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The Government is hoist by its own petard over the delay to delivering this year’s national curriculum test results. It cannot pretend that the delay, caused by the new system which led to the papers being collected centrally and then farmed out to markers, is anything but serious in view of the importance it has attached to the test results.

To that extent, the decision to set up an inquiry into what went wrong is to be welcomed. It should be noted that the previous system, under which the scripts were sent to the markers without the involvement of a private company, had never failed to deliver the test results for 7, 11 and 14-year-olds on time and the question should be asked as to whether we go back to that system. Of course, the fact that the new system has failed to deliver on time does not have any effect on the argument as to whether we should retain the external national curriculum tests system – even though it has probably caused a wry smile amongst its opponents.

On that, we stand where we always have done – that a national system of testing children at 11 when they leave primary school is desirable and should remain but one which tests them at 14 could easily be carried out by internal assessment through teaching staff. League tables of 14-year-olds’ test results are also an irrelevant waste of time – no parent will be swayed by them, they will concentrate on a school’s A-level or GCSE results instead.

It could be argued that the system would become more manageable if there was only one set of national curriculum results to deliver – namely those for 11-year-olds. However, that is a secondary argument to the educational argument that the external tests for 14-year-olds are not necessary in the first place. We look forward to the results of the independent inquiry delivering recommendations for a more robust system of delivery for the test results next year. However, we would look forward more confidently if the Government in the near future were to grasp the nettle and accept the arguments being put forward by almost everybody else in the education community – that our national curriculum testing system needs slimming down.

Once it was normal for children to cycle to school - but now only a tiny minority do. Andy Sharman meets the people who’re steering the Government’s £55m drive to put pupils back on two wheels

Four pm on a busy road in Bedford and cars are sitting bumper to bumper. It’s a scene played out in urban centres across England each morning and evening, as adults drive in and out of work, and children get ferried to and from school. One in five of these cars is doing trips of less than two miles.

Just off this main artery, which runs out towards the Bedford suburb of Biddenham, is St Gregory’s RC Middle School. It is here that Jason Falconer is leading a group of seven young cyclists on the playground – and leading the fight against the gridlock at the end of the road.

Falconer is the Bike It officer for Bedford, Luton and St Albans and he is on the front line in the battle to get our children cycling. Every day he boards a train with his folding bicycle to visit schools in the three cities to promote cycling. This can involve anything from "Dr Bike" sessions, where he helps children service their bikes, to Bikeability classes – cycling proficiency for the 21st century (see box) – and even classroom lessons covering health, geography and history.

"I’m 37 now," says Falconer, "but when I was at school, cycling and walking were absolutely the norm. In fact, if one of your mates was dropped off in the car, especially at Year 7 in secondary school, you’d be like, ‘aaaagh!’ – they would be shamed because, why are they getting dropped off? Can’t they make their own way around? But it’s reversed a bit hasn’t it?"

From being the norm a generation ago, cycling is now seen as a lost art. Less than 1 per cent of the distance travelled on British roads is done by bike, down from around a third in the 1940s and Fifties. On average, only 2 per cent of children cycle to school; some put the figure even lower.

But the rot is about to be stopped if the Government gets its way. In January this year, £140m was pledged by Ruth Kelly, Transport Secretary, to be channelled through the co-ordinating body Cycling England, over three years. Of this money, £55m will go towards cycling in schools. This will cover the costs of training cycling instructors up to the national standard; promoting sports partnership schemes such as Go-Ride, run by British Cycling; and paying the equivalent of £40 a child over three years for schools and local authorities to get children up to Bikeability Level 2, which says they are safe to use their bikes on the roads.

Cycling has of late been establishing more of a presence in the national transport budget. Since 2005, six UK towns have been showcasing what local authorities can do with funding (£500,000). Last week, 11 new demonstration towns were announced, including cycle-mad Cambridge and Falconer’s home town of Blackpool, while Bristol was unveiled as Britain’s first "cycling city". And, most importantly for schools, each new flagship town will get a Bike It officer, showing just how respected this scheme is.

"This has been a fantastically successful programme," says Phillip Darnton of Cycling England. Bike It schools have routinely been quadrupling the number of children regularly cycling to school. In Aylesbury, one of the previous wave of demonstration towns, the percentage of children cycling to Bike It schools increased from 3 per cent to 12 per cent in a year. Twelve per cent might not seem a lot, but Darnton is stoical.

