EdMashUK

Social policy and administration

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:09:00 -0500

Study of contemporary social, political and economic problems – such as poverty, inequality, crime, unemployment, healthcare, education and housing – and potential policy responses to them

What will I learn?
Social policy has a long history as a social science subject but expanded rapidly in the UK after the creation of the welfare state in the 1940s. You will draw on theoretical ideas from across the social sciences – including sociology, political science, psychology, economics and management – but also learn how to apply them to the analysis of real-world social problems and with a view to developing better mechanisms for addressing those problems.

These degrees explore heavyweight social and political issues of the day such as health reform, unemployment and crime. In some programmes, there is a strong international dimension too, exploring the influence of global forces on contemporary social problems, and comparing the responses different countries adopt to issues such as poverty and inequality.

You will receive a broad introduction to social science disciplines, study how social policies are made, and gain a grounding in social research methods. You will also have the opportunity to specialise in specific policy areas. For example, you could focus on how policy affects children and young people, contemporary policing and crime in the city, environmental policies, disability, drug use, housing policy, migration and the rights of asylum seekers.

In many universities it is possible to combine the study of social policy alongside one of the core social science disciplines – sociology and social policy is a popular option – and many institutions also offer it as part of a broadly based programme such as applied social science or social and political sciences.

Your course will be taught in seminars and lecturers, but you will be expected to do a fair amount of independent reading and research.

What skills will I gain?
Once you graduate you will have a good grounding in a range of social science disciplines, up-to-date knowledge of contemporary social problems and an ability to bring robust evidence into policy focused debates. You should be able to effectively engage in policy debate and with sensitivity to other views.

You will have the skills to carry out independent research, as well as work in a team and assess the merits of competing theories and explanations.

What job can I get?
Social policy graduates have high employment rates and many choose to build careers in the public sector, working in local or central government helping to formulate policy or manage key services. You would also have the skills to pursue work in the field of criminal justice or campaigning organisations with a focus on social issues. And you will have developed the skills to work in a number of other areas, such as management, consultancy, the media or for a charity.

What will look good on the CV?
• The ability to use theoretical perspectives and concepts, and to apply them to social life
• The ability to analyse, assess and communicate empirical data
• Appreciation of the complexity and diversity of social situations.

For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in social policy, click here (pdf).

University guideSocial policy and administrationHigher education
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Media studies, communications and librarianship

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:09:00 -0500

Study of how we communicate – includes information services, publicity studies, media studies, publishing, journalism and mass communication

What will I learn?
If you think a media degree means spending your day watching television – or at least try to justify doing it as part of your course – think again.

Courses in this field examine how we communicate and how this shapes society. At some point expect to be asked the question: does the media reflect society or does society reflect the media? You might want to start thinking of answers now.

What you're taught will depend on the course you choose. Some degrees take a more theoretical line, developing understanding of how we communicate (expect to touch on linguistics and semiotics), and how that fits into a cultural, political and historical context.

Other degrees will be more vocational, where you'll be expected to test out the theory with a bit of practice, perhaps writing news stories or working in a studio to produce audio and visual work. These courses are more for those who are considering careers in journalism, photography or film.

What skills will I gain?
Media degrees aim to produce graduates with an informed, critical approach to understanding the media and mass communication – all things which media employers like in their workers.

The more practical media degrees should let you test new technology (editing suites, video cameras) and develop your creative side through written, visual or audio work. So you might learn how to direct and film an interview, record some dialogue, or have an idea of how to write a feature.

A spot of work experience during your course should have sharpened these skills further. There is no substitute for getting out there and having a go. Writing a news article at a local paper or magazine is a lot different from writing one in the library or in your bedroom.

You should have some awareness of how to organise and manage group work and independent projects.

What jobs can I get?
Getting a job in the media is tough. It's a popular career choice among graduates, which means competition for positions is fierce and getting that full-time job could involve weeks, or even months, of unpaid work experience. And then when you actually do draw a salary you could find yourself on short-term contracts for a while.

While a media degree will give you an insight into the industry, you won't necessarily find yourself better placed to get a job than someone with an English or history degree, so you need to apply for placements during your summer holidays, pitch story ideas to papers or magazines, or get a job as a runner for a television company to put something a little extra on your CV.

If you want to get into journalism, be prepared to do a specific postgraduate course to hone your skills and get a grounding in media law, public administration, writing, filming and shorthand – still an essential tool for journalists.

