Troops to man airports during 'general strike'

His warning came as it emerged at least three million children will be locked out as at least 8,000 schools close on Wednesday because of the strike.

Ministers believe Wednesday’s “day of action” will cost the economy up to ￡500m, cause the cancellation of countless NHS operations and see Whitehall grind to a halt.

It is feared as many as 57,000 NHS patients will be affected by the industrial action, with as many as 20 per cent of health service staff expected to strike.

Local councils believe between 20 and 30 per cent of their staff will not turn up to work, potentially hitting rubbish collections, leisure centres and funeral services.

Tourist attractions will also be affected, with parts of the British Museum set to be closed.

The action has been billed by unions as the biggest walkout since the general strike of 1926.

The biggest single impact will be on millions of working parents who will be forced to take the day off or arrange childcare as teachers, classroom assistants, dinner ladies, caretakers and cleaners join the strike.

Head teachers will join them, taking strike action for the first time in their history.

Some 40 per cent of schools will be shut or partially closed in the 66 local authorities that responded to a Sunday Telegraph survey, with councils predicting that more schools will announce closures tomorrow and Tuesday.

If the figures are replicated across all 152 authorities in England, it will see at least 8,000 schools closed.

With about 6.8 million children in schools in England, it will equate to a minimum of three million children left without education.

Parents groups warned last night of growing anger about the industrial action and said that the goodwill that exists between teachers and families will be destroyed.

This weekend, Nick Gibb, the schools minister, repeated warning to the unions that an improved offer on public sector pensions may be withdrawn if no deal is reached.

Ministers want workers across the public sector to pay more into their pensions, retire later and receive pensions based on their average earnings during their career, rather than their highest salary, to reflect greater longevity among the population.

The reforms, designed to reduce the crippling public pensions bill, will mean teachers who are more than 10 years from retirement will lose on average 20 per cent of their pot and pay higher contributions.

Separately, three trade union leaders overseeing the pensions strike have amassed retirement packages worth more than ￡1 million, according to analysis.

Brendan Barber, 60, the head of the TUC, was found to have the largest trade union pension pot, with a value of ￡1.8 million. Last year he received a salary of ￡98,056.

Paul Kenny and Len McCluskey, the general secretaries of the GMB and Unite, both have pension pots worth around ￡1.5 million, according to the research, which was validated by Hargreaves Lansdown, leading investment experts.

Trade unions do not publish valuations of their bosses pension pots, even though leading companies, government departments and other public bodies all do so.

By analysing the salaries, age and length of service, Hargreaves Lansdown was able to calculate how much it would cost a member of the public to buy an annuity to deliver the same retirement income as the union bosses will receive.

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at the firm, said that this method was “conservative”. It does not take account of future years’ service or any pay rises between now and their retirement.

“The changes the government are trying to make to public sector pension are proportionate and fair,” said Mr McPhail.

“Everyone needs to get used to the prospect of retiring later, paying more into their pension and receiving less.”

The TUC said it “practises what it preaches” and provides the same defined-benefit pension for all of its staff. GMB said it did not recognise the figures. Unite did not comment.

Why we need to talk about history

Looking back: the school curriculum must give higher status to learning about historical figures and subjects such as (clockwise from top left) Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill and the Bayeux Tapestry?Photo: GETTY/ALAMY

Here are two quotations that might be taken from the current debate over the teaching of history in English state schools. First: “It is surprising to find how little real knowledge of history is possessed by the average Englishman, or even by the average educated Englishman.” Second: “We need to return to an old-fashioned method which had governed the teaching of history for generations, namely 'dates, conventional divisions and an insistence upon mechanical accuracy’.” Sound familiar? It certainly does; and then some. For the first of these remarks dates from 1906, and was made at a meeting which saw the establishment of the Historical Association; and the second was made in 1924 by Hilaire Belloc.

As these two quotations suggest, complaining about the inadequacy of history teaching in English schools is nothing new: indeed, it has been going on for as long as history has been taught in the classroom, and this means back to the 1900s. So when, these days, Jeremy Paxman deplores the fact that insufficient attention is given in English schools to teaching the history of the British Empire, he is merely repeating (but perhaps does not know he is) a complaint that was made by (among others) Winston Churchill during the Second World War, by King George V in the 1920s, and by Lord Meath, the founder of Empire Day, before 1914.

For as long as it has been taught in state schools, history has always been a controversial and contentious subject. There have been those who thought it was taught well, and those who thought it was taught badly. There have been those who wanted a cheerleading narrative of national greatness, and those who wanted a “warts and all” account of the English past. There have been those who wanted to focus on this nation to the exclusion of all others, and those who wanted to situate England’s (or Britain’s) history in a broader global context. There have been those who thought history is primarily about imparting knowledge, and those who thought it is essentially about teaching skills.

Most of the arguments that are made today are merely the latest iterations of points that have already been made many times before, yet there is scarcely any awareness that this is so. How strange it is that history teaching in schools is discussed and debated, but with almost no historical perspective brought to bear. All too often, there is an easy presumption that there was once a golden age, when history was much better taught in the classroom than it is now, from which there has recently been a deplorable and catastrophic decline. But there is very little evidence to support that alarmist view.

Among other things, history teaches perspective and proportion; yet perspective and proportion are all too often lacking in the current debate on how history is taught in our schools. All too often, individual scare stories are hyped in the media, with no effort to establish whether they are in any way typical or representative; and since there are more than 30,000 schools in this country, any generalisation about what goes on in them is bound to be at best superficial. And we should also remember that the discussion and disagreements about history teaching in schools in this country is paralleled by similar discussions and disagreements in many other countries, too.

Why is this so? Why is history now, and why has history always been, such a contentious subject in the classroom? Indeed, why has it always been, and why is it now, so much more contentious than most other school subjects? Perhaps it is because history is about ourselves, about who we are, about how we define ourselves as a nation, in ways that most other subjects are not. Physics or geometry or Spanish are much the same wherever in the world they are taught. But history in England or in Germany or in Japan or in Canada can be very different, because so much of it is taught in a national framework.

These are some of the broader considerations that inform The Right Kind of History, a book that I have co-authored with Jenny Keating and Nicola Sheldon. It investigates how the subject has been taught in English state schools from the 1900s to the present, and is published this week. Drawing on a wide range of official materials, as well as interviews with hundreds of former teachers and pupils, one of our aims is to put the current debates on history teaching in a broader perspective, and to make recommendations that are soundly based on the evidence.

Across the 20th century, and on into our own time, there has always been controversy, there has always been continuity, and there has always been change.

Discussion and debate, by politicians, academics, educationalists, pundits and journalists have invariably been polarised. Yet it is clear from the evidence we have collected that in the classroom itself, most teachers just want to get on with the job. Across the whole period with which we have been concerned, history in English schools has never been a compulsory subject beyond the age of 14. Yet this remarkable continuity has been accompanied by profound changes: the advent of the wireless, the television and the computer; the creation of a comprehensive system of education; the creation of the National Curriculum; and so on.

From this evidence-based perspective, we have tried to make clear what the current key problems are in the teaching of history, as distinct from those that erroneously assume a sudden, recent collapse from a lost and lamented golden age. It is our firm belief that the major problem is not the current National Curriculum, which in our view strikes a good balance between the history of our own country and its broader engagement with the world, and the histories of other countries. As such, it should be left alone, and politicians and mandarins should resist the temptation to keep tinkering with it. The major problem we have isolated is that history is still only compulsory in English schools until the age of 14.

Here is the root cause of many of today’s problems, especially the rushed treatment of many topics during Key Stage Three, the danger of repeating subjects (such as the Tudors and the Nazis) at Key Stage Three and then again at GCSE, and the lack of time to give appropriate attention to what is termed “the big picture”. Accordingly, our most important recommendation is that history should be made compulsory in all state schools until the age of 16. This would not only mean the subject would be better taught, but it would also be in line with the original proposals of Sir Keith Joseph and Kenneth Baker when the National Curriculum was being drawn up. They were right then, and their proposals remain valid today. It is high time they were implemented. In more ways than one, there is a great deal to be said for knowing more than most of us do about what happened in the past.

David Cannadine’s book 'The Right Kind of History’ is available from Telegraph Books for ￡12.99 plus ￡1.25 p&p. To order your copy, please call 0844 871 1515 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk

Sutton Trust: social mobility in UK 'lagging behind other nations'

Schoolchildren from deprived backgrounds are more likely to underachieve in the UK than other developed nations, according to the Sutton Trust.?Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Research shows that the education gap between disadvantaged and “privileged” pupils is wider in the UK than elsewhere in the developed world.

Data suggests that children from low-income homes are more than a year behind richer classmates as they start school aged five.

The disclosure – in a study by the Sutton Trust charity – comes just days after Ofsted warned that deprivation continued to be a “significant factor influencing the quality of schools” in England.

In a blow to Labour’s education legacy, the watchdog said that schools serving the poorest 20 per cent of pupils were four times more likely to be “inadequate” than those for the wealthiest 20 per cent.

