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Daily News Summary
20 May 2021

Exams 2021: Exam boards express worry over potential scale of grade appeals
Coronavirus: Annual parents survey reveals satisfaction over schools' handling of COVID
The Telegraph's "best value private schools"
Research shines a light on job and study outcomes for different FE and HE courses
Ofsted warns that ITE curriculums are not "sufficiently ambitious"
'Ethnic minority pupils may outperform their white peers due to immigrant optimism'
Study finds that more exercise could help poorer pupils
'Could focussing on the correct answer in maths be racist?'

Exams 2021: Exam boards express worry over potential scale of grade appeals

 

iNews reports that exam boards are "very worried" by the prospect of being overwhelmed by the number of students seeking to appeal against their A-level and GCSE results this year. By Will Hazell.

A study from researchers at Queen's University Belfast and Goldsmiths College, University of London, has suggested that teachers' grades could be biased towards students with more "agreeable" personalities. By Sean Coughlan, BBC News.

According to Ofqual's 2021 to 2022 corporate plan, the regulator anticipates more technology in exams in the future due to the pandemic acting "as a catalyst to these new approaches". By Samantha Booth, Schools Week.

 

Coronavirus: Annual parents survey reveals satisfaction over schools' handling of COVID

 

Ofsted’s annual parents survey reveals that nearly nine out of 10 respondents believe their child’s school handled the coronavirus crisis well. By Dave Speck, Tes.

A report by the Education Policy Institute, which was funded by the Gatsby Foundation, has urged the Government to improve teachers' pay or risk new recruits leaving the profession once the economy picks up. By Nicola Woolcock, The Times.

Research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found almost a third of the Department for Education’s extra COVID spending will be taken from existing budgets or underspends in other areas. By Tom Belger, Schools Week.

The Sutton Trust is urging ministers to put early years at the heart of the education recovery programme, suggesting that schools in England will be 'picking up the pieces' for years to come if preschool children are not prioritised. By Sally Weale, The Guardian.

Mickey Revenaugh - vice president, business development for Pearson Global Online Learning - writes in Independent Education Today, asking the question: "Has the pandemic redefined what school means?"

 

The Telegraph's "best value private schools"

 

The Telegraph has refreshed its online article looking at the "best value private schools in the UK". By Victoria Lambert.

 
The Telegraph

Research shines a light on job and study outcomes for different FE and HE courses

 

Analysis published by the Office for Students (OfS) has uncovered differences in the likely job and study outcomes among graduates of different university and college courses. By Nicola Woolcock and Rosa Ellis, The Times.

 
The Times

Ofsted warns that ITE curriculums are not "sufficiently ambitious"

 

Ofsted has warned that initial teacher education (ITE) partnerships are over-reliant on school placements to teach content and do not offer trainees a “sufficiently ambitious” curriculum. By James Carr, Schools Week.

 
Schools Week

'Ethnic minority pupils may outperform their white peers due to immigrant optimism'

 

Dr Tony Sewell, chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, has claimed "immigrant optimism" can lead to pupils from ethnic minorities outperforming their white peers at school. By Camilla Turner, The Telegraph.

 
The Telegraph

Study finds that more exercise could help poorer pupils

 

Researchers at Cambridge University believe that giving every child the opportunity to take part in more physical activities could help close the achievement gap between wealthy and poorer pupils. BBC News.

 
BBC

'Could focussing on the correct answer in maths be racist?'

 

The Times looks at proposed reforms designed to support "equitable" mathematics instruction in California, which could see achieving the “right answer” in a maths problem no longer being a pupil’s main objective - with the framework looking at the ways that students’ “mathematics identities are shaped in part by a culture of societal and institutionalised racism”. By Ben Hoyle.

 
The Times

 

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