Cribsheet 15.02.11

Two huge events on the Education Guardian calendar today: the launch of the Guardian Postgraduate Guide 2011 and the birth of the Teacher Network . Both provide unique resources free online - so where to start? We're all aquiver. • The Guardian's exclusive Postgraduate Guide - which covers master's degrees including MBAs and postgrad certificates such as the PGCE - tells you how many students are on each course, what the staff/student ratio is, how many finish the course, what the course will cost you and more. It's based on figures from Hesa, interpreted by Intelligent Metrix (which also compiles the Guardian University Guide ). Lucy Tobin has advice on how to get the best out of a postgrad degree , and we have a debut blog from master's student Andre Walker , who is studying journalism at Birkbeck: "Every essay mark is feared, every lecture word is clung to, and every experience of our classmates is valued. We can't afford to fail. There is no mummy and daddy to pick up the pieces if it all goes wrong - and it plays on our minds. So I think I have a duty to warn everyone how hard this life is. Yet it's worth it, despite the hardship." • The Teacher Network gives teachers access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive teaching materials - free. Here's what Colin Hughes, its director, says about it: "The content is immensely varied and deep, including: - Primary whiteboard materials that can be used directly in the classroom. - Secondary interactives that enable complete demonstration of key concepts, such as calculating velocity, analysing poetry or developing shapes in three dimensions. - Extensive game-style content, texts and animations. - Testing made simple. Uniquely, we're making freely available our immensely powerful test centre for secondary schools. It's a flexible bank of more than 20,000 questions that lets you build bespoke tests and deliver them online or on printed handouts. - Resource pages from back copies of Education Guardian. They're better online, because we've animated most of the diagrams too. What's more, there are roughly 33,000 individual lesson assets that teachers can pick out and do what they want with: incorporate in Powerpoint, "mash" into other lesson content, whatever you like. The reason we've decided finally to make this material free is that it's now clear that the future for digital learning will lie in content that individual teachers and students can manipulate and order to suit their own needs, in their own time." And as if that weren't enough, the Education Guardian print section has a particularly fascinating cover story this week. Rowenna Davis reports that cash-strapped students are turning to lap-dancing . Talking to some of them, she discovers it can pay up to £300 a night. A recent study of 200 lap-dancers carried out by Leeds University apparently found that one in three were working to fund higher education. More education news from the Guardian • Janet Murray's story about free schools is getting lots of attention from readers this morning. Critics claim the schools are shrouded in secrecy , and queries are being blocked by the government at every turn. Best bit is this quote from free school poster boy Toby Young: "It strikes me as a bit rich that the NUT [National Union of Teachers], the GMB [union] and the Anti-Academies Alliance [AAA] are demanding more transparency about free schools when they are far from transparent. For instance, the most energetic opponent of the West London Free School is Nick Grant, the local NUT shop steward. In addition to being on the NUT's national executive, he is a member of the Socialist Workers Party [SWP] and co-founder of the Anti-Academies Alliance. The degree of Trotskyist infiltration of the NUT, the GMB and the AAA and the close links between the SWP and the anti-free schools campaign has yet to be brought to light." • Did Tony Blair succeed in his mission to wipe out the "bog-standard comprehensive"? The short answer is yes, writes Stephanie Northen, but the long answer is more interesting than that. • Politicians ask all the wrong questions about classroom discipline , writes Sue Roffey. We need to know how effective teachers promote the feelings of self-worth that make children behave well. • The Royal Society wants an overhaul of the A-level system so that schools produce more science students. • Mike Baker argues that record applications notwithstanding, young people are actually turning their backs on university . • Police have arrested a man concerning alleged assaults on children at a mosque school after viewing a Channel 4 documentary screened on Monday, writes Riazat Butt. Dispatches, Lessons in Hate and Violence, secretly filmed a man apparently hitting and kicking children during Qu'ran lessons at a school in the Markazi Jamia mosque at Keighley, West Yorkshire. From the research labs • Are you addicted to your phone? Can you resist the lure of its flashing red light of your BlackBerry, the trilling of your iPhone, or the self-satisfied gurgle of your Android? Academics at the University of Kent look at the effects on our work of constant interruptions. • Could this be true? Researchers claiming falafels are bad for you ? Only in vast quantities, the Improbable Researchers reassure us. Education news from around the web • Absolutely favourite story is this from the London Evening Standard: Squatters has taken over a £6m central London house belonging to the film director Guy Ritchie, claiming they plan to convert the building into a free school . The collective, known as the Really Free School, entered Mr Ritchie's property over the weekend, have refused to obey police orders to leave, and have now placed large banners in the front windows that say "strike", "resist" and "occupy". • Cambridge University has moved a step closer to introducing tuition fees at the maximum level, the BBC reports. The university's council has accepted a recommendation for £9,000 fees - with plans for a support package of £4,600 for low-income students. • The Mail reports that children at the Richard Lee School in Coventry are being forced to have lessons in 4ft wide corridor , because cuts mean there's no money to repair flooded classroom. And it's got pictures to prove it. "The four and five-year-old pupils, who only started school in September, are forced to stand up and move each time someone needs to walk down the narrow corridor." • A teacher sprayed air freshener on Asian children for "smelling of curry" in the mornings, the GTC for Wales has been told. According to Wales Online, Elizabeth Davies, 48, is accused of "humiliating" children aged between three and six by using the aerosol spray on them in nursery class. Insight into journalism seminars for teachers A unique opportunity for teachers to spend a day at the Guardian, find out how a national news media organisation works and get ideas and resources that can be used in the classroom. News 11 March Learn about the 24 news cycle; meet news reporters, feature writers, picture and sub editors; understand the role newspaper advertising; go on a tour of the editorial floors and take part in a workshop creating you own news front page which will be evaluated by an editor. Multimedia 31 March Writing for a news website, web editing, blogging, the use of social media, video production; podcasting. Places are limited and likely to fill up quickly, so book soon. Find us on the Guardian website EducationGuardian.co.uk All today's EducationGuardian stories Follow us on Twitter and Facebook EducationGuardian on Twitter Judy Friedberg on Twitter Jeevan Vasagar on Twitter Jessica Shepherd on Twitter Claire Phipps on Twitter EducationGuardian on Facebook EducationGuardian resources The Guardian University Guide 2011 School league tables Postgrad tables The world's top 100 universities More education links on the Guardian Online learning and teaching resources from Learn Job vacancies in education More about Cribsheet Sign up to get Cribsheet as a daily email To advertise in the Cribsheet email, contact Sunita Gordon on 0203 353 2447 or email [email protected] Subscribe to get Cribsheet as an RSS feed