Guardian Students' birthday blog

Guardian Students turns one today. We have plenty of birthday treats in store, including: an interview with Toni Pearce, the next NUS president, a showcase of our best student blogs – and best of all, presents.We'll be giving away birthday gifts on the hour, every hour from 10am-5pm. Join Guardian Students now for a chance to win.Judy FriedbergRebecca Ratcliffe

Joan Hooker obituary

My friend Joan Hooker, who has died aged 87, began her working life at 17, when she joined the Free French in De Gaulle's London headquarters, starting a lifetime of political involvement.At the end of the second world war she became secretary to John Freeman, who had been elected to the 1945 parliament and was minister at the War Office. Here, at 21, one of a tiny nucleus of active Labour se

Why philosophy students do the most drugs

Nearly 90% of them have taken drugs, a higher proportion than in any other discipline, according to a poll of 21 UK universitiesAn Oxford philosopher this week described their drug experiences in a survey by online student newspaper the Tab. "Having dinner with parents while seeing the world in monochrome and feeling supremely dizzy! I think my speech was barely coherent."Yawn. Other drug

Nick Clegg criticises Westminster school's internships auction

Deputy PM reproaches alma mater as MPs urge companies to withdraw work placements from fee-paying school's auctionNick Clegg has backed complaints about a prestigious private school's auction of exclusive work experience placements for its students.A group of MPs have written to participants including Coutts bank, Fabergé and the high street retail guru Mary Portas asking them to withdraw

Cheating student stories – open thread

Cheating at university takes many forms, says academic. Are student excuses moving with the times? Share your storiesCheating students: you've probably had a few in your class. But cheating isn't always the sophisticated process some may think. According to Bernard Bull from Concordia University Wisconsin, who has set up a course for academics to look into why and how students cheat, a more s

The NUS president who's never been to uni

When Toni Pearce becomes NUS president in July, college students and youth unemployment will be top of her agendaBuilders are still wandering in and out of 275 Grays Inn Road, the NUS's sleek new offices in central London. Inside, it looks more like an imitation of Google's headquarters than a gritty hub of student activism. The corridors smell of new carpet, walls are brightly painted and th

Full list of free schools approved for 2014 opening

Full list of the 102 free schools in England approved by the department for education for opening in September 2014A total of 102 new free schools have been approved by the department for education for opening in 2014 and beyond.The new schools planned include the Marco Polo Academy, a bilingual English-Mandarin primary school in Barnet, and the Phoenix in Oldham, a military-style academy

Feeling worthless, hopeless … who'd be a university student in Britain? | Holly Baxter

Mental health among students is not good, according to an NUS survey – little wonder, when their situation today is so dismalBeing a student is hard, according to the latest study from the National Union of Students. Specifically, it's hard on your mental health: 80% of the 1,200 UK students surveyed reported feeling stressed, with 55% experiencing anxiety and 50% suffering from insomnia or s

If parents have to pay for school work placements, their children will suffer | Libby Page

My work experience led to my first job, teaching me I had a value. Charging parents creates a class of haves and have notsOn Monday the Times reported that parents are being asked by schools to subsidise work experience placements by paying around £50 or more for the opportunity, with an additional fee for placements in London. Following the government's decision to drop compulsory work exper

South Sudan initiative aims to keep young girls in primary school | Mark Tran

A UK-backed project in Western Equatoria state seeks to ensure domestic and social factors don't deny girls an educationBridget Nagomoro used to get up at five in the morning to fetch water from the stream, cook breakfast for the family, then walk the five miles to school. In the evening, she would eat at 10pm having cooked dinner, done the household chores and completed her homework.It's

Will convictions or cautions stop me getting a job in teaching?

Do you need to worry about points on your driving licence when applying for a job? Alan Newland offers some advice for teachers worried about past convictionsSometimes student teachers and trainees ask me if having a criminal record is a bar to teaching. The answer, you may be surprised to learn, is usually no. But it depends what the conviction is. A lot of people get worried that somethi

David Laws vetoes plan to force schools to check immigrant status of pupils

Liberal Democrat schools minister tells Michael Gove, the education secretary, the proposal is a 'non-flyer'A proposal to require schools to check on the immigration status of their pupils has been shelved after the Liberal Democrat schools minister David Laws decided the idea would be bureaucratic and difficult to implement.In a sign of the Lib Dems' determination to assert themselves in

Free school offering 'cross-subject' learning approved by Michael Gove

Secondary school that promises to do away with traditional classroom lessons is among new tranche to open next yearAn unorthodox secondary school offering "cross-subject projects" rather than traditional classroom lessons, is among the latest tranche of free schools to be approved.XP school in Doncaster is one of the 102 new free schools given the go-ahead to open next year by Michael Gove

Headteachers told: choose highly paid staff or smaller classes in your schools

Principals must be prepared to make difficult trade-offs, says Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted's chief inspector of schoolsHeadteachers may face a difficult balancing act between improved wages for their staff or smaller classes for their pupils, Ofsted's chief inspector of schools said on Tuesday.Sir Michael Wilshaw, speaking at a seminar in London, said tight budgets and performance-related

