65% of the 15-23 year-olds in the poll said they were superstitious, with a third becoming even more so as exams approach, the BBC reports. So it’s not surprising that they take an assortment of articles into exams, including charms, lucky jewellery and pens, as well as lucky underwear. 60% change their diet and eat foods that they believe can boost their brain power and memory.

More worrying is that almost half admitted not doing as much revision as they thought they should, and 14% said revision consists of a quick flick through their notes and hoping for the best.  Various reasons were given for avoiding revising, with 28% claiming tiredness, 20% feigning illness, and 21% preferring to do housework rather than revise.

When time for revision starts to run out panic sets in, with 61% staying up late and 40% staying up all night before an exam.

When you were a student what, apart from revision, did you do to boost your exam chances? Share your secrets of success with us!

The new test, part of the annual round of SATs, is being introduced to tackle fears that the basics of the English language were being neglected in primary schools under the last government, The Telegraph reports.

Last year a sample writing test found that 23% of 11 year-olds – about 125,000 children – failed to reach the expected standard for their age group. The new test will examine pupils on commonly misspelt words, the correct use of punctuation and grammatical rules, to ensure that they can write accurate sentences and structure essays properly. They will also be expected to use ‘fluent, joined and legible’ handwriting and to recognise the difference between formal and non-standard English.

Education Minister Elizabeth Truss warned that too many children struggle with the basics of English at primary school and don’t catch up at secondary school: “This new test will mean that children are again taught the skills they need to understand our language, and to use it properly, creatively and effectively,” she said.

The main teaching unions say that the new exam will put extra pressure on children and make teachers drill pupils to pass it; the NUT is exploring the possibility of boycotting it next year.

Will the new test stop ‘the basics’ of English being neglected, or put 11 year-olds under too much pressure? Share your views with the Eteach community!

New research has revealed that children who are victims bullying are more likely to make jokes at their own expense or about their own appearance, the BBC reports.

The study of more than 1,200 11 to 13 year-olds shows that children can use humour to raise their status and show social skills. But when children make fun of themselves it doesn’t make them more popular – instead it undermines their status and self-esteem and makes them more likely to be bullied.

Psychologist Dr. Claire Fox said: “We know that this negative use of humour is a nurtured behaviour, influenced by a child’s social environment rather than genetics. This makes the behaviour easier to change, so we hope the next step for this study is to see whether it is possible to ‘teach’ children how to use humour to enhance their resilience and encourage them not to use negative forms of humour.”

Meanwhile, children who are victims of bullying are now able to text their teachers to report it, according to The Independent. Many children are reluctant to speak out in case they are seen reporting bullying to an adult, but the new service allows them to complain at a distance and they don’t even have to give their name. The scheme, which is being pioneered by Leicester City Council, is also helping schools to identify places where bullying is taking place; in one case, a girl was being bullied on a bus by boys from another school and sent a text. The bullying co-ordinator at her school dealt with it by speaking to the boys’ school and solved the problem.

How do you feel about being texted by your pupils if they’re being bullied? Share your views with us!

A new report from Demos is proposing ‘multi-perspective’ inspections instead of Ofsted inspectors, The Telegraph reports, to rescue an education system obsessed with targets and league tables.

The think-tank criticised the current ‘toxic’ culture where results, targets and impressing inspectors are placed ahead of pupils’ education. It wants an annual report on each school’s performance to take on board the views of teachers, pupils, parents, and the local community. It claims that this would be more rigorous and effective than current inspections, where inspectors make judgments during brief school visits, and would give an honest account of schools’ strengths and limitations.

Duncan O’Leary, Demos Deputy Director, said: “Targets, tables and inspection regimes have their place – but you can only do so much from the top down. As every parent and teacher knows, Ofsted inspectors rarely see the true picture of a school. An approach that amplified the views of parents, pupils and teachers could be more demanding, more honest and more effective in the long-run.”

Do you think the proposal from Demos would result in a better inspection system?

The survey reveals that 10 year-olds are routinely having sex and sending explicit pictures of themselves to classmates The Telegraph reports. The study also showed the average child is first exposed to pornography at the age of 11. One teacher said that some pupils are so pressured to send sexual photos they trawl the internet looking at child porn to find suitable images they can send.

Michelle Barry, who works with thousands of children aged seven upwards as part of a preventative education project, said: “I was gobsmacked when I asked a class of 13 year-olds if they had ever sent naked pictures of themselves and not a single hand did not go up. What is most worrying is the fact young people do not identify this as a problem. For them it is part and parcel of school life.”

