I discover that crafts and skills are the new zeitgeist, and friends envy me my furniture-making course
It's the end of the first semester of my furniture-making foundation degree, and I have just handed in my first ever piece of furniture for marking. It is a small oak cabinet (with 28 dinky dovetail joints) that sits on an elegant black metal stand. It's not perfect, but I am really happy to have used hand tools to create something that looks good and has practical value.
Since last September, it has been a whirl of learning new things, many (minor) chisel injuries, frustrations, mistakes and a burn with a welding rod. There have also been "issues" with some students listening to personal stereos during lectures. Hearing that I turned 50 in December, one of my new so-called mates thought for a while, smiled and said, "you are six years older than my mum". Actually, the age gradient runs from 19 to 62, men and women from across the UK as well as France, Germany and the Philippines.
But there is anxiety about the future of the course. The furniture design foundation degree was scrapped last year, which doesn't bode well. London Metropolitan University has a calamitous history with finances. In the new world order, large wood and metal workshops with skilled technicians are expensive compared to cheaper "chalk and talk" courses. Sweep them all away and there is plenty of space to cram in £9,000-a-year business studies students and accountants.
But if the workshops go, the other courses that rely on them – jewellery, design, conservation, restoration and musical-instrument making – would suffer. The logic seems cracked. If we are not making anything, who will employ the accountants, lawyers and business graduates? They can't all be apprenticed to Lord Sugar.
On a fact-finding tour in January, the new dean met our course tutor and a small group of students, including myself. We all told him that the course is great. In fact, we said there is a moral duty to retain furniture making in an area that has been its home for over 150 years.
Since I started the course, dozens of friends have said they wish they could do the same. Crafts and old skills are the zeitgeist. Look at the recent TV programme with Monty Don taking teams of hopefuls through woodwork, stone masonry and weaving courses, or best-selling The Case for Working With Your Hands, by Matthew Crawford, the academic philosopher turned motorcycle mechanic.
And Simon Jenkins's article from the Guardian in October – "Graduates shouldn't be afraid of the chisel and oil can" – was another paean of praise for these skills.
Furniture making here can trace its roots back to 1848, when the Bishop of London's appeal to the clergy to "improve the intellectual and moral conditions of the industrial classes" saw the start of evening classes for young men. Cash from the foundation set up by local philanthropist Sir John Cass (1661 to 1718) built the first technical institute.
Our campus, where trendy Brick Lane meets the City, is a creative crucible – everyone wants to come here. The university must raise awareness of one of the few hands-on furniture-making courses in the south-east of England. We need new philanthropic partners to ensure that financially and spiritually rewarding crafts flourish. Hello Mr Conran, Mr Heal, Mr Ikea.
Despite university fees and the earnings potential of trades, raising the status of apprenticeships is a battle
Richard Sagar did well in his Scottish highers, but for him university was definitely not on the radar. "From quite an early age, I knew I wanted to learn a skill or a trade. I just couldn't see myself in a desk job in an office."
So, at 18, when his friends opted for university, Sagar started an apprenticeship in electrical installation, spending four days a week at a local electrical firm, and one day at Dumfries and Galloway College. He was paid around £150 a week. His talent and flair were spotted early on, and in 2009, he was a gold medallist in WorldSkills, the international "skills olympics" competition.
Now, at 24, Sagar has his own business that specialises in home automation (control systems that "sync" home technology, so dimming the lights or switching on the TV can be done at the touch of a button). His projected earnings for this year are around £60,000. By the time he is 30, he says, he would like to employ up to five staff. "I've got lots of friends who went to university and I can't think of a single one that can match me in terms of earnings and career progression."
Heating engineer and plumber Brian Grice, 26, who works for Pimlico Plumbers, has a similar story to tell. After leaving school at 16, he completed apprenticeships in both gas and electrical installation. By the time he was 19, he was fully qualified and earning £24,000 a year. Last year, he earned around £92,000. "My dad, who is a design engineer, and has both a degree and an apprenticeship, advised me to get out into the workplace as soon as possible. Most people I know with a degree had to start again when they left university and do some vocational training. I've got mates in their 20s who did law degrees and are earning less than I was when I was 19."
Getting into employment earlier, earning on the job and not running up student debt (and the fact that their skills are often very much in demand) mean apprentices are definitely giving graduates a run for their money.
According to a Department for Education and Skills study carried out in 2007, those with a level 2 apprenticeship (equivalent to GCSE) earn more than £73,000 more over their lifetime compared with those with those who have other level 2 qualifications or below. Those with a level 3 apprenticeship (equivalent to A-level) earn around £105,000 more than those with other level 2 qualifications.
And a recent study carried out by Zenos, a subsidiary of the education provider Pearson, found that within three years of starting their training, their IT apprentices were more than £47,000 better off than their graduate counterparts, taking into consideration the lack of graduate debt.
Fiona McBride, CEO of Pearson in Practice, the vocational training division of Pearson, says: "Apprenticeships are not only a solid choice for young people but, in many cases, a better route into their chosen career than A-levels and university. Young people and their parents are waking up to this fact, and recognising the importance of work-related learning in today's competitive economy."
As one of the few areas of education and training not to be hit by government cuts, the apprenticeship market is thriving and the government has pledged to create more than 75,000 new apprenticeship places by 2015. But despite the potential for good salaries and career progression, some say apprenticeships are still not given the status they deserve.
Khalifia Newland, who is currently working towards a level 3 apprenticeship in business and administration through New College Nottingham, says she feels there is still a stigma. "People tend to think you're not clever enough for university, which is just not right."
Knowledge about apprenticeships can also be poor. Newland, who is now 24, spent two and a half miserable years at university (where she amassed over £16,000 worth of debt) and two years doing poorly paid jobs in call centres before she discovered apprenticeships, completely by chance, when browsing the college website for jobs.
She now earns £13,500 a year and believes that once she has completed her apprenticeship, her earnings will rise substantially. "I had heard of apprenticeships but assumed they were all in areas like plumbing. At school it was just 'uni uni uni'. No one ever spoke to us about alternative options."
According to Sarah Clover, sales and marketing director at the student advice website notgoingtouni, this is a common problem. She cites the 2009 study by the education charity Edge, which found that more than half of teachers (56%) rated their knowledge of apprenticeships as poor. Just 24% of teachers said they believed apprenticeships were a good alternative to A-levels or equivalent qualifications.
A former British Gas apprentice herself, Clover feels little has changed in terms of careers advice dished out in schools since she left over 20 years ago. "I was academically bright, but didn't want to go to university and basically was told if I didn't, I'd be destined for a life of poverty and grind.
"Since the second year of my apprenticeship I have consistently earned more and also found it easier to progress in my career than friends who chose university. I have never regretted my decision and it angers me that so many teachers are still spreading the same untruths regarding options away from university."
In a bid to improve the advice on offer, the government is to launch an all-age careers service for England in September, to replace the Connexions service for young people and Next Step service for adults. Many have complained about the winding down of Connexions, but the service had been criticised for focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable children at the expense of others, such as sixth-formers making decisions about university.
Plans are also being announced this week – National Apprenticeships Week – to introduce a student card scheme for apprentices (like the NUS card) offering discounts in high street shops and other student-style benefits. This is part of wider plans to create a Royal Society of Apprentices, funded by membership subscriptions, supported by the NUS, Edge and various employer organisations.
The plan includes promoting apprenticeships in colleges and schools, lobbying on issues that affect apprentices (including the introduction of a graduation ceremony for apprentices) and helping members to join other industry-based societies.
Although the idea of a "royal society" is in the very early planning stages, Rob Halfon, MP for Harlow, who has been working on the idea, wants to create a sense of "collegiality" for apprentices. "The hope is that the society will give apprentices the voice they otherwise would not have."
While there is little doubt that apprenticeship can lead to recognised qualifications, good salaries and employment prospects, Kate Shoesmith, senior manager for policy and research at the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development, thinks there is work to do with employers to ensure apprenticeships are easy to set up and fit for purpose. "It's important to make sure that apprenticeships are seen by employers as a way to unleash people's talents and potential, not just as a way to train someone to do a single job for life."
Children of Chinese origin, whether rich or poor, do incredibly well in school – but hardly any studies have been done to find out why
It seems a hugely under-researched phenomenon within English education. But Jessie Tang thinks she has the answer.
"It's mostly the parents. Chinese parents tend to push their children a lot, and have really high expectations. I think it's maybe because they did not have the opportunities that we have these days. They want us to take advantage of them."
Jessie, 18, an A-level student at Watford grammar school for girls, whose father arrived in England from Hong Kong, was being asked about what seems an amazing success story buried and barely commented upon within English schools' results.
The statistics relate to the achievement of pupils of Chinese ethnicity, revealed last autumn in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on inequality in Britain.
This showed not only that British Chinese youngsters are the highest performing ethnic group in England at GCSE, which has been known for years. It also showed that this group seemed to be singularly successful in achieving that goal of educational policy-makers everywhere: a narrow performance gap between those from the poorest homes, and the rest.
Further evidence of the success of pupils of Chinese heritage came through the world's most well-known international testing study, Pisa. This found 15-year-olds from Shanghai, China, easily outperforming those of all other nationalities.
The domestic statistics show that, at GCSE, children of Chinese ethnicity – classed simply as "Chinese" in the data – who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) perform better than the national average for all pupils, rich and poor.
Not only that, but FSM Chinese pupils do better than those of most other ethnic backgrounds, even when compared with children from better-off homes (those not eligible for free school meals).
A detailed look at the figures makes this clearer. Some 71% of Chinese FSM pupils achieved five good GCSEs, including English and maths, in 2009. For non-FSM Chinese pupils, the figure was 72%.
Every other ethnic group had a gap of at least 10 percentage points between children who do not count as eligible for free meals, and those who do. The gap for white pupils stood at 32 percentage points.
In 2010, the picture changed slightly, with the gap between Chinese FSM pupils (68%) and their non-FSM peers (76%) increasing to eight points. But it still compared very favourably with the equivalent gulf among white pupils, which was 33 percentage points.
In primary schools, the picture is similar. Remarkably, in 2009, in English key stage 2 tests, Chinese FSM pupils outperformed not just their counterparts from other ethnic groups – easily outstripping white children – but even Chinese pupils not eligible for free meals.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, told his party conference last autumn that the performance of FSM pupils as a whole was a "reproach to our conscience". So what do Chinese pupils have going for them that other children do not?
Anyone investigating this subject will be struck by the limited research available. Only one academic team seems to have looked into British Chinese pupils' experience in detail in recent years.
The team, who interviewed 80 Chinese pupils, 30 Chinese parents and 30 teachers in 2005, identified several factors behind the success, although they stress that not all British Chinese pupils achieve. One explanation, though, shines through their findings.
Becky Francis, a visiting professor at King's College London, director of education at the Royal Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: "Our main argument is that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of differentiating themselves not just within their own group, but from other ethnic groups as well."
Recent coverage of Amy Chua's book on "tiger parenting", Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother, has also focused attention on parenting styles promoting achievement in children of Chinese ethnicity.
The argument that Chinese families put especial value on education is sensitive territory, of course, as most parents would profess a commitment to helping their child do well. Academics also stress that the numbers of pupils classed as "Chinese" are small – only 2,236 took GCSEs last year, from a total cohort of nearly 600,000 – and results should be interpreted cautiously.
However, there is tentative evidence, both from interviews with parents and from analyses of background values existing in Chinese culture, that family commitment to education is particularly strong.
Some 13 of the 30 British Chinese parents interviewed said their children were also being educated at Chinese "supplementary schools". These offer tuition in Chinese language and culture at the weekends.
Several of the parents also said they paid for tutoring outside school hours. Researchers found that among British Chinese families this was not related to social class: a number of working-class parents paid for this, too.
Asked to respond to the question "Is education important?", all 80 pupils agreed. High parental expectations also seem to have been a factor in many – though not all – children's experiences.
One pupil is quoted saying: "My parents expect me to get the best grades. And if I don't, then they'll continuously nag at me to do better ... Like if I get a B, they'll be like, 'Why didn't you get an A?'"
A paper presented at last year's British Educational Research Association conference, covering performance across all ethnic groups, found no link between the occupation of Chinese pupils' parents and their GCSE scores, unlike for children from all other ethnicities.
Ramesh Kapadia, a visiting professor at London University's Institute of Education, who presented the paper, says: "I think within Chinese society, there is an emphasis on practice. Children are told: 'If you want to learn something, practise, practise and practise it again and you will get better'. It may be that this helps to motivate pupils when the rewards can seem a long way away."
There is a mixed picture overall, though, as to how far this school success is being translated into employment prospects. The Equality and Human Rights Commission report found that British Chinese men and women were twice as likely to be in professional jobs as their white British counterparts. But average earnings remained around 11% lower throughout the population than for those classed as "white Christian".
Whether the Chinese experience can be replicated among other pupils is debatable. Some might see evidence that Chinese families emphasise hard work, and the results that follow, as simple proof that all can succeed, given the right attitude.
However, Francis says such a view should be treated cautiously, the team's 2005 paper arguing that "Chinese constructions of ethnic identity and education are very specific". Much research has shown links, generally, between poverty and underachievement.
Jessie, whose father works in a takeaway restaurant and whose mother, originally from Malaysia, works at Heathrow airport, has 12 GCSEs including six A*s and an offer to read music at Royal Holloway, London. She attended a Chinese supplementary school from the age of five. She says many Chinese families are keen on their children pursuing careers in medicine, so she is "rebelling a bit", but wanted to pursue a subject she enjoys.
The Department for Education was unable to point to any particular study it has commissioned to look at British Chinese pupils' success. Given the scale of that success, it seems surprising that the phenomenon has not been investigated further.
Both male and female cats display rolling behaviour, researchers report, usually in the context of mating
Domestic cats roll. Oh, they roll and roll and roll – not constantly, but often enough that the behaviour eventually caught the attention of scientists. In 1994, Hilary N Feldman of Cambridge University's Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, did a formal study of the phenomenon. Feldman's monograph, called Domestic Cats and Passive Submission, appeared in the journal Animal Behaviour.
Other scientists had made little leaping swats at the question. Feldman commends JM Baerends-Van Roon and GP Baerends' book The Morphogenesis of the Behaviour of the Domestic Cat, and also LK Corbett's University of Aberdeen PhD thesis, Feeding ecology and social organisation of wildcats (Felis silvestris) and domestic cats (Felis catus) in Scotland. Both came out in 1979, marking that year as the previous high point in cat-rolling scholarship.
But Baerends-Van Roon, Baerends and Corbett only glanced at rolling. Feldman focused on it, and spent six months observing "two groups of semiferal cats kept in a large outdoor enclosure".
Rolling, by Feldman's definition, "involved an individual cat rolling onto its back, with forepaws held cocked, often with the legs splayed and abdomen exposed ... The exposed position was sometimes held for several minutes and was assumed repeatedly in several instances. This was performed in front of another cat in the majority of cases (79%), and often the rolling animal would approach rapidly and perform the action before any response to the approach was observed".
The big question of interest, going into this, was the extent to which "each cat was equally likely to roll to any other individual" versus the extent to which each cat was not. These were adults. The report specifies that "kitten behaviour was not examined".
Over the course of the half year, Feldman observed 175 rolls, of which 138 "had an obvious recipient".
Females rolled mostly while they were in heat. Adult females rolled almost exclusively for adult males. Younger females went mostly for old guys, too, but occasionally rolled for young males or for females.
Males rolled "throughout the year". Feldman writes that "a substantial proportion [61%] of the rolling behaviour was performed by males, and most of this male-initiated activity was directed towards other males."
Young males rolled toward adults, but the reverse almost never happened. The adults would "ignore or tolerate the younger males' presence", suggesting to Feldman "that rolling may act as passive submission and inhibits the development of overt aggression".
"Both adult and juvenile males rolled ... towards adult females. As with female rolls, it is likely that these rolls were performed in the context of mating, as they occurred when females were displaying other oestrus-related behaviour (eg lordosis [exaggerated curving of the spine], erratic running, treading)".
In summary: "Rolling behaviour in domestic cats appears to have two functions. Females roll primarily in the presence of adult males, demonstrating a readiness to mate". But "males roll near adult males as a form of subordinate behaviour".
