David Crossley is the Executive Director of Whole Education Network. The Whole Education Network champions and shares innovative practice in education and supports the development of a curriculum…Read more…
Engineers and teachers are uncomfortable bedfellows, it seems.
Scott Young is responsible for delivery of skills and employment objectives on the Thames Tideway Tunnel. Question: Which two-word answer, according to the UK press, threatens the success of UK…Read more…
Qatar asks for patience – to perfect its PR strategy
Qatar seems to be confused about what message to put out to its critics, simultaneously accusing them of a conspiracy whilst also meekly asking for more time to put an end to the abuse of migrant…Read more…
Probation contracts handed to the private sector despite falls in reoffending
On 1 February, 70 per cent of the probation service was handed to the private sector, yet only last week, the government’s own statistics revealed that the probation service was working relatively well prior to the government’s disastrous reforms in 2014. These recent MoJ figures…Read more…
The Greek election result demands our solidarity
Syriza’s spectacularly successful election campaign was described as being about hope. The Greek people have shown faith in that campaign. Their courage, their defiance and their optimism have given us a true lesson in democracy in the country that invented the system so many centuries ago. They…Read more…
Bandwagon?
Last week, David Torrance accused the STUC of effectively jumping on a ‘grievance’ bandwagon for criticising the watering down of Smith Commission proposals on welfare. He also (ridiculously)…Read more…
Unions and Fracking: the need for an “honest conversation”
It’s been a busy week for the debate on fracking. A new report said that the current debate on fracking “reveals a lack of public acceptance, or social licence, for it”. The Scottish Parliament put a moratorium in place pending an inquiry. Westminster MPs backed Labour’s stronger…Read more…
In a fast-changing world, how should a curriculum and assessment system enable all learners to achieve?
Lee is Deputy Head at Cherry Orchard Primary School in Worcester. You can follow Lee on Twitter. There are few more persuasive voices in global education at present than that of Andreas Schleicher….Read more…
Union reactions to Syriza’s victory
Unions around the world have welcomed the election result in Greece last Sunday, because the victory of the anti-austerity Syriza party was a rejection of the policies that have dominated Europe…Read more…
Why Making Up Lost Ground on Pay is so Important
Last week’s employment figures showed the annual increase in average weekly earnings (regular pay) rising to 1.8 per cent, higher than the most recent inflation figures (1.6 per cent for the Retail Price Index, 0.5 per cent using the CPI). It’s a bit early to celebrate, though. The reality is that…Read more…
I now know how passionate teachers are about the subject of CPD
Richard Garner is education editor of The Independent If I didn’t realise it before, I now know how passionate teachers are about the subject of continuous professional development. Tuesday’s debate…Read more…
A qualified workforce?
Why a qualified workforce? Is this a question we should even be posing? Does it make sense to talk of an unqualified workforce? How is it that teaching in FE colleges or academies, independent…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: 800,000 children live in families that are behind on their energy bills
(Warning: long post.) This week’s headline comes from Show Some Warmth, an excellent new report from the Children’s Society that looked at the problem of energy debt – families falling into debt because they cannot pay their energy bills. The report found that 3.8 million children live in…Read more…
Why is BusinessEurope doing the banks’ dirty work?
BusinessEurope, the body which represents employers’ organisations around Europe (the CBI is its UK member) wrote last week to European Union finance ministers in a last ditch attempt to derail the European financial transactions tax (FTT, aka the Robin Hood Tax) that a group of Eurozone…Read more…
In fact, this is the slowest UK ‘recovery’ ON RECORD
A second look at historic GDP data shows the current ‘recovery’ is the slowest on record (which extend back to 1830), rather than the slowest recovery in modern history, as we reported yesterday. This chart shows index numbers of recoveries in GDP from the bottom of each recession to…Read more…
#HolocaustMemorialDay 2015: Remember the holocaust
This Holocaust Memorial Day the spotlight is on the worrying growth of anti-semitism in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, where hard right and neo-fascist parties are gaining ground. The attacks in…Read more…
The slowest recovery in modern history slows down
GDP figures today disappointed expectations, with growth slowing for the second quarter in row, and increasingly departing already from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility forecast. In numbers: growth slowed to 0.5% in the last quarter of 2014, from 0.7% in the third quarter. This defied city…Read more…
Syriza’s impact on Europe: forget what the ‘serious people’ say
Paul Krugman is apparently bemused by the comparative performances of the US and European economies. The US, allegedly the home of responsible and prudent public finances, has outperformed the EU (and especially the eurozone) by deploying spendthrift, …Read more…
CDC pensions are better for the economy
At the TUC’s ABC of CDC conference, my good friend Bernard Casey of Warwick University asked Gregg McClymont, the Shadow Pensions Minister, the sources of the superior projected performance of CDC compared to individual DC. “Different speakers have emphasised the “main” advantage of…Read more…
Making up lost ground on pay
What is happening to workers’ pay is becoming one of the central arguments in the run up to the general election with the Government making much of the latest statistics on earnings and inflation. The collapse in the world price of oil has forced inflation on the CPI measure down to 0.5% while…Read more…