A new report from Ofsted into PHSE found that lessons were poorly presented in half of secondary schools and a failure to tackle areas such as healthy sexual relationships, consent and the influence of porn could leave pupils open to exploitation as they grow up.

In primary schools, the Inspectors say, too much emphasis is placed on friendships and relationships when teaching sex and relationships education and this can leave pupils ill-prepared for the physical and emotional changes of puberty. In secondary schools, too much emphasis is placed on the ‘mechanics’ of reproduction rather than on the importance of healthy sexual relationships.

Last week guidance from The Sex Education Forum, a coalition of more than 90 organisations including  the NSPCC and Barnardo’s, encouraged teachers to introduce pornography into the classroom, using sex education lessons to explain that porn is ‘not all bad’ and ‘hugely diverse’. Critics of the guidance said that parents would be ‘horrified’ by the possible introduction of pornography into classroom lessons.

Are you shocked by the survey’s findings? And do you agree with Ofsted’s views on PHSE education?

The exam board AQA has sponsored a booklet on how a royal college for teachers might work and MPs on the Education Select Committee have backed the initiative, the BBC reports. One of the MPs on the committee, Charlotte Leslie, says it must be created by the teaching profession and not the government.

Dame Joan McVittie, a secondary head and former president of ASCL, said that any new professional body must avoid being seen as an arm of either the government or teachers’ unions and questioned how it would be funded.

The teaching unions are in favour. ASCL’s Brian Lightman wants it to be self-regulating and believes that its biggest challenge will be ‘to win the hearts and minds of the teaching profession’. Russell Hobby from the NAHT hopes it will provide an independent counter-weight to ‘destructive political interference’, while NASUWT’s Chris Keates wants a royal college to be a ‘standard bearer for teacher quality and excellence’.

The Education Secretary has also backed its formation, as a voice for the teaching profession in competition with unions. “There is a growing consensus that teachers should emulate other professions, and set up a new royal college – like the Royal College of Surgeons or Engineers – identifying, exemplifying and defining best practice in the teaching profession,” Mr. Gove said, and joked that “any endorsement from me might blight its chances”.

Would you like to see a royal college for teachers? Share your views with us!

“I have learnt so much from my volunteering experience”

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve learnt everything there is to learn about teaching, then going to teach in another country can be really eye-opening. You find different ways of doing things and different approaches that people can bring to a situation. It was definitely a real learning experience for me.

One of the great things about teaching in Nepal is that there isn’t a typical day – all the children are different, and they can surprise you on a daily basis.

“During my teaching career, VSO was always in the back of my mind”

I was aware of VSO’s work for a long time and always knew it was something I would really like to do. After taking early retirement in my 50s, I felt like it was time for a change and I went for it.

I wanted to continue to use the skills I had and do something I was familiar with, but also to continue to learn new things as well. Volunteering with VSO turned out to be a brilliant way to do both.

“I loved my two years in Nepal”

I volunteered as an education advisor in Nepal working with teachers, head teachers and the District Education Office, which was a great mix of different responsibilities. I also worked with the local community and the parents, encouraging their involvement with schools.

The Nepali education system was completely different from what I was used to, and so initially I spent some time finding out what the curriculum was like, what difficulties teachers had and how the children responded in lessons.

It was important to be sensitive to the different needs of the people you were working with. Once I got to know everyone I could pick up on the little things you can’t see when you first start out, which helps when you are suggesting new ideas and approaches.

“There is a lot that UK trained teachers can achieve”

Teachers in Nepal have a lot of freedom in what they can do in the classroom, but many of them lack the confidence to really take advantage of this. This is partly because they don’t receive a lot of initial training before they start teaching.

One of the ways my placement helped was in showing how you can get children to open up by allowing them the freedom to learn in an active way. I think enthusiastic teachers taught in the UK will have many valuable insights related to teaching that they can share with teachers in other parts of the world.

As well as working with teachers individually, I was able to speak to head teachers about ways they can motivate their staff and also discuss with the District Education Office ways to help children with special needs. VSO aims to create lasting change through its placements, which is why the teachers that they recruit mainly work as advisors as this helps to reach more children in the long run.

“I’ve really missed the life I had in Nepal”

When I arrived in Nepal there were so many sounds and smells that were unfamiliar. It’s a really colourful place. Now that I’m back in the UK everyone is wearing grey or black, and I do miss the vibrancy you get in Nepal.

I still keep in touch with my Nepali friends and get regular updates on the progress they are making. There is one particular school that a colleague and I are raising money for in the UK. It has been great to continue to be involved with the work I did out there.

I’m now involved in lots of work for local charities, but in so many ways I’m tempted to do it all over again and volunteer overseas once more!

