Education News Blog

Therapy in a pencil case | Joe Moran

2010-08-27T14:52:00.001-07:00

In these uncertain, digital times there's nothing more reassuring than ink, graphite and a new eraser

'It is typical of Oxford," says Charles Ryder after his return from an idyllic summer at Brideshead, "to start the new year in autumn." Evelyn Waugh presumably meant to suggest that this was a characteristically perverse thing for an ancient university to do. It has never seemed perverse to me.

Granted, I was the sort of studious child who was secretly pleased by the sight of the "back to school" displays in the shops. But I always liked the idea of starting the new year in September when, instead of that post-Christmas fag-end feeling, you got the excitement of stocking up on new stationery.

The contents of a pencil case were my first encounter with the aesthetics of material objects. For me the smell and feel of a new eraser are as evocative of autumn as falling leaves. Stationery was also my understated introduction to the idea of utopia, the triumph of hope over experience. Forgetting all the false dawns of autumns past, I believed that if I could just find a pen with the right nib, or highlighters in ideal colour combinations, I would at last have the tools to accomplish great deeds.

My affection for stationery even extends to those mathematical instruments, like set squares and protractors, whose purposes remained obscure throughout school but whose uniformity and symmetry I enjoyed. So I was puzzled recently when Melvyn Bragg, in the middle of complaining that his former employee, ITV, was obsessed with audience ratings, said that it had been "taken over by slide rules and suits" � in other words, overrun by number-crunching managers going on about focus groups and audience share. I associate the slide rule, by contrast, with gentle, tweed-jacketed, pipe-smoking engineers, calculating formulae for jet engines in sheds.

You never see anyone using a slide rule in a film. Matinee idol scientists always work out algorithms unaided in their brilliant minds, or scrawl them manically in chalk on giant blackboards. By the same token that unfairly condemns people with colour-coded ring binders as the owners of overly tidy minds; slide rules are supposed to belong only to the pedantic foot soldiers of science, the plodders who have to show us their workings out. But slide rules are lovely things: pleasingly solid, elegantly mysterious in their markings, the perfect marriage of form and function. Since scientific calculators rendered them obsolete in about 1980, some people (not me) even collect them.

I worry that today's schoolchildren are being deprived of these tactile pleasures. Isabel Nisbet, chief executive of Ofqual, has questioned the future of paper exams because, she claims, pupils are no longer used to writing by hand. Hoping this isn't true, I go to the "back to school" section of my local supermarket for reassurance. And there they all are � pencils with rubbers on the end, felt tips, even Tipp-Ex � just as they have appeared in late summer since time immemorial. I am happy to report that the death of the analogue classroom implement has been exaggerated.

Indeed, I can foresee a renaissance for these objects for the same reason that knitting and embroidery are again in vogue. People are embracing the texture and solidity of material things as a rearguard action against the growing touchlessness of the world, the tendency for our jobs to become an endless cycle of virtual exercises, an eternal exchange of emails and other digital surrogates.

Not all of us know how to knit, but we can all buy something from the "back to school" displays, whether going back to school or not. We can sharpen our pencils, open a crisp new exercise book and create the world anew. Once a year, at least, we can imagine ourselves as noble artisans, transforming our little part of the universe with ink, graphite and paper. What we need, in these uncertain times, is some pencil-case therapy.

Joe Moran

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Middle class to lose its grip on best state schools

2010-08-27T14:51:00.001-07:00

Parents would be unable to guarantee places at the best state schools by buying houses nearby under admissions rules.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Ian Balfour Paul obituary

2010-08-27T11:48:00.001-07:00

Ian Balfour Paul, who has died aged 94, devoted 51 very fulfilling years to Merchiston Castle school, Edinburgh, as a housemaster, schoolmaster and self-styled odd-job man. "BP" was held in affection by the whole Merchiston community and was the inspiration for many future careers.

He was educated at Wellington college, Berkshire, and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Ian was awarded the Military Cross in 1945 for distinguished service in the north-west European campaign in the second world war, passing on important tactical information about the progress of operations. He regularly wore a silk scarf made of torn-off fragments from parachutes found when he landed in a glider, in the Rhine crossing operation.

During his years teaching biology at Merchiston, BP's range of interests extended far beyond the classroom: he was a naturalist, ornithologist, photographer, scout, guide, philosopher and, above all, friend.

One icy February, a pupil found a half-frozen kestrel, which the boys named "Klee", and nursed through the winter on a diet of rats, mice and rabbits. The experience encouraged BP to set up the school bird club and birdwatching became his consuming passion. Ringing birds became a central element in the club's activities, with weekends on the Lothian coast and holiday expeditions across Scotland and abroad. Wonderful, too, were his annual scout camps and ski trips.

BP made an equally strong impact on the community of Gatehouse of Fleet, in Dumfries and Galloway, over the 20 years of his retirement there, becoming an elder of the kirk. He was a bachelor, but is survived by 11 devoted nephews and nieces.

