Subject: Weekly news update 23
This week.....look East. With
another group of North East Heads recently returned from a learning visit to
China and the
upcoming visit of Palden Gyatso,
a Tibetan monk, to one of the region’s schools, now’s a good time to embrace
the wisdom of
the Orient in your school. For
inspiration, go to - http://www.britishcouncil.org/schoolpartnerships-china.htm#school-partnerships
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News and Events
SCHOOLS NorthEast Summit
Hopefully you have now put the
SCHOOLS NorthEast Summit in your diary for Friday 19 June at Wynyard Hall
in Cleveland.
Look out for announcements on
the high-profile line-up of speakers and the exciting programme of workshops
and skills sessions
in the next few weeks.
FAO: English Coordinators
Meet Mr Motion
Following on from the Talk
Maths event held in Newcastle last Thursday, the OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA
Examinations)
are hosting Talk English, a
free half-day development event with Poet Laureate Andrew Motion plus
practitioners from NATE
(National Association of
Teachers of English) and Apples & Snakes (Performance Poetry). The event
will provide a fantastic
opportunity for you to gain
valuable tips and techniques from recognised subject experts, discuss the
challenging aspects of
teaching English including
accessibility and teaching of poetry, and improve knowledge and understanding
in Q&A sessions.
Lunch and networking included.
To be held on Thursday 2 April at The Journal Tyne Theatre, Newcastle
from 12.00-4.30pm.
To find out more or reserve
your place, go to - http://www.ocr.org.uk/events/ocr_events.html#eng
FAO: Heads of Sixth Form Inspire
your female students by reserving places today!
north east
women Leaders conference is a day of inspiration, information and
motivation for 500 young women aged 16-18 from
The region’s schools. Leading
women from business, cultural arts, public service, academia, science and
sports will share their
experiences and offer advice on
how to achieve ambitions, make the most of your talents and break through the
glass ceiling.
Students will also be
challenged to focus on their futures using their creativity and enterprise in
hands on workshops led by our
region’s rising stars and
future leaders. Speakers include:
·
Margaret Fay OBE, Chair of ONE NorthEast
·
Helene Speight, business woman and finalist in The Apprentice
2008
·
Professor Sharon Mavin, Associate Dean, Newcastle Business
School
·
Loran Moran, CEO of NRG (Northern Recruitment Group)
·
Erica Whyman, Chief Executive, Northern Stage
·
Sarah Green, Director, CBI NorthEast
To be held at Newcastle
Business School at Northumbria University (City Campus East) on Friday 24
April. To book places please
email NEWleaders@schoolsnortheast.com
or call 0191 280 5037 with contact details and the number of students you would
like to
bring by Friday 27 March. Go to -
http://www.schoolsnortheast.com/content/events.html
to download a flier or read the conference programme.
FAO: Enterprise Coordinators
Get buzzing at the Bees
conference
Interested in finding out more
about business, ethics and enterprise in schools? Want
your students to be involved in social enterprise
and your school to be more
engaged with business? Sign up for the Bees conference to explore the
role social enterprises can play in
schools. Learn how
to work more effectively with employers and broaden your understanding
of ethical businesses and co-operatives.
The conference will be hosted
by Wendy Gibson and all delegates will receive a free Enterprise Education resource
kit.
Date: Thursday 25 June 2009
at The Sage, Gateshead from 9.15am - 4.30pm.
Cost: £195+VAT per person.
For more information, contact
Lyndsey Archbold – archboldl@benetenterprises.co.uk,
0787 87 99 444 or go to our website –
http://www.schoolsnortheast.com/content/events.html
to see the full programme and download the booking form.
