Classroom Chaos was a controversial British TV documentary programme aired in 2005 on Five in which a retired teacher under the pseudonym "Sylvia Thomas" (real name Angela Mason) returned undercover as a substitute teacher after a 30-year teaching gap. She claimed her objective was to show the "chaos" teachers must deal with in the classroom.
The filming used hidden cameras in a button and a briefcase. [1] Thomas filmed pupils smashing chairs, fighting, and swearing; some pupils also falsely accused her of touching them. Children aged 12 to 15 were featured completely ignoring the supply teacher and other staff, shouting, screaming, fighting, swearing, downloading porn, and wandering around the classroom.[ citation needed ]
The programme was filmed at 15 secondary schools in London and the north of England. The supply agencies she contacted chose the schools randomly; recent inspection reports did not consider any of the schools to be failing.[ citation needed ]
The National Union of Teachers condemned the programme, saying it was not fair on the children to film them secretly.
The General Teaching Council regulator found Angela Mason guilty of unprofessional conduct. [2]
The Conservative party was quick to push their message of classroom discipline and more pupil referral units for children expelled from school. However, the Government insisted that schools must take their fair share of disruptive pupils. [3]
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washington, D.C.
Summerhill School is an independent day and boarding school in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around. It is run as a democratic community and is considered a Democratic School; the running of the school is conducted in the school meetings, which anyone, staff or pupil, may attend, and at which everyone has an equal vote. These meetings serve as both a legislative and judicial body. Members of the community are free to do as they please, so long as their actions do not cause any harm to others, according to Neill's principle "Freedom, not Licence." This extends to the freedom for pupils to choose which lessons, if any, they attend. It is an example of both democratic education and alternative education.
The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training and childcare services in England do so to a high standard for children and students. Ofsted is responsible for inspecting a range of educational institutions, including state schools and some independent schools. It also inspects childcare, adoption and fostering agencies and initial teacher training, and regulates early years childcare facilities and children's social care services.
Undercover Teacher is a 2005 documentary in the Dispatches series for Channel 4, in which Alex Dolan, a journalist and science teacher, went undercover for six months as a supply teacher in British schools. Undercover Teacher was intended to expose the poor behaviour of children in some areas of the secondary education system by secretly filming classes.
Teach First is a social enterprise registered as a charity which aims to address educational disadvantage in England and Wales. Teach First coordinates an employment-based teaching training programme whereby participants achieve Qualified Teacher Status through the participation in a two-year training programme that involves the completion of a PGDE along with wider leadership skills training and an optional master's degree.
John Kampfner is a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His seventh book, In Search of Berlin: The Story of a Reinvented City, was published in October 2023.
Prince Henry's Grammar School, also known as Prince Henry's or PHGS, is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school and sixth form established in 1607 in the market town of Otley, West Yorkshire, England. The school teaches pupils between the ages of 11 and 18 and has around 1,400 students and 84 teachers. It retains a high position within regional league tables. In 2016, Prince Henry's had the third highest results for GCSEs in Leeds. Also in 2016, PHGS was the best state school in Leeds for A Level results. The school has repeatedly received a 'good' rating from Ofsted with outstanding features, however has in the past received criticism for the state of the old school building. Despite the name, Prince Henry's is now a state-funded academy school.
Paul Mason is a British journalist. He writes a weekly column at The New European and monthly columns for Social Europe and Frankfurter Rundschau. He was Business Correspondent and then Economics Editor of the BBC Two television programme Newsnight from 2001, and Culture and Digital Editor of Channel 4 News from 2013, becoming the programme's Economics Editor in 2014. He left Channel 4 in 2016.
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Queens Park Community School is a secondary school and sixth form with academy status, located in Queen's Park, north west London, in the borough of Brent, England.
Carol Adams was a history teacher who was the first Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE), bringing England in line with Scotland and Wales who had had teaching regulatory bodies since 1966. Adams established the organisation as a regulatory body and for professional development organisation, and which was consulted by government, from its foundation in 2000 until it covered over 500,000 teachers, before she retired in late 2006.
The Trojan Horse scandal, also known as "Operation Trojan Horse" or the Trojan Horse affair, is a conspiracy theory that posits a plot to introduce an "Islamist" or "Salafist" ethos into several schools in Birmingham, England. The name, based on the Greek legend, comes from an anonymous letter sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013, alleged to be from Birmingham "Islamists" detailing how to wrest control of a school, and speculating about expanding the scheme to other cities. The letter was leaked to the press in March 2014. Around a month later, Birmingham City Council revealed that following the letter release it had received hundreds of allegations of plots similar to those described in the letter, some claims dating back over 20 years. The letter has been characterised as "incomplete, unsigned and unaddressed", but led to two investigations commissioned by the Department for Education and Birmingham City Council, the Clarke and Kershaw Reports, respectively. The reports did not both endorse the idea of "a plot", but point to "behaviour indicative of a concerted attempt to change schools".
Michaela Community School is an 11–18 mixed, free secondary school and sixth form in Wembley, Greater London, England. It was established in September 2014 with Katharine Birbalsingh as headteacher and Suella Braverman as the first chair of governors. It has been described as the "strictest school in Britain", and achieved among the best GCSE results in the nation among its first cohort of students. In both 2022 and 2023 the value-added (progress) score at GCSE was the highest for any school in England.
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Into Film is a charity supported principally by the British Film Institute, Cinema First and Northern Ireland Screen. Into Film aims to put film at the heart of children and young people's educational, cultural and personal development.
Amanda Mary Victoria Spielman, ACA served as HM Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills from January 2017 to December 2023.
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Joe Kirby is a British school teacher and director of education at Athena Learning Trust, known for creating and making popular the use of knowledge organisers, a template used by teachers and their students to clarify what is essential to learn.
In March 2020, nurseries, schools, and colleges in the United Kingdom were shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. By 20 March, all schools in the UK had closed for all in-person teaching, except for children of key workers and children considered vulnerable. With children at home, teaching took place online. The emergence of a new variant of COVID-19 in December 2020 led to cancellation of face-to-face teaching across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales the following month.