Honeywell has announced its selection of 70 secondary school teachers from ten countries to receive scholarships to Green Boot Camp, a five-day interactive workshop focused on best practices for teaching energy, sustainability and environmental concepts. This year, the camp will welcome teachers from the United States, Australia, Canada, China, England, Hungary, India, Mexico, Nigeria and Scotland.
Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company’s corporate citizenship initiative, launched Green Boot Camp in 2009. To date, 140 teachers from around the world have attended, each bringing unique perspectives on sustainability challenges and opportunities from their local regions.

According to new figures released today by the National Apprenticeship Service, almost 370,000 apprenticeship applications were submitted online between February and April 2013 (Academic Year Q3 2012/13).  This represents growth of over 32%, when compared to the same period last year.

Apprenticeship vacancies also witnessed significant growth. Over 32,600 vacancies were advertised online in the three months – an increase of almost 15% on the previous year. On the 26 April 17,700 live vacancies were available online, the highest number recorded.

A new ‘Life Skills Programme’ supported by J.P. Morgan and co-ordinated by leading charity the National Children’s Bureau, Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Roehampton, will tap into the enthusiasm of students who are the first in their family to attend university, and bring them together with young people in their neighbouring communities.
 
The project will enable undergraduates to work with local young people aged 14-17 to develop volunteer-led community projects, building their skills and confidence. Students will benefit by gaining first-hand experience of how to grow and sustain a volunteering project, while the young people will develop essential life skills to help them make positive choices and raise their aspirations.

Yesterday (24/05/2013), at a high-level conference in Brussels, it was announced that some €2.5 billion will be mobilised for education by the EU, confirming it as a priority for EU development post-2015. At the same time, Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who is hosting the conference, will make a commitment to ensuring that by 2030, every child will be able to complete basic education, regardless of their circumstances, and have basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has launched the new IET Product Innovation Challenge in order to find the next Engineer of the Year.

The competition, open to 11-14 year olds, challenges entrants to identify a problem or opportunity relating to communication, and then use their engineering skills to develop a solution.

For example, young people could investigate if there is a way communication between doctors and patients can be improved? Would climbers and hikers benefit from an electronic tagging system? Can a device be created to track lost pets?

An increasing number of schools think that schemes such as ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) are very important to tablet adoption in schools, reveals research carried out for the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA).
The annual ‘Tablets and apps in schools’ survey of 632 UK schools (327 primary, 305 secondary), conducted in May 2013, shows an increase in the consideration of BYOD schemes.  67 per cent of schools currently believe this method of product adoption is important compared with just 52 per cent in 2012.

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.

Over 1.95 million school pupils are being encouraged to get interactive with the recently launched Siemens Education Portal, which has been designed to inspire and motivate young people to engage with and be curious about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Teachers will find a range of flexible schemes of work that include the challenges facing product designers working in the car manufacturing sector; developing sustainable water supplies in hostile environments; and using wind farms to generate energy for modern cities. Supported by a comprehensive multi-media data bank and 3D gameplay and a growing band of Siemens employee volunteers who will be on hand to support and share their experience and knowledge. Initially the portal will support the 11 to 14 age group with plans to expand the age range over the next two years to include primary and take the age range up to 16.

Mytime Health, a healthy lifestyle service provider, and Health Matters Education Limited, producers of children’s health, fitness and wellbeing educational materials, have launched an exciting new partnership. The two organisations will collaborate to enhance and develop a one-stop source for healthy lifestyle education in early years and primary school settings across the UK. Their services include Continued Professional Development (CPD) and a range of easy to use toolkits designed to stimulate healthy active attitudes in children.

Millions of children are missing out on online safety training, according to new research commissioned by Internet security company, ESET. 50 percent of those aged nine to 16 have had no formal internet safety teaching in school, while one in four parents admit they lack the confidence to initiate the conversation, believing their child has a better grasp of online security.

Instead, three quarters of parents choose to monitor online activity at a distance, 23 percent without their child knowing.

Oxford University Press (OUP) has announced it is partnering with The Poetry Archive to support Poetry by Heart, a new national poetry competition in England.

