Let her go ? and if you are seriously worried about how the trip is likely to be conducted, speak to the teacher in charge to outline your fears and demand to know what measures will be in place to ensure orderly behaviour.

But stay realistic. Young people do sometimes behave badly on school trips, but rarely is any lasting damage done. The worst that is likely to happen (leaving aside the kind of terrible accident that can happen anywhere) is that she might get drunk. ( Read more... )
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These teenagers were getting lessons for free from the school's star-studded maths department as part of a controversial programme by St Paul's to help out neighbouring state schools that can't give their children the high-quality maths teaching that St Paul's pupils get.

The St Paul's teachers are amazingly well-qualified, including an Olympiad champion, a chief examiner and the editor of a prestigious journal of mathematics. No pupil at St Paul's in south-west London gained less than an ( Read more... )
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Now, however, the school that educates princes and Tory politicians is about to share some of its campus with the masses. Eton College has gone into partnership with one of the Government's newest flagship academies which means that local state school pupils can use their fantastic facilities.

It will give Langley Academy, near Slough, in Berkshire, which opened officially last week, a unique selling point for a state-funded school with a comprehensive intake and pupils from almost 30 different ( Read more... )
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If you want to become a childminder for tiny children you will have to register with Ofsted, and be inspected by them to make sure you are meeting the requirements of the EYFS. So, yes, the job is much, much more formalised and bureaucratic than it has been in the past, and if you are allergic to form-filling and box-ticking, then being a modern childminder will definitely not be for you.

But there are a lot of resources to help you navigate the EYFS, and many childminders ( Read more... )
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So, with the "all singing, all dancing" approach, some wonderful facilities on display and fierce entry competition between schools, what can you do to ensure you choose the most suitable place for your child?

"Beware of the varnish and spin," says Niall Hamilton, senior admissions tutor at Marlborough College in Wiltshire. "There's always going to be spin, but the best way to really get to know what a school is like is to talk to the parents and to see the school under normal circumstances." ( Read more... )
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"Our interest in Spanish dates back to our signing of the Chilean player Billy Topp, and our desire to make him feel at home with us here at the club," says Bradford's director of operations, Dave Baldwin. "Since then, five or six of our squad have voluntarily gone back to the classroom so they can speak to other players and understand more about Spanish culture and, in turn, we have identified young supporters, ball boys and even potential players at one of our local schools. Whether they want ( Read more... )
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I knew Mr Smerdon already; his son was the first boy who ever kissed me. With him as our teacher the last year at St Edmund's Catholic Primary, in Crosby at the northern end of Liverpool, was a magical time. We must have done all the subjects but I can't remember many formal lessons. He was a former fighter pilot and would devote hours to recounting his experiences.

I was very aware, from my mother and grandmother, that I should go to a good school ? and Seafield Grammar ( Read more... )
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And this school is just one of hundreds outside the industrial North to have taken up the sport in the past few years, all participating in an immensely successful and growing national schools competition which culminates every year in a showcase event on the Wembley Stadium pitch, before the final of the professional clubs' knock-out event, the Carnegie Challenge Cup Final.

On the day of my visit to Brentwood, the pupils are divided into four age groups, each with at ( Read more... )
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What the website doesn't tell you is that Paul Patrick, 53, hasn't been allowed into the school since March. He is barred from speaking to anyone associated with it, and no one wants to talk about him. Local MP Steve Pound used to visit the school regularly and bathe in Mr Patrick's reflected glory. Now a written statement from his wife, the school's chair of governors, Maggie Pound, told me: "Steve Pound has no formal connection with the school, he is no longer a parent of a pupil, nor is he ( Read more... )
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The move has roused fury among headteacher, who point out that, using the Government's own statistics, many of these so-called failing schools are in fact doing an above-average job in a system in which one-quarter of pupils are creamed off into grammar schools. In addition, they say, some eastern parts of the county are among the most deprived areas in the country.

Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council, is definitely "not amused" and has written to the Schools Secretary to say that ( Read more... )
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What Dame Suzi said was that the changes would be difficult to enforce "in the current economic climate". Last year, a couple of schools were found wanting for failing to provide enough bursaries for children who were less well off. So, the message went out that the key to keeping charitable status was to be generous with the bursaries. In five years time, when the Charity Commission returns to the subject, we are likely to have a Conservative government which could insist on a much more lenient ( Read more... )
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Research by the Sutton Trust, the education charity dedicated to widening university participation among young people from deprived backgrounds, shows entry to Oxford and Cambridge, in particular, is dominated by an elite group of schools.

The study of university admission rates over five years at 3,700 state and private schools in the UK rejects the claims made by the independent sector that government moves to encourage wider participation have led to discrimination against their pupils. ( Read more... )
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At Kingsford Community School, in Beckton, east London, every pupil studies Mandarin when they start at age 11, and growing numbers are now choosing it at GCSE. Last year, 15 students took the subject and 66 per cent of them achieved A or A* grades. In Year Nine, about 50 students have already embarked ? one year early ? on Mandarin GCSE.

Kingsford is not alone. Mandarin is fast going mainstream with about 500 schools ? no one knows the precise figure ? offering it as part of the curriculum, ( Read more... )
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Youth club leaders, choirmasters, Brown Owls ? even members of parental lift-sharing schemes ?would all come under the cosh, paying £64 a head to pre-emptively clear their name. Philip Pullman is one of several children's authors who have said they will withdraw their classroom services, if this rule comes into force.

Yet, as anyone could have told Balls and co, the scheme won't make children any safer, except by accident: Ian Huntley actually had been listed, but word had just not reached ( Read more... )
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The cash has taken its time to trickle down to St George's Catholic Comprehensive in west London's Maida Vale, but work has finally begun on a new block of classrooms and a gym on the site of what was once the caretaker's house. When finished, it will undoubtedly lift the face that the school presents to the outside world, but for the time being, St George's peers out from behind a high, solid-black fence as an ageing collection of 1960s and 1970s buildings. In other words, ( Read more... )
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The Schools Secretary believes heads and deputies are not front-line staff, and are mere "bureaucrats". This is madness. The huge influx of people into teaching in the late 1960s and 1970s who are now retiring means a swing towards a much younger average age. At such a time, experience ? and the calm that comes from having been around the block a few times ? are crucial, perhaps more important than they have ever been. It is precisely these people Ed Balls is determined to remove, ( Read more... )
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Hilary's advice

New research seems to show that children who spend a lot of time being supported in the classroom by teaching assistants do no better than children who don't get any time with these helpers. These parents are worried that their daughter, who is weak at maths, is being shunted off to a teaching assistant for help in this subject, when what she really needs is help from her teacher. Should they, they wonder, complain to her school?

My advice ( Read more... )
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The church hall was hurriedly refurbished and equipped for teaching during the school holidays, after numerous primary schools across Camden rejected last-minute requests from the council to take an extra class of children this term. Teaching staff and assistants had to be hastily appointed in July and August.

The council was forced to resort to this unusual solution after several months of pressure from parents, whose children faced starting the autumn term without a school place in the ( Read more... )
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Its vice-chancellor Terence Kealey says: "We come top of the National Student Survey because we charge full fees. Full fees not only allow us to fund teaching properly but they also ensure that we treat the students ? not the Government ? as our clients."

In second place is St Andrews, the Scottish university that educated Prince William and saw a corresponding huge rise in applications, especially among young American women. Third comes Loughborough, which has risen from ( Read more... )
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The parents of 21-year-old Tony (who prefers to remain anonymous) would have welcomed some guidance as they saw their young son embarking on the kind of dangerous lifestyle that hits the headlines these days. By the age of 16 he had been expelled from several schools and was running with a gang in the north London area where he lived, "getting into every kind of bad trouble", he says. He got a conviction for carrying a knife, and was in street fights and rivalries that too often involved guns. ( Read more... )
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