Tell Us Your Story

Please show your support for this fundraising inititative:

Tell Us Your Story is an online charity project. It aims to raise money for the Street to School Programme that will help 500,000 children get off the streets and into education.



Tell Us Your Story is giving people the opportunity to recognise and reward others who have made a positive impact on their lives or in their community over the past year.


The project is supported by Aviva, will donate £1 for every entry received to the Street to School Programme - a global initiative with the aim of reaching 500,000 children worldwide, helping them get off the streets and back into education.


A weekly prize of £1000 will also be awarded to the local hero that captures the hearts of visitors to the site and receives the most votes. One overall winner will be chosen by a celebrity judging panel for a prize worth £10,000.


Railway Children is the UK charity partner for the Street to School programme. Railway Children is the only charity working across the UK with vulnerable children. Every year in the UK, 100,000 children run away because they’re unwanted, unloved or abused and many are never reported missing.

Science SATs to be scrapped

It's hard to believe the timing of the news about Science SATs. In our school we've just spent five school weeks revising for the Science SATs, and just a few days before the children get stuck in, they get the news that next year's Science SATs won't even take place. How frustrating for this year's children! I'm sure it's going to have a negative effect on this year's Science results, too. After all the children are now bound to think that they are pointless. What's the point - they are about to be scrapped!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the SATs being scrapped altogether, but once again Ed hasn't got the Balls to do the right thing and has only agreed to drop one of the three subjects. Teacher assessment clearly gives a better representation of a child's ability. But, for the time being, apparently tests give a better indication of standards in English and Maths.

If the SATs are set to continue, I wonder how long it will be before an ICT SAT is introduced...

The Guardian reports:
Ed Balls, the education secretary, today backed a drive to improve teacher assessment to the point where it is robust enough to replace national Sats tests in England.

Accepting a report from an expert group on assessment, he announced that Sats tests in maths and English for 11-year olds would be retained, but tests in science would be scrapped in favour of teacher assessment.

The review argued that while the current tests were beneficial and gave parents objective information, teacher assessment provided a richer picture of children's learning, and it appeared to open the way for scrapping Sats in the long term. This type of national testing was dropped in
Wales and is not used in Scotland.

The group, including the former chief inspector Sir Jim Rose, urged the government to "invest in, strengthen and monitor the reliability of teacher assessment, to judge whether a move away from externally marked national tests might be viable at a future date".

Rose told a press briefing: "Clearly if you had a situation where you had teacher assessment that was so robust that you were confident the information it was delivering was as good, or better, than national testing, then by God wouldn't you go for it? Meanwhile, you would want to run both together, wouldn't you? We want a belt and braces job."

But retaining Sats in the short term sets the stage for a confrontation with two of England's biggest teaching unions, the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers, who are to ballot on boycotting next year's tests if they are not scrapped.
A move towards teacher assessment has already happened for seven- and 14-year olds, and will now take place in science at the end of primary school. Single-level tests – taken by children when the teacher thinks they are ready – also involve more teacher input. A pilot study of these tests in 400 schools has been extended for a third year, and they could form part of the eventual replacement for Sats.

League tables based on Sats results will not be abolished, but Balls accepted the expert group's recommendation that report cards sumarising a wider range of information on each school's performance should be developed.

NUT intend strike action over SATs

The Daily Mail reports that the country's biggest teaching union is today expected to give the go-ahead for a controversial boycott of the national testing system. Members of the National Union of Teachers are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action to scupper SATs for seven and 11-year-olds.

But Schools Secretary Ed Balls told NUT members gearing up for what is being seen as their biggest battle yet with the Government that they cannot just refuse to comply with the law. Government lawyers are considering the legality of the boycott amid claims teachers may be in breach of their employment contracts if they refuse to abide by national education policy. The boycott would involve refusing to administer SATs in spring 2010 for more than one million primary school children unless ministers agree to axe them.

The country's biggest head teachers' union will put a similar industrial action call to its members in May. In a speech to the NUT annual conference yesterday, Bill Greenshields, the union's ex-president, urged members to back the boycott. 'We will end this child abuse,' he said.