This "phenomenon of passive submission", Feldman muses, "may have relevance for a similar behaviour between pet cats and their owners".
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
As job cuts loom, academics are worried – but there is life after redundancy, as one lecturer explains
"It felt like facing a firing squad at two in the afternoon. It was like someone had shot me. There were people crying, it was very upsetting." If fear over jobs or redundancies is stalking the corridors of your department or faculty, these words from former Cardiff University lecturer Liz Mayor will probably be the last thing you want to read.
But Mayor, 54, is also living proof that, for academics worrying about what the government's 6% teaching budget cuts from April will mean for them (not to mention the uncertainty about what will happen after the start of the new fees regime), there can be life after redundancy.
After 16 years as a part-time lecturer at Cardiff's Centre for Lifelong Learning, Mayor was one of around 100 people made redundant in the summer of 2009.
"It was completely unexpected. I had been on the committee trying to sort out a settlement, which ... we had expected to be accepted. Instead, everyone was called to a meeting with the dean of the faculty and told they were going to be made redundant," she says.
"The fact that I did not have a full-time contract meant all I got was my back pay and the minimum redundancy payout. I was just coming up to my 53rd birthday and my subject area is ancient history and Latin, so I realised that getting another job in academia was going to be very difficult. But in a way I was lucky. Because I was part time, I was already doing some other bits and pieces, and so I sat down and had a good think about where to go," she says.
Her answer was to set up a company called the Classical Education Forum, which offers community-based higher education courses in areas as diverse as Egyptology, journalism and ancient history, among others. "I got some ex-colleagues from the university to lecture for me. By the September, we had put a programme together, and we're still going. I also got help from the Welsh Assembly's business advisory service.
She combines this with tutoring. "Although the security of being in a university setting has gone, I now feel in charge of my own destiny. I had trusted the university to look after me until I retired at 60 or 62, but this feels new and exciting," says Mayor.
The twin pressures of steep cuts this year and uncharted territory next are combining to create a hugely uncertain climate on many campuses, agrees Mark Taylor-Batty, theatre studies senior lecturer at Leeds University and a representative of the University and College Union.
"We have no figures with which to cut our cloth beyond 2012 and do not know if we are going to have to cut more staff or, in fact, employ people," he says. "But I think we will see a continuing contraction, with some departments closing around the country and even some institutions closing, too," he says.
Taylor-Batty was among those at the forefront of protests when job losses were announced by the university in 2009, with lecturers publicly burning "Section 188" notices of redundancy. The university reviewed many cuts, but around 650 jobs have been lost over the last year, he says.
Similar rearguard actions have been fought over the last 18 months by the UCU at Wolverhampton, Sussex, Glasgow, Plymouth and Cardiff universities, among others. And union ballot papers are going out this week nationally over job security, pensions and pay.
Even where compulsory redundancies have been avoided, arm-twisting leading to enforced "voluntary" redundancy or retirement is becoming an increasingly worrying issue, argues Dr Jim Wolfreys, UCU representative at King's College London and a lecturer in French history. "We're also getting a situation where universities are starting to cut voluntary redundancy payments, so they will not be as generous," he says.
The university hit the headlines last year when it emerged it was scrapping the UK's only chair of palaeography – the study of ancient writings – which had been held by Professor David Ganz, a world authority. The decision led to protests and petitions on both sides of the Atlantic, and the university announced it would be appointing Ganz professor emeritus of palaeography, to ensure that "King's will be able to carry forward studies in the discipline".
Ganz, though now limited under the terms of his agreement with King's as to what he can say publicly, admits he is still, in effect, out of a job and that "because it was the only established chair of palaeography in the UK, my chances of getting any post in this country are minimal".
Regrouping or recovering after redundancy is never easy, and some will find it harder than others. But Mayor, for one, believes that most of us somehow find the resources within us to come back fighting. "The main thing I've learned is that it is not the end of the world, though it might feel like that at the time. There are opportunities if you have the courage and the drive to take them. You just have to dig deep and not be afraid," she says.
Learn to negotiate
"A lot of the academic world these days is structured around short-term contracts, which may help people to deal with things better," says Professor John Arnold, occupational psychologist at Loughborough University Business School. "Moreover, academics on full-time contracts who find themselves made redundant should speak to part-time colleagues to learn how to handle insecurity or negotiate contracts. It is also worth recognising that the university careers services is not just for students, so go and speak to them," he adds.
Apply lateral thinking
"Psychologically, most people do come out of it and turn things around, and often in ways that are hard to predict," says Arnold. "Even just a little lateral thinking can result in a jump to something that looks completely different but may actually use many of the same core skills.
"But you do need to expect there will be pain, that you will feel some sort of trauma, often especially a numbness at the beginning followed by feelings of anger. Then there will be bumps along the way before you start to find yourself thinking in new ways and defining yourself in new ways."
Adopt the graduate mindset
When it comes to applying for jobs, just because you've held down senior academic roles doesn't mean you can overlook the same sensible, basic advice a job-hunting graduate might be given, stresses Neil Harris, a former director of the careers service at UCL who now runs a careers and training consultancy called Lifelines Personal Development. "It's a common problem we come across that people see a job, decide they want to apply for it, yet don't take enough notice of whether they meet the criteria. So you do need to do your research thoroughly beforehand."
Highlight other skills
"Academic roles are about not just teaching and research, but an ability to be a good administrator," says Harris. "Often, academics will neglect the administrative skills they have built up, whereas they can be popular with employers of all sorts.
"It is also important to be flexible in your approach and outlook. So don't discount teaching as an option if that's what is available or consider looking at another, complementary subject area where there might be more jobs. And you need to be getting out there, making contacts, seeking out vacancies, even ones that have not been formally advertised," he adds.
We asked universities for information about their 'preferred' and 'non-preferred' A-level subjects for applicants. Their replies should be useful to pupils trying to decide what to study next
Here are the universities that responded – and their replies.
University of Bedfordshire
Birkbeck College
University of Bolton
University of Cambridge
Canterbury Christ Church University
Cardiff University
City University London
University of Cumbria
University of Exeter
Goldsmiths College London
Keele University
Kingston University
University of Lincoln
University of Liverpool
Liverpool John Moores University
University of Sheffield
Sheffield Hallam University
Staffordshire University
University College London
University of Sussex
University of Warwick
University of Westminster
University of West England
University of Wolverhampton
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably, eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
All A-level subjects are of value, but for some courses specific subjects are preferred or required (because they are relevant to the subject of the degree applied for).
Are any subjects totally disregarded on any or all courses?
General studies is not accepted for optometry or BSc midwifery.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
As above; the others don't exclude subjects, although they may have preferred or required subjects.
Where is this information available on your website?
Under the entry requirements tab on each of the course information pages, eg www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/prospectus/ugft/k100.html
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
We accept a wide range of qualifications including A-level, BTec, Access to HE Diploma, International Baccalaureate.
Lee Hennessy, deputy head of recruitment and admissions at the University of Bath, says: "Our undergraduate prospectus and website give applicants very clear and transparent information about essential and preferred A-level subjects, to help them in the application process."
Examples of this are:
Economics: www.bath.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/HUG-D1/
Business administration: www.bath.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/MUG-C1/
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
We welcome and recognise the commitment and achievement applicants show through A-levels and accept all A-level subjects as well as a wide variety of qualifications.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
No
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
There are some courses that ask for one A-level in a specific subject, normally based on a professional or regulatory body requirement, such as BSc biomedical science, where we ask for one A-level to be in a science subject. Some of our courses, mainly those leading to a qualification in nursing, teaching or social work ask for specific GCSE grades in English and maths.
Where is this information available on your website?
All our courses have a profile on our website and the information is available there or via our entry requirements page.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
We consider a wide variety of qualifications and consider them on an individual basis. Access is at the heart of our university ethos and we value the diversity that a range of qualifications brings.
Part-time study
The college teaches mainly non-traditional students part-time in the evening, so most students are either in work, seeking work or have family commitments, which means that studying part-time is the perfect option for them. The average age of Birkbeck's students is 36, but the age range is 18-90. All of Birkbeck's part-time students apply direct to the college and not through Ucas.
Birkbeck is an open-access university and has a flexible entry policy for students entering part-time, undergraduate-level degree studies. If students are over 21, the college doesn't ask for any formal qualifications, but will make its own assessment of prospective students' skills and knowledge, on the basis of short tests and possibly an interview. For those under 21, students need two subjects at A-level or one subject at A-level plus AS-levels; or a BTec higher award or equivalent.
Full-time study
For the first time in 2010-11, Birkbeck offered psychology, philosophy and law full-time through Ucas, and for 2011-12 we will add geology and history to this list. For this group of full-time students there are some specific requirements, such as A-level history to study history, a science A-level to study psychology and general studies is not accepted as one of the three A-levels required to study psychology. (Geology and psychology both require GCSE maths grade C). We do acknowledge and recognise relevant non-A-level qualifications as well.
All the entry requirements are shown beside the course content information on our website, www.bbk.ac.uk, and also on our Ucas profiles.
We look at academic subjects first, but we do consider general studies in that context.
We also look at GCSEs – maths and English are imperatives for all courses.
A number of courses ask for specific A-levels at A2 (ie the complete A-level or equivalent, not AS) but no A-level subject would be totally disregarded.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
Accountancy: any subjects
Animation & illustration: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Architectural technology: any subjects
Art and design: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Automobile engineering: mathematics + one other technology, engineering or science subject
Biology: biology or a related subject
Building surveying and property management: any subjects
Business management: any subjects
Business software development: any subjects
Business, music & creative industries: any subjects
Civil engineering: mathematics
Community studies: any subjects + interview
Computer games software development: any subjects
Computing: any subjects
Computing technology: any subjects
Construction: any subjects
Construction management: any subjects
Counselling and psychology: any subjects
Creative writing: any subjects
Criminological and forensic psychology: any subjects
Education studies: any subjects
Electronic & computer engineering: mathematics + one other technology, engineering or science subject
English: any subjects
Fashion product design: any subjects
Film and media studies: any subjects
Film production for the advertising and music industries: one science or technology-based subject + one music or design-related subject
Fine arts: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Games art: a creative subject that includes some art and design
Games design: any subjects
Graphic design: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Human sciences: a science or a related subject
Interior design: any subjects + interview/portfolio
International hospitality management: any subjects
International tourism management: any subjects
Internet communications and networks: any subjects
Law LLB: any subjects
Mathematics: mathematics
Mechanical engineering: mathematics + one other technology, engineering or science subject
Media, writing and production: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Modern and contemporary history: any subjects
Multimedia and website development: any subjects
Music and creative industries business: any subjects
Photography: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Product design: any subjects
Property development and design for interiors: any subjects
Psychology: any subjects
Quantity surveying and commercial management: any subjects
Sound engineering and design: two from a mathematical subject, a physical science subject, a technology-based subject or music
Special effects development: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Sport and exercise science: a science or physical education
Sport and leisure management: any subjects
Sport development: any subjects
Sports rehabilitation: a science or physical education + interview
Sports science and coaching: a science or physical education
Textile/surface design: any subjects + interview/portfolio
Youth and community work: any subjects + interview
Where is this information available on your website?
On the course search.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
No, we will consider all qualifications, but where courses ask for specific A-levels or subject-relevant A-levels then those qualifications must be achieved.
The University of Cambridge recognises the importance of choosing the right A-levels and offers a range of support to students making these decisions.
Information about A-level choices is available on our website and in our undergraduate prospectus.
Details of the subjects that are required or recommended for specific courses are provided in our prospectus and on our website www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/apply/requirements.html
We have also produced a Subject Matters leaflet, available online, which provides advice to school students and their parents/carers on choosing A-levels or equivalents: www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/apply/docs/subjectmatters.pdf
This gives advice about what to choose to keep your options open or which subjects naturally combine well together. There is also advice on subjects that provide useful preparation for some of our courses. Several of these subjects may come as a surprise, as citizenship, design and technology and sociology are hardly "traditional" A-level subjects!
The university also organises a series of Subject Matters events, with information on the most recent event available here: www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2011010604
The university says: "The University of Cambridge wants to attract and admit the best and brightest students regardless of their background. The Subject Matters events help school students to make the best choices for their future success, whether at this university or elsewhere."
University of Cambridge students need the academic ability, motivation and the requisite technical skills and knowledge to cope with the demands of their courses.
To a great extent, their academic ability and motivation come from within. Their technical skills and knowledge come from the subjects they study at school/college.
The study of each A-level imparts specific subject knowledge and develops certain skills.
Certain A-levels will be essential preparation for some degree courses as they provide the specific knowledge and skills needed for undergraduate study.
If an A-level subject neither imparts relevant subject knowledge nor develops useful skills for a particular degree, it is not going to be helpful in preparing the student for the demands of that course.
However, this does not mean that some A-level subjects are not worth studying in their own right.
When considering applicants, we want to ensure that their combination of A-level (or equivalent) subjects provide the skills and knowledge needed to hit the ground running if they become Cambridge undergraduates.
Realistically, for our broad-based science courses this generally means that students need to be taking three relevant subjects. For our arts and social sciences courses there is often more flexibility in requirements.
Does Cambridge reject applicants for studying certain A-levels?
Absolutely not. No applicant would be rejected because they were taking one particular A-level; however, their A-level combination might rule them out for some, or even all, of our courses.
There are many A-level subjects that are not mentioned in our undergraduate prospectus or Subject Matters leaflet. This does not mean that they are not individually worth taking. However, they may be specialised in focus and not a good choice for students looking to keep their options open, or their teaching and assessment methods may not provide a good preparation for University of Cambridge degrees.
Our advice to students thinking of applying to Cambridge is to ensure that they are doing no more than one of these other subjects among their three or four A-levels.
Any student who has the ability should consider making Cambridge one of their five applications, if we offer a course that attracts them.
We do not differentiate between A-level subjectsm and accept general studies. However, for some programmes a specific A-level or equivalent is required, eg a music A-level for the music degree, art for our fine art degree programme and most of our science programmes require at least one science A-level.
We do have some specific entry requirements for programmes, but we don't have restrictions. An application for some of our science-based degrees, or for example music, art, forensics, English, will require the applicant to either have already gained, or be working towards, an A-level (or equivalent) in a science, music, English etc.
Information for application requirements is available on the specific pages related to the course. There is also general information and contact details for our student recruitment team on our Study Here/Entry Requirements pages.
"It is important that students making their subject choices at both GCSE and A-level have access to high-quality information, advice and guidance to ensure that they make subject choices that give them the best possible chance of getting into university to study their preferred subject.
"Cardiff University is committed to transparency in its admissions so that students are able to make informed decisions. Any required subjects, or combinations of subjects, are listed in the entry requirements incorporated into the prospectus and online course material. In addition, each academic school publishes detailed admissions and selection criteria in order to provide potential applicants with further detailed information, which ensures that they can make informed decisions.
"These criteria are accessible to students from each online undergraduate course profile.
"The University also has a long and well established Schools liaison programme. Schools liaison officers visit schools and colleges in the university's key catchment areas to offer expert advice to prospective students (and their advisers) to ensure they have the right information they need to make informed decisions about, for instance, which subjects are needed should they wish to study at Cardiff University. We also organise open days, which allow students to discuss issues about subjects and admission policies for individual subjects.
"With the exception of a small number of programmes, Cardiff University does not require students to study more than three A-level subjects. In general, most universities will require three good A-level grades for admission, and breadth can be demonstrated through additional subjects at AS-level."
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
General studies and critical thinking are generally not accepted in terms of satisfying the university's offers, though they are recognised as valid qualifications in their own right.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
Some degree programmes require specific subjects. If they do, these are clearly stated in the entry requirements.
Where is this information available on your website?
http://coursefinder.cardiff.ac.uk/undergraduate/index.html
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/ug/applyingtocardiff/admissionscriteria/index.html
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
See admissions criteria.
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
Our primary considerations when making selection are "does the applicant have the preparation and/or potential to succeed on their chosen course" and "would it be appropriate, given the competition, to make an offer based on the applicant profile" (ie "are we selecting the best candidates?"). The university will receive applications from and give due consideration to an extremely wide variety of qualifications from all over the world.
