So Ofsted’s chief inspector for schools Christine Gilbert has suddenly come to the conclusion that failure to teach children to read and spell is not to do with poverty or ethnic background. It’s because they are not being taught properly!The Sunday Times today (14.11.10) has reported Ms Gilbert as saying that progress in ‘improving literacy… Continue reading Illiteracy: another admission of failure
We at Sounds-Write have long puzzled over why it is that government minsters, literacy specialists, college professors and whatnot aren’t utterly and completely persuaded by the results we get with our programme. In our longitudinal study on over fifteen hundred pupils being taught using Sounds-Write throughout Key Stage 1, over ninety percent were within six… Continue reading Irrationality – our default state?
The widely heralded increase in the schools budget is, it turns out, not what it at first seemed. The Financial Times this weekend (30th/31st October) spelt out the reality behind the rise.The resource budget, which is used to fund day-to-day running costs will, it appears, rise by 0.4 %. However, the increase in the numbers… Continue reading The truth behind the ‘rise’ in the education budget
I’ve mentioned before that John Bald’s blog on language and literacy is well worth a visit. Like many others, he’s been following the story of Katherine Birbalsingh as reported in the (mainly) broadsheet press and on this blog. His latest posting, ‘Katharine Birbalsingh – the Guardian Knot’, reports an interview with her in the Guardian.… Continue reading Bald on Birbalsingh
Trying to effect change within the educational establishment is, as the former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead once put it, ‘as slippery and hard for reformers to wrestle down as a greased cow in a swamp’. Woodhead (after the US education secretary William Bennett) called the ‘tribe’ that make up the civil service, the… Continue reading Brogan on the Blob
A short while ago I was upbraided for daring to suggest that individuals we commonly refer to as geniuses are not born with abilities beyond the scope of ordinary individuals. My thinking was heavily influenced by the publication in 2006 of The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, where two approaches to the expertise… Continue reading Deliberate practice and expertise
The Telegraph (yesterday) and the Sunday Times today are both running stories on Ms Birbalsingh’s departure (sacking) from St Michael and All Angels Academy after she had spoken out against ‘low standards and expecting the very least from the poor and disadvantaged’ at the Conservative Party conference a few weeks ago.Despite being given permission to… Continue reading Ms Birbalsingh departs
Ooops! I almost forgot the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee, held in the United States on June 5th.This year’s winner was Anamika Veeramani, from Ohio, who spelled the word ‘stromuhr’ correctly to win the competition. According to npr, a ‘stromuhr’ is a medical instrument ‘that measures the amount and speed and flow of blood through… Continue reading 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee
My guess is that unless you keep abreast of US politics, you probably won’t have heard of Michelle Rhee. She was, until very recently, children’s chancellor to Adrian Fenty, mayor of Washington, DC, until he was defeated in the Democratic primary on September 14th.Over her three years in tenure Rhee turned education in Washington schools… Continue reading Goodbye to Michelle Rhee, children’s champion
Many years ago I enjoyed very much watching Desmond Morris’, at the time, utterly captivating TV programme ‘Zoo Time‘, where he would get up to, amongst other things, all sorts of antics with a number of favourite chimpanzees. His books, The Naked Ape and Manwatching, were also great fun, if a little speculative in places.… Continue reading Desmond Morris on books v TV for toddlers