Interesting Facts

Hundreds of parents in the UK are expected to keep their children out of school today in protest over too stressful tests. (The first ever "kids' strike" in the UK is in protest at what parents claim is "over-testing" at the expense of children’s happiness.  Key Stage 1 testing (SATS) for six and seven-year-olds, have been made tougher this year in an attempt to drive up standards, but the Let Our Kids Be Kids campaign, which is coordinating the kids’ strike, says that nearly 40,000 people have signed up in support of the action, and has written to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan calling for an "end to SATs now". The letter says: "Please take a long, hard look at this. "Do you want your legacy to be the confident cancellation of unneeded and unnecessary SATS, showing you are listening to your electorate and the teachers you claim to support ... or the overseeing of a shambolic testing regime desperately unwanted by millions of peop...

According to educational charity, the Sutton Trust if you have a private education, you are considerably more likely to get to the top of British public life. (Their research shows that Oxbridge graduates are over represented in top jobs in fields as diverse as the law, politics, medicine, journalism, and even acting. In 2014 the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission reported that 59% of the Cabinet were Oxbridge graduates (compared to the average of less than 1% of the public as a whole). This recent research shows that although only 7% of the population attend independent fee-paying schools, almost three quarters (71%) of top military officers were educated privately, with just 12% having been taught in comprehensive schools. Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust, said: “As well as academic achievement, an independent education tends to develop essential skills such as confidence, articulacy and teamwork, which are vital to career success." Sir Peter, I think y...

Homeschooling is legal in the UK, but there is no register for home-schooled children. To the best of my knowledge, the following countries have banned homeschooling:- Albania Andorra    Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus    Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria    Croatia Cuba Cyprus El Salvador Georgia Germany Greece Greenland Guatemala Liechtenstein    Lithuania    Macedonia    Malta    Moldova    Montenegro    Netherlands    Serbia Sierra Leone Sweden Trinidad and Tobago Turkey

An  £11,000-a-year private school in London has banned its pupils from watching TV or surfing the internet - even when they are at home. (With a strict no-tech policy, London Acorn School has banned all smartphones, computers, iPads etc., in the hope that the children will learn from the natural world instead. The school, for pupils aged 3 to 18, has also banned television for under-12s, with older pupils being allowed to watch "restricted programmes".  What? No Dr Who?)

According to the chief inspector of schools in the UK, Sir Michael Wilshaw, secondary school pupils should be forced to refer to their teachers as ' Miss' and 'Sir' and stand when the teacher enters the classroom. (Sir Michael told The Sunday Times that he had been left with his 'head in his hands' after watching reality television programmes set in schools in which children misbehaved without risk of punishment. According to the Times Educational Supplement , the honorific Sir was first used in 16th century classrooms when male teachers of a lower social standing were attempting to reinforce their authority among largely upper-class boys, whilst Miss is largely a throwback to the late Victorian era when pressure was put on women to give up work after they married, with a number of schools only hiring single female teachers. Jennifer Coates, emeritus professor of English language and linguistics at Roehampton University also pointed out, “Sir is a knight....

nder plans set out by Schools Minister Nick Gibb, every state school pupil will be expected to sit at least five “hard” GCSEs to increase the number of state-educated students at the best universities and in the top professions, the government has said. (This means that all pupils starting secondary school in autumn 2015 will be expected to take maths, English, a foreign language, history or geography and at least one science subject when they begin their GCSE courses in 2018. If you have just sat your art and design, music and drama, business studies, communication and culture and citizenship exams, you can breathe a sigh of relief.)

According to a study conducted by the Department for Education, the traditional family meal appears to be making a comeback in the UK. (In the study, 52% of children said they had shared a meal with their parents six times in the last week compared with 42 per cent in 2004. Now, I wonder if they sat at the table, or ate in front of the TV.)

According to a study by the Department for Education, British teens are going out less and shunning cigarettes and alcohol to stay at home on their computers. (The so called 'Laptop generation' of teenagers are now more likely to be surfing the web and playing games than hanging out in the park. 13-year-olds today are more 'sober and responsible' than 10 years ago. Only 32 per cent had tried alcohol compared with 52 per cent in 2004, and it's the rise of social media sites such as Facebook that is thought to be behind the change. They are probably more sober and responsible than I am too.)

This might surprise you, but in the UK, in the 2012 academic year, 41,224 penalty notices for non-attendance at school were issued to parents. (That's 56,000 children bunking off every day.   The parents get penalised because in UK law it is the legal responsibility of parents to ensure their children attend school from the ages of five to 16. The good news is that the number of persistent truants - those who missed more than a month of schooling - dropped by nearly 60,000 from 392,305 to 333,850. Some schools offer incentive schemes, and free breakfasts for classes with the best attendance, but the UK still has the highest truancy rate amongst developed nations, and it certainly isn't because of the lovely weather.)

