Anglonautes > English vocabulary > School, Education

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Vocabulary > School, Education > UK

British students protest in central London

against government plans to triple tuition fees, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010.

AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

Boston Globe > Big Picture > London tuition fee protest December 10, 2010
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.html

education

education policy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/education

education system >
Margaret Drabble writes to the Guardian
regarding the state of the education system in Britain 1984
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1652072,00.html

free education >
The Guardian > the case for free education for the masses 1864
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1684535,00.html

higher education HE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/higher-education

educationist

further education

fine education

liberal education

the higher education minister
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1896776,00.html

educate

school

rural school
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/17/joanna-briscoe-education

failing schools 2008
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2259634,00.html

The Education and Inspections Act 2006
http://www.uk-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060040_en_1
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldbills/116/2006116.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/pdf/ukpga_20060040_en.pdf
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/educationandinspectionsact/
http://education.guardian.co.uk/pupilbehaviour/story/0,,2162622,00.html

school-leaving age
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1945069,00.html

ethnic segregation
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-2399769,00.html

substandard schooling
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1890382,00.html

school system

schools minister / an education minister
http://education.guardian.co.uk/policy/story/0,15572,1480513,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1474769,00.html

school union
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1835321,00.html

school bus

school trip
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1957283,00.html

tuition fees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/tuition-fees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/23/tuition-fees-state-school-cambridge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/11/tuition-fees-questions-and-answers

fee-paying student

London tuition fees protest > Boston Globe > Big Picture December 10, 2010
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.html

student fees protest 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/10/student-fees-protest-conservative-hq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/gallery/2010/nov/10/students-protest-london-spending-cuts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2010/nov/10/demo-2010-student-protests-live
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/10/student-protests-tory-demonstrations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/nov/10/student-protest-london-millbank
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2010/nov/10/student-fees-protest-photos-route
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/11/tuition-fees-questions-and-answers

new £3,000-a-year top-up tuition fees for university students 2006
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1934423,00.html

fees

top-up fees

charge annual fees of up to £3,000

graduate debt

scholarship
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/dec/13/eton-college-scholarship

Education Maintenance Allowance EMA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/education-maintenance-allowance-ema
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/19/day-action-labour-urges-rethink-scrap-ema

Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, London

The Guardian p. 7

14.9.2004

faith schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/faithschools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/09/schools-teaching-religion-non-religion-award
http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,,1932880,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,13882,1554593,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,13882,1240149,00.html

Independent faith schools 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5877732.ece

The Association of Muslim Schools 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5877732.ece

at an Islamic school 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5877732.ece

creationism / intelligent design
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/23/science-evolution-creationism-education
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1957858,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,13882,1244098,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1958138,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1958148,00.html

school canteen

mainstream school

special school

public school
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/dec/13/eton-college-scholarship

single-sex schools
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1805434,00.html

girls' schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2009/dec/04/girls-school-gender-education

mixed schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2009/dec/04/girls-mixed-school

uniform
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1226192,00.html

alumni (pl)

classroom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2009/jun/03/teachers-tv-podcast-creativity-in-the-classroom
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1835321,00.html

college
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/

public school > Eton College
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/dec/13/eton-college-scholarship
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2324138.ece

at Eton College
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/dec/13/eton-college-scholarship

Etonians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/20/eton-whos-who-establishment

The King William's College quiz 2011
Whence did the Spitfires fly? Who dances like a jelly on a plate?
Where does the train stop in silence? Yes, it's the big hard quiz of the year
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/series/king-william-s-college-quiz
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/dec/22/king-williams-college-quiz-2011

housemaster
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/dec/13/eton-college-scholarship

cost of college education
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1759544,00.html

grammar school / grammars
http://education.guardian.co.uk/policy/story/0,,1782510,00.html

local comprehensive / comprehensives
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1646767,00.html

pathfinder school

small rural school
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1129274,00.htm

