Design and technology classes 'out of date'

Ofsted has said that too many design and technology teachers in England are failing to keep pace with global technological advances. A report on the teaching of the subject said too little use was made of modern technology in a third of the schools it surveyed. Schools in China and France emphasise the study of robotics, electronics and computer-aided design, it added.

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Cambridge to Educate Tomorrow's Nuclear Leaders

Some of the biggest companies and organisations in the nuclear industry are lending their support to a new course which will prepare the engineers and scientists of tomorrow for incidents such as those recently witnessed in Japan.

A new MPhil in Nuclear Energy, which is being launched by the University of Cambridge, will, among other topics, focus on ensuring that the reactor designs are extremely robust and that staff working in the nuclear industry have the best possible preparation for the challenges of their careers.

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Oxbridge encourages thousands of sixth-formers

Cambridge and Oxford are giving thousands of Year 12 students across the UK the opportunity to find out more about studying at the two world-class universities.

The 2011 Cambridge and Oxford Student Conference series starts on 21 March in Leicester. The seven-venue conference tour will also visit Cardiff, London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Merseyside and Lisburn in Northern Ireland.

More than 10,000 school students and their teachers are expected to attend the free conferences.

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Education reduces blood pressure

A long stint in education is good for people's blood pressure, according to researchers in the US.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is linked to heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. Higher levels of education have previously been linked to lower levels of heart disease. The researchers suggest that blood pressure could be the reason why. The study also shows the link is stronger in women than in men.

Published in the journal BMC Public Health, the study looked at 30 years of data from 3,890 people who were being followed as part of the Framingham Offspring Study.

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Protein dose reverses learning problems

Learning and memory problems have been reversed in mice with a syndrome that mimics Down's.

Researchers have found they could prevent developmental problems in mice engineered to have Down's syndrome by injecting their mothers with proteins while they were still in the womb. Can learning disabilities and mental retardations that were considered permanent now be treated?

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Reading test for six-year-olds to include non-words

In another initiative - like the use of linguistics terminology - the government is introducing changes which seem to make learning to read more confusing for six-year-olds. A number of made-up words such as 'koob' or 'zort' are to be included in the government's planned new reading test for six-year-olds in England.

The idea has drawn criticism from literary experts who say the approach will confuse those beginning to read. The government said non-words were being included to check pupils' ability to decode words using phonics.

Phonics is an important part of learning to read but current thinking relies too heavily on it and seems to reduce the importance of recognising words as shapes. Phonics rarely gives the correct pronunciation of a word that is new to the child - unless, of course, you make up non-words which follow the 'rules' of English pronunciation. I also believe that phonics is the worse method for teaching dyslexics to read. By all means include non-words in a pronunciation test - but not as part of a reading test.

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Genes 'play key role in classroom performance'

Politicians may be keen to measure schools' effectiveness, but the quality of the school environment is only half of the story, researchers have found.

Academics at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry say the genetic factors children bring to the classroom are just as influential.

In a study of 4,000 sets of UK twins, nature and nurture was found to have an equal effect on their achievements.

Does this mean that educators should focus on helping people achieve their potential rather than reaching fixed targets?

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Ancient body clock discovered

The mechanism that controls the internal 24-hour clock of all forms of life from human cells to algae has been identified by scientists.

Not only does the research provide important insight into health-related problems linked to individuals with disrupted clocks - such as pilots and shift workers - it also indicates that the 24-hour circadian clock found in human cells is the same as that found in algae and dates back millions of years to early life on Earth.

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08009539090 calls from 'BT'

Despite being registered with the Telephone Preference Service and being ex-directory, I am getting an increasing number of 08009539090 telemarketing calls from CCA International saying that they 'represent BT'.

