Teachers for Supply

Universities have started giving for free their content free as “massive open online courses”, with the satisfyingly ridiculous acronym mooc (I challenge you to assert it thrice with a straight face).

Eleven top UK universities recently announced they were joining the Open University to launch FutureLearn, in a bid to meet up with the elite US institutions which have led the manner in teaching huge numbers online.

It all sounds great for those that, for one reason or another, can’t visit a standard university. But do moocs have anything to supply students already studying at a bricks-and-mortar institution People like me, who hate the niggling feeling that they would be missing out on a bargain

Well, I’ve signed up for a mooc in microeconomics. I did it because I’m excited about whether to do a masters, and what to check. I’m testing my resolve: if I enjoy it enough to check in my very own time, maybe I’m ready for masters. Better to determine before I surrender the cash.

Why else would a school student consider a mooc It’s worthwhile to use it to lift CV – it shows you’re motivated, you’ve a number of interests and you are not scuffling with your workload. Although before you subscribe to 10 (I mean, they’re free, right) have a read of Leonie Veerman’s blog on why you should not live to your CV.

And before you should use an internet course that can assist you get a task, employers must learn what they’re and respect them. University is not only about what you learn but proving you realize it. The sole proof you probably did your mooc is which you clicked on “I promise to not cheat” at the honour code. Here is changing though: some of the biggest mooc organisers, Coursera, is trialling facial recognition software to watch students, and charging a small fee for verification.

Moocs are extra tuition from an extra perspective. Dreading that compulsory class you recognize you’ll suck at, the only with the 50% fail rate Mooc to the rescue. Free preparation: better than failing and suffering the results in your grade point average and student loan.

Do moocs pose a threat to old-fashioned universities Should we fear that, before we’ve even paid them off, traditional university degrees will go the way in which of floppy disks

Probably not. As Patrick McGee writes, they’re a good distance from able to replace traditional degrees. A mooc v trad uni mega-battle to the death is unlikely – instead online courses offer an alternative choice on higher education’s menu of delights.

Moocs still have teething problems. A Coursera course – oh so ironically about planning online courses – crashed recently, unable to deal with the thousands of scholars attempting to join online discussions. Moocs are limited to subjects which might be assessed with multiple choice exams, marked automatically. Written any essays for your degree Your professor’s critique of them cannot be replicated by a mooc – yet.

As for me, despite not creating a single friend in a cohort of 37,000, I revelled within the chance to be informed what i used to be eager about, by myself terms. Moocs are a brand new tackle education – and we traditional university students needn’t miss out.

As component to its sex education lessons, a west London primary school gave its year-six pupils the possibility to invite any question they wanted anonymously.

The 10 and 11-year-olds’ questions – with the lads posting right into a box to be answered by a male teacher, while a feminine teacher answered girls’ questions – revealed that rather then desirous to find out about the biology of sex and reproduction, the children’s main concerns were the changes to their bodies.

They desired to learn about where on their bodies hair would sprout – and the way long it’d grow. Girls desired to know the way wide their hips would grow, while boys desired to understand how much they’d sweat.

One boy plaintively asked: “Does puberty ever end”

Sex education in primary schools is an emotionally charged issue – although the term sex education itself is slightly a misnomer.

As Simon Blake, chief executive of sexual health charity Brook says: “It’s completely misleading to claim that four-year-olds are being taught about sex.”

In fact, some schools call the subject, covered in personal, social and health education, “growing up” or “bodies”.

Sex education is compulsory in schools, but lessons are sometimes element of science classes and don’t specialize in relationships. Last week MPs launched a bid to make education about relationships mandatory too.

“The standard of SRE varies plenty between schools,” says Lucy Emmerson, co-ordinator of the Sex Education Forum, a coalition of organisations that campaigns to enhance sex and relationships education (SRE) for youngsters and children.

She adds: “Within the best schools teachers regularly consult pupils about what they need to be told about and when. They have got a planned curriculum with SRE beginning in the beginning of primary school and being built on year by year. Because of this something topical can also be picked up and the instructor can address it in another lesson.

“Asking children to jot down their questions privately and post them in an anonymous question box is a superb approach to get around embarrassment that kids may feel to invite a query out loud.”

The questions of the west London year-six class, says Blake, are typical for kids of that age.

“By that age, you may have learned the fundamentals, that there are girls and boys, some people have blue eyes and a few have brown eyes and you’ve got began to see that things will change,” he says. “There’s a natural curiosity and beauty concerning the human body – children around 10 or 11 also need to know why farts smell or why our eyeballs don’t come out of our head after we sneeze.

