Last weekend, Keele University celebrated Neil Baldwin's 50th anniversary there. It was a splendid two-day affair, with speeches from distinguished

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

The Continuum school, Canvey Island, is an anonymous-looking place, tucked away down a side street on a gently decaying bit of the Essex coast. Inside,

When my children were small, I used to go to extraordinary lengths to arrange my work around the holidays so that I could be free when they were off

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

Damage limitationIn his responses to readers' questions, Michael Gove demonstrates why no teacher of sound mind would ever vote Tory (2 March).

He

I signed up to bury Twitter. Not to praise it. The idea was to complete a trilogy of columns I had entitled the "wind up a spod" series, and deliberately

The "climategate" scandal involving the University of East Anglia has sent shockwaves through universities, but many academics still do not fully appreciate

Socks over shoes surpass shoes over socks for strolling on slippery city slopes, says a study done in New Zealand. In other words – in the words of

As local authority budget cuts bite deep, the future looks increasingly uncertain for students training to become youth workers. Not only do they see

On a weekday morning in a Hertfordshire street, people are knocking on the door of an ordinary-looking house. Inside, a living room hosts a sofa, bookshelves,

In the last decade we have achieved a widespread recognition of the importance of higher education to the UK, unprecedented political backing – the

Last October, at Harvard University, I was awarded the Ig Nobel prize for public health for inventing the Emergency Bra, an item of lingerie that, in

Labour's target of getting 50% of young people to go to university has driven down standards and devalued degrees – and the next government should

Conference season kicked off at the weekend with John Dunford's swansong appearance at the Association of School and College Leaders. It's been a particularly

Private schools would be encouraged to turn into comprehensives under a Tory government, the shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, announced today.

Parents have been finding out in the post today which secondary school their 10- or 11-year-old will be attending from September. One of them is Sarah

John Dainton, Chadwick professor of physics at Liverpool University (Letters, 24 February), is the latest academic to add his voice to those decrying

Teacher training colleges are being paid £1,000 bonuses for each of the best qualified graduates they place in the toughest state schools under a new

One in 10 secondary schools in England failed to meet basic targets for GCSEs last summer and academies were disproportionately represented among the

A comprehensive school that was created less than five years ago in a new neighbourhood was today named the most improved school in England.

Chafford

Like thousands of teachers across England, Professor David Woods will be checking the league tables of schools' GCSE and A-level results tomorrow morning.

But

Today's key stage 2 league table results contain no surprises. As usual, they are unsurprisingly unfair. This year's tables show that results from local

Does Ofsted's tick-box culture deserve the criticism that has been heaped on it this week? I do believe so. I have before me an inspection report

Up to six candidates are chasing every place available through the university clearing system today as the best qualified cohort of A-level students

A Conservative government would immediately overhaul the national curriculum in English, maths and science and hand control of A-level content to universities

A leap in the number of pupils trying to cheat in their GCSEs and A-levels by smuggling mobile phones and MP3 players into exams saw penalties issued

Do you know how long it took me,To learn how things respire?If you're not even going to ask about itWhy did I try?

These are the questions put

Facebook protests about A-level biology exams are growing. Thousands of teenagers launched an online protest yesterday about a biology A-level exam

Suddenly all the politicians are talking about class and inequality. Gordon Brown last week promised to "unleash a wave of social mobility". And Harriet

The fact that Barnaby Lenon speaks from the perspective of a public school does not mean, alas, that he is wrong (Harrow head warns of "soft subjects"

Pupils from deprived backgrounds are being conned into thinking they can advance in life by a system that hands out "worthless" qualifications, Harrow

Pupils in comprehensives are disqualifying themselves from top jobs and places at some of the country's best universities because so few are studying

What kind of English should Indians be learning? Purists argue that language skills must meet international standards, but experience tells us that

When Will Pitt learned that all of his university applications to read medicine had been turned down, his first feeling was disappointment at becoming

As international student mobility has boomed in recent years, so has the number of candidates taking the Ielts test of English. According to i-graduate,

Rise and falls for 'English-empire' universities

The English empire is still a global power and will continue to shore up the finances of universities

In the US, the face of the typical student is, increasingly, that of a child whose parents were born in another country and, in many cases, a child

Tunisia is about to launch a major drive to boost English language skills and it has called on the British Council, the UK's international agency for

Exam boards were secretly ordered to downgrade GCSE results by the government's exam standards regulator, internal emails have disclosed.

Correspondence

The response from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to the Independent Academies Association's request to offer IGCSE (Academies demand

Labour's flagship academies demanded today to be allowed to teach elite international GCSEs banned in state schools by the government.