Britain's most famous progressive school
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1340357,00.html

primary school
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6489028.ece
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2261002,00.html

primary school curriculum / primary schooling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/25/primary-schools-twitter-curriculum

music teaching > singing
http://education.guardian.co.uk/artinschools/story/0,,1924821,00.html

secondary schooling

secondary school education

first-choice secondary school

secondary schools
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2192924,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1954137,00.html

state secondary schools
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article2673234.ece
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1483184,00.html

fee-paying school

grant maintained school

comprehensive school

state schools / pupils
http://education.guardian.co.uk/publicschools/story/0,,1808294,00.html

public school
http://education.guardian.co.uk/publicschools/story/0,,1808294,00.html

private school
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article4319220.ece
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1484234,00.html

private single sex girls' schools

schools catering for both sexes

gender gulf in schools
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1484284,00.html

schools watchdog > Ofsted
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/20070035
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2192924,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1954867,00.html

privileged schooling

state school

inner-city school

boarding school
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1338885,00.html

boarding fee

college

academies / academy schools
http://education.guardian.co.uk/newschools/story/0,,2083418,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1960237,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/newschools/story/0,,1960678,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/newschools/story/0,,1780247,00.html

city academies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1986339,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1472954,00.html

student

state school students
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/23/tuition-fees-state-school-cambridge

sixth formers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/20/internet-plagiarism-rising-in-schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jan/18/schools.uk1

Steve Bell

The Guardian p. 32 17.5.2007

L to R: Tony Blair, David Cameron

Schoolboy 'hanged himself after bullying'

The Guardian p. 6

16.4.2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1461109,00.html

bully / bully
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1837093,00.html

bullying
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2043693,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1714187,00.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1641540,00.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1641506,00.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1641510,00.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1641513,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/bullying/story/0,15408,1500932,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1369580,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1262587,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/classroomviolence/story/0,12388,1029112,00.html

bullying > gay children > homophobic abuse
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1479383,00.html

cyberbullies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1550626.ece

Facebook bullying of headteachers on rise, says poll

Survey finds that burden of monitoring online threats is putting schools under strain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/30/facebook-bullying-headteachers-rise-poll

name-calling

serious assault

attack on...

stab
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,1640950,00.html

be constantly picked on at school

abuse
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1491539,00.html

racism in schools
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1544147,00.html

ban on veils
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1896776,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1869807,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1685189,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1649386,00.html
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/secretariat/collegeinfo/collegenotices/05-06/09

teenager

youngster

canoodling
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1320866,00.html

parent

parent rage
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1446348,00.html

attacks and threats from angry parents
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1473216,00.html

teacher
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/12/schools-face-talent-drain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/12/more-respect-demand-stressed-teachers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/07/teachers-poll-reveals-crisis-morale
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/06/teachers-to-strike-over-pupil-behaviour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/dec/13/physics-teachers-shortage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/16/teaching-problem-schools
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2251243,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1837093,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1835321,00.html

teachers' workload
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/teachersworkload

stressed-out teachers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/12/more-respect-demand-stressed-teachers

National Union of Teachers NUT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/28/education-system-privatised-2015-union

attacks on teachers
http://education.guardian.co.uk/ofsted/story/0,7348,1493511,00.html

morale
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/12/schools-face-talent-drain

black teachers
http://education.guardian.co.uk/raceinschools/story/0,,1867528,00.html

headteachers / heads
http://education.guardian.co.uk/teachershortage/story/0,,1865114,00.html

Facebook bullying of headteachers on rise, says poll

Survey finds that burden of monitoring online threats
is putting schools under strain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/30/facebook-bullying-headteachers-rise-poll

deputy headteacher

teacher workload

pupil
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schoolmeals/story/0,,1864595,00.html

high achiever
http://education.guardian.co.uk/sats/story/0,,2234052,00.html

black pupils
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1928499,00.html

disabled pupil
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1325341,00.html

special educational needs SEN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/specialeducationneeds

lollipop lady

education secretary

Cambridge don

academic

mark / mark

mark down

high grades

good grades

work harder

homework

grade inflation

fair

unfair

marking

General Certificate of Secondary Education GCSE
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/qualifications/mainSection.cfm?sId=1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/

A / A* grade
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/25/gcse-results-one-in-four-get-a
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/22/gcse-results-a-grade

GCSE results 2011: exam breakdown by subject, school and gender

GCSE exam results are out.
Compare the performance in different subjects,
private school against comprehensive and boys versus girls here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/aug/25/gcse-results-2011-exam-breakdown

GCSE subjects 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/12/1-in-6-get-english-baccalaureate

GCSE targets 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/13/tenth-schools-miss-gcse-targets

GCSE results 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/13/tenth-schools-miss-gcse-targets
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/school_league_tables/article6811898.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/a_level_gcse_results/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/school_league_tables/article6812221.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/aug/27/gcse-results-pass-rate-up
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/gallery/2009/aug/27/gcses-exam-results

GCSE results 2007
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2193611,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6958992.stm
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schooltables/page/0,,2105700,00.html