“Year six is when children start considering what will happen. It truly is critical that earlier in primary we get it right; if we do not, boys wonder whether they’ll have periods.”

The questions children most wish to ask will change as they grow older, says Emmerson. Teenagers, aged between three and 6, have an interest within the differences between girls and boys, naming body parts, where babies come from, and family and friends.

“It’s also vital that young ones know about which areas of the body are private and shouldn’t be touched and who they may check with in the event that they are worried,” she says. “Adults have a responsibility to present this data to children … not only to attend for his or her questions.”

Seven and 8-year-olds may have more questions on growing up and the way their bodies will change, adds Emmerson. In addition they need to know about friendships and the way to regulate issues corresponding to bullying.

Pupils reaching the top of primary school could have more detailed questions for you to soak up a number of issues – including love, other forms of families, puberty, conception and the way babies develop and are born – sometimes prompted by things they’ve got read, seen on TV or the net or heard from friends.

The Sex Education Forum has produced sets of inquiries to explore with children organised by age groups.

“Within the worst schools, SRE may include one lesson about puberty in the summertime term of the last year of primary school year. That’s clearly a disgrace,” says Emmerson.

“Some schools are held back by fear about how parents will react. Yet many oldsters assume that colleges are covering these topics and are surprised and disappointed in the event that they learn how little the varsity is doing and the way late key topics together with puberty are taught.”

Blake adds: “Many oldsters do feel embarrassed about discussing these issues with their children. Parents often assume schools do greater than they do, and schools do lower than they may because they’re worried that oldsters don’t need it – this is a double-edged sword.”

Children want their parents to be their first sex educator, says Blake: “Primary school-age children trust their parents.”

He and Emmerson agree that folks and teachers both have a task to play. The Sex Education Forum has prepare some tips for fogeys.

Brook has also created a traffic light tool for professionals working with children and adolescents which helps identify, assess and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours.

David Cameron’s trip to India has run into trouble after his Indian counterpart raised “very serious concerns” a couple of £483m helicopter deal, and urged Britain to enhance its visa system.

An attempt by Cameron to recast Anglo-Indian relations as a “special partnership” was at risk of being overshadowed by the carefully worded intervention from Manmohan Singh.

Singh said at a joint press conference in Delhi that he had sought British assistance within the investigation into allegations that corrupt payments were made during negotiations to buy 12 AgustaWestland luxury AW101 helicopters, manufactured in Yeovil.

Giuseppe Orsi, the chairman and chief executive of AgustaWestland’s parent company, Finmeccanica, was arrested by Italian police as a part of an investigation into allegations that bribes were paid to Indian government officials. Orsi, who denies the allegations, resigned on Friday.

Singh said: “I conveyed to the prime minister our very serious concerns regarding allegations of unethical means used to secure the 2010 contract for AgustaWestland helicopters. I told him that we’ve got sought a proof from the corporate by 22 February to ascertain if the contractural conditions on unethical practices and the integrity pact were violated.

“i’ve got sought full the help of the united kingdom consequently. Prime minister David Cameron has assured me of co-operation of his government within the investigations.”

Cameron said Britain would co-operate, though he talked about that Finmeccanica was an Italian company. “We can reply to any request for info,” he said. “i’m glad that the Italian authorities are looking into this issue intimately as Finmeccanica is an Italian company, the parent company of AgustaWestland.

“Let me make absolutely clear that during Britain we’ve introduced anti-bribery legislation it really is probably the strongest anywhere on earth. We shall root out any problems of bribery or corruption wherever they seem and whenever they seem.”

Singh also showed Indian concerns over Britain’s tough visa system, which was heavily criticised by British and Indian business leaders for acting as a barrier to links between the countries.

The Indian prime minister said: “Education and science are special areas of India-UK co-operation. i’ve impressed upon the prime minister the necessity for a visa regime that facilitates greater movement of individuals between our two countries so this co-operation can be further recharged.”

Cameron said Britain had taken steps to sit back visa rules, and that Britain and India should reduce barriers to trade. Britain believed the best barrier imposed by India was restrictions on service industries, where Britain was strong.

The prime minister said: “We discussed today about how we should always both be staring at how we reduce the barriers to investment in our countries. Specifically, the British have said we will usher in a same-day visa service for Indian business. We made absolutely clear there isn’t a limit at the selection of Indian students that could study in British universities, as long as they have got an area and an English-language qualification.”

