Huge increase in support staff training

Getting time off is the biggest barrier to training for school support staff, says new research.
The report from Unison says there has been a "transformation" in the provision of training for school support staff in England over the past five years.
But although three quarters of staff had received some sort of training over the previous year, it wasn't all high quality or relevant to their jobs.
Half of all staff said they experience no barriers to training, but the other half did identify barriers.
One in four said time off for training and lack of cover were the biggest issues. They were worried that if they took time for training during their working day they would return to an even higher workload.
Some staff mentioned training outside of their working hours and in their own time, for example INSET days which they weren't paid for.
If the training was outside school hours, childcare was often a problem.
The report recommends that support staff should have an entitlement to high quality training and development, and calls on the new negotiation body for support staff pay and conditions to address the issue of paid time off for training.
You can read a summary of the report in Unison's latest bulletin for school staff, In Schools.

Heads and teachers to vote on SATS boycott

Head teachers and teachers are considering a boycott of next year's SATS tests.
The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT)and National Union of Teachers (NUT) will debate identical resolutions at their conferences calling for a boycott of the Key Stage 1 and 2 tests in 2010.
Both organisations have agreed that if the tests continue beyond 2009, it will damage children's education.
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the NAHT, said, "We feel it is unconscionable that we should simply stand by and allow the educational experience of children to be blighted and for colleagues to be humiliated and demeaned on an annual bsis by the publication of league tables."
The NUT's Christine Blower said "Primary schools' patience in enduring the damage caused by the tests has been stretched to the limit and beyond." She said it was unjust that primary schools have to continue with the tests the Government has decided to drop in secondary schools.

School kitchens close to breaking point says union

School meals staff are under intolerable pressure because of the switch to healthier dinners says their trade union.
The change from convenience to fresh foods means a sharp increase in workload and skills needed by staff, says Unison. These include extra cooking, cleaning and stock control duties. But the changes have not been matched by more pay, training or staffing hours.
A survey of school meals staff found nine out of ten said work pressures had increased since they were expected to cook meals from scratch. Barely one in twenty said extra staff had been taken on, and nearly half had no extra training.
School meals staff are also worked that the school kitchen has become more dangerous with people moving around and working under intense pressure. There is more cleaning needed, and if it is not done properly the health of children who eat the lunches could be at risk.
Unison's head of education Christina McAnea said the union was shocked by the outpouring of anger that came back in the survey. "Many are forced to work unpaid overtime just to get the meals ready."
Unison is recommending immediate risk assessments of school kitchens, and a review of cleaning standards and staffing levels.
It also wants more training for staff, and is calling on the Training and Development Agency (TDA) to develop a course for school kitchen managers.
Voices From the School Kitchen
The impact of school reform on staff

A quarter of primaries have no male teachers

One in four primary schools in England has no male teacher.
New figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act show that 4,587 schools have only women on the teaching staff.
Some counties, including Hertfordshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Surrey, Hampshire, Lancashire, Norfolk and Cumbria, have more than 100 primary schools where there is not a single male teacher. On the Isle of Wight there are no male teachers in any primary school.
There are no figures available on the number of male teaching assistants but it is probably even lower than the number of male teachers, because of the pay levels.
The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) is trying to recruit more men to train as primary teachers. Research carried out by the TDA found that male primary school teachers were considered by many men to be an important role model to children with no men living in the family home.
More than a third of men felt that having a male primary teacher challenged them to work harder at school and 22 per cent believed that male primary teachers helped build their confidence while they were young.
The men surveyed reported that they were more likely to approach male teachers with issues of bullying (50 per cent), problems at home (29 per cent) and questions about puberty (24 per cent).
Men currently account for 13 per cent of registered primary school teachers, according to figures from the General Teaching Council. However, the numbers of male primary trainee teachers has steadily been increasing by around one percentage point year on year, says the TDA.

New curriculum "to include blogging lessons"

Recommendations for a big overhaul of the primary curriculum have leaked out early.
Sir Jim Rose's report is due to be published next month but some newspapers say they have seen his recommendations already.
According to the Guardian, the Rose report will recommend that children are taught about using blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell.
The Guardian also says the government-funded Rose report recommends a less prescriptive curriculum so that for example schools would be able to choose the historical periods they taught, and no longer have to teach pupils about the Victorians and the World War Two.
Children should also leave primary school with enough of an overview of history to place the events they have studied in a timeframe and understand some of the links between them.

