BA Education at the University of Gloucestershire

Ethnic minority workers in insecure jobs up 132% since 2011 New data shows the number of white people working in insecure jobs rose by a much smaller amount.

Bridlington beach toy waste a sign of throwaway culture - volunteers Buckets and spades collected at Bridlington beach will be donated to charity shops.

Student loans: How do they work, what can I borrow and when do I pay it back? How do they work across the UK, what can I borrow and when do I have to start paying it back?

A group of the Education team have just had a paper published - Learning in a Disrupted Environment: Exploring higher education student resilience using the Dynamic Interactive Model of Resilience.

It's open access and can be found at

Learning in a Disrupted Environment: Exploring higher education student resilience using the Dynamic Interactive Model of Resilience | Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching The coronavirus pandemic brought unprecedented circumstances, providing insights into how systems (people, institutions and societies) cope during a disruption. This paper reports research undertaken at one university in the South West of England, which adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigat...

This is a big worry!

Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory - scientists A series of records on temperature, ocean heat, and Antarctic sea ice are "unprecedented", some scientists say.

This is a worry!

Childcare shortage warning as childminders quit A fifth of childminders in England have left the sector in the last three years.

Sarah Perry: New university chancellor hits out at government degree criticism Sarah Perry says the "value of the outcome of a university education cannot be reduced to a salary".

This year's degree classifications are due to be released this week. We have had an excellent range of results again and would like to congratulate all our leavers and wish them the very best for the future!

Nice to see some good news!

More evidence of disadvantage

British talent squandered, due to economic disadvantage.
Social Mobility: The Next Generation. Lost potential at age 16, by Erica Holt-White and Carl Cullinane, published by the Sutton Trust COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO) with support from the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council, on Thursday 29 June 2023.
https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Social-Mobility-The-Next-Generation-Lost-Potential-Age-16.pdf

Research published by the Sutton Trust has revealed the extent to which the talent of high-potential disadvantaged young people is being wasted due to inequalities in society and education. Highlyable disadvantaged pupils are almost twice as likely as similarly talented classmates to drop out of the top third of attainment at GCSE, having achieved on average a whole grade lower per subject than the most affluent highly-able children.
Social Mobility: The Next Generation, looked at a group of 2,500 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who had showed high academic potential at the end of primary school, and it explored the progress of the group during secondary school in comparison to their non-disadvantaged peers with the same grades.
The research found that in 2021, 62% of better-off high-potential pupils had achieved five or more 7-9s at GCSE, but for high-potential pupils who were disadvantaged, the figure was less than 40%. Between 2017 and 2021, over 28,000 young people who had been expected to achieve top grades at GCSE based on the potential they had showed at primary school, had not done so due to the disadvantage they faced.
The researchers pointed out that while inequality impacted on academic attainment from an early age, the gaps accelerated during secondary school, and by the time disadvantaged pupils with high potential take their GCSEs, they had fallen behind similarly talented classmates by three quarters of a grade
per subject, and by a whole grade per subject compared to the most affluent. They were also almost twice as likely to drop out of the group of children in the top third of attainment.
The findings showed that high-potential disadvantaged children were most likely to fall behind at GCSE including White boys and Black Caribbean pupils, those with Special Educational Needs, and pupils in the North-East and North-West of England.
The research also highlights some of the reasons why academically talented disadvantaged young people fall behind:
• Such children are over three times more likely to lack a suitable device to study at home, and twice as likely to lack a suitable place to study. They are also less than half as likely to receive private tutoring compared to other high attainers. Sixteen per cent are young carers, they are less than half as likely to have a parent with a degree, and four times more likely to live in a single-parent household.
• Despite their high potential, over a fifth (21%) of disadvantaged highly-able pupils believed that people like them do not have much of a chance in life, more than double the proportion of their better off peers (10%). More than a third also reported that they would be unlikely to be studying in two years’ time, which was over double the proportion of private school pupils of any attainment level.
The Sutton Trust is calling for the Government to urgently review funding for schools in the most disadvantaged areas of the country, and make the National Tutoring Programme a core part of a national strategy to close attainment gaps. It also urged universities to make better use of contextual admissions which help to level the playing field including reduced grade offers, given that is advantaged students with high potential often underperformed in the school system.
The report authors recommended a range of measures that schools could take to ensure that such pupils could reach their potential, including early identification and tracking, provision of targeted support including mentoring and tutoring, and family engagement.
Sir Peter Lampl, Founder and Chairman of the Sutton Trust and chairman of the Education Endowment Foundation, said it was tragic that the talent of so many young people who showed early
promise was being allowed to go to waste. He argued that the Government must increase funding in the most disadvantaged areas, such as by means of the highly effective National Tutoring Programme. Sir Peter added that while there was a sense that bright young people could look after themselves, it was patently a
myth, and in fact, such young people needed as much nurturing as the average young people.

