News in brief
Students should be able to use Google in exams, according to the head of OCR. Mark Dawe, chief executive of the exam board, told the Today programme on Radio 4 that allowing access to the internet in tests, including GCSEs and A-levels, reflects the way students learn and was “inevitable”.
A leading education academic has suggested schools should outsource marking to people overseas to cut teachers’ workload. Dr Rebecca Allen, director of Education Datalab, said that more radical approaches needed to be considered to reduce workload and that research had found “incredibly reliable” marking services abroad for £2 to £3 per hour.
Nick Clegg has revealed plans for seven- to 11-year-olds to receive free school meals from 2017/18, costing £610m a year, if elected. He also said an estimated £100m would be provided for primary schools to improve their kitchen and dining facilities.
The quality of early education must be the focus of the next government, campaigners have argued. Upskilling the early years workforce and creating a graduate-led profession is necessary to give children the best start in life, according to the British Association for Early Childhood Education. The organisation emphasised that high quality provision is particularly important for children from low-income families.
Research of the week
An exam board is calling for league tables to judge schools on five years’ worth of results, rather than one, after it found “surprisingly high levels” of volatility year on year.
Cambridge Assessment analysed maths and history GCSE results in all schools in England between 2008 and 2013 and then concentrated on 150 of the most stable schools. Although not all causes of volatility were investigated, when marking quality and grade boundary changes were taken out of the equation, results remained unsettled.
Tim Oates, director of assessment and development, emphasised that the findings were very important as “underlying school-level volatility may be an enduring and persistent feature of education”. He argued that school performance, in terms of exam results, needed to be judged on a five-year picture rather than one-off annual drops or increases.
Find out more about the research here.
Snapshot of the week
It was great to see election fever hit the students of King Edward VI school.
Our five EdElection candidates ahead of next week's school election pic.twitter.com/Qt56yxWWCl
— KingEdwardVISchool (@KingEdVISchool) April 30, 2015
The week in numbers
The School Teachers’ Review Body has recommended most teachers receive a 1% pay rise, but for there to be no increase in senior leaders’ salaries. The Association of School and College Leaders wants the decision overturned and highlighted that in real terms teachers’ pay has declined by 12% since 2010.
When looking at global attainment levels – the average number of years people spend in school and what they achieve – the developing world is around 100 years behind developed countries.
Dates to remember
The British Red Cross is hoping to raise £1m to help save lives across the globe when they kick off this years’ Red Cross Week on Sunday 3 May. Also, did you know it’s only possible to lipread 30-40% of what people say? Deaf Awareness Week commences on Monday 4 May so why not try the lipreading test here? And finally, “May the 4th be with you”. Yes, it’s Star Wars Day too.
Teaching resources
- Teach younger pupils the basic of sign language with this colourful chart.
- Help students explore and build an understanding of what it means to be a humanitarian.
- Learn about aid and fundraising for the people and communities affected by the recent Nepal earthquake.
- This handy list outlines important events and famous birthdays taking place in May. Great for timetabling classroom themes.
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