their website, so the lessons learned can be transferred.

Fixperts is part of a wider return to fixing or "hacking" products, rather than replacing them – a trend that is slowly beginning to counter the commercial culture of obsolescence.

"People aren't in the habit of fixing any more," says Carrigan. "They just don't think of it as an option. How can designers help people to learn to fix again?"

Fixperts are currently looking for individuals, groups and schools to get involved in the project – you can download the brief here. "We're hoping to get to secondary schools," says Charny. "Not to teach technology and design, but to teach imagination and skills."

Oliver Wainwright

University applications rise

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:18:28 +0000

Applications by English students to UK universities have risen slightly this year, official figures show.

Questions over school tests fault

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:13:23 +0000

Stormont's education committee questions government and exams body officials about technical glitches affecting computer-based school tests.

When Manchester and Salford lit the Co-op flame

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:00:12 +0000

Ten thousand people gather in Manchester next week for Co-operatives United, the conference of the International Co-operative Alliance which is celebrating the UN International Year of the Co-operative. Michael Herbert looks back to the radical days of the movement in the city and neighbouring Salford.

The co-operative movement was brought into being by the writings and lectures of Robert Owen, whose ideas on mutuality and co-operation were very influential on the working class movement in the first half of the C19th

Owen was born in Newtown in mid-Wales in 1771. He had little schooling, but came to Manchester where he worked in a drapers in St Ann's Square. Like many other young ambitious men, he went into the expanding cotton trade and progressed to running his own mills, the Oxford Road Twist Company.

In 1799 Robert took a step which changed his life when he bought the New Lanark Mills and moved to Scotland to run them. The mills employed 2000 people, including 500 children. He now had an opportunity to put his ideas on social reform into practice, introducing a minimum age of ten for apprentices, improving housing and sanitation and opening a shop whose profits were used to fund a free village school.

He published his ideas on educational and social reform, advocating a society run on harmonious co-operative lines, and undertook lecture tours to publicise them. Here is a ringing example of his credo:

What ideas individuals may attach to the term 'Millennium' I know not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.

Many listened but not all. Disillusioned by the lack of response from his fellow manufacturers, Owen left England for the United States, where he tried to establish a co-operative community in New Harmony, Indiana. Initially settlers flocked to join but, as often happens in such communities, divisions soon arose and in the summer of 1828 he returned to England

During his absence his ideas on co-operation had taken hold amongst some groups of radicals with a number of co-operative societies being formed in Manchester and elsewhere. The first co-operative Congress took place on 26-27 May 1831 in the Spread Eagle pub on Chapel Street, Salford. It was reported at length in the Manchester Guardian.

At half-past eleven o'clock, a meeting of the delegates and others was held for the transaction of business. Mr Elijah Dixon was in the chair. Fifty-six societies were represented by forty-six delegates and ten others sent letters. The principal object of deliberation was the formation of a general union of all the co-operative societies in the north of England, for the purpose of establishing a general store in Liverpool, and appointing an agent and secretary there to superintend the business of the union. From this store goods are proposed to be furnished at very moderate prices to all the co-operative societies in the union, the surplus profits to be appropriated to the foundation of a harmonious community on the plan of Robert Owen, or to such purposes as the delegates may deem proper.
About half-past four o'clock, a great many members and delegates assembled together, in what they termed " a co-operative tea-party", at the Town Hall, Salford, which was tastefully decorated on this occasion with festoon of flowers. About half-past five o'clock Mr Robert Owen, of New Lanark celebrity, entered the room and was, of course, received with great applause.
At length Mr Owen, attended by a number of friends, ascended into the orchestra, and from thence addressed the company in a long speech in which he professed to explain what co-operation meant. He concluded by intimating that his system would eventually bring about the millennium, that happy period, when every man should sit under his own vine and his own fig tree, and none should make him afraid.

In 1835 Salford co-operators opened a Social Institution on Great George Street which could hold up to 600 people. Robert Cooper, one of the teachers at the co-operative school, wrote that the windows

were of stained class, the floors carpeted and the platform neat and elegant, ornamented with mottos in gilt mouldings. Altogether it bore an aspect of comfort and respectability, such as I never saw before or since in connection with an almost purely working class movement.

When the movement outgrew the building, the co-operators built the Hall of Science in Campfield, Manchester where there were meetings, lectures and tea-parties. Friedrich Engels was a regular visitor during his time in Manchester in the mid-1840s. The hall only survived to 1844 when it closed and was sold but in 1852 the Manchester Free Library was established in the building.

The modern co-operative movement usually traces its origins back to the Rochdale Pioneers, who opened a shop in Toad Lane, Rochdale on 21 December 1844. The building is now a museum. The rules developed and codified in Rochdale guided the spread and development of the movement. They included a commitment to providing pure, unadulterated food, an insistence on cash payment for goods; dividends for members and democratic control. They also put aside two and a half per cent for educational purposes. Every member was given a unique number and the dividend was paid quarterly (the "divi" as it became known was abolished in 1974 but was re-introduced in 2006 in the form of a card).

This more managed business model was successful and spread across the world. Some mourned the end of the radical years of the movement, though. Cooper wrote wistfully:

In our old Chartist time, it is true, Lancashire working men were in rags by the thousand; and many of them lacked food. But their intelligence was demonstrated wherever you went. You could see them in groups discussing the great doctrine of political justice – that every grown up, sane man ought to have a vote in the election of the men who were to make the laws by which he was to be governed; or they were in earnest dispute respecting the teachings of socialism. Now you will see no such groups in Lancashire. But you will hear well-dressed men talking, as they walk with their hands in their pockets of 'Co-ops' and their shares in them, or in building societies.

Michael Herbert is a Trustee of the Working Class Movement Library and leads walks exploring Manchester's radical history for Red Flag walks.

His book 'Up Then Brave Women: Manchester Radical Women 1819-1919' was published on 15 October and is on sale at the Peoples History Museum, Manchester, Three Minute Theatre, Manchester, the Portico Library, Manchester, and Rochdale Pioneers Museum.

Spotting specific language impairment: signs for teachers to look out for

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:55:49 +0000

Language difficulties may not be as high profile as dyslexia or autism, but they should be say Dorothy Bishop and Becky Clark

Have you ever wondered why a certain child in your class doesn't seem to follow instructions or understand what he has read? Perhaps you find that you teach vocabulary and the child seems to have forgotten the words by the next lesson, or he has trouble writing sentences that make sense or with correct word order. This can be particularly puzzling in a child who has clear talents in other areas, such as music or sports. This kind of uneven profile is typical of specific language impairment (SLI) where a child's spoken language skills are out of step with other aspects of development. But in contrast to the level of awareness and understanding that now exists regarding dyslexia and autism, the term specific language impairment often elicits a blank look.

John Bercow's report in 2008 stimulated a great deal of interest in children with speech, language and communication needs, yet much more needs to be done. The impact of SLI on the child and the family is often serious. The language impairment often affects social interactions, educational attainments, and ultimately the ability to participate in society and hold down a job. Yet SLI often goes unnoticed and children's needs are then neglected.

One reason for the lack of awareness is that SLI is a hidden disability. It is particularly hard to spot when a child is having problems with understanding language and as a consequence, SLI often gets missed or misdiagnosed. Children's needs can appear as or even result in behavioural difficulties, or only difficulties with reading and writing may be picked up. Struggling to understand what is being said in the classroom, to express ideas or to join in with peers, not surprisingly can result in feelings of frustration, failure and lack of self-worth.

Concerned about the need for greater knowledge and the impact of these difficulties, we joined forces with academics Maggie Snowling, Courtenay Norbury and Gina Conti-Ramsden to form a group called Ralli (Raising Awareness of Language Learning Impairments). Our goal is simple, we want awareness of SLI to be as widespread as awareness of dyslexia and autism. With the support of funding from the Waterloo Foundation, Afasic Cymru and the Economic and Social Research Council, we set up a YouTube channel that went live in May.

We've been overwhelmed by the interest that the channel has attracted; not just from the UK but from all over the world. It's clear that the Cinderella status of SLI applies to children learning many different languages, and not just English. Over the coming year we will post further videos to show how SLI appears, how it can be masked and the impacts of this disorder. The films will range from interviews with children affected by SLI, their parents and teachers, through to brief summaries of recent research.

For teachers, we will be posting videos to help spot language difficulties in the classroom as well as videos with tips on supporting children with SLI. Pupils themselves will tell from 'the inside' about their experiences and how teachers can really help. We also see it as crucial that there is recognition that children with SLI often have talents that can be fostered and have strengths that can assist their learning.

A referral to a speech and language therapist can identify areas of specific difficulty and make it possible to devise intervention that will maximise the child's abilities. But, what signs should teachers be looking out for?

Many children with SLI have expressive language difficulties. These are difficulties with the language skills needed for talking. A child may use simple language with short sentences and limited vocabulary. For instance, you might notice that a five year-old says "him go there" rather than "he went there," with language that sounds more typical for a three year-old. But for older children, a language problem may not be obvious without a proper assessment by a speech and language therapist.

A child may have receptive language difficulties affecting their understanding of language, involving problems with learning meanings of words or understanding more complex sentences. As a result, the child may just guess at what has been said by picking out one or two familiar words. It's easy to see how such a child would not only fall behind at school, but would also run the risk of being identified as lazy or disobedient.

These children have been ignored for too long.

Dorothy Bishop is a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Oxford and Becky Clark is the editor of Ralli and a speech and language therapist.

Ralli has posted a guide to spotting SLI in your classroom on the Guardian Teacher Network here.

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VIDEO: Schools should teach about porn

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:45:15 +0000

The impact of pornography should be taught to school children as part of the national curriculum, says the NAHT.

Cambridge to set new maths A-levels

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 07:15:42 +0000

Cambridge professors will set tough new maths A-levels after the university became the first to intervene in the stuttering exams system.

Senior Tory to Michael Gove: why are you taking our Sure Start cash?

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:00:12 +0000

Councils have formally warned ministers that the proposed redeployment of £1.5bn of local early intervention grant funding will lead to cuts in services for vulnerable children

The anger surrounding the government's proposed requisitioning of over £1.5bn currently earmarked for councils to spend on local family projects continues to grow, to the extent that even senior Tories are now demanding to know why ministers appear to be so keen to take money away from specialist services for vulnerable children.

As I reported in September, councils are up in arms over government plans to scrap next April the £2.3bn Early Intervention Grant (EIG), out of which councils pay for a range of family support services, including Sure Start, parenting support and short breaks for disabled people.

The money that makes up the grant will be then divvied up three ways over the subsequent two years: £1.3bn will go to a ringfenced schools grant to pay for free nursery care for two year olds; £300m will be top-sliced by the Department for Education for purposes unclear; and the remainder will be rolled into councils' central revenue stream.

Councils say this will translate into a 20% reduction in early intervention spending at local level.

This week the Conservative leader of the Local Government Association (LGA), Sir Merrick Cockell, wrote to Michael Gove, the education secretary, asking him to justify the move.

The letter, released by the LGA last night, focuses first on the £150m the Department for Education proposes to take for itself in each of the financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Cockell's letter states:

As you would expect, we are very anxious to understand how the money withheld will be used, as it is funding for frontline services for vulnerable children, in an extremely tight financial environment. As you know, Early Intervention Grant already represented a substantial cash cut compared to the sources of funding it replaced; the additional £150m top-slice appears to suggest the government wants to see a further reduction of around £1m by each council in early support to children, young people and families that need it most.

It goes on:

I fear this move is counter-productive because it will force local authorities to cut early intervention services even further which will inevitably lead to increased demand for more costly longer-term/lifelong interventions.

Cockell adds:

When combined with removing the money for expansion of provision for two year olds into the ringfenced Dedicated Schools Grant, this constitutes a fall in non-ringfenced resources of 27%. Removing local authorities freedom to allocate funding inevitably means greater pressures on other services.

Cockell finishes with a polite demand for the money to be returned. It is clear that Cockell and the LGA are not satisfied with the government's explanations thus far. In the Lords a fortnight ago, Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Baroness Garden of Frognal declared:

It has become clear that local authorities and others believe that £534 million will be removed from the early intervention grant in 2013 and transferred to the dedicated school grant, but this is not the case. The department consulted earlier this year on the proposals to transfer funding from the EIG to the dedicated school grant, and the change was supported in the consultation, but the two year-old offer is funded with £760 million of new money, as announced in the Autumn Statement. So it is not true to say that it is being funded through cuts to children's centres, which indeed is not what we would wish.

In other words: the government admits that the money currently spent by councils on early years services is being switched to the Dedicated Schools Grant account, which happens also to pay for the free nursery scheme. But you would be wrong to assume that it is the same money.

Miraculously, in the process of switching the cash between accounts it seems the old money marked "early intervention grant" becomes "new money" marked "free nursery care for two year olds".

It is hard not to agree with another senior Tory local politician, who has described the way the Coalition has justified the move as:

Typical smoke and mirrors

Whether it is old money or new money, the LGA is adamant (in its very clear briefing on the subject) that the effect on frontline services of scrapping the EIG will be negative:

Removing the two-year-old money to the ringfenced Dedicated Schools Grant is counter-productive and will lead to significant cost pressures in the longer term... Local authorities will be less able to provide support for children and families affected by disabilities...

It's concern is shared by Dame Claire Tickell, the chief executive of charity Action for Children, which has championed the early intervention agenda. Responding to the LGA letter she said:

The uncertainty about the future of the Early Intervention Grant is potentially disastrous for local services which would be unable to plan confidently for the future.
We're seeing the number of families coming to our children's centres needing help rising - when they are already stretched as it is. If we don't act now we'll have even greater problems to support when we have even less money to do something about it – a perfect storm.
We know that Children's Centres work and that they provide proven benefits to the tax payer – but without the backing of the Early Intervention Grant, local authorities are going to be forced to make impossible choices with even tighter budgets.