Our colleague Richard Groves, who has died of cancer aged 65, made an unlimited contribution to housing and environmental health for greater than 40 years. On the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Rick developed and led teaching on housing for environmental health officers. He was director of the centre from 2005 to 2008.

Rick was born in Clacton, Essex, and studied town planning at Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) and social administration at Brunel University, Middlesex. He worked for the West Midlands voluntary organisation Community Planning Associates from 1972 to 1976, inside the early years of Birmingham’s ground-breaking urban renewal programme.

He was also instrumental in establishing Community Forum, a robust voice for local community suffering from the shift in policy from slum clearance to the advance of older housing. Rick was greatly respected by the numerous groups he worked with both directly and thru Community Forum. He spearheaded an method to housing renewal that was far prior to its time, wherein local communities played a central role in determining what should happen to the places where they lived.

Moving to Birmingham University in 1976, Rick maintained his interests in housing and concrete renewal through research and teaching. With colleagues inside the university and town, he developed a sequence of innovative courses. An annual 15-week programme for the govt. of India ran for 15 years and another for the Hong Kong Housing Authority lasted 17 years, while other programmes were provided for China and Korea. Rick also worked in Malaysia, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and the center East, mainly on housing and concrete development. He played a number one role in work on housing in developing countries, in the course of the European Network for Housing Research.

Rick had an extended involvement with voluntary organisations. He was chair of Shape Housing Association and the Birmingham Standing Conference for the only Homeless, and a board member of Art Homes and the West Midlands Kick Start Partnership, either one of which provided affordable finance to low income householders for the repair and upkeep in their homes.

Rick was a skilled cricketer, a member of Worcestershire County Cricket Club and a well-informed follower of England’s cricketing fortunes. He valued and enjoyed his family connections and friendships within the Isle of Gigha, within the Hebrides, and in Norway, either one of which he visited regularly. He had a voracious appetite for literature and for 16th- and 17th-century British history, and an endless capacity to encourage and support family, friends, colleagues and scholars of every age and nationalities.

He is survived by his wife, Kate, whom he married in 1973, sons, Tom, Josh, Jake and Sam, and 3 grandchildren.

Hannah Phillips lost count of the days her son James was excluded from primary school for disruptive behaviour. There have been daily phone calls from staff, often asking her to take him home, and his three older siblings were bored stiff with being called out of sophistication to handle him. He was frequently placed in isolation, clear of the school room, and excluded from school trips and activities, says Phillips.

James has Down’s syndrome and moderate learning difficulties. So what his teachers classed as disruptive behaviour, was actually “general excitement and joie de vivre”, says his mother. With the correct of help, she believes he may have progressed well in a mainstream school. But she was disappointed by the support that was offered. “The perspective appeared to be: ‘We don’t actually need him here, but we need to take him since the education system says we need to take children with special needs.'”

Julie Sheppard also found herself making frequent trips to her school to gather her son Logan – who has autistic spectrum disorders – because staff said his behaviour was unmanageable.For Sheppard, the multiple trips backward and forward to the varsity became an excessive amount of. “I remember ringing my mum in tears, saying: ‘I can’t keep doing this’,” she says.

There are clear guidelines for schools, set out by the dep. for Education, about school exclusions. a baby can only be legally excluded for disciplinary reasons and headteachers must tell parents and carers formally, in writing, why their child was excluded and for a way long.

But new research published today by the charity Contact A Family means that some schools are regularly making unlawful exclusions. The charity’s survey of over 400 families of youngsters with disabilities or additional needs found that 22% are illegally excluded once every week and 15% everyday (for portion of the day). Greater than 60% of the oldsters was told that their child was wear an element-time timetable – something that may be appropriate for brief periods of time (as an example, when a baby is returning to college after an illness) but should never continue indefinitely. While nearly all of children experiencing illegal exclusions are in mainstream schools, around 20% are in special schools. The commonest reasons given for exclusion are that the varsity doesn’t have enough support staff or that the kid is “having a nasty day”.

Contact A Family is asking for schools to have better access to specialist support services, including amendments to the youngsters and families bill, that might help youth with disabilities and extra should access educational support more easily; and more guidance on when it’s appropriate to agree a component-time timetable for youngsters with disabilities and special needs. The charity also wants schools found to be illegally excluding children to automatically receive a grading of “inadequate” from Ofsted.

The report echoes the findings of an inquiry done by the Children’s Commissioner last year, which found that youngsters with disabilities and further needs were among those presumably to be littered with illegal exclusions. Next month, it should publish the findings of a second year of more in-depth research at the issue.

