Category: Uncategorized
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Bridging the great divide? Building understanding between primary and secondary schools
In the past few weeks, two issues have come together for me, both focussed on the transition from primary to secondary school. Firstly, like thousands of other children in Year 6, my elder son and his school received the results from the new Key Stage 2 (KS2) assessments introduced by the government this year. Secondly, […]
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Space matters – but how, why and to whom?
Doreen Massey died recently. ‘Doreen who’ I hear most of you asking? She was a feminist, a geographer and a political activist who worked at the Open University (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/27/doreen-massey-obituary). Like other cultural icons we’ve lost recently (David Bowie, Prince, Victoria Wood, Muhammad Ali) Doreen Massey’s death feels significant. Along with a few others (Henri Lefebvre, […]
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Religious students in a secular sector need a stronger voice
The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis recently suggested that religious intolerance towards Jewish students is at such a level that Jewish students are being routinely ‘vilified’ on campus. Although he was addressing wider recent debates about anti-Semitism, he particularly targeted vice chancellors for their failure to address ‘Jew hatred’ religious intolerance. Jewish students are not alone in being the […]
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Does it matter where James Bond went to school?
It would appear that Daniel Craig has drunk his last shaken Martini and the role of James Bond is up for grabs. This transition to the next Bond has given opportunity to speculate, suggest and lobby for the actor who should next take up the mantle of 007. Over the past 54 years 10 actors […]
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Quantity over Quality
Over the past two decades there has been an unprecedented focus on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The 1998 National Childcare Strategy set out the then Labour government’s intention to increase ECEC provision across the sector through a number of initiatives. This continued during the Coalition term of government. However, during this time, policy […]
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Academic writing is more than proofreading
A student came to a Language Advisory session (LAS) last week with a three-page single-spaced assignment and asked me to proofread it. I pointed out that our job is not to proofread, but to help with academic writing. The student was surprised, but we ended up having a useful session looking at the way he […]
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Step away from the data
I am a governor of a secondary school which is in the process of becoming “good”. To be clear, I mean here the “good” that is measured and measurable by Ofsted. I actually think the school is already good: the staff are hard-working and committed, the pupils are motivated and well-behaved, and everyone who is […]
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Greater than the sum of its parts?
Reflecting on multidisciplinary working Last month, a group of staff from across the University began working on a public engagement project involving Virtual Reality, Psychology, Biomedical Science and prosthetics. The Wellcome Trust Society Award which funds this work describes the project as follows: Virtual Reality Prosthetics- Body and Mind will engage the public in cutting-edge […]
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Three horses and a mule: Developing effective team communication skills
Within education we are commonly advising our students’ to reflect on their experiences, to learn from those experiences to support their learning. It is easier to give rather than heed this advice, and perhaps we need to make sure we practice what we preach. All this came to mind when considering the change and developments […]
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Widening participation in higher education – the view from a city
In 2013 the All-Party Parliamentary Group on social mobility stated that ‘we were looking for communities, schools, programmes or business sectors that could be said to buck the trend of poor social mobility in Britain. Time and again, that search led back to London’. It is not surprising that London is lauded as such […]