Since the UN started large scale surveys of adult literacy in the developed world in the mid 90’s, politicians in all those countries that have English as their mother tongue have been at a loss to explain their appalling results. In English speaking countries around half of all adults are not sufficiently literate to cope… Continue reading ‘Literacy Standards in the UK – A Reality Check’ by David Philpot
What I remember Umberto Eco for best – and, my goodness, I enjoyed The Name of the Rose – is a long-forgotten piece he wrote on the Bond novels. On reading said piece, I was amazed to see that, apart from The Spy Who Loved Me, all the others conformed to a strict structural pattern. I’d… Continue reading Umberto echoes my fondness for the fountain pen.
Polly Curtis reported in Friday’s Guardian that 10,000 people have signed a petition to scrap SATs.Independent and objective testing is an appropriate way of seeking to find out if pupils are successfully remembering and understanding what society wants them to be taught. Unfortunately there is little evidence that the Government’s SATs papers actually do this… Continue reading The end of SATs?
What’s the future going to be in terms of preparing oneself for a worthwhile job? Is it the law, economics, politics? Not according to Hal Varian, Google’s chief statistician. For Hal, the sexy job to be doing in the next ten years is going to be statistics!In an interview with Tim Harford on Radio 4’s… Continue reading Vital statistics? The ‘sexy job’ of the future, says Google’s chief statistician.
You can tell we’re still becalmed in the silly season when the Indie reports a poll taken in New Zealand ranking ‘naughty’ kids by name! Top of the list was Callum for boys and Chelsea for girls! Not very encouraging for the Clintons then! With not a naughty Nick in sight, Chardonnay came in at… Continue reading Naughty names – a nadir in news reporting.
The Telegraph is asking today if teaching assistants should be allowed to teach. This is a follow-up to the previous day’s piece entitled “School pupils ‘taught by untrained staff”, in which it was revealed that ‘assistants were used as temporary cover in more than 80 per cent of schools’. The blow hards claim everything from… Continue reading Them as can do. And then they teach!