According to a poll conducted by the organisers of the Bett trade-show; two thirds of parents in the UK say they help their children with their homework and a staggering one in six admits to regularly doing all of it! (Two thirds of parents admitted there are times when they are unable to help because it is too taxing.  Unsurprisingly, 70% said their children were happy to let them do it.) Source

According to a story in the Daily Star, there are 32 students living in one house in Plymouth. The house started life as four separate terraced houses, which were knocked through into one complex of rooms. (The house comprises of, 32 bedrooms; 22 toilets; two living rooms; three kitchens; one utility room; seven showers (four of which contain twin showers); one bath; a pool table; a dart board; four washing machines; five fridges; five freezers; and four ovens. They get through 40 loo rolls; 20 bin bags of rubbish; 100 tins of baked beans; 20 large bags of pasta; 500 cans of beer; 150 cans of cider; 50 Pot Noodles; 150 takeaways. And each week they collectively spend their time in the following activities: 320 hours at lectures; 311 hours partying at nightclubs; 1,300 hours watching TV; 900 hours playing PlayStation; 224 hours playing pool. According to The Wright Stuff, by the time they graduate they will owe over 1 million in student fees. Of course, that's always assuming ...

50 years ago only 5% of young people in the UK went to university. (The ONS (Office for National Statistics) found that 27.2% of the UK population aged 16 to 74 had a degree or equivalent or higher, and according to the UK government's universities minister, David Willetts, the number of places at UK universities will have to grow by at least a quarter over the next 20 years. We have a long way to go to beat Finland though: In Finland 80% of young women are now going to university. Going to university may become as natural as going to school.)

According to government figures, one in ten teachers working in free schools in the UK are not formally qualified. (Free schools, the wonder child of education reform in the UK, are schools in England which are funded by taxpayers, and free to attend, but they are not controlled by a local authority, and do not have to follow the national curriculum. In addition, unlike state schools, teachers there do not have to have QTS (qualified teacher status).)

In Finland children do not have to undergo any formal tests and teachers are allowed to teach whatever and however they wish as long as they meet very general learning objectives set by Finland’s National Board of Education. (The only formal, national test is the university matriculation exam: a set of four open-ended exams that are based on problem-solving skills rather than subject mastery. Although most students who go on to university take this exam, it is not required for graduation from upper secondary school or even for university admissions Imagine that!  No fear, just learning.)

According to government figures, only 30% of schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland follow the National Curriculum. (All maintained schools in England are required to follow the National Curriculum, but academies and so called Free Schools are not required to follow it, they are required to provide a broad and balanced curriculum which includes English, mathematics, science and religious education. From September 2013 schools won't need to follow the national curriculum at all. I'd love to know how much this faffing around has cost over the years, not just in investment, but in the number of people it has put off teaching and learning.  Quantify that Gove!) http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/secondary

Tests for grammar school entrance (11 plus), which are taken by thousands of British children every year, are to be overhauled in a bid to stop over-coached children winning places. (Demand for places in grammar schools is off the scale, with some reporting 13 applications for every place. Well off parents invest thousands on tutors to get their kids through the exams, the problem is, rather than having a natural ability  they struggle to keep up with lessons once they are in school and need extra help all the time. The review will consider is whether selection should be based in part on assessment by teachers and head teachers, rather than relying solely on test results. What a radical thought.  Actually talking to the child!)

Children who are eligible for free school meals are nearly 4 times more likely to receive a permanent exclusion and around 3 times more likely to receive a fixed period exclusion than children who are not eligible for free school meals (In other words, children from poor families struggle.  I wonder why the current government is so hell bent on creating more poor families?)

According to the Department for Education in the UK, during 2010/11  5,080 children were permanently excluded from state-funded primary, state-funded secondary and all special schools in 2010/11. ( Th e permanent exclusion rate for boys was approximately 3 times higher than that for girls. The fixed period exclusion rate for boys was almost 3 times higher than that for girls. In addition  there were 271,980 fixed period exclusions from state-funded secondary schools, 37,790 fixed period exclusions from state-funded primary schools and 14,340 fixed period exclusions from special schools. I have nothing funny to say about this.  I've got my serious head on.) Source

Students are paying hundreds of pounds to have essays written for them. (Seemingly they pay essay farming firms to write their essays for them and it's hard to spot.  I would just say one thing to anyone who is considering this.  If at some point in the future you make something of yourself, do you really think you will be able to hide what you did?  Just look at this news story, and then get your pen and paper out. http://www.npr.org/2012/11/24/165790164/a-wave-of-plagiarism-cases-strikes-german-politics)

According to a report published by Renaissance Learning, pupils in the UK struggle to understand GCSE exam papers. (Their reading skills are so poor at the end of secondary education due to a lack of time spent practising how to read.  This is so sad.) Source