But the planned action has split the teaching profession. Other unions fear ministers will be less likely to implement changes to SATs to avoid being seen as bowing to union pressure. Mr Balls has given clear hints he wishes to change the testing system and league tables accompanying results but has said he has 'no intention' of abandoning tests in some form.

League Tables published today

School league tables are published today. Read them at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/school_league_tables/. Today's league tables show around 150,000 pupils failed a performance measure the Government is introducing.
They show the proportion of pupils who took SATs for 11-year-olds last summer and achieved the Government's expected level in both English and maths.
As many as 27 per cent of pupils started secondary school in September without having met the benchmark, this morning's figures show.

Youngsters who missed the benchmark will need extra help to cope with the curriculum at secondary school because they failed to reach level four in the core subjects of English and maths.

Separate official figures showed yesterday that a fifth of bright children - those who exceed Government expectations at 11 - make no progress in key subjects in their first three years at secondary school. More than 20 per cent of pupils who gain level five in English and science are still at level five three years later after 'coasting' once entering secondary school.

Opposition politicians said teaching should be better tailored to pupils' abilities.
The trends emerged as the Government faced fresh criticism over the decision to publish today's tables amid claims they are tainted by last summer's marking fiasco.

The headteacher of the top primary school in the country has warned cramming for Sats tests would only result in short-term success. Lorraine Cullen of Hall Meadow Primary School said pupils needed to be "thinking" learners to see real long-term improvement.Hall Meadow and Combe Church of England Primary School in Witney had more pupils than any other school in England who achieved level five - one level above that expected of 11-year-olds - in the tests.Mrs Cullen said that their results did not come from drilling the pupils on the exam script. "I think that you get a certain amount of success doing that but you will never sustain it. 'We do very little work around preparing for tests. We spend our time developing children who are thinking, motivated and active in their learning."

15000 teachers call in sick each day

The Daily Mail reports that teachers are calling in sick at the rate of 15,000 a day. Almost three million working days were lost last year, up from 2.5million in 1999. Some 311,000 teachers took at least one day off.

Tories called the official figures 'very worrying', linking them with mounting bureaucracy and disruptive classroom behaviour.

The Government's school workforce statistics, which cover full and part-time teachers and classroom assistants, show the average number of sick days has risen from 5.1 a head in 1999 to 5.4 in 2007. The overall number of days lost was 2.9million. This equates to almost 15,000 teachers off sick on each school day. The total of 311,770 who took sickness absence is well over half the number working in English schools.

The rising levels of sick leave mean more pupils have to be taught by unfamiliar supply teachers who may not be specialists in the subjects they are teaching.

NUT acting general secretary Christine Blower said: 'Given the enormous pressures teachers are under, it is remarkable they have so little sick leave. The vast majority of teachers, sometimes unwisely, go into school, even though they may be ill, because of their commitment to the children. Unfortunately, too much stress is endemic to the job and it is the responsibility of not only the Government but the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats to explore ways of reducing the excessive numbers of initiatives faced weekly by schools.'

Despite record education spending under Labour, teaching vacancies have risen by a quarter in the past year - with four in ten new teachers quitting within a year.

Critics say they are weighed down with too many initiatives, too much form-filling and too much bad behaviour.

Mr Gove said: 'It's very worrying that the number of sick days has risen so dramatically.
'The Government needs to investigate the reasons so we can make sure there is as much stability as possible in every child's education.'

Whilst these figures are worrying, I wonder how comparable they would be to the private sector.

What is black and white and RED all over... Children's work!

The Daily Mail reports that schools have barred teachers from marking in red in case it upsets the children. They are scrapping the traditional method of correcting work because they consider it ‘confrontational’ and ‘threatening’.

Pupils increasingly find that the ticks and crosses on their homework are in more soothing shades like green, blue, pink and yellow, or even in pencil.

Traditionalists have branded the ban ‘barmy’, saying that red ink makes it easier for children to spot errors and improve. There are no set government guidelines on marking and schools are free to formulate their own individual policies.

