‘Exhausted’ teachers hit out at assessments workload - NationalWorld digital front page

The digital front page of NationalWorld for 30 April

In Friday’s (30 April) NationalWorld front page, we lead on teacher’s reactions to the GCSE and A Level replacement assessments.

The government announced earlier this year that examinations will not take place in 2021, due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, and will instead be replaced by teacher assessments, which will be used to calculate the final subject grades awarded.

Teachers will assess the standard at which students are performing based only on what they have been taught, so that schools or colleges can determine a pupil’s grade.

The frustrations being felt by teachers in the wake of changes to GCSE and A Level examinations leads our front page

Several teachers came forward to speak exclusively to NationalWorld about their frustrations with the assessments and its impact on pupils.

Many have said they are experiencing an increase in workload on top of their regular duties, saying the changes have left them feeling “exhausted”.

Children’s speech and language development

We also look at the regions where children are lagging behind on speech and language development.

Almost one in four children are not meeting the expected standard in some northern council areas, data analysis by NationalWorld has revealed.

The proportion of children meeting the expected speech and language standards by age six was 10 percentage points lower in Sheffield (77 per cent) in 2019 than in Richmond upon Thames (87 per cent), the highest-performing council.

The data comes amid concerns that the pandemic has stunted language development in children, with research from The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) revealing an increase in four and five-year-olds in England needing help with language.

Will we have self-driving cars this year?

NationalWorld motor specialist, Matt Allan, gives his take on the government’s claim that the first types of self-driving vehicles could be on UK roads by the end of this year.

The government’s plan is to allow cars with automated lane keeping systems (ALKS) to be recognised in law as “self-driving”, thus allowing drivers to delegate responsibility for the driving task to the car, and delegate blame if it’s involved in an accident.

Under the plan ALKS will be allowed to function at up to 37mph on motorways, controlling the car’s speed and position in the lane.

It won’t be able to change lanes, negotiate on/off ramps or travel at anything approaching motorway speeds, but must be able to bring the car to a stop in its lane in a controlled emergency manoeuvre.

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