Patrick Butler

SPECIAL REPORT: Digital education methods on verge of long-term use - Chickasha Express Star

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 01:58:17 +0000

SPECIAL REPORT: Digital education methods on verge of long-term use
Chickasha Express Star
"It's not the state's responsibility for implementing the use or non use of digital material," Jeff Downs, executive director of science, technology, engineering and mathematics for the Oklahoma Department of Education said. "Local school boards are ...

Councils warn on children's grant

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 01:15:59 +0000

Council leaders have written to education secretary Michael Gove asking him to clarify proposals to top-slice funding for vital children's services.

Manchester Metropolitan: 'Bullying' university bans world-renowned professor who spoke out

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:15:38 +0000

A world-renowned professor has been suspended from work for questioning university recruitment policy, in a move which supporters argue is a threat to “academic freedom” and reveals a “culture of bullying” at the institution.

Michael Gove attacks schools' 'low standards' in Labour-led inner cities

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:05:01 +0000

Education secretary writes to MPs in areas where schools are underperforming, demanding they side with him on policy

Michael Gove, the education secretary, is writing to all MPs in areas where schools are said to be underperforming – mainly schools in Labour-led authorities – demanding that they side with him to open up the education system "to the new providers who can raise standards".

Gove has started his campaign against "the forces of conservatism" by writing to MPs in Leicester and Derbyon Tuesday asking them whether they want to "keep the door closed to new solutions and stick rigidly to the status quo, which is failing the children in their areas".

He says in "both of these areas, standards are far too low, with too many primaries which are judged by Ofsted to be unsatisfactory, or which have performed below national expectations for many years … 2012 results for 11-year-old pupils in each region are lower than the national average, lower than the average for the east Midlands region, far lower than pupils and parents have a right to expect".

In Derby and Leicester, key stage 2 results in English and Maths have been below the national average for each of the past five years, education department officials said, and children in primary schools underperform many inner-city London areas with higher deprivation.

The initiative follows the decision of David Cameron to position himself as the champion of an "aspiration nation" in which excellence in education is central to economic recovery.

The Conservatives are clearly trying to expose divisions in Labour over its approach to academies and free schools, and to pin responsibility on mainly Labour-run areas for inadequate school standards.

In a speech to the rightwing thinktank Politeia, Gove said: "There are hundreds more underperforming primary schools, many concentrated in other disadvantaged communities, where we need to act." He said he was writing to MPs in areas of educational underperformance "outlining why we need to act and drawing attention to the failure, so far, of those in positions of power in local councils to move fast enough in improving our schools".

He added: "In a number of communities the local forces of conservatism have worked against reform and have thrown every possible obstacle in the path of potential academy sponsors and free school founders trying to make a difference."

He says the MPs "have a simple choice: stand with those in the academies and free schools movement who want to put children first, or stand with the adults who are blocking school improvement".

Gove tried to increase Labour discomfiture by lavishing praise on Lord Adonis and Tony Blair for starting and championing the academies movement. Adonis holds a frontbench role in the Lords and oversees Labour industrial policy review.

Gove also vented his frustration at the forces blocking progress inside the civil service and parliament: "Far too often the Whitehall machine is risk-averse. Media commentary rarely allows early errors to be seen in context as experiments which will generate improvements. And the National Audit Office and public accounts committee, the most influential watchdogs in the country, are some of our fiercest forces of conservatism.

"Time after time the NAO and PAC report in a way which treats any mistake in the implementation of any innovation as a scandalous waste of public money which prudent decision-making should have avoided. And yet at the same time it treats the faults of current provision as unalterable facts of nature – like the location of oceans and mountains – which should be accepted as the design of a benign providence.

"What we need, across the Westminster village, is a decisive shift in the culture in favour of risk and openness and away from small-c conservatism."

He complains of the blockages put in the way of his education reforms, saying: "Whenever we press for faster action to help those children, there are always adults urging delay – time for consultations, audits, reviews, impact assessments, stakeholder management, securing professional buy-in, assuring ourselves of compliance with EU procurement rules, getting counsel's opinion, assessing sector feedback, monitoring noise in the system, and so on."

Gove also used the speech to mount an assault on Ed Miliband, saying it would be a category error to describe the Labour leader's "one nation" speech as a shift to the centre.

"Blue Labour thinking – Ed Miliband's thinking – is not then a continuation or refashioning of Blairism, it is a critique and rejection of Blairism. It was an explicit disavowal of the centrism practised under Tony Blair and a celebration of an older, more solidaristic socialism of the kind which would have found favour with Tony Crosland or even Tony Benn.

"Where Tony Blair used his speeches to identify the forces of conservatism and declare war on them, Ed Miliband has used his speech to celebrate the forces of conservatism and declare he wants to become their leader.

"And the speech confirmed rather than changed Ed's ideological trajectory. It was another step in his emphatic embrace of those who want to keep society closed rather than open."

The education secretary also ridiculed Miliband's portrayal of his secondary school, saying he presented "Haverstock secondary – Hampstead's principal educational establishment – as though it were some sort of school of hard knocks, a nursery of social solidarity and home of class-consciousness to rank with Durham's mines or Clydeside's shipyards.

"For some reason, as Ed talked of Haverstock, I was reminded of William Woodruff's memoir of growing up in 30s Lancashire, the Road to Nab End – quoted, incidentally, in Jack Straw's recent autobiography – where Woodruff talks of the 'intellectual socialists' he met at university: people who 'collected working-class experiences as others might collect stamps or butterflies'."

Patrick Wintour

Brown wants Malala day of action

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 23:01:03 +0000

Gordon Brown calls for global day of action for Malala

Dear Sir, I'm sorry: letters of apology to former teachers

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 23:00:18 +0000

Education secretary Michael Gove has written a letter to an old teacher, expressing regret for his behaviour at school. We asked some writers who they would apologise to and why

Tim Dowling

Brien McMahon High School, Norwalk, Connecticut

Dear Ms Papastathis,
I would like to apologise for my behaviour in 10th-grade Language Arts, fifth period, specifically on that afternoon when I point-blank refused to offer a view about the use of symbolism in The House of the Seven Gables. It must have seemed strange the way I just stared at my folded hands, allowing an uncomfortable silence to ripen, especially after my friend Pete, who was sitting two rows in front of me, had raised his hand to suggest that I might have some particular insight to bring to bear on the use of symbolism in The House of the Seven Gables.

Looking back I can imagine that this sort of refusal to engage is one of the things that makes teaching young people so dispiriting. You may have quite reasonably concluded that I hadn't done the assigned reading, but I had, or most of it. You may have suspected that I was indulging in some juvenile form of rebellion, perhaps at the instigation of my classmates. Or that I was making a pathetic, private point of my own – maybe I objected to the way the term "symbolism" was bandied about so uncritically in the 10th grade. You might have chosen to class the episode as a sudden bout of extreme awkwardness characteristic of late-onset male puberty. Or the boorish sullenness of a shy, self-absorbed young man.

I was, in fact, incredibly high. So was Pete. Now I can't even remember what happens in The House of Seven Gables, but I learned a lesson that day, just the same.
Sorry again,
Tim Dowling

Bim Adewunmi

Federal Government Girls' College, Sagamu, Nigeria

Dear Mrs Nwokebelu,
Where to begin? I've given it much thought, and all evidence points to Malory Towers, that blatant propaganda fed to us since we could read. Our boarding school in Sagamu, Nigeria, was a world away from Cornwall; where Malory Towers had rock pools and riding stables, we had elephant grass and soldier ants. But the one thing we had in common with Darrell and Sally and the rest of the gang was midnight feasts. And you, Nwonky – that's what we called you, you see – were charged with bringing these clandestine gatherings down. This meant you had to trudge through the bush from your house in staff quarters, in the middle of the night and armed with only a torch, to sniff out the contraband – tinned sadines, Indomie noodles, boiling rings, cream cakes – that we had snuck in past prefects and mistresses. It meant you had to hoist your not inconsiderable bulk into the roof cavities we'd stored them in. You conducted your on-the-spot inspections, knowing from our smirks and whispers that you were unlikely to find anything. The frustration must have driven you up the wall.

I'm so sorry. I hope your hip recovered. It certainly felt that way when you caned us.
Best wishes,
Bim Adewunmi

Suzanne Moore

Northgate School for Girls, Ipswich

Dear Miss Paxman,
You were my favourite teacher and you taught my favourite subject: biology. I loved dissection. I loved the smell of chloroform in the morning … No, really. I used to regularly pass out in your lessons from sniffing it in the lab. You used to have to slap me awake. But I loved that you pointed out on your own body where your ovaries were. Underneath your white coat! For in sex education, it was just rabbits and syphilis. I loved that you were very scary and decided what it was we should know. The school could stuff itself.

I was terrified when you shouted at me for killing a worm even though we were dissecting worms. I must respect the worm for it would teach me in the end, you screamed. I loved the fact that you knew I was "bad" but told my mum I could do more than work in a shop. My mum said you were probably a lesbian. What normal woman would want to do biology; or "cutting up rats", as she called it?

But unlike most of the teachers I knew, you would not refuse to answer my questions. Instead you hinted at what could be known from working hard. Somehow, you made me understand that looking inside things makes people able to look outside them too. You embodied the confidence that comes from knowing an awful lot but you made us see that trying to know anything would take up the rest of our lives.

While we were taking apart dead frogs or drawing flowers we wanted to see the daft smile that sometimes broke through your "scientific" composure. I remember that: your pleasure at us seeing things for the first time. You encouraged my mind to whirr while most of my experience of school was "them" trying to shut it down.

I have no idea how you would fit into the lockdown that "education" has since become. You were your own woman. That was, to me, an actual amazing fact. I am sorry that I never became a biologist, but when I left school at 16 you simply said: "You are making a mistake, but go. And keep your eyes open. It's all there to see." So that's life. Biology, even? And sorry, miss, about the worm murder. I was just overexcited.
Yours always, Suzanne

Simon Hattenstone

Latham House School, Manchester

Dear Mr Roberg,
Even five-year-olds have feelings. Just because I told the dinner lady to fuck off for stealing my balloon is no reason for hauling me out in front of the school by my ear and threatening ne with "double punishment". Also, why did you have to call out Sharon and humiliate her just for being my sister? She didn't do anything wrong.
Yours, Simon

Kersal High School, Manchester
Dear Mrs Tierney,
I was actually a brilliant cook before I came to your domestic science lessons. How was I to know that "elbow grease" didn't actually exist? No, I wasn't taking the piss when I asked where it was.
Simon J Hattenstone

Dear Mr Todd,
Thank you for thanking me for coming to detention. I found it very touching when you said I was the first boy who had ever turned up and promised that you would never give me detention again.
Cheers, Simon Hattenstone

Dear Mrs Milme,
I know Andrew is a bit on the dull side, but I really felt for him when you said: "Andrew you are soooooh boring," just because he asked you, again, whether time really existed.
Love Simon (Hattenstone)

Dear Mrs French Teacher,
Sorry for sticking pins on your seat. It must have been painful.
Yours sincerely, Simon Hattenstone

Dear Mr Pexton,
I wish you hadn't put in my report: "Simon has adapted so quickly to school he has rapidly become the class fool." My mum was very upset. She started crying and went straight to bed.
Yours curiously, Simon Hattenstone

Dear Mr Butcher,
I remember so clearly the day you introduced yourself to us in the gym. "My name is Butcher. That is spelt B.A.S.T.A.R.D. Got it." PS I thought you'd take redundancy the day they banned corporal punishment.
Cheers, Simon

Dear Mr Davies,
You know when you used to say: "Give the boy a biscuit!" and: "Give the girl a banana!" when we answered questions correctly? Why didn't you?
Yours curiously, Simon Hattenstone

Dear Mr Gadja,
Sorry for saying: "Oy, Nobby, over here," in class. It was disrespectful. I know your real name is Norbert, and I know that even though I know it's Norbert really I should call you Mr Gadja. I understand now that only your best friends call you Nobby, and I'm not one of them.
Simon

Eccles Sixth Form College
Dear Mr Computer Studies teacher,
Sorry for climbing out of the window when I saw you coming into class. At least it was the ground floor. (I'd had a drink.)
Yours faithfully, Simon Hattenstone
(former part-time student)

Bury Grammar
Dear Mr so-called Roger Noel-Smith,
With reference to our conversation yesterday, I still disagree with you. Just because you say The Wasteland is an optimistic poem doesn't mean I have to think that too. I think the Wasteland is brilliant, but really depressing. When you explained to me a second time, and asked if I'd changed my mind … well that was bullying. And the third time was unforgivable. Especially when you called me an "obstreperous bastard". Anyway, I thought you might like to know I went straight to the head, told him what had happened, ripped off my school tie and shirt told him I wanted to leave his crappy grammar school. Anyway I have left … yes, I know six weeks isn't much of a stay. PS apparently, I've been expelled.
(Up) Yours
Hattenstone (as you called me)

Kersal High
Dear Mrs Beattie,
I was so terrified when I met you the first time. It's not just that you were really fat and shouted so loud. Everything about you was scary. All the teachers were frightened of you, too. But you were brilliant; the best-ever form teacher. The way that you screamed at us if we'd done something wrong in someone else's lesson, and then went to defend us to that teacher. The way you made us believe we were capable of anything if we put our mind to it. I hated art, and was ashamed at my inability to draw anything that resembled anything. So of course I mucked about. The way you took me aside and said I could do it, and I just had to concentrate on the lines, and if it was no good start again.

Do you remember how you made me draw, then paint, that photograph of the tennis player Nastase, and it was a bit crap at first but by the end I was so unbelievably proud of it? You could even see the veins in his legs. Mind over matter, you said, or something like that – and you were right. We thought you were an ogre, but you turned out to be the fairest person on earth.

