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Author Archives: Eddie Playfair
The GCSE retake challenge.
Imagine a year when all our efforts to improve sixth form students’ English and Maths worked for nearly everyone. A year when the English and Maths skills of all those post-16 students who achieved grade 3’s at school improved to … Continue reading
Posted in Education
Tagged achievement, criterion referencing, curriculum, Education, exam results, GCSE English, GCSE Maths, GCSE retakes, norm referencing, skills
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Easing student debt won’t cut it.
Apparently, the prime minister is considering ways to ease the burden of student debt (story here). That sounds like a good idea; she might also take the opportunity to consider how the tuition fee and loan system has changed the … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy, Politics
Tagged Education, Labour party, marketisation, politics, student debt, student loans, Universities, university fees
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Challenging IQ.
Behavioural genetics; the clue to the difficulty is in the name. As with Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology before it, the squashing together of two very different levels of understanding into a single discipline creates a real problem. Genetics and psychology … Continue reading
NewVIc results 2017
Students and staff at Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) are celebrating another year of improvement in A-level pass rates and top grades, all of which have continued to increase faster than nationally. NewVIc’s A-level pass rate is up 1% on … Continue reading
The NewVIc class of 2016
As we prepare to celebrate the achievement and progression of our 2017 leavers on their results day, it’s worth looking back at our most recent previous cohort and where they progressed. As usual, the class of 2016 was a brilliant … Continue reading
Posted in Education, NewVIc, Students
Tagged Education, Newham Sixth Form College, NewVIc, Russell group, university, university progression
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Newham’s outstanding record of widening participation
Disadvantaged young people in Newham are more than twice as likely to progress to university than in England as a whole and their progression rate is the 4th highest of all local authorities in the country. The ‘disadvantage gap’ between … Continue reading
Edgar Morin on ‘Thinking Global’.
How do we understand the difference between the behaviour of an individual and that of a society, between a small group of like-minded people and a political movement or between the ecosystem of a few acres and a whole planet? … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Politics
Tagged complexity, Edgar Morin, emergence, global citizenship, Hegel, Penser Global, reductionism, thinking, Thinking Global
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