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Teachers suspended over child porn investigation

2010-08-27T11:44:00.001-07:00

Two primary school teachers in Solihull arrested and bailed on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children

Two primary school teachers have been suspended after their arrest on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, it was revealed today.

The men have been bailed "pending further investigations" following checks by the child online safety team and public protection unit of the West Midlands police force.

A spokeswoman said one man, aged 43, worked at St Patrick's school in Earlswood, Solihull, and the other, who is 37, taught at Monkspath school, in the Shirley area of the town.

She said: "At this stage of the inquiry there is nothing to suggest any physical contact between the suspects and the children featured in the images."

The men were arrested at an address in Solihull on Wednesday and property seized there was being examined.

Solihull council said both men had been suspended. It had sent letters to parents whose children attended the schools, informing them directly of the arrests and telling them where they could seek advice and support.

Detective Chief Superintendent Gareth Morgan, head of West Midlands police public protection unit, said: "This is clearly a very sensitive case which will raise many questions among parents.

"It is an immediate priority to reassure them by providing as much information as and when we can to answer those questions. To do that effectively we will progress the investigation as thoroughly and quickly as possible and continue to engage with families and the wider community."

James Meikle

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Mary Brancker obituary

2010-08-27T11:40:00.001-07:00

As a school leaver in the early 1930s, my friend Mary Brancker was offered a list of possible careers by her mother and, after much consideration, decided to become a vet. This was, in those days, an unusual choice for a woman, but Mary qualified in 1937.

She joined the Lichfield practice of Harry Steele-Bodger, the president of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), which during the second world war became the BVA's temporary headquarters. This allowed Mary to get involved in veterinary politics, and she soon became a driving force in the profession.

Mary, who has died aged 95, was active in the founding of the Society of Women Veterinary Surgeons and in the 50s became one of a very small number of women on the council of the BVA. In 1967, she was elected the first female president of the association.

During Mary's presidential year she oversaw the response to a serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, and was made an OBE in 1969. She continued to run her own busy veterinary practice in Sutton Coldfield. One local pet shop whose animals she cared for, run by Molly Badham and Nathalie Evans, later expanded and moved to become Twycross zoo. Mary was appointed vet to the zoo and added the treatment of chimpanzees and elephants to her repertoire. She continued as the vet at Twycross until the 80s, when she became a zoo volunteer.

Although invertebrates were a passionate interest of Mary's, she once observed that she had "never knowingly touched a spider". In her book All Creatures Great and Small (1972, published on the same day as the James Herriot book of the same name), Mary wrote about her experiences, in the hope that teenagers might be inspired to follow in her footsteps. In 2000, she was appointed CBE.

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Cheapest school uniform: OK to buy?

2010-08-27T11:38:00.001-07:00

Budget-conscious parents might be tempted by cut-price school uniforms, but should they have ethical concerns about how they were sourced and who produced them?

My three-and-a-half-year-old is due to begin nursery school in September and must wear a uniform consisting of a royal blue sweater and tracksuit bottoms, white polo shirt and black shoes. All of these items are widely available from supermarkets and are extremely cheap (from �2 per item!). I'm wondering if these cheap prices necessarily mean that they've been manufactured unethically (in sweatshops perhaps) and, if so, where can I source ethical versions? Your help would be much appreciated.

Alex, by email

The wide range of responses to this question proves just how vexing the issue of buying school uniforms can be for parents. Despite the repeated assurances over the years from retailers and the textile industry that everything is hunky dory, there is no denying that many people's gut instinct is that super cheap clothing must be the product of sweatshops. Repeated exposures don't exactly do much to dampen these concerns.

But, as ever, such issues are far more complex than they might appear. Skinz and chaosclaire raised the important point that cheap supermarket deals on uniforms at this time of year � and the resulting price war � could mean that they are loss leaders. That's to say, they are sold at a loss just to get more punters through the door, much in the way that popular everyday items such as milk and bananas are commonly sold at a loss.

This question also kicked off a tangential, but nonetheless interesting, discussion about whether children should be made to wear uniforms at school, or whether they should just wear whatever they want. Grisgris and loupblanc got things going by arguing that children would be happier without uniforms. But Katali fought back arguing that uniforms help to hide inequalities of income. Biergut agreed, saying the experience of going to school in uniform-free Germany in the 1980s was not enjoyable due to the teasing about who got to wear Boss or Barbour (!) and who didn't.

There was also a feisty debate about whether, by refusing to buy supercheap clothing, we might do people in the developing world out of the only job they can get, no matter how harsh we might judge the working conditions to be. Parttimer said:

Those jobs may not be great, but if there were preferable alternatives, the same people would presumably be doing them already. They are also unlikely to have access to unemployment benefits. All in all, we, and they, are better off if we keep buying the clothes.

Garetko, ThomasLion and others fought back, arguing this was a somewhat na�ve world-view.

