Education

Celebrities and leading authors lead protests over 'shameful' threat to cherished services Protests against the planned closure of more than 450 library services were staged today. Library users, authors, parents and children took part in "read-ins" and demonstrations at libraries in south Yorkshire, Lancashire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and Oxfordshire, where 20 of the 43 libraries still running are earmarked for withdrawal of funds. TV presenter Kirsty Young, musician Billy Bragg and literary stars such as Philip Pullman, Colin Dexter, Mark Haddon, Kate Mosse and Julia Donaldson were involved in Save Our Libraries events. At Sheffield central library a mass "shhh-in" was organised by Library Workers for a Brighter Future. On the stroke of 11am, protesters joined in a chorus of "shhh" then cheered for their library, before taking out the maximum 15 books each on their tickets the theory being that you cannot close down a library while most books ar...

Chris Riddell on George Osborne's unkind cuts Chris Riddell

Mass shhh-in and flashmob book readings as coalition plans for the 'NHS of the mind' are challenged Arts and Media Correspondent Protests against the planned closure of more than 450 library services were staged today. Library users, authors, parents and children took part in "read-ins" and demonstrations at libraries in South Yorkshire, Lancashire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and in Oxfordshire, where 20 of the 43 libraries still running are earmarked for withdrawal of funds. TV presenter Kirsty Young, musician Billy Bragg and literary stars such as Philip Pullman, Colin Dexter, Mark Haddon, Kate Mosse and Julia Donaldson were involved in Save Our Libraries events. At Sheffield central library a mass "shhh-in" was organised by Library Workers for a Brighter Future. On the stroke of 11am, protesters joined in a chorus of "shhh" and then cheered for their library, before taking out the maximum 15 books each on their tickets the theory being that you c...

Evangelical church based around creationism plans to open free school An evangelical church which places creationism at the heart of its belief system is applying to open a free school. The Everyday Champions Church in Nottinghamshire will teach evolution as a theory as part of the science curriculum Photo: ALAMY 8:59AM GMT 05 Feb 2011 Comments The Everyday Champions Church, based in Newark, Nottinghamshire, has said it will teach evolution as a "theory". Free schools can be set up by charities, universities, businesses, educational groups, teachers and groups of parents. The church wants to open the new school in September next year and says there are currently not enough secondary places available in the area. Pastor Gareth Morgan, the church's leader, told the Independent: "Creationism will be embodied as a belief at the Everyday Champions Academy but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory." Evolution...

The first "free schools" will open later this year, part of the government's education reforms. Toby Young is setting one up, Melissa Benn is resisting at all costs Toby Young is the founder of the West London Free School. Melissa Benn is founder of the Local Schools Network and achampion of comprehensives. So willMichael Gove's flagship policy boost standards, or leadto a two-tier system? Susanna Rustin hears the arguments. Toby Young : In west London we want tostart a school that is faithful to the original ideal of comprehensive schools, which Harold Wilson defined as grammar schools for all. At our school we want every child to study Latin up toage 14, and do at least six academic GCSEs. There's no reason in theory whythis couldn't be done at a local authority-maintained comprehensive, but it hasn't been so far. I think the original idealism which informed the roll-out of comprehensives in the 1960s has, to a degree, curdled. Melissa Benn : First, I th...

Martin Pickard attributes the decline of working-class pop musicians to the "abandonment of music in state schools" ( Letters , 1 February). In recent years I have been conducting an extensive research project about popular music in Portsmouth in the 25 years following the second world war ( Pompey Pop ). In 1963 John Boorman directed a TV documentary about a secondary modern school teenager from the city and, writing about this in his autobiography, suggested that "the surge of pop music in the 60s was directly attributable to the teaching of music in secondary modern schools". I used his idea to correspond with many local musicians and music fans from that period and found hardly any sympathy for his view. Many respondents saw music as wholly "extracurricular" and for some it was a form of cultural "resistance". School music has developed wonderfully in recent decades but it is not essential to the health and wellbeing of popular music, and the...

