Can ‘first and fast’ phonics solve educational inequality? Weak reading lies at the heart of the educational apartheid between the advantaged and disadvantaged, and England’s low social mobility. The inability to read properly is the single greatest handicap to progress both in school and adult life. As of this week, all children in primary schools… [Read More]
There is a bizarre story in today’s Times. Apparently, Education Secretary Ed Balls will announce today that all secondary schools must include compulsory lessons in ‘happiness, well-being and good manners’. They are being introduced reportedly on the basis of the apparent improvement in behaviour and academic performance of primary pupils who had received such lessons… [Read More]
While Britain’s university lecturers and Vice Chancellors obdurately continue to refuse to offer any form of assistance in the fight against on-campus violent extremism, a trial currently underway in a Glasgow courtroom suggests that the problem towards which Britain’s academics seem willing to turn a complacent blind eye could well extend much further than the… [Read More]
As of September, schools will have the power to apply for parenting orders. This means that head teachers will be able to ask the courts to impose a requirement on parents to attend guidance sessions where they receive help and support in dealing with their children.
In the wake of the annual controversy sparked by inflated A-level results, real evidence has emerged that GCSEs are similarly suffering a crisis of quality – writes Thomas Woods. Writing in today’s Telegraph newspaper, a languages examiner has revealed the existence of a co-ordinated system of ‘teaching to the test’. In the French Oral section… [Read More]
The EUROCARE-4 study of cancer survival rates released yesterday by the Lancet Oncology journal does not make for comfortable reading for anyone in the UK, least of all the government. In a league of 22 European countries between 2000-02, England comes out 7th bottom, Northern Ireland 5th bottom and Scotland 3rd bottom in terms of… [Read More]
‘How would the Muslim community respond if ITV made a programme challenging Muhammad as the last prophet?’ So, according to a report in Saturday’s Guardian, does Anglican canon Dr Patrick Sookhdeo protest against the decision by ITV to broadcast, on some as yet unnamed future Sunday, a one-hour documentary setting out the Muslim view of… [Read More]
The DH sent out a press release today entitled ‘Statistical press notice: Patient choice survey and A&E statistics’. The content’s as bland as the headline; the section on the patient choice survey merely reads: ‘Report on the National Patient Choice Survey, March 2007 England and provisional headline results of the May 2007 Survey’. Yet these… [Read More]
Yesterday saw the publication of a report on the Middle East by a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Media accounts of it have largely focussed on one of its principal recommendations. This is that the Government ‘should urgently consider ways of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas as a way of encouraging… [Read More]
The BBC reported yesterday ‘that the number of serious complaints made against GPs over out-of-hours care has soared in recent years’. Complaints received by the Medical Defence Union (MDU) increased from 30 new cases in 2003 to 100 in 2006, and by the Medical Protection Society (MPS) from 120 in 2002, to 182 last year.… [Read More]