Crofton Junior School, in Orpington, Kent, whose pupils range from seven to 11, is among those to have banned red ink. Its Marking Code of Practice states: ‘Work isgenerally marked in pen – not red – but on occasion it may be appropriate to indicate errors in pencil so that they may be corrected.’
Headmaster Richard Sammonds said: ‘Red pen can be quite demotivating for children. It has negative, old-school connotations of “See me” and “Not good enough”. We are no longer producing clerks and bookkeepers. We are trying to provide an education for children coming into the workforce in the 21st century. The idea is to raise standards by taking a positive approach. We highlight bits that are really good in one colour and use a different colour to mark areas that could be improved.’

At Hutton Cranswick Community Primary School in Driffield, East Yorkshire, the Marking and Feedback Policy reads: ‘Marking should be in a different colour or medium from the pupil’s writing but should not dominate. For this reason, red ink is inappropriate.’

Shirley Clarke, an associate of the Institute of Education, said: ‘Banning red ink is a reaction to years of children having nothing but red over their work and feeling demoralised. When children, especially young children, see every single spelling mistake covered in red, they can feel useless and give up.’

But Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Banning red ink is absolutely barmy. Common sense suggests that children learn by their mistakes and occasionally they need upsetting to teach them to pull their socks up. Self-esteem has to be built on genuine achievement, not mollycoddling, which only harms children in the long-run.

‘Red ink is the quickest way for pupils to see where they are going wrong and raise standards. I give teachers who have ditched their red pens nought out of ten. They’ve failed.’

A lovely cliche there, Nick. Is this really such a newsworthy issue? I remember being advised during my training at university (advised, not instructed) to use green pen rather than red as green is less agressive. I'm sure that psychologists have researched the impact of different colours. Therefore, avoiding using red pen is probably good advice. But as far as barring the use of red pen in a marking policy - surely that is up to the school itself.

Although recently I have used a few different colours for marking after being given a pack of different coloured pens, I usually mark in green. In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find green ink pens in the shops. Maybe there are quite a few teachers who are avoiding marking in red...

Are SATs in doubt?

The future of SATs was thrown into doubt yesterday as a damning report blamed a culture of complacency among testing officials for this year's marking fiasco. Two exam chiefs were suspended and a testing quango was scrapped as an inquiry into the late and chaotic delivery of results to 1.2million children revealed that the system runs on the mantra 'it'll be all right on the night'.

The peer appointed to investigate the marking shambles warned that tests for 11-year-olds next year would be 'difficult' to administer efficiently and welcomed a Government review of the testing system. Ministers scrapped SATs for 14-year-olds in the aftermath of the marking fiasco and have indicated that the current arrangements for 11-year-olds are not 'set in stone'.

The inquiry into the problems, led by Lord Sutherland, uncovered a catalogue of 'massive' failings by the Government's testing agency and the U.S. outfit it hired on a £156million five-year contract to organise marking and the delivery of results. But it also prompted calls for Children's Secretary Ed Balls to apologise and accept some responsibility for the fiasco after he repeatedly claimed it was at 'arm's length' to ministers.

Suspended exam chief Dr Ken Boston told the inquiry that Mr Balls' department was 'in no way' kept at a distance and was in fact intimately involved at all stages, from the granting of the contract to the setting of the tests.

Primary pupils lead the western world in Maths

The Daily Mail writes that primary school pupils lead the western world in maths skills, according to a new survey. Our ten-year-olds have outstripped their peers in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand as well as the rest of Europe, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.

But the news from the international comparison of 425,000 youngsters was not all good. English children have been passed in their turn by youngsters from Kazakhstan, the former Soviet Republic portrayed as a nation of barely-civilised simpletons by Sacha Baron Cohen's comic creation Borat. Experts said a traditional curriculum and a belief in the importance of maths and science were behind Kazakhstan's success. Though poverty is widespread in the oil-producing country, it has an emerging middle class keen on rigorous academic education.

The improvement among English children follows the introduction of a daily numeracy lesson in primary schools, which put renewed emphasis on times tables and arithmetic.