Regarding potential solutions to the overall dilemma of where to source a school uniform, polhotpot suggested buying second-hand. Indeed, most schools do organise a way for parents to pass on outgrown or spare uniforms to those who might need them.

Pawan and Chorltonite pointed readers towards the ever-useful Ethical Consumer and its 2008 guide to buying school uniforms. Clean Slate came out on top by a country mile with all the supermarkets picking up pitiful scores by comparison. Sadly, it doesn't appear that Clean Slate is still operational. Its website is down and repeated attempts to reach it by phone have so far failed. (Does anyone have any further news?) Perhaps this is a salutary warning about why firms offering certain ethical guarantees will soon go under if we don't support them? (But isn't that the cloud that hangs over the whole concept of ethical consumerism? Discuss.)

Finally, I approached some of the leading supermarkets for their response, but particularly to the issue of whether they sell uniforms as loss leaders and what sweatshop-free guarantees they can offer their customers. Asda, the Walmart-owned supermarket which is currently campaigning to stop some schools forcing parents to buy uniforms from "expensive specialist suppliers", gave the fullest answer:

We sell more schoolwear each year than any other retailer. We therefore feel we have a responsibility to constantly improve quality and to keep prices low without compromise to ethical standards. Our customers can shop with a clear conscience.
There are so many reasons we can sell uniforms at such affordable prices, but the main one is the Asda 'every day low cost' business model. It is designed to reduce waste and take out costs, without compromise on quality, at every possible opportunity. We have the lowest operating costs of all the supermarkets and we pass those savings directly on to our customers.
George [Asda's clothing range] sells more uniforms than any other retailer and so therefore enjoys the benefits of economies of scale. Not only that, we plan months to a year in advance, allowing us to use the factories at quieter times of the year when normally they don't have as much business. We don't use costly air freight to ship it into the UK either. It is delivered in the most cost effective way possible so that doesn't affect the price customers pay. We also centrally source things like cotton, fabrics, buttons and zips in bulk to ensure that we get the best price and then we share those costs savings with our suppliers.
We don't work with any middlemen. We deal with factories directly so we have greater visibility and control over where and how our product is made.
We were founder members of the Ethical Trading Initiative and our ethical processes are some of the most strict in the industry. We have a dedicated ethics team based in the UK and in our Bangladesh office. We have teams on the ground that can conduct unannounced audits at any time on any of the factories we source from, plus we have over 16,000 official audits a year.
You can see our head of ethics on his blog

It's worth noting that the Ethical Trading Initiative, which doesn't actually have any regulatory powers, has its critics. Last year, it answered your questions here on this site, but it's also worth perusing the Labour Behind the Label website for a campaigner's view on some of the issues discussed above.

On 23 August, Leo originally wrote:

Yes, it's that time of year again for parents of school-aged children. As if finding the money to pay for the plethora of plimsolls, shirts and blazers wasn't hard enough, now they have the added dilemma of worrying whether the fingers of a child on the other side of the world have been exploited to make those items boasting oh-so-tempting knock-down prices.

What's your strategy? Where do you source or buy your school uniforms? What ethical credentials, if any, do you seek?

Please share your thoughts below and, as ever, I will return on Friday to join the debate. (NB This is rightly a sensitive subject, but please be wary about making specific allegations about companies as comments will be closely moderated.)

� Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk

Leo Hickman

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Watchdog vets alternative exams

2010-08-27T11:36:00.001-07:00

England's exams watchdog Ofqual is to compare A-levels and GCSEs with alternative qualifications, including vocational equivalents.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Teachers held over child images

2010-08-27T10:32:00.001-07:00

Two men teaching at separate schools in Solihull are arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Pupil affair teacher sent to jail

2010-08-27T10:31:00.001-07:00

A married teacher who had sexual relationships with three teenage girls is jailed for nearly seven years.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Should I buy the cheapest school uniform? | Leo Hickman

2010-08-27T09:26:00.001-07:00

Budget-conscious parents might be tempted by cut-price school uniforms, but should they have ethical concerns about how they were sourced and who produced them?

Alex, by email

Those jobs may not be great, but if there were preferable alternatives, the same people would presumably be doing them already. They are also unlikely to have access to unemployment benefits. All in all, we, and they, are better off if we keep buying the clothes.

Garetko, ThomasLion and others fought back, arguing this was a somewhat na�ve world-view.

