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 MoreSurvey of students in England reveals huge disparities in effects of lockdown and school closures.
Children studying for exams and those from disadvantaged families are the most likely to have suffered severe disruption to their learning and motivation during the pandemic, according to the largest published study of its impact on pupils in England.
Read MoreExclusive: 75% of children worst affected by paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome are BAME.
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 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 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 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 MoreMy daughter is back at school and touch wood, there haven’t been any cases of Covid at her school yet. They have cameras in each of the classrooms, so girls in quarantine at home, can join in lessons. However several independent and state schools in London have put entire year groups or individual classes into quarantine, several days after starting back. We have friends with daughters currently confined to home school as a result.
Whatever happens at Westminster, the prime minister knows closing schools again would be political suicide.
Read MoreI never thought I’d hear myself say those words: I want to receive a rejection email. I want to be told that on this occasion I have been unsuccessful; that after careful consideration we will not be continuing your application. Because at least then I know.
With unemployment rates continuing to rise, it is young people who are being hit hardest by the coronavirus job crisis. Jobs are like gold dust, the applicant/position ratio is ever-growing, and many companies are failing to inform applicants of their unsuccess. This leaves you deflated, tired and obsessively checking your junk mail.
A 23-year-old, class of 2019 graduate, I moved to London in February, excited by the prospect of starting a career and creating a new home. I started off with high hopes, and a cushion of savings to get me through the initial couple of months.
Read MoreUnited States
Teachers in at least three states have died after contracting coronavirus since the start of the new school year, with teachers’ unions concerned that the return to in-person classes will have a deadly effect across the country if proper precautions are not taken.
AshLee DeMarinis, 34, who taught social skills at a school in Missouri, died on Sunday after three weeks in hospital. A third-grade teacher died on Monday in South Carolina, and two other teachers died in Mississippi. It is not clear how many teachers have become ill with Covid-19 since the school year began but Mississippi has reported 604 cases among school teachers and staff.
Read MoreCovid maths/statistics.
Did you get the all clear in your daily cancer check this week? Of course you did not have one. Even after decades of trying it has proved extremely difficult to find regular tests that do not do more harm than good by wrongly telling healthy people they are ill. These basic statistics explain why scientists are very sceptical about Boris Johnson’s “Operation Moonshot”.
Read More‘Some form of examination’ needed for students to feel system is fair, Roger Taylor says.
Roger Taylor has said it was a "fundamental mistake" to believe the public would get behind this year's grading system.
Read MoreMy 12 year old is back on the tube school. We have to trust that she will be sensible and do the right thing. Her school have very detailed instructions and have created year bubbles. They spend the last 5mins of each lesson cleaning their desks etc.
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