The survey, known as Timms (Trends in International Maths and Science Study), is held every four years. Our ten-year-olds were 17th of 26 countries in 1995 but seventh of 36 last year, while 14-year-olds were seventh of 49 - up from 25th of 41 in 1995. Among ten-year-olds England was decisively outperformed only by countries on the Pacific Rim, including Japan and South Korea.

Primary curriculum overhaul

The Daily Mail reports that the blueprint was drawn up by former Ofsted chief Sir Jim Rose following a request from Children's Secretary Ed Balls. It amounts to the biggest shake-up of primary schooling since the Tories introduced a national curriculum in 1988. The national curriculum was organised around 11 subjects - an arrangement that has broadly continued to this day.

The Conservatives last night warned the plans, likely to come into force in 2011, would lead to a 'further erosion of standards'. They pointed to similar 'child-centric' reforms of the Sixties and Seventies which experts say led to a collapse in literacy and numeracy. Tory education spokesman Michael Gove said: 'In adopting this throwback to the 1960s, the Government is denying the highest quality of education to children in the state sector. The experiment with this kind of ideology - moving away from facts, knowledge and rigour - failed 40 years ago and will fail again.'

Under the plan, history, geography and religious education will be merged into 'human, social and environmental' studies. Other areas cover communication (English and modern languages), science and technology, maths, physical health and wellbeing, and the arts.

The aim of scrapping distinct subjects is to allow teachers to introduce them in other parts of the curriculum, for example teaching literacy or history through design and technology.

However, 69-year-old Sir Jim, the Government's key adviser on primary schools, insisted that some subject- specific teaching would remain, saying: 'High-quality subject teaching must not disappear from primary schools.' He added that he was not advocating a return to the 'vagaries of old-style topic and project work'.

Computer skills should be given more importance

A report at Becta says that today's increasingly computer-literate youngsters are improving their ICT skills so fast there is a strong argument they should be taught secondary school knowledge earlier at primary school.

This insight into the fast-developing skills of England's techno-savvy minors by education expert Sir Jim Rose is one of the key findings of the interim report of his independent primary curriculum review published on Monday, 8 December 2008.

He says in his report that primary and secondary ICT needs to be reviewed "to provide a better fit with children's developing abilities" so that English education does not get left behind by the technology revolution. He wants ICT to be given as much priority in the primary school curriculum as literacy and numeracy.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls, responding to the interim report, said 21st century schools needed to adapt to the times and make the most of technology to improve our children's learning.

Examples of the kind of things our hi-tech high-flyers might do at primary rather than wait for secondary:

• Using podcasts in their studies or making their own radio programmes
• Using ICT to produce well-presented essays and presentations on screen that they can share with the class or whole school
• Uploading their artwork on computers
• Testing rules and values by using formulas and spreadsheets for science and maths
• Discussing the use and impact of technology on society
• Analysing different sources online, e.g. for history subjects
• Helping their research skills for different topics, eg world geography, maps and weather forecasts
• Using the internet to share projects with other schools.

Sir Jim Rose said:
"Good primary teaching deepens children's understanding by firing their imagination and interest in learning. One highly promising route to meeting the demand for in-depth teaching and learning is undoubtedly emerging through ICT. The primary curriculum needs to be forward-looking. Advances in technology and the internet revolution are driving a pace of change which we could not have imagined when the National Curriculum was introduced twenty years ago."

Ed Balls said:
"We can sometimes under-estimate children's knowledge of ICT and that can be a missed opportunity to raise standards at primary schools. As Sir Jim's interim report points out, by age 11 children could already be using their computer skills to boost their studies across the curriculum. In maths, primary children are advanced enough to use technology to improve their learning rather than just play computer games, for example. Parents of our generation probably don't realise how fast children are picking up computer skills today. In our day computers were probably a novelty for older children in secondary school children whereas today they're commonplace. Teaching and the curriculum need to move with the times. We need 21st century schools which make the most of the opportunities technology offers to improve our children's learning."

Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive of Becta, said:
"There’s no question that technology plays an increasing part of our everyday life at home and school. Clear evidence shows effective use of technology really does boost a child's achievement."

Sir Jim Rose says in his report that ICT has the unique capacity to develop and enliven learning and in some schools ICT is not "working hard enough" to support learning and provide value for money. He believes that much of the ICT currently taught at Key Stage 3 in secondary school should be taught in primary school instead because it is "well within the capabilities" of primary children. Instead, by the time children reach Key Stage 3 they should not only be able to show ICT skills but also be already able to apply these skills across the curriculum to advance their learning.

The interim review report also says that ICT should be used more by primary teachers to give the required "depth" to lessons, so teachers can meet the pace and appetite for learning of the most able children and they are not held back.

Jim Rose makes a lot of sense here and it's about time someone said it. The ICT curriculum urgently needs updating and I hope it happens soon. Computer skills are essential in today's world.

People can't use apostrophe's

(Before I get started, I deliberately put the apostrophe in the wrong place in the title!)

The Daily Mail reports that apostrophe misuse is among our most common grammatical mistakes and it is also the most annoying. Nearly half of those given a short punctuation test were unable to use the apostrophe properly. They were guilty of a variety of slip-ups. The first was a failure to understand that plural nouns in English do not take an apostrophe.

The commonest evidence of this transgression is on display in countless fruit and vegetable shops, with handwritten signs advertising apple's and pear's for sale - the classic greengrocer's apostrophe.

A second error is the failure to punctuate a possessive plural properly. Forty-six per cent of those who sat the test got this alarmingly wrong.

They were also asked which mistakes they found most irritating.

Replacement of they're with their was voted the most annoying, followed by the use of a greengrocer's apostrophe to denote a plural - as in the incorrect boy's instead of boys. Another infuriating howler was confusing its with it's - the first the possessive form of it and the second an abbreviation of the phrase it is.

In the punctuation test taken by 2,000 adults, teachers were most likely to get the answers right, with more than 80 per cent getting full marks. Journalists and those working in public relations came second, followed by lawyers and civil servants in third and fourth places. Workers in transport and distribution came bottom. Women not only scored higher marks than men, they also claimed to care more about incorrect punctuation.

Londoners came out on top as Britain's best regional punctuators, getting 78 per cent of the answers right.

Surprisingly, the over-55s were bottom of the league. The 25 to 34-year-olds came top.

Professor Christopher Mulvey, an expert from the Museum of the English Language at Winchester University, said: 'To get it right, you need to look up the rules every time you think an apostrophe might be needed - and do this for the next six months in order to internalise the rules.'

I found the comment at the bottom of the Daily Mail article frustrating: I agree, I hate bad grammar - drives me mad. Why do they not teach grammar properly in schools anymore? This person has clearly not read the article properly - teachers are most likely to use the apostrophe correctly. I don't think teachers and schools are the problem for apostrophe misuse - it's the media and retail that show a complete disregard for correct grammar and punctuation. Teachers teach the rules correctly, but if this is not followed through by the rest of society it makes the process worthless. Unless children see a need to use punctuation and grammar correctly then there's no point in doing so. And if they see the mess that certain people can make of punctuation then they aren't going to see why it's important.

£2.5billion spent and maths is still not adding up

Almost a quarter of children are leaving primary school with a poor grasp of maths even though spending on the subject has soared to £2.5billion a gear, public finance watchdogs have revealled.

Around 135000 pupils start secondary school unable to cope with their courses. This is little improvement on 2000 despite a 30% increase in funding over the same period.

About 66000 bright pupils are failing to make the progress of which they should be capable at primary school, while 34000 11-year-olds are no better at maths than most seven-year-olds. In a reversal of the usual trend, girls are falling further behind boys.

Tim Burr, the head of the National Audit Office said, "The rate of improvement in primary mathematics has slowed and almost a quarter of pupils are still not equipped with the understanding of mathematics they need to study the subject further, or to tackle subjects such as science once they start secondary school."

The £2.3 billion spent on teaching maths in primary schools works out at £572 per pupil and represents more than a fifth of the total expenditure of £10billion on primary teaching.

