It’s been a busy month, and with the media bursting with education news, we take our regular look at stories making the headlines around the world. From moves to increase the length of the school day, high-tech ways to stop smart phone exam cheats and a teacher who found he was a billionaire, see what’s got people talking. Join in and share your views.

Complaints over cougar mascots

Corner Canyon High School in Utah, USA, has ditched its ‘Cougar’ mascot name after receiving complaints from parents, says CNN. A vote by pupils had given the school mascot the name of Corner Canyon Cougars, but some parents thought this was ‘derogatory’ as the word is now used to refer to older women who date younger men.

Massage start to the day causes controversy

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Education Secretary Michael Gove has announced a radical shake-up of the ICT curriculum, along with a focus on training for teachers to make sure they have the skills and knowledge needed to use technology confidently. So is it a long overdue change, or an unrealistic headline spinner? Are ICT lessons really ‘boring’ – and is the government simply ‘washing its hands of ICT’, as some have suggested? Read more, and share your views on the blog.

The government is opening a consultation on withdrawing the existing National Curriculum Programme of Study for ICT from September this year.

Open source curriculum

ICT will remain compulsory at all key stages of the curriculum, and the existing Programme of Study will remain available for reference, but schools will no longer be forced to follow it.

Speaking at the BETT education trade fair, which focuses on educational technology, he announced plans to embrace and capitalise on technological developments for learning, teaching and assessment.

“Technology is already bringing about a profound transformation in education, in ways that we can see before our very eyes and in others that we haven’t even dreamt of yet,” he said (taken from his speech as reported by the Guardian. “It’s clear that technology is going to bring profound changes to how and what we teach. But it’s equally clear that we have not yet managed to make the most of it.”

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Following on from our feature on St. George’s School in Switzerland, we speak to Hazel Hogg, who lives with her husband and her daughters Morven (11), Rowan (8) and Alexa (3) in France – practically on the border with Switzerland, where they enjoy stunning views of the Alps and Lake Geneva.  Her children attend the International School of Geneva. Here Hazel talks about living overseas, and tells us more about choosing this school for her children. Read more.

Could you explain how you came to be living in France, and why you chose an international school for your children?

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Eteach’s Gerry Hillier-Manolas attended the latest event hosted by the Council of British International Schools, for the launch of Quality Standards and voluntary inspection for British Schools Overseas. Here she reflects on lessons learned about successfully launching a new product or service.

On Thursday 15^th September I had the pleasure of being the guest of my CEO Paul Howells as we attended the latest event to be hosted by the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). It was here I learnt the recipe for ensuring the instant success and support for the launch of a new service or product. All credit goes to Executive Director Colin Bell, the COBIS Committee and their team. Their reception to mark the successful launch of Quality Standards and voluntary inspection for British Schools Overseas was definitely ‘Gold Standard’ and worth the equivalent of a Michelin Star.

Michael Gove

I realised you must start with launching your product or service at a venue that is highly exclusive, well known and full of prestige. In our case it was the Attlee Room in the House of Lords.

To ensure a full complement and punctuality from your guests, choose a weekday and an early evening start. Attendees will be delighted to have the excuse leave their offices a little early in order arrive on

time.

Line up as many well-known speakers as possible, but only give them a couple of minutes each to talk.

Ours were: the Minister of Education Michael Gove and Hon. Vice –President of COBIS Alastair, Lord Lexden – both experienced in this procedure.

Eteach CEO Paul Howells

Mouth-watering entrees

Sprinkle the event with a few glasses of quality wine; ours was sponsored by Eteach, along with some mouth-watering entrees expertly served by a professional team.

Blend together your carefully selected guest list. Ours included senior representatives of government and its agencies, COBIS educational members, training and service organisations,

NGO’s corporate clients, approved inspectorates and the educational media. Leave to steep for an hour or so.

La crème de la crème!

Our result was a crisp cocktail of professionals who were able to discuss and promote the many advantages of an independent inspection system for British International Schools. This included the importance for COBIS member schools this Gold Mark to differentiate themselves from those just calling themselves ‘British’.  By upholding the highest standards

expected by the approved Inspection Teams and COBIS itself, both parents and teachers are able to choose schools with complete confidence. These schools can then promote themselves and the British education system they provide with

confidence, and know they truly are ‘la crème de la crème!’

And as we all know from celebrity cooks ‘the cream always rises to the top’……

Attendance certificates often penalise children who have absolutely no control over whether they can attain the required standard, and perpetuate a gung-ho culture, argues Annette Jenkins.

I asked my daughter’s friend when she came round for tea what she’d done at school that day. The almost inevitable “Nothing much” was the reply!

With a little coaxing, however, she revealed that attendance certificates had been given out, but reported that she hadn’t received one.

What had prevented her attending, I asked. It seems her family had taken some extra holiday, so of course her attendance record had not been up to par.

Unnecessarily penalising children

Now most of the school children I know have little or no say about when their parents or carers choose to book their holidays, and many families need to take some of their holidays outside of usual school vacation periods to be able to afford one at all.

Likewise, children don’t have much input over when they fall ill, and have to remain at home or even in hospital, and therefore have no opportunity to win the dangled carrot. To lump a child who breaks a limb – or indeed has had to take time out for any other illness – with the kids who skive, is unnecessarily penalising them.

But the premise of attendance certificates, which is presumably that the more children go to school the more they will ‘achieve’, is questionable. (Others would go further, and suggest that the ‘reward culture’ of certificates, stickers and charts, and even positive reinforcement, is generally detrimental to development.)

Gung-ho attitude

Attendance certificate culture also perpetuates the gung-ho attitude that people should struggle in to school or work, no matter how terrible they’re feeling, dosed up to the eyeballs on Lemsip or other drugs and ready to knock out their peers by spreading their lurgy to all and sundry; how that might affect overall attendance isn’t widely mentioned.

One website reported that when a school sent a child home for looking ill, it then said she’d missed a day and couldn’t have her certificate! There are other extreme reports of children prevented from attending an awards disco with their peers because they’d had time off – because a parent had died.

The small proportion of people that this system is presumably designed to motivate – the malingerers, no-shows, runaways, shirkers, skivers and their families – probably couldn’t give a fig about Gold, Silver or even Bronze attendance certificates. 

It’s true that in life not everyone can win every prize, but to create a system of prizes that many children have no hope of winning through no fault of their own seems particularly pernicious.