StudentRM Blog

New Microsoft BING Search Engine - Screenshot

Microsoft is re-launching its search engine, promising to make search simpler, and aiming to overhaul Yahoo.

Re-named and re-branded Bing.com, the search engine will go live first in the US and launch in beta elsewhere.

Google has more than 64% of the search market in the US, followed by Yahoo at 20% and Microsoft at 8.2%.

Bing offers to make search more relevant by understanding the intention of searches, and grouping more related information to the original query.

For example, searches for a product will also bring links to reviews, accessories, and online shops, as well as information about the item.

Searches for flight information will pull schedules and times from websites, as well as linking to hotels and weather.

Microsoft wants to reduce the amount of clicking a user has to do to find specific and related information.

Paul Stoddart, Microsoft UK search lead, “Forty percent of search queries go unanswered. There is something missing here and a big consumer need.”

To read the full article, visit BBC.co.uk

A teachers’ union says it wants the scrapping of school league tables in England, rather than Sats tests. Taken from the BBC ‘ Scrap tables not Sats, union says’ reported from the NASUWT conference.

Chris Keates, leader of the NASUWT teachers’ union, says

“calling for tests to be replaced by teacher assessment is ‘crazy’. Teachers need more than gesture politics and assessment will involve more work for teachers”

This is in stark contrast to reports coming from the National Union of Teachers (NUT) who are to hold a ballot boycotting the Sats tests next year.

Ms Keates then went on to say,

“Recent calls by some unions for a boycott on Sats are distracting from the real issue: the dire need for the abolition of the performance league tables into which the Sats results are fed. Abolishing Sats and leaving the current league tables and inspection regime in place will simply plunge teachers even deeper into the nightmare world they already inhabit of hugely bureaucratic, workload-intensive assessment and lesson planning.”

Addressing the conference on Wednesday, the Schools Secretary Ed Balls rejected the boycott calls from the NUT and has suggested  a resolution by the proposal of introducing a new Report Card system of grading schools, which would combine test results with information such as the social background of pupils.

What are your thoughts,should the SATS be abolished or the league tables on wich the SAT’s  are basesd. Have your say.

Following from yesterdays Blog, ‘Bad behaviour Wastes Time‘, which outlined in a Government report that up to 5 weeks of lesson time a year were lost due to teachers trying to pupils to behave, the Government’s top behaviour expert claimed in a major report to Government that Schools should make classes more interesting by staging game show-style quizzes and bingo to stop bored pupils switching off.  A four-year review of school discipline said “relevant and engaging” teaching was vital to cut low-level disruption - identified as one of the biggest problems facing schools.

Taken from the Telegraph “Play ‘Just a Minute’ in lessons to improve behaviour, teachers told“, the report  outlines a series of “starter” activities that teachers can use. These include a game based on Just a Minute which boosts children’s talking and listening skills in English.

Bingo can be used in foreign language classes as teachers read out phrases in French or German and children mark off sentences they understand.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire-style questions can be answered in pairs, with pupils competing to become the “richest”, the report says.

Pictionary, dominos and Taboo - the game in which people describe a character or event without using the word itself - could also be employed.

The report also suggests introducing a unit on Martin Luther King in religious education - and asking children to discuss “what would you be prepared to die for?” to provoke lively debates.

All well and good trying to engage un-ruly students to reduce the low level disruptions in class, but just how much time will be taken away from the lesson by playing games? In the next four-year report will it then be reported that schools are losing 5 weeks a year because of games being played in lessons?

Our education specialists at StudentRM have their own ways for engaging students, try them for yourself and see if lesson time disruptions are reduced, leave us your comments.

With the global economic downturn affecting every industry on the planet, who thought that the Education sector would be the only ones to escape unscathed? Telegraph ‘Recession ‘will lead to rise in school expulsions’, say teachers’.

Teachers are expressing fears that more children will be expelled from school as the recession leads to more arguments in the home, resulting to a rise in the number of young people being sent to education “sin bins” set up to manage problem pupils.

The comments comes amid claims that so-called pupil referral units are being used as a “dumping ground” for children that ordinary schools refuse to teach - fearing they will drag down their league table ranking.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) called for more investment in PRUs. They also backed strike action to block the privatisation of units following the publication of a Government white paper proposing to turn some over to profit-making companies.

