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Monday 11 September 2006
Libby Purves presents this week's edition of the Learning Curve
TRANSITION
In the first of a new series we look at the transition to secondary school.
Reporter, Debbie Manners, has been to South Dartmoor Community College to find out how the new pupils are adjusting.
Libby Purves speaks to Professor Bob Burden of the University of Exeter. His survey shows pupils who are about to make the transition from primary to secondary school have less to fear than they think.
In Edinburgh, a linked cluster of two high schools and eight primaries found a combined activities day on neutral ground eased the trauma of transition and leaving friends.
Libby is also joined by Avril Wilson, Deputy Head Teacher at South Morningside Primary, who is responsible for transition work linked to the joint Boroughmuir/James Gillespie High school cluster.
First Aid
You many remember at the end of last series we featured a St John's Ambulance First Aid course for schools. Listen Again.
Now, the British Red Cross has taken up the cudgel of teaching children first aid... following a survey they say ALL children should learn first aid at school.
OXBRIDGE APPLICATIONS
The last few years Oxford and Cambridge have been at pains to change their elitist image and encourage more students from state schools to apply. Gains have certainly been made but it's an uphill struggle. According to new research from Oxbridge Applications, a company set up specifically to help students get into Oxford and Cambridge, many students from state schools still believe that Oxbridge is not for them and the numbers of students from the state sector applying is still relatively low. The figures bear this out. Less than 10% of British children are privately educated and yet they make up almost 50% of the Oxbridge student body. James Uffindell, founder of Oxbridge Applications, joins Libby Purves to explain the process.
EDUCATION ROUND UP
Tomorrow, at the 138th Trades Union Congress, the focus is on Education. Mike Baker, Education Correspondent, BBC News, has been looking ahead to see what the professions' main preoccupations are.
Motions being put forward include: assaults on public sector workers, workplace bullying, marketisation of education, and on the responsible use of the internet.
What's new on the education agenda this autumn? Well, the Education Bill should receive its Royal Ascent. There will be new initiatives at all levels: a new core curriculum in primary schools, tougher guidelines on school dinners, a further step towards a new secondary school system, and new legislation giving teachers new legal rights to discipline misbehaving pupils.
AFRICA TEACHER
A group of 37 teachers have just returned to the UK having spent their summer holiday improving education in Africa. The five week placement in Uganda or South Africa is part of the Global Teachers Programme - an international professional development opportunity, run by the charity Link Community Development, and supported by the HSBC Global Education Trust and the Department for International Development. The teachers lived with a host family, often in a home without running water or electricity. Gwenn Edwards, from Moseley School, A Language College in Birmingham, visited Maphindela Senior Primary School in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
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