Poor children missing out on after school activities

"Extended school" services such as after school childcare and breakfast clubs are being used by about three out of five pupils.
But pupils from more deprived backgrounds are less likely than average to be taking part.
A survey for the government found that nearly all schools now say they offer activities before or after school. 58 % of parents say their child has attended an activity or used childcare provided through or by the school in the last term.
Most parents and pupils are positive about what is on offer, but a substantial number are not. Two thirds of pupils say the activities available to them are good.
Parents and pupils from two parent families and younger pupils and their parents were most likely to say the activities meet their needs. But the parents of children in special schools were least likely to have services available which met their needs.
For both parents and pupils, the main appeal of activities was having fun and socialising. Less than a quarter of primary school parents said extended services allowed them to work.
70% of schools offer parenting support, and more than a third of parents have made use of this. Special school parents are most likely to have attended information sessions for parents.
Extended schools: survey of schools, pupils and parents

More get first choice of secondary school

More than four families out of five got their first choice of secondary school this year, according to government figures.
Outside London the chances of getting a place at your prefered school was even higher, at 86%. But in London one in three families faced the disappointment of not getting their first choice and one in twenty was turned down by all three of their choices.
More families got their first choice this year than last, after secondary school admissions procedures were tightened up. The School Admissions Code outlawed some practices which enabled schools to select more middle class children.
Parents can now appeal against any application that has been turned down.

"Migrant children need proper language lessons"

Migrant children need more classes in their new language and more staff who understand their mother tongue, say Euro MPs.
The European Parliament's Culture Committee is calling for extra funding for language courses for the growing number of migrant children across Europe, and their parents.
They say that children arriving in Europe are often poorly equipped to succeed because of poverty and disadvantage.
"If more efforts are not made to help migrant children do well in school, the EU will be wasting a formidable reserve of talent for the future," said a report endorsed by the committee.
Read the press statement.

Primary truancy on the rise

Truancy in English primary schools has increased for the fourth year running.
Authorised absences - when the child is away, but the school accepts the reason - are much more common than unauthorised absences, but these have also slightly increased after falling steadily for the past ten years.
In 2007-08 the overall absence rate was 5.26% in primary schools compared to 5.18 the previous year. The average was about eight school days per year per child.
The most common reason for absence was illness, followed by family holidays.
Pupil absence in schools in England

One child in five has a private tutor

One in five Key Stage 2 pupils in England has private tuition.
A government-funded survey found that 19 per cent of children in years five and six had some private tuition - not including music and sports lessons.
Even at Key Stage 1, nearly one child in ten has some private academic tuition.
Numeracy and literacy are the most common subjects for private tuition. Most children were having weekly sessions of one hour, but some had several sessions a week and a few have daily private tutoring sessions.
Families with high incomes are most likely to arrange private tutoring for their children. Children whose parents have incomes over £50,000 a year are more than twice as likely to have private tuition as children whose parents earn less than £25,000.
The average cost per hour of a one to one tutoring session was £21.19 for numeracy and £23.92 for literacy.
Private tuition: survey of parents and carers

Secondary school admissions are fairer but not fair enough

Local authorities should decide which children go to which secondary school, not the schools themselves, researchers say.
As year 6 children hear which schools they will be going to next year, an independent study calls for simpler admissions procedures to all schools, and a fairer system for allocating places to oversubscribed schools.
The study by the Education Research Group at the London School of Economics found that most schools were following the Government's Schools Admissions Code which was brought in in 2007.
But one in 20 schools were using criteria designed to select pupils by ability in a particular subject - more than in 2001 when the last similar study was done.
Some schools are also using "supplementary information forms" which could be disadvantaging some families and are also asking questions which could be used to select on or select out certain groups of pupils.
In community schools and some others the local authority allocates pupils to schools but some academies, some voluntary aided schools and foundation schools select pupils themselves.
The researchers say there is a strong case for either the local authority or a religious body with no vested interest in the outcome to be responsible for the allocation of places at all schools.
Secondary schools in England: policy and practice

Child database goes live

Head teachers will soon be able to get information about any child in England from a national database.
The massive database, called ContactPoint, will give authorised professionals access to details of every child in England. It will contain their name, address, date of birth, GP and school – and also the name and contact details of any professional working with that particular child.
Two staff from every local authority in England are now being trained to operate the system. In the North West social workers and other professionals will start training and using ContacPoint over the next few months, followed by the rest of the country later in the year.
The government says ContactPoint will help social services, health, police, and head teachers help keep children safe.
According to a statement from the Department for Schools, Children and Families, “Under current arrangements if a professional believes a child is at risk they may have no immediate way of knowing whether other services are already in contact with that child.
“The Government believes a fully operational system could save at least five million hours of professionals’ time, currently wasted trying to track down who else, if anyone, is helping the child.”
But some children’s rights organisations have protested that the database will not necessarily protect children. They fear it infringes children’s and their families privacy, and are concerned that the information on the database may not be secure.
Watch Action on Rights for Children talk about ContactPoint on YouTube.
Youtube

Government is a bad influence on schools say researchers

Experts have fiercely criticised of government interference in the primary classroom.
Children are missing out on a “broad and balanced primary education” because of the government’s preoccupation with “standards” says the
Cambridge Primary Review, an independent study funded by Cambridge University and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.
It has published a string of reports on different aspects of primary education. The latest, called Towards a New Primary Curriculum, welcomes the Early Years Foundation Stage but says that for older primary pupils “memorisation and recall have come to be valued over understanding and enquiry” because of government policies, including SATS testing.
Cambridge Primary Review
http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/index.html