Graduates are also found in publishing, marketing, advertising and teaching.

What will look good on the CV?
• An understanding of how identities are constructed and contested
• An understanding of how people engage with cultural texts and practices
• The ability to work flexibly and creatively.

University guideMedia studies, communications and librarianshipHigher education
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Economics

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:09:00 -0500

Study of what influences income, wealth and wellbeing, and how this can be implemented into policy

What will I learn?
It is not essential to have a maths A-level before embarking on an economics degree, but it might ease the pain. As a social science, economics may sit alongside education and media studies, but sooner or later you will find yourself ploughing through statistics and formulating your theories – after all, how can you understand Keynesian economics if you don't get the maths?

That said, your degree will incorporate a range of other subjects – such as psychology, anthropology, politics, history and law – so there will be plenty of opportunities to put the calculator away.

Economics students will study how wealth is created, or lost, what influences income, and how all of this information can be used to influence policy. You'll study the work of some of the world's most high-profile economists, researching how and why their ideas were developed and how successful they were, and get the chance to think through a few of your own. You might even start to understand the present crisis and how it developed, if not how to solve it. Economics students can focus on particular areas of the subject, such as money, banking and finance, international economics and the EU, industrial policy, or public services such as health and education.

If you don't want to play it straight, then taking economics as part of a joint degree, perhaps with politics or history, could be an option.

What skills will I gain?
You may not be able to step straight into the chancellor of the exchequer's shoes, but you should have a better idea of what he does behind closed doors.

You will have a greater understanding of the financial markets and economic welfare, know what is meant by the phrase "balance of payments", and will be quicker to realise how much the taxman is taking from your salary.

You will learn how to assess expenditure decision, both in government and the private sector. You should learn to express your ideas cogently, confident that you have become part of a considerable intellectual tradition.

What job can I get?
Economics graduates enjoy some of the best job prospects and the highest earnings, so you'll probably be among the first wave of graduates to start paying off your student debts after you leave university.

You'll be a good catch in business, banking and accountancy. If you want to feel you are shaping the nation, then a job in the Treasury is a good bet – after all, chancellors need advice too.

What will look good on the CV?
• The ability to analyse and reason
• The ability to communicate results concisely
• The ability to draw on economic policy and know the constraints.

University guideEconomicsHigher education
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Philosophy

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:09:00 -0500

Study of how to think about ideas and ask questions about truth, right and wrong – includes ethics, history of philosophy, logic

What will I learn?
If you wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats wondering what life is all about, then a philosophy degree should sort you out. Or at least point you in the right direction.

Philosophy tackles questions and concepts that others tend to take for granted. What is the difference between a reason and a mere rationalisation? What does it actually mean to say that one event causes another? What does it mean to describe some ingredients as "natural"? What is private property? When can a scientific theory become a scientific fact?

Students studying philosophy can also find themselves engaging with modern social and political concerns, while confronting questions of personal value systems, social critique and moral life.

Philosophy is a subject to ponder (for example, 2,000 years ago, Pontius Pilate was supposed to have asked the question: "What is truth?", and we still haven't formed a satisfactory answer), giving students the space to debate the views of others and formulate their own opinions.

You can expect to study different thinkers and traditions of thought, from Plato and Aristotle through to Marx, Kant, Nietzsche, Russell and Derrida – philosophers who academics say have helped shape western thought.

Modules you are likely to cover include critical reasoning, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics and political philosophy, as well as the philosophy of science, literature, mind, religion language and maths. Philosophy also addresses questions that most of us think about but have a hard time discussing: Am I really free? What is the meaning of death? Do we ever really know what other people feel or think?

Philosophy connects with many other subjects and can be studied as a joint degree, so you could pair it up with history, politics or law, for example, which could offer an interesting focus for your philosophical musings.

What skills will I gain?
A good philosophy course teaches you how to think about issues systematically. You will develop important key skills in areas such as oral and written communication, critical reading, constructing and defending an argument, and independent research. Whatever your future choice of career or sphere of activity, the skills you acquire alongside the intellectual and imaginative challenges you will tackle through your studies will prove incredibly valuable to you in any field.

Completing a philosophy course shows employers you are an all-rounder – a mature, thoughtful, rational and articulate individual.

You will also have learned a significant body of knowledge that spans thousands of years.