Sir Peter Lampl, the Sutton Trust chairman, said the problem was likely to get worse in coming years as children from wealthier backgrounds continue to pull ahead.

This comes despite a range of Coalition policies designed to tackle the problem, including the introduction of the “pupil premium” to reward schools taking large numbers of deprived children.

"These latest international comparisons confirm that the education gaps at every stage between disadvantaged children and privileged children are greater in the UK than in other developed countries,” said Sir Peter.

"In this country, unlike others, the educational achievement gap widens after age 11. As education is becoming increasingly important in determining prospects in adult life, these findings do not bode well for future social mobility in the UK.”

The study compares data from the UK and England with nine other countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada and Germany. It uses a series of indicators to assess children’s education and family background.

One dataset shows children’s average vocabulary scores at the age of five – when pupils start compulsory education – and ranks them from one to 100. Children with highly educated parents in the UK – those with at least a degree – were ranked in the 67 percentile on average, while those whose mothers and fathers left school with few qualifications were placed in the 29th percentile.

The 38 percentage point gap was “significantly larger” in the UK than in all countries other than the United States, where it extended to 46 points, it was disclosed.

The study also cites previous research by the Sutton Trust which showed children from “low income homes are over a year behind children from high income homes at the start of schooling in the UK”.

In a further move, researchers analysed the difference in academic standards achieved by pupils between the age of 11 and 16.

It found that gaps in achievement in the UK became “substantially bigger” at 16 compared with 11, although it found “no evidence of this… in other countries”.

The study said the differences were driven by the “social stratification that exists” in secondary education, adding: “The widening of the education gap in pupil performance after primary school appears to be related to the sorting of children into secondary schools. Better educated parents have their children in better quality schools.”

The conclusions come as a new education think-tank is launed on Monday in an attempt to promote fresh debate on the education system.

The Education Foundation – funded by a number of academics and head teachers – will seek to "inform the debate through a range of research and practical projects".

Ty Goddard, former chairman for education in the London Borough of Lambeth, and a Government advisor, said: “There’s much to celebrate when it comes to education in the UK. Millions of learners do well at school and in further and higher education, preparing for a changing world.

"But as last week’s Ofsted annual report showed, some do not, despite the resources available."

Universities with the most playing field space

Leeds University tops the list for the university with the most amount of playing field space thanks to its 51 hectares, which roughly amounts to the size of 50 international size rugby pitches.

The information shown is from the academic year 2009/10 and comes courtesy of the Estates Management Statistics, published by HESA.

Pupils 'woefully undernourished' in history, Gove says

Teacher training courses will be reformed to put more focus on behaviour management and reading?Photo: ALAMY

In a speech today, he says he is "startled" by the narrowness of the topics pupils end up studying in history.

English exam boards only offer pupils the chance to study the "modern world" or the "schools history project", he claims.

"I'm an unashamed and unapologetic advocate for the central role of history in our curriculum," Mr Gove says.

"Which is why I'm genuinely worried that - despite the best efforts of brilliant history teachers, gifted academics and the television and publishing executives who've helped to popularise history - our curriculum and examinations system mean that children thirsting to know more about our past leave school woefully undernourished."

He cites a recent survey which found around half of English 18-to-24-year-olds are unaware that Nelson led the British to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and a similar proportion of young people did not know that the Romans built Hadrian's Wall.

Mr Gove said: "The number of pupils taking history GCSE has fallen by 8% since 1995. There's a stark class divide, with fewer than a third of 16-year-olds taking the subject in maintained schools, compared with half in independent schools.

"But more startling than the numbers of pupils opting - or failing to opt for - history GCSE is the narrowness of the topics pupils actually end up studying. The Government doesn't specify which periods of history GCSE should cover, but the English exam boards only offer two choices: either the 'Modern World,' or the 'Schools History Project'."

Dave Prentis: no last minute talks to avoid strikes

Mr Prentis poured cold water on the idea that it might be possibe to reach deal over the Government's controversial pension reform before the planned walkout on November 30 by more than two million public sector workers.

About 30 trade unions will join the strike on Wednesday, affecting thousands of schools and causing likely chaos at ports and airports as public sector staff walk out.

Academic condemns 'tortuous' university admissions

The university admissions process is "needlessly torturous", said Professor Mary Beard.?Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Mary Beard, the Cambridge University classics professor, said the admissions system employed in Britain was “more difficult and stressful than it should be”.

She also condemned the “shameless self-marketing” candidates committed on their application forms, suggesting many personal statements were copied from the internet.

In further comments, the academic rejected criticism of the notoriously tough Oxbridge admissions process, saying that common attacks on the system by politicians of all parties were misguided.

The comments were made after the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service proposed a sweeping overhaul of the current system.

They are planning to allow students to apply for places after receiving their results for the first time in a move that would lead to A-levels being brought forward and candidates choosing courses over the summer.

Writing for the BBC News website on Sunday, Prof Beard said that the changes would involve “more upheavals than you can imagine” but insisted it could take the “unnecessary heat out of the whole process”.

“The whole business of university applications in this country, for any university, is needlessly tortuous,” she said.

“The end result might be OK - happily many kids get where they want to go.

“But the route they have to take is more difficult and stressful than it should be.

“It relies on ridiculously minute distinctions between exam grades, it demands shameless self-marketing from the students on their application forms, and it operates according to a timetable that any outside observer would say was plain bonkers.”

Prof Beard, classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement and presenter of the recent documentary series Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town, said many universities now relied on students’ A-level grades and their personal statement – instead of an interview – to select candidates.

But she insisted: “Today's statements are much less concerned with good works, and are often uncomfortably corporate in style - weaving together clever quotations from Shakespeare and Aristotle with carefully constructed personal anecdotes, to create an implausibly perfect impression.

“They're so professional that they have to be put through "plagiarism detection" software - which apparently many fail.”

Currently, students are supposed to apply to Oxbridge by October – around a year before courses start – and to other universities in January. Candidates are then given provisional offers based on the proviso that they gain predicted exam grades the following summer.

Those who fail to score high enough in A-levels and other qualifications are eligible for “clearing” – the system that matches students to spare places.

But writing on BBC online, Prof Beard said: “More than anything, it is the bizarre timetable that makes the application process so preoccupying.

“When we say in January or February that someone ‘got in’ to their chosen university, we don't actually mean that. We mean that they will have got in if they achieve the grades demanded by the university in their summer exam, which even if all goes well, drags out the nail biting for a good six months.”

She added: “If it doesn't go well and they don't get the grades, they enter a whole new round of applications in August.

“This is a frenetic process, with applicants tracking down the remaining unfilled places by email and phone - then being given maybe a few hours to accept a place for a course they haven't really explored at a university they know little about.”

Tory students burn Barack Obama effigy

Authorities at St Andrews University - where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge studied and first met - said they were looking into reports of the incident on Friday evening on the town's East Sands beach.

Matthew Marshall, president of the St Andrews Conservative Association, told the BBC: "President Obama is an important ally to the British Government. It was a stupid thing to do and we apologise for any offence caused."

John Park, Labour MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, whose constituency includes the university said: "This is gravely offensive and way beyond a student prank."

He urged David Cameron and the Conservative Party to take action against the activists responsible.

"Burning an effigy of anyone is offensive, let alone the first black President of the United States. The overtones are deeply unpleasant."

James Mills, a former chairman of the university's Labour society, said it was "disgraceful".

He said: "I can't imagine any other student activists of a major political party would behave in this manner.

"It's disgusting and I hope the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister completely come out and condemn this obscene act."

The BBC reported that the same society had burned effigies of Gordon Brown and Nelson Mandela in the past.

A spokesman for the University of St Andrews said: "We are aware of reports of this incident and have asked to meet the society president to discuss the very understandable concerns which these reports have raised.

"Until that meeting has taken place, it would be inappropriate to make further comment."

St Andrews Students' Union said those who took part in the effigy burning "don't represent St Andrews students".

A statement from the Student Representative Council said: "As students we believe in political debate, with engaging those who disagree with us and that all students at St Andrews have a valid opinion to contribute.

"While it does not violate any laws, we believe that the burning of political or public figures in effigy can be an act of hate, stifles productive engagement and can be offensive.

"We believe that St Andrews students should hold ourselves to a higher standard and actively demonstrate that we are ready to engage with and respect the opinions of others."

Sam Fowles, director of representation at the union, said: "I do not believe this was a racist act but I don't believe that makes it any less disgusting. Student representatives have shown that the vast majority of St Andrews students are much better than this sort of puerile and offensive behaviour."

How to set up a Free School

Ironically, the West London Free School has become such an instant hit – over 1,000 children have applied for our 120 places next year – that my own children might not get in. I hope they do, but it will have been worth it no matter what. I’ve written an international bestseller, performed in a one-man show in the West End and co-produced a Hollywood movie, but nothing I’ve ever done has come close to producing the sense of satisfaction I feel about having started this school. I thoroughly recommend it.

