Interesting Facts

Maybe the title of this should be boring people, as Ms Scott, an English teacher, has been struck off the teaching register in Scotland for two years after pupils and parents complained about her “boring” lessons. (She has been removed following a seven-day hearing in Edinburgh where it was reported that she had spent three lessons reading a novel to one class without allowing them to ask questions, set the same essay task - titled "what I did in activities week" - for several different year groups, and shown one class a clip of Jurassic Park before making them copy what she said about characterisation in relation to the film. Pupils at the school dubbed the lessons the "puni class" due to the disproportionate number of punishment exercises handed out. To be fair, her lesson plans sound very similar to the ones I had to sit through in English literature.) !Note - if you are struck off you are removed, from a position of power or responsibility after havin...

A survey carried out by UK retailer John Lewis shows that parents have to spend around £550 to equip their child to go back to school. (The reason is that on top of the usual expenses, such as clothing, sports equipment, bags, books, stationery and lunch boxes, gadgets are making their way into the satchel.  One of the main differences between today’s school bag and those in my day is the inclusion of electronic gadgets, with almost half of all secondary school children taking a smart phone to lessons and around 35 per cent carrying headphones. Nearly a fifth of kids take an MP3 player into school, 5 per cent take a tablet and 2 per cent an ereader. The saddest thing is thought that schools still don't utilise these items with their lessons, teachers even have the right to search for and confiscate mobile phones in school.)