Earn as you learn boosts attendance
- Young people in East Ayrshire who have educational maintenance allowances do have significantly higher staying-on rates. But so far there is no conclusive sign of raised attainment. Ministers last week trumpeted the success of the pilot scheme for allowances - young people aged 16-19 from low-income families collect up to pound;40 a week - which is to be extended to the rest of Scotland by 2006.
`Get rid of the lion trainers’
- An educational psychologist has called for action to tackle the problem of the “disruptive teacher”. Alan McLean, who works for Glasgow’s education department, said “disruptive teaching” was one of education’s biggest open secrets.
SQA’s triple shield against `fix’
- The A-level rogue results “fix” which has hit some Scottish independent schools and thousands of students in England is significantly different to the Diet 2000 exam crisis in Scotland, it has emerged. Botched data transfer in an over-complex and untested system affected Highers but, south of the border, confidence in the revised A levels’ veracity and worth has been severely damaged by alleged retrospective interference in grade-setting by one of three exam boards.
Don’t mess with Miss
- Move over James Dean, here come the real rebels - middle-aged, female primary teachers. New research has found the staffroom rebel is no fresh- faced twentysomething. Around Europe, academics are finding it is teachers midway through their careers who are radical, rebellious and downright bolshie. “The myth of young teachers being innovative gets rather shattered,” said Petr Novoty of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.
Unruly pupils face hard time
- Violent and unruly pupils could face community service or trial by their peers, as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg gets tough on classroom behaviour. He has announced a joint venture between police, the education department and criminal justice officials to improve classroom discipline, in one of his most radical acts since wresting control of the city’s 1,200 state schools from an elected board.