My best history lesson: teaching Northern Ireland and the Troubles

To immerse his students, James Cannon pulled out the PE bibs and created a classroom divideI have always found teaching about Northern Ireland and the Troubles difficult. An intensely complicated back story makes it a fairly sticky subject. Others; the Battle of Hastings, the Gunpowder Plot or the outbreak of the first world war, do not require as heavy a discussion to understand the pretext

George Gray obituary

Leading authority on the chemistry of liquid crystals whose work led to the development of the ubiquitous LCDThe public gauges scientists by how their research affects everyday lives. The legacy of Professor George Gray, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of liquid crystals, could be measured by the quality of televisions, mobile phones and MP3 players and, at a deeper level, how

Take a hard look at racism, sexism and homophobia on college campuses | Andrew Longhi

My recent experience at Dartmouth College has shown me that we are still not the society we want to beLike many universities, Dartmouth College has venerated traditions. The annual Dimensions show – a festive, student-organized musical revue performed to entice admitted, but undecided, students to come to Dartmouth – is one such tradition. Many prospective students decide to attend Dartmouth

One British household in 10 has £1m assets

UK now has around 2.5m millionaire households, boosted by pensions and house prices, according to new bookOne British household in every 10 now has total assets exceeding £1m, according to a new book based on work at the London School of Economics published on Wednesday.Wealth in the UK crunched the findings from a comprehensive official survey that took place between 2008 and 2010, and fo

UK higher education: let's not follow the leader but develop our own vision

UK universities need an alternative to the US technology meme that says higher education is broken, says Saint John WalkerAn avalanche is coming. Education is broken. Classrooms kill creativity. Higher education is a rotten tree being hit by lightning.All these things have been said about higher education recently (Clay Shirky wrote the last one if you're interested). In fact, when I playf

Phonics literacy test for young children 'a waste of time and money'

Test would have minimal, if any, long-term impact on pupils' standards of reading and writing, research showsThe phonics literacy test applied to first-year schoolchildren in England has had a minimal impact on reading and writing standards, according to teachers in a Department for Education-funded survey, leading education unions to describe it as a waste of time and money.The survey, co

Social work training reforms: it takes five weeks to create a social worker

Frontline, the social work training scheme, has been welcomed, but concerns remain that recruits will go too fast, too soonLyn Romeo had no time to celebrate her appointment as England's first chief social worker for adults. Even as the announcement was made last week, she was dealing with the deaths of a man who was "known to services" and his wife on Romeo's patch in Camden, north London.

I love art school because... – your best pictures

We asked you to send in photos via GuardianWitness telling us why you love art school. Here are your best picturesGuardian readers

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us…

Guardian Students turns one - and we're dishing out presents to celebrateGuardian Students celebrates our first birthday tomorrow! Since we launched the site on 22 May last year:• a student protest march fizzled out at a rainy rally where the NUS president was pelted with eggs• student activism staged a dramatic recovery thanks to a plucky occupation by Sussex studentsprotesting against p

The wonderfully weird world of webcomics | Dean Burnett

Webcomics are a popular, diverse and increasingly widespread format that most people are blissfully unaware. To address this, an interview was conducted with the team behind the popular UK-based webcomic Exterminatus NowWebcomics are increasingly widespread and popular. It could be argued their proliferation is linked to the decline of print comics, in the same way that free news site and blo

10 ways to deal with low-level disruption in the classroom

Whether it's passing notes or tapping a pen, low-level disruption is a challenge in many schools. Tracey Lawrence offers some strategies to helpLately, the most effective professional development I have undertaken has been free and extremely valuable. It has taken place on Twitter, every Monday night during term from 8 to 8.30pm on the #Behaviourchat hashtag. Often, advice given during these

Letters: Mr Gove, please listen to teachers

The secretary of state for education is pressing on doggedly with his proposals for the reform of education at all levels. This is in the face of opposition of the major headteachers' unions and representative associations throughout the maintained and independent sectors (ASCL, ISC, GSA and HMC). And all the admissions tutors of Cambridge University. At the weekend the NAHT expressed clearly wh

Academy chains decide where children go to school

What can you do if you are told your child must move to a different school eight miles away? Not a lot, it seems, if the school is part of an academy chainJanet May says she speaks for her entire village as she vents her frustration. "The word I would use to describe my feelings now is desperate. As a group we are incredibly sad and angry, but we also feel powerless in the face of the refusal

The Great Gatsby's world is every bit as unequal as Britain under the coalition | Aditya Chakrabortty

The wealthy in America and Britain no longer resemble the prewar elite, but appearances cannot mask how cut off they are from the rest of us"Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor."At its core, The Great Gatsby is th

Michael Gove suggests Wales and Northern Ireland split off school exams

Education minister says nations' GCSEs and A-levels will diverge from English system as 'consequence of devolution'The education system is set to splinter into national components, with Michael Gove writing to his Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts to kickstart the separation of GCSEs and A-levels as "a natural and legitimate consequence of devolution".The education secretary's decision

Education in brief: Is the DfE trying to rig the teacher-education market?

The education department seems desperate to teach more teachers; Newham local authority refuses to release a report's findings; parents give up on battle against academy chainTrainee teachers: a spot of poaching?Relations between the government and university-based teacher educators have reached a new low amid claims that a Department for Education agency has been attempting to lure would-