There was the time I did really well in my mocks in everything but geography, and you said: "Simon has done brilliantly this year, and was only let down by his geography where he didn't work hard enough." I said I had worked hard but was rubbish at it, and asked if you'd changed my report, and you rewrote it saying, "Simon has done brilliantly except for geography, which he's not very good at." Thanks Mrs B. Hope you're still teaching up there.
Lots of love,
Simon xxx

Michele Hanson

Haberdasher's Aske's School, Acton

Dear Miss Denton,
I'd like to apologise, for myself and my whole class, for being generally horrid and playing such a nasty trick on you, 56 years ago in maths lessons. Because you were one of our least horrid teachers. You were young, rather shy, pleasant, blushed easily, and so we attacked. Because it was easy. We couldn't do much about the really horrid old witch teachers who made our lives hell, like Miss Titmuss, the RE teacher, who shook us whenever possible, or Miss Ashley, with her grey sausage curls and outrageous punishments – Latin detention for me, for jumping down three steps into the playground. No, Miss Denton, you were sweet and kind. So you got it in the neck.

One day, you had just got to the end of a gigantic sum, which had taken us half the lesson to do, and which you'd written up on the board. You wrote in the answer, and then were suddenly called away to the telephone. One of us, I'm not telling who, because we all egged her on, rubbed out the answer and changed it.

Back you came. "Please Miss," we said. "You've got the answer wrong.'"And you had to go through the whole gigantic sum again, until you got the right answer, and then apologised meekly for your silly mistake. We all looked very serious. You probably never knew that it was all a nasty joke. How we laughed when we got out of class. But why? You were never nasty to any of us. So, sorry Miss Denton. We liked you really.
Michele

Jenny Colgan

Queen Margaret Academy, Ayr

Dear wood- and metalwork teacher,
I am sorry that we didn't pay attention and ignored the safety briefing in favour of re-enacting the previous night's The Young Ones (the mouse episode).

I'm sorry that when you said to me: "You're good at maths, you should be a civil engineer, it's starting to be a fascinating industry for women," I blew out my fringe (grown to cover spots) and tutted and didn't bother to look into it even a tiny little bit, or do my technical drawing homework, and as a consequence got a dreadful report.

If the books hadn't worked out, creating roads and bridges and airports would have been vastly more fulfilling and rewarding than the junior public-sector admin role that was my only alternative. And now I've married an engineer, and have a son looking that way and he says: "I'm going to be an engineer like daddy," and I hiss "civil engineer" at him. Then I tell him to go talk to his grandpa. Because as every teacher's child knows, it's bloody awful being taught by your own dad, however much you love them. And when we walk down the streets of my home town, the number of gainfully employed, useful, successful, handy boys who come up and say: "Hello, Mr Colgan" (you never recognise them. Being a retired teacher in a small town is a bit like being a retired rock star), and thank you copiously for everything you did for them makes me feel even more foolish than I undoubtedly was back then.
With love, Jennifer xxxx

Kwame Kwei-Armah

Dear teacher,
All said and done, I had a great school life. However, as I grow older I find myself thinking more and more about why I have found it so hard to forget the time you called my mother to the school to tell her that you saw me holding hands with a white girl whose parents were "middle class" and that they would be very upset about it as the races really shouldn't be mixing in this way.

I have found it harder to forget the time you called me into your office and told me that because of the "structure of the black mouth" I would never really be able to speak English properly. What I find hardest of all, however, is that after all these years I have not forgiven you for these comments. I find it rather distasteful that I haven't, truth be told, because I have often preached to myself that I have long learned to hate the crime but not the criminal – or, more pertinently, hate the sin of racism and not the sinner. This was evidently not the truth in your case.

I am writing to you now to say I am sorry that I have only remembered you through that narrow and bitter lens. That the memory of those and similar events have clouded over the many good things you must have done for me while at your school. Many things that I'm sure sit positively at the heart of who I am today. You hired a brilliant teacher who made a huge and wonderful impact on my life! So there, this letter writing forgiveness stuff is working already. We are all bigger than our wrongs, right? I shall endeavour to remember that when I next think of you and my childhood.
Yours kinda sincerely (I'm working on it),
Kwame

Hugh Muir

Lister Comprehensive, Plaistow

Dear Preston Thomas,
You were head of the lower school, deputy head, head, and my A-level tutor for economics, and there are a few things I might usefully get off my chest. The boy who surreptitiously gave a Refresher-shaped laxative to the greedy classmate who was stealing everyone's sweets, occasioning a hygiene crisis in Humanities? That was me. The waste of space whose spat with another pupil spilled from the classroom on to the gravel pitch and ended up with us chasing each other in circles around the playground, pursued by the supply teacher who never came again? Yep, guilty. I was one of the shadowy figures who were able to let themselves back into the school in the early evening by dint of a purloined skeleton key.

It all seems quite silly now but I am sure that had you been able to pull together the various strands and establish a pattern, you would have dealt with it in that calm, authoritative, sensible and humorous way that you dealt with everything. It was the funniest thing. We weren't scared of you; but at the same time, we thought we shouldn't mess with you. You said that I should opt for A-level economics, ignoring my protests about deficiencies in maths. You were right.

And then there's the occasion I carry with me. It occurred in the sixth form when I commandeered an empty classroom as a changing room and was locked in by schoolmates who, for good measure, had stolen my shorts and trousers. That took some explaining when the melee caught your attention, but you didn't ask for an explanation. "You don't stop making mistakes as you get older," you said with a wry smile. "You just hope to make fewer."
Hugh

Marina Lewycka

Witney Grammar School

Dear Miss Mitchell,
I'm glad to have this opportunity to apologise for having been such an absolute little cow during the years you taught me German, French and Russian. Although you are now at rest in the great staffroom in the sky, I still feel a pang of shame when I recall how badly I behaved during your lessons.

I remember your patient sigh when you caught me inking in little black spots on my legs below the holes in my black tights, or painting on pearlised orange nail-polish under the desk. You pretended not to notice my CND badge, banned on school premises, or the whiffs of cigarette smoke that lingered in the girls' toilets. I hope you never read any of the cruel notes my friends and I passed around in class, commenting on your appearance, and speculating on your love life. I felt ashamed when I learned, afterwards, that you'd lost your fiance during the second world war, and teaching us became your life instead. I would like to thank you for your perseverance.

As you must have guessed, at heart I was always a little swot, and at home in private I practised those strange gargling sounds you taught us, and memorised the Lorelei song, and long passages of Phèdre and Evgeny Onegin.

And thanks to you, even after all these years, I can still pull off a cool subjunctive, which impresses the Frenchies no end.
Do svidanya, auf wiedersehen, adieu,
Marina

• Which former teacher would you write to, and what would you apologise for? Post your letter below

Asbestos school pupils will move

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:38:13 +0000

Plans to move all 900 pupils from a high school to a college campus are approved after asbestos discovered by workmen forced its closure.

Neil Smith obituary

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:09:27 +0000

Geographer and anthropologist who studied the effects of the rapid growth of gentrification in cities

Neil Smith, who has died aged 58 of liver failure, brought a new dimension to geography by exploring the relationship between cities, the wider world and capitalism. If we want to understand the economic system's workings, he argued, then we have to understand the spaces that make its existence possible. And if we want to live in a saner environment – natural and built – we need to revolutionise the ways in which it is produced.

As an undergraduate at St Andrews, Scotland, Neil studied the way in which gentrification had become a global force in the shaping of cities. In addition to middle-class people seeking better lifestyles, he pointed to the rent-gap, the difference between the rent a property earns currently and what it could earn if redeveloped for new inhabitants. When the gap is big enough, private capital is attracted by the financial potential, and restructuring follows.

By the time of his book The New Urban Frontier (1996), Neil was an academic based in the US and the argument had acquired a political aspect. It highlighted an effect akin to revenge as richer people returned from the suburbs to repossess inner-city areas, their interests combining with those of private capital to the detriment of the poorer people living there. In the process, public policy initiatives such as zero-tolerance policing served to criminalise the marginalised and homeless.

Neil's arguments about gentrification were part of a larger examination of how capitalism shapes nature and geographical space, whether land, sea, air or buildings. His PhD dissertation at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, became the book Uneven Development (1984), taking up the term that Karl Marx had used for the emergence of simultaneous concentrations of wealth and poverty. The example of humanly induced climate change demonstrates how we produce nature without being able to control it – a significant insight for the field of political ecology, studying the flow of environmental benefits and costs.

This approach to geography attracted scholars in such fields as anthropology and sociology to the study of space and place. Neil's curiosity as to why pioneering work such as his came comparatively late to geography resulted in a study of Isaiah Bowman, geographer to Presidents Woodrow Wilson during the first world war and Franklin D Roosevelt during the second. American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization (2003), is a biography-cum-political history of America's rise to global power through – rather than despite – geographical ignorance.

In Neil's view this field of study was bankrupt in the US in large part because that suited the rise of American-led, capitalist liberalism, a theme further developed in his final book, The Endgame of Globalization (2005). The effectiveness of his arguments was recognised by the discipline he so strongly criticised: the Association of American Geographers awarded him Distinguished Scholarship Honours, its highest award.

Born in Leith, Neil was one of the four children of a schoolteacher and his wife. He grew up in Dalkeith, to the south-east of Edinburgh, where he developed an early passion for birdwatching that he never lost. His ferocious intellect, passionate commitment to socialism and lively Scottish sense of humour made him someone who might be disagreed with but not ignored. You wanted to argue with him, and he wanted to argue right back. "The battle for ideas," he was fond of saying, "is just too important to leave to others."

Neil taught at Columbia University (1982-86) and Rutgers University (1986-2000), where I was his student, before he was made professor of anthropology and geography at the City University of New York. There he founded and directed the Centre for Place Culture and Politics, where political activists and academics felt equally at home. He made time for his students over a beer or a meal, when, despite commitments that took him all over the world, he devoted himself to our ideas and the ruthless but comradely critique of them.

Neil's marriage to geographer Cindi Katz was followed by a partnership with another geographer, Deb Cowen. At their home in Toronto, Neil pursued another of his great passions, gardening – a production of nature that he fully approved of. Deb survives him, as do his sister, Sheila, and brothers Derek and Harvey.

• Neil Robert Smith, geographer and anthropologist, born 18 July 1954; died 29 September 2012

Don Mitchell

Standards blitz sees 1,000 under-performing primary schools facing closure or conversion into academies

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:04:40 +0000

Up to 1,000 under-performing primary schools face closure or conversion into academies under a dramatic new government blitz aimed at raising standards in schools.

Guardian Masterclass - Science writing with Tim Radford

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:34:31 +0000

Masterclass

Gove warns over 'chaotic homes'

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:56:40 +0000

Growing up in chaotic homes is leaving some children "actively harmed" and unprepared for starting school, Education Secretary Michael Gove warns.

UCR professors honored with STEM award - Highlander Newspaper

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:06:19 +0000

UCR professors honored with STEM award
Highlander Newspaper
“The synergy of participants and their total commitment to STEM was amazing,” said Dr. Pamela Clute, UC Riverside's assistant vice chancellor of educational and community engagement, executive director of the ALPHA Center and lecturer in math. In an ...

and more »

So I want to be a solicitor ... how do I pay for it? | Catherine Baksi

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:47:13 +0000

Catherine Baksi explores the bursaries, scholarships, loans available for postgraduate studies and work placements

Training to become a lawyer is a competitive and expensive business. Unfortunately, finding where help comes from can be a challenge and a bit time-consuming. Here's a guide to what's on offer at the different stages of your journey into the law that might help make it a bit less bumpy.

Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC)

Non-law graduates looking to pursue a career as a solicitor or barrister will have to complete the year-long conversion course or GDL. The cost varies from around £4,000 to £10,000 depending on where you study.

Those who want to become solicitors then have to pass the LPC, which also lasts a year, and costs between £7,000 and £13,000 (although there are now some fast track programmes available), before completing a two-year training contract.

Trainee solicitors currently receive a mandatory minimum salary of £16,650 (£18,590 in central London). However, that is being scrapped from August 2014, after which firms will only be obliged to pay the national minimum wage of £11,265 a year. Trainee salaries vary enormously depending on the size of the firm. Those at large regional, national and City firms could expect to receive anywhere from £20-40,000 a year, while those in legal aid and smaller high street practices will receive considerably less.

Law school scholarships

The law schools providing the professional courses offer numerous scholarships to help talented students meet the costs. Again, it's a case of trawling through the websites and prospectuses to find out what they offer and whether you might qualify.

Selection can be based on an application or following tests, essay or presentation assessments.

Here are a couple to get you going: The College of Law has just extended its Gold Award, which provides up to £3,000 to non-law graduates taking the GDL.

They are open to students with a first class undergraduate degree or a distinction at masters level. It offered 60 of the awards to help students who started the programme in September and will now offer 30 more to students starting the course in January 2013.

The awards are open to students accepting a place on the full time course and are aimed at students without sponsorship from a firm or chambers, although part-sponsored students will be considered.

Successful applicants will receive £2,000 towards their tuition fees. If they go on to study the LPC or BTPC at the college, they will receive a further £1,000 towards the fees, providing they are still unsponsored.

Eligible students can email for information. You will be required to submit a statement setting out what winning the award would mean to you and how it would help you attain your ambition of a career in law. The closing date is 7 December.

Kaplan Law School offers two diversity scholarships, giving LPC students, who have attended a non-fee paying secondary school or college for their A-levels, a 15% reduction on their fees.

Sponsorship from firms

A number of law firms, generally the large City and top 100 commercial practices, sponsor the students that they give training contracts to, paying GDL and LPC fees as well as maintenance costs. Many of these firms stipulate which law school you must attend as they provide courses tailored to the needs of the particular firm. Details are provided on the firms' websites.

You can also get information from The Training and Pupillages Handbook, a new version of which will be published at the end of October. It is made available free to university careers services and law departments, but can also be purchased online.