What job can I get?
Recent research into graduate prospects shows studying philosophy develops skills that are highly valued by employers, such as verbal reasoning, creative thinking, presenting a clearly formulated and coherent argument, analysing dense and difficult written material, distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant, and carrying out independent inquiry.

Philosophy graduates pop up in a whole range of fields including consultancy, journalism, publishing and law, local administration, project management, teaching, librarianship, the civil service and banking.

And then there's the creative professions. Hollywood is crawling with former philosophers: Bruce Lee, Susan Sarandon, Harrison Ford. The composer Phillip Glass studied philosophy; so did film-maker Joel Coen.

The financial sector is another common destination for philosophy students. The American businessman George Soros studied philosophy, and Aristotle famously reported that Thales (celebrated as the "first philosopher") managed to corner the local market in olive oil!

Studying the philosophy of law could open doors to the legal profession, while business ethics modules could serve you well in the City.

Some graduates go on to further study and a career in academia and research. Others undertake further training to become schoolteachers.

What will look good on the CV?
• The ability to analyse in a multidimensional way
• The ability to think creatively
• Self-motivation.

PhilosophyUniversity guidePhilosophyHigher education
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GCSE grading system faces biggest overhaul in 25 years

Graeme Paton — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:01:12 -0500

Rising numbers of pupils face failing their GCSE exams under the biggest shake up of the qualifications system in 25 years, it emerged today.

Private university regulation 'a mess'

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:00:01 -0500

A scheme to fund more student places at private universities is under fire after the Universities minister, David Willetts, admitted that no checks are made on whether undergraduates complete their course.

Examiners axed after marking mistakes

Jeevan Vasagar — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:30:11 -0500

Exam board OCR apologises for errors that affected GCSE and A-level grades

Four examiners have had their contracts terminated and 78 others have been ordered to improve their performance after mistakes were made in calculating pupils' scores in GCSE and A-level papers from last summer.

The exam board OCR has apologised for marking errors that affected GCSE and A-level grades. Exams regulator Ofqual said it could not be certain that all candidates had the grades they deserved.

Channel 4 News said David Leitch, a senior supervisor at OCR, found wrongly calculated final scores in 100 papers from last summer that schools had referred for checking. A wider search found "hundreds more" mistakes by the same markers but Leitch claims he was instructed to inform only schools which had requested paid-for remarking.

Dissatisfied with a review ordered by regulator Ofqual, the programme reported, he emailed 30 schools directly to alert them to errors and has now been suspended by OCR pending a full inquiry.

Ofqual's director of regulation, Fiona Pethick, said questions remained over the accuracy of marks. Asked if she could be personally sure that no pupil still had a lower grade than they should, potentially affecting a university place, she told the programme: "I'm not satisfied yet. That's why we will be continuing to look into this matter and if we find OCR to be negligent we will take action."

The errors related to examiners totting up marks from traditional pen and paper scripts. The exam board said its investigation had found 16 cases where pupils had received a lower grade than they should – eight AS-levels, two A-levels and six GCSEs.

It resulted in the termination of four examiners' contracts, while 78 others out of 13,000 - "almost all" teachers and ex-teachers with relevant degrees - were ordered to improve their performance.

Mark Dawe, OCR's chief executive, said: "Any error in the exam process is unacceptable and we have taken action to implement more robust processes. This included terminating the contracts of weaker examiners. Students taking exams in the spring and this summer can be assured that mistakes of any sort will not be tolerated."

The exam board's qualifications director, Clara Kenyon, said OCR had not been made aware of the existence of further errors. "We were not told of the existence of these additional scripts with mistakes on them until schools contacted us," she said. "This is of course a concern and we are processing them in the usual way and will make grade changes, if required, and inform schools."

The board was confident that new safeguards would provide "a high level of clerical accuracy" in future, she said, pointing out that marks for three in four papers were calculated electronically.

All papers are due to be handled electronically by 2014.

"Students taking exams both in the spring and this summer can be assured that mistakes of any sort will not be tolerated and we have taken the necessary measures to guard against them," Kenyon said.

SchoolsGCSEsA-levelsJeevan Vasagar
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Letters: Outrage at head of Ofsted's stress jibe at teachers

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:59:01 -0500

As the children of an incredibly hard-working secondary schoolteacher, we feel obliged to express our concern and outrage at Ofsted boss Michael Wilshaw's statement that "teachers don't know the meaning of stress" (Stressed out?, 11 May). Come and spend a day in the life of our family and you will see how untrue those comments are.