The Chicago Way

The only way to win the propaganda war is to be every bit as energetic and relentless as your opponents. In some cases, more so. Every time a damaging story about your proposed new school appears in a newspaper or on the internet, you need to respond immediately. Create a Google alert with the name of your school so you know about any story the moment it appears.

I remember sitting down one Sunday lunchtime to tuck into a roast with my wife and children when I discovered that Fiona Millar, ex-adviser to Cherie Blair, had just written a post for an anti-free-schools website accusing my group of trying to throw some handicapped children out of their special school so we could move into the building. Not true, obviously, but I had to get up from the dinner table that second, go to my garden office and spend the next two hours composing a “comment” to leave beneath her piece that rebutted every element of the story. If I hadn’t done that – and if I hadn’t used the phrase “false and malicious”, indicating that the piece in question gave me ample ammunition to bring a libel suit against anyone repeating the allegations – the story could have ended up in the following day’s Mirror.

Whenever I talk to free-school proposer groups on this topic, I like to quote a bit of dialogue from The Untouchables: “You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way – and that’s how you get Capone.”

The Elevator Pitch

As soon as you go public with your proposal to set up a free school, you need a pithy one-sentence description of your school that captures its essence. The Reach Academy in Feltham, due to open in 2012, announces itself on its website as follows: “Our vision is that all children, regardless of background, benefit from a first-class education and realise their full potential.” The Free School being set up in Newham by Peter Hyman, a former strategy adviser for Tony Blair, goes with: “School 21: For success in the 21st century.”

These are good examples of what’s known in the business world as the elevator pitch: a brief, punchy description of your idea that conveys its essence in 30 seconds or less, as if you were a post boy who found himself in the lift with the CEO and had that long to present him with your career-changing idea.

Once you’ve decided on your elevator pitch, get it out there. Make sure that all the members of your group memorise it and trot it out at every available opportunity.

This is how you win a political argument: you repeat the same thing over and over again. It’s boring – it’s one of the reasons politicians often give the impression of being robotic – but you’ve got to do it. Your enemies know this and they’re good at it.

On Message

Often you’ll find that your opponents come from some well-oiled political machine – a union, a local authority – where orders are given and discipline is imposed. Most Free School groups, by contrast, are reluctant to organise themselves too hierarchically. Plus, no one’s being paid. You can’t ring up a voluntary worker in the middle of the night and order him or her to have a piece of work on your desk first thing tomorrow morning. He – or she – will tell you to get lost.

Nevertheless, your group will need to respond immediately to a negative publicity hit and there won’t be time to convene a meeting of the Steering Committee. Not only that, but you need to make sure that the lines going out to the media are consistent – that everyone stays “on message”. The best thing is that just one person be responsible for communications – and no one apart from that person ever give a quote to a newspaper, talks on the radio or makes any media appearance in connection with your school.

The Adonis Encounter

From the outset, I decided to make the campaign for the West London Free School as public as possible. I wrote about it whenever I could and never hesitated to appear on radio or television to talk about it, often engaging in heated debates with Fiona Millar. The upshot was that our group, and I in particular, became the focus of national opposition to the free-schools policy, with the leaders of all the main teaching unions singling me out for criticism – not to mention Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and God knows who else. Whenever I bumped into other free-school proposers during the set-up process, they would often thank me for being their “human shield”.

Not everyone on my steering group thought this was the right approach and they weren’t afraid to tell me so. They worried that people might think the West London Free School was just one big ego trip for its publicity-crazed founder or, worse, a Tory school. Often the Labour and Lib Dem voters on the steering group were just freaked out by being under attack from people they thought of as being on the same side as them. When I hit back, branding our opponents “loony lefties”, they were embarrassed. They thought this Punch-and-Judy style of debate would mean our school wouldn’t be taken seriously.

I began to doubt whether I’d made the right call myself, and when I appeared on Any Questions? with former education minister Lord Adonis, I decided to seek his advice. This was just after the last general election.

At bottom, I said to him in the car afterwards, the anti-free-schoolers and I all wanted the same thing – good local schools for everyone – so couldn’t we engage in a constructive dialogue about how best to achieve that?

Adonis gave me a look of withering contempt, much like the look Prospero gives his naive daughter in The Tempest when she expresses admiration for the rogues that have washed up on his island.

“They’re not interested in 'constructive dialogue’,” he said. “Don’t you get it? If you extend any sort of olive branch to them they’ll see it as a sign of weakness and move in for the kill. I dealt with exactly the same people – the Socialist Workers’ Party, the Anti-Academies Alliance, the NUT – for most of my ministerial career and, believe me, they would rather stick pins in their eyes than admit they have common ground with someone like you.

“Their attitude to Free Schools is the same as their attitude to Academies: they won’t rest until every last one has been razed to the ground.”

I decided to stick to my guns and I’m convinced it was the right strategy. The acid test was when we advertised for staff in the Times Educational Supplement. Would any teachers want to work at “the Toby Young school”? The answer was yes. We had more than 600 applicants for our eight full-time teaching positions. We’ve never had any problem attracting pupils, either. At the time of writing, the West London Free School has approximately 10 applicants for every place.

The War Room

If you want to know how to mount an effective political campaign, rent The War Room on DVD. It’s a documentary that takes a behind-the-scenes look at Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. The star of the film is James Carville, Clinton’s campaign manager and a supreme master of the dark political arts.

Among Carville’s litany of pithy phrases, one of my favourites is the battle cry he always utters at the beginning of a campaign: “Follow me if I advance, kill me if I retreat, avenge me if I die.”

I’m afraid that’s the kind of martial attitude you’ve got to take when it comes to dealing with your opponents. By all means try to give the impression that you are reasonable people who would gladly engage in “constructive dialogue” with them if only they were a little less ideologically hidebound – but only as a tactic to discredit them. In reality, don’t give an inch. No retreat, no surrender. It’s a battle to the death and there can only be one winner.

Free school facts and figures

24
Number of free schools that opened this September, most of them primary (for now)

87
Number of free school applications approved by Government for opening 2012 and beyond (plus 8 already at planning stage)

1,400
Number of Academies (operationally the same as free schools but either created from existing state schools or set up by organisations rather than volunteer/parent groups) as of now

1,463
Number of existing schools seeking academy status

70% of free schools... are in the 50% most deprived areas in the country
Michael Gove to Parliament, October 10

Expat guide to Russia: schools

Background:

The International School of Moscow, not to be confused with its near-namesake, is also a comparatively young and fast-growing school, having been founded in April 2007. It is part of an association of nine schools, in locations ranging from Tashkent to Sao Paolo, run by the British Schools Group.

TISM, in a well-to-do area of west Moscow, is situated on the site of the 1980 Olympic Games: the ice hockey stadium is opposite. It operates from two adjacent sites, the recently opened upper campus complementing the original lower school site, which caters for foundation stage to lower primary age pupils.

The school currently educates pupils from the age of two to 13, with GCSE courses for older children due to start next year. Currently, around half of the school’s 400 pupils are in the younger age group (ages two to eight) on the lower school site.

For the past two years, the school has been attracting pupils from British embassy families, along with children whose parents are working in business and commerce. The largest national groups are Britons, who make up about 30 per cent of pupils, followed by Russians at 15-20 per cent, with 35 nationalities represented overall.

Facilities on the lower school site include playing fields, library, and computer suite, and on the upper site, a gym, basketball court and golf driving range.

Curriculum:

The school offers the English national curriculum and its associated tests, with local adaptations including daily Russian lessons, with French also taught. Children are taught to play a musical instrument from year one (age five).

Provision progresses from pre-nursery, where children aged two and three learn through play, through the English key stages one, two and three. Children’s progress is assessed and tracked closely. Teaching is usually in mixed-ability classes, although the school may offer tuition in smaller groups if it feels more support is needed.

Sporting and artistic activities range from dance and gymnastics to ultimate Frisbee, basketball, skiing, plays and musicals and extra music tuition while golf, a specialism of the school, is offered to all pupils during curriculum time.

Results:

Marks from key stage two English national curriculum tests, set at the age of 11, have been consistently well ahead of English averages, with all pupils achieving at least the UK Government’s target level four in reading, writing and science in 2010, and 64-73 per cent achieving the higher level five. The school does not yet have any GCSE results.

Admission:

TISM is selective, with academic assessments taking place at the school from reception (age four) upwards. The school likes children to spend a day in the classroom before joining, during which time most will take a written test. In the past, the school has not stressed special educational needs (SEN) provision, but has now appointed a SEN co-ordinator to cater for those with individual needs.

Fees:

Annual charges range from €11,970 (￡10,251) for pre-nursery to €19,665 (￡16,841) for years seven to nine. There is also a one-off €200 (￡171) application fee, a charge for “capital” of €6,000 (￡5,138) per family, a compulsory annual lunch charge of €1,222 (￡1,047) and uniform costs of €250 (￡214). Fees for the optional bus service are €2,205 (￡1,888) per year.

