Displaying items by tag: Education

English children will be able to access free books online during school closures via a virtual library. After schools moved to remote learning, internet classroom Oak National Academy (ONA) created the library, which will provide a book a week from its author of the week. The aim is to increase access for young readers, particularly the most disadvantaged, to ebooks and audiobooks. ONA is funded by the Department for Education and has provided over 28 million lessons since 4 January. The National Literacy Trust said many children's literacy skills had been profoundly affected by the first lockdown and school closures. ‘We will do everything in our power to support children, families and teachers during this new lockdown period.’

‘Jewish people today on campus can be tolerated, protected or abused. At no point are they treated as equals.’ (David Collier, Academia, 18 January) This Jew-hate, cloaked in anti-Zionism, is a doctrine claiming that the Jewish state, alone among the nations, has no right to exist. The Government has tried to persuade universities to adopt the threat of removal of funding streams, but this is often bitterly opposed by certain academic staff desperate to remain unchallenged in their bully pulpits. As of autumn 2020 only 29 of 133 higher education institutions had complied. Some British universities are now virtually free of Jews. This is a chilling indictment not just of British academia but of a liberal democratic society that has tolerated a wave of discrimination against Jews sweeping through universities over recent decades. In 1938 the leading Nazi student newspaper triumphantly proclaimed, ‘The goal is achieved! No more Jews at German universities.’

Boris Johnson warned the coming weeks will be the hardest yet, in another national lockdown for England. Schools and universities must switch to online learning, and summer exams will not go ahead. Pray for anxious families facing isolation at home with lack of income or adequate technology to support their stay-at-home school children or effectively work from home. May God give them peace of mind and hope for the future. Some schools are open for vulnerable and key workers' children. Pray for those who are caring for these groups to have a full complement of staff to meet students’ needs, and be able to implement appropriate safety measures to prevent pandemic transmission. Pray for the children who will not now be taking their exams this summer. May the educators and assessors be anointed to give honest and fair grades. Pray also that this lockdown will prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed in the next few weeks.

There are concerns some schools in lockdown could be inundated with pupils without laptops after a change to the vulnerable pupil list. Pupils are learning remotely in England after schools shut to all but children of key workers and the vulnerable. But those without laptops or space to study are now eligible to attend school, under government guidance. National Association of Head Teachers general secretary Paul Whiteman said demand for key worker and vulnerable places in schools had risen substantially since the last school shutdown. ‘We have concern that the Government has not supplied enough laptops for all the children without them, and so has made lack of internet access a criterion of vulnerability - adding to the numbers still in school.’

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Early childhood education is critical for all children, particularly during a crisis like the Covid pandemic. For children who have experienced war and displacement - many of whom have lived their whole lives as refugees - it can be a lifeline, healing emotional and developmental wounds caused by years of trauma. The pandemic has hit displaced and vulnerable families the hardest, as in-person programmes have been put on hold for safety concerns. Now the IRC has adapted and uses digital tools to reach children and their families directly in their homes. It equips parents to create a nurturing and predictable home learning environment that fosters children's resilience during times of crisis and provides caregivers with ways to manage their own stress.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has urged British university vice-chancellors to adopt the international definition of anti-Semitism. He warned them that he would act if ‘the overwhelming majority’ of universities had not adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism by the end of the year; they could even have ‘funding streams’ suspended. He said it was disturbing that a recent survey by the Union of Jewish Students showed only 29 out of 133 universities had adopted the IHRA definition, and 80 said they had no current plans to do so. Mr Williamson said, ‘The repugnant belief that anti-Semitism is somehow a less serious, or more acceptable, form of racism has taken insidious hold in some parts of British society. I am quite clear that universities must play their part in rooting out this attitude and demonstrating that anti-Semitism is abhorrent.’

Centres of Hope are Christian schools open to anybody regardless of faith background. They want to show Jesus’s love to the community, and they don’t attach conditions to entry. But they do want to make sure that they show Jesus as the real source of hope. Young children and teenagers do separate activities. The young ones dance and sing songs about Jesus and watch biblical stories and funny sketches by staff. The teenagers watch a Christian movie and then discuss it. But like everywhere, Syria has taken measures to prevent coronavirus spreading. Many centres temporarily closed, and staff refocused efforts towards humanitarian and emergency aid. Now the centres are re-opening, and they are praying that they will reach even larger numbers of children to show them the love of God and to tell them the good news of salvation.

The number of secondary schools in England sending home pupils because of Covid is increasing rather than diminishing. 21% of secondary schools are not fully open - up from 18% the previous week and 8% in mid-September. This is usually because they have sent home pupils in response to Covid cases. About 7% of primary schools had to send home pupils, up from 5%. These weekly figures from the Department for Education show a worsening picture for secondary schools being disrupted by the pandemic, with the highest figure for groups of pupils being sent home since schools went back in the autumn. Pray for the teachers having difficulty operating in the midst of rising infection rates. Pray for God to give them the stamina and wisdom to successfully balance complex control measures while delivering education for those in school as well as those who are self-isolating at home.

Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other faith group parents have commenced a judicial review into the new relationships and sex education curriculum. The judicial review, launched by Let Kids Be Kids Coalition, will challenge the education secretary's decision to prevent parents from withdrawing their children from relationships lessons that came into effect on 1 September. The mandatory curriculum includes transgender and LGBTQ topics. While schools are required to consult parents on the lessons content, parents do not have any right of veto. Parents voiced concern that books on sexual orientation and gender dysphoria, like 'King and King', 'And Tango Makes Three' and 'My Princess Boy' are becoming normalised in primary schools and relationships education had become ‘sex education by a different name’. They do not want children exposed to ideologies that do not reflect the family’s religious convictions and are crowdfunding to cover the legal costs of their challenge.

A leading epidemiologist warned the country is at a ‘critical moment’ in the pandemic, as students prepare to return to universities. Students moving across the country could cause a wave of infection. Data showed the highest number of detected infections was in younger people. Government scientific advisors said ‘significant outbreaks’ linked to universities were likely. Pray for University administrators and lecturers to have heavenly wisdom as they take steps to minimise risks on campuses. Current strategies include online teaching, grouping students together within year groups, putting in place local testing and tracing policies and no freshers’ week for 1st-year students. The University and College Union cannot see why the government insists students move around the country and engage in unnecessary face-to-face interactions. Also, online learning ‘would remove any need to open doors and windows in the winter months as the guidance suggests’. See also NOTE:  The Students Union wants a balance between personal teaching and online teaching; not least because many have paid £ thousands for local accommodation!.