This letter was published in Youthwork Magazine as a reply to Chris’ original article which you will find as a pdf on the thinking section of the website. It was written by Emlyn Williams although I talked with him about it. Hope it makes you think.

A great site with films made in a south london school

Send My Friend is a great campaign by Action Aid, getting young people to highlight the plight of the 72 million children who are missing out on education around the world. It’s campaigning at it’s most imaginative and it’s last project looks set to shoot into the Guinness Book of Records!

Hundreds of thousands of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be arriving at schools and opening envelopes today to learn how they did in their GCSE exams. The results are eagerly anticipated not only by students and their parents, but also by the schools, some of whom are facing a tough challenge to meet government standards…

Logging on to various news and education feeds this morning I found many stories about the changes this new term has bought for schools, so thought I’d summarise them here on the site. continue reading for links and info on these topics:

-14-19 diplomas
-school leaving age changing
-key stage 3 ‘overhaul’
-A level curriculum

Need to keep more up to date with news and developments in the world of education? Teachers TV have partnered with ITN to produce a revamped news service which launches this friday, 19 September.

Teachers TV news, in video and text, will also link to relevant videos and resources, provide stories from community reporters and be available as a news feed.

If you haven’t seen Sir Ken Robinson talk about creativity and education, then you are truly missing something. This is a fantastic talk given at the TED conference some years back. I’m a big fan of TED and find there’s an incredible range of topics covered which are both inspiring and often also give me ideas for content. Sir Ken has also written an excellent book ‘Out of our minds’ on creativity and education which I highly recommend. Both address the need to capture young people’s excitement and interest in learning. If you take lessons or assemblies as a schools worker, you might find it helpful.

Here’s an update of main news items from the world of education over the last few weeks…

Welcome back to the new term! Here’s a few news features to re-engage you with the world of education in 2009.

We have just had our Easter Schools Week ( a presentation in church for local schools) and have been very encouraged!!! Not just because of what happened here but because of other events happening over these next 4 weeks of term. Altrinchan to Woodley: Gravesend to Glasgow - 30 locations putting on presentations IN CHURCH for local schools (just the ones I’m awre off). It’s been the most SIGNIFICANT thing I’ve been involved with as a schools worker. The biggest thrill has been hearing about these events start, continue and some now been running for a few years. BRILLIANT!!! It’s very doable and probably it’s biggest stregnth is it’s flexibility.

Headlines from the world of education and schools work in the last few weeks.

The last education and schools work update for 2009