Education

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Leading barrister Michael Bowsher says the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) does allow for private US firms to snap up NHS contracts. The legal analysis has also revealed that the controversial TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) deal would mean NHS privatisation maybe irreversible for future governments. The controversial trade deal would give investors new legal rights, which extend beyond both UK and EU law as well as NHS contracts. The US-EU deal is...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Welfare cuts have hit children the hardest as families can’t make ends meet, a study has revealed. Due to Tory spending cuts more people live below the poverty line that in 2008 at the height of the global financial meltdown. The report, by the JRF (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) found that 11.6 million people are struggling to make ends meet. Shockingly the majority of these people live in working households. The JRF study says that cuts...

I remember my training year vividly. I did the Graduate Teacher Programme, a postgraduate route into teaching which, while harder to get onto and fewer places available, gives you a better training wage and you are contracted to a school for the year. I was fortunate enough to train at one of only two truly ‘outstanding’ schools I have seen. This was a blessing in many ways: firstly, I was assigned an inspirational mentor who not only set a fantastic...

We’ve all known them. The lovely people at the places we work. They have no desire to be top dog yet they have pride in what they do and want to do their best for their colleagues and so they can go home knowing they have done their best that day. These are the people who keep the country going. The grafters, the millions of boys, girls, men and women who neither blaze a trail to glory and nor will...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The PM has just announced plans for an English language test to all partners who join their spouse to live in UK. The examination would take place two and a half years after they have arrived on these shores. If they do not meet the required standard it could count against the person's right to remain living in the UK, and they could return to their country of origin, against their will. The PM said:...

The government pay a lot of people we will never know the names of to devise plots and schemes to solve the nation’s educational problems. The role of these people appears to be to come up with new stuff. Not to thoroughly research which practices are currently in place to discern what currently works and what should be discarded; oh, no. This would be far too time-consuming, and by the time the next election comes round, this might actually aid...

Well, that was quick. One minute you’re draping the tinsel over the whiteboard, amazed that, remarkably, you’ve made it to the end of term with at least a few of your faculties still roughly in working order; the next, you’re back in the staff room wondering what happened to those 2 weeks off you were looking forward to. Such is the life of a teacher returning to work after the season of goodwill…and we are left under no illusions that...

By Robert Sun In speaking before many groups of educators, in cities across the nation, I often hear that one of the biggest challenges facing schools today is how to consistently engage and motivate children to learn. Children, as we all know, are natural learners. But much of that instinctive curiosity is dampened by the formality and regimentation of the classroom. Albert Einstein once wrote: “It is nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not...

By Robert Sun Preparing the next generation for success in life is perhaps the most important task of any society. So it comes as no surprise that here in the US, there is immense pressure at the national level to measure our progress in educating our children. The question we must ask, however, is whether the measuring sticks we use to accomplish this task are truly accurate. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, is whether high-stakes testing produces graduates prepared to...