Schools

What should we do with difficult students? The ones who distract everyone else in the class, and don’t care how they are punished? Some schools exclude struggling pupils because they are worried that their exams performance might drag down the class’s grades. But children have a right to an education, says Sophia Waugh, so we need to find a solution. Former teacher Hannah Glickstein agrees, but argues that new Ofsted rules have been put in place by bureaucrats with no experience of teaching. It might not be the sexiest of subjects, but it’s certainly an important one. Talking of exams, Ross Clark takes a look at the rise in unconditional

Next year the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) will offer one degree, in design, technology and the humanities, to teach students to solve ‘complex problems’ like (they suggest) knife crime. Really? The key to problem solving is the development of two essential faculties — the imaginative and the critical. Can LIS really teach for those — or just how to pass exams? The philosopher Seneca insisted that the search for what really counted (his example was virtue) ‘cannot be delegated to someone else’. He illustrated it by telling the story of Calvisius Sabinus, who had the brains and bank account of the Roman equivalent of Sir Philip Green. His memory was

The Department for Education (DfE) published its finalised data on the 2018 GCSE results last week, revealing that, for the second year running, white pupils are doing worse in English secondary schools than any other ethnic group. According to the new Progress 8 measure, which assigns a score to GCSE entrants based on how much progress they’ve made between the ages of 11 and 16 relative to children of similar abilities, Chinese pupils do the best, with a score of 1.08, Asians are second (0.45), then blacks (0.12), mixed race (-0.02) and, bringing up the rear, whites (-0.10). What that score means is that on average white children are behind

The yearly scramble for school places is about to start and, as all British parents know, trying to find a school for your children can be an all-consuming business. When searching for a decent state primary for my own children, I was faced with intense competition for places in London along with soaring house prices. So I did what plenty of other middle class parents have done before me and moved out of the capital. For better or worse, my children’s education has dictated everything: from where I live to my choice of career. On this week’s Spectator podcast, Leah Mclaren takes issue with mothers like me. Isn’t the British obsession

One thing I love about my adopted country is the widespread cultural contempt for dullness. Unlike North Americans, intelligent British people rarely drone on in a witless or self-aggrandising manner. They deflect, make jokes and generally aim to please. But there is one boring subject no one here ever seems to tire of and that is schooling. ‘So where do your kids go?’ I’ve learned is just as loaded and inescapable a London dinner party question as ‘What do you do?’ or ‘Where are you on Brexit?’ If you choose private, you’d better have a plausible explanation (e.g. ‘We just didn’t want to make our child the social experiment’). And

According to data released by the Department for Education today, free schools have topped the league table when it comes to Progress 8. This metric, introduced three years ago, tells you how much progress children have made in a particular school between the ages of 11 and 16 relative to the progress other children have made with similar starting points. It’s a way of controlling for the fact that children enter secondary school with varying levels of prior attainment. If you just look at raw GCSE data, those schools that get the best results might not be the most effective; it could be that they’re attracting children of above average

It was a dark afternoon in November, and the wind was rattling the casements of the bare schoolroom. My small but enthusiastic class of Greek students nibbled chocolate biscuits and listened politely as I ploughed through yet another list of irregular verbs. Suddenly, standing by the electronic whiteboard, I had a sort of minor epiphany (Epiphany: from the Greek term for a god’s manifestation to undeserving mortals). Why, I asked myself, were these bright teenagers devoting so much time to studying a difficult language which they would never be able to use to communicate, whose native speakers died two millennia ago, and in which it would take years to reach

Public schools are the jewel in the crown of the British education system. Across the centuries, they have educated our elite across government, law and the arts. They are as synonymous with England — golden, verdant, timeless England — as scones with cream and jam, cricket (played in whites, please) and The Queen. Their allure is partly myth, partly nostalgia, partly cold, hard commercialism. Of course, there is the romanticised ideal, cemented in our best fiction: the public schools of Jennings and Darbishire; of Billy Bunter; of devoted, beloved Mr. Chipping. Harry Potter is, though JK Rowling may not admit it, the ultimate scholarship boy made good. Our best comedians