What the school says:

“The thing that parents often comment on when they come into the school is the atmosphere around the place. Although we have high expectations of the children, the relationship between the parents, students and staff is really very good.” Paul Seedhouse, headmaster.

What the parents say:

“When we arrived on our first day, the staff lined the corridors greeting the students with huge smiles and even the odd 'high five’. The children couldn’t have felt more welcome. What has impressed me most has been the holistic approach the school takes to learning: rather than being spoon-fed facts, TISM’s approach has resulted in far greater inquisitive behaviour and motivation from our children.” Sara Slim, whose two boys and a girl started at the school in August.

“Everyone has a great sense of belonging, whether it be the children, parents or teachers. The fact that our children all look forward to going to school, finish the day smiling and have gained so much confidence sums up the school for us.” Lucy Cranfield, who has had three children at the school since it opened.

ENGLISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, MOSCOW

Highly international institution that emphasises a caring ethos

Background:

The English International School, Moscow prides itself on its small-school ethos: there are only 150 pupils here, spread over the ages of three to 18 with classes typically numbering 14-15.

Nevertheless, the school has grown rapidly since its foundation five years ago, when it had only 36 children. Next summer, the first group of students – five of them – will sit A-levels and this is also the first year when meaningful numbers are taking their International GCSEs.

The school, one of a group of five established in locations ranging from Majorca to Seoul by the private operator Orbital Education, is situated on a one-hectare site in Moscow’s eastern suburbs, a quarter of an hour’s journey from the city centre by Moscow’s underground system.

Sports facilities include provision for tennis, badminton and basketball, a small gym and a running track.

This is a truly international school, with 40 nationalities represented. A substantial minority speak English as a second or third language.

Curriculum:

The school offers an adapted version of the English national curriculum, followed by International GCSEs and then A-levels. One of most significant ways in which the curriculum is adapted is that children are routinely “accelerated” through their lessons from year five onwards, meaning that they go on to take IGCSEs in English, maths and one or two more subjects in year 10 rather than the more conventional year 11.

Unless they are learning English, all pupils here will study Russian from year one, and French from year three.

The EIS says that, because of its size, it can tailor its curriculum to suit the individual child. That said, the small numbers overall mean the school focuses on the core IGCSE subjects: English, maths, science, history, geography, French, Russian, art and religious studies. At A-level, eight subjects are offered, with a further one or two to be taught from next year.

EIS is said to be the only international school in Moscow playing sports fixtures against local Russian schools, while inter-school drama, dance and cultural events also feature. Last month, the school offered Russian Culture Week, with events ranging from classes in Cyrillic rune writing to a trip to the former royal palace of Kolomenskoye.

Results:

There are few to report, because next year will be the first that the school has pupils taking A-levels, while only three pupils have so far completed GCSEs. However, last year’s year 10 took a range of IGCSEs early, with a 100 per cent A*-C rate recorded in maths and seven out of 10 gaining Cs or better in English.

Admission:

Non-selective, or “all-enveloping”, as the school puts it. It is proud of its work to support children with special educational needs.

Fees:

Annual charges range from €13,900 (￡11,917) in nursery to €20,400-21,400 (￡17,490-￡18,348) in the senior school. There is also a one-off assessment fee on entry to the school of €2,000 (￡1,715). All meals, stationery, materials and exam fees are included, with bus service (€1,000, ￡857) per term and school uniform (about €200, ￡171) costing extra.

What the school says:

“We do not pretend to compete with the St Paul’s, Westminsters or Manchester Grammars, but we seek to be like a middle-ranking UK independent school. We have an absolutely lovely bunch of children here, everyone knows everyone and this means we are absolutely focused on individuals.” Ross Hunter, headmaster.

What the parents say:

“From the first time I visited the school, my experience was so positive that I thought I’m not going to look anywhere else. I liked the fact that the teachers were not bothered in trying to sell me what the school could do for me as a parent; they were interested in how they could help my children. They work out what each child’s needs are and work from that, at the child’s own pace.” Tina Lindsay, who has boys aged 11, 10 and six at the school.

This piece was originally published in the Telegraph Weekly World Edition

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Autumn Statement 2011: bright children to be sent to 'maths schools'

Around 12 specialist institutions for 16- to 18-year-olds will be opened to give pupils expert tuition under the guidance of university mathematics departments

Unveiling the plans in his Autumn Statement, George Osborne said the colleges would help produce graduates in academic disciplines seen as vital to the country’s economic recovery.

On Tuesday, the Chancellor announced that a total of ￡600m would be earmarked for 100 new “free schools” – establishments opened and run by parents' groups, charities and private companies free of local council interference – between 2013/14 and 2014/2015.

Of those, around a dozen will specialise in maths for teenagers, he said.

“This will give our most talented young mathematicians the chance to flourish,” Mr Osborne told the Commons.

“These ‘Maths Free Schools’ are exactly what Britain needs to match our competitors – and produce more of the engineering and science graduates so important for our longer term economic success.”

But teachers condemned the move.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “At a time of unprecedented economic pressure it is incomprehensible that the Government is committing that sum of funding to creating 100 new free schools when so many existing schools are in desperate need of investment.”

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said: “In naked pursuit of the Coalition's elitist vision of education, 100 free schools and a handful of pupils get ￡600m while children in 22,000 other schools fight over a few hundred pounds.”

In a further announcement, it was revealed that another ￡600m would be spent creating additional school places in areas with the greatest “demographic pressures”.

It is already feared that many infants are being forced to travel miles to primary school because of an acute shortage of places caused by a baby boom and influx of migrants in some areas.

Many schools have been forced to turn hundreds of children away while others have created extra space by educating pupils in mobile classrooms or local church halls.

The biggest pressures have been reported in parts of London and cities such as Bristol and Birmingham.

On Tuesday, Mr Osborne said money would be allocated to places with the greatest need to deliver an additional 40,000 school places between 2012/13 and 2014/15.

This comes on top of ￡800m a year already allocated each year – and an extra ￡500m for 2011/12.

Europe's top ten MBA schools favoured by employers

France's INSEAD was last year ranked Europe's number one MBA school by international employers. The average INSEAD graduate started the programme with six years of work experience and left commanding a base salary of $107,240. The course duration is ten months, places a strong focus on entrepreneurship and requires students to be tri-lingual.

The information provided is from QS, a global provider of specialist higher education and careers information and solutions, for the academic year ending 2010.

Picture: Directphoto.org / Alamy

Tory students to send letter of apology to Barack Obama over effigy burning

Matthew Marshall, president of St Andrews Conservative and Unionist Association, said the incident on Friday evening on the town's East Sands beach was "undoubtedly stupid" and "deeply regretted".

Authorities at the university - where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge studied and first met - investigated but ruled that the action was not "intentionally racist".

Mr Marshall was summoned and made aware of the university's "very serious concerns". He said the society would write to Mr Obama to apologise.

Mr Marshall said: "The US and President Obama are important allies of the United Kingdom and, on behalf of the whole association, I apologise unreservedly.

"This is undoubtedly a stupid act and it is deeply regretted by all of us in the St Andrews Conservative Association. I will make sure this never happens again.

"I apologise further for any damage this has done to the reputation of the University of St Andrews, or the Scottish Conservative Party."

A university spokesman said: "We are satisfied that, while the actions of the St Andrews Conservative Association in burning an effigy of President Obama were naive and crassly insensitive, they were not intentionally racist.

"This incident, however, has caused very understandable offence and concern to many people, and the university deeply regrets this.

"The University of St Andrews holds a firm belief in the value of political debate and free expression but we expect our students to always treat others with respect.

"The burning of any figure in effigy is an act of violence and intolerance and has no place in our modern, international university.

"We have met the president of the Conservative Association to make him aware of the university's very serious concerns and he has been quick to make an unreserved public apology, and it is correct that he has done so.

"We welcome his assurance that this practice will not be repeated."

John Park, Labour MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, whose constituency includes the university said: "This is gravely offensive and way beyond a student prank."

He urged David Cameron and the Conservative Party to take action against the activists responsible.

"Burning an effigy of anyone is offensive, let alone the first black President of the United States. The overtones are deeply unpleasant."

Why my school will stay open during the strike

Class action: teachers are among public sector workers on strike over pensions?Photo: EDDIE MULHOLLAND

Striking teachers will today subject children and parents across Britain to serious inconvenience. I think they’re wrong to do so. For the past 10 years, I have been head teacher at Woodberry Down primary school in Hackney, and I am executive head of four schools in total. Woodberry Down will stay open today. The other three schools in the group will not, because of union action. That is a shame. Striking should be the last resort for teachers, and we should think carefully before returning to the days of downing tools at the slightest pretext.

This strike demonstrates a lack of realism among teaching unions. Someone has to pay for public sector pensions – we’re all living longer, the economy is stagnating, and teachers ought to understand these facts.

I worry, too, about the example being set to children. I remember the teachers’ strikes in the Eighties. It was fun to be out of school for a day, but we had no respect for those who went on strike. We felt that the proper teachers were the ones who were still there, teaching. We were annoyed, actually. I remember that distinctly. I recall thinking: if it’s that easy to remove yourself, by going on strike, do they actually need all the people in the building? I wouldn’t want to make myself disposable in that way.