We sell more schoolwear each year than any other retailer. We therefore feel we have a responsibility to constantly improve quality and to keep prices low without compromise to ethical standards. Our customers can shop with a clear conscience.
There are so many reasons we can sell uniforms at such affordable prices, but the main one is the Asda 'every day low cost' business model. It is designed to reduce waste and take out costs, without compromise on quality, at every possible opportunity. We have the lowest operating costs of all the supermarkets and we pass those savings directly on to our customers.
George [Asda's clothing range] sells more uniforms than any other retailer and so therefore enjoys the benefits of economies of scale. Not only that, we plan months to a year in advance, allowing us to use the factories at quieter times of the year when normally they don't have as much business. We don't use costly air freight to ship it into the UK either. It is delivered in the most cost effective way possible so that doesn't affect the price customers pay. We also centrally source things like cotton, fabrics, buttons and zips in bulk to ensure that we get the best price and then we share those costs savings with our suppliers.
We don't work with any middlemen. We deal with factories directly so we have greater visibility and control over where and how our product is made.
We were founder members of the Ethical Trading Initiative and our ethical processes are some of the most strict in the industry. We have a dedicated ethics team based in the UK and in our Bangladesh office. We have teams on the ground that can conduct unannounced audits at any time on any of the factories we source from, plus we have over 16,000 official audits a year.
You can see our head of ethics on his blog

On 23 August, Leo originally wrote:

What's your strategy? Where do you source or buy your school uniforms? What ethical credentials, if any, do you seek?

� Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk

Leo Hickman

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Indian gap year? Glorified holiday, more like | Leo Mirani

2010-08-27T09:23:00.001-07:00

Students who claim to have discovered the 'real' India on their gap years are deluding themselves

Two months ago, when final-year students graduated into the real world, this newspaper told them they hadn't a hope in hell of getting a job. This week, it emerged that 150,000 young people won't even get into university. Some bright person came up with the idea of sending lots of these unfortunates off to foreign countries on a gap year, purportedly so they can learn new skills and improve their employability � oh, and learn about other cultures and stuff.

Many of these gappers will end up in bars on Brunswick Street, Melbourne. Some will populate the hostels of Barcelona and Amsterdam and Tallinn, trading drinking games for syphilis. Still others will bathe Argentinean lepers or irrigate fields in Malawi. And then there are those poor, misguided souls who will arrive in India, bringing with them enthusiasm and naivete.

I remember the first gapper I met in Mumbai. He was a skinny 17-year-old who sat motionless at the edge of an iron bench in my friend's garden, too terrified to say anything other than a grateful "yes, please" when somebody offered him a beer. I can see why. Too many of the visitors I've met came to India expecting a spiritual, magical land filled with wonder and wisdom and yoga � always yoga. All of this exists. But to the general dismay of all concerned, you can only fly into the major cities, which means negotiating an overpopulated third-world metropolis before venturing into the elephant- and cliche-filled rural heartlands.

I never saw that terrified tourist again. But if he was anything like the other young gappers who grace our shores, his trajectory probably went something like this: terror, regret, drunkenness, acceptance, optimism, drunkenness, self-discovery, drunkenness, drunkenness, smug satisfaction at having had the courage to discover the real India, which nobody else ever has or ever will, drunkenness, Heathrow. I should probably mention how cheap alcohol is in India. Very.

It's not just the increased quantities of vomit on our streets that is of concern (considering that half the population of Mumbai doesn't have access to sanitation, a little extra human waste is the least of our worries). What is most annoying is the attitude of those who claim to have been there, seen that and really, really understood all of it.

When we see you bargaining with a hawker over a 50-rupee (70p) trinket that you think is worth only half as much, we know you've spent between �3,000 and �5,000 for a few months off � more than even most middle-aged, middle-class Indians make in a year. When you act like you understand what's going on just because you've travelled around the country for three months, we know you've failed to notice the special treatment you've been getting at, for example, hostels that won't let Indians in because we might disturb your lot. When you get into a bar in sandals while we've been informed of a "strict dress code", we notice that, too. When you talk about spirituality and helping the poor, we know you have to do some suitably noble tasks between weeks spent smoking pot on Anjuna beach so the admissions committee at your university of choice doesn't think you're a complete wastrel.

So come on over. Ride some elephants, feed the poor, feel enriched and go home with great stories. Tell your friends, tell the dons, tell the HR managers who interview you one day. We'll drink with you, introduce you to our friends, invite you home and feed you. We actually quite like you. But please, don't pretend you're here on anything but a glorified holiday.

Leo Mirani

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Teachers held in child porn probe

2010-08-27T09:19:00.001-07:00

Two male primary school teachers have been arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, police said.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Taliban poison attack or mass hysteria? Chaos hits another Kabul girls' school

2010-08-27T09:15:00.001-07:00

Dozens of pupils treated in hospital as Afghan militants accused of poison attack on girls

When the order came to evacuate the Totia high school, hundreds of girls ran from their desks clutching handkerchiefs and their headscarves over their mouths. School bags were abandoned as some leapt out of the ground floor windows of their dilapidated two-storey school block rather than trying to push their way through a melee of teenage girls all rushing to get out to fresh air.

Teachers tried to organise an orderly departure but their efforts were in vain amid rising panic that the school had become the latest in Afghanistan to be hit by an apparent poison gas attack.

A total of 46 students and nine teachers were treated in hospital after what Mohammad Asif Nang, an official at the education ministry, described as "an apparent poisoning" attack by "the enemies of women's education".