Although pupils in their final year at primary school achieved the best results so far in maths SATs last year, almost a quarter, 23%, failed to achieve the expected level.

I hope that the new framework will go some to to challenging this issue, but it still requires proper funding to train all staff to understand it fully.

5-year-olds to tell teachers how to teach

The Daily Mail reports that children as young as five will win the legal right to tell teachers how they should be taught and disciplined for bad behaviour, it emerged today. Pupils will be handed an unprecedented say in the running of their schools - from the uniforms they wear to the meals they eat.

But the proposed new duty on school governors to 'invite and consider' children's views drew an angry backlash from teachers' leaders who claimed it would be 'open to abuse'. Ministers have also been warned that schools will be vulnerable to lawsuits brought by parents who claim their children have not been properly consulted.

The row erupted after the Government this week accepted an amendment to an education Bill currently progressing through Parliament. The Liberal Democrats tabled the amendment after a Ofsted survey suggested a third of pupils do not believe they are properly listened to by their schools.

Regulations detailing what schools must ask pupils about have yet to be drawn up but ministers hinted in Parliament they would be wide-ranging. In the House of Lords, Children's Minister Baroness Morgan said: 'As a minimum, schools should seek and take account of pupils' views on policies on the delivery of the curriculum, behaviour, the uniform, school food, health and safety, equalities and sustainability, not simply on what colour to paint the walls.'

Ministers have already issued guidance to schools saying pupils can have a role in recruiting staff and observe lessons to give feedback on how well they believe they are being taught.

But critics complained the advice was akin to 'the lunatics taking over the asylum'. Yesterday Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, criticised the planned legal duty as 'unnecessary' and warned it would undermine teachers' authority, driving them out of the classroom. She said some schools were already allowing groups of pupils to stand at the back of classes observing lessons without the teacher's agreement and to sit on interview panels for new staff. And she was aware of a recent case where a teacher had gone for a job only to find she was subjected to a 'speed dating'-style interview, which involved spending five minutes talking to a series of pupils sitting at individual desks. The teacher concerned had considered turning down any job offer because of the school's 'disrespectful' attitude to staff. 'The proper use of student voice can aid learning,' said Mrs Keates. 'We have no problem with student councils, and good teachers will always engage pupils. But it's a complete nonsense to make it a duty on schools; it will be open to abuse and is likely to lead to more bureaucracy. The balance of relationships between teachers and pupils is extremely important and this shifts the balance in the wrong direction.

Mrs Keates said it could be appropriate for schools to seek pupils' views on disciplinary sanctions, but added: 'Where pupils have been consulted on behaviour policy they are usually more draconian than the teachers.'

Meanwhile Dr John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, representing thousands of secondary heads, said: 'This is crazy.
'I'm a strong supporter of pupil voice but schools are increasingly consulting pupils because they think it is the right thing, not because Government tells them to. I am furious that yet another in this continual stream of legal and educational duties is being placed on schools. They all bring unintended consequences.'

I love working with our School Council and they have made a really positive contribution to our school. They are becoming more and more involved in important decision, e.g. how the Friends of the school spend the money. Later this year, they will take their first role in the interview process for a new member of staff. But I'm not sure it is right to give children the legal right to tell teachers how they should be taught. Whilst I welcome them explaining the views and ideas, surely this idea could become very damaging for staff morale?

REVISION:
There is also a very interesting interview with the head of Holland Moor Primary in Skelmersdale who have a very effective school council. Read it here.

Cut the clutter and instil a love of learning

Sir Jim Rose, the leader of the Primary Review, is due to make his interim recommendations in the next few weeks. But he has already told the House of Commons seclect committee on children, schools and families that his key goal is to instil a love of learning in children - and increased specialist teaching could help with this.

When asked how creating a more balanced curriculum would square with teaching to the test that is common in Year 6, he answered that the tests were not the only issue. The key, he said, was to create a system that would bring out the best in fast-developing 10 and 11 year olds. He hinted that one of the most important ways to do this would be to bring more specialists into primary schools.