Not only does our mother spend virtually all day, every weekday, in school, but most of her evenings and weekends are taken up with lesson planning, preparation and other essential tasks. Not to mention meetings, presentations and parents' evenings, all out of school hours and unpaid, and weekend field trips. And this already vast workload is only set to increase (and is unlikely to be matched by an equal increase in salary).

The huge amount of time that her job consumes is often to the detriment of other areas of her life, such as spending time with her partner and children, which adds still more pressure and stress. It's true our mum is a perfectionist. She puts her all into her job and she wouldn't know how not to. There are times when it seems worth it and there have always been pupils and colleagues who respect and appreciate her time and effort. But it has been heart-breaking over the years to see so much commitment go largely unrecognised and unappreciated, and so much talent and enthusiasm appear to go to waste.

In our "blame others" culture, where many people do not want to take responsibility, everything is the teacher's fault. Ofsted, the government and even the public can't seem to wait to point the finger and dismiss the care and hard work that most teachers strive to provide. This is not offset by an impressive salary, adding financial stress into the mix.

Don't misunderstand, our lives are not a sob story. We are happy and well enough off, but please do not do us, our mother and teachers across the country the discourtesy of imagining that it is somehow a simple or stress-free existence.
Jennifer (23), Stanley (17) and Lilian (14)
Bristol

• Why does Michael Wilshaw feel the need to disrespect the profession he came from? Over the last 12 years, I have seen many levels of stress among colleagues. From mild symptoms, such as trouble sleeping, via migraine and exhaustion, right up to depression and self-harm. I know of staff crying in the toilets and hiding in their cupboards. How dare you blame us for social ills, such as young people being "unable to get a job because they've had a poor experience of school". There are no jobs to apply for. Children can't learn if they're not well fed, they can't thrive in poverty. Is that our fault too?

He does a disservice to teaching and also to mental-health sufferers. Belittling their difficulties only compounds the problem. Channel 4 reported last year that suicide levels among teachers are 30%-40% higher than the general population.
Jessica Wortley
Sunderland

• Michael Wilshaw believes teachers don't know the meaning of the word stress in comparison to his father. He, we are told, "struggled to find a job in the 50s and 60s". Unemployment then ran at 3%, compared with over 8% today. Was he too poor to afford a bike?
Keith Glazzard
Manchester

TeachingTeachers' workloadSchoolsOfsted
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Texas's war on history | Katherine Stewart

Katherine Stewart — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:40:19 -0500

Christian-nationalist zealots are trying to rewrite US history, airbrush slavery and enshrine creationism in Texas schools

Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education from 2007 to 2009, is a "young earth" creationist. He believes the earth is 6,000 years old, that human beings walked with dinosaurs, and that Noah's Ark had a unique, multi-level construction that allowed it to house every species of animal, including the dinosaurs.

He has a right to his beliefs, but it's his views on history that are problematic. McLeroy is part of a large and powerful movement determined to impose a thoroughly distorted, ultra-partisan, Christian nationalist version of US history on America's public school students. And he has scored stunning successes.

If you want to see a scary movie about this movement, consider taking in Scott Thurman's finely-crafted documentary Revisionaries, currently making the festival circuit, which records the antics of McLeroy and a hard right majority on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) as they revise the textbook standards that will be used in Texas (and many other states).

The first part of this documentary deals with the familiar "science wars", in which one side seeks to educate children in the sciences, and the other side proposes to "teach the controversy" in order to undermine those aspects of science that conflict with its religious convictions. But it's the second part of the movie where the horror really kicks in. As I explain in more detail in The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, the history debate makes the science debate look genteel. While the handful of moderates on the SBOE squeals in opposition, the conservative majority lands blow after blow, passing resolutions imposing its mythological history on the nation's textbooks.

Cynthia Dunbar, a board member who has described public education as a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion", and who homeschooled her own children, emerges as a relentless ideologue. During the hearings, she yanks Thomas Jefferson from a standard according to which students are expected to "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas … on political revolutions from 1750 to the present", and replaces him with the 13th-century theologian St Thomas Aquinas. Moderate Republican board member Bob Craig points out that the curriculum writers clearly intended for the students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson in this part of the standard, not a mix of Protestant and Catholic theologians, but the resolution passes anyway.