General studies is the only A-level generally excluded. Having it would not damage their chances of winning a place, as long as there was sufficient preparation elsewhere on the form. General studies is normally a fourth A-level.
Admissions tutors will have a tendency to prioritise those that are directly relevant to the chosen subject, but not automatically to the exclusion of others. With a limited number of places one simply wants to choose the strongest applicants.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
General studies and critical thinking, if they are one of three A-levels, rather than a fourth, additional A-level.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
There are some degrees that will require mathematics or the science subjects. Actuarial science and mathematics will require A-level maths. Most of our engineering courses will require maths and have physics as a preferred subject. Optometry will require at least two of maths, physics, chemistry or biology. Music will require music but also ABRSM or equivalent.
Subjects such as psychology, law and business studies will take applicants with a combination of numeracy and literacy from a very wide variety of A-levels and/or other backgrounds.
Having said this, when the results are published, other criteria may be invoked if an applicant has marginally failed to meet the conditions of the offer, and that may include a qualification that did not form part of the original offer.
Where is this information available on your website?
On the course information pages and within the online prospectus.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
When considering "preparation", there will be subjects that are handled in more depth at A-level than in other qualifications. Conversely, BTecs are generally more vocational and in specific subjects, so may be equally good preparation for professional courses, though not so for purer academic ones. For example, there is not usually sufficient maths in any of the BTecs for one to gain sufficient preparation for a maths degree, but most of the BTec IT courses would be fine for a computing course. Opportunities for progression are more to do with the options provided by the qualification.
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
Admissions to the University of Cumbria are made using the Ucas tariff table. This means that all A-level subjects are allocated points.
Some courses ask for a specific qualification. For example, to be accepted onto the midwifery course, students must have 300 Ucas points, including a minimum B in biology or human biology.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
As above, we use the Ucas tariff table; therefore, no subject is disregarded.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
A number of our courses ask for a specific A-level or a related subject to be counted in the Ucas points, eg midwifery asks for a minimum B in biology or human biology.
Where is this information available on your website?
The information is available on the undergraduate pages of our website: www.cumbria.ac.uk
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
Each of the qualifications is assigned a specific points value in the Ucas tariff table, therefore, the value of each varies, dependant on the grade achieved.
The University of Exeter is explicit in its published entry requirements with regard to any particular subjects that are required to study one of our undergraduate degree programmes. This information is available to students in a number of formats including the university's printed prospectus, the online prospectus at www.exeter.ac.uk and the Ucas Entry Profiles website. The university (like many others) does not accept A-level general studies for any of its undergraduate courses, but aside from subjects that are specifically required for certain programmes, the university does not discriminate according to the subjects presented by a candidate at A-level. The university has a published policy on qualification equivalences and does not treat any level 3 (A-level or equivalent) qualification more or less favourably. The university's admission policy can be found at www.exeter.ac.uk/undergraduate/applications/policy/
Here is an example of how our entry requirements are displayed on the website:
www.exeter.ac.uk/undergraduate/degrees/english/baenglish/entryrequirements
A spokesperson for Goldsmiths, University of London, says: "We have general entrance requirements and certain programmes require specific qualifications. Students can find out the information they need on each programme's requirements at the course programme pages on our website. For general entrance requirements visit: www.gold.ac.uk/ug/apply/entrance-requirements/
Accepts all A-levels for entry to Keele with the following exceptions:
• Pharmacy: does not accept general studies. Media studies is only accepted in combination with both chemistry and biology (standard requirements for pharmacy are either chemistry or biology).
• Medicine: does not accept any applied subjects; art and design (any endorsement) – including photography, design and technology (any endorsement); critical thinking and general studies.
• Nursing/midwifery: do not accept general studies.
Some courses (ie sciences, health-related, English, music) have specific entry requirements and applicants must ensure that they are taking the correct subjects in order to meet these.
"Entry requirements for all courses at Kingston are on our website, on the individual course pages. As we run hundreds of courses and course combinations, which all have different entry requirements, it would take a very long time to pull together the information you're looking for."
The requirements for admission to each University of Lincoln degree programme are clearly set out on the university's website and on the Ucas website. Where a specific A-level subject achievement is required as a pre-requisite for admission, this is clearly indicated. Similarly, where particular A-level subjects are deemed inappropriate for a specific programme, this is clearly stated. Additional requirements, such as GCSE performance, are also clearly stated. A good example is BSc psychology, for which the specified requirements are:
• 300 tariff points from a minimum of three A-levels, to include a science subject (psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, maths, geography or economics acceptable), or the equivalent. Excludes general studies.
• A minimum of five GCSEs at grade C or above, to include English language and maths/statistics at grade B, or the equivalent.
Online this information can be found at: www.lincoln.ac.uk/psychology/_courses/undergraduate/psychology/full_details.asp
The University of Liverpool is committed to ensuring that applicants are treated wholly on the basis of their achievements and potential to complete successfully their chosen programme of study. We strive to maintain an element of flexibility in the A-level combinations we accept, and we do not have a list of subjects that we consider less ideal than others. Where there are particular subject requirements or exclusions, we ensure that these are detailed in our prospectus, in the departmental admissions policies on our website and in the Entry Profiles on the Ucas website, so that applicants and their advisers may make an informed choice about their A-level subject combination.
Our requirements for each course can be found at: www.liv.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/
Some courses do not accept general studies, some accept them as 50% of their Ucas tariff points, eg an A is worth 120 points, but they will only take 60 points towards the entry requirements and others are happy to accept them. Some courses insist on subject-specific A-levels, so students could get a range of qualifications but they still will need to get 200 points from science subjects, for example.
As an institution, we have no rules on what A-levels we will or will not accept, this is made at a course level. All subject requirements can be found on our course factfiles. We use the Ucas tariff to ensure all qualifications are looked at equally, if a course is on the Ucas tariff we will ensure students meet the required points rather than looking at what qualification they are studying. These requirements do not change in the Ucas cycle, so applicants should know when applying what A-levels will be accepted or not.
We have a university-wide admissions policy that supports all the above.
The only A-level Oxford does not consider in students' applications is the general studies A-level (Oxford asks students for AAA at A-level, excluding general studies). All departments issue guidelines on which A-levels they will expect students to have taken (where appropriate); this will be in the "entry requirements" section of the prospectus and online at: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/courses/
There is no unofficial blacklist of subjects at Oxford, nor would anyone in the admissions office say that we place restrictions or unfavourable weight on certain A-levels – provided students meet the A-level requirements as outlined in the guidelines for the individual course to which they are applying.
It is also worth noting that around 30% of applicants to Oxford apply with qualifications other than A-levels, and Oxford welcomes applicants taking other qualifications – guidelines on other qualifications are also in the "entry requirements" section of the prospectus, and further information can be found at: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/courses/courses_and_entrance_requirements/index.html
A number of courses primarily in science and maths subjects at Oxford will start making A* grades at A-level part of the conditional offer for candidates applying for entry in 2012 (see list below).
Oxford's policy on the A* grade was to wait two years as teachers indicated that they were uncertain about predicting who would get the new grade.
It is now clear that many students in the sciences who take A-levels get the A* grade, and that it would be reasonable to ask for an A* in many science and maths courses. In addition, by 2012 Oxford believes teachers will have two years of running the syllabus and will be familiar with content and student performance, and therefore be able to predict those getting the A* with more confidence.
Full list of courses asking for at least one A*:
Biological sciences (A*AA, with A* in a science or maths)
Chemistry (A*AA, with A* in a science or maths)
Computer science (A*AA, with A* in mathematics, further mathematics, physics or computing)
Computer science and philosophy (A*AA, with A* in mathematics, further mathematics, physics or computing)
Earth sciences (A*AA)
Engineering science (A*AA, with A* in mathematics, physics or further mathematics)
Engineering, economics and management (A*AA, with A* in mathematics, physics or further mathematics)
Materials science (A*AA)
Materials, economics and management (A*AA)
Mathematics (A*A*A, with the A*s in mathematics and further mathematics if taken)
Mathematics and computer science (A*AA, with the A* in mathematics)
Mathematics and philosophy (A*A*A, with the A*s in mathematics and further mathematics if taken)
Mathematics and statistics (A*A*A, with the A*s in mathematics and further mathematics if taken)
Physics (A*AA, with A* in either physics or mathematics)
Physics and philosophy (A*AA, with A* in either physics or mathematics)
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
The University of Reading will accept A-levels in all subjects except general studies. Applicants may be expected to have studied one or two A-levels in specific subjects or subject areas for some courses, and some programmes may look more favourably upon applicants who are taking a larger proportion of academic than practical subjects. However, for the majority of programmes we are happy to consider applicants with good predicted grades from A-levels in any subjects plus a strong personal statement and supporting reference.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
The only A-level subject that is not acceptable for any of our undergraduate programmes is general studies.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
Good applicants who are taking the required number of A-levels will not be restricted from entry to any of our programmes purely owing to the fact that they are taking a particular A-level subject. However, a number of programmes do require a specific subject or subjects to have been studied to A-level or equivalent standard. This is because a certain amount of pre-requisite knowledge is required in order to continue study at undergraduate level. For example, some of the science programmes require applicants to have studied one or two science subjects or mathematics at A-level; the history and English courses also require applicants to have studied the relevant subject at A-level.
Where is this information available on your website?
Each course has a page on our website that gives a brief outline of the programme and provides applicants with guidance on the minimum grades required for entry to the programme including information on specific subject requirements: www.reading.ac.uk/Study/ug-courseatoz.aspx
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
No – the University of Reading will consider all applicants who are taking A-levels or suitable equivalent qualifications on an equal basis.
Our published guidance on A-level subject choices indicates the combinations of subjects that offer the best academic preparation for study at the University of Sheffield. This can be found at: www.sheffield.ac.uk/undergraduate/policies/alevel.html
Are any subjects totally disregarded on any or all courses?
General studies is the only subject that is not accepted for some courses. This is noted in our published entry requirements, where appropriate.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
The above guidance applies to all of our undergraduate courses. It is also worth noting that a large number of our courses have subject requirements that are in place to ensure that students gain the required preparation for their chosen course. These are specified in our published entry requirements.
See also: www.sheffield.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/requirements.html, www.sheffield.ac.uk/ukquals
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others eg A-level, BTec etc?
At Sheffield, we recognise that a variety of different qualifications can provide effective academic preparation for higher education. This is reflected in the wide range of acceptable qualifications outlined in the entry requirements published on our website, in our prospectus and via Ucas.
However, we also recognise that different qualifications offer different types of preparation for undergraduate study, and we carefully take this into account when we set our entry requirements. For example, some subject-specific qualifications will offer suitable preparation for degree courses in that subject area, but not for those in different subject areas. This means that not every qualification will be accepted for every course.
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
Sheffield Hallam University makes all offers on the basis of the Ucas tariff, but some courses have subject-specific requirements; eg a maths degree would require a student to have taken A-level maths. A small number of courses exclude the points awarded to general studies, however, though this is very much a minority. All of our entry requirements are clearly outlined on all course information.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
No
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
This information is available on the entry requirements section of our website. As Sheffield Hallam offers over 250 undergraduate courses, this is too long to list as requested.
Where is this information available on your website?
On the entry requirements section of the course, and also via the entry profile for each course available on the Ucas website.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
No. Sheffield Hallam actively encourages applications from students not studying A-levels. Individual course requirements will, however, influence the acceptability of individual qualifications.
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
There are no A-levels that are are looked upon less favourably at Staffordshire University. General studies is accepted for all of our courses.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
No, no A-levels are totally disregarded for any of our courses.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
Staffordshire University does require specific A-levels or equivalent for some of its degrees:
Engineering awards: mathematics or physics or engineering
Biology awards: biology
Forensic science award: biology or chemistry
Forensic science and psychology award: science or mathematics
Forensic science and criminology award: science or mathematics
English awards: English (if taken)
History awards: history (if taken)
In addition, some courses do advise that applicants may benefit from having studied a particular A-level. For example, applicants for our BSc sport and exercise degrees will benefit from having studied a science at A-level or equivalent.
Where is this information available on your website?
We have made this information clear and transparent to all potential applicants. They only need to go on to the Staffordshire University homepage and insert the course they are interested in the "Course Search" box and it will bring up the course, with entry criteria. This information is in our current 2011 undergraduate prospectus and any subject-specific criteria is clearly shown in the matrix.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
No. We receive large numbers of applications from BTec and Acess students, particularly to some awards. The students do come with different study styles and experiences and this enhances the student experience.
UCL sets out its preferred A-levels online at www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate-study/application-and-entry/alevel-qualifications, which also makes clear that general studies and critical thinking do not meet UCL's requirements.
Candidates need to take at least two A-levels from the preferred list. Unless specified in the programme requirements, with the exceptions of critical thinking and general studies, the third A-level and fourth AS-level can be in any subject and need not be on the list. If you are unable to offer a minimum of two A-level subjects from the list, this does not prevent you from applying to UCL. It will be at the discretion of the admissions selector to determine whether your application is sufficiently strong to warrant further consideration.
The majority of UCL programmes do have specific A-level requirements attached. For instance, German A-level to study German, chemistry and biology for medicine, chemistry and at least one from maths/biology/physics to study pharmacology.
The prospectus and website set out the other qualifications (eg International Baccalaureate, international qualifications, etc) that are acceptable. www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate-study/application-and-entry/undergraduate-study/application-and-entry/ug-requirements
We have hundreds of programmes and most do have some subject requirement – but these are all listed in the prospectus, on the website and on the Ucas website.
The University of Sussex recognises all A-level subjects and welcomes applications from students taking the full spread of A-levels, including general studies.
When setting offers, we would rather "protect" key subjects than exclude particular A-levels.
For example, if an applicant applied to study international relations at Sussex and was taking A-levels in history, art, mathematics and general studies, we would normally ask them to achieve AAB, including history.
For most degree programmes, we do not require any particular subjects to have been studied at A-level. There will, however, inevitably be certain A-levels that are a better fit with the chosen degree and most applicants will naturally be drawn to these.
For example, applicants to a social science degree such as anthropology will normally have taken social science and humanities A-levels. We do not, however, require any particular subjects, nor look less favourably on applicants with a more varied background.
There are degree programmes where we have specific A-level requirements (for example, applicants for biochemistry need to be taking both biology and chemistry at A-level; for physics you must have both maths and physics; for engineering you need A-level maths) and these are listed in our 2012 prospectus and on the Ucas course search. Where we list specific requirements, applicants must meet those requirements.
With regard to different qualifications, Sussex accepts applicants who offer a vast array of qualifications from across the world. Details of the most common qualifications (including the IB, EB, BTec, Advanced Diplomas, Welsh Baccalaureate and Scottish Highers) are listed in our prospectus.
"For most courses, selectors will exclude general studies from any A-level offer (but some may accept it for the fourth subject at AS-level where this is required) and critical thinking is often only accepted to AS-level. Breadth of subjects is valued by our selectors and therefore subjects with significantly overlapping curricula should be avoided where possible, for example economics and business studies. In general terms, subjects with a higher proportion of assessed written work are likely to provide a better preparation than more practical subjects for studying a degree at Warwick."
www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/apply/entry
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
At the University of Westminster there are no subjects that are looked upon less favourably as we take all A-level subjects into account. The university does have some courses that ask applicants to have studied certain subjects at A-level. For example, to gain a place on a science degree we ask candidates to have studied two sciences at A-level and for a place on an art degree students should have studied an art A-level.
However, if these requirements are met we do not have a preference for the other A-levels studied alongside them and we will consider all subjects studied. Similarly, the University of Westminster receives applications from all over the world and international students with non-UK qualifications will be considered.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
No, the University of Westminster does not disregard any A-levels and all qualifications are taken into account. However, some courses will need applicants to have achieved a certain level in the qualifications, these requirements are clearly listed on Ucas and the University of Westminster website.
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
All of the courses offered by the University of Westminster consider A-levels, the only exception we have is the fashion degree, which requires students to have studied art and design at foundation level or for them to have a BTec in art and design.
Where is this information available on your website?