"We’re not talking about being able to get every school pupil cycling to school come rain or shine every day," he says. "But if we get just 20 children cycling in a school, it becomes an OK thing to do. It’s about that critical mass. If we could get 5 per cent of trips to school done on bicycles we would have transformed the traffic in most cities."

Bike It is run by the sustainable transport charity Sustrans, which tries to help pupils overcome whatever it is that prevents them from cycling to school.

More often not, this is a combination of three things: concerns over bike parking, lack of knowledge about safe routes to school, and fears over road safety.

"Parents need to have their concerns addressed," says Falconer. "Children need to see how fun and easy it is to use the bike for school journeys. We don’t go in and say, ‘Right, you can go and ride on the nearest road available.’ We very much look at the circumstances of the school, and always are looking for the best routes, the best paths."

To help in this, Falconer often teaches cycling-related lessons during school hours – all as part of the curriculum. He does map-reading sessions for geography where children find the best cycling routes to school – he’s a trained orienteering coach. He does personal, social and health education (PSHE), in which he tests the heart rates of children, simulating driving, walking and cycling. He does design and technology where the class studies the bicycle. And he delivers history lessons, too, including on the Victorians and how the bicycle helped in the fight for women’s suffrage.

All this helps to give children a grounding in cycling culture, not bike safety, pure and simple. "It makes you fit and if you fall off, you just get on again and laugh about it!" says Molly Robertson, 12, who is in Year 7 at St Gregory’s. "In the future, people might not have a planet like ours is now – it’ll be really warm and trees and plants will die. Cycling’s good because it doesn’t use any petrol or fossil fuels."

But however much the children get the message, the general consensus is that it’s the parents who need convincing. How else can you explain Cycling England surveys that suggest that as many as half of nine to 12-year-olds would like to cycle to school, but nothing like that proportion actually do?

"I don’t feel I’m fighting a losing battle, but I think there is a lot of ground to be won," says Barbara North, who is deputy head of St Gregory’s and responsible for the healthy schools agenda. "I think that children take the example from the people that they’re with most of the time – their families – and I think you would find very few of their families would actually go out cycling together."

It’s here that Bike It can really make a difference and it offers Sustrans a unique forum to spread the word to parents and children. "Schools are a very important place to work because, at the school gates, you’ve got an opportunity to communicate with parents and kids at the same time," says Paul Osborne, director of school travel for Sustrans. "It’s a captive audience."

The ultimate aim for Bike It schools is the creation of a sustainable cycling culture. But really, it comes down to simply getting children cycling to school.

"We say to parents and children, ‘You could cycle to school,’ and they say, ‘Ah, but’," adds Darnton. "We wanted to remove all the ‘Ah, buts’ and that’s what the Bike It officers do. And, hopefully, all that’s left will be ‘OK, go on then.’"

To find out more about the Bike It project, visit www.sustrans.org.uk/bikeit or call 0117 915 0100

Cycling Proficiency to Bikeability: the history of cycling in schools

Cycling organisations first began pressing for cycle training on the school curriculum in the 1930s. But it wasn’t until 1958 that the National Cycling Proficiency Scheme was introduced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The programme was led by volunteers – teachers, policemen, road safety officers, pensioners – and taught bicycle control skills, largely in the playground, and largely by rote. The aim was to raise awareness of the Highway Code and highlight the dangers involved in cycling. In 1974, local authorities became responsible for cycle training for children. Some local authorities scrapped cycle training, others carried on with their own schemes, some stuck with a little bit of cycling proficiency.

By the millennium, cycling proficiency varied massively. Cycle Training UK led the review that produced, for the first time, a national standard. Bikeability is now the national standard scheme for the training of children on bikes.

Rather than warning of the dangers, Bikeablitiy aims to enourage cycling to school. It tries to teach children in real conditions about road positioning, communication and route planning. Level 1 deals with control – starting off, emergency stops and using gears; level 2 deals with simple road journeys; and level 3 is for roundabouts, multiple-lane roads and traffic lights.

It is taught by dedicated cycling instructors trained to a professional standard, such as Bike It officers.