Dunbar isn't very subtle about her agenda. In one scene, the filmmakers track her to a prayer rally in Washington, DC, where she implores Jesus to "invade" public schools.

The board goes on to remove the word "slavery" from the standards, replacing it with the more benign-seeming "Atlantic triangular trade". They insist on calling the United States a "constitutional republic" rather than a "democracy" – largely because they want students to think of their country as Republican, not Democratic. So convinced are they of the timeless superiority of American/Republican values that one of them introduces a standard asking students to "explain three pro-free-market factors contributing to European technological progress during the rise and decline of the medieval system".

Historical figures of suspect religious views (like Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin) or political tendency (like union organizer Dolores Huerta) are ruthlessly demoted or purged altogether from the study program. Meanwhile, the board majority makes room for an eclectic array of ancillary figures from the revolutionary period, such as Charles Carroll and Jonathan Trumbull. What these marginal figures have in common, other than being dusted off from high shelves and promoted by the board, is the fact that they were loud defenders of orthodox Christianity.

Even by their own admission, the board members were hopelessly unqualified to make judgments about the history. So they appointed a committee of academic "experts" to vet the standards. The committee was a model of "bipartisanship" in the modern era. For their part, the moderates on the board appointed credible historians, professors at Texas universities; one was defended by a moderate Republican board member as "a good Republican … not some kind of crazy liberal".

The conservatives, on the other hand, appointed Peter Marshall of Peter Marshall Ministries, a group that seeks to "reclaim America for Christ" and is "dedicated to helping to restore America to its Bible-based foundations through preaching, teaching, and writing on America's Christian heritage and on Christian discipleship and revival". They also appointed pseudo-historian David Barton, the former vice-chairman of the Texas GOP and founder of the Black Robe Regiment. The latter, sinister-sounding organisation is an association of "concerned patriots" whose goal is to "restore the American Church in her capacity as the Body of Christ, ambassador for Christ, moral teacher of America and the world, and overseer of all principalities and governing officials, as was rightfully established long ago".

Barton is known for fabricating quotes from America's founders, or taking them out of context to build his case that America was established as a so-called "Christian nation". And here's the gruesome kicker: the Texas board actually ignored advice from its own, balanced committee whenever it contradicted the agenda of the far-right majority.

Sometimes, the most important characters in a story are the ones who don't show up. In the Texas battle over history, the heroes who went missing were the kind of people and organizations that might have defended the teaching of history in the way that the scientists mobilized to defend the teaching of biology. The scientists are reasonably well-organized. When creationism rears its paleolithic head in state legislatures or on school boards, it faces the opposition of organizations such as the National Association of Biology Teachers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Center for Science Education, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, and others.

Defenders of biological sciences can also fall back on court rulings such as Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District and Edwards v Aguillard, which prohibit teaching of creationism. They also have a wealth of popular treatments of scientific issues to draw upon, such as explanations of evolutionary theory by Richard Dawkins and other scientists.

History, however, is often left to fend for itself.

To be fair, in the Texas proceedings, some historians and activists made valiant attempts to contain the damage. Kathy Miller, spokesperson for the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based research and advocacy group, was allocated several minutes for her impassioned defense of religious and political neutrality in public education. Professor Steven K Green, director of Willamette's Center for Religion, Law, and Democracy, used his five minutes in front of the board to remind them that "the supreme court has forbidden public schools from 'seeking to impress upon students the importance of particular religious values through curriculum.'" The board majority smiled and looked away.

So, where are history's defenders?

Part of the problem here has to do with a common fallacy about history. We think of history as a "soft" subject. We know that it always involves some degree of interpretation, that the "narratives" are always "contested", and that the answers are never so obviously right or wrong as they are in science. We also know that there have been leftwing versions of the history that are just as distorting as the rightwing propaganda served up by McLeroy and friends. But it's plain wrong to think that we can only throw our hands in the air and conclude that history is whatever anyone chooses to say it is.

Some academics have gotten too used to speaking only with one another. Many could do a more forceful job of seeking to protect the public from disinformation. When I was researching my book, I came across plenty of academic historians who were dismissive about David Barton in private; but few were willing to go public, or to invest the effort in refuting him in detail.