Issue 531 Education Journal 5 July 2023

This is worrying!

US teacher fired for reading from a book that promotes inclusivity

The culture wars in the United States reached a new high when a Georgia primary school teacher was fired after allegedly violating the state’s educational gag order. Passed in 2022, Georgia’s HB
1084 prohibits teachers from “espousing” certain “divisive concepts” related to race and s*x. Katie Rinderle says she read her fifth grade students (ten to 11 year-olds) My Shadow Is Purple, by bestselling author-illustrator Scott Stuart, a 2022 book that promotes inclusivity, after purchasing it at the school book fair and having her students vote on what they wanted to read.
Rinderle, a teacher in Cobb County, was believed to be the first teacher fired under the state law.
In response, Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s director of Free Expression and Education, said: “It is shocking that an educator would be terminated under this vague law for reading students a book and encouraging them to be themselves. Every child deserves to be joyfully represented in their classroom and with their peers, and every educator deserves a space to teach without fear of censure or termination for exercising their professional judgment. That this teacher purchased the book at the school book fair and
that it was voted on by her students adds a layer of absurdity to an otherwise horrifying story.
Unfortunately the climate for public education continues to be chilled by these harmful decisions to discipline educators for simply doing their jobs.”
Rinderle has taught in Cobb county for 10 years and at Due West Elementary School since 2018. After she read the book to her fifth grade class, the students wrote poems about their shadows. The parent of one of her students, also a teacher at a Cobb middle school, complained. Rinderle was summoned to the principal’s office. She was later asked to resign but refused. The Cobb County School District issued an official notice of termination on June 6. She is now working with her attorney and the Georgia Association
of Educators to defend her job.
Rinderle told her local newspaper, the Cobb County Courier, that the lesson was about embracing yourself and the differences in each other and having confidence. “Looking at our unique differences. That different students have many interests and sometimes struggle to fit in with the rest of the school population. So, you know, really paying attention to embracing the differences in each other and then valuing ourselves to be confident in who we are.”
The paper asked the teacher whether the book had raised any flags for her as being potentially controversial when she first found it? Rinderle replied: “No, not at all. I found it at our school’s book fair
and I read it there. I thought that it was a great book and I thought it had a wonderful message. My students felt the same way. I still believe it’s a wonderful book.”
Her lesson resulted in a single complaint from a parent who was also a teacher at another Cobb County school. No other formal complaint was made, although the School Board claimed that once it started to investigate other parents had expressed concern. The Courier asked her if, after the parent complained, the principal addressed the fact that the source of the book being the school’s book fair might be confusing for teachers? Rinderle replied that they had not.
When Rinderle asked what specifically was wrong with the book and her reading from it, the School District refused to say. Rinderle said: “Even when I did ask a few times throughout meeting with the district and my principal. Chris Dowd [executive director of employee relations and evaluations] actually told me it wasn’t my place to ask questions at one point. So they would not answer that for me.”
The School District claimed that “this action is appropriate considering the entirety of the teacher’s behaviour and history.” Yet Ms Rinderle had a decade’s worth of teacher evaluations that were all excellent.
The Board refused to get into specifics, and was unable to point to a single example from her past.
The Australian author of the book, Scott Stuart, addressed the news of Rinderle’s termination on his Tik Tok account, saying, “This whole thing just really goes to show you how much more interested the
school system in the U.S. is in playing politics than they are in educating kids.”

Education Journal 5 July 2023 Issue 531

Some good news!

New Zealand bans plastic bags for fresh produce in supermarkets Supermarkets already ban take-home bags but now thin bags used for vegetables will be outlawed too.