According to staff, parents and onlookers, girls began fainting in the school's main classroom block at about 10.30 this morning, during the first of three daily shifts designed to triple the number of girls at the school.

Some victims had to be carried out while others stumbled to the school gates, where about 18 slumped to the ground unconscious, said Abdul Haq, a 15-year-old boy who witnessed the incident.

Many were taken to hospital and most quickly recovered but some girls remained unconscious for several hours, doctors said. Others were vomiting and complaining of nausea.

The symptoms matched those of other cases reported around the country. Opinions are divided between those who denounce the incidents as malicious attacks by social conservatives who disapprove of female education and sceptics who think the culprit is more likely to be mass hysteria.

At the Boost hospital, the head doctor, Abdullah Abid, said four of the 22 girls admitted remained unconscious for at least two hours.

"An ordinary doctor in a hospital cannot say exactly what causes this without further tests, but I think poisoned gas is most likely," he said. "It has happened many times before in Afghanistan."

He said that after studying psychiatry for a year in Pakistan he had become acutely aware of the power of hysteria and its ability to cause physiological responses, but he did not think that was the cause of the latest incident.

"I think three of them were just suffering from shock from seeing their friends become ill. But something else must have happened to the others."

Education ministry officials said five similar cases had been dealt with in Kabul this year alone and eleven more around the country.

The Taliban banned girls' education when they were in power between 1996 and 2001 and they continue to target women and girls' schools in the areas they control.

One of their intimidation techniques is the so-called "night letters" dropped off at homes and schools. In one case in a northern province in February a letter, which was handed to Human Rights Watch, said the school was misleading "pure and innocent girls".

With Taliban violence surging across the country, the fear of insurgent attacks is becoming a bigger concern for ordinary Afghans, even in relatively secure cities such as Kabul.

The existence of such fears, as documented by cases in Mexico and Kosovo, can trigger mass hysteria accompanied by actual physical illness, experts say. The large number of attacks against schools reported in the Afghan media could exacerbate the problem of fretful students believing they have been poisoned.

This morning Totia high school was crowded with girls aged between 16 and 18 but witnesses did not report the presence of any strangers. The authorities are investigating.

Lal Mohammad, the school's caretaker, said nothing untoward had been found so far. The only thing unusual was a nauseating smell, apparently similar to that of human sewage, which greeted the students when they arrived in the morning.

"It was so bad that the head said we must tell the neighbouring houses that they should only clear out their shit at the night time," Mohammad said.

As the smell got much worse panic spread through the building, he said.

All the classroom doors along the corridor were open and the complaints of dizziness and fainting moved quickly from end of the building to the other, Mohammad said.

Western medical experts have taken blood samples from alleged victims while investigating previous incidents but have been unable to find clear evidence of poisoning. They have also questioned how such an apparently powerful gas could be spread with such apparent ease round large school buildings.

In today's incident some girls first displayed symptoms long after everyone else. Massoud Mohammad, an 18-year-old with a younger sister at the school, said two girls only fainted some time after they had returned home and changed out of their school clothes.

But in the largely Pashtun neighbourhood in a rough area of eastern Kabul no one believed the incident was anything other than a chemical attack by people who object to female education.

"These people are not Muslims," said Mohammad Shamin, who rushed to hospital from work to see his 14-year-old daughter, who had been taken there after feeling dizzy.

"There is nothing in Islam that says you can attack girls."

Classroom attacks

2009 Five girls briefly slipped into comas and nearly 100 other pupils needed treatment after an alleged gas attack on their school. The victims were vomiting and dizzy, and some lost consciousness. Taliban sympathisers hostile to girls' education were blamed.

2008 In Logar province a primary school was targeted by arsonists intent on preventing local girls being taught. The suspected Taliban raiders were thwarted by a gang of fathers who chased them away.

February 2006 Armed gunmen walked through the school gates of Kartilaya school in Lashkar Gar and killed several pupils. The school consisted of mostly female students.

January 2006 A male teacher was dragged into the courtyard of a co-educational school and beheaded by suspected Taliban militants in Zabul province. The school had received threats for continuing to teach girls. 2002 Taliban sympathisers fired rockets at several schools in the Wardak province, near Kabul, as part of a sustained effort to stop parents from sending their daughters to study. They also raided a school at a village mosque, setting fire to chairs and blackboard.

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Jon Boone

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Why has studying French lost its �lan?

2010-08-27T07:12:00.001-07:00

Is the big fall in the number of British school children studying French something to be concerned about?
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Barnardo's is right to sound the alarm over state schools | Peter Wilby

2010-08-27T07:10:00.001-07:00

From the postcode lottery to free schools, government policy is entrenching social segregation in our education system

In most areas of England, academic selection for grammar school was rightly abolished many years ago. It has been replaced, however, by something far more iniquitous: social selection, which excludes large numbers of impoverished children from hundreds of supposedly comprehensive schools. Academic selection at 11 is itself socially biased: middle-class children had a far better chance of a grammar school place, but at least a few raggedy-trousered diamonds got through. Now, the most deprived comprehensive has 16 times as many children from poor homes as the least deprived.