He said: "The problem in Year 6 is more than that [teaching to the test]. It's the dgree of expertise you need to keep up with lively 11 year olds who are on the march to good quality work in secondary. Eleven year olds are terribly underestimated in what they can achieve. If you have a class teacher system hanging on in there, you are asking a lot of the class teacher. Look at what they are capable of in music when they have a specialist teacher or someone in PE who really knows their subject well."

No more KS3 SATs - but what about KS2?

The Government has decided to scrap the Key Stage 3 SATs with immediate effect. Unions, opposition political parties and newspapers all showed their support for the decision.

But primaries are left bitterly asking why the Government has decided to retain KS2 tests. David Fann, chair of the NAHT primary committee, said, "From what I hear, the announcement has caused complete and utter devastation in primaries."

It seems that the KS2 tests provide some sort of accountability function at the end of primary school.

The child in my class are gutted!

KS3 SATs are scrapped... What about KS2? :-(

The Daily Mail reports that SATs tests for 14-year-olds have been scrapped in a humiliating U-turn by Children's Secretary Ed Balls. And school exams in other age groups will be radically overhauled, he said.

Mr Balls told the Commons today that the key stage 3 tests taken by pupils at 14 were 'not justified' and would be dropped with immediate effect. Tests for primary pupils will remain but the high-stakes examination for 11-year-olds leaving primary school could be scrapped by 2010. The assessment of seven-year-olds will be downgraded.

Mr Balls's announcement cuts a swathe through the controversial testing system embraced enthusiastically by five previous Labour Education Secretaries after its introduction by the Tories 15 years ago. It follows a marking fiasco this summer which heaped misery on thousands of pupils after results were delayed and inaccurately recorded. The overhaul also comes on the back of criticism from teachers and parents of the high-pressure examination regime.

New curriculum to focus on skills

The TES reports that the new primary curriculum now in development is likely to have a much greaer emphasis on skills than is currently the case, it has emerged. The document - to be adopted in 2011 - looks increasingly likely to highlight skills alongside content, according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

The authority is supporting the review of the primary curriculum being led by Sir Jim Rose, the former chief inspector for primary education. The interim report is due out at the end of this month. The QCA has submitted evidence to Sir Jim from surveys with pupils, seminars with heads and other stakeholders, analysis of Ofsted reports and research.

Mick Waters, director of curriculum at the QCA, said: “I think one of the challenges (of the review) is to stop arguments about what is in and what is out, petty arguments over poets, painters and battles. We want to help children understand big ideas behind knowledge to understand the difference science can make to society and the benefits of learning about science for an individual. We need to give them an appetite for more knowledge, the belief that they can make a difference. That is a really different outlook on the primary-age child from the one existing 20 years ago.”

Emma Payne, deputy head at Hillcrest Primary in Bristol, has worked with other schools in the area and the QCA on innovating the school’s curriculum. She said: “We need a new national curriculum because the current one was designed in a different time. I have been shown one of the drafts of a new curriculum and was really excited to see a focus on skills. One of the main problems with the curriculum is there is a big focus on knowledge, and it is too easy to cram children’s heads with stuff, rather than the skills they need to apply with any stuff.”

Paul Jackson, joint head of Gallions Primary in Newham, is part of the Open Future scheme run by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, which offers a skills- based curriculum. He said: “Jim Rose has been to visit our school and I’ve taken the children to meet Mick Waters. The idea that seems to be coming through is freeing up time, allowing schools to take their own direction.”

Sir Jim’s remit, set out by Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, calls for the introduction of languages, less prescription of content, and potentially developing areas of learning rather than subjects.

The primary curriculum’s content is now organised by subject. There are also subject-specific skills and thinking skills, but these are embedded in the curriculum as attainment targets. In the summer, Sir Jim told a meeting of educationists that it was likely the primary curriculum would remain subject-based.

The QCA, in a review of the primary curriculum in 10 countries, has found only two that organise their primary curriculum by subject rather than broader areas of learning, namely Norway and Slovenia. The latter has said it wants more cross-curricular work.

