The Times: He lived on the streets and with drug dealers. Now he’s a top head boy

They are denounced for preserving privilege and ensuring the wealthy keep their grip on society’s glittering prizes. But one boarding school charging up to £35,000 a year is accepting pupils from troubled families in a move that could ease the pressure on Britain’s care system.

Kingham Hill School, set in 100 acres of Cotswold countryside near the home of David Cameron, has admitted its first pupil part-funded by local social services. Oxfordshire county council is contributing £14,388 a year to the boarding fees of a girl whose fostering arrangements fell through. The same sum will be contributed jointly by the school and Buttle UK, a children’s charity.

The Times: Want to be a success? Fail 15% of the time

Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. But try to succeed 85 per cent of the time.

Scientists have discovered that there is a perfect amount of failure, suggesting that those who get the answers wrong 15 per cent of the time while studying have found the optimum difficulty level to stimulate fast learning.

Researchers said that a success rate of 85 per cent, or getting about six of every seven questions or challenges right, was the “sweet spot” for fast learning, explaining that anything above this is too easy and anything below is too difficult.

the Times: China tries to gag UK universities

The Chinese government has attempted to curb criticism on British campuses of its regime by pressuring universities into limiting academic freedom, MPs have said.

“Alarming” evidence of Chinese interference has been found by the Commons foreign affairs committee, which says that it appears to be coming from the embassy in London.

The Guardian: How being bullied at school shaped my career choice

As someone who was badly bullied as a teenager and again in my adult life, at work, I found this article very interesting. I now realise that my interactions with others were closely linked to my relationship with my own mother. We had an extremely toxic and dysfunctional relationship. I was incredibly shy and found making friends hard, something I've worked extra hard at as an adult to change. I still find the thought of being in a room with people I don't know, terrifying. Will they find me boring, what will we talk about, how awkward I feel about air kisses, yet I'm very happy to hug someone. Aged 45, following my father’s disappearance and subsequent suicide, I finally had the courage to walk away from her permanently.

Guardian Article

Gestures, facial expressions, posture – they are all crucial to what we’re communicating, though many of us don’t realise it

My interest in human behaviour and psychology started in primary school. In my attempts to socialise with other children, I had a constant, nagging feeling that everybody else had received a manual entitled How to Interact with Others. I was socially awkward, to put it mildly, and this meant I was picked on a lot, which in turn meant I started to ask myself some questions: how did my behaviour differ from others? Why did my antagonists act as they did?

The Guardian: School admission policies in England 'favour certain sections of society'

Parents should avoid leaving blanks on their children’s school application forms since they risk being assigned to the least popular school in the area, according to experts.

Calling for an overhaul to simplify the system, the Good Schools Guide said parents were forced to conduct labour-intensive research and fill in reams of paperwork during a process that “no doubt favours certain sections of society”.

It notes that there is significant variation in school admission policies, with individual schools demanding different information and using different criteria for admitting pupils. The Local Government Association (LGA) has called for a review to make the system more inclusive.

The Times: School woos 26 ex pupils to teach

Many youngsters cannot wait to leave their schooldays behind — but one head teacher is so inspiring she has convinced 26 of her former pupils to return as teachers or other staff at their old school.

Rhian Morgan Ellis has formed her very own old boys’ and girls’ club at a secondary school in the Welsh valleys. It includes a former head boy and head girl in her senior management team, as well as a former pupil who started as a dinner lady and is now a support teacher for vulnerable pupils after Morgan Ellis spotted her gift for working with children. All 26 are on the 77-strong staff simultaneously.

Education, Higher Education, Media ArticleSarah NorrisNovember 5, 2019Lando EducationThe Times, school, teachers, secondary school, Welsh, WalesComment

The Times: Schools accused of failing black pupils with sickle‑cell disease

Schools are under fire for penalising pupils who suffer from a rare blood condition that mainly affects people from African and Caribbean backgrounds.

