Friday 17 December 2010

Education Forum Podcast No. 17

Education Forum Podcast No. 17
Why isn’t education educating?
The latest EF podcast is available for download now. Frank Furedi, author of Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating reflects on educational developments and opportunities since the formation of the UK Coalition government.
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Wednesday 15 December 2010

Education Forum Podcast No. 16

Education Forum Podcast No. 16
Why are FE and HE students revolting?
The sixteenth EF Podcast is available for download now. Listen to Education Forum members Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, Denis Hayes, Shirley Lawes, Toby Marshall and David Perks discuss the proposed increase in university student tuition fees, as well as the withdrawal of funding from non science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) degrees and the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
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Tuesday 7 December 2010

Forthcoming January Education Forum

All Quiet on the Phonics Front?

The first of a series of discussions on the Coalition’s white paper The Importance of Teaching.

The next Education Forum will be held on January 17th 2010 at 7 PM in the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT

The speaker will be Tom Burkard, expert in reading instruction and author of many publications, including Inside the Secret Garden: The Progressive Decay of Liberal Education and School Quangos: A Blueprint for Abolition and Reform.

Is the battle over reading instruction now over? Is the evidence for the effectiveness of systematic synthetic phonics as compelling as is claimed? If it is, why have results not improved, in spite of the widespread adoption of phonics in schools? Is the issue how programmes based on this method are developed? Should they be devised by teachers, or by government? And is there a danger that teachers will teach to the new mandatory phonics test? If they do, will this result in the exclusion of other approaches that teachers see as valuable?

Sunday 5 December 2010

An updated PDF version of the Education Forum Battle in Print Special is now available

You may have heard that Education Secretary Michael Gove intends to bring back Subject Based Education and to ensure that the next generation learns our "our island story." Sounds good? Think again.
This document can be viewed or downloaded by clicking on this link

Sunday 28 November 2010

Education Forum Podcast No. 15

Education Forum Podcast No. 15
The Case for Subjects
The fifteenth EF Podcast is available for download now. Listen to Education Forum member David Perks make the case for subjects, whilst assessing the educational opportunities presented by the UK’s new Coalition government.
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Wednesday 3 November 2010

Education Forum Podcast No. 14

What Makes a Good Teacher?
Live at the Battle of Ideas 2010
The fourteenth EF Podcast is available to download now, with Sonia Blandford (professor of educational leadership and innovation, University of Warwick), Tom Burkard (director, Promethean Trust), Dennis Hayes (professor of education, University of Derby) and Sir Alan Steer (pro-director, Institute of Education).
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Saturday 23 October 2010

Education Forum Six Part Battle in Print Special

You may have heard that Education Secretary Michael Gove intends to bring back Subject Based Education and to ensure that the next generation learns our "our island story." Sounds good? Think again. Read the Education Forum's six part Battle in Print special on the challenges of Gove's restoration plans.
For more details, click here

Education debates at Battle of Ideas 2010

The Education Forum has a series of debates at the Battle of Ideas this year, which may be of interest
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Sunday 10 October 2010

Education Forum Podcast No.13

Free schools: do parents or teachers know best?
The thirteenth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to the ‘Free Schools’ debate with: Anastasia de Waal (Civitas); Sally Millard (IoI Parents’ Forum); Fiona Millar (author, The Secret World of the Working Mother); Kevin Rooney (IoI Education Forum); Siôn Humphreys (National Association of Headteachers); Ralph Surman (SCETT).
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Saturday 25 September 2010

Forthcoming debate that might be of interest to readers

“Free schools: do parents or teachers know best?”

Monday 4th October, 7.00pm to 9.00pm, NUT HQ Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD.

This Battle of Ideas satellite event will critically explore the new relationship that is being forged between parents and teachers. It is clear that the Coalition’s Free Schools initiative will increase parental engagement in education, but is this a welcome development? What are the implications for teachers’ professional autonomy? And will Free Schools only benefit those children who have pushy parents?

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Education Forum Podcast No. 12

What makes a good teacher? Education Forum Podcast No. 12 is available for download. With university based teacher education increasingly under attack by the UK Coalition government, Education Forum member Toby Marshall asks colleague Shirley Lawes: what and who makes a good teacher?
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This is topic will be explored further at this year's Battle of Ideas festival

Monday 10 May 2010

Education Forum Podcast No. 11

UK General Election and education posting
The eleventh EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum member David Perks introduce “We must do better – an election statement”, with Dr Ruth Cigman, Editor of Questa, responding.

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Read Education Forum members Denis Hayes and David Perks comment on the education and the 2010 General Election.

Sunday 7 March 2010

Education Forum Podcast No. 10

The tenth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Dennis Hayes and Kevin Rooney battle it out over private schools. Kevin argues that too many educationalists are ignoring access to resources, so much so that inequality appears to have become naturalised. Dennis, by contrast, suggests that there is no point even raising this issue when we don’t know what schools are for.

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Education Forum Podcast No. 9

The ninth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum member Mark Taylor on the future of schools under New Labour, followed by educational publisher Philip Walters assessing the Conservative alternative.

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Monday 1 February 2010

Forthcoming debate that might be of interest to readers

Shouldn’t teachers teach?

Real Action and the Institute of Ideas Education Forum will be holding a pre-election charity debate entitled Shouldn’t teachers teach?

It will be held at 6pm, Thursday 18th February 2010, at the City of London School, Queen Victoria Street, EC4V 3AL.

Speakers include Professor Frank Furedi, author of Wasted: Why Education is not Educating; Nick Gibb MP, Shadow Schools Minister and Harriet Sergeant, author of Wasted: The Betrayal of White Working Class and Black Caribbean Boys. Respondents will include Shirley Lawes, Dave Perks and Mark Taylor from the Institute of Ideas Education Forum.

There is a special reduced price of £10 IoI members. This includes drinks and canapés kindly provided by Patisserie Valerie.

For tickets contact: marketing@realaction2010.com.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Education Forum member, Dennis Hayes, comments on Conservative policy for teachers

Brazen Effrontery Won’t Change Teaching
David Cameron’s ideas to make teaching ‘brazenly elitist’ miss the point. What is missing in schools today is the idea that their priority should be education. Under New Labour this was simply forgotten as schools were made to abandon teaching in favour of political projects that included everything from social inclusion to weight watching. Now the Tories are continuing the tradition of tinkering not thinking. Unless they state clearly what education is and why it should be valued for its own sake, no playing around with the entrance qualification to the job, or with pay as Cameron’s critics suggested, will make teaching an ‘elite’ profession. What is elite about teaching is that it should offer children the possibility, as Matthew Arnold said, of learning ‘the best that is known and thought in the world.’ That should be the motto of any new Department FOR Education set up by the next government.