The proportion of young people aged 17 to 24 taking part in learning has fallen by 7 percentage points in the last year. There has also been a fall of 6 percentage points in the proportion of unemployed people participating in learning. These are the latest findings of the annual NIACE adult participation in learning survey for 2013, published today ahead of Adult Learners’ Week next week.
David Hughes, Chief Executive of NIACE, said: “We know from our winners of this year’s Adult Learners’ Week Awards how much learning helps people to transform their lives. People move into fulfilling careers, they become dynamic members of their communities, they improve their health or sometimes they exchange a life of offending for a life of contributing.
10% of teachers now work while they commute each day in order to maximise their productivity according to specialist recruiter Randstad Education.
The research of over 2,000 Brits on savvy commuting habits across different employment sectors found that a tenth of teachers work while they travel.
Rising pupil numbers over the last five years and cuts to funding have had an impact on the number of teachers working while they travel. In 2008, just one in fifty of teachers (2.4%) said they worked while they commuted.
International expert on emotional intelligence, Dr K.V. Petrides of UCL, will be visiting the North West next month to talk to headteachers about adolescent emotional intelligence and how it can affect student wellbeing and academic performance.
Dr Petrides will be speaking at a half day seminar on how psychometric assessments, traditionally used in the business world, can be used by schools and colleges to support young people's prospects and link students to the professional world to help prepare them for life after education.
A recent forum bringing together representatives from industry and academia has concluded that stronger collaboration is needed between higher education and the commercial engineering sector if the UK is to remain competitive and able to innovate efficiently in the global marketplace. The event – organised by MathWorks – also examined whether graduates were learning the right skills at university in preparation for commercial careers – something which many in industry felt was not the case.
Held at the IET in London, the forum featured representatives from many of the UK’s leading engineering companies and universities, including Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce and the University of Cambridge.
England’s top nurses will oversee a pilot scheme for student nurses to spend time working as a healthcare assistant before taking up their degree.
They are part of a national steering group announced today by Health Education England. The group will be chaired by Sir Stephen Moss, a non-executive director at Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and former turnaround chair at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The group includes nursing leaders from the Royal College of Nursing, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Care Quality Commission, NHS England, the Department of Health, Public Health England, NHS Employers and the NHS Trust Development Authority.
The finalists for this year’s Ashden School Awards, the UK’s leading green energy awards, have been announced ahead of a prestigious awards ceremony in London on 20 June 2013.
Cockermouth School in Cumbria, Hollybush Primary School in Derry, Thomas A Becket Middle School in Worthing and South Farnborough Infant School in Hampshire have all demonstrated that it’s possible to cut fuel bills and carbon by taking simple steps and inspiring children as young as five to become green champions.
This week (6-12 May) is the UN’s Global Road Safety Week and UK schools are calling for steps to enable students to walk in their area without being endangered – adding to growing calls for all UK communities to ‘GO 20’ by switching to 20mph limits.
A survey out today by the charity Brake and Hampson Hughes Solicitors of 500 UK primary schools reveals teachers are deeply concerned about pupils’ ability to walk or cycle to school safely. So much so that 77% feel compelled to actively campaign to make local roads safer for kids.
An artistic schoolboy from Birmingham has won his classmates a £10,000 eco-garden, after wowing judges with his winning design of a ‘little litterbug.’
Sean Bainton, aged 9, from St. John Fisher Catholic Primary School in Birmingham won the Viking for Schools ‘Little Litterbug’ drawing competition – beating off stiff competition from 6,500 entries across primary schools in England. The competition asked for pupils to draw a little litterbug – a creature or machine that is able to recycle classroom rubbish.
The quality of training and continuing professional development (CPD) provided to schools is poorly rated by teachers, a recent survey has revealed. The survey comes at a time when the Government is giving schools increasing levels of autonomy which demands a high level of investment in staff development. Only 17 per cent of primary and 18 per cent of secondary teachers surveyed stated that the quality of training was always or mostly of good quality. The findings come from the British Educational Suppliers Association’s (BESA) annual ‘Classroom Learning Resources’ survey’, which takes into account the views of 612 (314 primary and 298 secondary) heads of curriculum, key stage leaders and heads of English, maths and science.
