Tag Archives: education

Stephen Tall

Laws: Half of children in poverty not getting free school meals

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th December 2008 - 7:56 pm

The Guardian has the story, courtesy of Lib Dem research published by the party’s children and schools’ spokesman David Laws:

A million children living below the poverty line do not receive free school meals as a result of flaws in the funding system, figures released in parliament show. Half of pupils from families in poverty are not getting a free lunch because the income threshold to qualify is set lower than the current level used to define poverty. It means that a family of two adults and two children struggling to get by on £18,000 a year has to pay

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

David Laws on the latest GCSE results

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st December 2008 - 10:30 am

From The Guardian:

Fewer than half of teenagers left school with five good GCSEs including English and maths this summer, official figures revealed yesterday.

Some 47% of 16-year-olds across England achieved the basic target grades. The government said it was a 0.9 percentage point improvement on last year – and an 11.6-point increase since 1997 – but opposition MPs criticised the lack of progress in closing the achievement gap between rich and poor…

The GCSE results showed record rises in London, where 49.8% of pupils hit the target, beating the national average. The government claimed it as a success for the London

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Pupil ‘bonuses’ “totally unjust”, says Laws

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th November 2008 - 2:23 pm

David Laws, the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for schools, has criticised the policy of paying poorer students for, among other things, attending class. The Telegraph reports:

In some cases, students are paid £250 each in taxpayers’ money for attending every class over the course of a year. Middle-class students with the same academic record are ineligible for the payments.

The cash is paid on top of a basic £30-a-week grant handed out to all students from deprived backgrounds to remain in education up to 18 – instead of getting a job. … bonuses worth a record £100.5m were

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

One in four trainee teachers struggles with simple spelling

By Mark Pack | Wed 22nd October 2008 - 9:45 am

So says The Sun today:

More than 11,000 starting at schools this year flunked a basic test.

The shocking statistic was revealed after a whopping 20,000 last year were found to be duffers in arithmetic.

Student teachers take the tests online but can do so as many times as they want — until they finally pass.

The number who botched their spellings at the first try was 16 per cent higher than seven years ago — sparking claims that standards have been lowered.

Lib Dem schools spokesman David Laws said: “Spelling is a key

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 13 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Peter Davies
    There is a general problem that all parties state their targets in terms of new homes built. While regeneration programs replacing bad homes with better ones is...
  • Peter Davies
    As usual, the article talks about a requirement for social homes and "genuinely affordable homes" but a strategy for delivering "affordable homes". We need to b...
  • Tristan Ward
    "The question on Monday evening is whether we should be as wary of it in private hands" Of course we should. We don't like anyone or anything that abuses pow...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    Gareth, thank you for this. Housing is one of the issues raised most often on the doorstep in London, and this is what Lib Dems in action looks like: Richmond, ...
  • David Moon
    We keep obsessing about the National Debt and fiscal rules, when the real weakness of the economy is our trade imbalance with the rest of the world, particularl...