The O-level-style

Universities have nearly run out of spare places on degree courses for this autumn just a week after A-level results were published, according to new

Finding a university place through clearing has always been a nerve-racking experience, but never more so than this year. With applications via the

Combining world class education opportunities with the unique history, culture and the many public resorts, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts is the best way to spend a beneficial and amusing summer. 

"Once upon a life: Jonathan Safran Foer" (Magazine) incorrectly reported a Nasa statement on the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. Nasa eventually

Having a degree used to open doors for new graduates, but with unemployment rising in the midst of the recession, many of this year's university leavers

Despite claims that exams are getting easier, a survey has shown that parents struggle to answer GCSE-level questions. Faced with 10 questions based

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

Everyone loves an apocalypse, and none more so than the one that sped the dinosaurs to their now legendary status. Having been a popular theory for

A main board director of Tesco will today attack the quality of school-leavers and the standards achieved by A-level students and university graduates.

Lucy

Biological warfare is to be declared on an alien invader, Japanese knotweed, that swamps gardens and rivers, with the release of an insect to eat the

Three species thought to be extinct have been found again, to the delight of conservationists.

In the UK, the rare ghost orchid, declared extinct

Men are drawn to a wider range women when they are feeling stressed out, according to research into the psychology of sexual attraction.

People

Scientists have collected DNA from the fossilised eggshells of birds that died hundreds and in some cases thousands of years ago.

The oldest eggshell

I agree with George Monbiot (Comment, 9 March) about the problems of communicating science, but it is a pity he did not mention the large amount of

Last week's decision by the European Commission to allow genetically modified potato varieties to be grown in some European Union countries concludes

The 12,500 members of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) are being urged to give a resounding "yes" vote in a referendum next month on

Sixteen-year-old Abdul Sahed recalled how at a rally earlier this year where he was protesting against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, a few people

There was a time when Iranian women seeking husbands prioritised job status and financial security – not to mention love – at the top of their list

Today's primary school league tables are compiled from government data on 10 and 11-year-olds' test scores in English, maths and science tests.

These

People often wonder, rather unfairly, what exactly academics do with their time; what purpose they serve for culture and society. And now we know: they

Two years ago, I had a very straightforward reading pattern. Every few days, I'd read a book. I would immerse myself in its characters and storylines,

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was originally published in Sweden as Men Who Hate Women, a title English-language publishers rightly thought read,

Sir Kenneth Dover, who has died aged 89, was a towering figure in the study of ancient Greek language, literature and thought. Very few could approach

2000 He belonged to that Salman class of short, fat, ugly, clever men who were unaccountably attractive to women. But Michael Beard was anhedonic; his

The other day, I was chatting to the director of a major national arts ­organisation. "What do you think of Jeremy Hunt?" this person asked. "Because

Some Staffordshire clay has come home clinging to the sinuous curves and filigree ornament of the most spectacular heap of Anglo-Saxon golden loot ever

Michael Foot was a name I knew long before I was old enough to vote Labour. My dad's fading paperback copy of the first volume of Foot's biography of

Watching rows of 11-year-olds fidget on a drizzly winter morning at Claremont school in Harrow, north-west London, I wonder if the Royal Shakespeare

Increasing numbers of parents will defy government recommendations this autumn and take their children out of school to ensure an affordable - and sunny

The "debilitating illness" (Teen motherhood not all bad, says Mantel, 1 March) from which Hilary Mantel suffers has a name: endometriosis. She has made

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday 24 June 2009

The article below on the

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs will not be giving the keynote address at the Macworld show in January for the first time in 12 years, raising more

The future leadership of the Apple computer empire was unclear last night after its chief executive, Steve Jobs, took six months' medical leave to tackle

Particle physicists aren't supposed to be like Professor Brian Cox. He's young and handsome, has a nice smile and fashionable hair, more like a pop

Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood will reportedly return to film scoring, writing music for an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. The score will

The debate over how to protect children from sexualisation intensified today as David Cameron promised to clamp down on irresponsible advertising agencies.

"You

In mobile technology, it is often the developing world that leads the way – by using mobile phones to teach people a foreign language, for example.

In

He is already a byword for unremitting graft, with 21 novels, 13 historical studies and a couple of children's books to his name, as well as separate

As news organisations struggle to find new revenue models, education offerings seem to be a very good way to extend the brand and earn extra revenue.

I am just back in the office from delivering a course in Aberdeen. I still do some of the training from time to time to keep a feel for what people

On a hot Friday afternoon at Katine primary school, in north-east Uganda, Santa Awiyo points her large wooden ruler at the blackboard as her year-three

One film celebrates the courage and generosity of a white middle-class "soccer mom" who transforms the life of a disadvantaged and illiterate teenager