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The sheer demands placed on timetables are leaving schools with little opportunity to promote resilience, optimism, courage, generosity, empathy and good manners, it was claimed.   Anthony Seldon, the Master of Wellington College, Berkshire, said old-fashioned values were traditionally passed on to pupils through competitive sport, artistic performances and voluntary work in the local community. [...]

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A study led by a University of Bristol academic found that a child’s educational achievements can be harmed when a father loses his job. Using British Cohort Study data, Professor Paul Gregg studied job losses during the 1980s recession to assess the impact of unemployment on children’s academic performance.   The research found that children [...]

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Pupils are being distracted from exam studying due to their college sending them ‘top revision tips’ by text, Twitter, and Facebook, it was claimed today. Students at Havering Sixth Form College in Hornchurch, Essex, say the ‘obvious’ messages are ‘annoying’ and are actually interrupting their A-level preparation. Daily tips aimed at revising pupils include ‘buckle [...]

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A study by the Welsh Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) suggests undergraduates completing the course fare less well than those who have not. The findings are revealed on BBC Radio Wales’ “Eye on Wales” programme. The Welsh Government says it will widen research into the Welsh Bacc’s impact. The qualification [...]

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You might not have realised it, but men are being oppressed. In many walks of life, they are routinely discriminated against in ways women are not. So unrecognised is this phenomenon that the mere mention of it will appear laughable to some. That, at least, is the premise of a book by a South African philosophy [...]

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Glynis Bates, who teaches at Priory School, Whippingham, Isle of Wight, tampered with two A-level physics papers sat by student Jacob Phillips in January. She made alterations and re-wrote answers on papers submitted by Phillips, the son of a family friend. The former examinations officer, who won an award from the Good Schools Guide in 2009, [...]

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In a highly unusual move, teenagers from a leading independent school claimed that the flagship qualification – taken by more than 600,000 pupils each year – was too easy.   It was claimed that syllabuses encouraged pupils to be “text book dependent” and failed to develop advanced skills. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, some [...]

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The country is ranked just 10th in the developed world for areas such as research and teaching, it emerged, despite the prominence of world-famous institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge and University College London.   In a new study, Britain was beaten by nations such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, Australia and the Netherlands for overall effectiveness [...]

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The exams watchdog said the system was an effective way to test large amounts of information alongside pupils’ English language skills. It was claimed that multiple-choice exams played a key part in assessments employed by other nations and greater consideration should be given to their use in England.   But the regulator admitted that over-using these [...]

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Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of the education watchdog, said disruption during lesson times was often down to the use of mobiles and that the issue had to be stamped out.   In an interview yesterday, the former headmaster revealed a tough new inspection regime would be introduced in schools from next term. Under the [...]

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Figures show that the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on tests increased by 8.5 per cent in the last 12 months, despite a drop in the overall number of qualifications awarded. In total, exam fees have more than doubled in the last eight yeas and now account for the second largest share of school running [...]

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Demand for GCSEs is falling as students continue to choose practical courses in subjects such as food safety and music. For the third year in a row, the number of GCSEs taken dropped, down to 5.54 million last year from 6.21 million in 2007/08, according to a report by the exams regulator Ofqual. It suggested [...]

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A class of children sit revising for  make-or-break exams to get them into the college of their choice. It’s the sort of scene that could be seen in high schools across the world but for one important difference: The pupils have intravenous drips hanging over their desks. The image is taken from footage that claims [...]

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School spending on exams rose to £328m last year – up from £154m less than a decade ago, according to figures from the exam watchdog Ofqual. The annual report on the exam market in England, Wales and Northern Ireland also shows the number of qualifications has doubled to 18,000 in five years. This includes 300 [...]

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Teenagers will soon be sucked into school gymnasia. Helpless parents will look at their watches at home and wonder. Teachers will open papers and nod wisely: “As I expected…” Outside an indifferent natural world will flourish in the sunshine. Swallows will swoop and scream. The exam season will have arrived.   Anyone who has taken [...]

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Proposals from the examinations watchdog Ofqual to scrap modular A-levels, spelling the end for the AS level, were revealed by the Sunday Telegraph last week. Research by Ofqual suggests universities believe the modular structure of A-levels and numerous resits has led to students struggling with degree level work.   They will be opposed by the National [...]

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Ofqual, the exams regulator, said it would act “firmly and robustly” to eradiate blunders in national tests sat by hundreds of thousands of teenagers each year. Just days before the start of the 2012 exams season, it emerged that the watchdog had been approved to use new powers to punish the most serious mistakes. For [...]