A new guide to post-16 education talks of 'informed choices' but empowerment can be illusory There is a seductive rhetoric behind the Russell Group's newly launched guide for teenagers making choices about post-16 education. Its author, Andy Gardner, works in two north London schools and says : "I just felt I had to do something about the fact that teenagers are given such misleading information about what subject choices to make." The report is attractively presented and it does much to make good on its promise not to mislead. Whatever one thinks of recent attempts to narrow the divide between academic and vocational qualifications, this document at least openly states the widespread preference for the former in "top" universities: "It is extremely important that you are aware that for several university courses vocational qualifications are not considered to be suitable." Much of the attention given to the report has thus focused on its pr...

The attacks on teachers and unions are not about educational reform, but turning the teaching profession into a service industry Management and labour are hurtling towards an impasse, and a work stoppage looms. Workers are seeking public support by emphasising the importance of benefits for workers, specifically longterm healthcare for conditions caused by the profession that do not appear until later in life. This may sound for many like the possible scenario for a teachers' strike, backed by a powerful teachers' union. But if this were a teachers' strike, in 2011, we could anticipate little support for those teachers not least because of the propaganda created by Davis Guggenheim's documentary Waiting for "Superman" and the rise of false prophets of education reform (Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee). However, above, I am speaking about the possible NFL strike that hangs over this coming Super Bowl weekend: a struggle betwe...

Education secretary says Labour government 'betrayed a generation' Education secretary Michael Gove today blamed the Labour government for "betraying a generation" by allowing thousands of pupils to take "soft" subjects at school. Gove was commenting on the Guardian's revelation that top universities are issuing guidance which acknowledges officially for the first time that they favour students who study traditional subjects at A-level. A handbook compiled by the Russell Group, a lobbying group for Oxford, Cambridge and 18 other leading universities, confirms rumours that have circulated for years that they favour traditional academic subjects over newer ones such as business studies and photography. Gove said he had warned the last government that state-school pupils were being "misled" about qualifications. "A generation have been betrayed by Labour ministers who denied poorer children the chance to go to top universities," he said...

Not all A-levels are created equal The subjects you pick for A-level make a big difference to how universities respond to your application ; it's official. A guide, seen by the Guardian, acknowledges that top universities favour students with traditional A-levels. As Jessica Shepherd reports on the front page of today's newspaper: The guide compiled by the Russell Group, a lobbying group for Oxford, Cambridge and 18 other leading universities, confirms rumours that have circulated for years that they favour those subjects over newer ones such as business studies or photography. The guide states that if you do not study at at least two of: maths, English, geography, history, any pure science or a classical or modern foreign language, "many degrees at competitive universities will not be open to you". Media studies, art and design, photography and business studies are given as examples of "soft" subjects. "If you plan to take more than one perceived ...

Careers adviser compiled handbook recommending traditional A-levels to help students facing 'bewildering' choice It was open day for prospective students at the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science. Suddenly, a teenage girl began to sob. Then another joined her. Andy Gardner, a schools careers adviser for more than a decade, asked her what was wrong. "They've just said which A-levels they don't really rate and I'm doing two of them accountancy and business studies. I don't stand a chance of getting in now," she replied. Gardner, who works in two north London schools and talks to about 1,000 teenagers about their plans each week, describes the event five years ago as a turning point for him. "I just felt I had to do something about the fact that teenagers are given such misleading information about what subject choices to make." Today, he said, marks another turning point: the publication of a handbook for parents, tea...

Students who 'avoid challenge' of traditional subjects miss out on places at Oxbridge or 'redbrick' institutions Top universities will today issue guidance which acknowledges officially for the first time that they favour students who study traditional subjects at A-level. The guide compiled by the Russell Group, a lobbying group for Oxford, Cambridge and 18 other leading universities, confirms rumours that have circulated for years that they favour those subjects over newer ones such as business studies or photography. It also reveals an overwhelming preference for science and maths subjects even for seemingly unrelated degrees. The new handbook, seen by the Guardian, is a sign that universities are having to cave in to ministers and teachers' calls for far more information on how admissions tutors decide who they award places to and why. By not studying at least two of the following subjects maths, English, geography, history, any of the three pure sciences or a...