Bank loans

If you have no other funding option, you might want to consider professional and career development loans offered by high street banks. Barclays Bank and the Co-operative will lend GDL and LPC students between £300 and £10,000. Interest rates are lower than for standard loans and you will not have to repay the loan until you have finished the course. Investec Bank offers loans for full time students studying at BPP.

Charities and grant-making trusts

There may be charities and grant-making trusts to which some students can apply. Details of can be sought from the local library (if you still have one) and the local authority awards officer. The website turn2us provides a searchable database of benefits and grants available. Qualification for these awards varies hugely, and they usually only provide small amounts of money, so don't rely on one to provide full financial support for either tuition or maintenance.

The Law Society's Diversity Access Scheme

To help improve social mobility in the legal profession, the scheme offers LPC scholarships to talented students who have overcome exceptional social, educational, financial or personal obstacles to train to qualify as a solicitor. Since it was set up in 2004, the scheme has helped 113 students, including some who have been in local authority care, resisted coercion into arranged marriage, and battled with severe physical disabilities. It also provides successful applicants with work experience and mentoring.

Last year it assisted 30 students. The Society has just confirmed that the scheme, which is supported by several law firms and law schools as well as by the Law Society's charity, will be available next year. Details of how to apply will be posted on the Junior Lawyers Division website at the start of next year.

The Graham Rushton Award for visually impaired law students

Graham Rushton was a blind lawyer who left a large sum of money to the RNIB to be spent on assisting blind and partially sighted law students.The grant is around £7,000.

Awards and scholarships to fund work experience

A number of other awards and scholarships exist to fund overseas work experience. These include the Human Rights Lawyers' Association bursary scheme which enables law students to undertake internships, work placements and other poorly paid work in human rights law. It provides around five awards and a maximum annual bursary fund of £6,000.

The H M Hubbard Law Scholarship, for trainee and qualified solicitors, funds the study of law and legal procedures in France, Spain or Canada.The Inderpal Rahal Memorial Trust provides grants towards legal training for women from an immigrant or refugee background who intend to practise or teach law in the UK. Candidates seeking to apply should email or write to: Inderpal Rahal Memorial Trust, Garden Court Chambers, 57-60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3LJ.

This is the second in a series exploring funding options for studying law. See the first article looking at paying for undergraduate study here

Catherine Baksi

This house would open all areas of knowledge to scientific investigation | Jon Butterworth | Life & Physics

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:27:41 +0000

Debating societies - yes or no? Discuss. Anyhow, last night I was the proposer of the above motion at the UCL debating society. Below is my prepared opening statement, and I thought you might enjoy shooting it down in the comments...

First of all, the motion says "would". I take this to mean "would, if we could". Science requires experiment, and there are some questions we do not have the means to address scientifically, at least at the moment.

But I support the aspiration and I hope you will too.

"Scientific Investigation" is a technique for achieving knowledge which is as unbiased and objective as possible.

It is not infallible, it is not always particularly efficient, but it is quite simply the best way we have of not fooling ourselves.

Are there any areas of knowledge that we want to fool ourselves about?

I don't think so. Knowledge may be uncomfortable, but ignorance can be catastrophic.

Given the background and profile of the other speakers, I suspect much of this debate will focus on research around human life. When it comes to life, I'm an amateur. But I think a couple of examples from physics might help.

The most stunning one, I think, is the development of quantum mechanics. From the point of view of physicists at the time, this was a complete car crash.

The model - of seeking underlying mechanisms for physical processes - which had served incredibly well from at least the time of Copernicus through Newton, Kelvin and even Einstein (who participated in its overthrow but never accepted its consequences) came about through repeated application of the scientific method.

In the face of the most massive cultural biases, the fact was established.

Nature stubbornly behaved in a way which could only be understood by rethinking pretty much every assumption ever made by the most influential physicists - the heroes. In the end quantum mechanics rules. It works. It lies behind the whole digital technology of our civilisation, and more besides. And it went counter to every established scientific prejudice of the days, except for the prejudice that the method works.

The physicists of old might be horrified by the outcome, and by the cultural miasma that allows, for example, homeopaths to claim quantum mechanics gives water memory. But they would I hope be proud of the success of the scientific method. (Which of course also tells us that water is water, sugar is sugar, and placebos are placebos.)

There are moral debates to be had about the uses to which knowledge is put. There are moral debates to be had about the development of specific technologies from knowledge. But the debate around the morality of nuclear weapons would not be well-served by declaring the study of fundamental physics off limits. Nor would the debates about cloning, or genetic engineering, be well served by declaring the study of life off limits.

The scientific pursuit of an understanding of the universe in which we live, the basic constituents, life itself, and the farthest galaxies, is an interconnected and unpredictable activity. Incremental advances in one area can cause sudden revolutions in another. To declare some areas out of bounds would not only be unpredictably damaging in its impact, but would probably be doomed to failure.

A rear-guard action against some uncomfortable areas of knowledge may succeed in delaying the inevitable; but surely it is better to seek the knowledge, and face the moral issues which follow with open eyes and minds.

None of that is intended to imply that the very pursuit of knowledge is such a high imperative that it negates all other considerations. In particular, we are back to the "means" here, and the "would" in the title of the motion.

An example close to my heart: The Large Hadron Collider and the discovery of a Higgs boson - in fact the whole of particle physics together - costs the UK taxpayer about £2 a year. There are no significant environmental or existential risks, and many benefits.

If the cost were an order of magnitude higher, one might start to ask whether the money could be better spent. It may be that the returns would also rise, and we would all benefit. Certainly the endeavour much more than pays for itself at present. But a net financial outlay would raise moral and practical questions about priorities for public expenditure.

And if there had been any credible risk of creating, for example, black holes which might consume the world (or even a suburb of Geneva), that would clearly have been a problem.

None of that would have been reason to label the Higgs boson itself off limits in principle. But they may have been reasons to halt that line of research until better (safer, more affordable) methods were available.

Similarly, considerations about damage or risk to humans, to animals or to the environment, might impact upon efforts to understand biology, psychology or related areas. Knowledge, the ends, do not justify all means. But regulating means and methods is a very different matter from declaring certain areas closed in principle to scientific inquiry.

So I would have all areas of knowledge open in principle. If no acceptable means exist to address, scientifically, some important area, I would have us develop better means. But to declare any area closed in principle to scientific inquiry is to declare that we wish to be fooled.

And nature, the universe, does not treat fools kindly.

I urge you to support the motion.

The debate also featured Lewis Wolpert (on the same side as me) with Caroline Harrison and Michael Reiss opposing, plus some good speeches from the floor. More information here. It seemed to go quite well.

Jon Butterworth

Robert Currie obituary

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:09:51 +0000

Students of politics at Wadham College, Oxford, between 1965 and 2000 may well have encountered better known or more frequently published scholars than Robert Currie, but few will have had as lasting an impact on them as he did. Dr Currie, who has died aged 72, was that rare Oxford figure: a dedicated teacher and genuinely original thinker, one who made the conventional experts in his field look as if they were missing the point.

Let's say the subject was the Sino-Soviet split. He would set a reading list comprised of the key, respected texts. His students would return with an essay dutifully plodding through the theoretical distinctions between Chinese and Russian forms of Marxism. Currie would listen politely – though loudly clearing his throat to indicate disapproval of, say, a mixed metaphor – then proceed to strip away the abstract guff and cut to the chase. Who were the men involved? Stalin and Mao. How could global communism possibly contain two such outsized egos? It couldn't. The pair were bound to be rivals, latching on to ideology merely to justify their antagonism.

"This town ain't big enough for the both of us," Currie would conclude, the over-theoretical approach of most political science suddenly cast as entirely irrelevant.

Power was what mattered, Currie taught from his cosy study in Wadham's front quad. Power, money, sex and religion were the only true motives for human behaviour: the rest was justification. That approach sometimes led Currie to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but a determination to find what his son, Dan, in his eulogy, called "the real drivers of history" was what he conveyed.

Tellingly, few of his students went on to become practitioners of what Currie saw as "the dirty game" of politics. Many became journalists, including, on this paper, Vikram Dodd, Jess Cartner-Morley and me and, on the Times, the columnist Robert Crampton; others included the Booker nominee Monica Ali.

He inculcated us all with scepticism, certainly, but not cynicism. His was a kind of disappointed idealism, perhaps inevitable in a child of Communist party members who had once planned to become a Methodist minister. His first book, published in 1968 and hailed as definitive, was Methodism Divided. He published three more books by 1979, but none afterwards, possibly because he was reluctant to narrow his focus. His intellectual interests were unusually catholic: he delivered university lectures on philosophy and literature as often as politics.

Born in Bristol, Currie was the son of a postman, a grammar school boy who was the first in his family to make it to university. There he met the love of his life, Pamela, a fellow Oxford don who died just 12 days before he did.

They are survived by Dan, their daughter, Lizzy, and two grandchildren.

Jonathan Freedland

Issue 92 of the Secondary Magazine (incorporating FE) has been published

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:52:00 +0000

In Issue 92, we focus on mistakes and misconceptions, multiplication, new Bowland Maths resources, a new package of resources for those working with students resitting GCSE Mathematics, and much more - including ideas for your CPD.

Behaviour 'no bar to sixth form'

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:22:37 +0000

Schools in England have been told by the local government ombudsman that they must not bar badly behaved youngsters from sixth forms.

Learning for free online

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:59:01 +0000

Distance learning is increasingly popular and one of the reasons is the growing number of free courses being offered online

Daniel Conn left school at 18 and started work as an administrator for Mercedes-Benz near his home in Brighton. He soon wished he hadn't spurned the idea of going to university and began investigating Open University (OU) courses, but he never quite found the courage to apply.

Then he discovered the OU's OpenLearn website, which offers 650 Open University study units free online. After working his way through four in computing and maths (and doing an online Harvard University course on the side) he thought he might as well get a qualification.

Now approaching 30, he is studying for a part-time OU degree in computing, which he hopes to finish in 2015.

"The OpenLearn materials give you the gist of what the course is about and whether you can do it," he says. "It definitely gave me a lot of confidence."

The OU is not the only university that has started offering courses free online. Over the past couple of years increasing numbers of universities across Europe and the US have set up web-based resources known as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These MOOCs make recorded lectures, course materials and academic discussion forums freely available to anyone who wants to use them.

Jonathan Kydd, dean of the University of London International Programmes, which last month began offering free courses in psychology, computer programming and law through the US online education provider Coursera, says the involvement of top-rated institutions such as Stanford and Harvard has made this kind of free distance learning particularly appealing.

"You are going to inspire students because they are going to get [access to] a high proportion of people who are household names and who are both great researchers and great teachers," he says.

Universities use free courses not only as a shop window for the other courses they offer, but also as a way of sharing good practice with other institutions, experimenting with new technology and of seeing what does and doesn't work in distance education, Kydd says.

This is important because the availability of higher bandwidths and progress in developing effective systems of online assessment, combined with increasing demand, means that paid-for distance learning is also booming.

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the number of distance learning students registered at UK institutions grew from 238,800 in 2006/07, to 271,445 in 2010/11.

Tony Hopwood, chief assessor for the Open and Distance Learning Quality Council, says the increase is particularly marked in the university sector, which is now competing with dedicated distance learning organisations.

Gráinne Conole, professor of learning innovation at the University of Leicester, says this is out of necessity. "We know worldwide that bricks and mortar universities don't have the capacity to deal with the number of students there are going to be in future, particularly in places like India and China, so online learning has to be the way to go."

The University of Derby is one institution to recognise this, setting up a separate department to focus on online distance learning students with academic systems and tutors dedicated to their specific needs.

Joy Rickard, who is studying for an undergraduate certificate in educational psychology at Derby from her home near Bath, says she feels the benefits. For her, distance learning means the flexibility to look after her two young children and work part-time in a school while studying alongside a global student cohort.

"I have met some people online who are doing fascinating things all over the world, which wouldn't have happened if I was attending in person," she says.

Certainly online learning deepens the pool of potential students. Kydd says London University's International Programmes distance learning model, which allows students to take courses over time and pay incrementally, makes it affordable for students from Africa who would otherwise never be able to take a degree.

And the University of Leicester is about to launch an MSc in security, conflict and international development, designed to meet the needs of international development workers deployed in post-conflict countries, who would normally find study impossible. Because access to the internet can be tricky in such countries, the students receive an iPad on which they download the course app and related ebooks, all accessible without an internet connection. They can then download other materials when they find a Wi-Fi connection.

Campus life

New courses run by Plymouth University are similarly designed for hard-to-reach students. The university is offering undergraduate and postgraduate diplomas, and master's-level programmes in hydrography for students working on oil rigs and survey vessels, sometimes thousands of miles from the nearest university.

But what about missing out on campus life? Rickard, who studied graphic design at the University of Wales, Newport before having children, says she feels she has "done" student life and is now more interested in developing a career. Conn, who has just started a full-time job as a technology developer off the back of his studies, says his local OU student union and online forums keep him happy.

"You don't feel like you're on your own," he says. "The only thing I'm missing is living in a rundown squat for a couple of years and leaving with masses of debt."

Harriet Swain

Postgraduate student loans: an idea whose time has come

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:35:52 +0000

Action is needed to tackle the postgraduate 'credit crisis', says Joel Mullan ahead of the Higher Education Commission report

After years on the sidelines of higher education policy, postgraduates are finally getting their moment in the spotlight. In July 2012, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee recommended that the government create a new loan scheme for STEM postgraduates. The review of Liberal Democrat science policy led by Julian Huppert came to the same conclusion. And just last week, the government's social mobility czar, Alan Milburn, called postgraduate study a potential time-bomb and urged the government to commission an independent report to develop proposals for a loan system.

