This week - 26 May - 1 June 2012
SATURDAY
Seven, that’s the magic number
Delaying formal schooling until the age of 7 can boost children’s reading skills at the end of primary, according to a Daily Telegraph report. Don’t expect that to bring an end to planned reading tests for six-year-olds.
SUNDAY
Setting up campus
Universities are being encouraged by the government to open campuses abroad to help cut the number of foreign students coming to the UK, The Sunday Times said. The move is needed to meet immigration targets, it added.
MONDAY
Perfect union
A new, cosy future for union relations was embarked upon, with the NUT and the NASUWT announcing a historic partnership. The love-in will see the unions coordinate industrial action this autumn.
TUESDAY
Gove runs free
Education secretary Michael Gove was up at the Leveson inquiry, defending the need for a free press. Oh, and lobbing in an announcement that free schools could be run for profit if the Tories win the next election.
WEDNESDAY
No more no-notice inspections
Ofsted published details of the inspection regime coming your way from September. Inspectors will not be battering down your doors in dawn raids, it seems: the plan for no-notice check-ups has been scrapped.
THURSDAY
High flyers, high praise
Morale in teaching may be low, but research revealed that the profession is becoming a top choice for high-flying graduates. More than 80 per cent of university leavers say it has a high status, the Teaching Agency said.
FRIDAY
School’s out!
It’s your favourite day of term - the last one. Time to enjoy a well-earned week off with a bit of sunshine on your back and a union flag in your hand to wave at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
NEXT WEEK - 2-8 June 2012
SATURDAY
Put down your weapons
Nuclear Abolition Day is scheduled to take place, with action planned around the world calling for nuclear weapons to be eliminated. Events will include street demonstrations, benefit gigs and education workshops.
SUNDAY
Whatever floats your boat
Royalist or not, it should still make for an impressive spectacle. Up to 1,000 boats are expected to take part in one of the biggest flotillas ever assembled on the River Thames to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
MONDAY
Let us say graceland
Sing along: “If you’ll be my bodyguard ...” The release of a 25th anniversary edition of Paul Simon’s album Graceland is imminent. It caused controversy by being recorded in South Africa at the time of apartheid.
TUESDAY
Check out the adonis
Lord Adonis, the architect of the academies programme under Labour, is due to speak to the Oxford Union. The former schools minister has also been secretary of state for transport, a journalist and an academic.
WEDNESDAY
Teenagers to be sentenced
Two teenage boys are due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey for killing a schoolboy in southeast London. Yemurai Kanyangarara (pictured with his mother), 16, was stabbed after getting off a bus in Welling last year.
THURSDAY
Be good sports
The countdown continues. It is now just 50 days until the start of the most exciting couple of weeks of the year for PE teachers up and down the land: the 2012 London Olympic Games.
FRIDAY
Congress continues
Just when you thought union conference season was over, the University and College Union is holding its annual congress in Manchester. Topics under discussion will include workload and pensions.