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A-levels and GCSEs have got easier over the past decade, an official analysis has confirmed. A series of reports by Ofqual, the exam watchdog, has found that  science and geography papers are ‘softer’ and ‘less demanding’. Teenagers now have more multiple choice questions and papers with less scientific content. GCSEs and A-levels in science and [...]

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Ofqual said that changes made to tests over the last decade have “reduced the demand” of qualifications taken by hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren. In a series of damning reports, it emerged that teenagers were facing more multiple-choice exams and short, structured questions that prevented bright pupils displaying their knowledge.   Many exams had been [...]

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A-Levels are set to be radically overhauled in response to years of grade inflation, the head of the exam watchdog has signalled. Glenys Stacey, chief executive of Ofqual, suggested a return to traditional A-level courses with a single exam at the end of two years of study. Two-part A-Levels, where students take exams at intervals [...]

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Glenys Stacey, the chief executive of Ofqual, said that after more than a decade of “persistent grade inflation” in exams, which was “impossible to justify”, the value of A-levels and GCSEs have been undermined. To restore public confidence, wholesale changes were needed to the structure of exams and the culture within exam boards, she warned. [...]

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Exam boards are to be banned from holding face-to-face seminars with teachers in a bid to stop tips about forthcoming A-level and GCSE questions being passed on. The ban is announced today by Ofqual, the exams regulator, in the wake of an exposé by a national newspaper which claimed “inappropriate information” was being routinely passed [...]

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A-level science exams do not contain enough maths questions to prepare students to progress to science degrees or related jobs, says a report. The authors claim that even those that are asked are often too easy. The report by a group of leading science organisations calls for a new framework to regulate the way maths is [...]

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More than half of state school teachers are failing to encourage their brightest pupils to apply to Oxford and Cambridge, according to a survey out today. They ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ advise their most gifted pupils to apply to the elite institutions, prompting fears that hundreds of youngsters are being held back. The survey results suggest [...]

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Researchers warned that qualifications in subjects such as the sciences, economics, business studies and computing were failing to prepare teenagers for the demands of university or the workplace. In a report, it was claimed that maths was a vital component of many other disciplines but it was often too easy or featured in a “very limited [...]

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Steve Iredale is not exactly a reluctant national headteachers’ leader. However, the 57-year-old primary school headteacher from Barnsley, south Yorkshire, says he had “no aspiration” for such a role when he turned up at a branch meeting of the National Association of Head Teachers seven years ago. He thought it was just about coffee and [...]

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Headteachers are threatening to boycott the new compulsory grammar, spelling and punctuation test for 600,000 11-year-olds. The threat comes as schools face the prospect of an unprecedented number of disputes over the next 12 months. The test is to be introduced as part of the Government’s reforms of national curriculum testing next summer. But a union leader [...]

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School and college pupils in Scotland are starting exams, with nearly 159,000 candidates expected to complete papers over the annual exam season. The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) said 740,096 exams from Standard Grade to Advanced Higher would be completed in the six-week period. More than 520 schools and colleges throughout the country will participate. Pupils [...]

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Schools should assess pupils at regular stages because it helps children “instinctively” remember information and boosts their ability to perform complex tasks, it was claimed. The Education Secretary insisted he was not advocating the introduction of new national tests beyond current compulsory exams at 11 and 16.   But he said schools needed to make greater [...]

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More teenagers in Wales are choosing to stay on in full-time education, according to latest figures. A survey of 65,450 high school pupils shows 85.1% continued their education beyond Year 11 in 2011, compared with 82.8% in 2010. Advisers say over the last five years they have seen an 8% rise in those staying in [...]

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Ofqual, the qualifications watchdog, said it was investigating concerns over the “re-use of some past questions” in a test set by one of Britain’s biggest exam boards. It emerged that an entire section of a GCSE English exam – testing pupils’ reading skills – had been copied word-for-word from a paper set in 2009. All [...]

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New figures show that the number of schools offering the Pre-U – a course devised by Cambridge University’s exam board – has increased by a third in two years. For the first time in 2012, it was revealed that almost as many state schools opted for the qualification as those in the fee-paying sector. The [...]

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The rap video featuring teachers at Jennings Senior High School in Missouri was posted to YouTube and shows staff from the Maths, English and Biology departments rapping advice for exam success.   In the video the teachers don shades, baseball caps and hoodies and rap, “mitosis and miosis ain’t the same thing homie, one makin’ [...]