Barton recently came out with another piece of propaganda, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson. To their credit, a pair of professors who identify themselves as conservative Christians, Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, have stepped forward to debunk Barton's latest exercise in their book, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims About Our Third President. But that hasn't stopped Barton's book from becoming a bestseller.

Maybe, we find it easy to underestimate the harm that bad history can do. McLeroy and his cohorts desperately want students to be taught that America is beyond criticism. It's greatness, they believe, stems from the values, principles, and methods of America's conservatives, and the only safe path to the future is to suppress or eliminate whatever does not conform to their image of a purified America. These "revisionaries" are far from the vision of the US bequeathed by the same founders whom the far right claims to revere.

The "glory of the people of America" as James Madison actually said, is that they broke free from the "blind veneration" of the ways of the past and learned how to draw on the "lessons of their own experience" in order to build the world anew.

TexasHistory and history of artHistorySchoolsReligionUnited StatesUS politicsRepublicansChristianityEvangelical ChristianityKatherine Stewart
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Examiners 'failed to add-up pupils' GCSE marks properly'

Graeme Paton — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:00:26 -0500

Dozens of markers at one of Britain's biggest exam boards have been reprimanded after failing to properly calculate pupils' GCSE and A-level results, it emerged today.

Interview advice to NQTs: What head teachers really want

Thu, 17 May 2012 09:56:39 -0500

Our panel of headteachers offer NQTs their top tips for interview success

• Teach your best lesson

"I'll take someone who teaches an excellent lesson over someone who does an excellent interview, every time. Sometimes it comes down to two candidates who are close and I'll always pick the candidate who has done the better lesson. They need to show dynamism, competence and immediacy. It's easy to spot those qualities."

Simon Elliott, head teacher, Forest Gate Community School

"We look for people who deliver good and regularly outstanding lessons. We send out pupil data ahead of the interview lesson and expect candidates to prepare with that in mind. Then we'll rewind that lesson during the interview – and a winning candidate has the ability to do the same and to be able to reflect."

Philip Cantwell, principal, Malcolm Arnold Academy

• Think about your presentation

"Think, especially, about the impact of your appearance on school governors. These interviewers may not be familiar with education or the conventions of schools, are often pretty conservative and likely more at home in the business world. You need to look – and sound – clean, sharp and professional and ready to project the desired image of excellence that the school is seeking. I meet a lot of NQTs at interview and sometimes I find myself thinking, "that looks like your best dress – for a night out", or "young man, a tie would be good"."

Helen Mathiesson, principal, Marine Academy Plymouth

• Show passion for your subject

"I sit in on every single staff interview and the one thing I look for above all in candidates is a passion for their subject, and for teaching it. Candidates, especially NQTs, shouldn't be frightened of making mistakes or of not being able to answer a question during an interview. But I want to know the reasons that they have come into teaching and to see a burning desire to help students learn. They have to simply exude it."

Derek Trimmer, head teacher, Hove Park School

• Be clued up about the big issues

"Well before you find yourself sitting in front of the panel, you need to have thought about and practised discussing the issues that are important to the classroom experience. NQTs often get absorbed in the task of classroom management and forget to look at the bigger picture and concerns. Behaviour for learning, assessment for learning and active research are big topics in education and you need to be comfortable debating these with the panel. What you don't want is for an interviewee to stop dead after half a sentence and say "that's it"."

Helen Mathiesson, principal, Marine Academy Plymouth

• Prove your resilience

"I want to have teachers on my staff who can cope with knocks and setbacks and who can pick themselves up and learn from difficult situations. So I always ask candidates how they deal with difficulties and challenge. Who and where do they turn to for help? The answers can be very illuminating. I don't want to recruit anyone who phones in sick after a bad day. Teaching is very hard at first; to some degree you have to be bloody minded, to be able to start the next day afresh and not hold grudges."

Derek Trimmer, head teacher, Hove Park School

• Explain your added value

"In these times of squeezed budgets, it helps if you can show how you can go above and beyond the job specification. Often this will be a case of volunteering your expertise and skill to run after an after school club or contributing to extra-curricular school life. I once had the pick of two very good candidates who could have done the classroom teacher job equally well. One of them had got the eco green flag for her previous school – and offered to do the same for ours. The green flag would look good for my next Ofsted so I picked her. Head teachers are always on the look-out for extra for their pupils."

