ACT - The Association of Christian Teachers

School staff are increasingly refusing to teach unruly children, figures show, amid incidents of violence and sexual assault.

The number of “refusal to teach” ballots has doubled in the past five years, according to the teaching union National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT).

Teachers at a comprehensive school in Cardiff refused to teach a Year 10 boy with a history of “disruptive, aggressive and violent behaviour” who sexually assaulted a female member of staff, the union said.

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One of Oxford University's oldest degrees is to be overhauled in bid to boost number of female students getting top grades.

Classics dons who marked last year's exam papers said the gender gap is “very troubling”, adding that it must be addressed as a matter of "urgency".

More than double the number of men were awarded first class honours in their Finals last year than women, with 46.8 per cent of men achieving the top grade compared to 12.5 per cent of their female peers.

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Ministers have conceded that teachers’ pay has fallen by thousands of pounds a year since the public spending austerity drive began, amid warnings of a “looming crisis” in attracting and retaining new staff.

Classroom pay has fallen by more than £4,000 a year since 2010 in real terms, according to a government assessment. Damian Hinds, the education secretary, warned that only a 2% increase can be expected for the next academic year.

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Mandarin Chinese is seen as being of increasing strategic importance, and in recent years there’s been a growing number of students taking up the language in schools across the UK.

There were more than 3,500 GCSE entries for Mandarin Chinese in 2018. But it’s not just China’s global dominance that makes Mandarin an appealing alternative to learning a European language. For students, it’s exciting and opens up a window into other cultures and ways of thinking.

Take the character for home and family  家 – which is a pig under a roof – many students are keen to find out why. New learners of the language are also always pleased to discover that verbs don’t change – so no having to remember different endings off by heart – and there are no tenses in Mandarin Chinese.

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GCSEs should be scrapped and A-levels should be replaced by a mix of academic and vocational subjects, says Robert Halfon, chairman of the Education Select Committee.

His radical rewriting of England's exam system is designed to give young people a much broader range of skills for their working lives.

The former Tory minister says GCSEs for 16-year-olds have become "pointless".

The Department for Education defended GCSEs as "gold standard" exams.

The exams taken by 16-year-olds have recently been reformed in England, with a new numerical grading system from 9 to 1.

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Job Description

Location: TLG Bolton Education Centre, Farnworth

Salary: £ 17,236 - £18,022

Hours: Part time (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday)
Contract: Permanent

Reporting to: Head Teacher

Organisation and Role Context

• TLG is a national charity with a Christian ethos, providing practical support for young people in and out of school.
• TLG Bolton is an education centre working with TLG, supporting young people and families in the community and across Bolton, Bury and Salford.
• The TLG Centre is an innovative, independent school rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted delivering tailored social and educational interventions for young people. It utilises imaginative curricula, resources, accreditation, passionate staff and tried and tested methods of engagement to educate young people and transform their lives.
• Blending a range of teaching and learning skills, and relational skills with the values of a vibrant Christian faith to deliver excellent alternative education. 
• Part of the TLG Centre team, you will be supporting the Head Teacher to ensure that the centre continues to achieve success.
• Working closely together with the TLGBoltonteam to support the young people in a class and act as a pastoral link for their families.
• Assisting with the planning and delivery of lessons, leading sessions as timetabled and providing 1-1 support as appropriate to bring excellence to the young people’s learning experience.
• This role will require that you will be in the classroom setting from 8 am - 4 pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
• Support, development and line management will be delivered primarily by senior staff at the school.