The situation is highlighted today by a report from Barnardo's, the children's charity. It argues that government policies, far from reducing segregation, are likely to accentuate it. This view is supported by a mountain of research. Ministers propose to open more of the academies that Labour pioneered (but with the difference that they will be already successful schools, given academy status as a perk, rather than conversions of struggling schools in deprived areas) and also to allow parents, teachers and voluntary groups to set up "free schools" with support from public funds.

Such schools, outside the local authority system, will control their own admissions, as voluntary-aided (mostly denominational) and foundation schools already do. The educational charity Sutton Trust has shown that, on average, the 42% of schools that control admissions have considerably lower proportions of children from income-deprived homes.

The admissions system is often described as a postcode lottery, allowing affluent parents to buy houses in the catchment areas of the "best" schools. But it is far more complex than that. According to Sutton Trust, in the 100 most socially selective comprehensives, the average proportion of children from income deprived homes is 8.6%, against 20.1% in the schools' localities. The middle classes will go to any lengths to get their children into favoured schools, including moving into temporary accommodation. The schools themselves, though bound by the government's fair admissions code, will do little to discourage parents who play the system. Almost by definition, such parents will be supportive and their children motivated. When a school's survival and its teachers' careers depend on league table positions, incentives to turn a blind eye are almost irresistible.

Segregation matters. Another mountain of research, covering countries across the developed world, shows overall levels of attainment rise where schools get a "balanced intake", with the proportions of children from deprived and affluent homes roughly reflecting their proportions in the general population.

Free schools will almost certainly want to get off on a sound footing by recruiting children from advantaged backgrounds. The Tories' proposals are modelled on Sweden, where free schools were set up by a rightwing government in the 1990s. The result was more social segregation � and a slide down international league tables of pupil attainment. Coalition ministers argue that the Lib Dems' favourite educational policy � the "pupil premium", which will give schools more money for each child recruited from a poor home � will ensure that doesn't happen here. But nobody yet knows how large the premium will be, and whether it will be enough to persuade schools actively to seek less-advantaged children.

Barnardo's is right to sound the alarm. Community schools � those still under local council control � are in danger of being reduced to a "sink" sector, where teachers struggle with low-attaining children from highly deprived backgrounds. The social segregation of England's schools will be complete.

Peter Wilby

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Ten of the best ... ways to save money at university

2010-08-27T07:07:00.001-07:00

Make student living cheaper with an NUS Extra card, the Deposit Protection Scheme and the right student bank account

1. Home Insurance

What with laptops, MP3 Players and stereo systems being essential kit, students can become a target for criminals; those aged 16-24 are three times more likely to be the victim of burglary than the general population. To save money check if your insurer will add your contents in your new college home to your parents' existing home insurance policy. Esure, for example, will cover your possessions to the same value as that of your parents free of charge.

2. NUS Extra Card

The National Union of Students offers an Extra discount card, which at just �11 entitles you to a plethora of savings. These include �100 free credit from 3 mobile network, 25% discount at Pizza Hut and 10% shopping discounts at high streets stores such as Office and La Senza.

3. Deposit Protection

The trickiest day of your tenancy in rented accommodation will be the last day. You could end up pulling a cleaning all-nighter only for your landlord to turn around and say that the house is not up to scratch. To avoid bitter disputes over getting your deposit back, it is very important to sign up to the government-backed Deposit Protection Scheme. The DPS is designed to protect tenants from rogue landlords and resolve disputes about deposits quickly.

4. Computer software

At an RRP of �219, Windows 7, which includes the latest version of Microsoft Office, doesn't come cheap. But students can get a massive discount by visiting the Microsoft website, where the latest version is available for just �30. Your identity is verified by your university email, so you won't be able to cash in on this until you enrol.

5. Young Person's Railcard

One of the drawbacks of leaving home is the cost of going back. A young person's railcard offers you a third off all train journeys for a cost of just �26. Alternatively, coaches tend to be much cheaper than trains, even accounting for the railcard; National Express offer a 30% discount on coach discounts, while Megabus offer dirt cheap coach rides starting from just �1.

6. Shop around for your mobile and broadband

It's a good idea to revisit how much you are paying for internet on your smartphone. O2 charge up to �70 for a tariff on the iPhone, while their cheapest Simplicity tariff is just �10 a month. Broadband Genie is a broadband comparison website that provides a modem speed test to ensure that your internet service provider is giving you the service you have paid for.

7. Student bank accounts

Banks always dangle deals in front of students to lure them in. Halifax offers one of the highest overdraft facilities, starting at �500 and rising to �3,000 for up to five years and charges 0% annual interest. Other banks have quite handy freebies on offer: Natwest offers a free young person's railcard if you sign up quickly enough, and HSBC offers two years free worldwide travel insurance.

