This week 21-27 January 2012
SATURDAY
GOLD STAR FOR EFFORT
Schools minister Nick Gibb explained - in a piece in The Daily Telegraph - that he’s had a good idea. He’s going to stop heads gaming league tables by introducing performance measures other than 5 A*-C. Fat chance.
SUNDAY
VICTORY CALL
Lord Lingfield, who as Bob Balchin helped to introduce grant-maintained schools, announced plans to raise the 17th-century HMS Victory, commanded by ancestor Sir John Balchin. Complete with bullion, maybe.
MONDAY
A+B=ABSTRACT
Maths teaching should be compulsory to the age of 18 or 19, even for those studying arts or humanities, according to Professor Steve Sparks, the new chair of the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education.
TUESDAY
SHARING THE PAIN
Ofsted announced that even independents won’t be spared. All private schools that fall under its remit - mainly those that aren’t in the Independent Schools Council - will be subject to no-notice inspections. Watch out.
WEDNESDAY
THINKER, SAILOR, MODERNISER ...
Linguist Noam Chomsky, sailor Ellen MacArthur and communications minister Ed Vaizey addressed educators and tech folk at the TES-sponsored Learning Without Frontiers conference at London’s Olympia.
THURSDAY
BUT DID THE MACHINES RISE UP?
National secondary league tables were published. It didn’t matter how tough your intake was, how poor your catchment, what improvements you’re making, today was Judgement Day ...
FRIDAY
TEMPUS FUGIT
It feels like only the other day that the International Olympic Committee lobbed the Games in London’s direction. Well, it was six-and-a-half years ago, actually. And now there are just six months until the flame is ignited.
NEXT WEEK 28 JAN - 3 FEB 2012
SATURDAY
WHEN TWO BECOME ... OH.
The national exec of teaching union the ATL will meet to decide whether it accepts the government’s latest offer on pensions. The NUT met earlier in the week on the same issue. Union unity looks a long way off.
SUNDAY
REACHING OUT
World Leprosy Day. In India alone, leprosy disables 100 times more people than polio each year. The full horror of the disease rarely makes an appearance in British classrooms, except in history lessons.
MONDAY
TROUBLED HISTORY
Today is the 40th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when British Parachute Regiment soldiers killed 14 unarmed nationalist marchers in the Bogside estate of Londonderry on Northern Ireland.
TUESDAY
IT’S A RICH MAN’S WORLD
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service releases the latest applications figures. Which subject is up? Which university is down? But most importantly, are the huge tuition fees scaring off applicants?
WEDNESDAY
OH CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
John Terry appears in court charged with a racially aggravated public order offence following an incident in which the England captain allegedly shouted racial abuse at Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand.
THURSDAY
REACH FOR THE STARS
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development education policy committee meets in Paris. This meeting will ruminate on the small matter of “overcoming school failure”. No lack of ambition then.
FRIDAY
SLIPPERY GOINGS-ON
Watch out for slippers in the staffroom - and not for discipline. Today is Feel Good Friday and, according to the Samaritans, the organiser, one way to mark it is a sponsored wear-your-slippers-to-work event.