GCSEs
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1928499,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/gcses2004/story/0,14504,1296777,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/gcses2003/0,13395,976930,00.html

sit for GCSEs

A levels
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2843890.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2726924.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2270208.ece

sit his / her A levels

performance tables of GCSE and A-level results 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1995906,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1995595,00.html

SAT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/sats

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/16/sats-schools1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/15/sats-schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/16/sats-schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/16/ken-boston-sats

outperform
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1495220,00.html

International Baccalaureate

standard

maintain / raise / lower the standard

fail to raise classroom standards

target

teach

teacher

teaching

Teaching and mental health
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2009/feb/27/teaching-mental-health

head teacher

A/B/C grade

exam

exam board

exam league tables

examiner

exam cheats

plagiarise essays

copy and paste material from the internet into an essay
and pass it off as one's own
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,1250783,00.html

Internet plagiarism in schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/20/internet-plagiarism-rising-in-schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jan/19/schools.1419education
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jun/04/schools.gcses
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jan/18/schools.uk1

work

homework

work

sit

re-sit

lesson

history lessons
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,1400538,00.html

essay

level

expected level

A-levels
http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels2003/0,13394,976928,00.html

A-level exam papers

skills
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2519806,00.html

literacy
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2261002,00.html

illiteracy
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2519806,00.html

numeracy

grammar, spelling and algebra

the three R's

spelling mistake
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/spelling_bee/article5669602.ece

read
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1068149,00.html

reading
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1406841,00.html

phonics

calculus

Physics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/dec/13/physics-teachers-shortage

religious studies

citizenship
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1882539,00.html

languages
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1921265,00.html

Latin
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1237102,00.html

French
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/aug/27/french-abandoned-gcse-state-school

geography
http://education.guardian.co.uk/ofsted/story/0,,2242013,00.html

sex education programmes
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1293552,00.html

sex education
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/apr/27/sex-education-contraception-schools
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/oct/23/sexeducation-primaryschools1
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1657308,00.html

human biology

drop out

university dropout

dropout rate

university
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/03/peter-mandelson-university-review-modernisation
http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2005/table/0,15905,-5163901,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2004/table/0,14557,1222167,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityaccess/story/0,10670,1101890,00.html

university > qualifications watchdog > Ofqual
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/02/michael-gove-universities-a-level-examinations

academics
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,1502730,00.html

lecturers

university staff

elite colleges

entrance tests

Oxford

An Oxford professor criticises the university's college system 12.10.1964
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1590121,00.html

Cambridge

Cambridge tops Guardian University Guide league table again
University scores highest in 16 out of 47 subjects,
with Oxford placed second and LSE leapfrogging St Andrews into third 21 May 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/21/cambridge-guardian-university-guide-league-table

University Guide 2012: Cambridge tops the Guardian league table
Cambridge beats arch rival Oxford
to take first place in the Guardian ranking of UK universities
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/16/cambridge-tops-guardian-league-table

Oxbridge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/12/oxbridge-university-race-discrimination
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/08/freedomofinformation-bbc
http://education.guardian.co.uk/oxbridge/0,5477,326337,00.html

university access
http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityaccess/0,10670,519603,00.html

bursary scheme

students from low-income families

higher education top-up fee

test

testing

testing in reading, writing and maths

assessment

Matt

26.9.2003
'Quarter of maths teachers unqualified'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?view
=HOME&grid=P13&menuId=-1&menuItemId=-1&_requestid=3120

curriculum

national curriculum review 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2011/jan/20/national-curriculum-review-facts-video

overcrowded curriculum

compulsory education

exam

gap year
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/15/ecuador.travelnews

timetable

revision

exam practice

pupil

mocks

“They‘ve told me to stand outside

until they feel like behaving themselves.”

Honeysett

Punch Magazine

c. 2005
http://www.punch.co.uk/Cartoon%20Galleries/Teachers.html

discipline
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1402314,00.html

classroom backchat

persistent insolence

detention
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1939333,00.html

suspension

removal

expel

expulsion
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1884495,00.html

excluded boy

problem child

pupil behaviour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/pupilbehaviour

behavioural problem

pupil behaviour

bad classroom behaviour
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1401816,00.html

pupils' bad behaviour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/06/teachers-to-strike-over-pupil-behaviour

bad / unruly behaviour
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1472417,00.html

difficult pupils

disruptive pupils
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1225613,00.html

rowdy pupils

disadvantaged background
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,1104549,00.html

