A Japanese student aced an assignment on ninja culture by making her own invisible ink from soya beans in a stealthy move that impressed her professor.
Eimi Haga, a member of Mie University’s ninja club, submitted an essay about the assassins with a message attached instructing the professor to heat it before reading.
Read MoreDr Anne-Marie Imafidon - Co-founder of STEMettes
Dr Dayo Olukoshi OBE - Executive principal, Brampton Manor
Sally-Anne Huang - Headmistress, James Allen’s Girls’ School
Andrew Ashe - CEO of onebillion
Emma Russo - Science teacher, South Hampstead High School
James Handscombe - Principal, Harris Westminster Sixth Form
Amanda Spielman - Chief inspector, Ofsted
Tim Barber - Head teacher, Hugh Myddelton Primary School
Tara Baig - Head teacher, Miles Coverdale Primary
Emma Stevens - Music teacher, Norbury Manor Business & Enterprise College
Mike Sheridan - Ofsted’s London director
David Benson - Head teacher, Kensington Aldridge Academy
Mouhssin Ismail - Head teacher, Newham Collegiate Sixth Form
Cheryl Giovannoni - Chief executive, Girls’ Day School Trust
Lady Cobham - Director, The 5% Club
Kimberley Hickman - PTA member, Goose Green Primary School
Sir Daniel Moynihan - Chief executive, Harris Federation
Sir Peter Lampl - Founder and chairman, Sutton Trust
Sara Williams - Chair of Pan London Admissions Board
George Lamb - Grow, founder | NEW
The handwriting of young children improves significantly when they are required to teach robots that seem to be struggling with the same difficulties, scientists say.
Researchers programmed a small humanoid robot to help under-nines to overcome the most common errors, including where parts of the letter appear out of scale and where the letter appears to be rotated at the wrong angle.
Read MoreTurkey has ruled that the million-selling book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls should be partially banned and treated like pornography because it could have a “detrimental influence” on young people.
The book, which has been published in 47 languages, offers a series of inspiring stories about women from history for young children. But in a decision published last week, the Turkish government’s board for the protection of minors from obscene publications said: “Some of the writings in the book will have a detrimental influence on the minds of those under the age of 18.”
Read MoreTen state grammar schools are in talks to be paid to teach thousands of ambitious Chinese teenagers — snatching them away from private schools that charge up to £40,000 a year.
The plans, being developed with officials in China, include 16 and 17-year-olds being taught A-levels for up to six months and given help to apply to British universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, from next September.
Read MoreAs a late spring child myself, I completely agree with this. For certain 11+ school exams, month of birth is taken into consideration. I see many summer born children who, in an ideal world, should be allowed to go back a year if requested by their parents.
Read MoreMost schools have a class clown, but one headteacher is encouraging more pupils to play the fool.
Stand-up comedy lessons have been introduced at Sheffield Girls’ School to teach sixth-formers how to deal with hecklers and silence and could help girls to cope with job interviews, negotiate at work and give them the confidence to ask for a pay rise.
The comedy club is an alternative to debating societies, developing similar skills among those put off by formal rhetoric and argument.
Read MoreSchool Cuts coalition warns of real-terms cuts despite government’s cash injection
Four in five state schools in England will be financially worse off next year than they were in 2015 despite promises by Boris Johnson’s government of a multibillion-pound funding boost, according to research by teachers’ unions.
Read MoreCommon Entrance is to end within two years as public schools take on more primary pupils. Are prep schools doomed?
Read MoreIncreasing numbers of parents with young children are seeking help from professional coaches over screen time “battles” with their “addicted” offspring, experts said.
Device use has become the heart of many family rows, with some parents complaining of “triple-screening” — youngsters simultaneously viewing a television, laptop and smartphone.
Coaches say that occupational therapists they work with are worried that children are not learning simple resilience from climbing trees or running around outside, with some starting school unable to hold a pencil properly.
Read MoreA friend spotted this and knew I would be interested.
Something very exciting happened last Friday when one of my pupils, Chika Ofili, popped into the classroom and asked if he could tell me something he had thought of over the summer holidays. I was intrigued. I had given him a book called First Steps for Problem Solvers (published by the UKMT) to look at over the holidays and inside the book was a list of the divisibility tests, which are used to quickly work out whether a number is exactly divisible by either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 before you actually start dividing. Except that there was no test listed for checking divisibility by 7. The reason why it was missing is because there is no easy or memorable test for dividing by 7, or so I thought!
In a bored moment, Chika had turned his mind to the problem and this is what he came up with. He realised that if you take the last digit of any whole number, multiply it by 5 and then add this to the remaining part of the number, you will get a new number. And it turns out that if this new number is divisible by 7, then the original number is divisible by 7. What an easy test!
Read MoreCould Labour really abolish private schools? That's the big question after the party's conference voted to "integrate" private schools into the state sector.
The plan would see the assets of private schools "redistributed".