Next week, the Higher Education Commission, a cross-party group of senior leaders from industry, parliament and the education sector will add their voice to this call, publishing a major report on the future of postgraduate education. The report looks at the health of the postgraduate sector, identifies a number of challenges the postgraduate sector will face in the years to come, and considers in detail how a postgraduate loan scheme might work.

It is the final output of an eight-month inquiry chaired by Graham Spittle, vice president of IBM and former chair of the Technology Strategy Board, the UK's innovation agency. It draws on scores of interviews – with students, academics, employers, industrialists and vice chancellors – and thousands of pages of written evidence.

The commission warns that a perfect storm is on the horizon for postgraduates. Many institutions are increasing their tuition fees – either because of greater awareness of costs, or because of the flawed view that universities cannot possibly justify charging £3-4,000 fees for advanced education when undergraduates are paying £9,000. Such high fees will put already stretched funding schemes under greater pressure.

We conclude that the existing scheme of professional and career development loans for taught postgraduates is inadequate. Last year only 44% of those applying for a PCDL were successful, and the terms of such loans have been described by consumer finance experts and others as uncompetitive. It is clear that the status quo is not sufficient.

There is a widespread concern amongst employers and universities that students starting undergraduate courses this autumn, at a cost of £9,000 per year, will be less willing to enter postgraduate education when they graduate in 2015. A worrying number of current postgraduate students interviewed during the inquiry were unsure they would have entered further study had they studied under the new undergraduate finance system.

The report also highlights the growth in the number of international students over the past decade – the number of non-EU students has increased by 200%, while home and EU student enrolments have only increased by 18%. The proportion of British students progressing into postgraduate study within two years of completing a first degree is among the lowest in Europe. Only three countries in the Bologna higher education area have a progression rate below 10% – the other two are the Republic of Kazakhstan and the micro-state of Andorra.

Noting that most international students quickly return to their home countries, the commission warns that high numbers of international students cannot compensate for poor take-up of postgraduate education among the home-domiciled population. We call for an emphasis on up-skilling the UK population, which will involve dismantling some of the current barriers to participation.

Postgraduate skills are becoming increasingly important for entry to the labour market; there are a number of areas in which postgraduate study is becoming a de facto requirement for finding employment. There is a risk that existing inequalities in access to postgraduate study will multiply into inequalities in access to the professions. One vice chancellor giving evidence to the inquiry described postgraduate education as the "next frontier of widening participation."

The report looks beyond our borders, at the educational and industrial strategies which are being pursued by our competitors, and asks what labour market our country will need in the years to come. As global competition intensifies our focus will have to shift even further up the value chain. This will inevitably require a more highly-skilled workforce and more investment by industry, universities and government into research, development and training. We will need to tackle the UK's skills utilisation problem by better matching the skills and training people will need with the postgraduate courses available.

The commission concludes that urgent action is required to correct failures in conventional credit markets. Given the substantial wage premium from which the average postgraduate benefits, it should be possible to design a loan scheme in which the vast majority of money loaned is repaid. The commission calls upon the government to immediately establish a taskforce to develop proposals for such a system.

Such a scheme should be targeted rather than universal, and the report identifies three principles for prioritisation. The key principle is maximising value-added – the loan design should seek to minimise deadweight cost and should not crowd out existing streams of funding. We might wish to target loans at areas where we are currently underinvesting and which are strategically important to our future competitiveness. Alternatively we could prioritise funding on the basis of improving access to the professions – targeting loans at courses which are de facto requirements for entry into employment, or as Universities UK have suggested, identifying and targeting students that may not otherwise pursue postgraduate study.

There is a growing groundswell of support for a postgraduate student loan scheme. The challenge now, for the sector and policymakers alike, is developing a model which works.

Joel Mullan is senior researcher to the Higher Education Commission – the commission's report on postgraduate education will be launched in UK parliament on 29 October

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, become a member of the Higher Education Network.

The NCETM Professional Development Lead Support Programme: new opportunities for those leading professional development in mathematics. Are you interested in participating?

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:34:06 +0000

We are offering a series of free face-to-face events at which teaching schools and improvement agents will work together to develop their roles as providers of professional development - book your place now!

How to teach ... gravity

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:31:13 +0000

Felix Baumgartner's amazing 24-mile plunge to Earth is a great way to introduce the subject of gravity and the Guardian Teacher Network has lots of resources to help explain this force

As the saying goes, what goes up must come down (unless it goes into hyperbolic orbit). Felix Baumgartner's spectacular skydive from the edge of space was a perfect demonstration of gravity at work – gravity pulled the Austrian sportsman as closely as it could towards the Earth's centre and 10 heart-stopping minutes later he landed safely on the ground in a triple world record, including breaking the sound barrier for the first time.

Students will be fascinated to find out all about the Austrian sportsman's record-breaking skydive and to watch the mesmerising video. For Lego fans don't miss this incredible reconstruction.

So what is gravity and how does it work? The Guardian Teacher Network has plenty of resources to help you explore this fascinating force.

First of all it's worth pointing out the surprising fact that despite being responsible for the formation of whole galaxies, gravity is a very weak force. The fact can be easily demonstrated with this simple gravity experiment. Just why gravity is so weak is one of the questions the Large Hadron Collider is seeking to answer.

For a good basic introduction to gravity and weight see this interactive resource aimed at 11- to 14-year-olds, which explains gravitational force and how gravity is what gives weight to all objects of mass. See also Nasa's explanation of the force of gravity.

The Science Museum has some fantastic resources for gravity investigations in the primary classroom. Rocket Mice looks at how you can make a paper mouse hit the ceiling using forces and the power of air. Also find the associated activity sheet and the mouse template.

After carrying out the weak gravity experiment try getting a few more nails out with this activity idea from the Science Museum. The experiment uses gravity to balance and counterbalance 15 nails with spectacular results. Find the activity sheet here.

A handful of dried spaghetti, some marshmallow and chocolate eggs are the ingredients of a very exciting gravity experiment known as the Spaghetti challenge. Find out how to set up the experiment. There is also an activity sheet.

Don't miss the Science Museum's legendary Launchball educational game, which uses a real physics engine so that all the forces and materials represented in the game act on screen as they would do in the real world. Play the game here.

Thanks to Keith Gibbs, a retired physics teacher behind www.schoolphysics.co.uk, who has shared some fantastic resources with us on gravity. Keith's focus is on creating fun and unusual experiments to educate and stimulate secondary school-aged pupils – at the moment he's working with Cambridge International Examinations helping Mongolia to rewrite its science curriculum, which up until now has been almost entirely theory based.

See 10 inspirational gravity experiments taken from the gravity chapter of Keith Gibbs' book: The New Resourceful Physics Teacher.

Try this experiment, which uses a Barbie doll to investigate the physics and gravity involved in a bungee jump and explore the fall rate of a simple parachute.

Find out how heavy the sky diver Felix Baumgartner felt as he fell from the edge of space in this exploration of weightlessness.

To answer questions such as why communication satellites orbit the Earth, why if you throw a stone sideways it curves towards the ground and why big raindrops fall through the air faster than little raindrops, check out this lesson on gravity projectiles for secondary school-aged pupils.

Carry out three more experiments on the centre of gravity: this one, aimed at 14- to 16-year-olds, demonstrates how the attraction of the Earth's gravity acts on all bodies; this one for 16- to 19-year-olds deals with the centre of gravity and, lastly, an experiment that can be adapted for all ages on the centre of gravity of a pupil. And here's how to reconstruct Galileo's famous diluted gravity experiment.

A design and technology lesson for KS3 looks at the work of the great kite makers and explores the importance of the centre of gravity to kite designs.

This lesson on the Earth in space has a section on gravitational pull that explains that the closer an object, the stronger its gravitational pull, and what happens when two objects exert a gravitational force on each other.

To explore gravity in maths, find this A-level lesson looking at the work done by forces against resistance including gravity and friction. Also see these maths lessons on the founding father of gravity, Sir Isaac Newton's first, second and third laws of motion.

• Join the Guardian Teacher Network community www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network for free access to teaching resources and an opportunity to share your own. There are thousands of teaching, leadership and support jobs on the site. Visit jobs.guardian.co.uk/schools.

Emily Drabble

Lecturers strike over pay offer

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:13:46 +0000

Members of the EIS working in Scotland's higher education sector stage a one-day stoppage in a dispute over pay.

Fundraising in school - it's not all about shaking the charity can

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:00:01 +0000

Already thinking ahead to Red Nose Day 2013, Jo Robertson explains how Comic Relief had a powerful effect on her students' behaviour and learning

Our school is a large mixed comprehensive in Lincolnshire that prides itself not only on academic success, but also on creating a school ethos with relationships and community at its heart. As part of this, we actively encourage all students to get involved in fundraising activities for both local and international charities. Although our starting point was altruistic, we've found that at the same time as raising money for others we're reaping rich rewards as a school.

Our involvement with Comic Relief is a case in point. Three years ago we teamed up with Peterborough United for a Sport Relief event that proved a massive success. Seeing the enthusiasm and energy generated by this, we decided to make the Comic Relief causes a central part of our school year.

Since then students have increasingly stepped up to take the lead in organising events and coming up with fundraising ideas. For this year's Sport Relief, a working group of five boys led the way in enthusing and encouraging students and staff, creating a buzz and excitement that lasted throughout a whole week of activities. As a teacher, it's a joy to see students happily stepping out of their comfort zone for a good cause – memorable moments included watching some of the now coolest students in school donning tutus for a unique version of the Sport Relief dance.

Positive role models have been one of the main, and unexpected, benefits to emerge from our fundraising efforts. The working group students were transformed from geeks to heroes. They became hard working, conscientious learners that others now aspire to become. New groups of students have come forward to take the lead next year, building a legacy for the future.

Similarly, watching people coming out of their comfort zone (and making idiots of themselves by any ordinary standards) has set a great example for some of our less confident students, who have learnt to worry less about how others perceive them. Fundraising has proved a liberating context for individuals to develop in new and exciting ways.

Each year, we see a growing number of students with the confidence to come forward with their own fundraising ideas. Seeing these ideas through to fruition involves determination, planning, negotiation, hard work and risk taking. However, the elation students experience when they succeed and the pride they feel when they realise the impact they've made are palpable.

Staff have seen this increased confidence and can-do attitude carried through into students' attitude to learning. Although evidence is only anecdotal at this stage, teachers, pastoral leaders and senior managers all reported improvements in students' behaviour and engagement during last year's Sport Relief week. The genuine buzz created by fundraising events improved the atmosphere in school without at any point detracting from learning. We are planning to analyse behaviour data in the future to confirm this feedback.

But is this effect just temporary, or can it have longer term benefits? I think it can. For me, the engagement and enjoyment created during Comic Relief weeks is some of the greatest I have ever experienced as a teacher – not just since joining Deepings, but at any school. As a result, relationships with students are strengthened and improved. We are reminded how much they are capable of, and they see us in a different light as we share in some of the sillier moments. In my view, the long-term effects can be renewed energy, enthusiasm and enjoyment, on the part of both teacher and student.

In terms of classroom learning, we have found that organisations like Comic Relief make it easy for fundraising to be about raising awareness and understanding, as well as money. Building geography and PSHE schemes of work around the key Comic Relief goal, a just world free from poverty, has strengthened our curriculum. Students have gained a better understanding of, national and global organisations and have benefited immensely from the expertise and experience they offer. We have found that parents are particularly positive about this partnership working, actively encouraging their children to get involved and, in turn, supporting fundraising initiatives themselves.

So what's the upshot of all this? I guess it's that with some effort, fundraising can mean so much more to schools than just raising money for a good cause. We are extremely proud, as a school, that over the past three years we have raised in excess of £25,000 for Comic Relief. Less tangible perhaps, but just as real, is what we have gained as a school. How do you put a price on independence, excitement, engagement and enjoyment?

Jo Robertson is the head of the performance faculty at The Deepings School.

Red Nose Day 2013 is coming - here are a selection of the resources available for you to use on the Guardian Teacher Network

Primary assembly

Secondary assembly

Short film about Red Nose Day

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Sign up to the Guardian Teacher Network to get access to more than 100,000 pages of teaching resources and join our growing community. Looking for your next role? See our Guardian jobs for schools site for thousands of the latest teaching, leadership and support jobs

Bollywood in Britain - the legacy of Yash Chopra

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:46:12 +0000

Denied Kashmir, the great director turned to the English Lake District, Scotland and London as the background for ringing, singing declarations of on-screen love

The veteran Bollywood director, Yash Chopra, passed away this week at the age of 80. His death came just weeks before his much anticipated new release, Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012) was due to hit the big screen. Yash Chopra may have been one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of Indian cinema, yet he will always be remembered as his country's king of celluloid romance.

During a career of 53 years he launched some of Indian cinema's most iconic and commercially successful films. Smash hits such as Waqt (1965), Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Silsila (1981), Lamhe (1991) and Veer-Zaara (2004) captured the essence of Yash Chopra's sensibility – a highly-stylised presentation of the emotional dilemmas of the super-rich. If Yash Chopra's heroes were handsome fighter pilots or brooding poets, then his heroines were magnificently groomed in their chiffon saris. And when love was declared, usually in a song and dance sequence, it was done in a suitably scenic setting - amid the snow-capped Swiss Alps, in the tulip fields of Holland or on the rolling hills of the Lake District.

Chopra recognised the sense of excitement, escapism, adventure and aspiration that an exotic location could bring to a film, particularly one with romance at its heart, and so exotic backdrops quickly became his trademark.

Historically in Indian films, it was the mountainous region of Kashmir, widely regarded as 'heaven on earth' which represented idyllic surroundings for falling in love. Kashmir's scenery and landscape became so popular that lakes, trees and mountains became synonymous with romance in Bollywood. But when the terrorism threats of the late 1980s made the region difficult and then inaccessible, Yash Chopra began the trend of seeking substitutes overseas.

