Leadership

Caught At The Crossroads?

This report by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association shows that ‘pay penalties’ for ethnic minority groups are significant, with Black men and Black women earning the least on average relative to White men. The report includes recommendations for employers to consider when looking at gender and ethnicity pay gaps and when developing action plans.

There are clear differences in labour market outcomes for different ethnic groups in the HE sector with men and women from black ethnicities showing significant pay penalties relative to white men. According to the report, black and minority ethnic academics earn on average, thousands of pounds less every year than their peers.

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Creative Teaching & Learning

Breakthrough to Learning Book 2: Reading for Learning

23 Feb 2012

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Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

Caught in the Youth Justice System!

16 Oct 2017

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      string(5186) "December that year to get the mistake with my P60 sorted. The stress was unbelievable. I’d comehome from work and just worry about what I was going to do. The stress on the family was horrendous.‘I didn’t tell my younger children the whole truth. They could see I was stressed, even if they didn’t know why. Iwould go without food so the children could eat.‘I couldn’t afford holidays or trips for the children. Apart from getting to work and back, I couldn’t even affordto put petrol in the car to take them anywhere.‘For a long time, I didn’t talk about my debt problems with friends as I was embarrassed. But eventually, Ispoke to a friend who told me where I could get help. I think I might still be stuck in the same situation if Ihadn’t eventually had the courage to talk about it.‘Now I’m absolutely against taking on debt. My kids know everything now, and they feel the same. But they’realways being offered loans and credit cards.’Latasha’s storyTwenty-two-year-old Latasha was always good with money and budgeted well. Then she moved with herthree children into a flat with damp problems.Because of the damp problems, Latasha spent almost £3,000 over the next two years on paint, wallpaper,carpets, beds and mattresses, as well as new clothes for the children. To fund this, Latasha took out loans withpayday lenders, took on an overdraft and fell behind on household bills.‘You have no control over it at all. You don’t realise how much debt you get into until you look back, then yougo ‘how am I going to pay that back?’‘Every debt letter I was getting I was shutting in the drawer to get it out of my mind. We wouldn’t answer thedoor in case it was the bailiffs.’‘I ended up badly depressed with anxiety and panic attacks. For two years, I didn’t like to leave the house. Ididn’t want to talk but I felt isolated. My daughter missed time from nursery. It was stressful, not knowing howto deal with the debt, and feeling it was my fault.‘The children were picking up on it as well. I always make sure the kids have got everything they need butthey want to move home. Me and the children have asthma now and they have trouble with their breathing.’Eventually, Latasha was referred by her daughter’s school to Solihull Children’s Centre in Kingshurst, run by theChildren’s Society, which put her in touch with debt advice experts.‘I didn’t know about the help and there needs to be a way to let people know about what’s available.’Having also been assigned a mental health worker, she feels more self-confident and positive about her lifeand is volunteering for the Children’s Society and studying to become a social worker at a local college. She isalso looking to move home.72Vol 6.4School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comResearchFamilydebtGetting help with debtThe Children’s SocietyThe Children’s Society provides advice on debt through its children’s centres and helps match up familiesstruggling with debt and debt advice charities – such as StepChange and Citizens Advice – who can help.Citizens Advice BureauThe Citizens Advice Bureau provides free information and advice on legal, money and other problems. You canfind your local Citizens Advice Bureau here.StepChangeStepChange provides free, independent and impartial advice to people who have debt problems. The charityalso offers a free online service which includes tailored debt advice. It’s anonymous, free of charge andavailable 24 hours a day.National DebtlineNational Debtline offers free, confidential and independent help over the phone if you’re in England,Scotland or Wales. You can call their helpline and also download publications from their website.Debt Advice FoundationThe Debt Advice Foundation is a registered UK debit advice charity offering free, confidential support andadvice to anyone worried about debt.Sam Royston is head of policy and public affairs at The Children’s Society.Knowledge trails1. Cracking the code: How schools can improve social mobility – The educational attainment ofthose from poorer backgrounds in England is still shockingly low, and teachers must raise their ex-pectations of these pupils. (Report summary – Available with subscription to Leadership Briefings)library.teachingtimes.com/articles/social-mobility_1310142. Social mobility and child poverty in Great Britain – The UK risks becoming a permanentlydivided society unless radical new approaches are taken by the next government, and the currenttarget to cut child poverty in half by 2020 will not be met. 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Leadership