Every course offered by the University of Westminster has a page on the university website where it clearly lists the entry requirements required. A great deal of Westminster prospective students take information from the Ucas website and our entry requirements are listed here, too.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
The School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages ask students with BTec qualifications to also have an A-level qualification on top as it strengthens their application; the other schools at Westminster do not require this. The schools at the University of Westminster will look at applications from all backgrounds and any students who are unsure should visit the website, where course requirements are clearly listed.
Professor Steve West, vice-chancellor at the University of the West of England, UWE Bristol, says: "UWE was one of the first universities to recognise wider qualifications, to bridge the gap between those students from non-traditional backgrounds and admission to higher education. These students were largely left out in the cold in the past. It would be disappointing if we returned to these times because of pressure on places".
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
UWE considers all A-level subjects provided that applicants are able to meet specific subject requirements, eg for engineering students would require level 3 qualifications in maths and physics.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
No
Which degree courses do face A-level restrictions, and which don't?
No A-level restrictions, but some subject areas require students to have study in cognate areas to ensure that they are properly prepared for studies in their chosen subject at degree level.
Where is this information available on your website?
All entry requirements are detailed on our website.
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
UWE admissions policy is to consider all qualifications considered to be equivalent to A-level as level 3 qualifications demonstrated through their inclusion in the National Qualifications Framework.
What A-level subjects are looked upon less favourably – eg would taking general studies and/or other particular subjects damage a student's opportunity of winning a place?
Not generally at Wolverhampton, if taken with other A-level subjects.
Are any totally disregarded on any or all courses?
Only on specific courses, to meet professional requirements.
Where is this information available on your website?
This information is shown in our course finder service at www.wlv.ac.uk
Are particular qualifications less highly regarded than others, eg A-level, BTec, etc?
No, we use the Ucas tariff points system to ensure equivalency of awards.
• This article was amended on 2 February 2011. The original missed out Keele University by mistake.
Pupils as young as 16 are worried that the A-level subjects they choose may harm their chances of a university place later on. Why is there no clear information for them?
Universities reveal their A-level preferences
'Only a few months ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do in life," says Jade Campbell, 15, as she describes filling in her A-level choices form. "But I had to decide my plans for my whole life really quickly when I picked my A-levels. I know universities are getting more selective about the subjects you study, so I had to think about which subjects would give me the best chance of a place."
Jade's classmates at Bethnal Green Technology College in east London are all feeling the pressure of important choices. "I'm only 16, but I feel so much stress to make the right decision," says Amanda Cozer, who joined the college two years ago after moving from Brazil. "Once you've picked A-levels you can't go back, your decision is made." Across the classroom, Sufayan Deta and Tommy Vu, both 15, sound panicked. "I didn't know that some unis say you have to do certain A-levels," says Sufayan, who wants to study either accounting or business studies at university. "I'm really worried now."
With record demand for undergraduate courses, universities have tightened their admissions policies. Some have started disregarding subjects such as general studies, while others publish lists of "preferred" or "less preferred" A-levels. Year 11s who are intending to apply to university need to research qualification requirements now – but there are growing complaints that the information they need isn't easily available.
"It's hard to know exactly what universities want from us," says Amanda, who wants to study journalism or languages. "I tried to research what A-levels would give me the best chances of getting on to those courses, but it wasn't easy to find. I spent ages on the websites of Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds, Liverpool and Bristol. Cambridge was the clearest, but on many of the others I just found lots of links, with the information all over the place, or not there at all. Because there was often no clear list, I ended up looking up lots of individual courses, even though I'm not yet sure exactly what I'd like to do."
Admissions tutors say the information students need – whether they are at the Ucas application stage or just choosing their A-level subjects – is readily available in prospectuses and on websites. But Ofqual, the qualifications watchdog, says there's a lack of transparency. At the publication of its chief regulator's report last month, the chief executive, Isabel Nisbet, said: "Students are not clairvoyants. They need clear information on which qualifications they need for their chosen university courses."
Teachers, too, say their jobs have been made tougher by uncertainty surrounding university requirements. Sarah Snaydon, deputy head of sixth form at Dane Court grammar school in Kent, says teachers feel as if there are "shifting goal posts" in higher education. "I wish we knew what admission tutors want," she says. "Universities are getting ever so picky with their requirements, but worse than that is that those requirements are constantly changing and tough to find out. This year, for example, for the first time on some courses we've seen year 12s being asked for a B at GCSE maths, but that requirement wasn't in place when they actually studied GCSEs."
The Ucas Apply website lists qualification requirements for individual courses, but that's not always helpful for year 11s, Snaydon adds. "At that stage, students tend not to know exactly what they want to do where, but they need guidance from universities about the kind of A-levels they need for subject areas. If the information was all in one place, it would be a lot more transparent. And the students hit hardest are those who don't come from an 'educationally aware' background."
In part, it's not an easy task for universities – their myriad courses will, of course, have different requirements and most don't rule out particular A-levels, but say some are acceptable only in certain combinations. For example, medicine courses will demand at least two science A-levels (or equivalent). However, not every English course will insist on candidates having English A-level, and in fact, for arts courses, many admissions tutors say they prefer applicants with a range of subjects.
The most helpful universities have a list of A-levels they "prefer" over others. The less "preferred" are usually non-traditional subjects such as business studies or art and design. The University of Sheffield, for example, names 28 subjects – including engineering, music technology, applied science and applied business – that it will accept only if students have two other A-levels not on that list. The London School of Economics has a "non-preferred" list including accounting, communication studies, home economics, law and travel and tourism, but accepts candidates with one of those A-levels if the others are from its "preferred" list.
Likewise, at Cambridge University, Geoff Parks, director of admissions, says: "No applicant would be rejected because they were taking one particular A-level. However, their A-level combination might rule them out for some, or even all, of our courses." Cambridge recommends chemistry, English literature, history, languages, maths, physics, further maths and biology for year 11s who "want to keep their options open". For wannabe arts undergraduates, it flags up English literature, history, languages and maths, while scientists "are advised to take at least two, and ideally three, of biology, chemistry, maths and physics".
It's a similar story at University College London, which says candidates must have at least two A-levels from their "preferred" list of 76 subjects, which includes history, maths and Biblical Hebrew. The university adds: "If you are unable to offer a minimum of two A-level subjects from the list, this does not prevent you from applying to UCL, but it will be at the discretion of the admissions selector to determine whether your application is sufficiently strong to warrant further consideration."
However, students say these lists are confusing. "I want to study psychology or Oriental studies at university, so I started looking up what A-levels I'd need for those," says Campbell. "I looked at the websites for Oxford, Cambridge and Soas [School of Oriental and African Studies], but instead of having a list of what they want, they say "we prefer this" or "these A-levels are less favoured". They should clearly put what the requirements are so we don't keep wasting our time searching, or theirs applying for a course with the wrong A-levels."
To avoid knocking out a whole spectrum of the UK's HE institutions, year 11s should avoid picking similar A-levels. "Subjects with significantly overlapping curricula, for example economics and business studies, should be avoided," says Peter Dunn, spokesman for Warwick University. "And in general terms, subjects with a higher proportion of assessed written work are likely to provide a better preparation than more practical subjects for studying a degree at Warwick."
The other decision many year 11s face is whether to study general studies to boost chances of a place at university. Alongside critical thinking, general studies is the A-level universities most often rule out. City University London, Warwick, Reading, Oxford and Exeter are among the many institutions that do not accept general studies for any of their undergraduate courses. Cambridge accepts general studies and critical thinking A-levels only as a fourth, extra subject – but adds confusingly that it sometimes includes critical thinking in students' conditional offers.
Staffordshire University, meanwhile, says: "General studies is accepted for all of our courses – no A-levels are looked upon less favourably here," and the universities of Bedfordshire, Liverpool, Lincoln, Cumbria, Westminster and Wolverhampton are among others with the same stance. But some institutions are less clear: the University of Bolton, for example, says: "We look at academic subjects first, but we do consider general studies in that context." The University of Sussex says it "welcomes applications from students taking the full spread of A-levels, including general studies." But its spokesman adds: "When setting offers, we would rather 'protect' key subjects than exclude particular A-levels. For example, if an applicant applied for international relations and was taking A-levels in history, art, maths and general studies, we would normally ask them to achieve AAB, including history."
Other qualifications are up for debate, too. While all universities accept qualifications other than A-levels, such as the International Baccalaureate and Scottish Highers, they don't all take every qualification. City University, for example, is typical in saying BTecs are "generally more vocational … so may be equally good preparation for professional courses, though not so for purer academic ones."
It says there is "not usually sufficient maths in any of the BTecs for one to gain sufficient preparation for a maths degree, but most of the BTec IT courses would be fine for a computing course." By contrast, Canterbury Christ Church, Bolton, Staffordshire and Sheffield Hallam are among the institutions that welcome BTecs as well as other qualifications.
With such a minefield to negotiate, it's no surprise that year 11s, their parents and teachers are left feeling confused. For now, the best way for students to tackle their A-level choices is by talking to teachers and careers advisers, and trying to work out the kinds of courses and universities they might want to apply to. From there, someone keen to study a popular course such as medicine, for example, should check requirements of courses at a range of institutions to see which A-levels are obligatory, and whether any, like general studies, would block their chances.
For those considering less popular courses or universities, the issue may be less pressing. But those students most likely to be left behind are those who, coming from disadvantaged backgrounds or with unaware parents, don't know that their university options are being whipped out of reach as early as year 11. That issue is leading to a growing campaign for universities to be clearer about their requirements. At the moment, as Ofqual's Nesbit puts it: "Some students, who are able to get really sophisticated advice and guidance against other disadvantaged pupils, have a competitive edge. That's unfair."
Education Guardian asked over 150 HE institutions for clear advice on which A-level subjects they view favourably and which they rule out. xx responded, and we thank those that did. See their responses in detail at EducationGuardian.co.uk
Artworks by offenders are going on display at the National Gallery. What is the future for such schemes?
From next week, famous national treasures like Caneletto's The Stonemason's Yard and Turner's The Fighting Temeraire will share the limelight with an exhibition of drawings, sculptures and paintings by men from Feltham Young Offenders Institution. It might seem an unlikely alliance, but it has proven to be an enriching experience, both for the National Gallery, and for these young artists.
Art education projects like this offer young people in juvenile prison an alternative to traditional academic and vocational qualifications, says Gill Jenkins, a course director for creative studies at Kensington and Chelsea College, which provides education services to Feltham. "The outcome of each project has always been amazing, and it offers these young men a new experience and valued teaching by professional artists," she says.
John Costi, 23, from north London, is a testament to the rehabilitative power of art. He was sent to Feltham at 18 for armed robbery and once there became involved in painting murals for the new healthcare wing. He is now enrolled on a degree course at Central Saint Martins. Of his involvement in arts education while in prison, he says: "If that had never happened, I doubt that I would be at Central Saint Martins today, and I doubt that I would be leading a law-abiding lifestyle. I would have come out and turned to all I knew, which was crime. That was really my saving grace."
But many are concerned that programmes like this face an uncertain future. Pat Jones, the director for the Prisoners' Education Trust, one of the leading charities providing education services to offenders, says: "There are quite a number of offenders whose key to rehabilitation is in the arts. However, because providers have to reach targets in literacy, numeracy and IT, there is a problem with arts slipping down the priority list in prison."
There has been speculation that the soon-to-be-published Offender Learning review will lead to more focus on skills for work, and Jones is worried. "My fear is that an even stronger focus on employability might mean arts fall further down the list of what's valued. When you have limited resources, what you'd like to do, and what you are able to do, can be very different things."
The Feltham project was funded for three years by LankellyChase Foundation and is due to end this year.
But lack of available funding and appreciation for arts-based learning are not the only threats to offender education. One of the issues many are hoping the review will address is a lack of continuity and consistency in services.
While on remand Costi was moved to three separate prisons and he says this is a relatively small number of moves: "I've had friends in places for two weeks at a time. If you get too comfortable, they'll ship you out." The result of these transitions is inmates fall behind in learning and fail to finish qualifications. Costi had to abandon a distance learning course in creative writing because he was moved from Feltham to Hollesley Bay prison and the details were lost in transit. He also found that his new facility had no art department.
Despite recent successes, juvenile reoffending rates remain extremely high and the truth is that young people who have been in prison often return, creating cycles that are difficult to break. Speaking from experience, Costi says: "I've met so many talented people in prison when it comes to the arts. With the right support they could turn their life around."
Tim Robertson, chief executive of the Koestler Trust, a prisons art charity that supports ex-offenders in the community, believes such projects also help to educate the wider community and "challenge social stereotypes".
"Visiting the gallery, the public can see that offenders are human beings who can grow and change. Rehabilitation into jobs, housing and communities can succeed only if society overcomes its stereotypes of offenders."
Inside Art at the National Gallery from 7 Feb
• This article was amended on 2 February 2011 to make clear that Kensington and Chelsea College provides educational services to Feltham Young Offenders Institution
A growing number of universities are requiring some applicants to sit a Sixth Term Examination Paper (Step) in order to gain a place
As a straight A* student, Ellie Grant has her heart set on a maths degree at a prestigious university. Having applied to Cambridge, she knew she would need to take the Sixth Term Examination Paper (Step), the university admissions test, traditionally used to select the most talented students for oversubscribed maths degrees. What she didn't expect was for two other universities to make Step a condition of their offer of a place. Grant now believes this could jeopardise her chances of securing a place at a leading institution.
"I've got some sample Step papers and my maths teacher has offered to help out, but I'm not sure how I'll do. I can't put somewhere like Imperial or Warwick as my insurance offer, or I risk not getting a university place. It seems a bit unfair."
According to the education charity Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI), Grant is not alone in her dilemma. While Cambridge and Warwick universities have a well-established tradition of asking maths applicants to take Step papers, this year, for the first time, it says, universities such as Bath, Bristol and Imperial College are also asking for Step papers. And not just in maths; in some institutions this also applies to physics or computer studies.
In London alone, the MEI is putting on three extra Step classes to meet demand. "We're seeing students who have been completely taken by surprise by this new development, and are trying to cram in Step coaching before the exams in June," says MEI's chief executive Charlie Stripp.
While leading universities might argue that they need to attract the brightest students to maintain their place in the world rankings, critics say asking for Step papers puts some students at a disadvantage.
John White, secretary of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, says: "Many private schools have timetabled Step lessons for students considered suitable for top universities, but in your average state school, it's pot luck. If you have parents or teachers who are clued-up about Step and can help with the preparation, you're in with a chance. If not, you're already starting on the back foot."
Step offers are currently restricted to maths-related subjects, but "there is a real possibility" that top universities could introduce more stringent tests in other subject areas to identify the most able students, says White.
The NUS president, Aaron Porter, says an increasing reliance on qualifications like Step "that are not widely available or understood by prospective students and their families" could prevent talented students, particularly those from less affluent backgrounds, from winning places at the most prestigious universities. "Many are the first in their family to consider higher education and do not necessarily have the cultural capital, or school or college resources, to navigate an application process that is already bewildering. It could leave many of the brightest and best with the door slammed in their face, which would threaten both social mobility and the principle of fair access."
But according to Stripp, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with top universities asking applicants for alternative qualifications. In fact, he believes Step papers, which require students to apply the mathematical techniques they have learned to solve complex problems, is a much better indicator of ability than top grades in maths (or further maths) A-level. "A student who is good at maths and has been well prepared can achieve an A* by answering all the questions and not making silly mistakes, but that isn't necessarily an indicator of real talent and flair."
What is missing, says Stripp, is widespread access to support for students with exceptional talent in maths. While many schools can help students get tuition in further maths, by linking up with another school or paying for tuition through the Further Maths Support Programme (a government-funded initiative, managed by MEI, that aims to give more young people the opportunity to study further maths), Step does not feature on the curriculum at many schools, particularly in the state sector. And the recent demise of the government's gifted and talented and Aim Higher programmes mean that pots of money that might have been used for extra tuition for the brightest students have now dried up.
For Stripp, the answer could be a qualification that stretches the most talented students, like the old S-level, which fell out of fashion in the early '90s. Alternatively, he says, A*-calibre students could sit a different exam paper, along the lines of the Step paper that tested their mathematical potential, rather than their "ability to answer questions correctly".