Consequently, Bollywood today plays a leading role in introducing alluring overseas destinations to India, currently the fastest-growing outbound tourist market in the world. Getting your country featured in the latest Bollywood blockbuster is as good as it gets when it comes to product placement. No wonder then that Bollywood personalities are courted by tourism agencies worldwide. Yash Chopra for instance, singlehandedly boosted tourism in Switzerland by regularly featuring the country's lakes, misty valleys and snow-capped mountains as the backdrop for his song and dance sequences. So grateful were the Swiss Tourism Authority that they named a lake after him.

The director also played a part in promoting Britain as a glamorous destination. His classic film Lamhe (1991) was shot in London and the Lake District. When he produced Mujhse Dosti Karoge a decade later, Chopra again returned to Ullswater to film aboard one of the steamers which ply between Glen Ridding and Pooley Bridge, reveling in the twisting lake, rolling fells and narrow, winding roads of the national park.

Yash Chopra's unique visual aesthetic has also influenced an entire generation of film makers. The 1995 film, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (which Chopra produced), not only marked his son Aditya's directorial debut, but it went on to become Indian cinema's longest-running blockbuster. Not only did the film feature some of London's best known tourist spots, but it was also one of the first to feature British Asians in its storyline – non-resident Indians (NRIs) as they're known in Bollywood terms.

One of Bollywood's hottest directors, Karan Johar, who is a goodwill ambassador for VisitBritain's four-year global 'Britain You're Invited' campaign, also cites Yash Chopra as a major influence. Although his recent films have been set in America, Johar's first two releases were extensively shot in Britain. To capitalise on this, VisitBritain, the national tourism agency responsible for marketing Britain overseas, published a Bollywood Movie Map, to encourage Indian fans to visit these British locations popularised in their favourite films. The map highlighted old and recent Bollywood productions and included Karan Johar's 1998 film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, whose title track alone was filmed at Glencoe, Ross Priory and Loch Lomond in Scotland. The list of British locations in his second release, Kabhi Khushie Kabhie Gham (2001) was even more exclusive – one song alone features King's College, Cambridge, Blenheim Palace, Cardiff's Millennium Stadium and the British Museum's Great Court.

Chopra remained faithful to his favourite British locations until the very end. The video for one of the songs for his final film, Jab Tak Hai Jaan (due out on 13 November, to coincide with Diwali) features one of the most extravagant displays of London's tourist destinations ever witnessed in a Bollywood film.

Irna Qureshi is an anthropologist and writer on British Asian culture. She blogs about being British, Muslim and female in Bradford against a backdrop of classic Indian films songs. Her latest work, Cartographies of Love, is a live performance based on intimate conversations with three generations of Muslim women in and around Bradford.

Gove apology to his old teacher

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:49:31 +0000

Gove apologises to his former French teacher for his bad behaviour in class 30 years ago.

Postgrad system 'failing economy'

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:38:52 +0000

The postgraduate system in the UK's universities is failing to produce enough highly-skilled staff needed by a modern economy, warns a report.

Letters: Let's celebrate those visionary plebs

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:25 +0000

Your editorial (Unthinkable? Revive the Plebs League, 20 October) appeared on the day that over 100,000 marchers against austerity cuts joined trade union demonstrations in London, with tens of thousands more in Glasgow and Belfast.

The League of the Plebs was the name taken by trade union students at Ruskin College in Oxford in July 1908, in tribute to the secessio plebis in 494BC, the first general strike in recorded history, in protest at the plebians' debt servitude to Rome's hereditary patrician class.

How fitting therefore to revive the league, as David Cameron names Tory patrician Sir George Young as chief whip and in the year that TUC delegates vote to consider the practicalities of a general strike.

Access to education provision is being driven back to the days when trade union sponsorship was required for working men (and a few women) to glimpse higher learning.

Worryingly, the institution most famously associated with working-class and trade union education, Ruskin College, has recently betrayed its trust to our movement (Letters, 9 October). College management and governors have ordered the shredding of student files from 1900 to 2000 (when figures such as Charles Watkins and William Craik of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and Noah Ablett of the South Wales Miners' Federation attended the college) containing irreplaceable information of interest to historians of labour. This destruction must be halted and a secure home found for the surviving and future records of our movement.

If there was ever a time for a revival of the Plebs League to guard against such hostile acts and to foster independent working class education, it is now. As Plebs magazine announced in February 1909: "Enter the Plebs, not from above but from below, not to fight a sham battle among the shadows by the orders and for the interests of our masters, but to fight a real battle in the full light and with a clear knowledge of the issue before us."
Alex Gordon (president) and Bob Crow (general secretary)
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)

• The managers of Ruskin College claim no one ever looks at these archives. The revival of the use of the word pleb, and the interest in the Plebs League serves to remind us how long-forgotten themes in working-class history can resurface in ways that no one would have predicted.
Dr Bob Cant
Brighton

• The Plebs League should also be celebrated as part of wider pressures for pluralism and diffusing power within the pre-1914 labour movement. In The Miners' Next Step Noah Ablett and his comrades condemned state nationalisation for creating a bureaucratic, centralised "National Trust", in terms relevant today for Jon Cruddas's important reappraisal of Labour's ideas. The league ought to be remembered not for its outdated Marxism, still less for the boorishness of the recent Tory chief whip, but for a visionary liberationist text of social citizenship and industrial democracy. Only thus could mankind "live as men and not as the beasts which perish".
Kenneth O Morgan
Witney, Oxfordshire

• The Plebs League did indeed want to engage the excluded in politics through education and organisation, but it also encouraged agitation. It is instructive to return to that era and to study it, not least the very healthy and sometimes even vicious exchanges, between the league and the Workers' Educational Association (WEA).

The Plebs League is no more, but the Workers' Educational Association is still very much here, 110 years after its formation, and remains the largest adult education provider and movement in England and Scotland, reaching 70,000 adults each year in hundreds of communities and working with a rich variety of partners, from trade unions and local authorities to other charities, like MIND, and very small local voluntary and community organisations. Furthermore, the WEA remains committed to education with a social purpose, encouraging working-class adults and excluded groups to engage in learning – exploring the world, understanding what is going on and seeking social and political change and progress. Crucially, it challenges the notion that education is for "other people". RH Tawney, one of the great intellectuals who helped mould the WEA in its infancy, said in 1931 its business "is not to organise classes for whom, in the circumstances of today, it may for one reason or another be easiest to attract. It is to create a demand for education in individuals and bodies who at the moment may be unconscious of its importance to them, but who, if a tolerable society is to be created, must be won to believe in it."

How true that vision and purpose remains today. The WEA's vision, recently updated, is clear in this regard, stating that it seeks "a better world – equal, democratic and just". In practical terms that includes offering a broad programme of courses and learning activities, including a growing body of work seeking to engage the disengaged, disillusioned and demoralised in political discourse and active politics.

You say that engaging the excluded in politics "through education and organisation … sounds like a worthy ambition". It is indeed and in a small way the WEA is on to the job.
Jol Miskin
Regional education manager, WEA Yorkshire and Humber (wea.org.uk)

It is quite true that the Plebs League was an admirable, radical adult education organisation. Sadly, the league (and many other such bodies) no longer exist. However, the WEA (Workers' Educational Association) delivers accessible programmes of learning for more than 70,000 adult students each year. We work in deprived communities, and a high proportion of our students are "disadvantaged" – many are coming into education for the first time since negative experiences at school. The WEA is unique in its democratic structures and governance, and provides a beacon of hope in many deprived communities.

Above all, the WEA has retained and developed its social purpose, radical emphases and makes a major contribution to ameliorating at least some of the educational and social problems in our deeply unequal society.
Professor Richard Taylor
Chair, WEA board of trustees

• The Labour colleges were not absorbed into the party after the 1926 general strike, as you say, but continued independently and, in 1921, expanded into the National Council of Labour Colleges, running weekend, evening and postal courses for workers until 1964 when it was taken over by the TUC. The tradition of independent, radical education badly needs reviving.
Richard Ross
Centre for Trade Union Studies, London Metropolitan University

How can teachers help to improve social mobility?

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:16 +0000

The school improvement movement has worked, says Estelle Morris – now we need to do the same for improving pedagogy

Creating a school system that delivers greater social mobility now seems to feature on everyone's list of priorities. Alan Milburn, the government adviser on social mobility, has just presented his report calling for a return of the education maintenance allowance and for universities to increase their outreach efforts. Although none of the political parties has chosen to address the biggest class divide – that created by private education – the debate about how to close the attainment gap within the state system is very much alive.

A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank, therefore, makes essential reading. Two connected statistics update the accepted wisdom. The first shows that the social class divide narrowed in the four years up to 2010, even when only the subjects that now make up the English baccalaureate are compared. The second shows that since then the gap has begun to widen.

It is difficult to isolate the factors behind these trends, but given the link between deprivation and academic achievement, the IPPR report concludes that the fall in child poverty in the latter part of the last decade, and the consequences of the recession and rising unemployment at the start of this, are part of the explanation.

However, even within this economic climate there is overwhelming evidence that what happens in schools makes a difference.

Over two or more decades, efforts to close this achievement gap have overwhelmingly concentrated on policies designed to create more good and outstanding schools – the school improvement movement. There is strong evidence about what makes a good school and the increase in the number of effective schools is testament to the spread of this best practice – a relentless focus on leadership, aspiration and measurable progress. As a result, standards have improved in all social groups – but the gap between them remains. School improvement is essential, but it does not seem to be enough.

The IPPR report moves the argument beyond general school improvement to the need for targeted classroom initiatives for those children who are falling behind. Unfortunately, our education system has a relatively weak track record in this area.

In some ways this should come as no surprise. The tradition of evidence-based practice is not as strong in teaching as it is in other professions. There is no recognised structure that evaluates new teaching ideas or research findings; research isn't easily accessible to teachers and they have little time to seek it out.

This was powerfully highlighted in the recent evaluation of the pupil premium. Early evidence found that schools were not spending the money on those initiatives that have been proven to have the greatest impact on improving standards for disadvantaged children. This is despite the fact that the Sutton Trust published high-quality, well presented research on this very issue – but how many teachers were even aware of it when they were deciding how to spend the extra resource?

Most schools understand and act on the evidence behind school improvement. It has become a shared body of knowledge with a common language that is widely understood. We need now to do the same for improvement in pedagogy.

The government's approach causes additional problems. It is interventionist on school improvement, but determined to "leave it to teachers" on pedagogy. So, swift action on poor leadership or low overall attainment, but hands off if teachers are not using teaching approaches that stand the best chance of helping lower-achieving pupils.

This government has shifted the centre of the debate and made a strong and persuasive case for professional autonomy. However, if progress is to be made on kick-starting social mobility, a balance must be struck between the right to professional freedom and the responsibility to exercise it in a way that has the greatest benefit for children. The two are not exclusive. Getting that particular balance right would be an important step towards delivering those things we know can improve social mobility.

The good news is that we now know more about the pupil-level strategies that will close the social class gap. The challenge is to make sure they are used in the classroom.

Estelle Morris

On the Guardian Teacher Network ... how Tim Brighouse would improve the exam system

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:15 +0000

This week, six leading education thinkers, including Tim Brighouse, give their ideas for school reform in a blog on Andrew Adonis's book, Education, Education, Education

Two years ago, London became the only rich world capital city in which student achievement was higher than the national average, and last year its schools startlingly outperformed schools in all other English regions.

Given that London is the most diverse world city with more than 300 languages spoken in its schools, a highly mobile population with some schools experiencing half their students leaving during their secondary education and some of the most acute poverty in the country, this is some achievement.

It really wasn't always like this and the reason it is now dates back, most education insiders acknowledge, to the introduction of the London Challenge in 2002 and the then secretary of state for education, Estelle Morris. She appointed a minister for London schools – Stephen Twigg, now the shadow education secretary; and, most tellingly, a commissioner for London schools, Tim Brighouse now Sir Tim – the outstanding teacher, academic and education leader.

Brighouse had managed to turn Birmingham's schools round before he arrived to be the commissioner for London schools, and Birmingham had generally been considered the worst-performing local education authority in England before he became chief education officer there.

So it might pay dividends to listen to what he is saying about necessary education reform in a piece published on the Guardian Teacher Network today.

His comments are reported in a blog on a book by Andrew (Lord) Adonis, the former Labour schools minister and architect of the academies programme. The book, Education, Education, Education: Reforming England's Schools (www.bitebackpublishing.com) makes the case for completing the structural reformation of the country's state school system, which began with the opening of the first city academy in 2002 – the year Brighouse became the London schools tsar.

If Labour returns to power, Adonis could be in the running to be the next education secretary. He knows that any incoming government must hit the ground running and his book is full of his own education plans.

But perhaps a few more would not go amiss?

In the blog, six leading education thinkers give their ideas on school reform. In his part of the blog, "Change the exam system", Sir Tim makes this "trust the teachers" comment:

"GCSE exams are expensive. They drain £600m each year from school budgets and give £70m profit to three exam boards in return for 'smoke and mirror' exams with at least a 10% error and a confused mixture of normative and criterion referencing that involves taking into account the performance of the age group five years earlier.

"Instead, let's have an exam system based on university methods – internally marked and externally validated and moderated on criterion referencing by chartered teacher examiners.

"Accredit each school for its assessment reliability. Revive Sir Mike Tomlinson's plan to replace GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications with a single diploma at age 18, but set tests at age 13 in English, maths and ICT skills.

Such reforms would place trust in teachers, save money and improve the reliability of exams."

If you would like to read what the other five thinkers said, or comment yourself, read "2015 and beyond: what's next for school reform?"

