All Categories
Categories
Contributors
Young people’s poor well-being has hit headlines this year, with talk of crisis and a lot of soul-searching about why many children seem to be unhappy. We've brought together a panel of experts to share their views.
Thankfully, serious mental health problems remain comparatively rare and it’s important to remember that childhood and the teenage years, in particular, have always been a difficult time of transition. But something else seems to be going on today, from an earlier age.
Blame has been laid at the door of many things – from neoliberalism, to social media, to excessive testing in schools. What's changed to impact on young people’s well-being to such an extent, and what can schools, parents and carers, and policy makers – do about it? Are we doing enough, early on enough, to respond to modern-day pressures – whether through mental health training for pupils or mental health first aid training for teachers?
#IOEDebates
110
12/11/2019
The Warnock Report marked a pivotal change in the provision of education for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) - encouraging these children's inclusion in mainstream classes, and introducing the system of 'statementing' that set out a child's needs and entitlement to additional support.
But much has changed in the intervening years - not least the increase in the number of children with SEND and the complexity of their needs, wider policies of parental choice and school accountability and, now, funding constraints on the availability of special school places and SEND support in mainstream classrooms. More recent years have also seen challenges to the bias towards inclusion.
In this context we have brought together reflections from Baroness Warnock herself and a range of perspectives to take stock of the Warnock Committee's recommendations - their underlying principles, their implementation, and their relevance for the future.
#IOEDebates
8
12/6/2019
In the age of robots and artificial intelligence, what kind of education will young people need to prosper, and can our current curriculum and testing regime deliver it?
There's a lot of talk at the moment about robots and artificial intelligence and how they are bringing about a 'fourth industrial revolution' in which occupations and the labour market, right up to the top professions like medicine and law, will be transformed.
The debate over whether schools should focus first and foremost on developing pupils' knowledge or pupils' skills is a long-running one; do current technological advances add a new dimension to that debate? Is it time for a more radical rethink of what and how we teach, or can a classic 'liberal education' - introducing children to 'the best that has been thought and said' in science and culture - continue to conquer all?
#IOEDebates
16
12/6/2019