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School can worsen disabled children's behavioural problems, researchers say - Institute... - 0 views

  • disabled children might have fewer behavioural issues in their early years if more schools introduced stringent anti-bullying measures and other support strategies, the researchers conclude.
  • The researchers found that disabled children consistently presented more conduct problems than their non-disabled peers between the ages of 3 and 7. However, the conduct of both groups of children followed the same development pattern, improving between 3 and 5 and then slightly worsening at about age 6.
  • The long-term benefits of such interventions could be very substantial, the researchers believe, as behavioural difficulties are likely to compound disabled children's problems and reduce their chances of having a happy and successful adult life.
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  • The researchers compared non-disabled children with infants who had:  a developmental delay at age 9 months (in relation to hand-eye coordination, for example, or early communication gestures)  a longstanding limiting illness (such as type 1 diabetes or asthma)  special educational needs at age 7 (stemming from learning difficulties or impairments such as hearing loss).  They were able to analyse assessments of MCS children's behaviour at ages 3, 5 and 7 as parents had been asked about conduct problems, hyperactivity, emotional difficulties and whether their sons and daughters got on with children of the same age.   This enabled the researchers not only to record the emergence of any problems but establish whether the behaviour of disabled and non-disabled children had followed the same trajectory.   They also took into consideration family background factors known to be associated with child behaviour, such as income poverty, parental discipline and the closeness of the parent-child relationship.  
  • we should seriously consider the implications of the marked increase in emotional problems for disabled girls, in particular, in terms of future risks such as depression and self-harm."
  • At age 3, children with longstanding limiting illnesses and special educational needs were also more likely than non-disabled infants to exhibit the other three negative behaviours that were assessed: difficulties with peers, emotional problems and hyperactivity. But, worryingly, unlike conduct problems, these particular behavioural difficulties became more pronounced among children in these two disability categories between the ages of 3 and 7.
  • some early school environments may exacerbate behavioural problems for disabled children in ways that cannot solely be solved by learning support – because the underlying issue is behavioural rather than cognitive," the researchers comment.   "Many disabled children find it increasingly difficult to engage with the social world as they pass from toddlers to the mid-primary school age. They also struggle with structured social contexts such as school. We need to gain a better understanding of the effects that schools have if we are to develop environments that do not, in effect, disable children further."
  • also recommend that more support is provided for mothers and fathers of children with an impairment or special educational need.
  • 'Convergence or divergence? A longitudinal analysis of behaviour problems among disabled and non-disabled children aged 3 to 7 in England', by Rebecca Fauth (NCB), Samantha Parsons (IOE) and Lucinda Platt (LSE), is the latest working paper to be published by the IOE's Department of Quantitative Social Science (QSS). It will be available from the QSS website http://www.ioe.ac.uk/research/departments/qss/35445.html from 9am on Friday, October 3.
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Streaming pupils by ability in primary school widens the attainment gap - Institute of ... - 0 views

  • The practice of "streaming" children by ability in the early years of primary school is widening the achievement gap between children from better-off homes and those facing disadvantage
  • while relatively high-attaining pupils do better if placed in a top stream than they would in schools which do not have streaming, those given a place in the middle or lower streams do worse than they would if there were no streaming, the research finds.
  • streaming in primary schools would appear to increase the gap between higher- and lower-attaining pupils, and also to accentuate socio-economic differences, because more of those from poorer backgrounds tend on average to be in the lower streams.
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  • a child being placed in a top stream enjoyed a significant positive benefit, in terms of reading, maths and overall results by the end of year two, compared to children who had not been streamed. But pupils placed in middle or bottom streams fared significantly worse in their reading and overall results than those who were not streamed, while those placed in the bottom sets also fared significantly worse than their non-streamed peers in maths.
  • pupils, of any given ability level, tended to do better if placed in a class with high-performing peers. It was therefore logical that, in a streamed system in which such classmates were only available to other high-performers, those already adjudged to be doing well enough to be placed in a top stream would tend to benefit disproportionately.
  • "Streaming…advantages those who are already high attainers, disadvantaging those who are placed in middle or lower groups who are deprived of working with those who are more advanced."
  • Bottom stream pupils are more likely to have behaviour problems, to be from poor backgrounds and to have less educated mothers, the researchers have shown in the past.
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Free Schools | National Union of Teachers - NUT - 0 views

  • The NUT opposes free schools. We believe it is wrong that state funding should be given to small groups of individuals to run schools that are unaccountable to their local communities. We believe that free schools undermine:teachers' professional status and their pay and conditions;local authorities’ ability to plan and manage school places;common admissions’ arrangements and fuel social segregation;fair funding for schools – free schools are getting a disproportionate share of capital and revenue funding for schools at a time when education budgets are being cut; anddemocratic local accountability of schools to their communities
  • National Audit Office report on free schools In December 2013 the National Audit Office published a damning report into the free school programme. You can read the NUT’s summary of the findings here.
  • FAQs on Free Schools This is a collection of frequently asked questions on free schools.
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  • Research Shows Primary School Place Shortages Worsen NUT research shows primary school place shortages worsen while resources being wasted on free schools are adding to surplus secondary places – read the full press release
  • The impact of Free Schools on Neighbouring Schools NUT research shows that many free schools will have a negative impact on existing local schools. Read more here.
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Why private schools are better than state - Parentdish UK - 0 views

