Schools

Education Quandary: I want to become a childminder, but friends say the job has become a nightmare under the Early Years Foundation Stage

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Hilary's advice All registered child carers who look after children under five now have to follow the Early Years Foundation Stage, which is the new official framework meant to ensure that children are properly cared for, and that all aspects of their learning and development are catered for.

Steve McCormack: Why do we spend so much money on schools?

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Like all public sectors, the education world is holding its breath to see where and when the spending axe will fall. The ubiquitous question: who will suffer when the funding tap – free flowing since the early Blair days – is squeezed? But I have a different question. Are we, in our blinkered British bubble, deluding ourselves in assuming that less money will necessarily mean a less effective education system? And the reverse applies equally. Does more money necessarily mean more learning?

Education Quandary: I am very physical in how I teach drama. But my new headteacher has told me to change the way I work. Do I really have to?

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Time for change: How a young woman plans to shake up the school system

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Rachel Wolf has helped shape the Tories' policy and has already set up her own think tank. Is she the face of the next Conservative decade?

Niel McLean: Technology can bridge the gap between parents and schools

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Parental engagement is vital to a child’s learning and known to help raise attainment. Good communication with schools enables parents to learn more about their child’s progress, lesson plans and grades whilst also helping to identify any development or performance issues early on.

Leading Article: We need a crackdown

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Ian Craig, the Schools Adjudicator, is a man on a mission. He wants to get the message out to parents that lying to secure a place for your child in a popular school is wicked. It is a form of "theft", he says, because it deprives another child of a place, and we should be saying wherever we can that this is not right.

Education Quandary: My husband and I are getting divorced. Will this harm our children's education, and what can we do to prevent it?

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Tackling the North-South divide: How a northern sport is migrating to schools in the South

Thursday, 5 November 2009

It was once a sport strictly confined to the toughest mining towns, but rugby league is now firing the imaginations of school pupils south of Watford, reports Steve McCormack

Why has the popular head of a Catholic school in west London been suspended?

Thursday, 29 October 2009

Cardinal Wiseman School in Ealing, west London, is proud of its headteacher. Its website trumpets a "track record of outstanding achievement" beginning in September 1997 when "a new headteacher, Mr Patrick, arrives." The school's GCSE results in 1998 and 1999 were the best it had known. In 1999 it was named the second most improved school in London by the Times Educational Supplement and one of the country's best technology schools by the Technology Colleges Trust. The next year Ofsted called it "outstanding". And so on, pages of it, right up to another "outstanding" from Ofsted in 2008 and one from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster this year.

Education Quandary: Is there really a right age for children to start school? Why do we spend so much time arguing about it?

Thursday, 29 October 2009