The competition will see thousands of students aged 14 to 18 competing this Spring to become national champion for their skill in memorising and reciting poems by heart.

OUP will provide free content from the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED), the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), and the American National Biography (ANB) Online to support students participating in the competition.

A revolutionary, liquid-cooled computer server that could slash the carbon footprint of the Internet is being tested at the University of Leeds.

While most computers use air to cool their electronics, all the components in the new server are immersed in liquid and the power-hungry fans of traditional computing have been replaced by a silent, next-generation liquid-cooling process that relies on the natural convection of heat.

But the significance of the new Iceotope server lies less in the novelty of its design, rather the bite it could take out of the huge electricity demands of the internet servers that form the fabric of our online lives.

Schools are being urged to promote safe cycling for children with the help of a familiar face. Dennis the Menace is encouraging children to use their heads and wear helmets while cycling, in a free poster for schools produced by the Beano in partnership with Brake, the road safety charity. Dennis and Gnasher also feature in a downloadable board game that gets kids thinking about simple steps to help them get home safely.

Teachers and community groups can order free copies of the poster from Brake's online shop thanks to sponsorship from personal injury solicitors, Bolt Burdon Kemp.

A new social enterprise venture, supported by the University of Northampton, aimed at improving the physical and mental health of young people with hearing disabilities through adventure sports has been officially launched.

iDID Northampton is an all inclusive adventure club for young adults between the ages of 14 and 25, but essentially provides individuals, who are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing, the opportunity to take part in specialist adventure programmes, such as rock climbing. wakeboarding, canoeing and snow sports.

Over 100 representatives from UN agencies, donors, academia and civil society organizations have agreed to make quality lifelong learning at the heart of the development agenda.

Participants at a gathering hosted by the Government of Senegal and co-organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) mapped out ways to ensure everyone - especially the most disadvantaged - is able to realize their right to learn.

NIVEA SUN and Cancer Research UK are launching a competition to scour the UK for the most creative primary school pupils as part of their Sun Safety Awareness Programme.

To enter the competition and be in with a chance of winning, students need to create a poem about enjoying the sun safely that incorporates the line: ‘the sun has got his hat on’.

British Gas Generation Green is launching a nationwide competition to give students their say about the future world of energy.

The competition is a response to the findings of a new study among 7-14 year-old students and teachers, that found children have a strong desire to play an active role in solving major challenges that will affect the world’s future. These include avoiding food shortages and ensuring there is enough energy and water for everyone.

St Albans School is celebrating another landmark of academic success, after its sixth formers attracted an impressive total of 16 offers between them to study at the world-renowned Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Fourteen boys and two girls were offered places at Oxbridge, building on the total of 14 offers received by the school last year. This year’s offers cover a broad spectrum of subjects: Anthropology, Biology, Classics, Economics, Engineering, English, Maths, Modern Languages and Natural Sciences.

London School of Marketing, a London-based institution delivering accredited marketing and business qualifications and offering courses from recognised professional bodies and universities, has announced the launch of its new database driven website.
“Organisations are often squeezed between the need to have a website and the high costs involved in developing and maintaining one. To keep costs down while maintaining efficiencies, London School of Marketing has launched a new website which will offer our students updated information and services seamlessly,” said Sean Palmer, Admissions Manager at London School of Marketing.

Two in three teachers (64%) worry that young people’s horizons are not broad enough to operate in a globalised and multicultural economy and society, a YouGov teacher poll for Think Global shows.

Business leaders are more concerned still, with 93% saying schools must help young people develop the ability to think globally and three-quarters say we risk being left behind by emerging economies.

Bridging the Global Skills Gap, released this week, is based on a national poll with 753 teachers and builds on other Think Global research with businesses, pupils, parents and teachers.

The National Children’s Bureau (NCB), a leading children’s charity is celebrating 50 years of being at the forefront of work to improve the lives of children and young people, especially the most vulnerable.

