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      Chaos in the classroom? Take it from someone on the frontline, this is the result of Tory neglect | Lola Okolosie

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 13:51

    One in five teachers in England has been hit by a pupil this year. We need Labour to commit to funding education, not offer more of the same

    English schools are increasingly turning into battlegrounds. Teachers know it – this week it was reported that nearly one in five has faced physical violence from pupils this year, a startling snapshot of the mounting misbehaviour teachers face each day we cross the threshold of our school gates. Pupils know it, too – this startling statistic tells us that vulnerable children are suffering, as such lawlessness speaks of schools where bullying and intimidation thrive.

    For those who may feel the language choice of battlefields and frontlines is a little hyperbolic, pause to consider the words of the new head of Ofsted, Martyn Oliver. In January, he talked about taking on wrecked schools when he was leader of an academy trust, including one in which students stopped staff , saying: “This is a no-go corridor, it belongs to the children.”

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      Do you leave your home town or stay behind? It’s the question at the heart of British politics | John Merrick

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 12:08

    Graduates are more likely to migrate to the big cities. But any political benefits from this are decidedly mixed

    When I picture the state of the British economy outside London, it’s my sister I think of first. Born a year before me in the post-industrial town of Crewe in England’s north-west, at school there was little to separate us. Both of us did well in our GCSEs, at least compared with many in our cohort, getting decent, if hardly outstanding grades. At 18, I secured my ticket out and moved to the nearest big city for university; my sister stayed at home.

    Nearly 20 years later, this choice we made as naive teenagers – whether to leave or remain – still seems to hang over us, making our differences appear an ever-widening chasm. After graduating I moved to a string of big cities before ending up in London, apparently never looking back. She moved little more than a few miles down the road.

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      Britain’s universities are in freefall – and saving them will take more than funding | Gaby Hinsliff

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 06:00

    Fundamental restructuring must happen, along with an honest debate about what – and who – higher education is really for

    Imagine a beach before the tsunami. Out at sea, the wave is gathering force, yet on the sand people are still sunbathing, blissfully unaware. That’s how it feels, one professor tells me, to be working in higher education. Academics by their nature don’t look outwards much, he argues, so not all have registered the risk to their profession. “But something absolutely dreadful is coming.”

    As a scientist working in cancer research at a top British university, he’s not the kind of academic I expected to be worried about the recent nationwide flurry of threatened redundancies in higher education, the scrapping of what, so far, are mainly arts and language courses, or shrill political attacks on supposedly “woke” campus culture . But lately almost everyone in higher education seems jumpy.

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      Goldsmiths academics to strike over ‘incomprehensible’ redundancies

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 19:02

    Union says cuts will make the ‘creative powerhouse’ unrecognisable and risk ‘unprecedented industrial unrest’

    Staff at Goldsmiths, University of London have voted to strike over plans for an “almost incomprehensible” number of redundancies , a trade union has announced.

    More than 87% of University and College Union (UCU) members at the south London institution voted for strike action in a ballot with a turnout of 69%, as well as backing action short of a strike, such as a boycott on marking papers and submissions.

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      ‘Cultural and social vandalism’: mass redundancy plans at Goldsmiths attacked

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 19:24

    Union claims up to a quarter of all academic roles at financially pressed London institution face the axe

    Plans for mass redundancies at Goldsmiths, University of London, have been called a “horrifying act of cultural and social vandalism” and the “biggest assault on jobs at any UK university in recent years”.

    The job cuts, which are now subject to a consultation, are the latest in a series of redundancies at Goldsmiths and elsewhere in the higher education sector, as universities struggle with financial pressures.

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      Beatings, humiliation and a loss of self-worth: how Edinburgh Academy victims were scarred

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 17:16

    Former schoolboys at the private school gave raw testimonies about abuse meted out by John Brownlee

    The enormity of the abuse suffered at the hands of the Edinburgh Academy housemaster became clear when the first witness was asked a simple question about the moment his mother left him alone at the elite private boarding school.

    John Graham, now a trim 56-year-old with a goatee beard, was asked: how did he feel? Until then fluent and factual in the witness box, Graham froze. His face crumpled. In that moment, Graham again became the eight-year-old boy who had felt “not good” that day, but with the awful adult hindsight of the abuse he would endure there.

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      ‘Sadistic’ teacher in Scotland found to have assaulted pupils for 20 years

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 17:15

    John Brownlee, deputy head at private Edinburgh Academy, inflicted pain on children as young as eight, sheriff hears

    A “sadistic” deputy headteacher at one of Scotland’s most prestigious private schools has been found to have conducted a systematic campaign of violence and torture against children as young as eight over a 20-year period.

    John Brownlee was found by a sheriff on Wednesday to have committed more than 30 assaults after the former Edinburgh Academy housemaster was formally excused from trial due to his advanced dementia.

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      Free lunches, brain breaks and happy teachers: why Estonia has the best schools in Europe

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 15:14 · 1 minute

    How did a small, relatively poor country become an educational powerhouse? Creativity, autonomy and a deep embrace of the digital age

    Today’s subject in the sci-fi class at Pelgulinna State Gymnasium is Blade Runner. Thursdays are “voluntary” lesson days, where students at this upper secondary school in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, can choose from a range of subjects; others taking place today include a rights and democracy course, programming and creative writing in English. The seven 17-year-old students in the sci-fi lesson have just finished watching 30 minutes of the film and are preparing to discuss it when I sneak in at the back, switching to perfect English for my benefit. “We’ve talked about Jungian archetypes, persona and the superego,” says Triin, one of the students. “It has been really helpful for me to understand the different aspects of being human and how to create deeper characters.” They’ve also studied Brave New World and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the few minutes I am there, the students touch on US history, child labour, empathy and more. “I have so many questions,” says Triin.

    Me too. How did Estonia, a small country that is relatively poor compared with most of the EU, become an educational powerhouse? In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings, which measures 15-year-olds’ abilities in maths, reading and science, the top spots are held by a handful of Asian countries, but Estonia ranks next – the best in Europe. Its teachers are highly educated, the focus is on social and personal skills as much as academic learning and the typical curriculum is packed with a wide range of subjects, from robotics to music and arts. British politicians are taking note. In 2022 Labour’s shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, visited to see what Estonia is doing right.

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      Special educational needs in English schools in ‘crisis’, minister admits

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 10:53

    Gillian Keegan says parents having to ‘fight to get right support’ as unions say provision falls short of what is needed

    Special educational needs provision in England is in the grip of a “crisis”, the education secretary has said, as school unions questioned whether a funding boost promised for the sector by the government was actually new money and said it fell a long way short of what was needed.

    Days after figures showed about two in three special schools were at or over capacity in the last academic year, Gillian Keegan also acknowledged parents were having to “fight to get the right support” for children with special educational needs.

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