Some more headlines from the world of education and schools work:
- School buildings scheme massively over budget: The cost of the Government’s secondary school buildings programme has increased by £10bn to £55bn, public spending watchdogs reveal.
- Primary school graduation ceremonies proposed: Primary schools should host graduation ceremonies where teachers tell children which “special talents” they possess, a leading government adviser recommended.
- Scrap tests at seven and 11, teachers say: Heads and teachers’ leaders call for the scrapping of this summer’s national curriculum tests for seven- and 11-year-olds.
- Head quits over multi-faith assembly: A headteacher has resigned after parents objected to her replacing separate assemblies for Christian and Muslim pupils with a single multi-faith assembly.
- Lib Dems promise to scrap tuition fees: University tuition fees would be scrapped under the Liberal Democrats.
- UK schools have 20,000 unqualified teachers: Thousands of schoolteachers across England have no teaching qualifications
- Teacher’s £280,000 for attack by boy, 13: Sharon Lewis was 26 and four and a half years into her teaching career when an attack by a 13-year-old boy brought it to an abrupt end.
- Teachers ‘failing to spot’ causes of bad behaviour: Bad behaviour in schools is being fuelled by teachers’ failure to properly identify children with special educational needs, according to the government’s chief adviser on school discipline.
- Schools ‘should decide what teachers earn’: All state schools would be freed from teachers’ national pay scales in order to award good classroom teachers higher salaries, under a Conservative government.
- Head of Christian charity says meeting national targets for GCSEs ‘not guaranteed’: Steve Chalke from Oasis, one of the biggest players in the Government’s academies programme has admitted that some of his schools could fail to see enough of their students secure the minimum level of GCSE grades next summer.
- Exclusion must be a last resort, says Boris Johnson: The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said that excluding children from school was a “fast track to a life of criminal activity, low aspiration and unemployment” and must only be used as a last resort.
- I before e except after c, Jim: It’s back to basics for the schools minister Jim Knight, whose blog has been found to be littered with spelling mistakes.
