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Ministers are planning to revive national tests for seven-year-olds in England, according to the Times Educational Supplement.
Currently, Year 2 pupils sit tests in reading, writing, maths and science which are marked by teachers and moderated by local councils. The results of any new tests would be used to hold schools to account on pupils' progress. Teaching unions have already threatened to boycott any new national tests.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb is reported to be considering the proposals as his department gets to grips with how pupil progress is to be measured and recorded now the system of National Curriculum levels has been scrapped. This was the system of checking pupils' year-by-year progress against a set of national expectations.
Pupils are expected to reach two levels of progress between the end of infant school - or Key Stage 1 (KS1) - and the end of primary school, or Key Stage 2 (KS2). Schools are held to account on this through the league tables.
It has been reported that Nick Gibb is looking at the idea of scrapping teacher assessment in KS1 tests entirely in favour of having reported tests because there is a difficulty with using teacher assessment for progress, plus they want to reduce teachers' workload. It has been suggested that progress can't be measured accurately with teacher assessment, and that there are incentives for schools to depress pupils' scores to show progress is being made.
The KS1 national tests for seven-year-olds were scrapped more than a decade ago after complaints that seven, or six in some cases, was too early an age to put children through the stress of external testing.
Any move to bring in national tests for infant pupils would be controversial, as teaching unions have long argued that they skew learning and can set children up to fail in the early years, when youngsters develop at different speeds. The proposal is supported by Ofsted but not by the National Association of Head Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
1 July 2015
Our July newsletter has just been published.
1 July 2015
Four in 10 of the first students to pay higher fees do not believe their courses have been good value for money, a survey for BBC Radio 5 live suggests.
Just over half say their university course has been good value and about 8 per cent are undecided.
The survey of 1 004 final-year students also shows 46 percent would do the same course again.
Universities UK said the last national student survey found 86 per cent of students were satisfied with their course. The survey, carried out by ComRes from 1-7 May, focused on undergraduates in their final year of degree courses in 2015.
These students were the first to pay higher fees of up to £9 000 per year, after the price of university tuition trebled in 2012. Many commentators predicted there would be a fall in student numbers but this did not happen.
29 June 2015
Goldman Sachs introduced new work hours for summer interns after Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern died from seizure induced by all-nighters.
Go home before midnight, and don't come back before 7am. Goldman Sachs - one of Wall Street's toughest firms - has told interns they have got to work hard, but not too hard.
27 June 2015
Our June newsletter is now available.
1 June 2015
Three free online programmes, aimed at helping sixth-formers bridge the gap between school and university, are due to launch this summer.
The courses are due to begin soon after sixth-formers have sat their AS and A-level exams in June and July, when they will be thinking about starting university or applying for a degree course in the autumn.
The university-led "massive open online courses" (MOOCs) will be available on the FutureLearn website. The content includes choosing a university and how to apply.
Sheffield university is providing two courses on applying for jobs and courses and succeeding at interviews. The first includes writing covering letters and personal statements. The second is on interviews, covering how to research organisations, what to wear and how to deal with commonly asked questions. Both courses include input from employers and admissions tutors and are open to anyone, not just young people.
The third, from the University of East Anglia, includes advice from lecturers and undergraduates on the skills new students will need. This focuses on critical thinking, data analysis and how to sustain a supported argument as well as coping with the university environment.
31 May 2015
Research teams from Bristol and Newcastle universities say that dyslexia is not linked to any problems with eyesight.
They carried out eye tests on more than 5,800 children (3% of children have severe dyslexia) and did not find any differences in the vision of those with dyslexia.
This finding raises doubts about the value of using coloured overlays or lenses to help dyslexic children with reading.
The confusion arises from the fact that minority of people who are dyslexic do find that text is significantly clearer when viewed through a coloured filter or lens - but some who are not dyslexic experience the same kind of benefit.
28 May 2015
Three of the four main English exam boards had made their papers too hard, according to exams regulator Ofqual.
The fourth board, AQA, has been ordered to make its papers more 'challenging'.
Exam boards have been preparing new, tougher maths and English GCSEs in response to government demands to introduce more rigour into secondary school examinations and to match high-performing nations like Singapore and South Korea.
The regulator came to these conclusions by analysing the results of 4000 mock tests of sample papers for GCSEs syllabuses due to be studied in schools next term.
25 May 2015
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