8. Group shop

Rather than buying your food individually, it might be an idea to do a group shop with your flatmates. Some golden tips for when it's your turn to get the food in include:

1. Never shop when you're hungry or hungover, those impulse purchases won't even last the bus ride back.

2. Set a budget and make a list to limit the aimless wandering. .

3. If you know that those fresh carrots aren't likely to get near a chopping board in the near future, buy frozen instead.

9. Explore all that's out there

Your students' union should offer a free student finance advice centre � your first point of call to ensure that you're getting all the money that is available. They can also direct you to all additional sources of funding such as the Disabled Students' Allowance. If you're dyslexic, for example, the DSA will be able to help with specialist software for taking lecture notes.

10. Library books are just as good

Become acquainted with your library as soon as possible. The books in the library are just as good as those on Amazon. Humanities and social sciences courses, in particular, have heavy weekly reading lists. Buying every book new, even if the lecturer who wrote it told you to, is a sure fire way to bankrupt yourself. Try and set up an arrangement with your friends so that if you must buy books new, at least the cost is reduced.

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Poor pupils failed by school admissions: Barnardo's

2010-08-27T06:04:00.001-07:00

LONDON (AFP) - "Impenetrable clusters of privilege" are forming around the best schools, while poorer children are consigned to the worst ones, a children's charity warned Friday, in a searing attack on England's school admissions system.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Headmaster's voice: more of your GCSE and A-Level results questions

2010-08-27T05:59:00.001-07:00

In the aftermath of GCSE and A-level results, our education specialist answers your questions.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Ditch the flute and get swotting, students told

2010-08-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

Oxford's head of admissions tells candidates it wants the academically gifted, not 'second-rate historians' who play the flute.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Barnardo's criticises 'unfair' state school system

2010-08-27T03:51:00.001-07:00

Children's charity says privileged children are monopolising top state places and poorer families are losing out in a complex and unfair system

Impenetrable "clusters of privilege" are forming around the best state schools, Barnardo's, Britain's biggest children's charity, warns today. Poorer families are losing out to better-off neighbours who move house or attend church to get a better education.

Unfair admissions practices result in schools with skewed intakes that do not reflect their neighbourhoods, Barnardo's says, citing research that indicates the top secondary schools in England take on average just 5% of pupils entitled to free school meals.

Schools should be encouraged to admit pupils in "bands" based on their academic ability in order to increase the social mix, the charity recommends.

Government plans to expand the number of academies and create parent-led "free schools", which will control their own admissions, risk widening the gap.

Martin Narey, Barnardo's chief executive, said: "Secondary school admissions fail to ensure a level playing field for all children. Instead we are seeing impenetrable clusters of privilege forming around the most popular schools.

"Allowing such practice to persist � and almost certainly expand as increasing numbers of schools take control of their own admissions � will only sustain the achievement gap in education and undermine the prospects of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children."

Narey said school admissions had become a "complex game, one that many parents in poorer households are not aware is going on around them.

"Even when conscious of a race for the best schools, some less confident and able parents are often overcome by a fatalism and are resigned to the fact that their son or daughter will be left with whatever school other parents don't want."

Although the school admissions code is meant to stop schools favouring better-off children, many parents from less well-educated backgrounds are still being deterred, the charity says.

Parents who lack confidence in their own writing skills find it hard to deal with complex forms. Voluntary-aided schools, which usually have a religious link, have forms that require detailed replies about religion.

The charity said its local services had advised increasing numbers of eastern European immigrants who struggled to get into faith schools, even though they are devout Catholics, because they have recently arrived or moved around a city and therefore fail to meet the church attendance criteria.

Anne Pinney, Barnardo's assistant director of policy and research, said: "There are parents who find the system so daunting they just don't engage with it."

Failure to get into the best schools tips the balance of children's lives for the worse, the charity warns.

Pinney said: "Children born into disadvantage do worse in school, they do worse at GCSE, they are more likely to leave early and more likely to be trapped in unemployment � we want to put the spotlight on the role that unfair admissions plays in sustaining the achievement gap in education."

Ofsted inspections could be extended to look at whether schools have a mixed intake, the charity suggested.

Barnardo's also suggests that schools should be required to report annually on the profile of their pupil intake to parents and governors.

Ministers share Barnardo's concern that disadvantaged children lose out in school admissions. The pupil premium, which will reward schools that accept poorer children, is an attempt to tackle this.

A Department for Education spokesman said: "The attainment gap in English schools is too wide and far too many students from disadvantaged backgrounds are in weaker schools. That is why we are implementing a comprehensive programme to make opportunity more equal. We are introducing a pupil premium, reforming the admissions system to make it simpler and fairer, and getting the best teachers in the most disadvantaged areas by increasing investment in Teach First."

The spokesman said many academies had adopted banding to help reflect their communities better. Mossbourne, the high-profile academy in Hackney, east London, already admits pupils in bands according to ability as well as accepting children by geographical location.