Campaigners say schools and workplaces are failing to support people with sickle-cell disease, an invisible condition that affects 15,000 people in the UK.

Sickle-cell anaemia is a hereditary disease in which the body produces unusually shaped red blood cells that clump together, blocking blood vessels. This results in painful episodes called sickle-cell crises, which can last for months, as well as organ failure and, in some cases, death.

The Times: Children who do puzzles ‘reduce risk of dementia in later life’

Reading fairy tales and solving puzzles with your children could reduce their risk of developing dementia in later life, it has been claimed.

The suggestion came after research found that eight-year-olds with strong problem-solving skills retained them in old age.

Scientists studied 502 Britons born in the same week in March 1946 who took thinking and memory tests at eight and again between the ages of 69 and 71. They found that “childhood cognitive ability was strongly associated with cognitive scores . . . more than 60 years later”.

The Guardian: Teens are making historical events go viral on TikTok – what does a history teacher think?

There is a long-held stereotype that teenagers spend a lot of time online, uninterested in real life events.

People who say that clearly haven’t seen them on TikTok, where they are engaging in the unexpected: teaching history lessons.

Nadia Jaferey, a former staffer for Kirsten Gillibrand, drew attention to the phenomenon in October, when she tweeted out a thread of her favorite TikTok history re-enactments. She linked to several videos where teenagers played out key points in history, with special effects and audio to boot.

I asked a history expert to watch the videos and comment: my old history teacher, Izzy Jones, who is now vice-principal at my old high school in London.

Education, Media Article, Music, TechnologySarah NorrisNovember 5, 2019Lando EducationTikTok, Teens, Teenagers, History, Historical Events, The Guardian, ViralComment

Evening Standard: Inspiring Girls International: New video hub launched to inspire the next generation of global female leaders

A charity working to give girls around the world access to female role models, has launched a landmark new online platform.

Inspiring Girls Video Hub will showcase stories from inspirational women of all nationalities in a bid to raise the aspirations of girls worldwide.

Influential figures from broadcaster Mishal Husain to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg joined Inspiring Girls founder Miriam Gonzalez Durantez to mark the event at a global summit in London on Wednesday.

Hosted by Google, Thursday’s launch saw local schoolgirls participate in interviews, networking sessions and workshops, and gain advice from women who have excelled in their chosen fields.

Guardian: Humanists UK launch religious-free assembly materials for schools

British schools are being offered a programme for morning assemblies that are entirely secular and free of religion for the first time.

All state schools in the UK are currently required to provide an act of daily worship of a “broadly Christian character” under the 1944 Education Act.

But Humanists UK, the campaign group for secularism and non-religious belief, has drawn up an alternative model that takes God out of daily school assemblies, focusing instead on respect for the individual, the environment and justice for the developing world.

Family, Education, Media Article, ReligionSarah NorrisNovember 4, 2019Lando Educationeducation, religion, schools, faith, 1944 Education Act, Humanists UKComment

The Guardian: Too many children are unhappy. We need to let them know they are not alone

It feels like something is beginning to shift. It was noticeable during the past few days as we marked World Mental Health Day and many of us shared our stories. The Britain’s Got Talent final was paused for a minute and viewers were asked to talk to each other about their mental health.

Interrupting primetime Saturday night TV to think about mental health would have been unthinkable only a generation ago. Only recently has mental health been seen on a par with physical health. Yet, in the UK, one in eight children and young people are affected by mental health problems. During the Britain’s Got Talent final, we were told there has been a 48% rise in anxiety and depression among British children in the past 15 years.

Family, Charity, Media ArticleSarah NorrisOctober 20, 2019Lando EdcuationThe Guardian, children, campaign, mental health, Children's SocietyComment

The Guardian: We should be alarmed by schools' creepy plan to monitor students

This year, students in Florida headed back to school for reading, writing and a new Big Brother. The Florida Schools Safety Portal, a statewide database, will collect, sort and analyze sensitive data about students to share with law enforcement. Created in response to the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, the portal is described as an early warning system to identify and assess potential threats. But responding to legitimate concerns about school shootings with a system that invades student privacy and labels children as threats will not make schools safer.

