Testing: after the U-turn, which way next?
Article Abstract:
The UK government aims to make education test league tables fairer following teacher boycotting of the tests. Over 20 local educational authorities use the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) reasoning tests with success. The NFER tests are verbal and non-verbal for pupils in between the ages of 10 years and 13 years. They have been used on 120,000 pupils since May 1993. Supporters claim that the NFER tests predict GCSE results, take in account pupils' ages and are standardised. Critics claim that they are biased against girls and do not equate with GCSEs.
Publication Name: The Independent
Subject: Retail industry
ISSN: 0951-9467
Year: 1993
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Goodbye to Joyce Grenfell as playgroups head towards extinction
Article Abstract:
The UK's playgroup movement has begun to suffer a serious decline. More than 2,200 of the country's 19,000 playgroups are likely to have shut down by summer 1998, with the loss of 75,000 places for children aged three and four. This comes at the same time as the government is making efforts to boost pre-school education. The main problem faced by playgroups is falling numbers of children because more and more schools are admitting four-year-olds. Funding is going to state schools and nurseries, rather than to playgroups and private schools.
Publication Name: The Independent
Subject: Retail industry
ISSN: 0951-9467
Year: 1997
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Why children from Far East do best at school
Article Abstract:
An study of 2,500 children in eight countries indicates that the gap in educational standards between the UK and Pacific Rim countries, which had already been known to exist, starts in primary schools. Eight-year-olds in the UK are much less advanced in maths than their counterparts in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the study shows that low ability children find it particularly hard to cope in the UK, where there is a very wide difference between the top and bottom scorers.
Publication Name: The Independent
Subject: Retail industry
ISSN: 0951-9467
Year: 1995
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