ethnic minority pupil

underperform

achievement

underachieving boy
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1322548,00.html

behave badly

obey the rules

miss classes

unruly pupil
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1598150,00.html

truant

truancy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/03/kinder-way-to-tackle-truancy
http://education.guardian.co.uk/pupilbehaviour/story/0,,2260072,00.html

bunk off

skip school
http://education.guardian.co.uk/pupilbehaviour/story/0,,2260072,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/truancy/story/0,12751,1306632,00.html

punishment

corporal punishment

cane / caning / flogging
http://www.corpun.com/uksc5411.htm

disruption

classroom violence
http://education.guardian.co.uk/classroomviolence/story/0,12388,1362966,00.html

playground weapons culture

school shooting

school stabbing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,1077969,00.html

runaway

pass rate

pass an exam

fail an exam

take an exam

take maths

do well at exams

teach

learn

learning

e-learning
http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/0,10577,511228,00.html

read religious studies

learn a trade

apprenticeship

GCSE results 2011: One in four entries gets A or A*

French and other foreign languages continue to decline in popularity

Guardian.co.uk
Thursday 25 August 2011
09.30 BST
Jeevan Vasagar, education editor
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 09.30 BST
on Thursday 25 August 2011.

Nearly one in four GCSE entries has been awarded an A or an A* grade in results published on Thursday, which show a further decline in the number of pupils taking French and other foreign languages.

Entries for French have fallen since languages were made optional at GCSE seven years ago. This year, they were down to just over 154,000 from around 170,000 last year, and compared with more than 300,000 in 2004.

French fell out of the top 10 most popular subjects last year, with more pupils choosing to study geography or art for GCSE. Religious studies has grown in popularity for the 13th year running, with nearly 222,000 entries, up from 188,704 last year.

About 650,000 children receive their GCSE results today in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a smaller group than in 2010. The number of 16-year-olds in the population has been declining since 2004.

The overall pass rate at grades A* to C has increased to 69.8%, while the percentage getting an A or A* has risen from 22.6% last year to 23.2% this summer.

The decline in French has been accompanied by falls in popularity for other languages, in a pattern that appears likely to cement Britain's reputation as a monolingual country. Entries for German are down to below 70,000 while Spanish has dipped to around 66,000.

Geography has also waned in popularity.

This year's A-level results showed year-on-year rises in entries for maths, biology, chemistry and physics. And this year's GCSE results also show an increase in entries for physics, chemistry and biology. Physics is up 16.4%, chemistry 16.2% and biology 14.2%.

The number of pupils taking single sciences at GCSE surged in the previous year. Entries for chemistry and physics GCSEs rose by 32%, while those for biology were up 28%. Biology was the most popular of the three in last summer's results, with 129,000 taking the subject. This year there were nearly 148,000 entries for biology.

In last summer's results, Spanish appeared poised to overtake German at GCSE, with the numbers taking it rising to more than 67,000, while German entries fell to around 70,000 in 2010. The numbers taking Mandarin, Portuguese and Polish also rose last year, with the last of these thought to be fuelled by an increase in the number of pupils who are children of recent Polish migrants.

Last year's results showed that private school pupils were disproportionately likely to do languages and single sciences. The independent sector accounted for just 7.7% of all GCSE entries, but 15.4% of chemistry, 15.1% of biology and 14.8% of physics entries.

Last year's GCSE results showed that thousands more teenagers were sitting the exams at least one year early. Last summer, 11% of maths GCSE entries were taken early and 9.5% of English GCSE entries. In 2010, boys beat girls at GCSE maths for the second year in a row, following a decision to drop coursework in the subject. The proportion of boys getting grades A* to C in maths has risen again this year from 57.6% to 58.6%. The proportion of girls passing has also risen, from 56.8% to 58.3%.

Boys have also done better than girls in biology, where the male pass rate is 93% compared with 92.7% for girls, and in physics, where 93.9% of boys have passed compared with 93.4% of girls.

In last year's results, economics saw a higher pass rate for boys, though only around 3,000 candidates of either sex entered.

Ministers have announced plans to overhaul GCSEs in the future. From September 2012, pupils will sit all their exams at the end of the two-year courses, rather than throughout the course.

Pupils will also be marked on their spelling, punctuation and grammar in subjects that have a high "written English" element, such as history, geography, religious studies and English literature. Further reforms to GCSEs are expected to be announced after the review of the national curriculum is published.