  • beautiful buildings, steeped in history, the acres of immaculate grounds, the committed teachers, the exam results, the range of extra-curricula activities
  • Or maybe I'd simply prefer my children to mix with other children and parents whose speech is not punctuated with 'innit'.
  • I've taught in independent and state schools.
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  • Not all teachers in state schools are work-shy; some are brilliant. But there are too many teachers who are not
  • In the last 10 years, only 17 out of 400,000 teachers in state schools were dismissed due to incompetence
  • In the state school, once-a-term staff meetings were something to get through as quickly as possible.
  • Parents thought nothing of looking me right in the eye at parents' evenings and reminding me that they were paying a lot of money for their child's education, so they expected results. I felt personally accountable. Do parents dare to tell a teacher in a state school that their taxes are paying their salaries, so shape up?
  • class size. I've taught classes with 15 pupils and classes with 35. Children in smaller classes feel more confident about contributing, and I had more time for them. I knew the name of every pupil in the school; I felt part of a close knit community and so did they.
  • Independent schools can't allow any child to slip through the net. At the weekly staff meeting we discussed each year group, flagging up any pupil who was struggling and an action-plan was devised. My department also had a weekly meeting where pupils were discussed.
  • Autonomy and accountability, that's what makes the independent system successful. Bad teachers just go.
  • Do independent schools simply hot-house children to get them through exams? Yes, and why not? But extra-curricular activities in independent schools are there to help children flourish, whether they are academically gifted or not.
  • Everyone connected with independent education expects success - the teachers, parents and children. There is no embarrassment about applying to Oxbridge or any Top Ten university, it's the norm. I accept that not all state schools have low expectations, but too many have an 'us and them' attitude towards top universities.
  • As an only child, I wanted my son to start in the prep system and carry on making friends for life
  • it gives parents power to provide the best for their children; you are the customer.
  • Until the state system is run on those lines, giving parents power, attracting the very best teachers with salaries and working conditions to match, then money will always buy better education and no one should feel guilty if they choose to buy it.
  • It could be deduced that we live in a society where your chance of success is determined before birth and that there is little reason to compete in 'the race of life' since some people are starting that race 150 yards in front and the top positions in our society are largely predetermined.
  • The trick is to find a school where the kids (and their parents) are committed to learning. Such schools do not have to be private, and the teachers in both private or state schools are generally excellent.
  • The grammar schools and the private schools are roughly comparable in academic performance. They outperform the comprehensives, for the simple reason for this is that the kids ending up in the comprehensives tend to be the ones who failed the 11+ examinations (i.e. their parents did not get them private tutoring, etc.).
  • The most stuck up children come out of private school.
  • This is the third time she has been back to private education and we feel we have much more of a say, as we are employing them to do a service and feel much more involved in her education.
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BBC News - Coalition row over school places funding - 0 views

  • 11 May 2014
  • Lib Dem sources say 30,000 local authority places are being lost as money is diverted to new free schools. They said Mr Gove was "ideologically obsessed" about backing free schools.
  • Tory education sources called the Lib Dems "pathetic", saying more school places were being created overall.
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  • David Cameron said free schools were "an excellent innovation" and he would "get on with delivering what matters, which is good schools for our children".
  • Liberal Democrat's deputy leader, Malcolm Bruce, said the budget for free schools was "completely out of control" and accused the education secretary of being "monetarily obsessed".
  • According to sources in Mr Clegg's office, last December Mr Gove overruled the Lib Dem schools minister David Laws to take £400m from the Basic Need Budget for 2015-17. They claim the money was diverted to help cover a projected £800m overspend between 2013 and 2016 in the budget of free schools - a project close to Mr Gove's heart.
  • Free schools can be set up by parents, teachers, charities, businesses, universities, trusts, religious or voluntary groups, but are funded directly by central government. There are currently 174 free schools in England with another 116 approved to open from this September.
  • senior Department for Education officials had raised concerns school places may have to be cut if the Lib Dems' free school meals policy for infant children was implemented.
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What's the big difference between charter schools and free schools? | Education | The G... - 0 views

  • By comparing students in each charter school with similar students attending a local traditional school, researchers measured the impact that attending each institution had.
  • The 2013 study shows that the effect of school type is largely negligible when looking across students as a whole. But for poor students, especially poor minority ethnic students, charter schools bestowed substantial learning benefits.
  • there is a huge amount of variation across schools and geographical regions. Even if they were, England's policy is not like the American one.
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  • in New Orleans. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the city was notorious for its poorly performing schools, but since then, 88 charters have opened and are considered a lead cause of improved student achievement. What the policy's proponents won't tell you, though, is that charter school proposals in New Orleans are decided upon by the local school district, or they are independently evaluated.
  • In Florida, another frequently quoted "success" story, local districts have complete control over charter school applications.
  • with England, where local authorities are completely cut out of the picture, leading to the opening of free schools in areas with neither enough pupils to fill them nor any land for suitable premises.
  • England's lack of transparency on free schools is an embarrassment. Given that the schools are entirely taxpayer funded, the fact that it took a two-year legal battle before the British Humanist Society was granted access to the names and locations of proposed schools is absurd. A second lengthy struggle concluded last month, when the National Union of Teachers finally secured the release of statutory "impact reports" detailing the knock-on effects of opening each free school
  • While these releases are welcome, it is a shame they arrived only after legal appeals, and the public still has no way of knowing what the new school founders promised in their applications, whether the mandatory consultations with local people were faithfully represented, or why proposals were accepted or rejected – leaving some people questioning whether all applicants have been treated equally.
  • At the hearings, local people are allowed to voice concerns or support for the planned school, obliging the potential founders to listen to the community they will serve
  • Any government writing a policy specifically avoiding this step must be doing so because it believes ordinary people could not possibly add anything to its perfect decision-making
  • That a government can be open about the application process yet still achieve great schools is perfectly demonstrated by Massachusetts and New York. Both have high-scoring charter schools and both require applicants who wish to start a school to face public hearings as part of the application process
  • The impact of charter schools appears to derive from the fact that those that are failing are closed more quickly than failing traditional schools
  • in England, there is no consistent process for closing a failing school or transferring its ownership to another group, with some poor performers forced to "restart", whereas others are left alone
  • The Credo report also admits that many charter schools perform worse than traditional ones
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The Swedish Model - Education | Frontier Centre for Public Policy - 0 views