But White disagrees. He says that taking into account students' marks in different modules would be a perfectly good indicator of exceptional ability, although with the government planning to phase out modular exams, he admits this is only a short-term solution.
He is concerned that raising the bar for maths degrees could have a detrimental effect on takeup of what is essentially a shortage subject. He points to the findings of the Nuffield Foundation report, published last year, which found that just 20% of young people carried on with maths beyond the age of 16, leaving the UK lagging well behind other countries. "The truth is, we don't just need high-fliers in mathematics. We need people with good, solid A-level grades. The government has talked about the shortage of people for technician roles to fill skills gaps in manufacturing and engineering and help develop the technologies of the future. If maths degrees become too elitist, we won't have the people to do that."
But the universities Education Guardian contacted were keen to stress that Step was part of a range of offers for potential applicants. A spokeswoman for Bristol University said: "All applicants will have an offer based only on A-levels. Those who have indicated that they are taking Step papers may also have an offer with slightly lower A-level grades and success in a Step examination."
A spokesman for Imperial College London said it takes a similar approach with only "occasional exceptions" such as where "an applicant is applying from a less standard route, for instance, a mature student. The department of computing rarely makes offers including Step requirement. When made, such offers are to applicants to the joint mathematics and computing degrees. The department would never make a Step offer if an applicant had no access to the necessary extra tuition."
A spokeswoman from the University of Bath said: "We wish to allow access to our courses in the mathematical sciences to applicants who are only able to take a single A-level in mathematics, and we will continue to make offers to exceptional candidates in this category. Accordingly, we shall require such applicants to achieve at least merit in advanced extension mathematics or 2 in one Step paper."
When the government announced the end of the Aim Higher programme last November, the universities minister, David Willetts, made it clear that universities would be expected to take more responsibility for widening participation in higher education.
Cambridge University provides an annual Step residential course, funded by the Sutton Trust, for students from state schools. None of the other universities Education Guardian spoke to responded to a request to provide details of how they support applicants with Step offers.
The argument against the Step papers would appear to cut no ice with the University of Warwick. A press officer said: "We are dealing with young adults here. If you want to do maths, Cambridge and Warwick are the best places in the country. So if you want to be part of that, if you want to be taught by the brightest and best academics in the country, it requires some effort on your part, in terms of finding out what you need to do to get there."
• This article was amended on 2 February 2011. The original referred to Imperial College, University of London. This has been corrected.
If the government tries to control the market in student places at university, argues Peter Scott, higher education funding will become much more political
The countdown to the London Olympics is under way – the diminishing days constantly circling the Post Office Tower in flickering lights (and probably being counted down in lots of other places across the capital). Just a few weeks after the – no doubt spectacular – closing ceremony, universities and colleges will be charging students much higher fees covering a large part of, all or even more than the cost of their higher education. But no one will be celebrating.
The comparison with the Olympic Games highlights just how short a time institutions have to set fee levels, publicise their fees, determine any discounts, establish bursaries and scholarships and, finally, create systems to manage the whole package. But first the government has to take some key decisions about the rules, and publish a white paper. Until it does so, higher education can do little but prepare speculative scenarios. Twenty months – and counting down.
Many things are unresolved. First, the government expects £6,000 to be the standard fee charged by most universities, with only a minority charging up to £9,000. No doubt that was the basis on which the Treasury accepted the package. That is certainly the basis on which it was sold to despairing Liberal Democrats. But it is already clear that most universities will charge as close to the £9,000 maximum as they can. That could bust the bank (as well as breaking some political hearts).
The same could happen if student numbers, instead of dipping in line with demography, continue to grow. So ministers face a dilemma. Do they take additional powers – to limit the number of universities allowed to charge more than £6,000 and to cap the overall number of students?
The existing power to require institutions to have an access agreement before charging higher fees, introduced by the last government to appease its backbenchers, is plainly insufficient – even huffed up by Simon Hughes. Anyway it would catch the "wrong" (ie "top") universities. The Browne committee's "clever plan" to use A-level points to regulate the total number of eligible students is also unworkable – and seems to have been quietly discarded.
But reducing university autonomy and continuing a bureaucratic student number control would be a funny way to usher in the Brave New World of the market. In practice, higher education will probably suffer the same fate as many formerly public services that have been privatised – an increase in overall cost to the public, not just as involuntary customers, but also as old-fashioned taxpayers, with the most dubious improvements in "quality"; and also an equivalent or greater increase in state regulation.
One thing is already clear: the state is not about to get out of higher education, whatever may have been the hopes of the more naive university leaders. The tell-tale signs of politicisation were already there in the Browne report, which recommended that universities charging more than the standard fee should be taxed to create a pot of money for national bursaries. The government rejected that recommendation but, apparently, has accepted another recommendation that opens the door to more political meddling, that the state should continue to "invest" in strategic subjects (essentially science and engineering).
My concern is not how to select strategic subjects, although lobbying will inevitably lengthen the list. Rather it is the new job that it gives to the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Hefce behaved in the past as the predominant funder of English higher education, even in the case of universities that derived the majority of their income from other sources. As such, it adopted neutral policies – funding "like for like provision" in the case of teaching, and funding "excellence wherever it is found" in the case of research.
But, freed from the even-handed obligations that came from being the majority funder, Hefce will inevitably intervene more strategically – or, put a blunter way, more selectively, more intrusively and (of course) more politically, because its strategic priorities will be those of the government of the day (as they must be in a democracy). Its job will be to "invest" public funds to produce politically mandated outcomes; its job will no longer be to support universities in the wider public interest. At long last, and maybe against its better instincts, Hefce will have become a planning body.
Most of its "investments" will command general support – for example, helping to sustain excellent teaching and research in science and engineering. Others, forced on it perhaps, may not. Is it impossible to imagine Hefce being bullied by ministers into making a "strategic investment" in an institution that otherwise might fail (to mighty political embarrassment)?
Privatisation plus nationalisation – where we seem to be heading – is a sad fate for a higher education system celebrated around the world not so long ago for its public purpose, institutional autonomy and academic freedom. Certainly not worth putting up in lights, like the countdown to the Olympic Games.
• Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education
Postgraduate education is vital for the economy, so a system of government financial support – like the one for undergraduates - is needed to help students
When the government publishes its white paper on the funding arrangements for university teaching, many will be looking at its approach to postgraduate master's degrees. The Browne report gave scant attention to this sector, concluding only that its authors had seen no evidence that the absence of student support has harmed access to postgraduate education, and recommending that no action be taken. The fatal flaw in this position is that it is based on "evidence" relating to the current system. The future system, the one that Browne has helped to create, will be vastly different.
There is a strong likelihood that postgraduate fees will rise to match the full cost of teaching. It is probable that there will be an abrupt decline in the number of UK students who are willing and able to continue their education.
Universities such as my own will continue to offer high-quality postgraduate courses, and enable students to engage with leading research academics. There is a real possibility that these programmes will increasingly be dominated by overseas students.
This trend is already in place. UK universities have seen more than three-fold growth in the number of full-time international students participating in taught master's degrees in the last 10 years for which records are available, compared with a healthy but much more modest 40% growth among UK students. Increased fees will undoubtedly depress the market for UK students.
Such an outcome from government policy flies in the face of the evidence about the importance of postgraduate education. Last year's review led by Professor Sir Adrian Smith concluded that the skills of postgraduates are "critical for tackling major business challenges". It highlighted the potential for "responsive and tailored" postgraduate provision to play an important role in "upskilling" the UK workforce.
That view echoes the recent CBI report, which encouraged industry to support graduates to develop the applied skills required in the workplace.
Today's undergraduates are going to encounter a changing work environment. Access to postgraduate education will play a much greater role in their career entry and progression, with "in-career" postgraduate taught programmes being key tools. The Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, chaired by Alan Milburn, identified the financial constraints of postgraduate education as a real barrier to social mobility – and that was under the current funding arrangements, not the post-Browne era.
While it's likely that the state will continue to support some postgraduate education in strategic disciplines such as teaching and social work, the rest will be subject to the same market forces as the undergraduate market. The government has put in place a support system for undergraduates. Not for postgraduates.
Given the importance of continuing education, it would seem logical to extend the system of loan provision to postgraduates. We need a system of financial support that reflects the reality of lifetime learning. A single loan system to cover both undergraduate and postgraduate learning, with a lifetime cap, is the solution. Loans could be taken by students whenever they take up their studies. A lifetime cap provides flexibility, allowing students to meet their individual needs. The lifetime cap also provides government with a method for controlling investment. Such a system could be established without changing the proposed arrangements for undergraduate education already set out. It is practical to deliver. Other countries, notably Australia, have similar systems.
The Browne review necessarily concentrated on the requirements to fund undergraduates. However, there is both the opportunity and necessity to create an integrated system of student financing. The alternative is a system in which UK universities continue to operate in a global market place for postgraduate education from which our own students become increasingly excluded.
• Don Nutbeam is vice-chancellor of Southampton University
New Caledonian crows are proving they are not bird-brained by using tools not just to find food, but also to assess danger
Barney the New Caledonian crow appears to be a wilier bird than even the scientists used to his resourcefulness may have realised. Already adept at using sticks to forage for food, he has now been observed using them to inspect foreign objects that could potentially be threatening.
How bright does that make him in the grand pecking order of animals? There are no measures for assessing avian IQ, but the New Caledonian crow appears to be in a league of its own in performing tricks with sticks, something celebrated in a Guardian In Praise of leading article last year.
This followed tests in which scientists from New Zealand and Oxford set captive crows a three-stage problem. They had to get a short stick by pulling up a string, use that stick to winkle out a long stick from a toolbox, and then use the long stick to extract food from a hole. They managed it successfully.
"Evidence is building up that they're able to plan their actions in advance, which is very interesting from a cognition point of view," says research zoologist Dr Joanna Wimpenny, a member of the Oxford team. "It isn't just that they're responding in a pre-programmed sort of way. It seems possible they may potentially view a problem and know what the answer is."
If prolonged existence is all about the survival of the fittest, New Caledonian crows, whose home is a remote island in the South Pacific, seem set to thrive. Masters at using sticks to find nutritious beetle grubs from trees in their forest habitat, zoologists are now assessing the evolutionary implications of their diet. Does, for instance, their lifestyle result in fitter and healthier offspring?
The more these intriguing birds are observed by scientists, the more an apparent intelligence comes to light. Further experiments carried out at Oxford suggest they can also use sticks as tools to inspect all sorts of objects, possibly to assess whether or not these present a danger. It's the first time birds have ever been observed using a tool for more than one purpose.
Five pairs of crows underwent tests at the university's aviaries to see how they would react to a variety of objects, carefully chosen so the birds wouldn't be tempted to view them as a possible source of food. As a further precaution, all the crows had been fed beforehand.
The researchers had an inkling their test might reveal something new. "We decided to do the experiment because they'd been seen using tools to pick at random objects such as a spider motif on a piece of cloth," said Wimpenny.
Their hunch proved right: the studies revealed that on eight occasions, a bird's first contact was by using a tool. In all three trials, Barney began by using a stick for inspection. One involved a rubber snake, which he first approached, but did not touch, before retreating to pick up a stick. He twice stopped short of touching the snake before using the tool to prod it. After this, he dropped the stick and tugged at the tail, instantly jumping back. Then, having prodded the snake again, he discarded the stick and carried on pecking at it "in a noticeably less hesitant manner".
In other experiments, two different birds, Pierre and Corbeau, also made a first approach with tools on three separate occasions. Pierre used a short piece of woodchip to touch a flashing light within two seconds of picking it up; while Corbeau was seen prodding a metal toad after 10 seconds; and a rubber spider after 35 seconds.
Most tool-using species only use their aid of choice for a single specific reason. "Birds have never before been observed using a tool for more than one purpose," said Wimpenny. "It was really exciting."
Scientists concluded that the crows' "jumpy behaviour" before and during their first interaction with some objects was very different to their demeanour when extracting food. Moreover, they tended to use the sticks only to make first contact. Subsequently, they either ignored the object or dropped the tool to peck at it – not something they do when searching for food.
The behaviour of Barney et al raises many questions. "There are many different ways this research could go," Wimpenny said. "For instance, at the moment we have no idea about their social learning abilities – we don't know if they'll learn from other individuals, though we are getting a few clues."
Does this make them, intellectually speaking, alpha birds? Scientists are reluctant to categorise them thus. "Asking how intelligent they are is really tricky – other birds excel at other things such as developing social cognition," she said.
Scientists want to find out much more about how the crows behave in their native habitat. But amid New Caledonia's mountainous forest, they prove elusive. Wimpenny's fellow researcher Dr Christian Rutz, soon to return from three months on the island, has, in the past, sought to overcome the problem by attaching tiny cameras to the base of their tails.
Rutz is part of a team involving Oxford and Exeter universities continuing to investigate the crows' foraging lifestyle, specifically to see if it gives them any possible "evolutionary advantage". He believes it probably does – the grubs they harvest are so energy-rich and full of fat that just a few specimens can satisfy their daily needs.
With crows so hard to pin down in the wild, scientists have devised an alternative approach to try to analyse what's happening. The grubs they feed on have a distinct chemical fingerprint – stable isotope profile – traceable through feathers and blood. Thus researchers can collect samples to work on "with little or no harm to the birds".
"By comparing profiles of the crows' tissues with those of their … food sources, we can estimate the proportion of larvae in crow diet," says Rutz. This should enable scientists to gauge the extent to which individual birds depend on using sticks to feed themselves.
Sample analysis has been conducted at Exeter University that has helped to develop statistical models that enable tissue-profile comparisons to be carried out. "The approach we used is very similar to that employed by forensic scientists trying to solve crimes and has even appeared on CSI," says Dr Stuart Bearhop, associate professor in conservation biology. The team believes this research could be a suitable model for studying what happens to other animal tool-users such as chimpanzees.
Much work has yet to be done before any conclusions can be drawn. "The real difficulty and interest in understanding a particular animal's intelligence is putting it into the context of the ecological circumstances in which it is found," says Professor Alex Kacelnik, professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford and a co-author of the report on how New Caledonian crows use tools when not looking for food. "We're trying to understand the physical processes by which an animal uses objects, and what role its behaviour plays in the wild."
Children's Manifesto, education policy, teaching challenges and local authorities
Last week, Dea Birkett invited children to give us ideas for a new Children's Manifesto, 10 years after our competition called The School I'd Like. She wondered whether grown-ups listen to children more today.
Who cares what the kids want? Who is in charge here? You don't ask your kid his or her opinion on what car you should buy, what house you should live in. Nor do you ask them how late they want to stay up. They're kids. They don't know what they want. That's what our job is.
Joe3945 via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Children's requests [in the competition 10 years ago] for more fast food and no dinner ladies are basically saying "we want school dinners that taste nice/ our school dinners are disgusting, we know we like fast food so can we have that?" And "our dinner ladies aren't nice to us/ we don't like them". It would be stupid to bring in fast food, but is there something in the request that the food be brought up to a higher standard and the dinner ladies/pupils relationship be worked on?
LuisaM via EducationGuardian.co.uk
The article by Estelle Morris (Gove shouldn't inflict his schooldays on other people's children, 25 January) is a fine analysis of this Tory-led government's thinking on education policy. The life experiences of Cameron's cabinet, overwhelmingly rich and privileged, inform their attitude to public services, particularly for the most vulnerable. They've been raised on public bad, private good ideology. They wouldn't recognise need if it smacked them in the face.
Gordon Vassell, Hull
I have no argument with Professor Mel Ainscow's idea that "moving knowledge around" can improve schools ('We don't look the same, but we have the same vibe', 25 January). However, the suggestion that the Manchester City Challenge is responsible for improved GCSE results in inner-city secondary schools is an insult to many hardworking and dedicated teachers.
The staff and students involved in the partnership you featured have doubtless benefited enormously. However, as a teacher working in an inner-city secondary school during the birth of the challenge, I would argue that this is a fairly isolated success story, rather than the norm. GCSE results in Manchester have indeed risen. But that was down to the hard work and dedication of teachers and children, and in many cases the challenge deserves none of the credit.