It aims at a more practical, flexible style of teaching and encourages assertive behaviour on the roads.

Cycling England wants every child in England to have had the opportunity to do Bikeability to level 2 by 2012.

Children as young as four should be given compulsory sex education, two leading sexual health charities say.

The Family Planning Association and Brook told BBC Newsbeat more should be done to cut abortion rates and sexually transmitted infections among teenagers.

They argue gradual education from such a young age would help children not to rush into sex when they were older.

The Department for Children, Schools and Family said it was reviewing the

delivery of sex education in schools.

 Children aged four might be taught about the names of body parts and basic ideas about different relationships.

The government is not giving young people enough information about sex and relationships, the charities add.

‘High expectations’

Brook chief executive Simon Blake said: "Many young people are having sex because they want to find out what it is, because they were drunk or because their mates were.

"That’s just not good enough for young people. We’ve got to have high expectations for them so they’ve got high expectations for themselves."

He added: "All the evidence shows that if you start sex and relationships education early - before children start puberty, before they feel sexual attraction - they start having sex later.

The basic sex education that children are given in science classes does not go far enough, the charities say.

They want sex and relationship education on the curriculum across the UK alongside other compulsory subjects such as maths and English, as is the case in Northern Ireland.

The DCSF said effective sex and relationships education is essential for young people to make safe and healthy choices about their lives and prevent early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

A spokesman added that an advisory group on the issue would be making recommendations on new policy to the government later this month.

Sixteen-year-old Bethany, from Norwich told BBC News she had not understood the consequences of having sex early on.

"I didn’t know I could get pregnant," she said. "I think if they started introducing sex education a bit earlier and teaching us a bit more about it so that we were more aware it would have helped me a lot."

Primary school children as young as five are to be given an early insight into the work of William Shakespeare.

A government initiative will see schools in England being sent a support package including DVDs of adaptations of his plays in its original language.

Guidance in the form of a booklet called Shakespeare For All Ages and Stages will be sent to all schools.

Schools minister Jim Knight said the Bard’s work should be enjoyed as much as possible from a young age.

The booklet includes tips on bringing the writing of Shakespeare alive for children from the age of five to 16.

And pupils in some secondary schools will get the chance of seeing a live Shakespeare performance.

‘Inspiring’

Mr Knight said Shakespeare was the most famous playwright of all time and his work was studied all over the world.

He said: "It is fitting then that his work is a protected part of the curriculum in the country he came from."

Already all children have to study one complete Shakespeare play in secondary school.

"But I want to go further to ensure that Shakespeare can be enjoyed as much as possible and from a younger age," he said.

Mick Waters of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said: "Teachers can make young people’s experience of Shakespeare an inspiring one and nurture a lifelong interest in the playwright.

"But getting to grips with Shakespeare’s verse is a challenge for teachers and young people alike.

"’Shakespeare For All Ages and Stages’ will help by suggesting a range of innovative and practical ideas to help bring Shakespeare alive in the classroom."

‘See it live’

Ian McNeilly from the National Association for the Teaching of English said: "Some of the language in the plays would be beyond pupils under a certain age, but the earlier children are introduced to Shakespeare the better.

"It’s all down to the approach. You can bore people of any age with the wrong approach and you can enthuse people of any age with the correct one."

Acting director of education at the Royal Shakespeare Company Jacqui O’Hanlon said many secondaries and primaries were already teaching Shakespeare in an inspirational way.

"In our manifesto for Shakespeare in schools, Stand up for Shakespeare, we call for young people to do Shakespeare on their feet, see it live and start it earlier."

These principles were very clearly in evidence in the new scheme, she said.

BY Hannah Richardson Education reporter, BBC News Website

Nearly 2,500 schools are set to take part in England’s first national schools festival designed to showcase talent in young people.

Thousands of events will take place across the country as part of Shine week, in which almost 350 different talents will be celebrated.

Schools secretary Ed Balls said he hoped the festival would "unlock young people’s potential".

The festival will take place in schools from 30 June to 4 July.

About one million students are expected to participate in the festival, and almost 350 different skills in dance, music, film, sport and science have been identified by the young people themselves.

Talents being celebrated range from the invention of a recyclable orchestra and the creation of the next generation of Wallace and Gromit animation, to caring and leadership.

