Learning Blog
Home | Blog
Texts from schools to parents about tests and homework can boost secondary pupils' maths grades by the equivalent of a month in class.
Texting can also cut pupil absence, according to the Queen's University Belfast evaluation.
The programme involved 15,697 pupils in 29 schools across England, half of whose parents were sent texts. The pupils who took part in the study were from Year 7 - the first year of secondary school, Year 9 and Year 11 - the GCSE year. In each school, either the parents of the Year 11 group or the Year 7 and Year 9 groups were allocated to receive the texts.
The parents of about half the pupils involved in the trial were sent roughly one text a week during the school term, for a year starting in September 2014. Overall, the programme amounted to about 30 texts over the year.
They included the dates of tests and warnings about missed homework as well as details about what the children had learnt during the day, aiming to prompt conversations at home about school.
The researchers carried out baseline tests to determine pupils' abilities at the beginning of the year and used figures from the National Pupil Database to determine their progress.
The researchers found the effect of the intervention was not statistically significant in English and science.
20 July 2016
Getting everybody to work, one-to-one, with everyone else during the course of an event is one of those tasks which you think should be easy to arrange.
But when you try to work out the pairings, the combinations never quite seem to work out. Working out the combinations can be a bit tricky, but don't despair - this resource gives all the combinations for 3-24 people. More
19 July 2016
More than 100 prospective European students have withdrawn applications to study at Aberystwyth University following the European referendum result.
Prof John Grattan, acting vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth University, said about half of those pulled out the day after the Brexit vote - a stunning impact on our finances.
"I won't hide it from you that Brexit poses a challenge to the university," Prof Grattan told students during one of the graduation ceremonies this week.
There are 120,000 European students at British universities. For many universities, EU and international students are a large part of their income, with most paying between £10,000 and £15,000 a year in tuition fees.
Unfortunately, news reports abroad have led to articles disseminating the message that EU citizens are no longer welcome in the UK. Because of this all UK universities have said that prospective students that had accepted firm offers are now withdrawing them.
18 July 2016
Now available to read online.
30 June 2016
You may may have heard of some of these laws like 'The Peter Principle' and 'Parkinson's Laws'.
Others may be new to you like 'Thurow's Tyranny' and 'Harvey's Abilene Paradox'. More
23 June 2016
Scientists have known for centuries that nothing is the key to understanding absolutely everything.
Now their wisdom is collected into one fascinating volume by the experts at 'New Scientist'. More
21 June 2016
A survey of 15,000 students shows perceptions of 'good value for money' have fallen to 37% from 53% in 2012.
The survey suggests that a lack of teaching hours for some courses is causing this sense of disappointment.
The lowest perception of value for money is in England, at about 32%, where tuition fees are up to £9,000 per year, while in Scotland, where there are no fees, the figure for getting good value is about 65% of students.
The study shows student satisfaction is linked with the quality of teaching staff - and students put a higher priority on academics' ability to teach than research activity.
Courses with low levels of contact hours, such as history, English, languages and social sciences are rated as being less good value, compared with physical sciences, engineering and medicine, which have longer hours of structured study.
There are courses with only eight hours a week or lower - and the study shows that in the four years since tuition fees increased in England, the number of timetabled contact hours had fallen slightly.
The government is proposing that fees in England should be increased above £9,000, if universities can show they have high quality teaching but the survey shows very high levels of opposition from students to raising fees.
9 June 2016
The seller who was having problems with apparent buyer criminal activity has published an update...
"After about a month of email arguments with eBay about their apparent policy of profiting from criminal activity, something unexpected happened - not only did they refund my seller fee (something they had said repeatedly they would not do), they also returned the amount of money the item sold for to my bank account. So, the buyer got a refund, but I got the (now broken) item back, and the amount I sold it for. Financially, this is a good outcome for me, and I do thank eBay for their (eventually) generous response - but I still won't be using eBay or PayPal again, because this wasn't really about the money. The problem remains that criminal activity is not only condoned, but also rewarded, in their business model."
20 May 2016
< Newer Posts | Older Posts >