Interesting Facts

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....

Michael Gove, beloved by teachers everywhere, has issued civil servants working under him in his new role as head of the Department of Justice, with detailed guidance on his idea of what constitutes good grammar. (The guidelines, entitled Ministerial Correspondence Preferences, tell officials to write “make sure” instead of “ensure” and to avoid using the word “impact” as a verb. He is also unhappy with the use of contractions, such as “doesn’t”, and the deployment of “yet” and “however” at the beginning of sentences. It also suggests that “the phrases best-placed and high-quality are joined with a dash, very few others are” and discourages unnecessary capitalisation and repetition. This is two years after he circulated “10 golden rules” to officials in the Department for Education, but it isn't the first time government officials have done this kind of thing: In 2012 the then environment secretary Owen Paterson issued a 10-point list which included a ban on his department’s ...

A new law in Spain would require Spanish children under the age of 18 to be respectful to their parents and teachers, and have a positive attitude towards learning. (They will also be required to help out with housework, regardless of age and gender", the ABC newspaper says. The rules come under a section of the law called "the rights and duties of children". I guess that as most laws are written by men, they decided that if they have to do housework, everyone does (see previous fact). The new law doesn't say what the penalties would be for children who refuse to comply.)

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).)

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.)  

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!)

According to results from Professor Roger Steare's “Moral DNA test,” women are more moral than men. ( Professor Steare developed the test four years ago to measure changes in people’s value systems and 60,000 volunteers across 200 countries have already taken the quiz. There are six personality types: philosopher; judge; angel; teacher; enforcer; or guardian. The results to date show that females are more likely to make decisions based on how they impact on others.  You can take the test yourself  at www.moraldna.org . ) Source

According to the ATL, teachers nowadays receive presents as high-end as Tiffany bracelets and Test match tickets. (A survey revealed that some teachers had receive gifts like Mulberry handbags, theatre vouchers, champagne and very strangely a brace of pheasants. What's wrong with an apple?)