Out with the X-Factor culture

Primary schools are to receive formal guidance on how to combat the effects on their children of the rampant celebrity culture. They will be expected to interest pupils in 'real world' jobs and to discourage them from aspiring to be reality television stars or footballers' wives.

Shows such as The X Factor and Big Brother have previously been blamed for giving youngsters the impression they can become overnight successes without any hard work.

In future, primary schools will be encouraged to organise enterprise days or job talks from figures in the local community.

The proposals are expected to form part of Sir Jim Rose's review of the primary curriculum, with an interim report due next month.

John Crookes, an advisor at the QCA said, "If there are low expectations within the community and no role models from the world of work, you have difficulties. One young girl said she wanted to be a footballer's wife. Her dad is a university lecturer. He wasn't very pleased."

A recent survey of 1000 youngsters by the DCSF' Talented and Enterprise Taskforce found that just 1% thought being intelligent or good at school work meant they were talented.

The Countdown Kid

The Daily Mail reports that 11-year-old Kai Laddiman became one of the youngest ever winners. Kai beat James Bruce, a 25-year-old teacher, by finding three seven-letter words, being spot-on in a numbers game and working out the conundrum in only 14 seconds.

Kai, from Broad Oak, East Sussex, auditioned for the show in London in January, beating off hopefuls as much as six times his age. He and his mother Naomi were then invited to record the show, presented by Carol Vorderman and Des O'Connor, in Leeds. Kai, who has already got a grade B in AS-level maths said: 'Although everyone else was older, I wasn't nervous at all.

He said, "I got an extra cushion to prop me up on the chair so the cameras could see me over the desk. It made the seat a lot more comfortable so I wasn't complaining. I just concentrated hard and did my best. I enjoy the Countdown letter games, such as the conundrums, the most. Numbers are a bit trickier but I wouldn't say they're difficult either.'

Kai has three younger brothers and attends Heathfield Community College in Old Heathfield, East Sussex.

Spelling Tests axed because they're distressing

Don't get me wrong - I really am a stickler for correct spellings. Poor spelling and grammar (used by adults, at least) infuriates me. But I loathe spelling tests. I fail to see the benefits of spending around 1/2 an hour each week running a spelling test, knowing full well that many of the children will spell the same words wrong in a piece of work immediately after the test. Quality teaching of word rules and spelling patterns must be the best method.

I was impressed by this post from Tom Barrett regarding good spelling resources on the net.

In the news today is a primary school that has axed spelling homework because pupils find learning lists of words 'distressing'.

The Daily Mail reports that children at the Whitminster Church of England Primary, in Gloucestershire, will no longer be given a short list of words to learn each week because staff believe it leaves them feeling like failures.

Parents' groups called the move 'ridiculous' but headmistress Debbie Marklove, whose school has just over 100 pupils aged four to 11, has invited parents to a meeting to explain her reasons. In a newsletter, Mrs Marklove wrote: "You will notice that the children will not be given spelling lists to learn over the week. We have taken the decision to stop spelling as homework as it is felt that although children may learn them perfectly at home they are often unable to use them in their daily written work. Also many children find this activity unnecessarily distressing."

She added: "Spelling lists are sometimes just tests of memory. If children get five out of five when practising with mum and dad and then get one out of five at school it can give a sense of failure. I would like to emphasise that we are still teaching spellings at school as normal, as is demanded by the literacy curriculum.'

A spokesman for the school said no parents had complained about the policy.

But Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said the decision would come back to haunt her pupils as some spellings, particularly irregular words, needed to be learned. he said, "Youngsters will feel a sense of failure more strongly when they go into the world of work and can't produce a letter or a report for their employers," he said. "There are quite a lot of words which you essentially have to memorise. Lots of parents and grandparents will remember doing spelling tests either pleasantly or unpleasantly. But for all that, it is a necessary part of the learning process."

A report from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority this year showed that most primary school-leavers are unable to spell such basic words as 'height' and 'rigid'.

Gloucestershire County Council's head of improvement, Karen Charters, said: "It is entirely for the school to decide if it wishes to use spelling lists."