  • Reforms that came into force in 1994 allow pretty much anyone who satisfies basic standards to open a new school and take in children at the state's expense
  • local municipality must pay the school what it would have spent educating each child itself—a sum of SKr48,000-70,000 ($8,000-12,000) a year, depending on the child's age and the school's location
  • Children must be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis
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  • no religious requirements or entrance exams
  • Nothing extra can be charged for, but making a profit is fine
    • izz aty
       
      profit is fine; can't ask for fees
  • In just 14 years the share of Swedish children educated privately has risen from a fraction of a percent to more than 10%
  • What no one predicted was the emergence of chains of schools. Yet that is where much of the growth in independent education has come from
  • Kunskapsskolan gets its customers to do much of the work themselves
  • He then broadens the analogy to hotels and airlines, which make money only if they are popular enough to maintain high occupancy rates.
  • Youngsters spend 15 minutes each week with a tutor, reviewing the past week's progress and agreeing on goals and a timetable for the next one. This will include classes and lectures, but also a great deal of independent or small-group study
  • Kunskapsporten allows each student to work at his own level, and spend less or more time on each subject, depending on his strengths and weakness
  • Each subject is divided into 35 steps. Students who reach step 25 graduate with a pass; those who make it to step 30 or 35 gain, respectively, a merit or distinction
  • no money is wasted on fancy surroundings
  • Teachers update and add new material to the website during school holidays and get just seven weeks off each year, roughly the same as the average Swedish office worker
  • “We do not mind being compared to McDonald's,” he says. “If we're religious about anything, it's standardisation. We tell our teachers it is more important to do things the same way than to do them well.
  • Sweden's Independent Schools Association has ten members that run more than six schools, and five that run ten or more
  • Each child's progress is reported each week in a logbook, and parents can follow what is being studied on the website.
  • expectation that the children take responsibility for their own progress
  • “Our aim is that by the time students finish school, they can set their own learning goals,” says Christian Wetell, head teacher at Kunskapsskolan Enskede. “Three or four students in each year may not manage this, but most will.”
  • tracks the performance of individual teachers to see which ones do best as personal tutors or as subject teachers
  • bonuses to particularly successful teachers and is considering paying extra to good ones from successful schools who are willing to move to underperforming ones
  • preferred bidder to run two “academies”—state-funded schools run largely free from state control—in London
  • run by a not-for-profit arm, since for-profit ventures are banned from Britain's academies programme
  • The firm also hopes to open low-cost independent schools in Britain, where it can offer the full Kunskapsskolan experience, free of state meddling
  • the returns are solid, rather than stellar: Mr Ledin quotes an average return on capital of 5-7% a year
  • If a future government, hostile to school choice, changed the rules, that would be the end of this nascent market.
  • The school reforms are popular with parents, he says, and politicians know they meddle with them at their peril. More plausible would be a change to the rules so that independent schools had to match the methods and curriculum of state schools more closely, or perhaps even a ban on profits
  • The latter sounds bad, says Mr Stawström, but would not really amount to much: companies could split themselves into non-profit schools and a profit-making body that supplies services, such as teaching materials and consultancy
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Independent school (United Kingdom) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • History
  • Edward Thring of Uppingham School introduced major reforms, focusing on the importance of the individual and competition, as well as the need for a "total curriculum" with academia, music, sport and drama being central to education
  • The Independent Schools Council say that UK independent schools receive approximately £100m tax relief due to charitable status whilst returning £300m of fee assistance in public benefit and relieving the maintained sector (state schools) of £2bn of costs
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  • They were schools for the gentlemanly elite of Victorian politics, armed forces and colonial government. Often successful businessmen would send their sons to a public school as a mark of participation in the elite
  • the public school system influenced the school systems of the British Empire, and recognisably "public" schools can be found in many Commonwealth countries
  • The Direct Grant Grammar Schools (Cessation of Grant) Regulations 1975 required these schools to choose between full state funding as comprehensive schools and full independence
  • Until 1975 there had been a group of 179 academically selective schools drawing on both private and state funding, the direct grant grammar schools
  • Both these trends were reversed during the 1980s, and the share of the independent schools reached 7.5 percent by 1991
  • 119 of these schools became independent.
  • share of the independent sector fell from a little under 8 percent in 1964 to reach a low of 5.7 percent in 1978
  • changes since 1990 have been less dramatic, participation falling to 6.9 percent by 1996 before increasing very slightly after 2000 to reach 7.2 percent, as seen at present.
  • England
  • As of 2011[update] there were more than 2,600 independent schools in the UK educating some 628,000 children, comprising over 6.5 percent of UK children, and more than 18 percent of pupils over the age of 16
  • According to a study by Ryan & Sibetia,[7] "the proportion of pupils attending independent schools in England is currently 7.2 percent (considering full-time pupils only)".
  • Most independent schools, particularly the larger and older institutions, have charitable status
  • Most public schools developed significantly during the 18th and 19th centuries, and came to play an important role in the development of the Victorian social elite
  • Independent schools, like state grammar schools, are free to select their pupils, subject to general legislation against discrimination
  • Selection
  • principal forms of selection are financial, in that the pupil's family must be able to pay the school fees, and academic, with many administering their own entrance exams - some also require that the prospective student undergo an interview, and credit may also be given for musical, sporting or other talent
  • Nowadays most schools pay little regard to family connections, apart from siblings currently at the school.
  • Only a small minority of parents can afford school fees averaging over £23,000 per annum for boarding pupils and £11,000 for day pupils, with additional costs for uniform, equipment and extra-curricular facilities.[2][12]
  • Scholarships and means-tested bursaries to assist the education of the less well-off are usually awarded by a process which combines academic and other criteria.[13][14]
  • generally academically selective, using the competitive Common Entrance Examination at ages 11–13
  • Schools often offer scholarships to attract abler pupils (which improves their average results)
  • Poorly-performing pupils may be required to leave,
  • Conditions
  • generally characterised by more individual teaching
  • much better pupil-teacher ratios at around 9:1;[16]
  • more time for organised sports and extra-curricular activities
  • longer teaching hours (sometimes including Saturday morning teaching) and homework, though shorter terms
  • a broader education than that prescribed by the national curriculum, to which state school education is in practice limited.
  • Educational achievement is generally very good
  • As boarding schools are fully responsible for their pupils throughout term-time, pastoral care is an essential part of independent education, and many independent schools teach their own distinctive ethos, including social aspirations, manners and accents, associated with their own school traditions
  • Most offer sporting, musical, dramatic and art facilities, sometimes at extra charges, although often with the benefit of generations of past investment
  • more emphasis on traditional academic subjects
  • Independent school pupils are four times more likely to attain an A* at GCSE than their non-selective state sector counterparts and twice as likely to attain an A grade at A-level
  • Some schools specialise in particular strengths, whether academic, vocational or artistic, although this is not as common as it is in the State sector.
  • A much higher proportion go to university
  • set their own discipline regime
  • In England and Wales there are no requirements for teaching staff to have Qualified Teacher Status or to be registered with the General Teaching Council
  • impact of independent schools on the British economy
  • 2014 a report from Oxford Economics highlighted the impact that independent schools have on the British economy
  • independent schools support an £11.7 billion contribution to gross value added (GVA) in Britain. This represents the share of GDP that is supported by independent schools
  • Independent schools support 275,700 jobs across Britain, around 1.0% of all in employment in Britain
  • the report quantified the savings to the taxpayer derived from c.620,000 British pupils at independent schools choosing not to take up the place at a state school to which they are entitled. This results in an annual saving to the taxpayer of £3.9 billion, the equivalent of building more than 590 new free schools each year
  • the report highlighted the additional value to Britain’s GDP that results from the higher educational performance achieved by pupils at independent schools
  • many of the best-known public schools are extremely expensive, and many have entry criteria geared towards those who have been at private "feeder" preparatory-schools or privately tutored
  • the achievement of pupils at independent schools in Britain results in an estimated additional annual contribution to GDP of £1.3 billion.
  • Criticisms
  • often criticised for being elitist
  • often seen as outside the spirit of the state system
  • the treatment of the state sector as homogeneous in nature is difficult to support
  • Although grammar schools are rare, some of them are highly selective and state funded boarding schools require substantial fees
  • Even traditional comprehensive schools may be effectively selective because only wealthier families can afford to live in their catchment area
  • may be argued that the gap in performance between state schools is much larger than that between the better state and grammar schools and the independent sector
  • Smithers and Robinson's 2010 Sutton Trust commissioned study of social variation in comprehensive schools (excluding grammar schools) notes that "The 2,679 state comprehensive schools in England are highly socially segregated: the least deprived comprehensive in the country has 1 in 25 (4.2 percent) of pupils with parents on income benefits compared with over 16 times as many (68.6 percent) in the most deprived comprehensive"
  • Every 2.3 pupils at an independent school supports one person in employment in Britain
  • large number (c. one third[citation needed]) of independent schools provide assistance with fees
  • The Thatcher government introduced the Assisted Places Scheme in England and Wales in 1980, whereby the state paid the school fees for those pupils capable of gaining a place but unable to afford the fees
    • izz aty
       
