While the proportion of students from more deprived families and neighbourhoods who go to university has been increasing in recent years, those from poorer backgrounds are still far less likely to go to…
The next Shakespeare… in a manner of speaking.
EPA/Paul Buck
The exam board OCR recently announced a new English Language and Literature A Level that they intend to offer from 2015. The proposed syllabus boasts that “the range of texts to be studied is to be the…
There’s more to history than kings and queens.
wallg
The government has recently announced changes to the content of GCSE and A level history exams in England. As in previous reforms to the history curriculum, the documents set out the proportion of British…
In September 2013, I wrote for The Conversation about the way reform of A-level exams was being conducted and the worrying implications for subject content and assessment. These concerns were echoed by…
Now, write an essay on the Pre-Raphaelites.
Ellieboat via flickr
As part of the recent announcement that A Levels and GCSEs in arts subjects in England are to be made more “rigorous and demanding”, the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, said he was “passionate…
Start them young.
Popova Valeriya. Moscow gallery image via Shutterstock.com
The public response to a recent article in the Guardian on a campaign for more children to study art history at school left me thinking about what more we can do to shrug off stereotypical views of the…
Under pressure over Ofsted.
Joe Giddens/PA Archive/Press Association Images
As the old saying goes, there is only one thing more useful in politics than having the right friends. That’s having the right enemies. The education secretary, Michael Gove, has been highly skilled in…
Having floated ideas about return to O-level style examinations and an English baccalaureate certificate, education secretary Michael Gove has given in to opposition and stuck with the GCSE. But the reforms…
The right people are not in the room in reform talks.
WahTee
The government is undertaking an ambitious programme to reform qualifications in schools, with significant changes being made to GCSEs and A-levels over the next few years. This, in theory, is a positive…
Funny? At least they are trying.
Sangueza via Creative Commons
The British have long been notorious for their lack of ability in foreign languages but there are signs that, far from becoming more cosmopolitan as paid-up members of the European Union, they are getting…