GCSE results 2011: One in four entries gets A or A*, G, 25.8.2011,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/25/gcse-results-one-in-four-get-a

Why are new teachers leaving in droves?

Nearly half of all newly qualified teachers leave the profession within five years.
Charlie Carroll went on the road for a year,
working in the most challenging schools,
to find out why

Tuesday 16 November 2010
The Guardian
Charlie Carroll
This article appeared on p1 of the EducationGuardian section of the Guardian on Tuesday 16 November 2010.
It was published on guardian.co.uk at 08.00 GMT on Tuesday 16 November 2010.

I was only 27 years old, but it felt as if my entire teaching future had already been mapped out for me. As the deputy head of English in a prestigious secondary school, my meetings with the head seemed to revolve around my career advancement prospects: where did I see myself in five, 10, 20 years' time? Head of English? A member of the senior management team? I didn't want any of those. Not yet anyway. So what did I want? I wasn't sure.

I resolved to take some time off, but I didn't want to just travel the world with a backpack and a guidebook, barely scratching the surface of each culture I dipped into. Instead, I wanted a journey with purpose. The idea, when it came, was fully formed, sparked by a surprising statistic I read one morning in the staffroom: nearly half of all England's newly qualified teachers were leaving the profession within their first five years.

I wanted to know why.

So I took to the road to find out: moving into my old and rusting VW campervan; signing up to a supply-teacher agency. I then spent a year travelling through the 10 areas of the country that were deemed as having the most challenging schools, one month in each, and teaching in those schools. By witnessing the frontline, I could find an answer to why so many teachers were fleeing the profession, and I could journey through my own country – and experience it as I never had before.

Beginning in Nottingham, where I had done my degree and PGCE, I was booked in to a secondary school to cover an English teacher on a long-term absence due to stress. In this school, over the last academic year, almost a quarter of the staff had resigned. While I was here, one young man threatened to break my nose; another stabbed his friend in the hand with an unfolded paper-clip, drawing blood; a girl spent an entire lesson hopping about outside my room, bellowing obscenities through the window at me. An 11-year-old had to be removed from a lesson for shouting at his classmate, an orphaned Somali refugee, "At least I've got a family to go home to". One day, when a violent fight broke out in my classroom, I felt horribly aware that if I tried to break the fight up I could be reported and perhaps even sued. I had no choice but to stand back, shout at them to stop, and be ignored.

The next two months followed in this fashion as I worked in Manchester and Birmingham. The nights grew increasingly cold, and I cursed my idea of weathering them inside an unheated van, sleeping on A-road laybys because I often could not afford a campsite. I washed each morning with the chilled water that spat from the van's ineffectual tap, and shaved quickly and haphazardly over the tiny sink. My working day was dominated by confrontations with aggressive, disaffected or miserable teenagers.

On one particularly memorable day, I was in a school in the West Midlands – a small and specialist school for pupils with emotional, behavioural and social difficulties, many of whose students had been excluded from mainstream schools. These were children with a proliferation of asbos; children on terrifyingly high dosages of Ritalin; some with criminal records and, already in their short lives, histories of violence.

During one lesson, I taught Caroline, one of the few girls at this school: a tiny 11-year-old with huge, pretty eyes and an endearingly babyish appearance.

"Shall we have a go at this work, Caroline?" I asked her.

She turned and stared at me. "Fuck off, you fucking southern cunt," she said. "Fuck off back down south. No one wants you here. We all fucking hate you."

There was a calm and committed malevolence in her voice and, for one brief but terrifying moment, I thought I might cry. Instead, I decided to be honest. "Caroline, you've really hurt my feelings there. Those are very nasty things to say."

"Fuck your fucking feelings," she said, and marched out.

I spent the next month working for a small tuition centre in the Peak District, where I tutored a boy who had been permanently excluded from his school for drug-dealing, and then followed that with two months in Sheffield and West Yorkshire.

It was in the latter, out on the fringes of the great Leeds-Bradford conurbation, that I taught at a secondary school and met Ralph, a 13-year-old boy who took an instant dislike to me. Things came to a head one morning when Ralph walked out of my classroom. When I followed him out into the corridor, Ralph turned, screaming that he would break my jaw if I didn't turn around and go back inside the classroom. When I didn't, he launched.

Time slowed. I still remember that scene now: the view over my fingertips as Ralph pushed forward and raised his fist. Shamefully, I backed away and slipped into the classroom to the sound of his shouts: "Fucking posh cunt".