Andy Pryor, an activist from North Somerset, told the union’s annual conference that units were coming under increasing pressure because of the recession.

“We know that as we descend into the most recent economic downturn the number of families, particular working class families, coping with stress and hardship will increase and so therefore will the numbers of young people in crisis,” he said. “This is likely to lead to increased referrals to pupil referral units.”

About 135,000 pupils pass through PRUs every year after being excluded from mainstream schools. Is this the correct way to handle this situation? Have your say.

BBC News reports from the NASUWT conference Bad behaviour ‘wastes five weeks’. Research by the NASUWT shows anything between 20 minutes and two hours is being lost in lesson time every day because teachers have to spend so long at the start of classes getting pupils to settle down, chase up work that hasn’t been completed and intervene in arguments, disagreements and even fights that children bring into the classroom from outside.

The survey found that on average, secondary school teachers lose 50 minutes each day because of pupil misconduct. There were also problems with behaviour in primary school, with an estimated 16 full days lost each year because of misconduct. There was also evidence that teachers did not feel they had sufficient help, with 61% saying they did not have confidence that they would receive “swift support” with tackling disruptive pupils.

Government behaviour adviser Sir Alan Steer is due to deliver his review on behaviour in schools in England and the children’s secretary Ed Balls will respond to the recommendations of Sir Alan’s report in a speech at the conference on Wednesday, but he has already said that ” it is “unacceptable” for a pupil to disrupt the learning and teaching of an entire class. Pupils need to know that when certain boundaries are crossed they will have to bear the consequences” .

Are pupils causing this amount of disruption in schools and what actions can be taken to limit the impact, have your say.

Taken from the Telegraph ‘How teachers should be able to punish unruly pupils‘, the guidelines on how teachers will be able to punish pupils under a new crackdown.

* Teachers have the legal power to discipline pupils misbehaving outside school - including punishing them for fighting, bullying or being rowdy on buses or trains.

* Schools should draw up a clear framework on behaviour. Reasonable punishments include one-to-one admonishment, removal from class, banning access to computers, banning pupils from school trips and forcing them to carry out a “useful task” in the school.

* Pupils can be put on detention with 24 hours written notice to parents. Parents cannot over-rule the decision.

* Teachers can legally confiscate items from pupils - and dispose of them - including mobile phones and MP3 players if used during classes and baseball caps if pupils refuse to take them off.

* Staff have powers to search pupils’ clothes, bags and lockers for weapons and powers will be extended to alcohol, drugs and stolen goods.

* Teachers can use “reasonable force” to restrain pupils.

* Schools should consider setting up “withdrawal rooms” in which children are placed for short periods to calm down away from classmates.

* Parents can be held accountable with parenting contracts if their children repeatedly misbehave at school. Fixed penalty fines of £50 and £100 can be issued for parents of children playing truant.

Is this enough power to handle unruly children or is more drastic action needed, have your say.

The Easter weekend sounded the beginning of the end for the dreaded Sat’s exams in England and Wales, more than 1,000 delegates at the National Union of Teachers (NUT) annual conference in Cardiff  passed the motion unanimously, to a standing ovation.  Telegraph 12 Apr 2009 ‘Teachers unanimously back Sats boycott‘

Members want the tests to be replaced by teacher assessment, and the school league tables - which are based on Sats results - scrapped. They claim that the tests damage children’s education because there is too much narrow “teaching to the test”, with pupils cramming for the papers months before they sit them.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which represents 85 per cent of primary heads, will vote next month on a boycott. The joint action, to start next year, will escalate tensions between the Government and the teaching profession and comes just weeks before the start of this year’s Sats in English, maths and science for 11 year olds, which start on May 11.

Max Hyde, a member of the NUT executive, said: “At best Sat’s are detrimental and skew the curriculum, at worst, and particularly for our most vulnerable children, they are perilously close to child abuse.”

The news has been met with backlash from the Government, Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, has stated that a boycott would be “irresponsible and disruptive”

The Department for Children, Schools and Families had urged NUT members not to vote in favour in the ballot. It said any attempt to boycott the tests was “unlawful” and risked “removing a basic right” of parents to see how their children and local schools were performing.

Will you be boycotting this years Sat’s? Have your say, leave your comments below.