Bill Scott's blog
Thoughts on learning, sustainability and the link between them
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WTF: weighted total futility
An article in the Economist's Bartelby column this week served to inform and amuse. But should it have done? It begins: "Few things are more depressing than estimates of how much time people spend on a specific activity over the course of...
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Hoodwinked by the civil service
Another astonishing story about DfE civil servants and my second of the week. A Schools Bill (about the work of academies) is currently meandering its way through the parliamentary process. Conservative peers have tabled a motion to delete the first...
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Drinking the Kool-Aid at the DfE
An example of DfE civil servants drinking the Kool-Aid was reported the other day. It seems that rather than referring to girls or female students, DfE advice on free sanitary products in schools referred to "pupils who menstruate", "young people menstruating” and...
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FE and ESD
Thanks to a recent NAEE weekly news round-up for alerting me to news that the Education and Training Foundation [ETF] has issued Professional Standards for teachers and trainers in the further education and training sector. Under the heading of Professional Values and Attributes,...
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Manifestos compared
I wrote the other day about the 2021 manifesto from Education International. This post comments on another manifesto: the more recent one from NAEE. This was launched in early 2022 and you can read a number of comments here. Before...
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Should we elect the DfE's curriculum team?
The UK government launched its sustainability and climate change strategy in April. This applies to schools in England. I've written about this initiative a couple of times already but I'm now writing following a bit of reflection after scrutiny of other responses. Although...
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The manifesto with a hole at its centre
Thanks to SOS-UK for alerting me to the Manifesto on Quality Climate Change Education for All! [subtitled: Teach for the Planet] from Educational International. EI is the "Global Union Federation that brings together organisations of teachers and other education employees from across the...
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The Westminster Forum Green Fandango
I did not to the latest Westminster Education Forum event on May 18th. It was a tour d'horizon of "green and climate education in England – sustainability and action on climate change in the curriculum, outdoor learning, and priorities for...
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SDG 4.7 and Our Shared World
A report by Doug Bourn (UCL) and Jenny Hatley (Bath Spa) on behalf of the Our Shared World coalition of organisations, was launched the other day. The report gathered evidence of the extent to which the themes of Sustainable Development Goal...
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Toilet Hummus
Notes from a Small Town The elected council of my local town likes to present itself as "progressive", usually in comparison to the unitary authority in which it finds itself embedded which is both large C and small c conservative....
