SCHOOLS

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The location of a new £2.8m city primary school is set to be on green wedge land in Alvaston Park. The 350-place school will replace the existing Wilmorton Community Primary School, in London Road, and Southgate Infant School, in Brighton Road, by 2006. It is one of five new schools being built in the city under a £44m private finance initiative but the only one requiring a new location. Inadequate buildings at Wilmorton and falling pupil numbers at Southgate led to the decision to merge. A consultation exercise took place in March asking parents and residents which of three possible sites they preferred.

Choices included land to the west of Pride Parkway and open space off Crewton Street. A total of 153 replies were received and just over half identified Alvaston Park as their first choice, but Andrew Flack, city education director, said the Government could still have to make the final decision on the future planning application because the school would be built on green wedge land. Under the terms of the private finance agreement, the school will be leased from a private company by the city council for 25 years and then revert back to council ownership.

Parents may face fines and even jail if they fail to keep their children in education until the age of 18. Gordon Brown is considering ways of compelling youngsters to stay on at school or training past 16. Officials are examining how far parents should be made to take responsibility for ensuring their children carry on with their studies, which could be school or work based. They are considering extending current legal sanctions designed to stop children truanting up to the age of 16, which include landing parents with fines of up to £2,500 or three months' imprisonment.

Alternatively, teenagers themselves could face financial penalties, in the form of cuts to their unemployment benefits, for dropping out before they reach 18. Treasury officials said 16 to 18-year-olds who shun education or training are likely to be "considered truants" when the switch to a higher school leaving age comes into force in 2013. But the proposal to penalise parents triggered an immediate backlash, with critics branding the plan unworkable. They claimed that thousands of teenagers would simply leave home to avoid the new rules.

The Chancellor is also considering an expansion of controversial "education maintenance allowances" which are paid directly into youngsters' bank accounts if they agree to carry on beyond 16. Currently the payments are up to £30 weekly, depending on their household income, but in future the sums could increase. Around a third of youngsters receive them at present, although the proportion could rise in future. The scheme is already costing the public purse more than £400million a year. Mr Brown also promised to double the number of apprenticeships to 500,000. (Source: Daily Mail, Jan/07)

Chellaston School wanted to give priority to pupils whose homes had the oldest listing in the Land Registry but that could have meant excluding those in newer homes in Chellaston and Melbourne. Instead, the school will have to give priority to pupils who would have to travel furthest to another school.

Derby City Council said the original proposal was unfair and had made a formal objection to the admissions watchdog, the Office of the Schools' Adjudicator. The adjudicator, Dr Phillip Hunter, said that it should instead state in its admissions policy that, "When choices have to be made between children meeting the same criteria, preference will be given to children who would have to travel furthest to an alternative school."

This means that pupils in Melbourne or the surrounding villages, who are some miles from an alternative school, could take priority over someone living a shorter distance, such as in East Chellaston or Shelton Lock. The adjudicator also upheld the city council's objection to the school's criterion that requires parents and guardians to have a lease or rental agreement of not less than six months for their homes.

This will now be replaced with a need for parents to provide proof of purchase of their home, or a council tax bill and a bank statement, or service bill showing their address. Councillor Sara Bolton, the city council cabinet member for children's services, welcomed the adjudicator's verdict saying, "We'll work with the school to ensure that as many children as possible, from the normal catchment area, are admitted in future years." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Jun/06)

Gang culture is rife in 20% of schools and nearly 40% of them have a problem with pupils carrying weapons. A study by the Office of Standards in Education found that children's behaviour was getting more out of control. Its report said, "The behaviour of some pupils, usually boys, remains a serious concern for many schools." Drug abuse was a "daily challenge", it claimed. Only 68% of secondary schools rate pupils' behaviour as "good or better", down from 75% in 2000. The report said, "Gang culture was perceived as widespread in one in five secondary schools visited."

It said extreme violence was rare but added, "Incidents of verbal and physical abuse aimed at peers are a problem in most schools. The most common form of poor behaviour is persistent low-level disruption of lessons that wears down staff and interrupts learning." Chief Inspector of Schools David Bell said there needed to be better teaching and training to improve discipline. He said, "Although the majority of schools are orderly places where children behave well it is worrying that unsatisfactory behaviour has not reduced over time." Schools Standards Minister Stephen Twigg said, "We are supporting schools in showing zero tolerance to any bad behaviour." But there was anger at the Department of Education at the tone of the report which is based on visits to just 15 schools. A spokesman said, "There were a small number which reported a perception in gang culture." (Source: The Mirror)

School exam chiefs are to remove all risk of failure from key national tests by replacing the current F for "fail" grade with an N for "nearly". The changes include instructions that markers are to grade maths exam answers as either "creditworthy" or "not creditworthy" instead of correct or incorrect. Guidelines explaining the changes were sent by the Government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to the markers of national curriculum exams.

A QCA spokesman denied that the marking scheme blurred the distinction between passing and failing. The spokesman said the use of "creditworthy" was justified because some answers to maths questions were worth several marks and it was possible to gain some marks even if the final answer was wrong. He admitted, however, that many questions had only a single answer and that in those cases "when we say it's not creditworthy then I suppose we do mean it's wrong".

Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, described the changes as "political correctness gone stark raving bonkers". He said the educational establishment had become afraid to use the words right, wrong and fail. The use of words such as creditworthy, non-creditworthy and nearly by markers did "a disservice to our children because they represent a refusal to accept reality". (Source: Daily Telegraph)

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