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!
As is so often the case, npr (USA’s national public radio station) has been reporting an item of major interest to everyone interested in how we should be teaching our children to read.They got the ball rolling by reporting that, after twenty-six years of broadcasting and over two dozen Emmys, the much loved TV programme… Continue reading No crock of gold at the end of Reading Rainbow.
The latest row (see Saturday’s Telegraph) to erupt over testing is over the request by some state schools to be allowed to allow their pupils to sit IGCSEs.IGCSEs are generally regarded as being more rigorous, which is why many private schools have now opted for them. In March of this year, Manchester Grammar school also… Continue reading IGCSEs
The Independent reports that the Lib Dems are predicting the number of pupils leaving school without five good GCSEs since Labour came to power will top three million when the results are announced later this week.The figure that really shocks me is that last year 230,140 teenagers went out of the school gates without getting… Continue reading Lib Dems predict rise in number of school leavers failing to get five good GCSEs
Children’s literature has been a fast growing area of academic interest in the past ten to fifteen years. Much of this has been further fuelled by an explosion of enthralling stories by writers such as Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, J.K. Rowling and so on. In case it takes your fancy, the Open University is inviting… Continue reading From Utopia to dystopia: new books on Ransome and Golding and a new course on Children’s lit. from the Open University
Thanks once more to Susan Godsland for bringing George Walden’s recent piece for the Telegraph to my attention. In truth, I almost wish I hadn’t seen it, as it makes such deeply depressing reading.No-one comes off well under Walden’s scathing reflection: he quotes a friend as saying that ‘reforming education was like trying to disperse… Continue reading On Walden ponder.
I’m back! Did I miss anything? I thought not.Anyway, there’s an amusing piece in the Telegraph from a couple of days ago on ‘Stefan Gatward’s mission to correct our wayward grammar.’Apparently, Mr Gatward added an apostrophe to the street sign where he lives. The new sign reads St Johns Close, whereas, of course, it should… Continue reading Back home in search of the lost apostrophe.
John has given up on the weather and gone in search of some sunshine.