Schools To Pay For City Screw Ups

It looks like education is going to have to pay for the great bankers’ bailout; it would appear that Ed Balls wants to cut spending on schools by two billion. I would have thought the massive subsidies to rich businesspeople to set up their own academies would be a good place to start, followed by the PFI scams, but no. Balls has a much “better” idea.

I’m Sick of This Urban Myth

[BPSDB]If I had a fiver every time I heard that “Schoolchildren don’t do experiments in science any more because of Health & Safety” I’d be able to afford a trip to the Antipodes this Christmas.

Teacher Trainee Dropouts

A report in the Independent ( “Four Out of ten trainees quit teaching early, report warns“, 14 August 2009) on trainee-teacher drop out rates makes for interesting if depressing reading. Six months after completing their PGCE course, only 63% are working in state schools and a further 16% quit teaching within three years.

New Disorders

[BPSDB]In his excellent book “Bad Science”, one of Ben Goldacre’s targets is the medicalising of social issues by both the pharmaceutical giants and the alternative pill peddlers. I was reminded of this recently when I read of a mother of a teenager who was claiming that giving him an ASBO was unfair because his medical condition was not being taken into account.

More On Edge Accounts

Something puzzled me about the Edge Foundation’s financial statements lodged with the charity commission.

Edge Accounts – Interesting

Following the discussion here on the Edge education foundation and their enthusiasm for purely vocational education, I decided to take a closer look.

Daily Mail Determines Reality

[BPSDB]The Daily Mail, it would appear, has taken on itself the right to decide not only what is taught in school science lessons but also the nature of reality.

Double or Triple?

Interesting discussion here on school science education. Part of it discusses the merits of the combined science double award versus the three separate sciences.

Alex Dolan Struck Off

I read in today’s Metro that Alex Dolan has been struck off by the General Teaching Council (GTC) for a year for secretly filming pupils’ bad behaviour for a television documentary. This sounded so much like the Angela Mason case that I thought the Metro had simply got the name wrong but no – there is a second case of secret filming.

Ditching Evolution

I have just read Paul Rees’ article “Are textbook references to Darwin close to extinction?” His concerns are the lack of reference to evolution and references to the scientists such as Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, whose work lay the foundations of evolutionary thought.