Education diary
Thursday, 22 February 2007
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Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools and great upholder of standards, particularly grammatical, has had his own grammar compromised by The Times's website. Last week, Woodhead, a one-time English teacher, wrote in his Sunday Times column of the need to teach children grammar in order to help them to speak English more articulately. Sadly, the headline on the online version of the piece remained, ungrammatically, for a week or more: "If teachers more taught grammar, our children might be able to speak English". If even The Times can't get it write, we really are all off to hell in a handbasket.
More news of the goings-on at The Times Higher Education Supplement. John O'Leary, the editor who was on sick leave, has now been paid off, to the dismay of many in the education world. More departures are expected. At The Times Educational Supplement, job cuts are also in the offing. These cuts follow 48 redundancies last year, and are based on the theory that reporters can write four pages of editorial a week. Given that there are never more than 24 news pages, that means that the TES needs only six reporters. At the moment it has eight, so two will have to go.
Will it continue to send two reporters to the National Union of Teachers conference? We know NUT debates are fascinating, but isn't eight pages too much for even the most fanatical trade unionist?
A survey published by the NUT this week throws up some interesting additions to the roles and responsibilities of head teachers in England and Wales. It was based on over 200 responses from heads, who recorded some of the unexpected duties they had had to fulfil. More than half (54 per cent) felt that they had "experienced challenges that they thought were not relevant to the roles and responsibilities of a head teacher", such as the primary head without a caretaker who not only had to lock up the school every night, but also spent a "disproportionate amount of time looking for blocked gutters". Or the problems of discipline - specifically, parental discipline - when a child's mother or father won't accept the school's decisions. Head teachers also complained of receiving far too much inappropriate information, meaning that "what is good and worthwhile so easily gets lost among the rubbish".
Tomorrow, Gordon Brown will be at St Andrews University to open the UK's most environmentally friendly student halls of residence, the £34.7m David Russell apartments. The halls' green features include a rainwater recovery system, a comprehensive recycling programme, high standards of thermal insulation and under-floor heating. Situated in idyllic surroundings beyond the town centre, the apartments will also be available to golfing Joe Public to rent as three-star apartments, outside term-time.
Viral e-mails and ads are to be taught as a university subject for the first time. Institutions that have decided that the phenomenon is worthy of their attention include Leeds University and Central St Martins, part of London's University of the Arts. The thinking is that virals have become so embedded in the culture that knowledge of their workings is vital to the study of graphic communications and media. And universities aren't the only ones taking the epidemic seriously: Channel 4 is sponsoring the second annual International Viral Awards.