• The Guardian Teacher Network – jobs, free resources, ideas, careers advice and professional debate available every minute, every day guardian.co.uk/teacher-network

Wendy Berliner

Global Campaign for Education – wanted: young campaigners to go to Delhi

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:14 +0000

Winners of the Steve Sinnott award will travel to India for the the Global Campaign for Education

After 20 minutes bent double in Diya's small plot beside the maize fields, Eilidh Naismith and Billy Davidson were aching and muddy. Diya, an 11-year-old Malawian girl who left school at the age of six and works among the crops every day so that she can afford to eat, looked at the weeding they had done and calculated that it would have earned them the equivalent of about a penny each.

It was a tough moment in a tough day. But it was one of many that helped Eilidh and Billy, this year's young ambassadors for the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), to understand what life is like for the 67 million children around the world who miss out on school. They used that experience to encourage more pupils to join them in reminding world leaders of their millennium promise to make sure every child can get an education by 2015.

Now, the search is on for two bright, articulate and passionate 14- or 15-year-olds from year 10 to take on the role in 2013. The winners of the Steve Sinnott award will travel to the Indian capital, Delhi, with Oxfam to investigate the barriers to education children there face, before returning to the UK to address teachers, pupils, media and MPs on the issue. They will have the chance to challenge politicians on the part the coalition government is playing to bring an end to the crisis in global education. Entries for the Steve Sinnott award must be in by 12 November. Sinnott, the former NUT general secretary, who died suddenly in 2008, was a passionate advocate for education for all and a committed member of the GCE. The award is funded in his memory and his widow, Mary, will be one of the judges.

Each pair of students must produce a presentation illustrating how their school has been involved in the Send My Friend to School campaign this year, give details of what personal skills they would bring to the role of ambassador and explain why they feel passionate about the issue.

Go to: www.sendmyfriend.org/news/steve-sinnott-award-2013

Rachel Williams

'Postgraduate study is the next social mobility timebomb'

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:13 +0000

A new report warns the UK is heading for a shortage of academics because too few students feel they can afford postgraduate study

With seismic changes planned for school exams and undergraduate fee increases still fresh, the government might have hoped to keep postgraduate issues tucked safely away in a study. But it would do so at the UK's peril, suggests a report to be published next week.

In it, the Higher Education Commission, a cross-party group of MPs and representatives from business and academia, paints a dire picture of the country's economic future and global position unless postgraduate education is "brought in from the cold" and treated as part of a holistic vision for education.

It describes postgraduates as "the new frontier of widening participation", arguing that while postgraduate qualifications are increasingly becoming the norm for many professions and careers, higher undergraduate fees and banks' unwillingness to offer loans make this level of study less and less accessible for poorer or debt-averse students.

"If we don't pay attention … this area of education will be closed to some people because of cost and accessibility," says Graham Spittle, chair of the commission. "We will probably not be able to grow the indigenous talent we need to staff our universities, which, if you like, are the factories that groom the next generation. We are probably hindering ourselves from getting the strong technical leaders and entrepreneurs that society is going to need – that we're all going to need – in the future."

The commission, he says, found clear evidence that students did not want to increase their level of debt by going on to postgraduate study and some had already decided against it for that reason.

Referring to postgraduate education as a "social-mobility timebomb", the report echoes Alan Milburn, former Labour minister, now government adviser, who called last week for universities to make more efforts to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Milburn used the same phrase in an interview with the Higher Education Careers Services Unit's magazine earlier this year, adding: "Everyone agrees that nobody should be barred from undergraduate education because they can't afford fees, and yet we completely accept this barrier when it comes to postgraduate education. The fact is, postgraduate education is not a luxury for the individual, it is a necessity for our economy and wider society." His fear was that the problem required money and there was not much of that around.

The commission's report says to avoid spending on postgraduates would be a false economy, warning that "education and skills is one of the key fronts on which the battle to maintain competitiveness will be fought", with India, China and South Korea proving an increasing threat.

Spittle says: "Some of this will cost money, but the opportunity cost is unbelievable given that we want to become a skills-based economy. I think we have no choice but to pay attention to this area. It doesn't all have to be funded out of the public purse, but we need to strategically make choices as a country about what we are doing here and not just let market forces take their effect."

The report agrees with Milburn's proposals last week that some kind of postgraduate loan scheme is needed, and goes further, calling for a taskforce to be set up immediately to look into how it might work, reporting by December next year with a view to having something in place by September 2015, when the first undergraduates to pay £9,000 tuition fees will be graduating. This should please students, who have been looking for clear recognition that financial help for postgraduates is urgently needed.

There are even suggestions of different loan schemes that could be considered, including one drafted by Tim Leunig, now an adviser to the education secretary, Michael Gove, which could help propel the idea through parliament.

In the long term, the report suggests, undergraduate and postgraduate funding should be integrated. It also proposes that future postgraduate applications should be processed, like those of undergraduates, through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. This would make it easier to monitor admissions data, including information about the socio-economic backgrounds of students.

This idea of a more seamless sector is perhaps not surprising from a commission specifically set up to take a broad, strategic view. This is its first report and it will decide at a meeting this week what to tackle next.

Postgraduates were chosen as the first area to look at because they were seen as a neglected part of the sector, in spite of a review carried out just over two years ago by Adrian Smith, now vice-chancellor of the University of London. This identified a need for more information about postgraduates and called for Lord Browne to consider how they should be funded in his report on student finance, then in the pipeline.

In the event, Lord Browne's report hardly touched on this part of the sector, and the Smith review was largely overtaken by a change of government and the impact of higher undergraduate fees, although there has been much more emphasis since on postgraduate data collection.

Spittle says that nothing in the commission's report contradicts Smith's review but "the world is a very different place". "We refer to a perfect storm facing students today. And that is something that is new and was not around three years ago."

What has also changed is the government's stance on immigration, with tougher visa regulations making it harder for postgraduates to stay on after they finish their studies and the government's pledge to reduce immigration to "tens of thousands a year".

The commission warns that the higher education sector would be "significantly damaged, particularly at postgraduate level," were this pledge realised, with many courses in strategically important disciplines relying on international students to remain viable. It predicts course and even departmental closures and long-term damage to British research capacity and competitiveness, and calls for students to be removed from the immigration cap completely.

Recent proposals by the universities minister, David Willetts, to produce disaggregated immigration figures for students are not enough, it says, warning of a "climate of uncertainty for prospective and current international students which does not inspire confidence for those considering investing in a British university education", not helped by 14 changes to student immigration regulations since 2009. It is also concerned that making it harder for postgraduates to stay on after their degrees means the UK is in effect training its competitors, becoming "the education outsourcing capital of the world".

The commission has strong words for the government but there remain question marks over whether it will have any teeth. Spittle says he has spoken to Willetts about the report and, while he is non-committal about the minister's reaction, says he is "optimistic" that it will lead to action because of the broad spread of opinion it reflects – from politicians on all sides of both Houses of Parliament, students, universities and business – and the degree of consensus reached.

He also believes the time is right. "I think we have to look at the whole system end to end, starting with young children, all the way through their schooling, through university, to right at the high end of that process," he says.

As chief technology officer of IBM and a former chair of the Technology Strategy Board, with an MA in geography from Edinburgh University, Spittle says systems thinking shows that actions taken early on in a cycle have a significant impact down the line. "I don't think this is a minority game," he says. "I think this is a very important part of the UK economy. I think it's also a very important part of social mobility."

Harriet Swain

Education proposals: what do other teachers think?

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:12 +0000

We asked other teachers and heads what they thought of the ideas for change proposed by a new pressure group

Tim Taylor, Advanced skills teacher at Dussindale primary school, Norwich

The list is a good one. I might add the following:

• Scrap primary league tables and external marked testing at KS2;

• Keep Ofsted but make it entirely independent of government. I agree with changing the emphasis from judgment to improvement;

• Formation of an independent professional body with a mandate to raise the professional reputation of teaching and to support the research and development of teaching approaches and curriculum learning;

• Make governing bodies smaller and make it mandatory for at least 50% of governors to have a background in education.

Jodie Lopez-Collins, Freelance advisory teacher and consultant

I think there should be no cap on the standard grade, but things like the A* could be capped so that, say, the top 2% of pupils in the country get A*s. I'm worried about the idea of local partnerships assessing schools because there needs to be accountability at national level to have consistency. But helping to improve needs to be an in-built part of Ofsted. While it may be good to have an independent curriculum and assessment agency without political control, giving public money to a private agency causes more moral dilemmas than it solves.

Phil Allman, Head of Olney middle school, Buckinghamshire

My recommendation is to stop over-relying on data for the way schools are judged. It obscures the inspection process when it comes to making decisions about how effective a school is. The other key thing for me is if we are going to retain and recruit the right people, then attitudes towards the profession and towards the education system as a whole should be much more positive.

Lee Donaghy, Assistant headteacher at Park View school, Birmingham

I don't think schools are just judged by the number of pupils achieving [at least] five Cs at 16. That's the very public headline people see, but increasingly schools are having to think a lot more seriously about the progress pupils make elsewhere. Re the idea of an independent curriculum and assessment body, as we have seen with Ofqual, the fact that a body is independent doesn't necessarily mean it will get things right or be separate from political interference. My recommendation is that while we do need structural reform, we need to have an absolute focus on the quality of what happens in the classroom and on investing in teachers' professional development. Too often we send people off on courses. Instead we should be harnessing the resources in school by getting teachers to work together.

Harriet Swain

Tweeting headteachers plan to reform education

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:00:12 +0000

A group of heads who 'met' on Twitter have formed a pressure group to get their grassroots ideas heard by policymakers

Teachers and headteachers could be forgiven for thinking that they get the worst of all worlds: obliged to implement the latest ministerial whims, without having any real influence themselves on policies that directly affect a job they feel passionately about. But could the explosion of social media be about to change all that?

The saga of this summer's GCSE results provoked a torrent of online comment and communication among teachers and heads. Now one group – mostly secondary headteachers – has come together via the social networking site Twitter to form an embryonic pressure group.

In their sights they have the shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg. Their schools may be poles apart in terms of geography and social context, but they are united in their view that an alternative to current education policy is needed fast, and that Labour is the best hope of achieving it.

Education writer and blogger Ian Gilbert came up with the idea of translating online activity into something more concrete after reflecting on Twitter's potential for "social outrage" – but also its limits. "You can give vent in an informed way and find information," he explains. "But you can also sit back in the evening with a glass of wine tweeting and think you have done your bit for society.

"I realised we needed to go further and get together people who have something to say. A strong theme coming through the social media was a frustration with current policy, but also frustration with no alternatives from Labour. We want to put forward the voices of people who know what they are doing. People who are in it for the kids, for the right reasons, to discuss what has and hasn't been good and come up with some concrete alternatives."

The group – which has no name yet – met at the Guardian's offices to discuss their ideas. So what is good in the current landscape? The heads, from a mixture of maintained and academy schools, who were joined by Dr Phil Wood from Leicester University's school of education, cite the focus on disadvantaged pupils and the release of data as being the most positive developments.

But the positives risk being undermined by too much political interference in curriculum and qualifications, an accountability system focused on an ever narrower range of exams, a continuing divide between vocational and academic qualifications – Labour's Tech Bacc attracted as much derision from these school leaders as the education secretary's English Baccalaureate Certificates – and moves towards a norm-referenced qualifications system in which only fixed numbers of students can achieve certain grades.

"We are moving back to a 'sheep and goats system' that will stratify society in terms of attainment and potential," said Ros McMullen, principal of the David Young community academy in Leeds.

"We need to be able to measure improvement and this requires an objective measure where students' attainment is judged against an unmoving standard, not one where only a certain percentage of students are allowed to hit certain grades. People should be talking about this."

Several clear themes emerged about how an alternative policy might be shaped if Labour was "brave enough" to set out something profoundly different "rather than hang on the coat-tails of the Tories", said John Tomsett, a prolific blogger and head of Huntington school in York.

At its heart should be a de-politicisation of curriculum and qualifications, an independent body made up of teaching professionals to drive policy in this area, and a radically different approach to assessment and accountability, the heads agreed.

Proposed changes to GCSEs were described as "an inadequate preparation for 21st-century life" that will only fuel what Vic Goddard, headteacher of Passmores academy in Essex, described as a growing tension between "doing what is right for our school and for our children".

"What we have to do isn't always the same as what we need to do. We want an acceptance that education is about more than five exams. It is about the full journey and everything else that comes with it."

A new form of assessment would have to guarantee rigour and high standards, place no caps on aspiration, but also incorporate other non-exam-based measurements that offer the chance for "success at every level" – a particular concern to those in special needs education, who fear that their children will be "consigned to the scrap heap before they start", according to Dave Whittaker, head of Springwell special school in Barnsley.

"We must be able to celebrate success at every level so that pupils with SEN aren't left without motivation or aspiration. This would mean a holistic view of achievement that can genuinely show progress over time and in context. It is not fair that our pupils' equivalent to the EBacc is a report that says "never mind, you failed, but please try again sometime".

One suggestion is to move away from exams at 16 towards the International Baccalaureate learner profile. "The IB is an internationally highly rated qualification that includes skills and competencies," argued Tomsett. "Our assessment system must move away from pure examinations and towards a blended range of assessments like personal projects, extended essays, oral skills, as well as formal exams. The fact that Labour can only come up with a Tech Bacc in response to the EBacc simply highlights the paucity of their thinking."

Another theme was Ofsted and its focus on one-off judgments rather than supporting improvement. This, said the school leaders, should be addressed by transferring resources to local school improvement partnerships, and investment in professional development for teachers, allied to a national annual release of all performance data to schools and parents.

"I want to be held accountable locally," said Goddard. "We are publicly funded with the most precious resource in the world – our children – but don't just tell me where I am going wrong. I want the people who are holding me to account to be part of the journey of making me better."

These individuals could be described as being part of what is now called the "magic middle" in social media. Not celebrities or the political commentariat, but trusted, persuasive experts with years of experience who blog and tweet and have the power to mobilise opinion. In other fields, businesses are trying to woo such people. When it comes to schools policy, are politicians behind the curve?