I sat down at my desk and noticed I was shaking. I felt something deep and necessary to my confidence had been broken for ever. A line exists between teacher and student, a line that cannot be crossed in either direction, a very physical line. And Ralph had just shattered it. I've been threatened by a student more times than I can count, but this was the first time I truly believed a student would go through with a threat. I left the school soon after.

I stumbled through the rest of my year, but it was never quite the same again. I taught in tough schools across London, the West Country, Liverpool and Middlesbrough, enduring along the way the threat of violence I was becoming increasingly attuned to. In London, the concept of knife-crime was ever-present as members of various senior management teams entered my classroom to wave squeaking and popping security wands over the students to check if they were carrying knives.

In one school in Liverpool, one boy, Saeed, faced down his bully, Alex, in my classroom by producing a knife and waving it in front of his enemy's face. I froze along with the rest of the class and with Alex as Saeed slowly raised his other hand, extended the forefinger, and lightly placed it on the tip of the blade. He gave a slight pull, and the knife bent, twanging back into place when released. It was plastic.

The class dissolved into laughter, Saeed was escorted from the room, Alex slapped the table he stood next to and hooted, "Fuck me! Fuck me!". I went back to my van that night and got so drunk on cheap red wine that I was sick.

When the year ended, I returned to my home county of Cornwall and took a summer job working in a village pub, living in my van in a field, and reflecting on my weird year. I would tell the locals about my journey, and they would ask how I had managed to last a whole year.

And, when I reflected on it, I would remember the good things as well as the bad. Even in the failing schools, there had still been individual students who were trying so hard, who were brilliant, in fact, and each of them had given me a little morale boost each day that pushed me onwards.

I had also seen in these challenging areas some wonderful schools, which, beset as they were with their difficult intake, would still thrive against the odds – three of the schools I had worked at in particularly difficult areas had achieved outstanding status in their most recent Ofsted inspections. What was it, then, that set these schools apart?

It had felt to me in these schools that a teacher really could make a difference. Supported by good and hands-on senior management teams – rather than by shadowy headteachers who rarely enter their classrooms – the teachers knew that any sanctions they implemented would be backed up, which empowered them, in turn, to support and encourage their students to achieve to the best of their capabilities. In one school, when a pupil shouted an expletive at me, the head put him on a temporary exclusion for swearing at a teacher. This kind of thing is what counts.

My aim had been to find out why so many teachers were leaving. And I think I did find my answer – a score of them, in fact, and a few ideas about what can be done to make things better. In order to stop teachers leaving, it's useless throwing money at them (no teacher teaches for the money), or implementing structural innovations such as academies or free schools. Instead, changes need to be made at a much more fundamental, frontline level, which involves supporting teachers and assisting them to support their students to learn and achieve to their maximum capability – which is, after all, what teachers train to do.

Such changes are not dramatic or expensive. They merely require a slight shift in the cultural attitude. With more power to stop violence in the classrooms, with more freedom to exclude those students who cannot cope with mainstream education, with smaller class-sizes, with an enhanced communication between teachers and parents, with protection for teachers against the overwhelming fear of litigation, with the encouragement of a zero-tolerance approach to such unacceptable misbehaviour as violence and psychological abuse (such as cyber-bullying), and with the removal of the league table culture – where schools are unfairly ranked by a cold system of results-based numbers – perhaps teachers would be encouraged to remain in their profession and continue to provide the service so invaluable to this country's future.

I still teach, and at times still love it, but I don't know for how much longer. For, until such changes are implemented, it is this teacher's opinion that the professional exodus will continue.

• Charlie Carroll is a pseudonym. All names have been changed.
On The Edge by Charlie Carroll is published by Monday Books, price £8.99. To order a copy for £7.19, with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846

Why are new teachers leaving in droves?, G, 16.11.2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/16/teaching-problem-schools

Student fees protest: 'This is just the beginning'

• Tory HQ attacked as demonstration spirals out of control
• 35 arrested and 14 injured in violent clashes at Millbank
• Police admit being caught out by scale of student action

Wednesday 10 November 2010
21.38 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Jeevan Vasagar, Paul Lewis and Nicholas Watt
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 21.38 GMT on Wednesday 10 November 2010.
A version appeared on p1 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Thursday 11 November 2010.
It was last modified at 23.15 GMT on Wednesday 10 November 2010.

Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of London today in a demonstration that spiralled out of control when a fringe group of protesters hurled missiles at police and occupied the building housing Conservative party headquarters.