Jeevan Vasagar

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Teen drift

2010-08-27T03:48:00.001-07:00

A scheme aimed at stopping teenagers from becoming NEETS, could soon be abolished.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Are school admission systems fair?

2010-08-27T02:46:00.001-07:00

Schools should be required to take equal numbers of pupils of different academic abilities to help poorer students succeed, according to a leading children's charity
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

One in four lap dancers has a degree, study finds

2010-08-27T02:43:00.001-07:00

The first academic research project into lap dancing has found that, rather than being uneducated young women who have been coerced into the industry, one in four dancers has a degree and has been attracted by the money.

GCSE science exams 'should have been tougher'

2010-08-27T01:41:00.001-07:00

Science GCSEs awarded to hundreds of thousands of pupils this week were still too easy despite numerous warnings to exam boards that they needed to be toughened up, the qualifications regulator has said.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Universities uninterested in pupils' extra-curricular activities

2010-08-27T01:39:00.001-07:00

Students applying to university should not waste their time on extra curricular activities because dons do not want "second-rate historians who happen to play the flute", the head of admissions at Oxford has said.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Tens of thousands of students to start university without full loan

2010-08-27T01:34:00.001-07:00

Tens of thousands of students could start their university term without a quarter of their student loan because of swaths of applications that arrived after the June deadline, figures suggest.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Struck-off teacher numbers rising

2010-08-26T22:31:00.001-07:00

A total of 74 teachers have been struck off in Scotland in the past six years, according to new figures.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Call for fairer school admissions

2010-08-26T20:29:00.001-07:00

A children's charity calls for schools to take an equal share of the ability bands to help poorer pupils succeed.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Science GCSEs 'not tough enough'

2010-08-26T20:26:00.001-07:00

The head of exams regulator Ofqual says this year's science GCSEs were not tough enough and there is inconsistency in standards between different boards.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

'Tougher' GCSE science papers call

2010-08-26T19:22:00.001-07:00

This summer's GCSE science papers were still too easy, the head of England's exams regulator has warned.
Read More... [Source: Education News Online]

Students sat 'easy' GCSE science exams

2010-08-26T19:19:00.001-07:00

Exams regulator admits hundreds of thousands of pupils took exams that needed tougher questions

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers sat science GCSEs that were too easy this summer, the exams regulator has admitted.

Isabel Nisbet, Ofqual's chief executive, told the Times Educational Supplement that the general science GCSE and the additional science GCSE papers needed tougher questions.

"If you asked me 'Is GCSE science good enough?' I think the answer would be no," Nisbet said. The exams represented a "collective falling short of the standards that young people and teachers have the right to expect," she said.

There were more than 802,166 entries for the exams this year.

Last year, the regulator ordered a review into general science GCSE after an investigation found a "lack of challenge" in papers, too many multiple-choice questions and standards that differed greatly across exam boards.

"I think we have made some progress in toughening up the standards and reducing the disparities, but we still have a bit to go," Nisbet said.

The regulator has demanded that new versions of the exams are ready for teachers by September 2011, but has so far rejected exam boards' attempts at rewriting them.

Nisbet said correcting the exams was a "gradual process". "What pupils should know is that their exams have been fairly and consistently marked, rigorously checked and therefore if they get a C or a B or an A, this is a real achievement," she said. "They should not feel devalued by what has been a perfectly legitimate, finely tuned criticism at a level of sophistication which many countries would just not recognise."

Nisbet's comments come as a poll shows employers and teachers have little faith in the English exam system.

Ofqual surveyed 314 secondary school teachers, 210 employers and 358 teenagers aged 16 to 18. It found just 18% of the employers and 26% of the teachers thought the exam system was doing a very good or good job.

Almost half of the employers said the exam system was doing a good job, but needed improving. Some 61% of teachers and 57% of students agreed.

Just 39% of the employers said they had confidence in the national exam system, compared to 62% of the teachers and 42% of the students. Almost a quarter of the employers and just over a fifth of the teachers said that if students sat longer exams, they would trust the system more.

GCSE results, published this week, showed a dramatic rise in the proportion of pupils taking individual sciences. Entries for chemistry and physics rose by 32%, while those for biology were up 28%, figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications revealed.

Almost 19% of students sat biology GCSE, while 17.5% took physics and 18% took chemistry. The proportion of students who took separate sciences also rose last year, but less sharply. Entries for biology rose by 18%, while for chemistry and physics they rose by 20% and 21%.

The rise in sciences may reflect some universities' preference for separate sciences. It also continues a trend seen last week in the A-level results, where students were said to be trying to recession-proof themselves by shunning so-called soft subjects in favour of science, economics and maths.

Jessica Shepherd

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Barnado's criticises 'unfair' state school system

2010-08-26T19:16:00.001-07:00

Barnado's, the children's charity, says privileged children are monopolising top state places and poorer families are losing out in a complex and unfair system