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News round-up
Local news
·
Credit
crisis hits pupil numbers in Northumberland (The Journal)
·
Hartburn
pupils try firefighters’ rugby game plan (Gazette Live)
·
Tibetan
Monk to visit Prudhoe School (Northumberland County Council)
·
Plight
of the bumblebee evokes Polam Hall pupils (Northern Echo)
·
Durham
school wises up to environmental issues (Northern Echo)
·
Knife
arch warning to Sunderland school pupils (Sunderland Echo)
·
Support
for bid to save Wearside school (Sunderland Echo)
·
Sunderland
schools celebrate healthy award with a piece of cake (Sunderland
Echo)
SATs, GCSEs and cheating in exams
·
Think Tank: New
Ideas For The 21st Century: Exams are failing our schools (Times Online)
·
Teachers
'stricter' than examiners (Independent)
·
Warning
that new GCSEs will result in higher grades (Guardian)
·
GCSE
reforms will lead to more passes, says exam chief (Daily Telegraph)
·
Nearly
half of English Sats grades 'wrong' (Guardian)
·
150,000
Sats tests re-marked after fiasco (Independent)
·
'Concern' over English
Sats test (BBC News)
·
Row
over 'political interference' in exams (Daily Telegraph)
·
Poorer
pupils' test results lag (BBC News)
·
Thousands
of students cheating in exams (Daily
Telegraph)
·
Teachers
becoming the worst cheaters in school exams (Independent)
·
Sixty
invigilators helped pupils cheat in exams, says watchdog (Guardian)
·
60,000
pupils get wrong exam grades in marking fiasco (Times)
·
One in three children are given wrong grade for SATs every year
(Daily Mail)
Single-sex schools
·
School
is better without boys (Sunday
Times)
·
Girls
'do better in single-sex schools' (Daily
Telegraph)
·
Girls
do better without boys, study finds (Guardian)
·
Single-sex
schools 'best for girls' (Chronicle
Live)
·
Girls
get better results at single-sex state schools (Times)
·
Girls's
schools: good for your grades, terrible for your mental health (Daily Telegraph)
Apprenticeships
·
Lack of understanding
of apprenticeships revealed (Children and Young People Now)
·
Push
for apprentices hampered by poor advice to students (Guardian)
·
'Too few'
apprenticeships started (BBC
News)
‘Failing’ Primaries
·
Failing
primaries should be made into academies, says report (Guardian)
·
'Privatisation'
for failing primary schools (Daily Telegraph)
·
Why
we could learn from Sweden's Ikea education (Sunday Express)
Male Primary Teachers
·
Schools
with no male teachers: the worst offenders (Daily Telegraph)
·
Lack
of male role models a primary concern (Daily Telegraph)
Parents
·
Manners
matter more than grades, say parents (Guardian)
·
Parents
feel excluded by children about school (BBC News)
Other educational news
·
Calls
for more school autonomy (BBC News)
·
Lengthen
school days and shorten holidays, say the Tories (Daily Mail)
·
Teachers attack 'absurd' plans to measure pupil happiness (Daily Telegraph)
·
Montessori
teaching attracts a wave of career-changers (Independent)
·
Caterers
warn healthy menus will drive pupils to burger bars (Guardian)
·
Pupils
should cycle or walk to cut school run congestion (Guardian)
·
Call
for school travel shake-up (BBC News)
·
School
cuts lunch hour and replaces playtime (Daily Telegraph)
·
Schools
agency comes under fire (Children and Young People Now)
·
Head
forced to quit by stress wins £400,000 payout (Independent)
·
McDonald's
to sponsor Australian maths lessons (Guardian)
·
Dinner lady sues boy who broke her nose (Times)
·
Ed
Balls seeks power to dictate what textbooks GCSE and A-level students must
study (Guardian)
·
Ministers should work in schools (Children
and Young People Now)
·
Head
Teachers warn of merger (Guardian)
·
School
inspectors accused of pre-judging (Daily
Telegraph)
·
Times
Spelling Bee creates buzz about English language (Times)
·
Praise
for teacher who secretly filmed pupils' bad behaviour (Guardian)
·
Asbestos
in 90% of our schools (Daily Mirror)
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Star pupil
McMaths – If you thought McDonalds’ only interest in maths was in adding
up their profits from filling young people full of burgers
then you’d be wrong. The global fast-food chain has announced
plans to sponsor an online maths tutoring programme in Australia
accessible by all 1.4 million secondary school pupils. Mcmaths
includes hundreds of animated and narrated
lessons and 15,000 exam-style questions to test a student's
"mastery of maths" but will pupils turn their backs on the free
resource
when they figure out that 2 x Big Macs = 3 x hours at gym?
Could do better
Cheating in exams – The QCA last week reported a 14
per cent increase in reported cases of cheating inside the exam hall for
11-year-olds following
last summer’s exams. According to official figures, around 500 instances of cheating
were logged in Sats
tests and almost 4,000 students were caught cheating
in GCSE and A-levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, smuggling
banned items such as
mobile phones, BlackBerrys and written notes into exam halls. Figures also show
a 60 per
cent rise in the
number of test and coursework papers made void because students
wrote "offensive or obscene" messages. The report also
suggested that invigilating Teachers are becoming the worst cheaters in
school exams!