Other aspects of the strike disturb me. I’ve heard some staff saying they’re not marching, but are going out “for a jolly” today. I hope that’s not the case. We get 13 weeks off a year and, while lots of us work long hours, taking a free day to go Christmas shopping is an insult to parents. What happens if a mother, forced to take a day off work, bumps into a teacher out lunching today? What message does that send?

The unions have their own agendas. For example, I appeared on breakfast television with Christine Blower, the leader of the NUT, and she criticised synthetic phonics, a proven system for improving literacy. It was only afterwards that she said she had never seen synthetic phonics being taught in a school. Here was the head of the country’s largest teaching union passing judgment on something she had not seen. This suggested that the ideology was more important than the reality. You have to use the teaching methods that work. Synthetic phonics is one, but Christine Blower hadn’t bothered to see how it worked.

It’s the same with Sats. They’re not perfect, but if you don’t have tests, you cannot tell which schools need help. And yet, when I sat in on Lord Bew’s review of Key Stage 2 tests, I heard union after union demanding an end to Sats without offering any credible alternative. They seemed prepared to jeopardise the educational wellbeing of children – since external assessment such as Sats is essential if you are to have a system of accountability that lifts standards in schools.

This is the paradox about the unions: on the one hand, they’re very Left-wing and want money poured into deprived areas, but, on the other, they reject the measures that do some good for children in poor communities. Sadly, some unionised teachers have lost sight of why they came into teaching. Trying to improve failing schools, I have faced obstruction from militant teachers who have become so bound up in ideology that they have forgotten the children. Very often, the unions won’t tolerate anything that threatens their beloved “work-life balance”.

What makes the schools I run successful is that we have teachers who realise that, especially with pupils who start from a low base, you need to go the extra mile. That’s where vocation comes in. The drive and energy that you need to inspire children will never fit into the NUT’s rigid work-life policy. To make education work you need dynamism, not people who sigh, shrug their shoulders and moan.

Compare teaching with the medical profession and you’ll see that there’s a different ethic there. There’s an ethos of service. We have lost that in teaching, and that is a shame. Either what we do matters, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t matter, and the children can genuinely afford not to be at school for two or three days a year, then why don’t we just increase the holidays?

It all comes down to this: a school exists for one thing, to educate children. Whatever fight you have with the system, engage in the fight in a way that doesn’t undermine you and let down the pupils.

Today’s strike is a symptom of a culture in parts of the educational establishment that is quick to complain and slow to find solutions. I can understand why people are concerned about pensions. Clearly what issues there are need to be resolved. But I think a lot of that concern has been whipped up by unions determined to criticise whatever the Government does. And these unions are determined to live in a world where reality, including financial reality, does not exist.

I didn’t come into the profession for the money. I trained as a teacher because I wanted to improve people’s lives. This is what we try to do in our federation of schools. I love teaching. In fact, I’m looking forward to going into work today. By coming to school I will have helped to make a positive impact on children’s lives, and on their chances of finding fulfilment and reaching their potential – something I would not be able to do standing on Victoria Embankment waving banners.

Greg Wallace is executive principal at Best Start Federation of schools

National pay deals could be axed, Chancellor warns

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8924415/National-pay-deals-could-be-axed-Chancellor-warns.html

Expat education: distance learning ideal for broadening your horizons

The first cohort of students on the MSc in Major Programme Management course, who have just completed their studies, numbered 33, the second 53 – an increase of more than 50 cent. About half the students are from the UK. The others come from far and wide. North America, South Africa, Australia...

Mainly they come from the private sector, but ￡1 billion-plus programmes are certainly not a private sector monopoly. One Said student worked for the International Atomic Energy Authority. Others have come from high-spending London boroughs.

With a median age of around forty, the students all have first degrees, or the equivalent, and about a third already have MBAs. But they need the additional management know-how that Said can give them.

The two-year course is designed to enable them to continue their careers uninterrupted, while devoting about ten hours a week to developing the intellectual and financial skills needed to manage. The course consists of eight taught courses, each one requiring an intensive four-day programme in Oxford, and a 10,000-word dissertation – perhaps, though not necessarily, focussing on issues specific to their own workplaces.

"Every student is different, with different major spending programmes for which they need to prepare," says Chapman. "But they are not doing their studies in isolation. Each student has a tutor at an Oxford college as a mentor. They also form contacts will fellow students that span the globe – from Sydney to Santiago, in the case of two of our students. And we learn from them. We have recently had to tweak our course as a result of input from a student who was working on a major development programme in Afghanistan."

If the Said programme specifically targets big spenders, there are management courses geared to just about every manager in every sector of the economy, with new courses becoming available every year and more and more universities and business schools recognising that this is a market they should try to tap.

For Jo Downing, a clinical coding manager at King's Hospital in London, a MA in Management Studies from Kingston University in Surrey was just the fillip she needed in her NHS career. She already had a degree in business studies and modern languages, but despite more than ten years of hands-on experience of hospital management, realised that a masters degree offered the likeliest route to future promotion. Since qualifying earlier this year, she has already applied for a position two grades above her current job.

"There is a big drive within the NHS to improve efficiency and effectiveness," says Downing. "King's Hospital recognised that I would be more valuable to them if I was better qualified, so I received a modicum of financial help with the funding for the course. I also got study leave when appropriate."

The Kingston course took three years to complete and consisted of a postgraduate diploma followed by a dissertation. Attendance at the university was necessary about once a month, which was not a problem for Downing, who lived in the vicinity. But many of her fellow students came from much further afield. Some worked in the private sector, while others worked for local government, the NHS or other public bodies.

"It was quite a while since my days as a full-time university student, and it took a while to pick up the habits of study again," says Downing. "But Kingston was good at helping us structure our studies and get the most out of individual assignments. Its many online resources also made it easy to study at home at the weekends."

If at one level she was going back to school, she was also acquiring management skills that stood her in good stead in her day job. "I wasn’t interested in purely theoretical learning," says Downing. "I deliberately sought out assignments that would have a practical application in a hospital environment – and my employers appreciated that."

One such assignment helped her develop management tools for quantifying the workloads of different hospital workers – a perennial challenge within the notoriously complex administrative structure of the NHS. Another led to some improved procedures in relation to stem-cell transplants.

Outstanding managers are like gold-dust, whether they are overseeing the expenditure of billions of pounds of money or simply making hospitals run more efficiently, to the benefit of patients. If they need to spend bit of time away from the office studying the art of management, it is generally a sound investment.

Case study: Chiara Dottorini McCormack, 37, a programme manager at ST Micro-Electronics, Bristol, has just completed an MSc in Major Programme Management with the Said Business School in Oxford.

"I took my first degree at the University of Milan, moved to England and have been working for my present company, ST Micro-Electronics in Bristol, for just over ten years. I am both a team leader and a major programme manager, in charge of developing a software programme costing millions of pounds.

“The main reason I wanted to take a masters degree was to acquire new skills and competences that would both help me deliver the current programme successfully and further my long-term career. I discussed options with various business schools and universities and, after careful consideration, ruled out the MBA option. Too much of the content of MBA programmes dealt with broad-brush strategic issues that were not relevant to my career. I wanted something more targeted, concentrating on the practicalities of financing a major programme rather than on the kind of financial issues that dominate the banking world.

“The Said Business School’s MSc in Major Programme Management was perfectly tailored to my needs. I had to meet the costs of the course myself, as my company does not fund such courses for its employers as a matter a policy, but it has been money well spent. It has been hard work at times – I was told I would need to devote about ten hours a week to the course, but seem to have spent closer to fifteen – but the content was first-class, both challenging and focussed.

“As well as studying from home, I had to come to Oxford every two or three months for an intensive four-day session of classes and seminars with fellow students on the course. They were an interesting lot, ranging in age from thirty to fifty, and it was useful to swap experiences with other major programme managers, even ones working in different fields to me. Informal get-togethers in the evening were often as productive as the classes themselves.

“The final element of the course was a dissertation on a subject of our choice. I chose a general topic, major programme success, rather than something specific to my company, but the course as a whole has certainly benefited me in my day-to-day work, notably in re-engineering the software of the company.

“As for the future, I am certainly far more marketable, now that I have got a masters degree under my belt, and the feedback from recruiters has been very positive. But there have been other benefits, too. The course has opened my mind to more strategic ways of looking at old problems. It has given me far greater self-confidence in dealing with people in senior management positions. Last but not least, in putting me in touch with other high-level professionals in other fields, it has significantly broadened my horizons."

Case study: Henk Nagel, 38, Director of Professional Services, Northern Region, for the software company CommVault, is doing an Msc in Management with Ashridge Business School

"I took my first degree in information technology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and am now based in the same city, working for CommVault, a multinational software company. I used to be director of customer services, which was when I acquired my interest in management as a vital tool for a company striving to improve its overall performance.

