Reform to GCSE is nothing new. Educators have been calling for changes for some time but the pandemic has not only increased the desire to look at things in a new light but also shown how quickly changes can happen.
For Sarah Fletcher, High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School in London, GCSEs have simply not kept up with the pace of change in the last thirty years. "I think the fundamental problem is that the world is now very different to the one that existed back in the 1980s."
Read MoreEight-year-old Emily Grills was looking forward to turning singing teacher this month, drilling her parents on the songs she has been singing with her children’s choir in Bristol.
“Lockdown has been lonely,” she said. “But singing makes me happy and so teaching my parents to sing means we can do it together even when it’s not my lesson time – although my mummy doesn’t sing very well yet.”
Encouraging even their youngest members, such as Emily, to become “singing ambassadors” who help plan and lead lessons, is just one of the new and positive ways that the pandemic has forced Bristol Beacon choir to innovate.
Read MoreLinguist who compiled list of words says they help tell story of life during pandemic.
From coronamüde (tired of Covid-19) to Coronafrisur (corona hairstyle), a German project is documenting the huge number of new words coined in the last year as the language races to keep up with lives radically changed by the pandemic.
The list, compiled by the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, an organisation that documents German language in the past and present, already comprises more than 1,200 new German words – many more than the 200 seen in an average year.
Read MoreA leading head teacher has said that labelling children the Covid generation is “catastrophising” and blighting them.
Read MoreFor those parents whose children sat the UMKT Intermediate Maths Challenge from the 1st - 4th February, I’ve pulled together the last 24 years of grade boundaries. Going forward, you’ll be able to find yearly updated boundaries on my website Grade Boundaries
Read MoreExclusive: 75% of children worst affected by paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome are BAME.
Read MoreCompass apologises for poor quality of some UK food delivery parcels criticised by Marcus Rashford
Read MoreCovid-19 crisis has allowed for a radical rethink of education system, says One Nation group.
The disruption caused by the coronavirus allows for a “radical” rethink of England’s school system, according to a group of Conservative MPs who advocate scrapping GCSEs, delaying the start of formal education and introducing longer school days.
A paper from the One Nation caucus of centrist Conservative MPs is the latest assault on GCSEs, arguing that England is unusual in making teenagers sit two sets of high-stakes exams within the space of three years, and that this is partly responsible for high levels of stress and unhappiness among pupils.
Read MoreHaving had a miscarriage myself and also having family members, including my mother, who have also suffered miscarriages, or in one case - double figure miscarriages, I feel that Chrissy Teigen showing the reality of miscarriage is incredibly important.
My now ex best friend, told me that as my miscarriage had been at 9 weeks, it hadn’t even been a real baby. To add further pain, she refused to see me in the following few days, unless I went across London to meet her, as she was too busy to fit me into her schedule. When I offered to meet her half way, she told me I was obviously too “sick” to leave my home. Her schedule that day - to meet a friend who had to put her horse to sleep that week. My miscarriage meant nothing to her. She’s now a mother herself and I hope has a less icy heart.
Read MoreGeneration of children missing out on life-changing benefits, say parents, schools and industry.
A ban on residential school trips risks an “economic, social and cultural disaster” and the loss of 15,000 UK jobs unless it is lifted by spring, ministers are being warned.
Read MoreDress codes are nothing new to students going out in Manchester – no trainers, no football shirts and, increasingly, no man bags. But one student party this weekend had a special entry requirement: Covid.
According to one fresher at the University of Manchester, the “Covid Positive” party in the university’s Fallowfield campus halls of residence was broken up by security on Saturday. It is just one of the increasing instances of students’ risky behaviour during lockdown restrictions.
“There was a flat party a few days ago which had a policy that you could only get in if you were positive. It was like their health-and-safety measure,” the 18-year-old physics student said.
Read MoreWe just saw a news report about this group of London birdwatchers and loved it. They are an incredibly cool group of people.
Back at the end of June, as the strictest lockdown restrictions in London were beginning to ease, there was one thing, above all others, that Ollie Olanipekun and Nadeem Perera were itching to do: go birdwatching. “So much of the appeal of what we do is the escapism, and we’ve never needed that more than the past six months,” says Olanipekun. As birds (or, at least, birdwatchers) of a feather who bonded online over a mutual passion for this relatively esoteric outdoors activity, it wasn’t just about the chance to return to nature, whip out the binoculars, and tick another rare sighting off their list. It would also mean a tentative step back into the pre-pandemic social lives so many of us have struggled to ease back into. As Perera puts it: “It’s really just the perfect Sunday out.”
Read MoreIn this letter, leading educators demand urgent action as they launch a group aiming to overhaul the testing regime in schools.
We were told this summer that it was a “mutant algorithm” that had caused the anguish of the exam fiasco. Covid may have exposed the failings, but in truth, something more profound is going on, and it has been brewing for years: we have a mutant exam system.
Created with good intentions — “to raise standards” — it has mutated into something that neither measures the right things nor is very reliable, and leaves in its wake a trail of stress and unfairness.
Many of those who are involved in the exams merry-go-round are reaching the same conclusion — it’s not fit for purpose and needs to change.
This week a new group— Rethinking Assessment — is being launched to do something about it.
Read MoreDr Jamie Frost’s tuition website went viral during lockdown, helping millions of pupils around the world with their studies.
A London mathematics teacher has been shortlisted for a $1m (£780,000) international teaching prize after his tuition website went global during lockdown, helping millions of pupils in the UK and around the world to continue their maths studies at home.
Read MoreA flight carrying hundreds of students to Belfast from Beijing has become the first of several expected to be chartered by British universities to bring a record number of Chinese people into the country to study.
More than 24,000 Chinese students sought admission to British universities this year, up by 23 per cent, of which 8,570 were accepted, a rise of 14 per cent.
Read MoreMy 12 year old recently discovered that you could rent women’s clothes in Selfridges. Not quite sure either of us actually liked any of the clothes on display though.
2020 is the year fashion rental went mainstream. But should childrenswear be next on your list to loan? And is it safe? Chloe Street speaks to My Wardobe Kids' Sadie Mantovani to get the baby gro-down
Read MoreA survey found that over 50 per cent of teachers with pupils due to take exams next summer felt they were not on track to get the results they should achieve.
Questions surround next year’s GCSE and A-level exams after ministers, unions and private schools raised doubts that they would run as normal.
Read MoreParents are demanding an “unequivocal statement” from John Swinney about the fate of next year’s school exams amid claims that they may be cancelled again due to Covid-19.
Read MoreWhenever Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell ill, liberal America held its breath. To many it was Bader Ginsburg, the 107th justice of the Supreme Court and something of a judicial celebrity, who was the voice of reason in a nation divided on ideological grounds, with her cautious words and constant attempts to build a consensus no matter who was involved.
Read MoreShe might be singing nursery rhymes or helping a child to learn the alphabet. While it sounds like an average day for a nanny, there is a difference. Danielle Manton-Kelly is not in the room with the children: she is a Zoomsitter, an online nanny, and she is one of a growing breed.
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