Celebrity support

Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said he had witnessed many activities in schools which were designed to "unlock young people’s potential".

"Every parent will agree with me that all children have a talent and I hope Shine will allow schools to bring every child together in a festival week and join the national campaign," he said.

Celebrity supporters of Shine include singer Alesha Dixon, Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Peter Jones, Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes and Olympic diving hopeful Tom Daley.

Last year’s Young BBC Sports Personality Tom Daley said: "I’m really proud to be supporting Shine so that schools and young people can have their talents recognised.

"I was spotted at my local swimming pool a year after I started diving, and now I’m preparing to represent my country at the Beijing and London Olympics."

Pupils, aged 7, could be asked to sign exam ‘honesty codes’
 
Children as young as seven could be asked to sign "honesty codes" at their schools in a plan to cut down on cheating in national curriculum tests and exams.

The "honesty codes" system, widely in use in the United States, could be introduced in primary as well as secondary schools, and universities, to stamp out plagiarism and cheating, said Isabel Nisbet, acting chief executive of Ofqual, the school exams watchdog. Parents would be sent a letter spelling out unacceptable behaviour in exams, under the proposals.

Ms Nisbet, who was addressing a conference on plagiarism at Northumbria University in Newcastle yesterday, said: "They [the children] sign up to a code which determines what’s acceptable practice and what’s not. The fact that they’re signing up to it focuses the mind on it.

"It is used in higher education – particularly in the States but it can work with very young children, too. After all, they have to make a difficult transition from working in groups together to suddenly being told they’re on their own and they mustn’t look at other children’s. They can grasp the concept of ‘this should be my work’."

The codes, which could cover national curriculum tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds, GCSEs, A-levels and degrees, would promote "virtue" in exam practice, she said, adding afterwards in an interview with The Independent: "I would welcome their use. I think we could learn from them."

The conference heard that Ofqual, newly set up to act as an exams regulator independent from the Government, will produce a new set of rules next spring about acceptable practice in exams. They will be drafted in tandem with plagiarism specialists from Northumbria University and sent to parents to tell them how far they can go in helping children with their coursework for GCSE exams.

"I heard of a case where a father thought it was wrong to pencil in things on the internet that might help his child with his science coursework but was quite happy to take him to the Science Museum and say ‘This could be helpful to your studies’. I’m not sure there’s any difference in the two cases. What is wrong, though, is if the parent ends up writing any part of the coursework themselves."

Ms Nisbet warned of the pressures on teachers to "bump up" the marks of youngsters who were borderline D/C grade passes at GCSE because of the importance of getting more A* to C grade passes to rank highly in league tables.

She said stern disciplinary action should be taken if it was found that teachers had been overhelpful in the production of a child’s coursework.

She produced figures which showed there had been 4,258 cases of malpractice in last year’s GCSE exams – just 0.06 per cent of the total papers.

However, research in the UK found that while only between four and seven per cent of students admitted cheating, 40 per cent said they knew of someone who had cheated in an exam.

In the US, the figures were higher, with 54 per cent of undergraduates admitting cheating and approximately 60 per cent saying they knew someone who had cheated.

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Wednesday, 25 June 2008

 A review of two key goals on literacy levels among young children in England has been announced - two months before they were due to come into effect.

Ministers wanted all five-year-olds to be able to write simple words and make attempts at more complex ones.

They also wanted them to be able to write their own names and begin to use simple sentences, sometimes with punctuation, by September 2008.

But evidence suggests only 46% can do the first, and some 30% the second.

Government education adviser Sir Jim Rose has been asked to consider, as part of his primary review, how appropriate these aims are for children at around the age of five.

It will also look at evidence showing when it is realistic for children to achieve them and how best to ensure children progress well between reception class and the first full year of primary.

‘Tick box’

The announcement comes after a panel of experts set up to advise on education policy for the under-fives was reported to have demanded radical changes to the targets, which they described as "overly ambitious for most children".

The goals were due to come into force in September as part of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum which provides a framework for early learning and the care of children from birth to five.

Ministers argue that the framework does not prescribe the way that childcare providers should operate day to day, but does contain "early learning goals" which children should be helped towards.

However, critics say it is too prescriptive and encourages a "tick box" approach from providers.