"In view of my executive responsibilities, it seemed a good idea to acquire a masters degree of some kind, so I weighed my options carefully.

“The problem with a traditional MBA, as I established through discussions with a colleague, is that its content was likely to be overly academic. I wanted a course with a more practical application to my working environment, where a lot of day-to-day problems have a high technical content.

“I had done a short internship with Ashridge Business School in 2009 and been impressed with the standard of their teaching and with their practical approach to management problems. In 2010, with the support of my employers, who agreed to pay half my fees, I enrolled in Ashridge’s new virtual Masters in Management. There was supposed to be a few days’ face-to-face teaching in the first part of the programme, but Ashridge waived this in view of the time I had already spent at the business school. I appreciated their flexibility.

“I have now completed the first element of the masters degree, a three-term postgraduate certificate. There were three separate modules, each taking three months and involving two distinct assignments. It was a significant time commitment – around 15 to 20 hours a week, studying at home in the evenings and at weekends – and with a wife and two young children, I had to manage my time very carefully. Luckily, that is a skill I have always had. Without it, I think I would have struggled.

“Mainly, I was working on my own. There was some scope for interacting with fellow course members through learning groups and on social media sites, but the Ashridge course focuses on individual rather than group assignments, and that suited me fine. I work in quite a specialist field, with challenges specific to it.

“Even though I have only completed the first part of the course, I have already been able to reap the benefits at work. The services side of a company like ours tends to be seen more as a cost rather than as a potential source of profit. I hope that, by analysing our operations in a different way, I have been to improve our bottom-line performance.

“As I move on to the two remaining parts of the course, the three-term diploma and the special project, I want to broaden my horizons into general management and achieve a greater comfort level when dealing with issues of strategy and finance."

Getting tied up in knots over great school uniform debate

He adds: “It is much less oppressive and more natural to question personal clothing in an environment where children are learning what is appropriate to wear. As long as the conversation is framed around responsibilities and sensitivities to others, the children are more likely to choose wisely when out of school. Checking ties are tightly tied is a waste of time if the same loosely tied students know very well how to dress up with a tie for a wedding.” He believes that children need, and welcome, the opportunity to express themselves and what they wear is a key way to do that.

Keith Budge, headmaster at famously non uniform-wearing Bedales, agrees and says that even in a uniform-wearing school; students will forge ways – usually rebellious ways – to do this be it via wrong-length skirts, tattoos or piercings. His opinion has precedent: Bedales was founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley, who believed in educating through “head, hand and heart”, and the school the first fully co-educational one in the UK in 1898 - and didn't ask pupils to wear a uniform back then either.

The Good Schools Guide says that the vast majority of parents prefer a uniform, “so long as it’s not overly fussy or expensive”. What do the children think? Mr Lashbrook says that even the lower sixth at Oakham who – unusually – still wear uniform, “wear it with pride” and Sevenoaks says its pupils like wearing a uniform “because they don’t have to decide what to wear in the morning, and there is no possibility of a fashion show scenario with pupils judging each other by what they wear.”

Maya Wanelik, a GCSE student at Oxford’s non-uniform wearing Cherwell, lobbied her headmaster and local MP for the introduction of a school jumper. She felt it would promote an identity and help improve behaviour as the children would be associated with their school. But she also felt that “some children get bullied because they wear designer clothes and other children are jealous, but children who don’t have designer clothes can get bullied too”.

While London-based educational psychologist Annie Mitchell agrees with Maya that a uniform is important because it prompts a sense of belonging at school, Mr Budge argues that “the strength of the close-knit community at Bedales is proof that uniform is not required to promote a sense of belonging” and he elaborates, “there are other less superficial and more meaningful ways to create a sense of community and identity, and Bedales does this through the unique relationship between students and staff that is based on mutual respect and long-held school traditions that strengthen bonds, such as the handshaking ceremony at the end of assembly when the teaching staff line up to shake the hand of every student and wish them goodnight.”

As a parent it is the brand snobbery that Maya refers to that concerns me most; if your child feels compelled to wear designer labels at school, the cost of a formal uniform begins to look attractive.

Mr Budge disagrees: “Staff, students and visitors often comment on how refreshing it is that the students have their own identity when it comes to clothing rather than promote labels. Some of our students make and wear clothes that they have produced in our textiles design department and others seek to create their own look by customising clothes bought at charity shops. Our students are refreshingly non-judgmental when it comes to fashion and are very accepting and even embrace people’s differences in taste. I would even go as far as saying that it would be considered 'un-cool’ here to judge someone because of their attire.”

Eanna O’Boyle remains unconvinced by the argument that wearing a uniform avoids fashion competition and that those who are unfashionable are bullied. “I think it’s of great importance that children actively learn to celebrate the balance between having some freedom of clothes, finances, sensitivity to what is good taste, and exploring who they are.”

Pitched together, students who represent both uniform-wearing and non-uniform-wearing schools present interesting arguments.

Karla, who wears a uniform, says her school represents a broad cross-section of society, one which might not gel without a uniform and, she observes, given the chaos of some of the students’ lives, a uniform provides welcome order.

Marcus, who doesn’t wear a uniform, says that being granted the responsibility to wear what he likes extends to developing responsibility in other areas.

That the jury still seems to be out on uniforms is evident: one psychologist I spoke to said it was not as easy as assuming that just because a child wore a uniform, he or she learned more effectively. There were “many contextual factors” at play.

My youngest daughter has attended both uniform-wearing and non-uniform-wearing schools. Her prep school did not wear a uniform; her secondary school does; as far as I can tell she appeared to learn as well in each environment. In prep, that she did not have the faintest idea what Hollister was did not matter, at secondary school it does. But she is glad to wear uniform now because “we don’t have much space for home clothes at school, if we didn’t have a uniform I would have to have a lot of clothes which would mean two things: less space and everybody would know I don’t own any designer brands”.

So she is happy to wear a uniform. But she is even happier it does not dictate the colour of her under garments.

This article was originally published in the Telegraph, Weekly World Edition

Children to be taught to create software

In response to a report on the video games industry, the coalition admitted that current technology education was “insufficiently rigorous”.

The “Next Gen” report, published earlier this year, found that pupils should be taught computer science and how to write software code, rather than just how to use existing software, as is often the case today.

“The Government recognises that learning the skills to use ICT [Information and Communications Technology] effectively and acquiring the knowledge of the underpinning computer science are two different (albeit complementary) subjects,” the Department of Culture Media and Sport said today.

“Furthermore, the Government recognises that the current ICT programme is insufficiently rigorous and in need of reform.”

An ongoing review of the National Curriculum is considering whether ICT should be a discrete subject in schools.

“As part of that process the review will consider the teaching of computer science within ICT,” the Government said.

“The Government recognises that, in the event of ICT not remaining part of the National Curriculum, attention would still need to be given to ensure children could acquire computer science skills.”

It follows criticism of the education system by technology giants including Google and Microsoft. Earlier this year, Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, gave a major speech in which he condemned the technology curriculum in British schools.

“Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made,” he said.

“That is just throwing away your great computing heritage.”

Ian Livingstone, the life president of the video games firm Eidos and an author of the "Next Gen" report said he was "hopeful that there has been a realisation that it [computer science] is essential knowledge for the 21st century".

"It's no coincidence that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was taught computer science at school, a subject which gave him practical skills and provided the intellectual underpinnings of his business," he wrote in a newspaper article today.

"Faced with a world in which they will be surrounded by computers and the opportunities they create, Britain's schoolchildren deserve the same chance to succeed."

University admissions: best pupils 'losing out'

Some admissions chiefs like to get a range of abilities and skills on their courses and so make a range of offers.

Academically strong pupils with higher predicted grades may therefore have to get higher grades to secure a place, while those predicted lower grades may get lower offers if they can persuade admissions staff they have other qualities.

The problem is that the admissions systems vary considerably and are complicated, according to the report in the Times Educational Supplement.

A pupil predicted three top grades at A-level may be made an offer of AAA, whereas a candidate expected to achieve As and Bs may be offered AAB or ABB for the same course.

Roberta Georghiou, the head of Bury Grammar School for Girls in Greater Manchester and co-chairman of the Independent Schools’ Universities Committee, said: “The danger is that universities admit candidates who are unable to capitalise on the opportunity they have been offered, while others who meet the criteria are excluded.”

Pia Pollock, the admissions policy adviser at Manchester University, said: “Some of our academic schools use what we call a range of offers to ensure that they recruit and select the best students.” Lower offers were made to candidates unlikely to achieve the highest grades if they could convince staff that they had the potential to succeed, she added.

Details of the variation in admission systems were laid bare in a Freedom of Information Act request.

“Students and their teachers are being put in a difficult position by the complexity of the university admissions system and the lack of predictable patterns, with each university setting its own rules,” said Dr William Richardson, the general secretary of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference.

Michael Gove: don't let militants bring Britain to a halt

Michael Gove: From its welfare and education reforms to a revolution in the running of public services, the Government has a Big Idea worthy of all the attention we can give it?