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Head to Head
Ken
Gibson has been Head Teacher at Harton Technology College in South Shields for
six years. Prior to this, Ken was Deputy
Head (Curriculum
& Assessment) at the same school, making his time at Harton a total of 25
years! In February 2009, the school
was
named as one of the ‘Twelve outstanding secondary schools, excelling against the
odds’ in a report by Ofsted. To read the
comments
about Harton Technology College, go to - http://www.harton-tc.co.uk/news_flash/ofsted/index.php
Last week was Hectic as ever - several BSF meetings re
Decant, initial planning meeting with SLT for next year's Improvement
Plan, NQT lesson observations, teaching year 10 and year 11
classes etc.
The two best things that happened at school last week were observing an NQT's
outstanding lesson and receiving /analysing
the final Year 11 estimated grades for 2009!
The
biggest disappointment at school last week...there were none.
The
funniest thing that happened in school last week was the Joyrider who had
his car seized by the police for repeatedly
speeding
past the school - I managed to take his registration number and pass it on -
hopefully he won't be back!
One
thing that would have made my job easier last week would have been no BSF
meetings!
Top
of my list to do this week is preparing lessons for a year 10 Statistics class and a year 11
Maths class.
My
Hero of last week was Brendan Foster who voluntarily attended a BSF meeting to
advise about Athletics provision in the future
for
the school and the town of South Shields.
My
villain of last week Professor Stephen Gorard of Birmingham University who wrote an
appalling article in the TES criticising
the
12 Outstanding Schools who supposedly excel against the odds. (Stephen Gorard
not to be confused with Stephen Gerrard of
Liverpool
FC who ensured that Man U suffered their worst home defeat in years!!)
The
biggest influence in my career so far has been my mother Helen who was a former Head Teacher and LA
Adviser. The
Helen
Gibson Nursery School in East Boldon was named after her, following her death
in 1990. More recently, former colleague
and
now Head Teacher of Whitburn C of E School in South Tyneside, Paula
Williams.
My
question for next week’s Head is:
What is
likely to be the theme of your next assembly?
If you would like to take part
in our regular ‘Head to Head’ feature and tell us all about your week, please
contact the team at
info@schoolsnortheast.com
or call us on 0191 2805037.
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Funding and opportunities
FAO:
Primary schools
Do
you have an appetite for action?
Would
you like to develop or improve your Eco-School or Green Schools status whilst
inspiring your students to think about the
environment,
the food they eat and the stuff they throw away? Register your school today at www.appetiteforaction.org.uk to
join
the
campaign and receive free lesson plans, activities, educational films and fact
sheets about a range of sustainability issues
through
the topic of food. Why not sign up for the Appetite for Action Challenge too
and help your school:
·
Cover sustainable food and related topics, such as waste and
energy, within curriculum subjects
·
Help the environment and save money
·
Engage students in active citizenship
·
Achieve recognition - all participating students will receive a
UN Environment Programme certificate
·
Enter the competition to win £3000 and Sky News at your school
Join the other 985 schools across
the UK taking part in Appetite for Action by going to - http://schools.appetiteforaction.org.uk/?register=1
Get support from St John...
St John Ambulance have created
a strategy for schools to ensure that every pupil and member of staff has
access to first aid and
health and safety training and
life enhancing skills. The aim is to offer support on improving communication
skills, teamwork and
confidence and meets National
Curriculum requirements and Every Child Matters objectives. To find out about
the many ways
your school can get involved
with the charity and receive support and resources including a DVD and 25
lesson plans, go to –
http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/training-courses/schools.aspx
or call - 08700 104950. Enter your school in a competition on the website
and win a Young first aider
pack.
FAO:
KS3 Teachers
Young,
Gifted and Talented resource
Eco-Builder
is a new e-learning tool for KS3 exclusive to the YG&T programme and is
designed to stimulate critical thinking and
improve
higher-order questioning skills. Your students will be given the role of
eco-architect in an engaging simulation game which
supports
cross-curricular learning and provides stretch and challenge to G&T groups.
Go to www.ygt.dcsf.gov.uk
for more information.
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Wise words
He that would be a leader must be a bridge.
Welsh Proverb
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SCHOOLS NorthEast is your network. Please get in touch
with your ideas, concerns, views and experiences- email: think@schoolsnortheast.com
....and don’t forget, if you’ve missed any of our previous weekly
news updates, you can find them at:
http://www.schoolsnortheast.com/content/new-resources/weekly%20news.html
To unsubscribe to this weekly
update, please email us at – info@schoolsnortheast.com
Have a good week!
SCHOOLS
NorthEast Team
Katie
Stonehouse
Communications
Officer
SCHOOLS
NorthEast
Tel: 0191 280 5037