ISC Daily News Summary

Financial Times
The Financial Times this weekend published its ‘Top 1000 schools' supplement. Reports on Top 1000 Schools from the Financial Times

Sunday Times
Further coverage on the A*.
Message Board: Star students Is Cambridge University right to say that three As at A-level is no longer good enough? (Sunday Times)

Sunday Times
Girls' schools have been under a cloud, but new research shows they are still top of the class. The Sunday Times investigates. GSA President Jill Berry is quoted.
School is better without boys (Sunday Times)

 

 

Sunday Times
Anthony Seldon this weekend wrote an article for the Sunday Times in favour of the International Baccalaureate.
Think Tank: New Ideas For The 21st Century: Exams are failing our schools

 

 

In a dramatic U -turn, the Vetting and Barring Scheme due for implementation in October 2009 has been postponed until after the General Election. Under the scheme, all 11 million employees and volunteers in the children's workforce  were to be registered with the Independent Safeguarding Authority at a cost of £64 each. ISC has been notified that this part of the complex scheme will not now proceed until November 2010. For the small print of what is and is not going ahead, members are referred to the legal section of the Members' Zone under Hot Topics (Vetting and Barring) or Latest News.

Daily Mail
State school pupils could face longer days and Saturday morning tuition under radical plans unveiled by the Conservatives yesterday. Michael Gove said heads would be allowed to extend school days and introduce shorter holidays.
Lengthen school days and shorten holidays, say the Tories (Daily Mail)

 

 

Observer 
Good discipline in schools, regular communication with parents and a well-stocked library are more important than academic standards, according to a survey of parents' views of what makes an ideal education. Almost all parents said manners and good behaviour were vital lessons that schools should teach children. Most parents also agreed that full and stable staffing levels were also essential to a good education, while 74% said a good library was key. In comparison, just 63% of parents rated good overall academic results as a defining feature of an ideal school.
Manners matter more than grades, say parents (Observer)

 

 

Observer 
In some of the worst affected education authorities, particularly in London, an average of one in eight families have been turned down by all of their selected schools. The Observer reports.
Model school where a third of pupils can't get a place at a state secondary (Observer)

 

Daily Telegraph
Exam league tables should be overhauled to stop schools focusing on easier subjects, research suggests. A new points system is needed to show that courses such as theatre studies are not as difficult as others such as physics, it was claimed.
Pupils 'should be rewarded for taking harder subjects' (Daily Telegraph)

 

 

Daily Telegraph
Schools will also be measured on truancy, exclusions and the ability to promote "emotional resilience" in their pupils. More than 100,000 children are being taught in "coasting" schools which fail to stretch their most able students, The Sunday Telegraph has revealed. The schools, many of which are located in leafy suburbs and shire counties, have avoided scrutiny in the past because they achieved average or better than average exam results. But the statistics hid the fact that talented pupils failed to achieve their full potential. Figures obtained by the Sunday Telegraph from more than half of England's 150 education authorities suggest that at least 130 schools across the country can be classed as "coasting".
Teachers attack 'absurd' plans to measure pupil happiness (Daily Telegraph)

Daily Telegraph
Failing primary schools should be removed from local council control and placed in the hands of private companies, ministers were told today. It would trigger a massive expansion of Labour's controversial academy programme, which has already led to more than 130 state secondary schools being run by the private sector. In a report, the think-tank Policy Exchange said more schools should have the freedom enjoyed by academies to control admissions, the curriculum and teachers' pay.
'Privatisation' for failing primary schools (Daily Telegraph)

Independent
Classroom teachers mark pupils more strictly than external examiners do, it emerged yesterday, adding momentum to the case for scrapping national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds. New figures have revealed that outside examiners were more likely to award higher marks to 14-year-olds than their teachers were.
Teachers 'stricter' than examiners (Independent)

Sunday Express
The Sunday Express this weekend reported on a back-to-basics teaching method from Scandinavia that is set to transform British classrooms.
Why we could learn from Sweden's Ikea education (Sunday Express)

Independent
Britain's higher education institutions are caught in a perfect storm of falling income and rising costs. The Independent reports.
Universities face tough economic examination (Independent)

 

 

Sunday Telegraph
Sending your children to university is about to get even more expensive.
How to pay for a university education (Sunday Telegraph) 

Daily Telegraph
Take 100 boys, 20 dedicated teachers, one down-to-earth headmaster, two jolly cooks, one motherly matron and you have Slindon College in West Sussex. The forte of this independent special-needs school is taking pupils who have struggled to fit in elsewhere, then giving them the skills and confidence to succeed.
Slindon College: the school that puts attention before detention (Daily Telegraph)

Daily Mail
Far more children have autism than previously thought, a study of British school pupils has found. Researchers now believe as many as one in 60 children has some form of the condition. 
One child in 60 'suffers from a form of autism' (Daily Mail)

 

 

Answer the question: Chris Woodhead The fail-safe way to stop plagiarism at university (Sunday Times)

Modern boarding schools (Daily Telegraph)

Making the grades (Times)

The benefits of a home education (Independent)

 

BBC News Online
Many parents feel "excluded" by their children's reluctance to tell them anything about their time spent at school, suggests a survey. The survey from the government's educational technology agency, Becta, suggests children do not like to be "hassled" by parental inquiries.
Parents feel excluded by children (BBC News Online)