Job Tasks

• Work in partnership with the staff team to plan, resource, and deliver sessions and programmes for the young people, ideally including leading either English or Maths.
• Assist in team teaching.
• Share in identifying individual development needs of students and establishing Individual Educational Plans to appropriately meet these needs.
• Support senior staff to ensure the suitability of the environment, facilities and premises in line with Health and Safety Policy.
• Promote and safeguard the welfare of children and young persons who use the centre.
• Support the effective operation of school systems such as sanctions and rewards, and advise, encourage and support young people to engage fully in all aspects of their individual programmes including extra curricula activities where appropriate.
• Work as a team to help in tackling issues such as poor behaviour, child protection, substance abuse and other social issues that prevent whole person development.
• Assist in delivering innovative programmes for young people in areas such as music therapy, sports leadership, media, arts, anger management, and substance abuse.
• Foster and develop relationships with parents or carers and encourage active involvement with their child’s programme.
• Represent TLG appropriately when dealing with external agencies.
• Act as a link with ICT support staff within TLG Administration of various records and monitoring outcomes as required e.g. registration, assessment, moderation, progress tracking and certification.
• Participate fully in all developmental opportunities including staff conferences, training and staff meetings.
• Engage with internal and external training opportunities to further develop classroom practice.
• Support opportunities for young people to explore the Christian faith, including being a link for them between church and school.
• Take on additional responsibilities and other tasks as your role develops as directed by the Head Teacher.
• Attend, fully participate in and, on occasions, lead daily Christian devotionals and times of worship for the staff team.
• Be aware of the opportunity to participate in residential trips, involving children from the projects that TLG are a part of.
• Actively promote TLG’s regular giving scheme and recruit a number of individuals to become regular ‘Hope Givers’.

Person Specification

Application Process

All applicants are directed to apply online through our website www.tlg.org.uk

Please go to our jobs page, and then download the application pack by entering your details. You will then be able to access an online application form which you can work at online at any point, and your details will be saved every time you log off. Please specify clearly how you meet the person specification (using the headings provided in the person specification), with special emphasis on how your faith related to all aspects of your working life.

If you have any problems with the online application process, please contact recruitment@tlg.org.uk and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.  

The deadline for applications is 5.00pm, Wednesday 20^th February 2019.

interviews will take place on Tuesday 26^th February 2019.

£2 to return confiscated devices.

South Wigston high school in Leicester bans mobile phones as it says the devices are a major tool for bullying and a distraction to learning.

However, its electronic device policy says that a £2 contribution to the school charity “will be required for return” of a confiscated phone.

Pupils should be able to have a phone, switched off, in their bag. Not held ransom by the school

Another policy published on the school’s website, for “behaviour and rewards”, describes the payment as an “administration charge”.

One parent said it amounted to private property being “held ransom”, with two lawyers claiming the single-school academy trust could be breaking the law.

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High quality religious education should be a fundamental part of every school’s offer. It’s too important for young people to miss, writes NAHT’s Sarah Hannafin, a former RE teacher

I chose to teach religious education. After graduating, I started work as a teaching assistant in my local secondary school to see what I thought about becoming a teacher. With a law degree I knew I would have to enhance my subject knowledge whichever subject I chose to teach, so I looked around to find the best fit for me.

I spent two years working with whole classes, groups and individuals across the whole curriculum, including maths, English, history, languages and technology. Eventually, I chose RE.

I studied, qualified, taught the subject for 15 years and remain an advocate for what a great subject it is to teach and how important it is for pupils to study it.

RE is so much more than just a valuable subject for academic study. It allows young people the opportunity to develop understanding, tolerance and respect for religious and non-religious beliefs, practices and viewpoints. In the best lessons I taught, I remember plenty of challenging questions and fierce debate about the meaning and purpose of life, beliefs and issues of right and wrong.

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A Jewish state school that illegally segregates boys and girls is planning to form a multi-academy trust so that it can split itself into two single-sex schools rather than integrate its pupils.

The decision of Yesoiday Hatorah School, an 881-pupil primary academy in Prestwich, Manchester, follows a 2017 Court of Appeal ruling that an Islamic school’s policy of segregating boys and girls was unlawful sex discrimination.

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Rejecting a call for a blanket ban on mobile phones in schools at the weekend, education secretary Damian Hinds called it “a complex issue.” Which puzzled me. Fracking is a complex issue; assisted death, migration, the backstop, and every milli-issue surrounding the unmentionable B word is pretty bloody complex. But whether or not to allow a child to take the most distracting and addictive toy they own into the classroom? A toy loaded with technology that has been proven to promote everything from bullying, self-harm and suicidal thoughts to gambling and pornography? That’s not complex; that’s common sense.

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