Family, Education, Media Article, TechnologySarah NorrisOctober 20, 2019Lando Educationthe Guardian, monitoring students, Florida, school, Big BrotherComment

The Times - Warning: boomerang children don’t bring financial returns

Grown children going back to live in the family house cost parents an average of £5,000 a year extra, with sons tending to cost more than daughters, pension advisers say.

Government statistics show that there are a million more young adults aged 20 to 34 living with their parents than there were 15 years ago.

The Times: Manchester pollution study tackles ‘invisible school bully’

Six thousand schoolchildren are to be part of a pioneering project that will monitor the effects of classroom air pollution on education and health.

The project will involve 20 primary schools in Greater Manchester amid concern that air pollution acts like an “invisible bully” that prevents children from realising their potential, damaging health and hindering academic performance.

The Guardian: Exam board AQA to pay out £1.1m over rule breaches and errors

Watchdog’s reprimand comes after failings such as markers re-marking their own work.

The exam board AQA is to pay more than £1.1m in fines and compensation for a string of rule breaches, errors and failings in GCSEs and A-levels that regulators said could seriously undermine public confidence in the qualifications system.

Ofqual, which oversees school exams in England, said it had levied its largest ever fine on AQA after 50,000 appeals for exam papers to be reviewed or re-marked, spread across three years between 2016 and 2018, were carried out by AQA staff who had already marked the same papers.

Business, Education, Media ArticleSarah NorrisOctober 18, 2019Lando EducationThe Guardian, exam board, AQA, reprimand, fines, rule breaches, Ofqual, appeals, examsComment

The Times: Beating screen time curbs is child’s play

Children and teenagers are using simple loopholes to circumvent Apple parental controls that are supposed to limit daily screen time, experts say.

They have called for improved, tamper-proof restrictions after details of how to bypass the limits were circulated online.

The Guardian view on creativity in schools: a missing ingredient (Editorial)

Imagination should infuse teaching of science as well as the arts. Children are not pitchers to be filled with facts

You can’t see it, smell it, hear it. People disagree on how, precisely, to define it, or where, exactly, it comes from. It isn’t a school subject or an academic discipline, but it can be learned. It is a quality that is required by artists. But it is also present in the lives of scientists and entrepreneurs. All of us benefit from it: we thrive mentally and spiritually when we are able to harness it. It is a delicate thing, easily stamped out; in fact, it flourishes most fully when people are playful and childlike. At the same time, it works best in tandem with deep knowledge and expertise.

Education, Media Article, ArtsSarah NorrisOctober 18, 2019Lando Educationcreativity, The Guardian, schools, edcuation, governmentComment

The Times: California gives pupils a lie-in to boost results

Interestingly, we have recently had the should we move to California conversation. We love Suki’s new school and are both keen she stays until the end of her A’levels.

Californian children will be able to stay in bed longer in the mornings after the state became the first in the US to delay start times at most public schools.

The new law is a response to scientific research suggesting that a later start to the school day would improve pupils’ health and generate better educational outcomes.

Education, Family, Media Article, ScienceSarah NorrisOctober 16, 2019Lando EducationThe Times, California, lie-in, pupils, schools, educations, teenagersComment

The Times: The other Brexit effect: more pupils see a future in politics

It can sometimes feel as though Brexit has triggered only frustration and fury in a country that barely used to think about the mechanics of the EU.

But analysis of the subjects chosen by children for their GCSEs, A-levels and degrees shows that the 2016 referendum result has had one unexpected effect — a huge increase in the number of young people studying politics.

The number of teenagers sitting the subject at A-level has jumped from 14,195 in 2016 to 18,240 this year.

Higher Education, Education, Media ArticleSarah NorrisOctober 16, 2019Lando EducationThe Times, MPs, training, teenagers, a'levels, Brexit, EUComment

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