      1980 Assisted Places Scheme: financial aid
  • The scheme was terminated by the Labour government in 1997, and since then the private sector has moved to increase its own means-tested bursaries.
  • Some parents complain that their rights and their children’s are compromised by vague and one-sided contracts which allow Heads to use discretionary powers unfairly, such as in expulsion on non-disciplinary matters. They believe independent schools have not embraced the principles of natural justice as adopted by the state sector, and private law as applied to Higher Education
  • Nowadays, independent school pupils have "the highest rates of achieving grades A or B in A-level maths and sciences" compared to grammar, specialist and mainstream state school
  • pupils at independent schools account for a disproportionate number of the total number of A-levels in maths and sciences.
  • In 2006, pupils at fee-paying schools made up 43 percent of those selected for places at Oxford University and 38 percent of those granted places at Cambridge University (although such pupils represent only 18 percent of the 16 years old plus school population)
  • A major area of debate in recent years has centred around the continuing charitable status of independent schools, which allows them not to charge VAT on school fees. Following the enactment of the Charities Bill, which was passed by the House of Lords in November 2006, charitable status is based on an organisation providing a "public benefit" as judged by the Charity Commission.[23]
  • "ceteris paribus, academic performance at university is better the more advantaged is the student's home background".
  • In 2002, Jeremy Smith and Robin Naylor
  • they also observed that a student educated at an independent school was on average 6 percent less likely to receive a first or an upper second class degree than a student from the same social class background, of the same gender, who had achieved the same A-level score at a state school
  • The same study found wide variations between independent school, suggesting that students from a few of them were in fact significantly more likely to obtain the better degrees than state students of the same gender and class background having the same A-level score
  • Richard Partington at Cambridge University[29] showed that A-level performance is "overwhelmingly" the best predictor for exam performance in the earlier years ("Part I") of the undergraduate degree at Cambridge
  • A study commissioned by the Sutton Trust[30] and published in 2010 focussed mainly on the possible use of U.S.-style SAT tests as a way of detecting a candidate's academic potential. Its findings confirmed those of the Smith & Naylor study in that it found that privately educated pupils who, despite their educational advantages, have only secured a poor A-level score, and who therefore attend less selective universities, do less well than state educated degree candidates with the same low A-level attainment
  • Independent sector schools regularly dominate the top of the A-level league tables, and their students are more likely to apply to the most selective universities; as a result independent sector students are particularly well represented at these institutions, and therefore only the very ablest of them are likely to secure the best degrees.
  • In 2013 the Higher Education Funding Council for England published a study [31] noting, amongst other things, that a greater percentage of students who had attended an independent school prior to university achieved a first or upper second class degree compared with students from state schools
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Independent Schools Council | Fact Sheets | Links between Independent and State Schools - 0 views