The findings of both reports come as no surprise to Marie Walters. Her son Harry, who has an autism spectrum disorder, was excluded from his mainstream primary school such a lot of times, she became “confused” about when she should send him to varsity and when not. Sanctions were inconsistent, with just some formally recorded by the varsity, she claims. “Sometimes he can be fully excluded for something that seemed incredibly minor. And I’d get calls at extreme times of the day, like 8.30 within the evening saying: ‘He can’t are available tomorrow.'”

As Walters found, the impact at the child is usually devastating. “I needed to take Harry to work out a counsellor because he started smashing his head against the wall. He didn’t know if he was coming or going, or whether he even had a university any longer.”

Many children – as much as 53%, per Contact A Family’s survey – fall behind with schoolwork due to these illegal exclusions. Through the year-long period when he was frequently excluded from school James “went backwards”, says Phillips.

Families are affected too. Being constantly “on call” to gather a baby could make it difficult for folks to carry down a role. And it truly is particularly significant for folks of youngsters with disabilities or special needs who, in keeping with research accomplished by the Children’s Society and others, are already at greater risk of being in poverty. “i could not work, i could not exit anywhere,” says Phillips. She took a component-time job as a lunchtime supervisor at her son’s school simply so that she may be reachable to cope with any problems. But she says the tension caused her having a breakdown. Walters, too, began tormented by depression, which she believes was triggered by her son’s problems in class.

For many fogeys – around two thirds, in keeping with Contact A Family’s research – the answer is always to take their child out of the varsity. Both Harry, 12, and James, 10, at the moment are in special schools.

For Sheppard, the turning point came when she found Logan sat within the school reception area together with his older brother while the remainder of the faculty was enjoying a Christmas party. “My son was clearly not welcome. It was the last straw. I emptied the children’s lockers and took them home.”

Logan, now nine, is now settled at another mainstream primary school, where staff are, says Sheppard, more well-off facing children with complex needs and “manage the behaviour before it happens”. This comes at a price: the college isn’t walking distance from the family home, that means a £12 taxi fare some days.

So why are some schools not following guidelines on exclusions In step with Srabani Sen, chief executive of Contact A Family, many do not realise that asking parents to assemble a toddler at lunchtime to “cool off”, or to maintain them at home for a couple of days, actually counts as exclusion.

Some parents are afraid to challenge illegal exclusions as they’re worried concerning the impact on their child’s school record. Walters admits she was initially pleased that Harry’s school didn’t look formally recording all his exclusions. “All i’ll think about was that it will probably affect his probabilities of moving into a fine secondary school,” she says.

Lack of coaching and support can also have a component to play, says Sen. “For instance, it may be that some kids, reckoning on their behavioural issues, can’t handle eye contact. Now, if a teacher or person working with these children understood that, it can mean that they may prevent things escalating to the purpose where the individual feels that they have to exclude a kid.”

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, agrees. “Following last year’s report, we said very clearly that there has been a niche within the knowledge of the children’s workforce in what ordinary child development should seem like and what child development appears like if there’s a delay or physical condition. We made a really clear recommendation that both on the subject of teacher training and, if you end up a teacher, the learning you still have, should actually be sure to understand what brain development seems like, what social development appears like and what emotional difficulties seem like.”

Since the Children’s Commissioner’s report was published last year, the DfE has published updated statutory guidance on school exclusion, which states that faculties cannot exclude children because they feel they do not have the resources to take care of them or because they suspect the baby must “cool off”. It specifies that “any exclusion of a pupil, even for brief periods of time, should be formally recorded”.

But what’s not clear is who’s policing the problem. While the DfE’s guidance states that faculties must explain to oldsters how they could contest an exclusion – that may be, counting on the kind of school, via the local authority or, on the subject of academies, the governing body – a few of the parents the Guardian spoke to said their complaints were largely ignored. The DfE guidance would not mention any appeals process in cases that aren’t fixed-term or permanent exclusions.

There look like no sanctions against schools that impose illegal exclusions. Ofsted says it doesn’t currently have any plans to amend the inspection framework in order that schools found to be illegally excluding children could be downgraded. A spokeswoman said inspectors already take into consideration rates and patterns of exclusion.

Sen says the blame shouldn’t be placed entirely on schools. “It isn’t about shaking a stick at schools – it’s about saying: ‘Look, we have to interact to ensure that these kids get the education they want and deserve.’ Kids have a right to be educated and that right is currently being denied to far too many due to these illegal exclusions. Ultimately this could not be happening and it really should stop – now.”

• Some names were changed

• Headteacher Nigel Utton on how schools should respond, at the Guardian Teacher Network on Tuesday