Sep42017

New Teachers, New Term, New Professional Standards

Welsh Government

Developed in partnership with teachers across Wales, the new standards concentrate on the essential elements of every teacher’s work – pedagogy, collaboration, leadership, innovation and career-long professional learning.

The new standards will:

  • Replace 55 standards with five standards and descriptors that allow teachers to use the standards in a way that’s appropriate to their role.
  • Inspire, challenge and support every practitioner, from the trainee teacher to the experienced head teacher to focus on the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to meet the needs of their learners.
  • Better support new entrants to the teaching profession by bringing greater continuity between initial teacher education, induction and continued development throughout a teacher’s career.
  • Acknowledge the need for teachers to work together more effectively to make sure all learners benefit from excellent teaching and learning.
  • Develop the leadership capacity within the education system by supporting all teachers to develop their leadership skills.

The standards will apply to all serving teachers and leaders by September 2018 and initial teacher training programmes from September 2019. This will provide time to build familiarity with the new standards before they become mandatory.

Kirsty Williams said:

“We value our professional teaching workforce in Wales, and want to support them to be the best they can be throughout their careers.

“Quite simply, no education system is better than the quality of its teachers. Alongside teachers and parents, I share the ambition for a profession committed to the highest standards, lifelong learning and high aspirations for all pupils.

“These new standards are about making sure teachers develop the right skills throughout their career. They empower all those teaching in our classrooms to work together to raise learner outcomes. This is a key part of a fundamental shift towards a system driven by career-long learning. My vision is to strengthen leadership and make sure that there is greater consistency across our schools.

“I am grateful to all those teachers, leaders, consortia and other partners who have been directly involved in developing these new standards – it is testament to what can be achieved through us working together.”

The Education Workforce Council has developed an enhanced Professional Learning Passport so that teachers can reflect on their practice and map their development against the 5 standards.

Hayden Llewellyn said:

“The standards are a welcome addition to the Passport. We encourage teachers to use them in planning their professional learning and development as they progress through their careers.”

The four regional education consortia will ensure that every newly qualified teacher has a mentor to support them in using and evidencing the standards throughout their induction period.

Sep42017

Press release: £40 million to create jobs and boost visitors to the Great British Coast

HM Government

Towns and cities along Britain’s coastline are set to benefit from thousands of new jobs and millions of pounds more in visitor spending after the government announced the next round of the Coastal Communities Fund today (4 September 2017).

Coastal Communities Minister Jake Berry confirmed that the fifth round of funding for 2019 to 2021 will provide at least £40 million to help coastal areas in England further transform their economies and boost jobs in their local area. It will be open for applications in early 2018.

The government has already provided £170 million for 278 projects around the country since the Coastal Communities Fund was launched in 2012. This has resulted in 2 million more people visiting the coast and spending an additional £171 million.

This has already helped to start 485 new businesses and create 5,569 jobs – with these figures set to almost triple once the first 3 rounds of projects have been completed.

Coastal Communities Minister Jake Berry said:

From the world-renowned Blackpool illuminations to Brighton’s i360, our coastal towns and cities have a lot to offer all year round.

That’s why we’re backing them with another £40 million of government funding, helping to boost economic growth and create jobs.

This year is already looking like another record year for staycations and our latest round of funding will help attract even more visitors to the Great British Coast so that our coastal communities can thrive.

The minister will also visit Cleethorpes today to meet with local leaders and hear about the start of the town’s Coastal Communities projects, which were backed by £3.8 million of government funding earlier this year.

Sep42017

Recording of the week: Epic

British Library

This week's selection comes from Rosy Hall, an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL's Spoken English collections.

Epic 3. b. colloq. (orig. and chiefly U.S.). Particularly impressive or remarkable; excellent, outstanding. (www.oed.com)

According to one Urban Dictionary entry, the birth of ‘epic’ as a popular catchphrase has its origins among ‘avid gamers and pretentious English majors’. This fits with the WordBank contribution of one of our speakers (b.1991), who attributes it to ‘video gamer culture’ and his gaming friends.