Sarah Warden
Prestwich
Let us hope that teachers in other sectors read the further education section of Education Guardian last week. The article (Bonkers? Maybe. Successful? Definitely) on Harlow College shows what can and has often happened in the FE sector since the removal of a democratic element embodied in the local education authorities.
What FE colleges became years ago were in fact "academies". And that is how management can act in education when they lose LEA restraint. Beware academies, teachers.
Dave Nicholson
Windsor
A new 'free school' has caused upset as some parents and other local schools say they were not consulted
I found out that one of the first wave of free schools is to open 100 yards from my front door in a round-robin email of news from my local councillor a few weeks ago, and was flabbergasted. For months I've been reading about Toby Young's plans for a new school a few miles away, so why had I not heard about the free school on my doorstep? I thought Michael Gove's flagship policy was all about parent power, notices on lampposts, petitions and neighbourhood meetings.
The school, Ark Atwood primary academy, is set to open on Third Avenue in north Westminster in September and stay for two years before moving to a bigger site elsewhere in the borough. I live on the same road, have a daughter at primary school and am a regular at community meetings. So am I the only person who knew nothing about this?
A walk down the road suggests not. Of about 15 people who come to their doors when I knock, not a single one has heard about the new school directly opposite. Several voice concerns about traffic, about what will happen to the children who use the family and play centres currently housed in what will be the school's temporary buildings. I meet a woman trying to drop off her son at the play centre, and ask if she knows it is to be relocated. The answer is no, and she is sorry to hear it. Her son is autistic, there was a place for him here, it is a valuable service.
Looking up local press reports, I find quotes from Sophy Blakeway, director of primary education at Ark, describing a "great response" to the plans from local parents. I email her explaining where I live, saying I've heard nothing. She says sorry, but leaflets have been put through letterboxes and there have been meetings.
Barbara Mayne, the head of Queen's Park primary school, nearly adjacent to the new school's buildings, did not receive a leaflet either. Ark says it wrote to her last year, but she says she didn't receive the letter. "I found out about it from a journalist ringing up to ask me what I thought about it, which I think is absolutely disgraceful," she tells me. "I felt really demoralised that nobody had thought to consult with us."
Because the new school is so close, Mayne is concerned about the impact on admissions. Her school, 80% of whose pupils speak English as an additional language and 48% of whom are on free school meals, has a one-and-a-half-form entry of 42 pupils, and balancing mixed-year-group classes is a delicate business.
At Wilberforce primary school a few blocks away, the headteacher, Angela Piddock, is equally offended. "I feel quite angry," she says. "I think we should have been asked, or at the very least become party to the discussion around where [the school] is going to be. I think there should have been an understanding from the members [of Westminster City Council] that this would have a huge impact on us."
There is broad agreement that Westminster needs a new primary school. A lack of places has left more than 300 children with no school to go to. But not in Queen's Park, where some existing schools have reception-year spaces.
So how did it come about? What happened, explains councillor Nicola Aiken, Westminster's cabinet member for children, is that an exchange of emails between Westminster council leader, Colin Barrow, and one of Ark's trustees led to Ark being asked to make a proposal.
The local Labour MP, Karen Buck, believes that casting Ark Atwood as a "free school" when it has not been brought about by a parent-led movement, but by the council, has created bad feeling. Though parents do not have to be behind free schools, they feature prominently in the Department for Education's rubric and publicity tends to focus on grassroots demand and new providers who have not run state schools before.
Buck says that in circumstances where the council has played such an active role, "the free school label is a slightly deceitful one, it can't help but make people think, 'you're not being entirely honest with us'. It enrages me that they won't just stand by the school on its merits. Why do you have to have all this rhetoric?"
Lesley Smith, communications director for Ark, admits they have not found the ideal spot: "You kind of get what you're given. If we had a blank sheet of paper and could say, OK, we'd like the school to be right there, we'd do that, but that's true of anywhere in London."
She agrees that the consultation, featuring three meetings in a neighbouring ward, has not been perfect. "The council wasn't able to be specific as early as we would like, and we do accept that that causes some discomfort for our future neighbours," she says. But she insists that because the starting point is a shortage of places, other schools have nothing to fear.
Aiken, who will take the final decision on the school's location, echoes this, arguing that a new school was the only solution. But she also says she expects the free school to drive standards up: "That's the whole ethos of the free school, that choice has got to encourage competition and there's nothing wrong with competition."
There is no campaign against the Westminster free school. Primary applications for September 2011 closed three weeks ago, and a headteacher, Daniel Upfield, has been appointed. Schools and community groups have been invited to present their views, but everyone expects the scheme to get the final go-ahead shortly.
Some parents of pre-school-age children will welcome the school. The publicity and energy surrounding a new school, with an ambitious head determined to make an impression, naturally gives rise to hope and excitement. Ark has built its reputation on running successful non-selective, non-religious schools in deprived areas. The charity, founded by hedge fund manager Arpad "Arki" Busson and famous for its glamorous fundraisers, already runs a successful Westminster academy and has many prominent supporters (Paul Myners, formerly chair of the Guardian Media Group, is a trustee). The heads I met admit that maintaining standards in this multi-lingual inner-city neighbourhood is difficult, and they struggle to attract the affluent minority who might help to boost their standing in league tables. No one is suggesting that Queen's Park's schools are perfect. But there are already alternatives. Like a number of other local children, my daughter goes to school a short walk away in Kensington and Chelsea.
But many people, and not only those with direct links to existing schools, are concerned about the impact on the area. Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour minority on the council, calls it a "complete mess in every sense, driven by a political agenda because Westminster Conservatives want to be seen as leaders of the free school movement".
Angela Piddock predicts "huge turbulence" a couple of years down the line when Ark moves premises: will she receive a sudden influx of children whose parents decide against the longer journey?
What may trouble other people interested in the new government's education reforms is that the process whereby this new "free school" looks set to come about seems designed to make cooperation difficult.
While the current shortage of school places would seem to support the council's argument that existing schools do not face an immediate recruitment crisis, this does not mean they have nothing to lose in terms of confidence and reputation.
Ark's new headteacher, Daniel Upfield, says he plans to work with other schools for their mutual benefit. He says he would not want his school's success to be at the expense of anybody else's. But when asked whether at some future date, or elsewhere, less popular schools might be forced to close because they have become unpopular, Aiken says: "That's a matter for the schools themselves. Any good headteacher wants to attract pupils to their school and they have to have the offer that parents want. I don't see why we're getting so hung up on choice and competition, it works everywhere else in life, why can't it work in education?"
Visit an actual school, and one in an area of densely populated social housing where many pupils already face acute disadvantage, and the answer – that the cost of such a failure is far too high, and unfair on these children – seems blindingly obvious.
When a lion hears the roar of another lion, what happens?
Lion-roaring competitions used to be private affairs, organised entirely by lions, without spectators. That changed in the early 1990s, when Karen McComb, Jon Grinnell, Craig Packer and Anne Pusey realised they could use technology – loudspeakers, amplifiers, and sometimes a stuffed artificial lion – to stage-manage some lion-roaring contests, and to document those ginned-up events on video.
The foursome wanted to answer a question: When lions hear other lions roar, what do they do?
McComb was based at the University of Cambridge, Grinnell at the College of Wooster and at the University of Minnesota, and Packer and Pusey at Minnesota. The roaring contests, though, were held in Tanzania.
McComb, Grinnell, Packer and Pusey set up loudspeakers in the jungle, booming out recordings they had made of one, two, or three lions roaring simultaneously.
In a series of reports in the journal Animal Behaviour, they tell what happened. First, they give some context. Lion society is organised in prides – groups of a few females, even fewer males, and some offspring. There are also quite a few nomadic males, who (as the old joke goes) have no pride.
The monograph Roaring and Social Communication in African Lions is all about masculine roaring. Groups of males in their own territory listening to recorded, amplified roars, generally roared back, and often walked towards the loudspeaker. Nomadic males heard the same recordings, but, being uninvited guests, always stayed silent and kept to themselves.
A monograph called Roaring and Numerical Assessment in Contests between Groups of Female Lions tells how "recordings of single females roaring and groups of three females roaring in chorus were played back to simulate the presence of unfamiliar intruders".
Female lions, we're told, "deliver their roars in bouts that generally last less than a minute and consist of several soft introductory moans, a series of full-throated roars and a terminating sequence of grunts. When pride members roar together the bout is delivered in chorus, one individual initiating and others joining in as the bout progresses by adding their roars in an overlapping fashion."
The females who listened to recordings sometimes responded, but sometimes didn't. It seemed to depend, more or less, on how many companions were with them, and on how many voices were evident in the recording. Some walked towards the loudspeaker. Some "attempted to recruit absent pride-mates to the contest by roaring". The study says that: "On nearly half of these occasions, companions joined them at the playback site within an hour."
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
College chiefs are outraged by changes to funding for pastoral care and extra-curricular activities
Sixth-form college principals fear their institutions could end up as A-level factories as the government plans a drastic cut in the funds that pay for pastoral care and extra-curricular activities.
Moreover, the educational consequences of a widening social gulf between the haves and have-nots fill some principals with horror.
For 16- to 19-year-olds, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, pastoral guidance and learning go hand in hand. Continuing education at this age can offer the first glimpse of a wider world. "Some kids here have never seen the sea," says Dr Dick Smith, principal of Wyke sixth-form college in Hull – something hard to imagine with the east coast a few miles away. "So when we go to New York or South Africa with students, we give them a very significant experience."
Schools, sixth-form and general FE colleges face tough choices. News that so-called entitlement funding will be cut from 114 to 30 hours per student per year trickled out from the Young People's Learning Agency (YPLA) two days before Christmas. The government expects to save £650m, of which, it claims, £150m will be used to benefit the poorest learners through its "disadvantage uplift".
So, £500m down, principals must perform yet more financial conjuring tricks. "The entitlement needed to keep some students on track is huge," says Smith. "Guidance is very important where parents have no experience of higher or even further education – these are first-generation students.
"We have to put in everything a middle-class family provides, such as Ucas guidance and hand-holding, as well as helping students achieve academically. If we don't have the money for such things, and for specialist tutors, I'm not sure whether we can retain students."
Smith regards the YPLA's approach – that entitlement need not be cut if it can be funded some other way – as "mealy-mouthed pretence". He fears some colleges could go under. "Highly effective provision will be torpedoed," he says.
Jackie Johnston, principal of the College of Richard Collyer, Horsham, West Sussex, thinks the YPLA doesn't understand what it's doing: "Our teachers provide tutoring, guidance, organise trips, clubs, activities and societies as well as teaching," she says. "Any cuts based on the notion that all this can be surgically removed … misses the point that college work does not divide up in that simplistic way."
Johnston views cuts to entitlement funding as particularly damaging in a world where evidence of extra-curricular achievement is increasingly important. Collyer's is one of a group of 15 sixth-form colleges piloting a sixth-form baccalaureate (SFbac), to show university admissions tutors and employers that their students have received a well-rounded education.
Johnston is one of the SFbac's architects. "It's about educating the whole person and not seeing young people simply as exam fodder," she says. "It sees a place in education for skills and values alongside subject knowledge. Entitlement funding ensured these could be offered." The aim is for each student to leave with a testimonial accompanying their award, which has been endorsed by the Sixth Form Colleges' Forum (SFCF) and backed by the Institute for Learning.
"We feel the sixth-form bac is the right response to what the 'big society' is about – citizenship; volunteering," says Johnston. "But the idea of students having a rounded education is undermined by a funding approach that doesn't recognise the value of anything beyond qualifications. It feels like a kick in the teeth."
David Igoe, chief executive of the SFCF, insists that no college will take away "core entitlement" such as career support and guidance, but fears that colleges will have to grapple with "terrible decisions" about supporting such activities as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme. "Will we have to charge and make it elitist? It's this enrichment that makes the difference," he says.
Igoe foresees the gloomy prospect that, because of the cuts, some sixth-form college students could "end up going to an A-level factory". "We want a discussion about what is a proper education for the sixth form," he says. "We've never had that debate."
Further education colleges are less hemmed in financially than their sixth-form counterparts, yet YPLA's announcement still came as a bombshell. "For me this is more serious than losing EMA (education maintenance allowance)," says Asha Khemka, principal of West Nottinghamshire College. "We weren't consulted, and the impact is huge: we're talking about millions for our college. We aren't clear about how it will be phased out."
Like Smith, Khemka feels that the loss of extra-curricular activity could jeopardise her students' life chances. "A lot here have never left Mansfield or Ashton," she says. "Enrichment enables students to look outside. It helps develop the whole person, and gives them aspirations towards higher education."
What might she do? Fewer hours of classroom contact time is one option. "Books have to be balanced – it's a very challenging situation. Government ministers don't ever talk about these things. There are big implications for recruitment and retention here."
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, has written to the education secretary urging him to reconsider the cuts. They will, he says, "make it particularly difficult for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to compete for university places with those from private schools".
Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton, has tabled a Commons early day motion echoing the AoC's call. Otherwise, warns Lucas, there will be "a negative impact on students … a narrowing of their educational experience and development, and an increase in drop-out rates".
Sixth-form colleges say that unlike schools and general FE colleges they cannot tap into other government funding streams to cushion the blow; and that with inflation factored in, the cut in real terms will be around 20%. "School sixth forms will be able to keep some sport going, having been given back sports co-ordination money in the recent U-turn by Michael Gove," says Smith. "But sixth-form colleges will not get that.
"We already operate with at least 20% less funding per student than school sixth forms, and produce outcomes in line with or better than private schools. Colleges are already so efficient that their only option will be to run pared-down, cram and survive, part-time courses."
Ministers seem to think the traditional academic subjects they studied and the team games they played at school are what everyone's children should do, says Estelle Morris – but what about the alternatives?
Given the opportunity, most people will express a view about what is right and wrong with our education system. Almost everyone has been to school and most people have played their part in educating their own children. You certainly don't need to be a qualified teacher to feel you know what is best.
It's a simplistic view, but I think you can roughly see two groups among parents: those who want their own children to have the same or a similar education to their own and those who want anything but. Some children are signed up at birth for a parent's old school; other parents scrimp and save to move somewhere where they think education is better than theirs.
This is the way it should be. Parents know their children best and will understandably strive to achieve it for them. The problem is that we now seem to have a team of education ministers who want to replicate their own education experiences for everyone else's child.
There's a thread running through ministers' pronouncements on what they consider to be a "good" education for older secondary school students, and I suspect it pretty closely mirrors their own time at school.
If you follow the debates on the future of the school sports partnerships, their views on "soft" A-level subjects, their plans for the future content of league tables, what might happen to assessment, and, most of all, the English baccalaureate, a picture begins to emerge.
Team games are the only sort of sport that matters; traditional subjects are better than new areas of study; assessment should always be at the end of the course; vocational subjects matter less than academic ones.
There is little appreciation of the contribution of the social sciences or religious education, of applied subjects such as engineering, or vocational courses. Perhaps most worrying, the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in a technological world don't seem to get a mention.
The approach to education that ministers seem to value has served many people very well, and the skills, knowledge and attitudes it has given them have in turn benefited our country. I do not argue against that sort of education being available to more children.
Yet valuing that shouldn't blind us to the strengths of alternatives. Wanting all children to be stretched, to be ambitious, to develop a love of learning, not to be held back by poverty or lack of aspiration is not the preserve of those who prefer a more traditional approach.
Any number of people, many of them very successful in life, will bear witness to creative and imaginative teachers and schools that used art, drama or sport, practical subjects or the social sciences to motivate them and entice them into the world of learning. As well as these being important in their own right, drama can lead to a love of poetry, or politics to a fascination with history, or design to a lifelong interest in architecture.
This is, of course, the fault line in Michael Gove's raft of early policy announcements. He starts from the premise that teachers should be trusted to know what is best for their pupils, but gives the strongest of signals that he values one type of education more than any other. Never was this more evident than the way in which the current curriculum review was announced.
Engaging, motivating and teaching children is a complicated business. It is both an art and a science, and our best teachers are geniuses at finding different routes to help children to achieve.
It's strange that a government that puts diversity of school providers at the core of its vision should show such little appreciation of the diversity of ways in which young people can learn and succeed.
