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 MoreWhile most teachers express frustration about the education system in England, with its focus on Sats, GCSEs and league tables, what they don’t usually do is set up their own school instead. But that is exactly what Lucy Stephens did.
Stephens had been a primary teacher for six years but grew disillusioned and left. “I was just shoehorning kids through test papers,” she says. “Everything was so competitive. You’d find the headteacher in your room, looking through your books, checking on you. Behaviour managers can rule by fear, the staff as well as pupils. I’ve seen them scream at kids in front of the whole school, humiliating them.”
Stephens decided to resign and work for The Prince’s Trust charity, helping vulnerable young people. But now she is back teaching – this time in her very own school, where she writes the rules and sets the pace.
Read MoreIt’s not easy being a teenager in 2021. It could even give you the blues. What it rarely does, however, is make you want to play the blues, the musical style that emerged from black communities in the American south at the turn of the 20th century and went on to form the foundation of 1960s and 1970s rock. Toby Lee, a 16-year-old from Oxfordshire who has been celebrated by such greats as Buddy Guy and Joe Bonamassa as the best blues guitarist of his generation, is a rare exception.
“I’m going to be honest: I’m quite a nerd,” Toby says, actually looking quite stylish in a flat cap and patterned shirt as he speaks from his parents’ living room in Oxfordshire, a custom-built Gibson335 electric guitar leaning on the wall behind him. “If I’m not playing guitar, I’m taking a guitar or a pedal apart to figure out how it works. I have a mechanical mind and I’m into things my friends aren’t into, but I quite like that. It’s something different to talk about.”
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 MoreBorn with a rare genetic condition affecting her bones and heart, Daniella Reynard feared that she would never be able to fulfil her dream of having a child.
Now, thanks to genetic screening technology, she is the delighted mother of a healthy baby boy.
Read MoreThe teacher dismissed from Eton over an anti-feminist video could be banned from teaching permanently after the school referred him to the watchdog.
Read MoreSince its beginnings in 1382 Winchester College has been guided by the motto “Manners Makyth Man”. But more than 600 years after it was founded by William of Wykeham to teach 70 “poor and needy scholars”, Britain’s oldest public school will open its doors to sixth-form girls.
Read MoreA leading head teacher has said that labelling children the Covid generation is “catastrophising” and blighting them.
Read MoreCambridge University received a “generous gift” from a Chinese software company with links to the communist regime to fund an engineering fellowship, The Times has learnt.
Read MoreChildren from troubled backgrounds will win places at prestigious private schools as part of a government-backed scheme aimed at transforming their life chances.
About £200,000 of public money is being given to a charity that helps match vulnerable children and those in care with top independent schools.
Read MoreGrigori Perelman, 54
Alex Gerko, 41
Demis Hassabis, 44
Terence Tao, 45
Sir Martin Hairer, 45
Alexandra Botez, 25
Wang Pok Lo, 16
Sir Roger Penrose, 89
Jim Simons, 83
Hou Yifan, 26
Read MoreMilo Beckman was studying advanced algebra when he was 8. By 15, he was a Harvard prodigy. Now aged just 25, he’s written a brilliant book that takes everything we know (and fear) about maths out of the equation – starting with numbers.
Read MoreIn Junior School, my daughter was introduced to: French, Spanish, German and Mandarin. In year 7, she was taught how to learn any language and spent a term learning: German, Russian and Mandarin. In year 8, she’s now being taught: Latin, German and Italian.
Read MoreBoth my husband and I were asked to leave recorder club at our primary schools. I was even asked to mime in a concert. My problem - I didn’t practice. Not sure if that’s because I always forgot or because my mother didn’t remind me. She wasn’t big on helping me with anything to do with school. My husband on the other hand, is musical and spent 20 years as a Sound Engineer and Producer, before switching careers.
Our daughter is very musical, although she’s also not big on practicing. She was very lucky and managed to be offered a 3 year plac, on the Royal Academy of Music’s First String Experience course. She made it to grade 5 violin (then gave up to work more on her ballet), grade 4 piano, grade 3 recorder and is now just beginning grade 5 flute (her only weekly lesson instrument now). She’s spent lockdown teaching herself to play her guitar (Rolling Stones, A Star is Born soundtrack and random Siri inspired tracks), learning how to use GarageBand and back to playing her piano.
Read MoreExclusive: 75% of children worst affected by paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome are BAME.
Read MoreNew medical schools have opened, allowing 12,000 students to start medical degrees last autumn
The arts degree is in steady decline as medicine, computing and engineering soar in popularity, university entry figures show today.
Read MoreCompass apologises for poor quality of some UK food delivery parcels criticised by Marcus Rashford
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