Um, I think that ‘epic’ is a very interesting word that I constantly hear my friends use, because, it’s interesting because it’s, I feel it comes from like some kind of like video gamer culture, cause my friends are like ((bay kid)) gamers, I mean I’m not so much, but they always use the word ‘epic,’ ‘that was epic’, or like ‘epic fail’ and {cough} I just, where, what does it mean? I guess it’s kind of like…uh like ‘amazing’, like it just sort of emphasizes something. You know what I mean? Yeah. It’s like a lot of emphasis on something it’s epic, it’s not just s- — you know ordinary, it’s epic. I don’t know, maybe it’s rooted from the actual word epic where you know, like, I don’t know the Odyssey? Who knows? Who knows. But yeah. Bye!

Epic (C1442)

Like so many words whose meanings have evolved over time, epic is a common bugbear among prescriptivists – English language mavens who would rather the word were reserved only for Homer and Virgil. As alluded to by this speaker, epic hasn’t always been a trendy word for something like ‘really good’ or ‘extreme’; traditionally it’s a genre of lengthy heroic poetry. Scholars have pointed out, however, that even this definition is fairly fluid – the meaning of epic has changed over time to cover both oral and written forms, and extends to novels and even movies (Game of Thrones, anyone?). Language change is inevitable, after all; it seems this new epic is just the latest iteration.

Song-of-ice-and-fire-1177616_1920

And we’d better get used to it: unfortunately for the pedants, a high level of objection usually correlates to a high level of usage. Judging from the number of internet rants against it, it’s clear that epic is here to stay!

Continue the conversation with us @VoicesofEnglish

Sep42017

Work-related accidents and injuries cost EU €476 billion a year according to new global estimates

EU

At the XXI World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, held in Singapore on 3‑6 September, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) together with the International Labour Organization present new estimates of the cost of poor occupational safety and health (OSH). The new findings reveal that worldwide work-related injury and illness result in the loss of 3.9 % of GDP, at an annual cost of roughly €2 680 billion [1].

Work-related ill-health and injury is costing the European Union 3.3 % of its GDP. That’s €476 billion every year which could be saved with the right occupational safety and health strategies, policies and practices.

The estimates are findings from a major project on the costs and benefits of OSH.The project was carried out by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH), the WSH Institute in Singapore, the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) and EU-OSHA.

Speaking ahead of the World Congress, the Director of EU-OSHA, Dr Christa Sedlatschek, said: ‘Safe and healthy work is a fundamental human right but these new estimates of the costs of poor or non-existent OSH measures show that the economic case for OSH has never been stronger. Work-related ill-health and injury is costing the European Union 3.3 % of its GDP. That’s €476 billion every year which could be saved with the right occupational safety and health strategies, policies and practices.’

Good practice in OSH can help make businesses productive, competitive and sustainable, as well as reducing healthcare costs and other societal burdens. But the costs of poor OSH are high — for individuals, business and society. Through the costs and benefits project, EU-OSHA has taken steps to identify and evaluate the data that is available in the EU and worldwide to develop accurate and up-to-date estimates of the costs of work-related diseases and injuries.

Further findings to be presented at the World Congress include:

  • Work-related illnesses account for 86 % of all deaths related to work worldwide, and 98 % of those in the EU.
  • 123.3 million DALY (disability-adjusted life years) are lost globally (7.1 million in the EU) as a result of work-related injury and illness. Of these, 67.8 million (3.4 million in the EU) are accounted for by fatalities and 55.5 million (3.7 million in the EU) by disability.
  • In most European countries, work-related cancer accounts for the majority of costs (€119.5 billion or 0.81% of the EU’s GDP), with musculoskeletal disorders being the second largest contributor.

A new data visualisation tool, developed by EU-OSHA as part of the project, is also unveiled at the World Congress. It shows the global costs of work-related illnesses and accidents in an accessible way. Key results are presented as infographics, allowing researchers and policy-makers to explore the findings quickly and easily. With transparency and ease of use in mind, the visualisation tool also provides a glossary of frequently used terms, and a guide to the methods used.

The World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, the world’s largest gathering of OSH experts and practitioners, presents a great opportunity to disseminate these new findings. EU-OSHA is one of the Congress’s supporting organisations and will be participating in a range of events throughout the four days, providing speakers, participating in workshops and hosting an exhibition stand. In particular, EU-OSHA is co-organising two symposia. One will relate to the costs and benefits project; the other will examine evidence-based good OSH practice in micro and small enterprises, with reference to EU-OSHA’s work in this area and its OiRA (Online interactive Risk Assessment) project.

Links:

[1] For the conversion from USD to EUR the ECB euro reference exchange rate for 2016 was used.