Tonight both ministers and protesters acknowledged that the demonstration – by far the largest and most dramatic yet in response to the government's austerity measures – was "just the beginning" of public anger over cuts. Police, meanwhile, were criticised for failing to anticipate the scale of the disorder.

An estimated 52,000 people, according to the National Union of Students, marched through central London to display their anger over government plans to increase tuition fees while cutting state funding for university teaching. A wing of the protest turned violent as around 200 people stormed 30 Millbank, the central London building that is home to Tory HQ, where police wielding batons clashed with a crowd hurling placard sticks, eggs and some bottles. Demonstrators shattered windows and waved anarchist flags from the roof of the building, while masked activists traded punches with police to chants of "Tory scum".

Police conceded that they had failed to anticipate the level of violence from protesters who trashed the lobby of the Millbank building. Missiles including a fire extinguisher were thrown from the roof and clashes saw 14 people – a mix of officers and protesters – taken to hospital and 35 arrests. Sir Paul Stephenson, Met police commissioner, said the force should have anticipated the level ofviolence better. He said: "It's not acceptable. It's an embarrassment for London and for us."

While Tory headquarters suffered the brunt of the violence, Liberal Democrat headquarters in nearby Cowley Street were not targeted. "This is not what we pay the Met commissioner to do," one senior Conservative told the Guardian. "It looks like they put heavy security around Lib Dem HQ but completely forgot about our party HQ."

Lady Warsi, the Tory party chair, was in her office when protesters broke in. She initially had no police protection as the protesters made their way up the fire stairs to the roof. Police who eventually made it to Tory HQ decided not to evacuate staff from the building but to concentrate on removing the demonstrators.

The NUS president, Aaron Porter, condemned the actions of "a minority of idiots" but hailed the turnout as the biggest student demonstration in generations. The largely good-natured protest was organised by the NUS and the lecturers' union the UCU, who have attacked coalition plans to raise tuition fees as high as £9,000 while making 40% cuts to university teaching budgets. The higher fees will be introduced for undergraduates starting in 2012, if the proposals are sanctioned by the Commons in a vote due before Christmas. The NUS president told protesters: "We're in the fight of our lives. We face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun. They're proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalise our colleges and universities."

Inside parliament the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg – the focus of much anger among protesters for his now abandoned pledge to scrap all tuition fees – came under sustained attack, facing 10 questions on tuition fees during his stand-in performance during prime minister's questions. He said there was consensus across the parties about the need to reform the system.

Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, said the rise in fees was not part of the effort to tackle the deficit but about Clegg "going along with Tory plans to shove the cost of higher education on to students and their families". She said: "We all know what it's like: you are at freshers' week, you meet up with a dodgy bloke and you do things that you regret. Isn't it true he has been led astray by the Tories, isn't that the truth of it?"

Meanwhile one student won an unexpected concession from the coalition yesterday. In answer to a question from a Chinese student during his trip to China, David Cameron said: "Raising tuition fees will do two things. It will make sure our universities are well funded and we won't go on increasing so fast the fees for overseas students … We have done the difficult thing. We have put up contributions for British students. Yes, foreign students will still pay a significant amount of money, but we should now be able to keep that growth under control."

Additional reporting by Rachel Williams and Matthew Taylor

Student fees protest: 'This is just the beginning', G, 11.11.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/10/student-fees-protest-conservative-hq

On This Day — September 8, 1969

From The Times archive

Public and prepatory school heads objected to an examination

which they thought too difficult for the average 13-year-old

TROUBLES surrounding the introduction of the new common entrance examination for the public schools emerged over the weekend at the annual conference in Cambridge of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools.

Mr William Stewart, Master of Haileybury and chairman of the Common Entrance Board, told the conference that the papers set in June, sat by nearly 6,000 pupils aged 13, were too difficult for many of the average candidates.

He also disclosed that the board agreed that the passage set for English comprehension was too difficult and too long, and that it had led to a drop of 15 per cent in the average mark.

Some of the marks on the total examination were so low, according to one headmaster, that standards of entry to the public schools would have appeared “ludicrously” low if they had been disclosed.

Mr Stewart said that the troubles had undermined confidence at a psychological moment and had caused the doubters to conclude that the new examination would never compare with the old as a selection test. The doubts were shared both by the preparatory schools and the Headmasters’ Conference.

He had even heard it said that if the marks were going to be so low, more schools would be forced to follow Winchester and Westminster in setting their own examination.

He added: “In my opinion, we have merely encountered a temporary setback. I think too much has happened too quickly . . . I am sure the direction is right and that the examination as established can do all the things we require of it.”