  • ,126 schools (over 93%) in ISC that are in collaborative work with their state sector colleagues
  • In 2013, 388 ISC schools opened access to pupils from maintained schools to attend lessons and other educational events
  • 78 ISC schools second teaching staff to maintained schools
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  • Around 520 of ISC schools offer A-Levels and, out of these, 123 schools helped prepare A-Level pupils at maintained schools for entry to Higher Education
  • Examples of types of partnerships and collaborative activities include: - Sharing knowledge, skills, expertise and experience with state schools Working together with state schools on projects to improve the quality of teaching and learning Hosting joint lessons with local schools Holding open sports’ coaching sessions Providing work experience for disengaged 14-16 year olds Lending minibuses to local scout groups Giving careers’ advice to 18 year olds Running collaborative workshops for everything from creative writing and singing to science experiment Opening up drama, music and sports facilities and hosting cultural and sporting events.
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BBC News - Free school £21m private contract plan - 0 views

  • But the plans have raised political sensitivities about the boundary between free schools funded by public money and the involvement of the private sector in state education.
  • Free schools are funded from the public education budget - but the schools are run independently.
  • Alicia Rickards-Ottevanger, one of the group of local families supporting the free school plan, said the Swedish firm had been chosen because it seemed closest to the trust's ambitions for the school, regardless of whether they were a profit-making business.
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  • free school was a practical way of addressing the lack of a school for families in the area.
  • "Free schools are funded like all other state-funded schools - on a per pupil basis.
  • "Free schools founders do not and can not make a profit. "State schools and their local authorities have always been able to use companies to help them run services in schools - from human resources, to ordering stationery, to school catering and providing educational advice.
  • the Anti Academies Alliance said the proposals were a "clear signpost of the direction of travel" for the government's education policy. "Privatisation and deregulation, not system-wide school improvement, appear to be the destination."
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Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) - 0 views

  • Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a term used to describe a number of symptoms and behaviours which affect the way in which a group of people understand and react to the world around them. It's an umbrella term which includes autism, Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorders. All of these autistic spectrum disorders have an onset before the age of three
  • Recent research by the Learning Disabilities Observatory indicates that around 20-30% of people with learning disabilities have an ASD.
  • Being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome does not constitute having a learning disability.
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  • All children and adults with an ASD will have the following core symptoms in what is known as the ‘triad’ of impairments:
  • 1. Non-verbal and verbal communication People with an ASD have difficulty in understanding the communication and language of others, and in communicating themselves. Many children are delayed in learning to speak and a small minority do not develop much functional speech. This does not mean they cannot communicate, as they use other methods to communicate their needs. People with an ASD tend to have a literal understanding of language, so the use of metaphors such as ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ should be avoided.
  • 2. Social understanding and social behaviour People with an ASD have difficulty understanding the social behaviour of others and can behave in socially inappropriate ways. People with an ASD have difficulty empathising with others, and as a result are unable to read social contexts. Children with an ASD often find it hard to play and communicate with other children, because of their difficulties with empathy.
    • izz aty
       
      60-70% of ppl with ASD will have LD 20-30% of ppl with LD also have ASD
  • 3. Imagining and thinking/behaving flexibly Children with an ASD find it difficult to engage in imaginative play, so they tend to spend more time in solitary play. Children with an ASD can have an excellent memory concerning toys or activities they are passionate about. People with an ASD tend to have particular interests in specific topics or activities, which they may pursue obsessively. People with an ASD often find change difficult to cope with, and have a preference for routine. They may also struggle to transfer skills to other activities.
  • Approximately 1% of the population has an autistic spectrum condition. The prevalence rate of autistic spectrum conditions is higher in men than it is in women (1.8% vs. 0.2%). 60-70% of people who have an autistic spectrum condition will also have a learning disability.
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The Differentiator - Create clear learning intentions (with Bloom's Taxonomy), interact... - 0 views

  • First, pick a thinking skill... Revised Bloom's Taxonomy adapted from "A Taxonomy for Learning,Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives" by Anderson and Krathwohl
  • Next, pick a way to differentiate content... Depth and Complexity adapted from The Flip Book by Sandra N. Kaplan, Bette Gould & Victoria Siegel. Content Imperatives adapted from The Flip Book, Too by Sandra Kaplan & Bette Gould.
  • Now, pick a resource...
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  • Next, select a product for students to create... Adapted from David Chung and The Flip Book by Sandra N. Kaplan, Bette Gould & Victoria Siegel
  • Finally, pick the group size for students to work in...
  •  
    For each learning intention, choose one thinking, content knowledge, resource, product of learning, and number of students involved. Very convenient!
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Bloom's Taxonomy Poster for Elementary Teachers - 0 views

  • For decades, Bloom's Taxonomy has helped teachers plan lessons and design instruction. When Benjamin Bloom and a team of educators first conceived the classification in the late 1940's, they probably never imagined the impact their work would have over 50 years later. While other theories and systems have come and gone, Bloom's taxonomy appears to have become the most commonly used standard in many educational settings. In the 1990's, Lorin Anderson and a group of psychologists updated the taxonomy in the hope that it would have more relevance for 21st century students and teachers, transforming the nouns to verbs and making some other seemingly small but significant changes. An interesting account of the history of Bloom's Taxonomy can be found here. The Blooming Butterfly poster was designed by the Learning Today product development team as a tribute to Bloom and Anderson and to the educators all over the world that continue to implement their vision. We hope that it will serve as a visual reminder for teachers as they continue to guide students to become better thinkers, just as Bloom imagined many years ago!
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Lesson Planning with ProCon.org - ProCon.org - 0 views

