Labour’s £6,000 tuition fee proposals would reverse social mobility
Ed Miliband's pledge to drop fees from £9,000 to £6,000 has been met with alarm by university vice chancellors.
UK
United Kingdom
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
The best ways to work with teaching assistants
The army of teaching assistants working in English schools still have an unclear role in the classroom.
Unregulated expansion of higher education costing millions
A committee of MPs has launched a scathing attack on the way students at alternative higher education providers have been funded.
Teachers show bias to pupils who share their personality
When making judgements about their pupils, teachers need to be aware of their own subtle biases.
If you speak Mandarin, your brain is different
Language is traditionally associated with the left side of the brain. But Mandarin speakers are using the right side.
Classroom design can boost primary pupils' progress by 16%
Natural light, temperature and good air quality all help create a 'clever classroom'.
Teachers' gender bias in maths affects girls later
New research has found some teachers mark boys' primary school maths tests more favourably than girls.
Can we teach intelligence?
As our definitions of what intelligence is change, it might become possible to teach it.
Play isn’t just for primary school kids – it’s got an image problem
Playfulness is frowned upon in secondary school. It shouldn't be.
Neither Tories nor Labour have the answers to get unemployed young people working
Conservative and Labour proposals for young jobseekers have different rhetoric, but both miss the point.
Explainer: what is the hybrid classroom and is it the future of education?
A blend of online and face-to-face teaching is changing the nature of the classroom.
Only one in 65 new students chooses a modern language degree – we need a rethink
There has been a 16% decline in the number of first degree language students since 2007.
How school teachers could become the foot soldiers of education research
Lessons for schools evaluating their own educational interventions.
What goes on in teachers' brains as they help students to learn
The brain science of teaching, explained.
Mandatory sex education is long overdue – but it shouldn’t be just about risk prevention
MPs have renewed calls for sex education to be made statutory in primary and secondary schools.
Why Finland and Norway still shun university tuition fees – even for international students
Some Nordic countries are still clinging fast to free university education for everyone.
Is it really worth investing in smaller primary school classes?
Labour’s pledge to cap school class sizes at 30 is in line with evidence that small is best for young children.
Would capping student fees at £6,000 be as damaging as universities make out?
Expectations that Labour may pledge to reduce student fees have been met with alarm across the sector.
UK universities find a cash cow in the financial fall-out
Eager students who want a lucrative life at the sharp end of banking have got university cash tills ringing.
How reading a little each week is a form of life support
One in three adults in the UK rarely ever read for pleasure. Here’s why they really should.
A huge loss to higher education: a tribute to David Watson
The principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford and revered professor of higher education, has died.
UK universities find a cash cow in the financial fall-out
Eager students who want a lucrative life at the sharp end of banking have got university cash tills ringing.
Faith schools are not brimming with unqualified teachers
After Tristram Hunt came under fire over comments about the teaching qualifications of nuns, a look at the data.
The number of Sure Start centres is irrelevant – it’s quality that matters
The former director of Sure Start welcomes Labour’s pledge to boost the children’s centres, but says they should be required to have teachers.
It’s against human nature to send two-year-olds to school
We need to move towards a more biologically-informed policy for early years education and care.
Classrooms with mixed ethnicity can help boost tolerance of immigrants
Increasing a school’s ethnic diversity can help boost social cohesion.
Why is it so hard to talk about race in UK universities?
Race is a difficult subject. And not enough conversations are being had about it at universities.
Can schemes to inspire tomorrow’s scientists close the poverty attainment gap?
Tracking the impact that school science and maths interventions have on pupils' GCSE results.
How the REF’s regime of excellence is changing research for the worse
The pursuit of research excellence is skewing academics' priorities, and not always for the better.
Research and News
Only one in ten education reforms analysed for their impact, finds OECD report
Education policies are rarely scrutinised by the governments that implement them.
Oxbridge and London retain grip on university research prowess
The results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 are out.
Universities may seek more EU students once controls lifted
But plans on how to fund the removal of cap on student numbers remain unclear, according to new report.
Academic freedom
Counter-terrorism bill could be ‘devastating’ for university freedoms
MPs voice concern shared by many in universities on new bill’s impact on academic freedom.
Research Excellence Framework
How the REF’s regime of excellence is changing research for the worse
The pursuit of research excellence is skewing academics' priorities, and not always for the better.
For profit education
For-profit state schools have some attractions, but they’d be politically toxic
The former chief inspector of schools for Ofsted says it would be a political disaster to allow schools to be run for-profit.
The big winners from Sweden’s for-profit ‘free’ schools are companies, not pupils
Reforms to allow companies to run free schools in Sweden have not brought great leaps in pupil attainment.
Columnists
Editors’ Picks
Would capping student fees at £6,000 be as damaging as universities make out?
Labour’s much anticipated but yet-to-be confirmed policy to reduce the cap on university tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 a year will be highly expensive, could leave universities £10 billion out of…
Play isn’t just for primary school kids – it’s got an image problem
Playfulness is frowned upon in secondary school. It shouldn't be.
Sifting the fact from fiction about baby sign language
What if babies could tell us what they want, before they start crying for it? Bring in baby signing, a system of symbolic hand gestures for key works such as “milk”, “hot” and “all gone” that are taught…
Well-being programmes in schools might be doing children more harm than good
Apocryphal depictions of an unprecedented crisis in young people’s mental ill-health and their general vulnerability have been accompanied by increasingly alarmist claims that only schools can address…
Keeping actively bilingual makes our brains more efficient at relaying information
There is increasing evidence that bilingualism can affect how the brain works. Older, lifelong bilinguals have demonstrated better cognitive skills in tasks that require increased cognitive control. These…
Learning to speak English? Making yourself understood isn’t all about the accent
Being able to communicate effectively in a foreign language is a challenge faced by many of us. If you’re a newcomer to a country, conveying a message in a language that is not your mother tongue is often…
Hard Evidence: is a teacher shortage looming?
Recruitment of student teachers to begin training in 2015 is well underway, and the government hopes it will lead to well over 30,000 new teachers entering the profession in England. But data from the…
Can England ever return to an era of free higher education?
It is now as close to a consensus as makes no difference that the current regime for funding higher education in England through high fees paid by students – or repaid by some graduates – is bust. Lord…
Hard Evidence: at what age are children ready for school?
When are children “ready” for school? There is much debate about when the transition between play-based pre-school and the start of “formal” schooling should begin. The trend in the UK primary school curriculum…
Seven ‘great’ teaching methods not backed up by evidence
What makes “great teaching”? It’s a complicated question, made more difficult by trying to measure how teachers make decisions in the classroom and what impact those decisions have on what pupils learn…
Events
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Seminar: The Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ in Jeopardy: US-UK relations since 1945 — UCL
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Authors and the World - Ulrike Sandig — Lancaster University
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Testing the Contact Hypothesis with Israelis and Palestinians — University of Bath
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Random Phenomena in the Theory of Numbers — University of York
How we are different
10 reasons
Most Read past week
- If you speak Mandarin, your brain is different
- Hard Evidence: at what age are children ready for school?
- Why Finland and Norway still shun university tuition fees – even for international students
- Teachers show bias to pupils who share their personality
- Classroom design can boost primary pupils' progress by 16%
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