AS EASY AS 1, 2, 3:

Pupils improve grasp of three-Rs 'by teaching themselves' (Graeme Paton, 14 Sep 2011, The Telegraph)

Academics found that allowing children to work in pairs for as little as 20 minutes a week can lead to a dramatic rise in reading and maths standards.

The study from Durham University concluded that "peer tutoring" was more effective than a range of hugely expensive projects introduced by successive governments.

This includes Labour's £4.5 billion National Strategies scheme that introduced centralised teaching methods and famously led to the launch of daily literacy and numeracy hours in English primary schools.

Prof Peter Tymms, from Durham's School of Education, said: "Expensive policy initiatives have often had little effect on learning. The tutoring scheme requires some organisation and a little bit of training but it's an inexpensive scheme to implement in that it involves no fancy equipment.

"The trial shows that a tutoring scheme could be implemented across educational areas nationwide. Older pupils boosted their knowledge and skills by becoming tutors and the younger tutees benefited greatly from one-to-one learning with older children."

And they're non-union.

Posted by oj at September 13, 2011 8:39 PM
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