A year-long schedule of special activities is being launched, starting with ‘Debating Modern Childhood’ this week at the V&A Museum of Childhood. The high profile line-up of influential speakers includes the BBC’s Mark Easton, Claire Fox Director of the Institute of Ideas, and the Children’s Commissioner Dr Maggie Atkinson.

Greg Dyke, British Film Institute (BFI) Chair, announced today that FILM NATION UK has been awarded lottery funding of £26 million over four years by the BFI to deliver the BFI’s 5-19 education scheme.
Film education will be transformed across the UK with the creation, for the first time ever, of a single unified programme for watching, making and learning about film.
Supported by over 100 industry partners from national, regional and grassroots organisations, FILM NATION UK is a new charity, which builds on the work of film education organisations FILMCLUB and First Light.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has reported teaching to be the second most stressful occupation in the UK, with 41% of teachers reporting very high or extremely high levels of stress at work. The combination of managing student behaviour, marking work and planning lessons cause enough pressure, both in and out of the classroom, without the additional worry of personal injury.

The registration deadline for Britain’s biggest nationwide enterprise competition for young teenagers, the Tenner competition, has just been extended to April 22nd.  Business Secretary Dr Vince Cable was so impressed with the scheme designed to help young people make a difference with £10 by taking a month to turn it into as much profit as possible – he’s put £50,000 extra into the pot.

Today’s announcement from the Government that 13 new University Technical Colleges (UTCs) are set to open will help to address a huge lack of technical education in schools says Europe’s leading engineers’ group.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is calling for the UTCs programme to be sped up as 1.86 million job openings, requiring engineering skills, are forecast by 2020. 

Higher pupil premium funding for schools in 2013/14 will have a significant impact on the way schools spend their budgets, according to new research from the British Educational Suppliers’ Association (BESA).

More than one third of primary schools and more than half of secondary schools expect to change their current spending patterns as a result of Government plans to boost Pupil Premium funding to £900 per pupil in 2013/14, boosting expenditure in primary schools by up to £95 million and £103 million in secondary schools.

Fourteen groups of finalists gathered last week at PA Consulting Group’s Cambridge Technology Centre for the awards ceremony of the PA and Raspberry Pi-making competition, where they presented their inventions to a hand-picked judging panel. The finalists’ ideas show the ingenuity of the next generation of Britain’s technologists and inventors.

Here is what three months, a £25 Raspberry Pi and up to £50 of additional hardware and software resulted in:

A six month long youth unemployment initiative concludes next week (Monday 25 March), with the overall winner receiving a life-changing £18,000 BPP scholarship.

The RSG Bristol Young Student of the Year Awards was the vehicle used to up-skill students and connect them with businesses to tackle the rising rates of youth unemployment in the UK.

The competition was open to 16-19 year olds and was free to enter for all state schools, colleges and academies in the Bristol region. Originally launched as a pilot scheme for Bristol, the plans are to roll the competition out regionally across the UK.

It’s National Apprenticeship Week for two more days, and there’s still time to catch childcare training provider Parenta at the Kent Choices 4U Live event, 13^th-14^th March at the Kent County Showground.

National Apprenticeship Week has been running all this week and aims to highlight the talents and skills of apprentices and raise the profile amongst individuals, teachers, parents and the media.

One of the UK's largest childcare apprenticeships providers, Parenta Training (part of the Parenta Group) has approximately 1500 learners on their nationally recognised childcare courses at any one time.

The Education Show 2013 has begun today at the NEC, Birmingham, with Graham Pepper, from the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) National Curriculum Review division, addressing visitors to clarify the current status of the National Curriculum consultation and outlined how it is going to be available to schools from September 2013 ready for teaching from September 2014.

In his overview he provided the background to the review, which has been focused on benchmarking the expectations of children against the expectations of the most successful nations.

Since the review process started in January 2011, the DfE has received 5,500 responses, the largest amount ever received.

Apprenticeship completions over the next decade are forecast to contribute £3.4 billion a year to the economy through productivity gains by 2022. That’s according to a new report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) released today to mark the start of National Apprenticeship Week 2013.

