Eleven Plus Education News Service
Eleven Plus News - We trawl through numerous news websites so that you don't have to! Please find a selection of interesting news articles on Independent, Private, Grammar, Secondary schools and Universities. Contributions welcome, please write to
11plus-news@ElevenPlusExams.co.uk.
One in six parents do not get school they want
Times - 11th Mar 10
More than 89,000 parents – one in six – missed out on their top choice of secondary school for their children this month, official figures confirmed today.
Government statistics show that 16.8 per cent of applicants in England were not allocated a place for their child at their first choice of school for September. The proportion is the same as last year’s.
'Our pupils arrive with all sorts of chaos in their lives'
Times - 11th Mar 10
Standing alone in the playground, rocking slightly on her heels and staring downwards, is a slight young girl in school uniform. She has taken herself out of class for a moment alone. “She doesn’t know where her home is,” her head teacher explains, in a low voice. She is living with a relative, her latest home after a family break-up.
In the school dining hall, lines of seated children eat baked potatoes and beans. A boy with short hair beams upward as the head teacher leans over to ask after him. Weeks earlier a gun was pointed at the boy on the estate that the school serves as he mixed with older boys on the fringes of a gang. He is still recovering from the trauma.
McDonald's offers work experience-based GCSE
BBC - 11th Mar 10
Teenagers who complete a period of work experience at fast-food giant McDonald's will be able to gain a qualification equivalent to a GCSE.
Labour edges ahead on education
BBC - 10th Mar 10
The Conservatives are failing to win over voters unsatisfied with Labour's record on education, a poll for the BBC's Newsnight programme suggests.
Gloucestershire loses out on schools' cash
BBC - 10th Mar 10
Education chiefs in Gloucestershire have said they are "dismayed and disappointed" after missing out on tens of millions in government funding.
OECD: UK has worst record for social mobility of any developed country
Guardian - 10th Mar 10
Children from poor families in Britain have a greater chance of struggling on low incomes than their counterparts in the west's other rich countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said today.
Highlighting the UK's lack of social mobility, the Paris-based thinktank said the chances of a young person from a less well-off family enjoying higher wages or getting a higher level of education than their parents was "relatively low".
GCSEs should be scrapped, says former education secretary
SFS - 10th Mar 10
Children should no longer be expected to take GCSEs at the age of 16, the former education secretary Baroness Morris has suggested.
The tests should instead be taken two years earlier as they are currently useless, the Daily Telegraph reports her as saying.
Free our schools
Telegraph - 9th Mar 10
Britain is starting to see a small but growing movement of parents who want to open their own schools. Not comprehensive, not private, but a throwback to the all-encompassing state schools of old.
The Tory comprehensive school scam
Guardian - 8th Mar 10
So Michael Gove wants to encourage the creation of more "socially comprehensive" schools and is hoping to recruit more private schools into the state system in order to do so.
Parents useless when it comes to answering GCSE questions
Metro - 8th Mar 10
But if you’re stumped, don’t feel too bad – most parents struggle to answer typical GCSE questions, a new survey has revealed.
On average, only 19.7 per cent responded correctly to questions from the maths, science, history and geography curricula.
Fathers did better, with, on average, 27.2 per cent of their ten answers right. Mothers got just 12.1 per cent correct.