  • Distinguishing Fact from Opinion
  • Weighing the Evidence
  • In This Writer's Opinion
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  • Essay Writing
  • Engage Peers Outside the Classroom
  • Select-and-Fill-In (SAFI) Concept Maps
  • Extemporaneous Speech
  • Group Discussion Web
  • Informal Debate with "Devil's Advocate"
  • Lincoln-Douglas Debate
  • Online Discussion
  • Rehearsed Speech
  • Role-Play Debate
  • Role Reversal and Compromise
  • Writing a Letter to a Political Figure
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    Lesson Planning with ProCon.org
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ESL Cafe's Idea Cookbook - Convince me. - 0 views

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    Sometimes I try to make use of new vocab and tell them to move as if they have just won a million dollars or are all drunk, hungover, are all police officers, wealthy ladies out shopping, and -my all time favourite- as if they can smell something terrible. Breaks the monotony and gives me a bit of a laugh. - Vanessa Pasini
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Teachers Unions: Lobbying, 2013 | OpenSecrets - 0 views

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    "Total for Teachers unions: $4,047,479 Total Number of Clients Reported: 6 Total Number of Lobbyists Reported: 32"
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Proposed changes to autism and Asperger syndrome diagnostic criteria - | autism | Asper... - 0 views

  • NAS welcomes the overall proposed approach to streamline diagnostic criteria and make them simpler, to develop dimensional measures of severity and recognise the range of full health problems someone is experiencing, as well as any other factors that impact on their diagnosis.
  • the proposed severity levels are not fit for purpose and potentially very unhelpful as they are currently drafted
  • need to be much more detail to make the severity levels appropriate and widely applicable.
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  • levels are not consistent with the diagnostic criteria.
  • Key areas, including sensory aspects, are not mentioned within the severity levels.
  • The minimum criteria for level 1 severity “Needs support” are considerably higher than the minimum criteria for a diagnosis
  • DSM is an American publication. Most diagnoses in the UK are based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), published by the World Health organisation, or other criteria, such as those developed by Professor Christopher Gillberg. 
  • Creating a direct link between a clinical decision over diagnosis and a recommendation for support could affect clinical impartiality. In the UK we are aware of situations where clinical professionals have felt under pressure from their employers to under-assess needs in order to ration limited resources.
  • Dr Lorna Wing and Dr Judith Gould have submitted a paper to the American Psychiatric Association, jointly written with Professor Christopher Gillberg. This article has been published in the journal Research in Developmental Disabilities. It calls for a stronger focus on social imagination, diagnosis in infancy and adulthood, and on the possible under-diagnosis of girls and women with autism
  • They recommend that sub-group names for particular autism spectrum disorders are kept in the new diagnostic criteria, including a description of Asperger syndrome, to make it very clear that this continues to be a part of the autism spectrum. 
  • APA propose creating a new diagnosis of social communication disorder. This would be given where someone exhibits the social communication and interaction aspects of an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, but does not show restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities. 
  • linking of a clinical diagnosis to recommendations of support may create expectations for people on the autism spectrum that services will be provided when this will not always be the case (at least in the UK), due to high eligibility thresholds or because decisions about such support may be taken by professionals who have no relation to the diagnostic process. 
  • The current ICD (ICD-10) is virtually the same as DSM. The next version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) is due to be published in 2015. They will consider the changes made to DSM-5, but their descriptions are often slightly different. For example, the diagnostic names in ICD-10 are different to those in DSM-4. 
  • Diagnoses should always be based on a clinical decision about whether someone has an impairment which has a disabling effect on their daily life. Diagnoses will be given where symptoms cause an impairment to everyday functioning.
  • Overall, we believe that the changes to the diagnostic criteria are helpful. They are clearer and simpler than the previous DSM-4 criteria. 
  • The diagnostic manuals are updated every so often to reflect the latest research. The last change to the DSM was in 2000, and before that in 1994.
  • How long have autism and Asperger syndrome been in the DSM? Autism was first included as a separate category in DSM-3 in 1980 when it was called 'infantile autism'. This was later changed to 'autistic disorder' in 1987. 'Asperger’s disorder' (syndrome) was added into the next version, DSM-4, in 1994.
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BBC News - How blind Victorians campaigned for inclusive education - 0 views

  • Over the past 30 years there has been a greater effort, backed up by law, to integrate disabled children into mainstream education. But in the Victorian era they often attended educational institutions supported through philanthropic fundraising.
  • To encourage donations, schools emphasised the "miseries" of sensory deprivation.
  • Unhappy about these negative representations of disabled people, an un-named "intellectual blind man" of the era said: "I assure you it is not blindness, but its consequences, which we feel most painfully, and those consequences are often laid on us most heavily by the people who are loudest in their expressions of pity."
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  • The names of these early activists are all but forgotten today. However, their views on the importance of including, rather than segregating, blind and deaf children, and their powerful advocacy that they should be heard and given appropriate rights, make their views seem strikingly modern.
  • "Special education" emerged in Britain and Europe during the second half of the 18th Century. Thomas Braidwood established a school for deaf pupils in Edinburgh in 1764, which moved to Hackney in London in 1783 due to increased demand for places.
  • first school for blind pupils opened in Liverpool in 1791
  • London's School for the Indigent Blind, founded at St George's Fields Southwark in 1799, was by the 1860s educating 160 boys and girls in reading, writing and "useful" trades, intended to provide for their future employment.
  • 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the state subsidised school fees for some pupils so that attendance did not push families into poverty - education was neither free nor compulsory until later in the century
  • Charitable schools were founded primarily as residential institutions intended to provide protection, board, lodging and education to their pupils. Yet the practice of shutting away "blind, deaf and dumb" children in so-called "exile schools" was opposed by an increasingly vocal group of activists in the mid 19th Century.
  • institutions "immured" their pupils, treating them like prisoners. They were degrading and they perpetuated "pauperism"
  • The campaigners noted that inclusion promised to benefit all society, not just the deaf and blind themselves.
  • Organisations such as the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, founded by Elizabeth Gilbert in 1854, established workshops for blind handicraftsmen so that workers received better prices for their products than for those produced in institutions.
  • Whilst the association encouraged basket making, some campaigners claimed that these traditional trades were symbolic of a system that failed to recognise people's potential or range of talents.
  • Biography of the Blind, written in 1820 by James Wilson, a self-taught blind man who wrote the book "with a view of rescuing my fellow sufferers from the neglect and obscurity in which many of them are involved."
  • Charities were not always appreciated. Activists claimed that too much of the money donated to the dedicated charities went on buildings and non-disabled staff, rather than on the welfare of the blind pupils themselves. Many of them imposed social and moral restrictions on who could apply for assistance. Some campaigners argued that it would be better if the donated money was paid directly to blind people themselves, to enable them to live in their own homes and support their families.
  • The education of blind and deaf children in specialist institutions remained the norm until recent years. Far greater effort now goes into integrating disabled children into mainstream schools, and has been backed up by new laws. But integration is not the same as inclusion, and even in 2014 campaigners are still arguing that there is further to go before disabled children are fully included in schools. They say there needs to be greater recognition that they have a right to an education and should be given support in ordinary classes, not in special units.
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6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism - 0 views

