July 2013

A recent THE carried a story about Ofsted and university ITT courses.  It runs, ... Universities have suffered under Ofsted teacher training inspections since Michael Gove unveiled plans to increase school-based training, in what some claim is a politicised inspection regime...

The undoubted highlight was eating wild raspberries in Savernake Forest and then avoiding numerous black beetles as we walked its paths – Oh, and watching young children running about, hiding and seeking, climbing trees, riding bikes, chasing butterflies, and making dens.  Happily,...

The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) are working "with experts" (that excludes me) on the development of a new guidance document for higher education providers on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).  An initial draft looms,...

Thanks to Steve Martin for pointing me to the European Commission report on the Modernisation of Higher Education: improving the quality of teaching and learning in Europe’s Higher Education Institutes.  This was published in June. The report sets out "a...

The latest Oxfam Discussion Paper, A Safe and Just Space for Humanity, by Kate Raworth, opens with this: Humanity’s challenge in the 21st century is to eradicate poverty and achieve prosperity for all within the means of the planet’s limited...

I cast a jaundiced eye over the Guardian's university league table the other week, and not just to see how Bath was doing – rising majestically, since you ask (but keep your Kipling open at the right page). Reading on,...

It’s not widely known, but, when the UK's Vice Chancellors last marched on Whitehall, they did it to this chant: What do we want? More leadership development materials ... When do we want it? At the end of the next...

Last month SEEd organised a letter to Michael Gove.  This is a response from Joan Walley, MP, Chair of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) ... To the Signatories of the ‘Keep Sustainability in the National Curriculum Objectives’...

In 2012, Defra proposed a new set of sustainable development indicators, intended to measure national progress on key economic, social and environmental issues over time and complement the National well-being measures published by the Office for National Statistics.  There was...

On a recent pilgrimage to Norfolk I was sidetracked by visiting a micro brewery near to Walsingham.  It was an inspiring place, sustainability speaking. The barley was grown in adjacent fields and malted locally, the water came from the brewery's...