Marian Cassidy, former primary school head teacher

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Stuck for an outing? Try the National Tractor Weekend

Martin Wainwright — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:00:00 -0500

It's the first-ever, prompted by the runaway success of a vintage farm machinery rally in north Yorkshire

The grip of the tractor on the human mind is peculiar but real. I can never shop at Morrisons in Idle without thinking of 'Tractors' – the enormous International Harvester plant which took over from Jowett Cars and was humming away when I was on the Telegraph & Argus.

Pateley Bridge's toyshop is always an enjoyable sight as well. Guardian readers concerned about children playing endlessly with 'war toys' will be revived by its contents. The healthy children of upper Nidderdale clearly prefer model farm machines, combine harvesters, seed drillers and of course tractors by the yard.

And now we have National Tractor Weekend, which prompts this post, following an email from Newby Hall which cautiously describes the coming event as 'a weekend with a difference'. If you have tractor fans in your family or salon of buddies, real-life versions of David and Bert in The Archers, this is the outing for them. It's on 9 and 10 June, rthe first of which is the UK's second National Tractor Day.

Newby is always excellent value anyway – lovely place, ace tearoom and a great history including an ancestor of the resident Compton family who was unfortunately murdered by brigands in Greece. For the past five years, the Yorkshire Vintage Association has held its annual rally there, and now that exhibits have topped 1000, this has become the National Tractor Weekend.

Even those immune to internal combustion and traction engines should be intrigued by some of the ingenious machinery on show. For example, there's the 1920s Hart-Parr 'Bootstrap', a rig operated by a tractor which lifts itself into the air using its own power. There will also be three rare Fowler Gyrotillers, huge caterpillar-tracked machines which carried out deep cultivation on difficult land.

One of them is the biggest ever made, and it will galumph around alongside hundreds of other veteran machines, while sideshows offer rides, tractor races and demonstrations of mechanical tree trunk-sawing, threshing, baling, milling and manufacture of reed mats. The weekend is highlighting five makes which eventually came together in the American White Motor Corp. One of them is Hart-Parr which claims responsiblity – remember this for trivial pursuits and pub quizzes – for adding the word 'tractor' to the English language.

Final proof of tractor power. One of my London colleagues who kindly loaded the pictures accompanying this post on to the big Guardian's system, told me:

My brother owns several of these vintage tractors, so these events are very familiar to me.

Please make your own tractor-related confessions below. Meanwhile, here's a cheery little clip from YouTube of a Bootstrap doing its special thing.

HeritageHeritageTransportFarmingMorrisonsAgricultureAgriculture and forestryMotoringMartin Wainwright
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New rules on overseas students 'will cost universities billions'

Jessica Shepherd — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:09:00 -0500

Universities UK urges rethink of changes to visa system

Universities stand to lose billions of pounds unless the coalition urgently abandons new rules for overseas students, campuses across the UK have warned.

Universities UK, which represents 134 higher education institutions, is writing to the prime minister urging him to rethink recent changes to the student visa system.

The changes – aimed at meeting the Conservatives' election pledge to cut migration by "tens of thousands" by 2015 – place a limit on the number of years non-European Union students can spend studying and restrict the number of hours of paid work they can do during and after their degrees.

In addition, they are no longer allowed to bring their spouses or children with them unless they are enrolled on a postgraduate course that lasts more than a year.

These changes are likely to deter overseas students from coming to Britain, Professor Eric Thomas, the president of Universities UK, warned. The more than 405,000 international students currently at UK campuses enrich the cultural mix of the country and contribute billions to our economy each year, he said.

Universities also depend financially on these students – some charge non-EU students more than four times as much as home students. One has already reported it has seen applications from non-EU students drop by 40% this year.

"There aren't that many income streams for universities to grow in the current economic climate and a 40% drop is going to cause a university to respond pretty rapidly," Thomas said. Non-EU students bring £5bn to the UK each year.

At a conference in February on how immigration policies are affecting universities, Professor Julia King, the vice-chancellor of Aston University, said her institution had recorded a 39% fall in the number of applications from Indian students this year compared with last.

She added that there had been a decline of 29% in applications from Nigerian students. She put both down to Britain's immigration policies.

As a result, her institution had £3m less income, which was "quite significant for an institution with a £120m turnover". Birmingham's economy would suffer at least a £6m loss as a result, she told the conference.

Universities believe David Willetts, the higher education minister, understands the problem, but ministers at the Home Office look at migration "from an entirely different lens", Thomas said.

