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Scribbler.org.uk is a blog about Education, including Children and Young People's Education and Schooling and the role of Parents , Teaching and Learning and Skills for Employment.

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Our articles are non-commercial and express the opinions of the chief blogger and his/her members. We encourage freedom of speech and discussion on topics important to individuals.
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Study a year abroad on the Erasmus programme – no tuition fees and count it towards your degree !
I’m really surprised that there are places going begging on the UK part of the European Erasmus programme. Which when you hear about it you’ll want to tell your family and friends who have young people planning to go to university. Its such an amazing offer – so its worth knowing about it.

A top independent school is introducing compulsory grammar lessons. I’d like all secondary schools to have this – wouldn’t you?
Brighton College – the top independent school recently in the news for introducing compulsory mandarin Chinese lessons, is now making grammar lesson compulsory – and will have them taught by classics teachers, not English teachers. The sub-text of this is that English teachers trained over the last 20 years have never been themselves taught the basics of grammar, and are therefore unable to teach it to their pupils. This is so true, but we could only wish that all secondary schools would do this, not just for some parents paying £4,000 or so a term.

So where does the Open University fit into Higher Education provision ?
The Chancellor of the Open University makes clear the important role of the Open University is expanding. As traditional universities get more expensive to attend full time, the Open University is still expanding with people wanting to study whilst continuing to work. It also appears that the OU comes top in student surveys and must now be seen to challenge many of the lower quality institutions. The Chancellor talked about two new OU projects.

I think class sizes are a red herring. Smaller is not necessarily better or even easier to teach.
When I started teaching (a long time ago) my first few infant classes varied in size from 42 to 53 (with three intakes a year it could get a bit packed from Easter to Summer). Typically we started the year with 36ish and then took in another 12 or so at Christmas and shoe-horned a couple of others in after Easter. I had a teaching assistant with me one half day a week. Every day was formal teaching Literacy and Numeracy in the mornings (who thought that idea was new eh?) and each child was expected to read every day (the Headteacher helped out twice a week). Standards were amazingly high compared with today. Why ? Read my comments at the end.

Should the Education Budget be used to pay for daycare for adults with learning difficulties /
Last week cuts in FE College budgets were said to be threatening key vocational training programmes – but there was a report that, at Salisbury College the “cuts” in courses included the closure of a course for adults with severe learning difficulties. It transpired, however, that most of the individuals has been on the programme for some time, - up to 12 years in some cases. For those of us who have been around for a while, we recognise that this “problem” has happened again and again.

Important thinkers believe current culture is taking away children’s childhood. But I don’t necessarily agree.
British children are being "poisoned" by a culture of processed food, computer games and over-competitive education, a group of academics and authors claimed today. The Guardian quotes a letter to the Daily Telegraph, in which 110 teachers, psychologists and children's authors have called on the government to prevent the death of childhood. But they don’t really analyse why children’s lives have changed like this and whether turning back the clock is any kind of possibility.

Its about time A levels were sorted out, isn’t it.
All the stuff in the press and on the TV about the exam system must have impinged itself on the government as a key issue to resolve (if all the hype about Tony going has made everybody forget there’s a job to do.) No one can fail to see that the A-level results - which saw the second biggest rise in the number of A grades awarded in the history of the exam - added urgency to the review of the qualification that is being undertaken by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the exams watchdog.

Poor literacy and numeracy of recent graduates. My heart sinks.
More and more information is available to show that young people with GCSE English grades at C or above are functionally illiterate. A family member has just had to let an apprentice go because even though she has a Grade A in English (Language AND Literature no less. Her spelling was appalling, and her grammar worse. Even left with a letter to copy she would manage to misspell three or four words and forget the punctuation. I cannot begin to tell you how deficient her skills were in answering the telephone.

Perhaps “high flyers” in maths and science should consider doing apprenticeships in engineering ? I think so.
Students who earned good grades in maths and science at GCSE should consider taking apprenticeships rather than traditional academic career paths, a leading scientist has advised. Rather than following the traditional route to A-levels then university, students could join an apprenticeship program straight after their GCSEs, train to become an engineer, for example, and then study for a degree or a diploma while working. And they would have a job and be earning money – seems like a really good idea.

Limits should be made on the number of GCSEs taken by students
A headteacher of one of the major independent schools asks for schools to cut the number of GCSEs taken by pupils – he wants education to benefit students and not league tables. At a time when top grades are increasing many people fear that this is because schools sit pupils for “easy” subjects where students can get high grades and thus boost the school’s tables. This is backed up by news that results of grades C+ in Maths and English and other key major academic subjects are not particularly good.
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