Universities would have a quota imposed of admitting no more than 7% of their students from private schools, so their numbers were in keeping with their proportion in the overall school population.
And private schools would lose their charitable status and tax exemptions.
Read MoreFrom Saturday.
Buying a house in the catchment area of an outstanding state school is worse for social mobility than paying for your child to go to private school, a prep school leader claims.
Critics of the private school sector are often hypocrites who buy expensive houses close to high-performing state schools, according to Christopher King, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools.
The Labour Party conference opens today and a motion to abolish private schools is due to be heard tomorrow. Labour has already pledged to charge VAT on school fees.
Private school heads have reacted with anger and frustration, saying that many fee-charging schools are small and at the heart of local communities.
Speaking ahead of the conference on Thursday, Mr King said: “Vocal critics of the independent school sector are often the very same people who have enough money to buy expensive houses close to some of the most high-performing state schools in the country.
Read MoreSchoolchildren in deprived areas are being given the chance to learn about enterprise as well as maths.
James Ludlow, head teacher of the King’s Church of England School in Wolverhampton, often stops pupils in the corridor to ask them what they want to do in the future. For years, the answer has always been the same: “I don’t know, sir.”
The secondary school contends with some of the toughest conditions in the country for providing education. Its near-700 students are drawn from 40 different primary schools and speak more than 40 languages. One pupil who joined recently had escaped the war in Syria.
In the past year, however, answers to the head’s corridor question have become far more varied as a new focus on providing careers skills has started to pay off. Pupils talk regularly to entrepreneurs and business leaders and are invited to work at local companies — including the Mount, a plush hotel where visiting Premier League teams stay if they are playing Wolverhampton Wanderers.
King’s is playing a small part in a quiet revolution in schools. Along with English, maths and science, pupils are being taught the skills required to start businesses and thrive as workers in a changing economy that values entrepreneurship as much as it does qualifications in traditional subjects.
At the same time, the push — both by government and private interests — is helping improve social mobility by addressing one of the big inequities in the business world: a shortfall in working- class entrepreneurs.
Read MoreThe global wealthy will soon be able to send their children to a top English private school without having to leave home.
Harrow is setting up a virtual sixth form which will teach A-levels online to pupils anywhere in the world.
It will charge £15,000 per year and will initially focus on science and maths subjects, with education firm Pearson providing the technology.
The new Harrow School Online will begin teaching from September 2020.
Principal Heather Rhodes said the historic school was adapting to a "rapidly changing world".
This is the latest attempt to use online technology to sell UK education overseas - with the school's brand being used to attract pupils who want to be taught through the internet.
Read MoreYes, I do have my hand up in the air! I went to senior school in the ‘80’s, 1981-1988 to be precise. I went to two senior/secondary schools. My first, an independent school was in West Yorkshire and my last was in North Yorkshire, a faith state school. I can’t say I remember having any clubs at either school! In addition my mother was very much against outside school activities, as she viewed them as a complete waste of money (sigh)!
Read MoreThe UK risks losing its international influence under strict immigration policies, report suggests.
The UK has been superceded by the US as the most popular place of education for the world's political leaders, a study has found, as experts warn the government's immigration policy could reduce the attraction of British universities to overseas students.
Of the current serving presidents, prime ministers and monarchs who have studied at a university abroad, 58 were educated in the US compared to 57 in the UK - reversing last year’s positions.
Read MoreDamian Hinds should stop pointing the finger at schools – troubled pupils need specialist help that’s no longer funded.
Have you heard the stories about headteachers callously excluding children to make their school’s results improve? In a few instances, it’s true. But for the most part, the exclusion figures are not because evil school leaders suddenly care more about exams. The real problem is squeezed budgets. Heads care about every child: what they can’t do is teach all of them.
Read MoreWe regularly have this conversation in my home. My husband is all things English, and I am all things Maths. The subject we both have in common is a love for Science. Although my husband is more physics, to my biology and chemistry (I have a large collection of virus and extinction books). Our daughter is thankfully a great mix of the two of us.
Saying you’re rubbish with numbers is seen as a badge of honour in the UK. This means those with dyscalculia very rarely get the help they need.
Read MoreThoughts on this article much appreciated! I’m a Northerner who moved to London in 1998. If in 1988, when we first met, you had told either my husband or I that we would have a 10 year old girl, in a single sex, independent school, we would both have called you crazy. Yet here we are. Unless you attend church and have a child who is christened at birth, State school places are almost impossible to gain in Marylebone. I went to church from the age of 3 to 18, however I chose to use all the good of my religious upbringing, without having to go to church. In an attempt to gain a faith school reception place, we tried going to the local church every weekend. Two months in, I was the one who announced I couldn’t take it anymore, I wanted to punch the vicar for his beliefs (that’s a post for another day!).
Major study of 1.8 million pupils also challenges ministers’ claims children do better in academies and grammars.
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