In China and India – the UK's first and second biggest markets for overseas students – Britain is seen as "putting up barriers to entry", he said. "The UK seems to be telling the world that it doesn't welcome international students.

"Meanwhile, a number of other countries, such as Australia and Germany, are looking at making themselves more welcoming. The soft power of overseas students for our country is considerable. These students go back to their countries and become serious players."

On Monday, MPs were told that universities and colleges are spending millions of pounds to navigate the government's "Kafkaesque" student visa rules.

An institution such as the London School of Economics spends £250,000 a year trying to understand regulations governing the entry of non-European Union students, the public accounts committee heard.

This month the Guardian revealed how students enrolled on degrees at private colleges were being left penniless and stranded as institutions closed because visa restrictions made their businesses unviable.

The Institute of Public Policy Research thinktank has argued that ministers have included overseas students in the government's net migration count because they are more interested in playing the numbers game than in long-term migration.

International studentsHigher educationStudentsImmigration and asylumJessica Shepherd
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Don't dismiss geoengineering – we may need it one day | James Wilsdon

Thu, 17 May 2012 07:50:25 -0500

Though the Spice project has been dealt a blow, more research is needed to assess our options for mitigating global warming

Opponents of geoengineering will no doubt seize upon this week's cancellation of the fieldwork element of the Spice project as a significant victory in their campaign to outlaw research in this area. There are important lessons to draw from the problems encountered by the project, which planned to investigate the feasibility of spraying particles into the stratosphere to mitigate global warming. But a hastily imposed moratorium on geoengineering research is not one of them.

As the Royal Society argued in its influential 2009 report, more research is needed if we are to assess the feasibility, risks and uncertainties of different geoengineering options. This research needs to be carried out in a safe, transparent and socially responsible way. But without more knowledge of what might be involved, the dilemmas of geoengineering will remain impossible to debate and resolve.

Spice, which stands for Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering, involves a team of scientists from several UK universities. Their proposed experiment was environmentally benign, and involved using a hose to pump two bath loads of water into the atmosphere over a deserted field. But this didn't stop one environmental group from dubbing it a "trojan hose", for moving the world one step closer to large-scale deployment of geoengineering.

This element of the Spice project has now been cancelled, but the rest of the research will continue as planned. Jack Stilgoe, a social scientist at Exeter University who has been working with the Spice team, notes that: "Spice was always going to be a social experiment as well as a scientific one." As the work moves cautiously forward, two lessons stand out for the future of geoengineering research.

First, the role of intellectual property and the private sector in geoengineering needs attention, and may need direct regulation. The project was set up in line with the "Oxford Principles" of geoengineering, which state that it should be treated as a public good. Other prominent scientists working in the field, such as David Keith at Harvard University, have argued that patents for techniques of solar radiation management should be banned.

But this model, however ideal, is already under strain. The problems with Spice arose in part from conflicts of interest over a patent application filed by a private consultant, Peter Davidson, who participated in an early workshop that gave rise to the project. Matt Watson, the lead researcher on Spice writes in his blog that: "The details of this application were only reported to the project team a year into the project and caused many members, including me, significant discomfort." Regulators need to look at this issue with some urgency and design frameworks that allow responsible research to proceed, while ensuring that any resulting technologies stay in the public domain, protected from commercial interests.

Second, scientific and environmental bodies need to intensify efforts to establish better frameworks for the governance of geoengineering. Projects like the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative have made a strong start in this regard. Colleagues at my own university, Sussex, are involved in a new Oxford University-led project that aims to build on these initial efforts.

However much we may recoil at the prospect, if the world refuses to respond to climate change with sufficient urgency, geoengineering may one day be needed. The worst outcome would be for it to be deployed in unregulated or reckless ways by corporations or individual nations. Responsible research, ethical reflection and careful regulation must go hand-in-hand as we move reluctantly down this path.

• James Wilsdon is professor of science and democracy at SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research) at the University of Sussex. From 2008-2011, he was director of science policy at the Royal Society.

GeoengineeringClimate changeMeteorologyHigher educationClimate changeClimate change scepticismUniversity of Sussex
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'Quango queen' accused of running class war on private schools steps down

Tim Ross — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:35:41 -0500

Dame Suzi Leather will stand down as chair of the Charity Commission in July after six years in the post, the government has confirmed.