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Recent Posts
- ‘The Ministry of the Future’ by Kim Stanley Robinson December 20, 2020
- Why the comprehensive college? September 20, 2020
- Exam results – what just happened? August 23, 2020
- Starting to rethink education. June 10, 2020
- Knowledge and education for the future. May 25, 2020
- England’s unexpected exam revolution. May 5, 2020
- Tsitsi Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Conditions’. May 3, 2020
- Rebecca Solnit on Hope. April 23, 2020
- In praise of lightness – Calvino’s Leggerezza. March 29, 2020
- An A-Z for a world which has to change. March 22, 2020
- Decarbonising education. March 15, 2020
- The mighty pencil November 2, 2019
- Knowledge-rich and skills-rich August 18, 2019
- ‘Unsheltered’ by Barbara Kingsolver August 11, 2019
- ‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers. March 10, 2019
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Tag Archives: Education
Exam results – what just happened?
Most years, the national drama of A Level and GCSE results days in England plays out in two distinct but related acts one week apart, focusing on the performance of the education system and the young people navigating their way … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged A levels, Assessment, Centre assessed grades, complexity, Covid-19, Education, Education policy, England, exam results, Exams, GCSE
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Starting to rethink education.
There are different ways to think about life after a crisis. One is: ‘let’s try to get back to things as they were as quickly as possible’, another is: ‘we can’t go back to things as they were, this is … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education Futures, Politics
Tagged ASCL Blueprint for a fairer education, Commission on the College of the Future, crisis, Education, Education policy, future, future education, hope, Hope in the Dark, politics, Rebecca Solnit, Thinking Global, transformation, UNESCO, UNESCO Futures of Education
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Knowledge and education for the future.
Edgar Morin’s seven lessons for the future. When the French sociologist Edgar Morin was asked by UNESCO for his thoughts on education for the future, he organised his proposals around seven key aspects of human knowledge and understanding. In his … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education Futures
Tagged climate emergency, crisis, Edgar Morin, Education, emergence, error, ethics, future education, global citizenship, human condition, Human rights, purpose of education, reductionism, Science, Seven lessons for the future, Solidarity, UN, uncertainty, UNESCO
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The promise of a National Education Service
The proposed creation of a National Education Service (NES) for England offers us the possibility of a decisive break with the market model, where education is treated as a commodity and where individual and institutional competition are regarded as the … Continue reading
Creating the conditions for a successful FE system
This week saw the launch of The FE and Skills System, a study by The Policy Consortium. Subtitled ‘The consequences of policy decisions – lessons for policymakers and stakeholders’, this thorough survey reaches deep into the heart of FE; drawing … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged Colleges, Education, further education, policy, Policy Consortium, policy volatility, Tony Davis
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Sixth form hopes for 2018.
I’ve been posting new year’s wishes for sixth form education since January 2015. This started with 5 ‘modest, realistic and realisable’ hopes. By 2016 the list had been cut to 4 and was then further reduced to 3 a year … Continue reading
The narrative of the ‘poor bright child’.
The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. Jane Addams. Earlier this month the government announced a £23m ‘future talent fund’ targeted at ‘bright’ … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged Education, Equality, Future Talent Fund, high, NewVIc, selection, Social mobility, university progression
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Education is a human right
We mark Human Rights Day on December 10th and this year it is 69 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in Paris at a United Nations (UN) General Assembly in a post-conflict spirit of international … Continue reading
Learning through conflict.
Education, like all human endeavour, requires conflict, struggle, challenge, disagreement, argument, difference, dialectic, dialogue. If we want to learn or make anything new, we need to reach towards what we don’t know, to seek out the unknown. Education, and life … Continue reading
The East End’s ‘engine of progression’.
The East End’s ‘engine of progression’. In September, the Mail Online and others published articles extolling the achievements of the ‘Eton of the East End’, one of the highly selective sixth forms in Newham which have opened in recent years. … Continue reading
Being honoured
I was honoured to attend the 2017 Graduation ceremony for University of East London’s Sir John Cass School of Education and Communities on 1st November 2017. The ceremony granted UEL degrees in Early Childhood Studies, Education Studies, Social Work , … Continue reading
NewVIc class of 2017 progress to university.
The NewVIc class of 2017. Our class of 2017 was a diverse and ambitious cohort, full of great young people preparing to make a positive contribution by acquiring a range of professional skills and qualifications: 661 students progressed to higher … Continue reading
Posted in Education, NewVIc
Tagged comprehensive, comprehensive college, comprehensive education, Education, Middlesex University, Newham, Newham Sixth Form College, NewVIc, NewVIc alumni, Oxbridge, Queen Mary University of London, Russell group, Sixth form college, Universities, university progression, vocational education
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Oxbridge admissions – time for action.
Last week’s news that Oxford and Cambridge universities are failing to diversify and broaden their undergraduate intakes to reflect British society was deeply depressing for anyone who believes in university access and participation as a social good. The story broke … Continue reading
Posted in Education
Tagged Cambridge university, comprehensive education, diversity, Education, Newham, Newham Sixth Form College, NewVIc, Oxbridge, Oxford university, Russell group, Sixth form, Social mobility, Tower Hamlets, Universities, university progression, Wadham College Oxford, widening participation
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Life in the sixth form funding canyon
The chancellor is currently pondering his priorities for the forthcoming autumn statement on public spending and given the critical state of our public services there are plenty of worthy calls on resources. Without minimising the case for spending more on … Continue reading
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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