Children’s Minister Beverley Hughes said: "We have always said that we will keep the EYFS under review, which is why I have asked Sir Jim Rose to look at two of the early learning goals on children’s literacy at around the age of five, and report on how well they support a smooth transition into Key Stage 1 of primary school."

The Open EYE education campaign has been running a petition on the Downing Street website which has more than 7,000 signatures.

It suggested the EYFS could harm children’s development, restrict parents’ freedom of choice in childcare and education and place unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on those who care for young children.

Dr Richard House of the campaign said: "Just because some children can be drilled into meeting essentially arbitrary literacy targets at age five says nothing whatsoever about whether they are developmentally appropriate.

"There is simply no existing evidence that these goals are appropriate for five-year-olds, and plenty of evidence to the contrary - so the government is effectively playing grossly irresponsible Russian roulette with our young children’s early learning."

Liberal Democrat children’s spokeswoman Annette Brooke said the announcement was long overdue.

She said: "The new curriculum risks imposing a tick-box mentality upon the early years workforce and ministers should instead focus on driving up the quality of early years provision.

"The implementation of the whole framework must now be carefully monitored. Inspectors who understand early learning and the ways in which different types of setting can aid a child’s development need to be used to ensure there is quality control."

She tabled a parliamentary motion raising concerns about the prescriptive nature of the Learning and Development Requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

It also noted that children must be provided with a solid foundation in socialisation, listening and speaking skills, and fine motor skills before proceeding to the demands of reading and writing.

And shadow families minister Maria Miller said ministers’ approach to early years just involves more and more bureaucracy and a complicated process of jumping through hoops to favour a fortunate few.

"The focus should be on making sure trained professionals are in place to help young children with reading and writing."

Plans to introduce language learning in every primary school in England have taken a step forward, with the announcement of pilot projects and a new national director for teaching languages.

(source www.bbc.co.uk)

The Early Years Minister, Catherine Ashton, says that this is laying the foundations for a "languages revolution", which will reverse negative attitudes toward learning languages.

There have been longstanding concerns about the lack of modern language skills - and the government has a target to provide language lessons for 7 to 11 year olds by the end of the decade.

And as part of this effort to bridge the skills gap in languages, the minister announced 19 "pathfinder" areas which will take part in pilot projects.

From September, there will also be a new National Director for Languages, Dr Lid King, who is currently director of the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research.

The pilot schemes will be expected to find ways to introduce foreign language teaching, swapping ideas and building networks which will contribute to a national roll-out.

Among the practical problems for authorities will be finding sufficient modern languages teachers - as secondary schools have already faced shortages of language teachers.

It could mean the recruitment of more native French speakers who would act as classroom assistants.

The lack of language teachers has reflected a falling number of modern languages graduates, with a lack of students threatening the future of language courses in several universities.

Languages optional

The shortage of students wanting to study languages at university has in turn been blamed on the lack of A-level language students.

The government wants to break this cycle of decline by introducing languages teaching at an earlier age.

But as part of its reforms of the secondary school curriculum, pupils will no longer have to study languages beyond the age of 14.

"In the past, children have not started to learn languages until secondary school, when for many children it is too late," said Baroness Ashton.

"This has meant that only 39% of 15-year-old pupils taking a foreign language in 2002 achieved grades A* -C, while only 11% of 16-18 year olds chose to take a language A level in 2002 and only 2% of undergraduates were studying a language in 2001/02.

"We want to make sure that children are excited by languages by the time they get to secondary school so they have a real choice to take their studies further."

The 19 "pathfinder" areas, which will begin work in September, will be Barking and Dagenham, Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bury; Coventry; East Riding; Enfield; Hammersmith and Fulham, Hampshire, Kent, Knowsley, Liverpool, Norfolk, North Tyneside, Nottinghamshire, Oldham, Richmond upon Thames, Sheffield and Lancashire.

A fun day was had for all at the J.U.M.P fun day. It was a pleasure that 3DKids had an opportunity to work with the organizers of J.U.M.P and to help out in the community. The 3DKids Cameras were out in force as we set up to take lots of pictures for everyone to see.

We would like to say thank you to the organizers of J.U.M.P for all there help in coordinating our inclusion in the fun day. We would also like to say a big thank you to all the people that turned up to fun day and had their photo’s taken with our special 3D camera.