• We have changed the headline on this story to better reflect the content of the article.
This is a chance for pupils to tell us what they like about their school, and what they would change, for our new manifesto, which we will present to decision-makers
Do you know what makes a perfect school? Help us to draw up a new Children's Manifesto
Ten years ago this month, Education Guardian asked children to design their perfect school. From over 15,000 entries from pupils aged five to 18, we drew up the Children's Manifesto – a recipe for the school of your dreams.
Now we want to ask pupils again. Is your school just as you'd like it to be? Or are there things you would change? Is the building right? Should you sit exams? Are you allowed to express yourself? Are your lessons interesting? Here's your chance to let us know how schools in Britain can become perfect for pupils.
We're going to listen to all pupils' comments. Just email them to school.i'd.like@guardian.co.uk, giving your full name, age, year and name of school, and a contact phone number. The more pupils who write in, the more powerful our voice. The deadline is 18 February.
We will publish some of your comments and use all of them to inform and guide the manifesto. Some of those who send in the most imaginative and exciting ideas will be asked to join our special Children's Manifesto panel, helping to sift through the submissions to turn them into the final manifesto.
We will then present the manifesto to decision-makers. Who knows, perhaps we can make the dream school come true.
This is what the school children of Britain wanted back in 2001
The school we'd like is:
• A beautiful school with glass dome roofs to let in the light, uncluttered classrooms and brightly coloured walls.
• A comfortable school with sofas and beanbags, cushions on the floors, tables that don't scrape our knees, blinds that keep out the sun, and quiet rooms where we can chill out.
• A safe school with swipe cards for the school gate, anti-bully alarms, first aid classes, and someone to talk to about our problems.
• A listening school with children on the governing body, class representatives and the chance to vote for the teachers.
• A flexible school without rigid timetables or exams, without compulsory homework, without a one-size-fits-all curriculum, so we can follow our own interests and spend more time on what we enjoy.
• A relevant school where we learn through experience, experiments and exploration, with trips to historic sites and teachers who have practical experience of what they teach.
• A respectful school where we are not treated as empty vessels to be filled with information, where teachers treat us as individuals, where children and adults can talk freely to each other, and our opinion matters.
• A school without walls so we can go outside to learn, with animals to look after and wild gardens to explore.
• A school for everybody with boys and girls from all backgrounds and abilities, with no grading, so we don't compete against each other, but just do our best.
At the school we'd like, we'd have:
• Enough pencils and books for each child.
• Laptops so we could continue our work outside and at home.
• Drinking water in every classroom, and fountains of soft drinks in the playground.
• School uniforms of trainers, baseball caps and fleece tracksuits for boys and girls.
• Clean toilets that lock, with paper and soap, and flushes not chains.
• Fast-food school dinners and no dinner ladies.
• Large lockers to store our things.
• A swimming pool.
This is what we'd like. It is not an impossible dream.
These are some suggestions school children have for the perfect school in 2011
'My perfect school would be where we could decide which days we wanted to go to school. So if sometimes we worked for 10 days in a row we would be able to have a four-day weekend. I know it isn't possible because we have to learn the same things and sometimes only one pupil would be in. David Cameron did not consult us about cutting funding to our school, which means that I have to pay for my music lessons, which I worked very hard to get a special place for.'
Louis Bradshaw, 12, year 8, Haberdasher's Aske's Hatcham college, Lewisham
'It's unfair that only the people who are good at writing stories have their stories displayed in the school hall. I think everyone should have their work displayed and the school should, maybe every Friday, display the work so that we can read each others' work, then write comments as well. That way no one feels left out.'
Zarah Yesufu, eight, year 4, St Joseph's RC school, Wembley
'My school gives me the opportunity to voice my opinions through the Pupil Senate, as long as you are serious and sensible about what you would like to change. I was consulted about my intention to start a debating society at the school. First of all, I discussed this issue in the Senate. Thereafter, I met with one of my teachers and arranged for the society to meet one lunchtime a week, much like any other school club. We now meet every Thursday to debate on both serious and fun issues and I am very proud of what I have achieved.'
Michael Middleton, aged 14, year 10, Sawston Village college, Cambridge
'They do ask what we'd like sometimes. When we were getting a new teacher, we had a lesson from three teachers and we were asked which one we liked the best. They did choose her. I'd like more extended projects. When we did the second world war, we had a make-do-and-mend week, using old clothes to make funky new stuff. I made a skirt from an old pair of jeans and I still wear it.'
Hannah Stott, aged 10, year 6, Wolvercote primary, Oxford
'When I was eight, my school put up a board on which pupils could pin up ideas. Hardly any of them got done, not even the eco-friendly ones. My dream school isn't one that has loads of high-tech equipment. It is one that has students that enjoy learning and whose opinion will be considered seriously.'
Olive Bradshaw, aged 10, year 6, Walnut Tree Walk school, Lambeth
'At the start of the week you could fill in a form to choose what lessons you wanted. Kids should get at least an option on where to go on trips. Also, they shouldn't have to wear school uniform if they don't want to. In after-school club there should be crisps and drinks and some fruit to keep you going.'
Roisin Shanks, aged nine, year 5, Bonner primary, Tower Hamlets
Ten years ago, Education Guardian held a competition, The School I'd Like, offering children a chance to start setting the agenda for their own education. Did they get what they wanted? And are we listening to them any more today?
A new national curriculum, academy status, the English baccalaureate. These controversial developments are all arriving shortly at a school near you. And who's proposing such radical shifts in educational provision and assessment? Government, educationalists and the occasional celebrity expert. But there's one group whose opinion we haven't heard on these initiatives, even though they will experience the greatest impact. School children.
Ten years ago this month, Education Guardian ran a competition called The School I'd Like. (The Observer had run a 1967 competition under the same title.) Primary and secondary students were asked to design the school of their dreams. More than 15,000 school children responded; the competition is still one of the largest informal surveys of children's attitudes towards schooling ever conducted in this country. Entries came as photographic collages, papier-mache models, architectural plans, Braille essays, recorded rap songs and illustrated books. Secondary student Tom Copping rewrote the lyrics to Lennon's Imagine: "Imagine there's no Ofsted / Schools all on 'alert'/ No compulsory subjects / You can even garden in the dirt …" Twelve-year-old traveller Rocky sent in a poem, asking for the school to follow him rather than the other way around.
These School I'd Like entrants didn't politely put up their hands and wait to be asked – they pleaded, cried and insisted their voices be heard. Secondary school pupil Aleksi Hastings had his "super skool" entry set as a task by his teacher. '"Hi, this is a homework that will probably just be written, read and returned, with a mark and someone's red pen all over it …Please don't just push this aside as another homework, treat this piece presented before you as an academic breakthrough. Make the dream come true."
Ten years later, have any of the young people's dreams come true? Educational initiatives have multiplied and reports been written about reports, from Building Schools for the Future to the (also now abandoned) Rose Review. But is it still education, education, education without consultation, consultation, consultation? Are adults continuing to develop strategies and schools continuing to implement them without asking the pupils?
Student involvement in real decision-making seems to still be largely at the mercy of committed heads and understanding teaching staff. "Pupil voice depends upon the school," says Tim Brighouse, former Schools Commissioner for London and a judge in the 2001 competition. "Some schools have the appearance of a school council, but it's only symbolic. Then there are a few schools that have really pushed student voice."
David Miliband was schools minister when Building Schools for the Future (BSF) was introduced in 2004. He admits that student input to BSF design plans was inconsistent. "It was more ad hoc engagement in what students, teachers and the community wanted from a school building. But where it has happened, it's been inspiring," he says.
One reason educationalists and government can give for not listening very hard is that young people's demands are often heady and idealistic. In 2001, we asked children to let their imaginations run wild – the very kind of blue-sky thinking governments themselves so often favour. So a swimming pool was high on pupils' list of near-essential items a school should offer. Primary school pupil Hannah Watson even wanted the lessons in her "timbuctoo primary" to take place in the water, "to aid relaxation", with "blow-up chairs and laminated maths books".
Miriam Grossfeld's entry won the upper secondary. Now 25 and a graduate in psychology from Cambridge University, she looks back on her submission with some regret. "I was quite brutal," she says. "I was wrong not to see the other side of it. But that was how I felt at the time, and there's nothing wrong with that. I asked for everything to be individual, so that everyone could create their own little curriculum. I realise now that it has to be standardised. You have to tick boxes. And now people rightly tell me – well, you got your GCSEs and have a job so I shouldn't complain. But I still feel like I'm looking to find what really inspires me. If schools let children find that, could produce a generation that felt inspired in what they did, then education would really work."
Maisie Munroe, the 2001 lower secondary winner, is now 23 and has just completed her master's at Barcelona Institute of International Relations. "I came home from school and was moaning about something and my mum said – 'Have you seen this School I'd Like in the paper?' So I just sat down and wrote it that afternoon," she remembers. "It was idealistic stuff." Her entry was: "In my perfect school there would still be rules, but they would guide us, not confine us. There would be no grading, praise only for working hard and not your mental capability … Exams would be abolished. We would discuss our opinions in every lesson. Teachers and pupils would be equal. In my school, the only thing they would ban would be unhappiness and pain."
Students also put forward small, cheap or cost-free, easily achievable suggestions. Quieter school bells, water jugs in every classroom, desks that leave room for knees, no flickering strip lighting, no holes in the playground tarmac, sharp pencils. I wonder how many schools could tick all these small measures off today? Children also longed for teachers to change. Primary school pupil Will Honey wanted them, "to use less of their cross voice". Others hoped teachers would simply remember their name and let them go to the toilet when they needed to.
In 2001, Jane Allnutt was teaching year 6 at Hilltop junior school in Essex when the class worked on the School I'd Like competition as a project. She believes pupil voice is increasingly taken into account. "Things pupils suggest now get implemented much more," she says. "Ten years ago, the class tried to get a recycling bin and they said no. Now most classrooms in most primary schools have a litterbin and a recycling box. That's the sort of thing that children actually asked for and it actually happened. If the kids come up with good ideas then we'll try and put them into practice – if we can, and if the health and safety rules allow, and if the budget allows." That's a few 'ifs'.
Some argue that, even if these small things have improved due to pupil pressure, the larger issues remain to be tackled, in particular concerning pupil power. "We know from research that young people want to be more involved in the running of their schools," says Maggie Atkinson, the Children's Commissioner. "They particularly want to help select their teachers and give feedback on lessons. Where schools involve pupils well, it leads to better relationships, improved behaviour and higher attainment. For example, at one school we visited, the school council runs training sessions for teachers – giving feedback on their lessons. Teachers say this helps them improve, and they really value the feedback – even if they did find it a bit daunting at first."
Brighouse argues beyond "independent learning" for pupils to "interdependent learning", where staff and pupils learn from each other. "How do you include everyone in the learning process? It's no longer 'I'm going to tell you all that you need to know about Macbeth'," he says. Brighouse gives the example of one school where year 9 pupils lead regular ICT sessions, acknowledging they're often the experts. "Dare we take this step?" he challenges.
The School I'd Like competition, like its 1967 predecessor, has also influenced pupil involvement. Dr Catherine Burke, senior lecturer in history of education at Cambridge University and an instigator of the 2001 competition, compiled a book from the entries with colleague Ian Grosvenor that is regularly used in teacher training. But Burke is not optimistic. "The school I'd like has now become the school I'd like my child to get into. Pupils have fallen out of the picture and parents are now in it. It's all about parental choice, not pupil choice. Pupil voice is being reduced and now seen as something problematic and in the way," she says.
There are pitfalls to pupil participation. Sometimes young people just don't ask for what we adults want them to. In the Children's Manifesto drawn up from all the School I'd Like entries, one point was, "Fast-food school dinners and no dinner ladies". (This was five years before Jamie [Oliver]'s School Dinners.) School fountains spouting Fanta were a popular request. Maisie Munroe now believes her winning entry was unrealistic, putting the needs of individual pupils before the whole pupil body. "We need to be able to give everyone the same opportunities. So I'm torn between the idea of letting children explore several kinds of education and the necessity to give each and every child opportunities. That realism kicks in as you get as you get older," she says.
Brighouse hopes that, despite the drawbacks, we'll hang on to the ideal of listening to young people. "I'm very optimistic about student involvement. It's in a few schools and not as deeply embedded as it should be – but it will be. Student voice is going to have a very powerful impact."
Can the coalition succeed where Labour failed, to make university admissions follow A-level results?
"Post-qualification university admissions in England. Where have I heard that before?"
So tweeted Professor Steven Schwartz, now vice-chancellor of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, but also, significantly, the man who was once Labour's university admissions "tsar".
He was responding to reports this month that suggested fundamental changes to England's higher education application process, also affecting the timing of school exams. They might be introduced after two years.
"Sixth-formers are to be spared the agony of waiting for A-level results before knowing if they have won a place at their chosen university under a plan to overhaul the Ucas [Universities and Colleges Admissions Service] system," one newspaper had reported. "Final school examinations will be taken weeks earlier and the autumn university term pushed back if the changes, to be revealed in a white paper, win support."
Schwartz was right to detect a note of familiarity in the reports. For what they did not mention was that Labour had actually sought for years, without success, to introduce changes with exactly the same aim as those now seemingly being put forward by the coalition.
In fact, back in 2004, an inquiry Schwartz led into university admissions had concluded that such a system would be "fairer and more transparent".
The story of the years since strikes many – including Schwartz himself – as a failure to achieve the goals David Willetts, universities minister, is reported now to be aiming at.
So what has gone wrong? And what are the prospects that such a reform might work this time?
Since the 1990s, a consistent criticism has been made of the university admissions system: it is largely based on pupils' predicted grades at A-level, rather than their actual results.
Because applications have to be submitted to universities by 15 January, they can only include teachers' forecasts of students' likely grades in A-levels that will be completed in the summer, rather than their actual achievements.
But this creates a problem. There is evidence that predictions are inaccurate in as many as 55% of cases. Students, therefore, face injustice if they are predicted lower grades by teachers than they go on to achieve.
It has long been argued that the system risks harming disadvantaged students' chances in particular. John Morgan, a former president of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) who has been involved in discussions over reform for eight years, says many disadvantaged pupils are on a "faster upward trajectory" in the sixth form than their better-off peers, improving sharply towards the end of their courses. Thus, they would benefit from later applications.
The need for change has been acknowledged officially for more than a decade, with Ron Dearing, in his 1997 higher education report, which paved the way for tuition fees, and Mike Tomlinson, in a report on A-levels in 2002, both concluding that university admissions should not be based on predicted grades.
The question has always been: how to achieve this? With A-level results published in mid-August and university terms starting in some cases in early September, there is little time as it stands to process applications.
Labour's attempt at reform began in earnest in 2005, as it responded to the Schwartz review with a consultation paper putting forward a host of recommendations, including two alternative options that would eventually have introduced a version of a post-qualifications admissions (PQA) system.
One would have seen all students submitting applications to university only after A-level results were published. The second would have seen them put in "expressions of interest" to universities well before results were released, universities then making offers of places to some students, but some places being reserved for after results came out.
However, Labour shelved the move in 2006 after both options were rejected by the consultees, two-thirds of whom were from universities.
Instead, it published another paper with less radical recommendations, including setting aside a week after A-levels in the applications process when students achieving better-than-expected grades could apply to more prestigious universities. This proposal, a so-called adjustment period, has happened.
But other recommendations, including a stipulation that exam boards should bring forward A-level results day by a week to free up more time for the applications process, have not ... until now, at least.
The other radical changes suggested – bringing school exams forward or putting back university terms to leave space for admissions – have long been ideas in the background of this debate but have hit firm obstacles, observers say.
Schools would be reluctant to lose more teaching time by scheduling exams earlier, while there has been huge resistance among universities to any delay in term dates, especially given that the foreign students on whom they increasingly rely for income expect to be able to start university in early autumn.
John Dunford, ASCL's former general secretary, who has been involved in discussions on PQA since 1994, stresses universities' role in the failure so far to effect change, but says all parties need to compromise.
Given the history, is there any chance this latest plan will come to fruition? One who believes not is Schwartz himself. Asked if PQA had any chance of working this time, he replies: "None whatsoever."