I have asked them on numerous occasions to stop phoning me and the last time they called me I said that I would make a complaint to the TPS. As the TPS requires details about the company that is phoning you - and as it can be difficult getting information from these telemarketing companies, I have done some research so that I already knew the answers to most of the questions that I would be asking them. (It's a sad fact that it is a waste of time phoning most Customer Services unless you already know the answers to your questions and the solutions to your problems.) As a result of this, these were the answers I got from them:

• Company: CCA International
• Person you spoke to: ------- -------
• Address: 78 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3RS*
• Telephone: 0207 418 4218
• Email: info.uk@ccainternational.com

* The address given on their website is: Arnold House, 21-33 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3EJ

The following questions also helped in extracting this information from them:

"If you are 'representing BT', then you are not BT. Who are you?"

"Near Old Street is not an address. I need your complete address with post code."

As the operators do not seem to have this information at hand, the time they spend getting it is time that is not spent phoning someone else.

If CCA International really does represent BT, then the TPS may reject my complaint as I am a BT customer. Of course, I won't know that until I get a response to my complaint - so watch this space. And then I will want to know why BT is passing my personal data on to a third-party marketing company...

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How much does a BT phone call cost?

I thought I knew the answer to this question until I looked more closely at my last BT phone bill.

What drew my attention to this question was a charge of 13p for a 30 second local call that was made after 7pm* - I would have paid less making the call with my Pay As You Go mobile phone. Surely, I thought, this shouldn't be more than 1p as BT's charge for a weekday evening call is 1.5p a minute - and shouldn't local calls be cheaper anyway? Further investigation showed that a similar call made in the daytime cost 18p.

I decided to check BT's charges on their website and after much searching I found a PDF document (Tariff Guide for Residential Customers) which after a lot of study provided the answers.

The key to understanding BT's pricing is their 'Call Set Up Fees':

BT Basic and BT Standard Rate Customers - 2.553 pence (ex VAT), 3.00 pence (Inc VAT). All other Residential Customers - 9.276 pence (exc VAT), 10.90 pence (inc VAT).

I thought that I was a Standard Rate Customer, but no - it seems that Standard Rate Customers were migrated to BT Calling Plans some time ago. With their cheapest calling plan, most people now pay a 10.9p set up fee on every call they make, the time is rounded up to the next full minute, the price is rounded up to the next 1p, local calls are charged at the national rate, but weekend calls are free.

Now that I think I understand their pricing, I will continue to make weekend calls using BT, but during the week I'll be making my calls via another service. I am considering three different services:

• 1899.com Dial 1899 before the number you are calling - 5p connection fee and 0p per minute for UK geographic calls. You need a BT line to use the 1899 prefix but they do provide but they do provide an 0808 number for non-BT landlines and an 020 number for mobiles. The only problem with the 1899.com service is that Caller ID shows these calls as 'Out of Area' (or something similar) which means that many people won't answer these calls.
  
  
• An Internet phone service like Skype. My preference is Sipgate.co.uk or Sipgate.de for price, reliability and features.
  
  
• Mobile phone. Use the inclusive calls on your mobile phone contract during the week.

In either case I will still need to make two chargeable or inclusive calls a month via BT otherwise they will charge me for the 'free' Privacy at Home (Caller ID) and BT 1571 (voicemail) features! If you are billed quarterly, you will need to make six chargeable/inclusive calls a quarter. If you have a BT line but your phone service is from another provider, you can try using the prefix 1280 to make these calls and route them through BT - but please be aware that this does not work for all providers.

As BT's pricing is complex, I would ask you to check these figures for yourselves before making any decisions based on them. The pricing for non-geographic numbers is even more complex but it is covered in their Specialised Numbers Tariff Guide. Please feel free to comment on this article if there are any errors or if you have any more information on BT pricing and the alternatives.

*BT's evening rates now apply from 7pm-7am. It used to be 6pm-6am.

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Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.



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New progression measures for pupils

Three new measures of pupils' progress are to be introduced to hold head teachers and ministers to account. These measures will be introduced at ages five and 11 to ensure children have the required skills to move on to the next stage of schooling. And a new "basics measure" is to be introduced for pupils at age 16.

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