  • Several people posted comments about our story that noted one name was missing from the Nobel roster: Rosalind Franklin, a British biophysicist who also studied DNA. Her data were critical to Crick and Watson's work. But it turns out that Franklin would not have been eligible for the prize—she had passed away four years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the prize, and the Nobel is never awarded posthumously.But even if she had been alive, she may still have been overlooked. Like many women scientists, Franklin was robbed of recognition throughout her career (See her section below for details.)
  • Pulsars are the remnants of massive stars that went supernova. Their very existence demonstrates that these giants didn't blow themselves into oblivion—instead, they left behind small, incredibly dense, rotating stars.Bell Burnell discovered the recurring signals given off by their rotation while analyzing data printed out on three miles of paper from a radio telescope she helped assemble.The finding resulted in a Nobel Prize, but the 1974 award in physics went to Anthony Hewish—Bell Burnell's supervisor—and Martin Ryle, also a radio astronomer at Cambridge University.The snub generated a "wave of sympathy" for Bell Burnell. But in an interview with National Geographic News this month, the astronomer was fairly matter-of-fact.
  • despite the sympathy, and her groundbreaking work, Bell Burnell said she was still subject to the prevailing attitudes toward women in academia.
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  • "[And] it was extremely hard combining family and career," Bell Burnell said, partly because the university where she worked while pregnant had no provisions for maternity leave.
  • Born in 1922 in the Bronx, Esther Lederberg would grow up to lay the groundwork for future discoveries on genetic inheritance in bacteria, gene regulation, and genetic recombination.A microbiologist, she is perhaps best known for discovering a virus that infects bacteria—called the lambda bacteriophage—in 1951, while at the University of Wisconsin.Lederberg, along with her first husband Joshua Lederberg, also developed a way to easily transfer bacterial colonies from one petri dish to another, called replica plating, which enabled the study of antibiotic resistance. The Lederberg method is still in use today.Joshua Lederberg's work on replica plating played a part in his 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, which he shared with George Beadle and Edward Tatum."She deserved credit for the discovery of lambda phage, her work on the F fertility factor, and, especially, replica plating," wrote Stanley Falkow, a retired microbiologist at Stanford University, in an email. But she didn't receive it.
  • Lise Meitner's work in nuclear physics led to the discovery of nuclear fission—the fact that atomic nuclei can split in two. That finding laid the groundwork for the atomic bomb.Her story is a complicated tangle of sexism, politics, and ethnicity.After finishing her doctoral degree in physics at the University of Vienna, Meitner moved to Berlin in 1907 and started collaborating with chemist Otto Hahn. They maintained their working relationship for more than 30 years.After the Nazis annexed Austria in March 1938, Meitner, who was Jewish, made her way to Stockholm, Sweden. She continued to work with Hahn, corresponding and meeting secretly in Copenhagen in November of that year.Although Hahn performed the experiments that produced the evidence supporting the idea of nuclear fission, he was unable to come up with an explanation. Meitner and her nephew, Otto Frisch, came up with the theory.Hahn published their findings without including Meitner as a co-author, although several accounts say Meitner understood this omission, given the situation in Nazi Germany."That's the start of how Meitner got separated from the credit of discovering nuclear fission," said Lewin Sime, who wrote a biography of Meitner.
  • Chien-Shiung Wu overturned a law of physics and participated in the development of the atom bomb.Wu was recruited to Columbia University in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project and conducted research on radiation detection and uranium enrichment. She stayed in the United States after the war and became known as one of the best experimental physicists of her time, said Nina Byers, a retired physics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.In the mid-1950s, two theoretical physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, approached Wu to help disprove the law of parity. The law holds that in quantum mechanics, two physical systems—like atoms—that were mirror images would behave in identical ways.Wu's experiments using cobalt-60, a radioactive form of the cobalt metal, upended this law, which had been accepted for 30 years.This milestone in physics led to a 1957 Nobel Prize for Yang and Lee—but not for Wu, who was left out despite her critical role. "People found [the Nobel decision] outrageous," said Byers.Pnina Abir-Am, a historian of science at Brandeis University, agreed, adding that ethnicity also played a role.
  • Rosalind Franklin used x-rays to take a picture of DNA that would change biology.Hers is perhaps one of the most well-known—and shameful—instances of a researcher being robbed of credit, said Lewin Sime.Franklin graduated with a doctorate in physical chemistry from Cambridge University in 1945, then spent three years at an institute in Paris where she learned x-ray diffraction techniques, or the ability to determine the molecular structures of crystals. (Learn more about her education and qualifications.)She returned to England in 1951 as a research associate in John Randall's laboratory at King's College in London and soon encountered Maurice Wilkins, who was leading his own research group studying the structure of DNA.Franklin and Wilkins worked on separate DNA projects, but by some accounts, Wilkins mistook Franklin's role in Randall's lab as that of an assistant rather than head of her own project.Meanwhile, James Watson and Francis Crick, both at Cambridge University, were also trying to determine the structure of DNA. They communicated with Wilkins, who at some point showed them Franklin's image of DNA—known as Photo 51—without her knowledge.Photo 51 enabled Watson, Crick, and Wilkins to deduce the correct structure for DNA, which they published in a series of articles in the journal Nature in April 1953. Franklin also published in the same issue, providing further details on DNA's structure.Franklin's image of the DNA molecule was key to deciphering its structure, but only Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their work.
  • Nettie Stevens performed studies crucial in determining that an organism's sex was dictated by its chromosomes rather than environmental or other factors.After receiving her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Stevens continued at the college as a researcher studying sex determination.By working on mealworms, she was able to deduce that the males produced sperm with X and Y chromosomes—the sex chromosomes—and that females produced reproductive cells with only X chromosomes. This was evidence supporting the theory that sex determination is directed by an organism's genetics.A fellow researcher, named Edmund Wilson, is said to have done similar work, but came to the same conclusion later than Stevens did.Stevens fell victim to a phenomenon known as the Matilda Effect—the repression or denial of the contributions of female researchers to science.Thomas Hunt Morgan, a prominent geneticist at the time, is often credited with discovering the genetic basis for sex determination, said Pomona College's Hoopes. He was the first to write a genetics textbook, she noted, and he wanted to magnify his contributions."Textbooks have this terrible tendency to choose the same evidence as other textbooks," she added. And so Stevens' name was not associated with the discovery of sex determination.
  • the first wife of Albert Einstein should be in this list. People know so little about her, and I think she deserves to be known. 
  • Vera Rubin, for accurate studies discovering dark matter.
  • How sadly ironic that the very woman who set the stage for the  DNA structure discovery, which in 1994 helped make it possible to genetically test and confirm BRCA carriers like Angelina Jolie and me (with familial cancer holocausts generation, after generation, after generation), did not have access the test that could have saved her life so she could go on with the research she loved and win a Nobel Prize.
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Guante: A Beginner's Guide to Spoken-Word and Slam Poetry - 0 views