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A study of university students found that those who brought drinks, especially water, with them as they sat their exams performed up to 10 per cent better than those who did not. Psychologists said it was unclear why drinking water would improve your performance but said that being better hydrated could have a helpful impact [...]

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Whole class of children could fail their GCSEs after teacher forgot to set coursework and then invented grades to cover her mistake By LEON WATSON PUBLISHED: 18:13, 13 April 2012 | UPDATED: 18:36, 13 April 2012 Comments (71) Share More than 30 children face failing their GCSEs after a teacher failed to set their coursework [...]

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More than a third of teachers have admitted they could be tempted to re-write their pupils’ exam answers, according to a poll. Some 35% of teachers said the pressure to improve their students’ grades was now so strong they could be persuaded to cheat. A few admitted cheating was already rife in their schools in [...]

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A-levels will be designed by universities under reforms aimed at ending years of political meddling in the exam system. The biggest shake-up for 30 years will see leading academics deciding the content and format of A-level courses as Whitehall’s influence is stripped away. Education Secretary Michael Gove has written to the exams watchdog, detailing the [...]

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Some teachers’ professional integrity is being undermined by the pressure to get good exam results, a union says. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers says teachers have been forced to “manipulate results” and even “re-write students’ work” to boost results. A snapshot survey of ATL members found a third felt their integrity was being compromised [...]

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Schools and colleges receive more money if their A-level pupils take subjects such as media studies or psychology instead of maths, MPs will be told today. Maths is losing out in ‘subject premiums’ worth hundreds of pounds per pupil, Tory Elizabeth Truss will tell the Commons during a debate on the crisis in England’s maths [...]

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Snoozing towards the end of a lesson has not traditionally been viewed as a compliment to the teacher. But falling asleep shortly after receiving new information makes us more likely to absorb it, researchers claim. The findings could also mean that it is best to carry out final preparations for an exam or office presentation [...]

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Figures show that a child’s family background has a larger bearing on their chances of doing well at the age of 16 or 17 than teachers. The parental effect on test results is around five times more powerful than the influence of pupils’ schooling, it was revealed. The findings – in a study to be [...]

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Schools are ‘clocking up’ easy exam passes to boost league table standings by encouraging the children of Polish immigrants to sit GCSEs in the language, it is claimed. The popularity of the subject has soared in recent years and it is now the fifth most popular foreign language GCSE after subjects such as French and [...]

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Individual schools are to be allowed the “option” of delaying the National 4 and 5 exams for a year. Teachers’ leaders have secured the breakthrough in the dispute with the Scottish government over the new curriculum for excellence and exams. Ministers have also agreed to a £3.5m package aimed at ensuring that schools are better [...]

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The “super SATs” papers will be aimed at gifted 11 year-olds, whose work in class is at the standard expected of a 14 year-old. Results will feature in league tables of primary schools’ performance, in a move which ministers hope will encourage teachers to devote more attention to high ability children. Secondary schools will also [...]

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Have you noticed that when you talk about schools to almost anyone outside the professional world of education you hit an implacable belief that exams have got easier and standards have fallen? You can quote the many statistics that challenge this view, yet, reinforced by parts of the media and some politicians, it is unshakable. [...]

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One in four teachers believes his or her pupils are being awarded the wrong grades in GCSE exams, research published yesterday reveals. Ofqual, the exams watchdog, says the percentage of teachers who think all or most of their pupils get the right grades has fallen from 86 per cent to 77 per cent in a [...]

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They have resorted to counting the number of black and white children pictured in exams to reduce “potential bias” in this year’s tests, it was revealed. Test developers analysed papers – sat by up to 600,000 children in England – to ensure they do not prejudice ethnic minorities, the disabled and boys as opposed to [...]

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Michael Bell Jr, from Miami, came home with a report card which included failing grades in three of his subjects. He was also described by teachers as the “class clown”. His father Michael Sr looked on as his seventh grade son walked on the street corner with the sign that read: “Hey, I want to [...]

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Regular exercise can significantly improve pupils’ academic ability by increasing oxygen flow to the brain, according to Dr Aric Sigman, the psychologist and author. He suggested that access to high-quality PE lessons was just as likely to have a long-term impact on children’s education than time spent in conventional classrooms. Dr Sigman, a fellow of [...]

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Sir Mark Walport will argue that the competitive market between the three leading exam boards has pushed standards even lower since he led a critical review of science and mathematics teaching two years ago. Speaking at an education seminar on Tuesday where MPs are set to discuss the ongoing national curriculum review Sir Mark, one [...]

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