28 Jul

Posted at 09:48h in Uncategorized

SIZE MATTERS The transition from a small primary school into secondary education is an issue for many parents. There are serious choices to be made for children at this age. We know that many children feel nervous about going into a large, more impersonal school where they do not feel known by teachers. In a typical secondary school a teacher might see over 250 children in a week and cannot get to know all of them really well. In addition the national data show that schools are getting larger year by year. This issue of size is serious. The research shows that...

28 Mar

Posted at 09:50h in Uncategorized

Some people have suggested that the only change from Victorian schools to those of today is from black to white – blackboards have changed to whiteboards. We still have classrooms that are not much different from the 19th century with curricula that have progressed little since then and with lessons of standardised times delivered in (increasingly) large institutions. Indeed there is an argument to suggest that the school is possibly the only institution that would be recognisable to a Victorian who might be transported to the current time. Factories now have robots and offices don’t have clerks working in serried ranks....

17 Mar

Posted at 09:46h in Uncategorized

Much has been written about how important parents are to a child’s education, but often the advice is not all that helpful. Here are a few thoughts on the what, how, when, where and why of education that parents might consider. WHAT.The press and the education establishment go on about GCSEs, grades, exams and so on as the most important areas for parents to assist their children. A recent research report suggested that children doing Saturday jobs could get lower grades at GCSE. What the report did not mention is that if school students want to learn about dealing with real...

28 Jun

Posted at 09:47h in Uncategorized

Take yourself back to your schooldays. Did you learn everything that you were taught? Or did you sometimes daydream in class? Perhaps there were subjects that you didn’t like so you paid less attention to them - or you were even disruptive in such lessons. For whatever reason, it’s likely that the teacher ‘covering the syllabus’ did not always result in you learning everything that they wanted you to. We know that people – of all ages – like to learn in different ways. My favourite teacher in my traditional boys grammar school was the geography teacher. Because he never tried...

28 Mar

Posted at 09:51h in Uncategorized

Helping Chinese young people to get a real education The following is a press release that the College issued earlier this year. “Dr Ian Cunningham of Brighton’s Self Managed Learning College argues that: “It’s madness that the UK Government wants to copy the Shanghai schooling model – an approach that fails its young people and its society. We have entered into a partnership with iSkool in Shanghai to support this new school to revolutionise education in China.” Ann Qiu, its Director, commented: “If a ‘successful’ education system is based on shaping students as conformists and passive learners without confidence in their own creativity, imagination...