The report, Productivity Matters: The impact of Apprenticeships on the UK economy, presents Cebr’s analysis of the contribution of apprenticeships to the economy, examining current trends and future developments and exploring the productivity impact of Apprenticeships. Key findings include:

Almost half of working parents believe that apprenticeships are more appropriate for manual or blue-collar jobs and less than a fifth believe that apprenticeships have the same status as university education.

That’s according to a survey of about 400 working parents, conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) as part of its Learning to Work programme.

The survey, Employee Outlook: Focus on Apprenticeships, also shows that only one in ten parents rank apprenticeships as their preferred qualification for their children, while nearly half would choose a university degree.

As part of Microsoft YouthSpark– Skype’s company-wide initiative to empower 300 million youth through opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship – Skype in the classroom allows young people to deepen their educational experience through face-to-face connections with other countries and cultures. 

This enables first hand experience of what life is like in places they might not be able to personally visit. Just like a great book, Skype in the classroom allows students to engage with new ideas and new ways of thinking, breaking down traditional barriers to communication.

Over sixty female students visited Airbus in Filton today, on International Women’s Day, as part of Airbus’ new Industrial Cadets programme to encourage more girls to follow careers in engineering.

Under the three-month scheme, students will study an environmental project with the help of Airbus mentors and learn more about advanced aeronautical engineering and the high-tech global world of aviation.

The Cadets, who are pupils from schools around the Bristol area and aged between 12 and 14 years, met Airbus’ female engineers and took part in a range of activities including project management and teambuilding skills.

Caroline Wright, Director, BESA, the education sector’s trade association, explains what the organisation is doing to save schools approximately £8 million a year, nationally.

“Over recent years, schools have been wasting millions of pounds due to out-dated Government guidelines. These guidelines refer to ICT equipment leases, which are used by many schools to manage their expenditure. They currently stipulate that schools must only use complicated operating leases, rather than the industry standard finance leases, which often represent a more cost-effective form of leasing.

Teacher, Meriel Whitty, 26, talks about volunteering with VSO as an SEN instructor in Ethiopia.

“I found out about the possibility of volunteering at VSO after becoming interested in doing some charity work and researching what was available. I started teaching straight after university and didn’t do any travelling, so volunteering overseas also seemed like a good opportunity to see a bit of the world.

Hilton Worldwide is attempting to ‘prevent a lost generation’ with the announcement at the World Economic Forum of a commissioned white paper from the International Youth Foundation (IYF), which highlights solutions to youth joblessness that the global hospitality sector is uniquely positioned to provide. The company is also announcing the launch of Bright Blue Futures, a global commitment to youth development around the world, led by its flagship Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand.

Teachers Media, the online CPD service, has launched a four part series entitled ‘Visible Improvement’ to help teachers to demonstrate clear progress in pupil learning, a key focus of the 2012 Ofsted inspection framework.

The films feature handpicked case studies from Outstanding schools and show teaching practice that is “promoting pupils’ learning and progress”, as cited in the Ofsted framework. They cover critical topic areas including maths and writing at primary years, and focus on literacy across the curriculum and data and differentiation at secondary level.

A recent study by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) revealed only 30% of 16-25 year olds contribute to a pension. 40% of these do not know what type of pension they pay into and 80% would be interested in learning more about personal finance.

To discuss the results of the report, Cass Business School welcomed both the CSFI and the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments.

The EcoKids Textile Recycling Project is a fundraising tool designed to raise children's awareness about recycling, while helping schools pay for projects or extracurricular activities that keep students safe and active within the community.

The project is operated via www.ecokidsproject.co.uk, where schools and other organisations can sign up to recycle their textiles.

50 primary schools have registered for this year’s Oxfordshire Big Science Event, up 25% on 2011, suggesting the competition will be the biggest yet.

The competition has begun in schools across the county with more than 5,000 pupils expected to participate. The Big Science Event final will take place on Thursday 27th June 2013 at Science Oxford Live.

The county-wide competition is coordinated by Science Oxford and challenges primary school pupils to devise and execute their own science investigation.