  • A SOLID INTRODUCTION: Patricia Smith: Skinhead Robbie Q. Telfer: Clowns Tish Jones: Tracks Khary "6 is 9" Jackson: Carolina Andrea Gibson: Letter to a Playground Bully Guante: The Family Business Michael Lee: Pass On Shane Koyczan: To This Day 2009 Denver BNV Team Group Piece Hieu Minh Nguyen: Buffet Etiquette Karen Finneyfrock: Newer Colossus Marc Bamuthi Joseph: Word Becomes Flesh
  • ADVANCED STUDIES: Bao Phi: Prince Among Men Tish Jones: March For Me Shane Hawley: Wile E. Coyote Javon Johnson: 'Cuz He's Black Sierra DeMulder: Paper Dolls Michael Mlekodaj: Jesusland Kevin Yang: Sam I Am Niko Martell: Guns Alvin Lau: Full Moon B.Dolan: Still Electric Sam Sax: After My Boyfriend's Drag Show Ed Bok Lee: Thrown Neil Hilborn: Carver Anis Mojgani: Shake the Dust Carrie Rudzinski: In America Josh Healey: Queer Intifada Muhibb Dyer w/ Kwabena Nixon: They Can’t Break Us Homeless Ryan K.: For Joseph Lauren Zuniga: To the Oklahoma Lawmakers Buddy Wakefield: Convenience Stores Eric Mata: Anatomy of a Hit Franny Choi: Notes on the Exsistence of Ghosts Danez Smith: Black Jesus Writes a Letter to White Jesus Phil Kaye: Repetition Laura Brown-Lavoie: Drone Operator Omoizele "Oz" Okoawo: The Beast: 1944 Proletariat Bronze: Seagulls and White Lines Giles Li: First Draft of Yao Ming's Retirement Speech Jamila Woods: Pigeon Man Versiz: Out There Kait Rokowski: Swelter Blair: My Time at Chrysler Tatiana Ormaza and Juliana Hu Pegues: Under the Table Miles Walser: A Letter to My Vagina Donte Collins: For My Nieces Over North
  • REPEAT POETS Khary "6 is 9" Jackson: Leave Khary "6 is 9" Jackson: Beneath the Veil Khary "6 is 9" Jackson: Her Name Michael Mlekodaj: Star-Spangled Michael Mlekodaj: Prayer for the Destruction of Justin Bieber Sierra DeMulder: Unrequited Love Poem Sierra DeMulder: Ms. Dahmer Alvin Lau: For the Breakdancers Ed Bok Lee: Ode to Bruce Lee Ed Bok Lee: The Secret to Life in America Neil Hilborn: Punk Rock John Sam Sax: California Law Bao Phi: The Nguyens Danez Smith: Twerking as a Radical Form of Healing Hieu Minh Nguyen: Stubborn Inheritance Miles Walser: The White Me A whole playlist of Proletariat Bronze A whole playlist of Guante's poems (me)
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  • OTHER RESOURCES: Button Poetry is a treasure-trove of spoken-word videos. IndieFeed: a huge collection of performance poetry audio Poetry Observed: spoken-word video project AQObserver: video of the Artists' Quarter slam in St. Paul
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    "I love spoken-word poetry. But I also realize that if you just type "spoken-word" into a YouTube search, you'll be bombarded with a TON of videos, most of which (at least to me) aren't very good. Spoken-word is an especially democratic art form, after all, but it can be hard to sift through the millions and millions of videos online to get to the best stuff. This page is about collecting some poems I think you should watch. A few notes:"
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