Careers adviser compiled handbook recommending traditional A-levels to help students facing 'bewildering' choice It was open day for prospective students at the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science. Suddenly, a teenage girl began to sob. Then another joined her. Andy Gardner, a schools careers adviser for more than a decade, asked her what was wrong. "They've just said which A-levels they don't really rate and I'm doing two of them accountancy and business studies. I don't stand a chance of getting in now," she replied. Gardner, who works in two north London schools and talks to about 1,000 teenagers about their plans each week, describes the event five years ago as a turning point for him. "I just felt I had to do something about the fact that teenagers are given such misleading information about what subject choices to make." Today, he said, marks another turning point: the publication of a handbook for parents, tea...

Lethal Bizzle's Pow! (Forward) was the unofficial song of the recent student protests. Dan Hancox charts how it went from grime-scene scapegoat to righteous rallying cry It was 9 December 2010, the day the tuition fees bill was passed by the House of Commons. By the Whitehall entrance to Parliament Square, young people were still clashing with riot police, trying to force their way out of the kettle. Outside the Treasury building, a mobile sound system no more than a speaker in a trolley pulled up, a trail of smiling young protesters following its trail of dancehall, hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance and grime. One teenager climbed on top of a dustbin to dance, ripping his shirt off despite the freezing temperatures; another did the same, facing him, 10 feet away. "It's a dance-off!" shouted some kid. Darkness fell over the Palace of Westminster, and hundreds of young people danced around these convulsing figures, silhouetted against the dark blue gloaming, lit only by b...

Watch this video from the University of Birmingham in which a paperclip disappears from view behind a special piece of crystal, showing only the object in the background an ornamental panda bear

Government teacher training reforms are misguided After months of speculation, the axe finally fell for teacher training as Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, told officials exactly how many teachers to recruit next year. Educationalists have attacked proposed reforms to teacher training. Photo: ALAMY By James Williams 3:32PM GMT 03 Feb 2011 Comments For those who view teacher training as an unnecessary evil, the changes and cuts will be welcome. There is a mythology that persists around university teacher training that we are only interested in producing indoctrinated leftie teachers, caring little about teaching children the facts of their subjects and more about the process of teaching, trying out trendy ideas. We are accused of ignoring basics, like behaviour management, in favour of untested theories of no use to real teachers. The truth is somewhat removed from the rhetoric. Universities care passionately about producing excellent teachers who can inspire an...

David Willetts understands why social sciences matter, but we need to do a better job of convincing the wider population Impenetrable writing layered with jargon and a near-xenophobic attitude towards lay people has given us all the impression that academics in the arts, humanities and social sciences are utterly irrelevant. So irrelevant, that when the government slashed the entire university teaching budget for these disciplines, few beyond the universities turned a hair. This was a point well made by Nick Cohen recently . Yet it would be a shame to leave the story there. Academics may not be the best popular communicators in the world, but does that really mean they are not needed? Despite the lack of celebrities speaking out on the topic, there has been a stirring of academic ranks in response to Whitehall's funding decisions. The recently launched Campaign for Social Science aims to remedy just the situation that Cohen so eloquently describes. The campaign, run by the Academy...

Lord Adonis says schools need teachers who understand elite universities Every secondary school should have teachers who attended elite universities, Lord Adonis said today. The former schools minister said it was "very difficult" to get pupils, particularly those from poorer areas, into top universities unless their teachers had studied at those institutions too. Addressing the Independent Academies Association (IAA) conference in central London, Lord Adonis said: "You need a good mix of teachers, of course, at any successful school, but you cannot be a successful school unless you at least have a certain proportion of your teachers who have themselves come from leading universities in to which you intend to send your best students." He added that in his experience it is "very very difficult to send students on to top universities unless you have a certain proportion of your teachers who come from those universities themselves. "Far too many schools, a go...

Warning: Square kids can't be shoved into round holes Not all kids are going to cope very well with Michael Gove's insistence on studying traditional academic subjects. That's the message of two important reports out today, one from MPs, the other from the institute of psychiatry at King's College London, based on a study of twins. The Commons education select committee said a curriculum that is skewed towards academic subjects could encourage bad behaviour in the classroom. It said teachers were having to teach children who "would not have been in school five to 10 years ago" and assaults on school staff had risen from 171 in 2001 to 251 in the last school year. It reckoned switching children who were more suited to vocational subjects on to an academic curriculum would exacerbate the problem. Andy Burnham MP, Labour's education spokesman, said: "The education select committee echoes the views of parents and teachers who are calling on Michael Gove t...