A spokesperson for Stephen Twigg said he would be willing to meet the group's members and described their ideas as "interesting". Some, including regional versions of Ofsted, reform of assessment and the 14-19 curriculum, were already being considered by Labour's policy review, he said, adding "we agree there shouldn't be an artificial cap on aspiration".

Education Guardian will be following the group's progress.

Five-point plan

• Schools should be assessed in a range of ways, not just judged by the numbers achieving five specific grades at 16;

• Ofsted should be replaced by local partnerships that would hold schools to account and help them to improve;

• The curriculum and assessment should be taken out of political control and given to an independent agency (under licence for 20 years);

• The government should encourage small families of local schools in preference to large national chains;

• "Norm referencing" in exam grading is not fair, ie capping the number of students who can achieve a certain grade. There shouldn't be a cap on what individual pupils can achieve.

• Join the movement by tweeting @thatiangilbert or @johntomsett

Fiona Millar

Britain's postgrad crisis puts us on the same level as Kazakhstan

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:00:00 +0000

The UK is one of only three countries in Europe where fewer than 10 per cent of students go on to postgraduate study, a major report has revealed.

Sorry I was such a rebel, says Gove. Not a bit of it – you were a goody two-shoes, says his teacher

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:00:00 +0000

It is something that most of Britain's teachers could only dream about – receiving a written apology from Michael Gove.

High school popularity pays off in bigger grown-up paychecks, study finds

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:56:44 +0000

Economists find popular students tend to have better social skills later on in the workplace, which pays off with higher earnings

Bad news, nerds. Those years of high school spent shuttered in a darkened room programming computers or playing Dungeons & Dragons might not pay off with a paycheck.

A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research released Monday says there is a positive correlation between a person's popularity in high school and how much money they will make.

The researchers estimate that moving from the 20th percentile of high school popularity to the 80th percentile yields a 10% wage premium 40 years after graduation.

They determined students' popularity by asking more than 4,300 males from Wisconsin high schools to name their three best friends from their senior class in high school. By the study's criteria, the students who received the most votes are the most popular.

Only men were surveyed because the sampling group attended high school in 1957, and women who graduated from high school at that time had fewer job opportunities.

Even incremental increases in popularity had monetary benefits for the average high schooler. A unit increase in expected number of friendships translates into 2% higher wages 35 years later.

That increase is equivalent to 40% the wage premium that comes from an additional year in education. So, skipping SAT prep for a party might actually be worth it.

To determine the labor market returns for popularity, the researchers also investigated what makes people popular in high school.

To the chagrin of teens everywhere, the criteria they determined for acquiring popularity are more abstract than wearing the right clothes and being attractive (though those always help).

People who come from warm family environments, have similar characteristics to their classmates and whose qualities are relatively better than their classmates' tend to have more friendships.

A person with a higher degree of those things and more social skills is more likely to get a friendship nomination. Which, again, correlates to more money.

The idea is the more friends one acquires, the more skills for building positive social relationships they must have. People who can build positive social relationships are also better suited to adjust to social situations.

Having those skills also makes it easier for people to migrate from the social circles of the high school world to the social circles of the working world.

The respondents entered the professional world before the widespread dissemination of the internet, which means the value of Facebook friending or LinkedIn requesting the person someone sat next to in math once are unaccounted for.

Amanda Holpuch

World's oldest undeciphered writing

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:28:09 +0000

World’s oldest undeciphered writing to be decoded

High-flyer wins teaching award

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 17:26:18 +0000

The winner of one of this year's top prizes in the annual teaching awards chose a career in the classroom rather than in university.

Workers' maths to be challenged

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:33:43 +0000

Employers are being asked to help workers boost their numeracy skills amid fears that poor maths is blighting Britain's economic performance.

A golden dawn for tech city - The Independent

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:34:57 +0000

The Independent

A golden dawn for tech city
The Independent
“Some of the largest available spaces, such as the media centre and technology infrastructure centres, are prime examples of the type of spaces that the Google and Facebook equivalents of tomorrow could become part of.” According to Landau, the ...

and more »

Disabled 'fearful of income loss'

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 02:01:47 +0000

Eight out of 10 people claim losing their disability living allowance will drive them into isolation, a coalition of 90 disabled people's groups says.

UK firms urged to back drive for numeracy

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Britain's bosses are being urged to make sure all their employees have at least the maths skills of a 14-year-old in a new drive exposing the poor numeracy of many school leavers.

Zephaniah warns on black history

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:32:00 +0000

Performance poet Benjamin Zephaniah says black and Asian pupils are turned off by history because they are only told "half the story" in British schools.

Let gifted students swap universities, says Lord Rees

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds should be able to swap universities after two years and transfer to a Russell Group institution if they show talent, according to one of the country's top scientists.

VIDEO: More students migrating to Asia

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:55:56 +0000

Increasing numbers of students from Western countries who face unemployment are choosing to move east to Asia

Cash offered to teach computing

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:32:09 +0000

High-flying graduates are to be given a £20,000 golden handshake to train as computer science teachers.

Further Mathematics Support Programme free KS4 extension and enrichment events: booking now open

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:34:56 +0000

The FMSP is holding a national series of free two-day CPD events focusing on developing problem solving skills and providing extension and enrichment for Key Stage 4 students working towards the Higher Tier GCSE (or equivalent).

City's child services condemned

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:24:30 +0000

The effectiveness of Birmingham City Council's arrangements for protecting children is judged "inadequate" by Ofsted.

'Few bedtime stories for some'

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:24:12 +0000

Nearly a third of UK parents say they read their children a bedtime story only once a week or less often, a survey suggests.

NRICH STEM Teacher Inspiration Days 2012-13: have you booked your free place yet?

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:47:14 +0000

NRICH is holding three STEM Teacher Inspiration Days in 2012-13, on Friday 7 December 2012, Wednesday 17 April 2013 and Thursday 4 July 2013. You can book your free place now.

Are you teaching students resitting GCSE Mathematics this year?

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:24:08 +0000

We have a new package of resources for those teaching students resitting GCSE Mathematics, sorted by topic and set within a CPD framework.

Local networking opportunities for providers of mathematics CPD

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:23:28 +0000

We are pleased to be able to support a programme of local network meetings for providers of mathematics CPD across England, which continues with a further round of meetings from November 2012 to January 2013. These are for existing local network members and any other providers who would like to attend.

Primary Host Schools Project for the NCETM

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:22:45 +0000

This is a project to support a national network of schools who are judged to be outstanding in their development of children’s arithmetic proficiency, involving 20 or 30 schools spread throughout England. These schools are acting as Host Schools to local networks of schools, which will be designated Visiting Schools. These will be schools who would like to improve their children’s fluency in using and applying arithmetic skills and reasoning to solve problems.

VIDEO: Charity marks 100th Auschwitz visit

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 06:30:36 +0000

A charity which aims to take two pupils from every UK school to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz in Poland has marked its 100th trip.

Boris urges city-wide school body

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 01:46:32 +0000

London mayor Boris Johnson calls for a city-wide body to deal with education in the capital.

Former Intel CEO on Improving Math, Science Education - Fox Business

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 01:17:17 +0000

Former Intel CEO on Improving Math, Science Education
Fox Business
Former Intel CEO on Improving Math, Science Education. Advertisement. Details. Description. Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett on the changing landscape of the technology sector and how to help the educational system keep up with the changes. Duration 6: ...

Free schools 'must increase their intake of poorer pupils'

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

New free schools should be blocked unless they pledge to increase the number of pupils from poor homes attending leading universities, the Government's social mobility tsar declared yesterday.

Top grade GCSE passes fall for first time in 10 years

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

The number of students obtaining five top grade GCSE passes including maths and English has fallen for the first time in a decade.

Helping the young make the grade

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:46:02 +0000

Are universities the key to social mobility?

Boris education 'blueprint' calls for 'gold club' of London schools

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:06:55 +0000

A new “gold club” of schools should be established to stretch the brightest pupils and ensure they aim high for A* or A grade passes at GCSE, a blueprint for education published by London Mayor Boris Johnson declared today.

AUDIO: UK launches spy apprenticeships

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:35:49 +0000

Professor Barry Cooper told BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast how spies, including code-breakers, helped to end World War II.

Government launches spy school

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:25:59 +0000

The government launches an apprenticeship scheme for spies which will target young people regardless of their academic background.

Fewer students achieve three or more top A-level grades

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:40:53 +0000

Falling numbers of sixth-formers scored three or more top A-level grades this summer, official figures show.

First fall in GCSE A*-C grades recorded

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:30:25 +0000

Fewer teenagers scored at least five Cs at GCSE this year - the first time the numbers have dropped in almost a decade.

Watchdog questions college reform

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 08:44:21 +0000

Scotland's spending watchdog wants government ministers to clarify exactly what the college sector reform will achieve and how it will be paid for.

Is studying non-fiction the way to improve education standards?

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 08:11:44 +0000

There is no more troubling fact about US education than this: The reading scores of 17-year-olds have shown no significant improvement since 1980.

Coffee shop rise closes uni bar

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 07:34:06 +0000

A student bar at a university closes due to falling alcohol sales, as coffee shop culture becomes increasingly common at campuses.

Government's childcare plan is hitting teething problems

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Ask Gabi Wainwright about her chosen career as a childcarer and she will regale you with tales of her godson Finley Joe, to whom she devoted hours of attention every day while her friend, the boy's mother, was working.

Chalk Talk: Drop the exam papers and put your hands up - this is a raid!

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

The job of chief exams regulator, it seems, is becoming more exciting by the minute.

VIDEO: Universities in England 'should fund grants'

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:48:29 +0000

New report recommends universities in England should fund grants like the scrapped education maintenance allowance.

Memorial for bullied suicide teen

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:51:37 +0000

Tributes for Canadian teenager who killed herself

A-level students facing shake-up

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:06:30 +0000

Voluntary work and an extended essay could be part of a shake-up facing A-level students in England.

Pupils take fewer days off school

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:56:20 +0000

Pupils in England's primary and secondary schools took less time off school last year, Department for Education data shows.

Truancy rate 'falls to 5%'

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:06:15 +0000

Pupils missed fewer lessons last year as children took less time off sick, official figures suggest.

Music industry 'helps' unemployed

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:01:07 +0000

The music industry 'helps' unemployed with courses

Thousands of schools will be exposed 'coasting' as a result of tougher new inspection regime

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:00:46 +0000

Thousands of schools will be exposed as “coasting” as a result of a tougher new inspection regime, a former top policy adviser to David Cameron warns today.

Afghan girls' education praised

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:49:08 +0000

Afghanistan has overcome more obstacles than any other country in its efforts to educate girls, a Unesco report has found.

Closed school's asbestos worries

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:47:28 +0000

Village's worries as asbestos fears close school

Parents 'fail to give breakfast'

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 08:10:55 +0000

Parents without the "time or inclination" to make breakfast for their children are blamed by teachers for pupils coming to school hungry.

Almeda University: Google Software Could Improve Overall Approach to Online ... - Equities.com

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:10:33 +0000

Almeda University: Google Software Could Improve Overall Approach to Online ...
Equities.com
According to the article, “Google is lending its brainpower to the rapidly growing space by releasing a tool called Course Builder, open source software that is designed to let anyone create online education courses.” Although the program is still in ...

Students test 'teach to one' learning system

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 07:46:54 +0000

WASHINGTON — It might seem to be a less-than-realistic plan: Put nearly 200 preteens in one large classroom space and expect each of them, with the help of laptops and a few teachers, to learn math at his or her own pace.

Casualty of the Math Wars - Inside Higher Ed

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 07:13:13 +0000

Inside Higher Ed

Casualty of the Math Wars
Inside Higher Ed
Several mathematics education experts interviewed for this article who are supportive of Boaler and her views stressed that they did not view all, or even most, criticism from the "traditionalist" camp as irresponsible. .... He said via e-mail that the ...

Schools to use photographs of Harold Shipman and John Sentamu in 'toolkit' to tackle racism and hate crime

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:01:53 +0000

Photographs of the mass murderer Harold Shipman and the Archbishop John Sentamu are to be used as classroom tools in a new pack to help schools to tackle racism and hate crime.

'You will amount to nothing in life': The IoS celebrity school reports quiz

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

1. Of which bouffant-haired politician was the following written?

EDUCATION: UCR educator to speak at statewide summit - Press-Enterprise

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:56:20 +0000

Press-Enterprise

EDUCATION: UCR educator to speak at statewide summit
Press-Enterprise
/FILE PHOTO. UCR math professor Pam Clute tosses a teddy bear to a Riverside high school student for correctly answering a math question at a 2010 event that celebrated women in mathematics and attended by female high school students. BY DAYNA ...

Lesson one: We're students, not slags

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000

"Rappers and Slappers", "Slag and Drag", and "CEOs and Corporate Hoes". They may sound like adult films, but these are the names of some of the university-affiliated freshers' week parties that undergraduates have been invited to attend on campuses and nightclubs across Britain.

'Why do animals have stripes?', 'Why do human beings have two eyes?' - Oxford University interview questions revealed

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:33:07 +0000

Students hoping for a place at Oxford University may cram their minds full of knowledge to cope with intellectually searching interviews. When the questions come, though, they can be left baffled for a response.

GCSE exam fiasco could recur next year, say heads

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:46:13 +0000

The GCSE English exams fiasco which led to thousands of pupils failing to get C grade passes this summer could well be repeated next year, headteachers will warn today.

Issue 44 of the NCETM Primary Magazine (incorporating Early Years) has been published

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:25:03 +0000

In Issue 44 we feature the artist Heath Robinson, and we explore the mathematical possibilities of The Great Fire of London. Focus on... gives ideas for using a function machine, and Maths to share looks at fraction strips and cubes to enhance children’s understanding of fractions.