To learn more about life as a VSO volunteer, visit their Eteach Career Site following this link, and register with their talent pool to be alerted to future jobs.

Speaking at the Spectator Education Conference, Michael Gove proposed that pupils in England should study for longer hours and take shorter school holidays. The suggestion from the education secretary, as quoted by The Telegraph and other national media, was that:

“If you look at the length of the school day in England, the length of the summer holiday – and we compare it to the extra tuition and support that children are receiving elsewhere – then we are fighting or actually running in this global race in a way that ensures that we start with a significant handicap.”

In fact Michael Gove’s figures are disputed: the average total number of “intended instruction hours” for OECD countries (PDF) in 2011 was apparently 6,732 hours, whereas English pupils already spend around 7,250 hours in the classroom; Japanese students spend around 6,300 hours ‘being instructed’, while Koreans spend just less than 6,000, and Finland – one of the top-performing in PISA tests – a mere 5,750 hours.

Finnish teachers are highly valued

What are the other differences with the Finnish system which seems so successful? In a BBC comparison between various countries earlier in the year, Prof Kristiina Kumpulainen from the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki, set out a few.

Teachers, she said, are highly valued and respected in Finland, with a masters qualification needed even to teach at primary level.

She described the typical classroom as a “very interactive space where pupils can challenge the teacher”; classes are between 15 and 25 across primary and secondary, and the environment is relaxed and educationally supportive “where children are granted authority and accountability in and for learning”.

And now, relax…

And competition is also a factor according to the professor, who said: “There are no national examinations or rankings. We don’t have that culture of comparing schools. If a school is not doing well it is not closed down. It is given more resources.”

This 2012 BBC video report ‘Relaxed vs strict: Which type of education is best?’ takes a closer look at a relaxed class in Finland, and speaks to teacher Marjaana Arovaara, who describes herself to her pupils as their “school mother”. The video contrasts this with the exam-orientated ‘achievement hot-houses’ of South Korea (which also scores well on OECD Pisa), and a school in Brazil which takes three ‘shifts’ of pupils a day..

Should we adopt a more relaxed teaching style like Finland, where pupils even learn about relaxation and call their teacher by their first name? Or should we rather take a more exam-orientated approach like South Korea? Discuss!

A new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) reveals that the Coalition spent £8.3 billion on the academies programme between 2010 and 2012, and £1 billion of this was over budget, The Independent reports.

As a result, £350 million has been cut from other education services including:

• £95 million from the school improvement programme
• £100 million from under-performing schools.
• £100 million from 16-19 year-olds to stay on at school

The Public Accounts Committee describes a system riddled with overspends and errors, but subject to little oversight. Part of the overspend was due to the increase in the number of academies – from about 200 in 2010 to more than 2,886 two years later – and the number of central staff overseeing their finance doubling.

NAO head Amyas Morse said: “A tenfold increase in the number of academies since May 2010 is a significant achievement. However, the department wasn’t sufficiently prepared for the financial implications of such a rapid expansion or for the challenge of overseeing and monitoring such a large number of academies.”

Martin Johnson, ATL’s deputy general secretary, commented: “We are appalled by the gung-ho attitude of ministers to ensuring value for money for children, parents, schools and tax-payers; they don’t know whether the academies programme is value-for-money and have no plans to find out.”

A DfE spokesman defended the overspend: “We make no apology for the fact that more schools than even we had imagined have opted to convert [to academies], and no apology for spending money on a programme that is proven to drive up standards and make long-term school improvements.”

Does the success of the academies programme justify the overspend? Has your school suffered because of cuts to other education services?

Michael Gove wants pupils to spend more hours at school each day, arguing that a longer school day is the norm in successful East Asian education systems, the BBC reports.

He also wants holidays to be shorter, claiming that current school terms were designed for ‘an agricultural economy’. The Education Secretary said that some academies are already running longer school days or changing the structure of school terms, and that a longer school day would be more family friendly.

ATL’s Mary Bousted accused Mr. Gove of point scoring: “Despite official figures showing that the average teacher works more than 11 hours of unpaid overtime each week, despite most teachers having to prepare and mark work in the evening and at weekends and despite many teachers voluntarily coming in during school holidays because they care about the future of their pupils, the Secretary of State says that schools should be open longer.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, has said that MPs are not spending enough time in Westminster: “Members of the public would be forgiven for thinking that it is MPs who are lazy and that it is parliament that is failing to provide good value for money,” she said. Mrs. Hodge urged the Coalition to extend the number of days MPs sit from fewer than 140 days this year, as ‘it feels as if we are hardly working’.

What do you think of Michael Gove wanting you to work longer hours, especially when the time MPs spend in the Commons has been reduced?