"On Wednesday, TUC leaders will call on their members to bring Britain to a halt.

"Among those Union leaders are people who fight hard for their members and whom I respect.

"But there are also hardliners, militants itching for a fight.

"They want families to be inconvenienced.

"They want mothers to give up a day's work, or pay for expensive childcare, because schools will be closed.

"They want teachers and other public sector workers to lose a day's pay in the run-up to Christmas.

"They want scenes of industrial strife on our TV screens; they want to make economic recovery harder; they want to provide a platform for confrontation just when we all need to pull together.

"I'm speaking out today because I know what it's like to go on strike because some people at the top of a Union leadership wanted to prove a point.

"I lost my job. So did more than one hundred others. I was lucky - young, unmarried, without a mortgage. I got another job soon enough.

"Many others didn't. They never worked again in the profession they loved. And the deal we were offered before the strike never improved.

"So today I want to appeal directly to teachers - and other public sector workers: please, even now, think again."

Autumn Statement 2011: free childcare for one-in-four toddlers

More children will be given free childcare, the Chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement.?Photo: ALAMY

Some 40 per cent of two-year-olds in England will get 15 hours of childcare a week as part of a ￡650m programme.

The proposals – outlined in George Osborne’s Autumn Statement – will be aimed at children from the poorest homes.

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, the Chancellor insisted that a decent education was the best way to pull the most deprived youngsters out of poverty.

He said the move would allow mothers to return to work and give children a “real chance” of eventually going on to university and gaining a degree.

It comes just days after a major report from the Sutton Trust charity warned that the educational gap between rich and poor was wider in England than many other developed nations. Researchers said deprived pupils were already a year behind wealthier classmates when they started school aged five.

Currently, three- and four-year-olds are entitled to 15 hours a week of early education for 38 weeks a year.

The Department for Education had announced an extension of the scheme, saying around 140,000 two-year-olds would also win the entitlement.

But in his statement, the Chancellor announced the number would now be almost doubled to around 260,000 children.

"Education. Early years learning. That is how you change the life chances of our least well off - and genuinely lift children out of poverty," he said.

Some ￡73m will be spent on the proposals next year, rising to ￡203m a year later and ￡380m by 2014/15.

The Daycare Trust, which represents nurseries, welcomed the proposals but suggested any benefits may be offset by a freeze on Working Tax Credits for couples and single-parent families.

Anand Shukla, chief executive, added: “At a time when family budgets are increasingly squeezed and childcare costs are rising, parents will now be forced to shoulder more of these costs themselves. This risks trapping families on benefits if they find that they are no longer better off in work.”

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Today’s changes will not bring back the 124 Sure Start centres which have closed since the government came into office and our poorest families will be hit by the squeeze on benefit increases.

“While the richest continue to get richer, the poorest children will miss meals more often and will continue to miss school for want of shoes.”

Private schools have a 'moral duty' to their pupils - not the Government's academies

The history of education in the UK is a history of private success and public failure.

Research regularly tells us the best education systems in the world are those with little central interference.

This is not the model I see in the academies and free schools initiatives.

Over the years state education has become less about children and more about the fortunes of governments and individual ministers.

Schools have become caught up in an unseemly web of legislation that blows this way and that.

The independent school model works because it responds to a fundamental right and a fundamental responsibility.

Parents have the right to have their children educated as well as possible. They therefore have the responsibility to pay for it.

The partnership between hard-working parents, motivated students and committed schools has ensured no stakeholder rests on their laurels.

The freedom of schools as charities to charge fees in order to make a surplus means investment can be made in a school’s provision.

It is a virtuous cycle. Introducing the state into the equation removes motivation of all parties.

The over-involvement of government in many areas of our lives is a socialist hang-over that has infantilised the nation for generations.

All that has resulted is a lacklustre parade of cheap and low quality provision funded by an agency, the state, which has failed to create successful and lasting change in the way children are educated.

I believe the state, among many things unrelated to education, is there for the most vulnerable. It is there for those who cannot help themselves.

I am the first in line to pay my dues to a government that will lavish care on the unloved, the problematic and often unruly in our society.

That is the original philosophy of the Welfare State.

Dr Seldon says the perceived difficulties associated with fee-paying schools sponsoring academies “need not be burdensome” and the practical difficulties “are much exaggerated”.

As I see it, transforming a failing school or starting a new one is a Sisyphean task.

If an independent school wants to sponsor an academy properly, they need to invest time and energy into it.

If the practical difficulties are easily overcome, the task is not challenging enough and the reward not worth the effort.

We do not have money to spare to send teachers and deputies to form schools elsewhere. And we are behoven to our parents who are already paying twice for education.

As regards private schools “perpetuating social divides”, I want rather to perpetuate the right sort of divide – where the deserving are rewarded and the indolent do not prosper.

However we have lost sight of what a genuine meritocracy is.

Too many do well because of unearned advantage. Others expect help when they are unwilling to give of themselves.

By making education something all parents buy into and make sacrifices for, we have more chance of seeing motivated pupils and united families working towards common goals.

The engine room of the private sector is the hard working school that has to pull together a tough budget each year and strain every sinew to ensure that the educational offering is as high quality as it could be.

It is a tough ask, because they live in an unpredictable and unstable environment and must deliver or die.

As I walk the corridors of my school, I am acutely aware of the sacrifice families are making in financial terms to enjoy the first class education we offer. I am under pressure, as are my fantastic colleagues, to give value for money.

It has created, in the vast number of cases, a co-operation between parent and school for the success of those children in my care. It works. And it has worked here at Taunton School for 164 years.

I often get told independent schools do not live `in the real world’ and commercial organisations know all about survival in tough economic conditions.

Yet I know of few organisations that have lasted more than 100 years.

However, I know of dozens and dozens of fee-charging independent schools who have thrived and been successful over generations.

I believe education should be paid for – yes with a contribution through the tax system from the Government, called by many a voucher scheme.

Otherwise, parents should be allowed to top up what they want and go where they choose.

Schools, logically, would be free to teach and deliver as they please, and charge whatever top up they saw fit.

An inspectorate would guarantee basic standards. Such vouchers would be allowable also at independent schools.

A marketplace develops.

Competition between schools ensues. Schools improve or go under.

Parents see where their hard earned money is going.

Parents are more likely to work better together as a family for the good of their children if they are paying for their education.

‧ Dr John Newton is the Headmaster of Taunton School.

Academic condemns 'torturous' university admissions

The university admissions process is "needlessly torturous", said Professor Mary Beard.?Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Mary Beard, the Cambridge University classics professor, said the admissions system employed in Britain was “more difficult and stressful than it should be”.

She also condemned the “shameless self-marketing” candidates committed on their application forms, suggesting many personal statements were copied from the internet.

In further comments, the academic rejected criticism of the notoriously tough Oxbridge admissions process, saying that common attacks on the system by politicians of all parties were misguided.

The comments were made after the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service proposed a sweeping overhaul of the current system.

They are planning to allow students to apply for places after receiving their results for the first time in a move that would lead to A-levels being brought forward and candidates choosing courses over the summer.

Writing for the BBC News website on Sunday, Prof Beard said that the changes would involve “more upheavals than you can imagine” but insisted it could take the “unnecessary heat out of the whole process”.

“The whole business of university applications in this country, for any university, is needlessly tortuous,” she said.

“The end result might be OK - happily many kids get where they want to go.

“But the route they have to take is more difficult and stressful than it should be.

“It relies on ridiculously minute distinctions between exam grades, it demands shameless self-marketing from the students on their application forms, and it operates according to a timetable that any outside observer would say was plain bonkers.”

Prof Beard, classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement and presenter of the recent documentary series Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town, said many universities now relied on students’ A-level grades and their personal statement – instead of an interview – to select candidates.

But she insisted: “Today's statements are much less concerned with good works, and are often uncomfortably corporate in style - weaving together clever quotations from Shakespeare and Aristotle with carefully constructed personal anecdotes, to create an implausibly perfect impression.

“They're so professional that they have to be put through "plagiarism detection" software - which apparently many fail.”

Currently, students are supposed to apply to Oxbridge by October – around a year before courses start – and to other universities in January. Candidates are then given provisional offers based on the proviso that they gain predicted exam grades the following summer.

Those who fail to score high enough in A-levels and other qualifications are eligible for “clearing” – the system that matches students to spare places.

But writing on BBC online, Prof Beard said: “More than anything, it is the bizarre timetable that makes the application process so preoccupying.

“When we say in January or February that someone ‘got in’ to their chosen university, we don't actually mean that. We mean that they will have got in if they achieve the grades demanded by the university in their summer exam, which even if all goes well, drags out the nail biting for a good six months.”

She added: “If it doesn't go well and they don't get the grades, they enter a whole new round of applications in August.

“This is a frenetic process, with applicants tracking down the remaining unfilled places by email and phone - then being given maybe a few hours to accept a place for a course they haven't really explored at a university they know little about.”