Caught in the trap - How problem debt damages children

27 Jan 2015

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      string(3685) "thinkingskills, to keep the twin perspectives ofthinking skill and content objectivessimultaneously in view, and to developand sustain the metacognitiveperspective.Full details of the second phase of theACTS project and teachers’ evaluations arereported in McGuinness, Curry, Greer, Dalyand Salters (1997).To conclude, at this stage, the primaryachievement of the ACTS project is theproduction of the Handbook for Key Stage2 teachers with examples of lessons taughtwithin the context of the Northern Irelandcurriculum (McGuinness & Curry, in press).This outcome is due, in no small part, to theefforts, enthusiasm, and hard work of the17 teachers who participated in the projectand whose lessons form the substance ofthe Handbook. They have shown thatworking with an infusion methodology ispossible in a busy classroom, that childrenof different abilities respond positively tothe approach and that their ownprofessional development received apositive boost. Seventeen teachers weretrained in the ACTS methodology and over300 pupils were taught using the approach.Teachers’ clearly report changes in pupils’thinking, teaching strategies and classroominteraction in the direction of higher-quality teaching and learning.Nevertheless, important evaluation workremains to be done linking themethodology with children learningachievements and with othercharacteristics of the learningenvironment.Alongside the development of theHandbook a training methodology wasdesigned which, when conducted over sixto eight days, at monthly intervals,enabled teachers to develop and practicethe ACTS methodology, to review theirprogress and to exchange examples ofgood practice. A corpus of nearly 100lessons is now available as trainingmaterials.Taken as a whole, the ACTSmethodology – National Curriculumanalysis, thinking skills taxonomy, infusionmethodology, lesson design, teacherdevelopment – can be considered as aprototype for activating children’s andstudents’ thinking across the curriculum.Although trialled with Key Stage 2teachers, it is clearly not confined to thisstage of schooling. With somemodification, the approach could be usedwith younger children; and currently inNorthern Ireland, subject groups ofteachers at Key Stage 3 are co-operatingwithin and across schools to produceexample lessons from a thinking skillsperspective.Dr Carol McGuinness is a senior lecturer inthe School of Psychology at Queen’sUniversity, Belfast.ReferencesAdey, P S; Shayer, M; Yates, C (1989),Thinking Science: The curriculum materialsof the CASE project, MacmillanFeuerstein, R; Rand, Y; Hoffman, M B; Miller,R (1980), Instrumental Enrichment: Anintervention for cognitive modifiability,University Park PressFisher, R (1998), Teaching Thinking, CassellGardner, H (1993), Multiple Intelligences:The theory in practice, Basic BooksLipman, M; Sharp, A M; Oscanyan, F S(1980), Philosophy in the Classroom,Temple University PressMcGuinness, C (1999), From Thinking Skillsto Thinking Classrooms: A review andevaluation of approaches for developingpupils’ thinking, HMSOMcGuinness, C; Curry, C; Greer, B; Daly, P;Salters, M (1996), ‘Final Report on the ACTSproject: Phase 1’, submitted to NorthernIreland CCEAMcGuinness, C; Curry, C; Greer, B; Daly, P;Salters, M (1996), ‘Final Report on the ACTSproject: Phase 2’, submitted to NorthernIreland CCEASmith, A. (1996), Accelerated Learning in theClassroom, Network Educational PressMcGuinness, C; Curry, C (in press), ACTS: AHandbook for Activating Children’sThinking at Key Stage 2, NICCEASwartz, R; Parks, S (1994), Infusing Criticaland Creative Thinking into ContentInstruction for Elementary Teachers, CriticalThinking Press"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Caught In The ACTS

29 Dec 2010