He says: "Everyone who has looked at the issue ... concurs: PQA is the only sensible way to proceed. Only universities object, usually on the grounds that waiting for A-level results before making admissions decisions would leave insufficient time for them to fully evaluate applications.
"The force of this objection is reduced considerably when these same universities make instant admission decisions during clearing. A few cynical types have suggested that admissions tutors dislike PQA because all the work will take place in the summer."
Universities UK, the lobby group, says in a statement that universities have supported PQA, but then adds that for it to work "it must be compatible with both the university and school year, and the timing of national examinations".
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is itself cautious, saying only that "there's a likelihood that we might look at PQA" in the white paper, due in the spring.
Some remain optimistic that PQA can happen. Edexcel, the exam board, says it is confident it could release A-level results a week early if asked. And, as Education Guardian was going to press, an exams source told this newspaper that A-level and GCSE results are indeed being moved forward by a week from 2012.
Morgan, a headteacher who also sits on the board of Ucas, says that admissions staff in universities have been quietly warming to PQA in recent years, partly for financial reasons: having students apply after they know their grades would cut down on "wasted" applications, thus reducing overheads, he says.
For Dunford, progress on PQA has been painfully slow, but this would make it no less sweet if finally achieved. One suspects he should not hold his breath.
Colin Hindmarch is a college principal who once inspired hate – but now inspires envy
Colin Hindmarch sits at the oversized boardroom table in his office. There are no books on the shelves and nothing on the desk, not even a computer, as if he had just moved in or is about to move out. But he is definitely staying put, he says. The neatness is deliberate, part of his leadership strategy. "I went on this training course once where they said that if someone comes into your office and sees piles of paper everywhere, they will think you haven't got time for them. I'd never want to give that impression," he says.
A recent Ofsted inspection concluded that his college, at Harlow, Essex, was "good with outstanding features". The college can now boast overall success rates – government figures that measure student achievement – of 88% (the national average is around 76%), which puts it second in the country.
It would be enough to make any principal feel satisfied. But here it's especially amazing. Just three years ago, Harlow College came close to being placed in special measures, and Hindmarch's attempts to turn the place around made him, in his own words, "possibly the most hated principal in the country".
He must surely feel like thumbing his nose at those who doubted him: the unions who fought him, the teaching staff who decided to leave, and the minister who disowned him (of which more later).
"To a small degree," he says, with just the trace of a smile. "But only to a small degree. I would have preferred it if I had been able to take everyone along with me."
When he arrived at Harlow, Hindmarch, who had been vice-principal at City of Sunderland College, was "shocked" at what he found. While staff believed everything was going well, data collection was "very poor", meaning some staff ("some, not all") had no idea how their students were doing or what they needed to do to improve. Many had low expectations of their students and took little responsibility for their progress. "'What do you expect? They're from Harlow' – I heard that a lot in those first few months," he says.
In the months following his appointment in September 2006, all the teaching staff were re-interviewed for their jobs, and graded against 39 criteria, including attendance, teamwork, punctuality and relationships with students. More than 100 of the 179 teachers took redundancy or were made redundant.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone shared Hindmarch's vision. His uncompromising approach sparked strikes, a bitter legal dispute with the University and College Union (UCU), an employment tribunal, and – what Hindmarch admits was his "lowest point" – a public withdrawal of support from the then further and higher education minister and Harlow MP, Bill Rammell, who said in February 2008 that "the change strategy the principal initiated was not adequately thought through or effectively implemented".
As well as introducing new systems to track students' progress, Hindmarch introduced a radical new approach to teaching where, instead of having several classes each week, students had subject days. Teachers would set targets at the beginning of the day and students could go home as soon as they were achieved.
"A lot of people were very nervous about the things we wanted to do. And I understand that," he says. "But you will very often hear the public services exalted as creative and innovative. Actually, people get very nervous about change and are happier if you carry on just doing things as you always have done."
Also controversial was the change to holiday entitlement, from 12 to 10 weeks a year, taken across the year and not just in the school holidays. Like many of the innovations, Hindmarch feels they were misinterpreted. "We were actually giving staff more freedom to determine when they would be teaching. But it was portrayed by the union as being the opposite."
At the same time, it was being widely reported that new contracts issued by Harlow College stipulated that staff would be required to work a 56-hour, six-day working week. "I still don't know where it came from," he says. "But there was absolutely no truth in it at all."
At the height of the troubles, he was shouted and sworn at by staff on a regular basis. That, he says, he can understand, but what really hurt was interference from Rammell, who asked the Learning and Skills Council to carry out an inquiry into the college in July 2007, claiming that the college was understaffed and would not be able to cope with the influx of students in the autumn.
"He [Rammell] was very upfront in terms of what he thought of me," says Hindmarch. "But to have the minister of further education believing that you are fundamentally wrong and thinking you were essentially about to sabotage the local college … it was extraordinarily unhelpful. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that the picture that was portrayed by a number of people was that the college was suddenly in the hands of someone who was incompetent and bonkers."
He admits that some days he used to "go home, go upstairs, pull the covers over my head and that was it!" So did he ever doubt himself, start to believe he really was "bonkers"? He shakes his head, vigorously, "I knew I was right".
This unshakeable sense of confidence and determination is what characterises Hindmarch. He initially trained as a primary teacher, but fell into further education after a varied career teaching maths and physics in secondary schools, working in a school for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties, and running a language school.
One of the most valuable things he learned during his time at City of Sunderland College was the need for staff, even at the most senior level, to focus on learners' needs. "Sunderland is a much more deprived area than Harlow, but you'd never hear the lecturers there saying the students couldn't achieve. If a student is failing I take that personally; all staff should take that personally. But that kind of culture has to come down from the top."
In his early 20s, he tells me, he learned Gujarati from scratch, jacked in his teaching job and sold his car to travel to India to beg for the hand in marriage of a young Hindu girl (now his wife of 34 years) he had spotted across a crowded room.
He says repeatedly that he "understands" why lecturers, the union, and even Rammell were so worried by his radical vision. What got him through the bad days was the unfailing support of his family, the chair of governors, Martin Cole, and his Hindu faith, which he says has informed his leadership style. "Amongst other things, you have to try to see things from others' point of view, work out how people view the world. And if you do work it out, for the majority of people, if you do see where they are coming from, it does ease things a little."
While there are "no tensions" with UCU now, his relationship with Rammell didn't fare so well. While they developed an "acceptable working relationship" for the remainder of Rammell's time as Harlow MP (he was defeated by the Tory, Robert Halfon, in last May's general election and is about to take up an appointment as deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Plymouth), Hindmarch reckons he is not on Rammell's Christmas card list.
Hindmarch may no longer be the most hated principal in the country, but he just might be the most ambitious. He is currently learning Hindi and would love to write a Gujarati grammar book. His ultimate goal for his college would be a "100% success rate, with all students achieving a grade A or distinction". "Our long-term goal is probably an impossible one, because we don't know how to achieve it yet," he says. "But it doesn't mean that we couldn't, one day. If I'd shared some of my goals for Harlow College with people right from the outset, they'd have really thought I was mad. I don't think they would think that now. Staff know that if we aren't already, we soon will be the most successful college in the country."
• Keep students at the heart of everything you do
• Create a clear strategy for teaching and learning that is understood by everyone
• Be bold and brave and don't be afraid to take risks
• Create a culture where everyone accepts responsibility for students' successes and failures
• Always be truthful about what is going on at the college. Never deceive anyone else or yourself
Scientists from the Space Research Centre are working with an art historian to reveal secrets of the Tudor Reformation
Cutting-edge space science technology of the sort used to analyse moon rock is being applied to fragments of 16th-century tombs. Scientists from the Space Research Centre in Leicester are working with an art historian from the nearby university as well as academics from Oxford and Yale in a three-year project that hopes to shed new light on our understanding of the Tudor Reformation.
The tombs, at the parish church in Framlingham, are close to the family seat of the Howards, the extremely wealthy and powerful Dukes of Norfolk. But they were originally sited 40 miles away at Thetford Priory, traditional resting place of the Howards until Henry VIII had it dissolved in 1539. They were moved and reassembled some time in the 1540s while the third duke languished in the Tower of London. (Henry was becoming increasingly paranoid about the threat that he posed to his infant heir.) The reassembly process was flawed, however. Some different materials were used.
What appear to be fragments of the original tombs were unearthed at Thetford by archaeologists as long ago as 1934. But they languished in a warehouse for decades and came to light only recently, when Dr Simon Thurley took over as chief executive of English Heritage and asked all curators to find out what they had in store.
Leicester University art historian Dr Phillip Lindley was called in to investigate the fragments and was immediately fascinated – not just by the quality of the artwork by French sculptors, but also by the possibilities that arose of re-thinking parts of Tudor history. "We're trying to relate what happened to the monuments to what happened to the number one power family of the day," he says.
Lindley would like to be able to take the tombs apart and investigate how they were reassembled. "Obviously I can't do that," he says. "But I was talking about it to scientists at the Space Research Centre who proposed that we scan them, take them apart virtually and then put them back together again to look as the Howards originally intended. It's like doing a jig-saw puzzle on screen with all the pieces mixed up."
The two main tombs were commissioned for the third duke himself and for his son-in-law, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond, who died in 1536, aged just 17, and happened to be the illegitimate son of the king himself. (The fortunes of the Tudors and the Howards were intertwined; hence historians' ongoing fascination.) Fitzroy had become firm friends during his short life with his brother-in-law, the Earl of Surrey. Yet another Howard, Surrey was the third duke's son and the man who introduced the sonnet to England with Thomas Wyatt. That didn't cut any ice with the king. He had Surrey executed for treason shortly before his own death in 1547.
Surrey's tomb is at Framlingham as well and is currently being investigated by Dr Lisa Ford of the Yale Center for British Art. "I was talking to Lisa over a coffee when I was at Yale," Lindley recounts. "By an astonishing coincidence, we discovered that we were both absorbed by tombs in the same small corner of England."
Another key member of the research team is historian Dr Steven Gunn, of Merton College, Oxford, charged with providing historical context for the findings. "The Howards are central to our understanding of the artistic development of 16th-century England," he says. "We know that their tombs were moved from Thetford during the third duke's imprisonment, and we now have what seem to be the missing pieces. But was it a case of taking them to Framlingham because they'd already been destroyed, or did they have an Ikea-type tomb kit ready to be put together at Framlingham when Thetford was dissolved?"
Lindley has other questions: "Why were parts of the monuments left at Thetford? Had the third duke's and Fitzroy's tombs been dismantled and taken to Framlingham while the duke was in prison? Or are the excavated fragments the remains of the third tomb [Surrey's]?" He is hoping that the virtual technology will help the research team to provide some answers.
Gunn also hopes that what he calls "this Time Team approach to archaeological reconstruction" will appeal to the general public and to school children. And the "audience advocate" will be striving to ensure that it does. The project has attracted funding of £497,000 from two research councils – Arts and Humanities and Engineering and Physical Sciences – and, for what is thought to be the first time in the field of research, the team has appointed someone to ensure value for money. "My role," says freelance interdisciplinary scientist Dr Adair Richards, "is to ensure that a project funded by public money serves the public. One way we're going to do this is to work with English Heritage to create a learning toolkit to allow teachers to present Tudor history in a new way, with a focus on the research process rather than just the results."
The hope is that up-to-the-minute space technology will provide children of the future with a new way of looking at clues that illuminate the past.
A scheme that links schools has significantly improved GCSE results: could it spread across the country?
Knowledge has always abounded in Manchester and its surrounding towns, birthplace of the British cotton industry, modern computers and chemical engineering. How come, then, that in the first years of this century too many schools in Greater Manchester's 10 local councils were underachieving, and badly?
More than 90 were rated outstanding, but, overall, results were below the national average and non-attendance was above it. Something had jammed, and in his offices overlooking Oxford Road, where thousands of students swarm between Manchester's four universities, Professor Mel Ainscow had an idea what it was.
"The knowledge and skills were here in local schools in abundance," he says. "But they weren't sufficiently moving around. The challenge was especially with 'hard-to-reach' urban pupils. That's where the difference had to be made."
This was the germ of an inter-school programme that is now being credited with the sort of improvement in GCSE results that the coalition's education white paper dearly wants to continue. This month's national data on 2010's GCSEs shows an increase of 6% on average scores in 2009, and 11% since the Manchester City Challenge began in 2007.
The challenge is the reason, says Ainscow, who is optimistic about Michael Gove taking up the ball and passing it to other councils across the country. Four years is a short time on which to build a theory, but the concepts behind this are older and more thoroughly tested than that. Ainscow has been researching them for more than 10 years at the Centre for Equity in Education, which he co-directs at the University of Manchester. The charismatic Tim Brighouse practised the preaching in London's City Challenge from 2003, and also achieved good results. A third challenge, involving the four councils of the Black Country, is doing the same.
The practicalities are summarised by three words from Ainscow's diagnosis – "moving knowledge around" – and there have been three main pathways. The familiar term "families of schools" describes one of them, but these are not families in the traditional, feeder/pyramid sense.
Dropping old sensitivities about boundaries, Greater Manchester's 10 councils bonded together schools from Oldham to Wigan in comparable groups, 11 for secondaries and 58 for primaries. Laid out in this format, data revealed anomalies and similarities clearly.
Ainscow, who took on the Manchester equivalent of Brighouse's London role, says: "We were looking at schools whose intake, size and other features had much in common, and seeing how one was doing well and another not. We were looking for the good things, naturally, and through this system, they were clear. It was a game-changer."
The next step was what Ainscow calls "carefully brokered" school partnerships, with challenge staff such as Andrew Morley earning the nickname "matchmakers". One of Morley's marriages shows strikingly how assets and talents are now shared by schools that previously might have been on different planets: he linked the strictly Orthodox Jewish primary Yesoiday Hatorah in Bury with Birchfields primary, a stone's throw from Ainscow's office in Manchester, most of whose pupils are Muslim.
Both schools are very large. Yesoiday's head for 20 years, Jonathan Yodaiken, has 650 pupils; Birchfields' Sam Offord, appointed four years ago, has 720. Both have language and cultural issues and – at the launch of the challenge – they also had a difference: Yesoiday had Ofsted's second-highest rating of "good", while Birchfields needed a boost.
Three years later, that has happened. Yodaiken, taking orange juice and biscuits with Offord at one of hundreds of inter-school meetings, recalls: "There was cheering here when we heard last year that Ofsted had also rated Birchfields as 'good'." This wasn't a lopsided relationship, however. Both heads acknowledge the way their schools have learned from one another.
Birchfields' exuberant artwork excited Yodaiken and his colleagues; they were also interested to hear how Birchfields parents, while sometimes hesitant about parent evenings because of language difficulties, queued to be helpers on school trips. Yodaiken says: "We can all get a bit blinkered and set in our ways. Working with Sam and her colleagues has sharpened us up, helped with thinking about staff career development, management and working in teams."
Offord is equally quick to acknowledge the benefits of Yodaiken's experience; an author of educational books, his leadership was rated by Ofsted in December as "charismatic", and he also has that valuable extra for successful veterans: a continuing willingness to learn. An Ofsted inspector himself, he spies out good practice on every visit.
Offord especially rates Yesoiday's openness, highly detailed pupil tracking system, and the culture of leadership. Both agree: "Our schools may not look the same superficially, but Andrew [Morley] picked up the same vibe."
The next step, co-ordinated by 18 heads including Yodaiken, will be "triads". Yesoiday and Birchfields will embrace a third partner, and best practice should spread. The final main pathway is less precise, more of an attitude, says Ainscow. The challenge encourages the spread of good ideas from the ground, or classroom, rather than their imposition from above. Ainscow says: "There is no doubting the great benefits of central government spending in the last decade. But there has been a downside in the dulling of potential creativity. People get used to instructions from above."
Crossing the 10 councils' borders is crucial to countering this; a school in Thameside, for example, is more relaxed swapping skills with one in Stockport because local competition ceases to be an issue. The approach chimes with the experience of Offord and Yodaiken. Both describe their partnership as "organic, watering the flowers"; a gentle process and, crucially these days, a thrifty one. As Ainscow says: "The assets were already there. Challenge is spreading them around."