Teacher avoids sex offenders register for drunken assault on air steward 'she thought was her boyfriend'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8921820/Teacher-avoids-sex-offenders-register-for-drunken-assault-on-air-steward-she-thought-was-her-boyfriend.html

Osborne: carbon targets threaten British jobs

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James Dyson invests in £1.4m Cambridge Chair

The inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner and bladeless fan said whoever wins the position would have free reign to explore any area they like within the field of air movement.

Sir James admitted he had "no idea" whether the position would result in technology his company could use, but said he hoped whatever the professor comes up with could be used in new, ground-breaking inventions.

He told The Telegraph: "We cannot decide what they do, and we shouldn't.

"We are interested in areas that we are not able to envisage or imagine. If we were able to think of it ourselves, we would do the research ourselves.

"It might lead to something that is useful to us and it might not but we think it is important that people like us fund this sort of thing because places like Cambridge are brilliant at doing this kind of research.

"But if we do not get anything out of it at least we will have tried, and will have advanced some academic brains in the process."

Sir James already funds postdoctoral research at Cambridge and employs a number of the university's graduates in his research operation, but has repeatedly emphasised the need to make the most of groundbreaking work being carried out at British universities.

University academics have already begun interviewing candidates, with help from the Dyson organisation, and although he has not been personally involved Sir James said he hoped those in charge would choose someone "a bit manic".

He said: "I would want someone very clever, a very applied person and someone who is very good in their field and who is curious and perhaps fairly manic because I think you need to be."

Any work developed by the new professor will be in their name and the patent will belong to the university, but Dyson will have first option on buying the rights to develop it into a product.

Universities see 20,000 fewer applications as tuition fees put off students

With fees set to treble to a maximum of ￡9,000 in 2012, applications from UK students alone are down by 15.1 per cent, according to statistics published by Ucas.

But while fewer UK students are applying to university, the number of applicants from overseas, outside of the EU, has risen by 11.8 per cent, the data shows.

In total, 23,427 fewer people have applied to start degree courses at UK universities next autumn than at the same point last year.

Ucas insisted that it was too early to make predictions about the demand for higher education next year.

Would-be students have until January 15 to apply for courses beginning next autumn.

Today's figures show that 133,357 UK applicants have applied so far, a drop of 23,759 compared to the same point last year.

Applications from other EU students are down 13.1 per cent to 9,034.

The figures also show that the largest fall is among Scottish applicants.

Applications from Scottish students are down 17.1 per cent, English students 15.2 per cent, Welsh students 10.3 per cent and Northern Irish students 16.9 per cent.

The statistics also show that 13,665 fewer women have applied so far this year, compared to 9,762 fewer men.

Ucas chief executive Mary Curnock Cook said: "Recent changes in high education funding mean that application patterns this year may be different to previous years and we are gearing up for a possible late surge close to the January 15 deadline where applicants have taken more time to research their applications.

"We expect some depression of demand due to a decline in the young population but it is much too early to predict any effects from changes in tuition fees."

Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of leading universities, said: "It would be no real surprise if overall applications through Ucas are somewhat lower for 2012 entry than for 2011, but we shouldn't rush to assume that this is due to higher fees.

"For one thing, demographic change means there will be fewer 18-year-olds leaving school or college in 2012 than in 2011.

"We also know that in 2011 there was a drop in numbers opting for a 'gap year', meaning more applications in 2011, and fewer applications for 2012 entry. Current 2012 figures are actually very similar to figures at the same point in 2010.

"The decrease in the number of Scottish applicants to Scottish universities, where there are no fees, also shows that decrease in England cannot simply be explained by the new fees and funding system."

Professor Les Ebdon, chair of think-tank million+ and vice-chancellor of Bedfordshire University, said: "Universities are working hard to ensure that students understand that studying for the degree you need to get the job you want remains one of the best career moves that you can make, especially in uncertain economic times.

"One in four first time undergraduates is a mature student. Many study later because they realise that they have missed out on the life-changing employment and learning opportunities that studying for a degree offers. No-one should lose the chance to be what they might have been.

"Ministers need to up their game and should launch a campaign in the new year to ensure that older students understand the new loan system and the opportunities available."

Michael Gove: strikers are itching for a fight

With 90 per cent of schools expected to be closed on Wednesday due to strike action over public sector pensions, Michael Gove made a last-ditch appeal to teachers to "pause and reflect" before joining the mass walkouts.

The Education Secretary insisted public sector workers were being offered a "good deal" saying it was "unfair and unrealistic" to expect taxpayers to foot the increasing bill for pensions.

How true to life is Channel 4's Fresh Meat?

JP and Kingsley check out the newcomers in 'Fresh Meat', Channel 4's sitcom of student life.?Photo: ALAMY

As the youngest journalist at the Telegraph of the grand age of 22, it falls to me to answer whether Fresh Meat – Channel 4’s titillating follow-up to The Inbetweeners – truthfully portrays what it is like to be a modern day first year student at university.

Despite taking place 130 miles away in Manchester, the show exudes many of the qualities of my own time at Durham University, but with added sex, drugs and squalor.

I encountered few extreme characters at my alma mater. Drug abuse was scarcely seen and casual use was in the minority. University life as portrayed on Fresh Meat is one giant love-fest, but even the most libidinous of my friends would fail to match the bountiful encounters on the show.

The Fresh Meat gang embraces many of the stereotypes that I found studying in the quaint Northern town of Durham. The nerdy, rotund Howard is akin to many of my fellow Computer Scientists. His sarcastic banter and discomfort with the opposite sex (there were two females on my course) would have fitted right into my hellish Theory of Computation lectures.

The geek was not the most common stereotype in Durham. One would be far more likely to bump into a rude, arrogant and self-obsessed type, which the public schooled JP is modelled on. Such personalities are easy to spot: sandals and shorts in January, luminous body warmers and joggers from Jack Wills. Jack Whitehall manages to play JP so well; you could almost say he is just playing himself.

However, student living as depicted on Channel 4 has little in common with the one I knew. Freshers entering Durham walk straight into luxurious student accommodation, a world away from the damp squalor of Fresh Meat’s student housing.

For those with political persuasions, there was little risk of getting kettled and beaten by police. The closest Durham came to a riot was a march of 200 students (out of 16,000) through the city, with a notable appearance from the Hatfield College Jazz ensemble. Instead of solidarity anthems, they treated protesters to insipid renditions of Rage Against the Machine.

Overall, the key aspect that Fresh Meat nails is the overwhelming awkwardness throughout the first year of university. From the first day, awkwardness is everywhere. Lectures, socials, pubs, clubs, libraries, dates and labs are all undermined by the urge to fit in and feel at home.

Fresh Meat manages to capture this to the extreme and this is why the series has been enjoyed by so many and has much in common with my first 12 months of student bliss.

Fresh Meat is on Channel 4 tonight at 10.00pm

LSE to be criticised over £1.5m Libya donation

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, whose charity made a ￡1.5m donation to the LSE, was captured by Libyan rebels this month.?Photo: AFP

A major inquiry is expected to conclude that the institution was negligent in accepting donations from the Gaddafi regime.

The report by Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, will attack the LSE’s lax handling of the affair, saying the university’s ruling council was given inadequate and incomplete information before deciding to accept the grant.

It will level personal criticism at Sir Howard Davies, the former LSE director, who quit in May amid lingering questions over the morality of the cash award.

The report’s conclusions come as Labour was again dragged into the row over the weekend when it was claimed that a company formerly headed by Adam Ingram, the ex-defence minister, gave a ￡100,000 donation to a charity run by the Gaddafi family around the same time it was awarded a multi-million contract in Libya.

The LSE – rated as one of the top universities in Britain – asked Lord Woolf to carry out an independent external inquiry into its links with Libya earlier this year.

His inquiry was submitted to the school in mid-October and is expected to be released on Wednesday afternoon after being considered by the LSE council.

A charity run by Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi – Muammar Gaddafi’s son – donated ￡1.5m to the LSE in 2009, although only ￡300,000 reached the university.

It came after Saif Gaddafi, 39, who was captured by Libyan rebel forces earlier this month after weeks on the run, completed a PhD at the university.

Lord Woolf’s inquiry will outline the errors made by the LSE in accepting the donation and establish clear guidelines for international donations to – and links with – the school.

The report will reportedly conclude that Sir Howard should have made a clearer judgment on the “acceptability of the cited sources of donation”.

It also suggested that David Held, an academic advisor to Saif Gadaffi and a professor of political science at the university, should have provided significantly more information to the LSE council before a decision on the donation was taken. Prof Held has since announced he is quitting the LSE to join Durham University.

It emerged that the LSE was warned against accepting the donation from Fred Halliday, an emeritus professor of international relations, who has since died.

He wrote to the council criticising Libya's human right's record and the unrestrained celebrations in Tripoli that followed the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.

But minutes of a council meeting revealed that senior officials feared embarrassing Saif Gaddafi by rejecting the cash.

Last night, the LSE declined to comment on the findings until the inquiry is published.

A spokesman for Lord Woolf also refused to comment ahead of the publication.