From The Times archives > On This Day — September 8, 1969, Ts, 8.9.2005, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,61-1769641,00.html

February 21 1922

Eric Geddes's axe hangs over free education

From The Guardian Archive

February 21 1922
The Guardian

[Geddes wanted class sizes raised from 32 to 50 and the admission age to six.]

Life in the twentieth century for the children of the poor is still a dangerous business: how dangerous the figures of child mortality and, still more, of child sickness, reveal. Now, up to six, in colliery village and factory town, in overcrowded tenement and foetid slum, they are to scramble along unaided.

All the delicate skill which was gradually laying the foundations of a new way of life for young children is to be suddenly demobilised. All the recent improvements in the primary schools are to be swept away.

The abolition of all free places above 25 per cent in secondary schools will ruin the pioneer work of a score of enlightened authorities. That, with higher fees and fewer schools, will go far to make secondary education what it was before 1902 — the privilege of the rich. Nor, once the programme is put into force, will matters stop there. Education is not a machine which can be taken to pieces and then re-assembled. It is a living organism. When it is starved it dies. The whole moral of public education will run down.

The Report confronts the nation with a moral issue of a very searching character. It does not actually state that the children of the workers, like anthropoid apes, have fewer convolutions in their brains than the children of the rich. It does not state it because it assumes it. Its authors lament that 'children whose mental capabilities do not justify higher education are receiving it' — though I do not observe that they propose to reserve endowed schools and universities for 'children whose mental calibre justifies it.' While most decent men have viewed with satisfaction the recent considerable development of secondary education, they deplore it as a public catastrophe.

They think it preposterous that the reduction in the size of classes should give common children the chance of individual attention. They propose to increase them, to raise fees, to convert what are now grant-aided secondary schools into private schools, to abolish the state scholarships which have recently made it possible for a slightly increased — though still very small — number of working-class children to pass on to the universities. Their programme in short is 'back to 1870.'

Swift once suggested killing babies and tanning their skins, which, he shrewdly observed, would make excellent leather, and could be sold at a profit. Is it much more humane to 'save' money by reducing height, weight, vitality, and mental development of children between 5 and 14?

RH Tawney

From The Guardian Archive > February 21 1922 > Eric Geddes's axe hangs over free education, G, Republished 21.2.2007, p. 34, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/02/21/pages/ber34.shtml

A caste system in schooling is a bad ideal

March 20, 1911

From The Guardian Archive

Monday March 20, 1911
Guardian

A London secondary school has decided that it can no longer put up with the "board school" scholarship boy, and has renounced a considerable annual grant from the London County Council paid for the education of these boys.

The school is the University College School at Hampstead, and apparently it has taken action at the behest of the parents of the paying boys themselves. We are afraid that there is only one explanation possible. There is a fear, no doubt, among the parents that the "board school boys" may communicate to the other boys some taint of faulty pronunciation or inelegant manners.

It is a pity. If these parents valued the right things they would be only too glad of a stiffening of scholarship boys - that is, picked boys of special ability from the popular elementary schools. They would see in it a guarantee that their boys would have the stimulus of a keen intellectual rivalry and a high standard of earnestness and accomplishment.

One would not like to see our chief Manchester secondary school deprived of the scholarship boys from the elementary schools. The superficial elegancies and refinements of life are only too easily learned by boys in and out of school. In the serious things, they should learn from the beginning that the realm of intellect and endeavour is a democracy.

The republic of letters, in the widest sense, should be a conception familiar to them as soon as they are introduced to the world of letters. In the United States a piece of news like this would arouse vehement public indignation, and any of the parents and authorities responsible who had any part in public life would be made to pay the penalty.

The son of the president is expected to sit down on the same public school bench as the son of the bootblack. It would probably be the better for us if there were the same democratic jealousy here. For with the attempt to keep particular secondary schools a preserve of a particular class will always go the attempt to keep the higher walks of life in the professions and the public services a preserve for the same class.

Apart from this material danger, the caste system in education is a bad ideal. It would be far better if the Spartan ideal of poverty were imposed on all the youth of the nation until their education was finished.

- The 1870 Education Act - which set a leaving age of 12 - created primary board schools funded from the rates.

In 1907 scholarships were introduced to allow clever children from these to attend secondary schools

From The Guardian Archive > A caste system in schooling is a bad ideal, 20.3.1911,
Republished 20.3.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1735198,00.html

Anglonautes > English vocabulary > Education > USA

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