Professor Stephen Scott is Professor of Child Health and Behaviour at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital. He is also director of research at the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners. This is a quango that the DfES gave Professor Scott and two colleagues £30 million to set up in 2007. In a widely… [Read More]
The issue of quality assessment in relation to education has come up twice this week in two quite different arenas. Firstly, Ofsted, the schools’ inspectorate, has been accused (again) of over-reliance on exam and test results in its judgements. Secondly, the teaching union NUT has staged a revolt on the introduction of Ed Balls’ ‘licences to teach.’
Last week Ed Balls confirmed that Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) would become a statutory part of the national curriculum for all young people.
‘Now there’s spiritual warfare and flesh and blood breaking down. Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief and there ain’t no neutral ground.’ So sang Bob Dylan. I was put in mind of those lyrics by a recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
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Back in May, we discussed the rampant use of management consultants within the NHS. It looks as though the DH is now cracking down on the same problem.
Many prominent scientists are currently up in arms over the Home Secretary’s call for Professor David Nutt to resign as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for having publicly criticised the Government for not accepting its advice that cannabis should not be up-graded from a class C to a class… [Read More]
A recent poll conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), exposing the extent to which school staff have been wrongfully accused of malpractice by pupils, problematises the government’s circuitous route to establishing safe and settled classrooms.
A few weeks ago, Tony Blair looked set to become President of the European Union, but his ‘hinted at’ appointment has draw recent criticism.
In last week’s positively surreal broadcast of BBC tv’s Question Time, deputy prime minister Jack Straw blathered on about how Parliament had boldly preserved freedom of expression in Britain by deliberately refraining from making Holocaust denial a crime. In yesterday’s Times, Straw was joined by his cabinet colleague, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, blathering on about… [Read More]