NEWS FOCUS

SecEd: On Your Side

A day to make you believe in Diplomas

Pete

I AM sure our news report this week on the softening of the Conservatives’ attitude to Diplomas raised a few eyebrows (see page 3). The Tories have met

Henshaw Editor SecEd

with the chairmen of the various Diploma Development Partnerships and according to our report, left this meeting “less hostile” towards the qualifications and have requested further meetings. I strongly feel that the Conservatives’ opinions and

intentions towards Diplomas have been spun out of all proportion by the national media. Too many people are talking about the Conservatives “dumping” the qualifications and this is not necessarily the case. Indeed, I believe there is little evidence to back it up. All that has really been said by the party is that they

would look to halt the final three Diplomas in humanities, science and languages, due for roll-out in 2011, and that they would remove the entitlement to study all lines of learning. I have to question how easy it would actually be for

the Conservatives to abandon the Diplomas. From what I can see, it would require legislation for the Diplomas to be dropped – and this would take time if a Conservative majority victory is seen at the General Election. If you consider how well embedded the Diplomas have

become already, I cannot see how the learners who have started Diploma courses could be abandoned mid-course. It is not possible to my mind. As Graham Lane, chair of the engineering Diploma

Development Partnership, said this week: “You cannot talk about reforming Diplomas when it is still early days and they are in a constant state of flux as they bed in.” Also, when you look at the work that has been put

into developing the 17 Diploma lines – by the Diploma Development Partnerships, schools and colleges, employers and exam boards – this will not simply be abandoned. Removing the entitlement would be much easier

of course, but again I have no fear about this potential development. If you leave the Diplomas to sink or swim, they will be

just fine. We are now almost two years into delivery, and as I saw at the Fifth National Delivering Diplomas Conference last week, hosted by SecEd’s sister magazine Delivering Diplomas, there are plenty of success stories and there is more than enough evidence to justify the future of these qualifications. Of course there are challenges with delivery. There are

with any new qualifications or initiatives. However, it would be nice if for once the media and

the various commentators and educationalists realised this and stopped jumping on every one of these challenges as evidence of failure. This attitude is ridiculous and shows no respect for

the hard work of Diploma practitioners and the students pioneering these new courses. Mr Lane’s comments perfectly illustrate this point.

Diplomas are still in a state of flux, best practice models and pedagogy are still being developed, and we are still working out issues such as timetabling and embedding Functional Skills. But this is perfectly natural. So to the Conservatives, I say go ahead, remove the

entitlement and move your focus away from Diplomas – they will still survive and thrive, I promise you. To the carpers who seem to believe that a new

qualification of this nature should be able to be introduced without any challenges or problems arising, I say stop being so unhelpful. In fact to any of these cynics, I offer a personal invitation

to our Sixth National Delivering Diplomas Conference in September. Come along and actually talk to some real Diploma deliverers and students, and open your mind to the possibilities.

editor@sec-ed.co.uk. Also see www.sec-ed.com or www.deliveringdiplomas.com

SecEd

Attacking the hackers

THE PHRASE “computer hacker” might conjure up the image of a spotty teenager tapping away at his computer in a darkened room, but according to research published last week, around a quarter of your students have attempted to hack into a friend’s email account, Facebook page, or even their school’s website. A study of 1,000 youngsters from

London and 150 from Cumbria found that although almost 80 per cent felt that hacking was wrong, one in four had tried it at some point. In around 20 per cent of these

cases, the students said they were using school computers in their attempts to access other people’s private accounts, with the same number of respondents saying they were looking to “cause disruption”. A small number of the

respondents (five per cent) confessed to breaching their school’s website, with around half of those surveyed saying they did it “for fun”. One tactic employed by cyber-

bullies is to gain access to a school friend’s account in order to impersonate them – sometimes adding inaccurate and insulting personal details about the targeted individual. Liz Carnell, director of the

antibullying charity Bullying UK, said schools needed to “step up the supervision” of students using the internet. She told us: “Students can look

over at a pupil sitting next to them and watch them signing in to get hold of their password. They can then sign into their email and use it to send abusive messages to their friends. On other occasions, individuals just don’t sign off correctly when they finish using a computer. “It can cause real problems,

as there is no way of telling the message isn’t genuine. It is a particularly cruel type of cyber-

According to research published last week, around a quarter of your students have tried some form of computer hacking.Chris Parr looks at what this

means for both teachers and students

bullying, because the person might not have any idea who it is that has done it. Even worse, it might be someone that they thought they could trust.” A lack of care from school staff

can also compromise the safety of their own email accounts, according to one headteacher. Dr Bernard Trafford, head at

the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, told us: “Most of the problem is to do with passwords. Too many teachers still have obvious ones that can be easily guessed, or they let students discover them. “So many teachers aren’t as

careful with IT security as they would be in locking up their house or car. Children who might not dream of going into someone else’s private belongings or diary, or borrowing a possession without permission, don’t necessarily have the same scruples about borrowing a digital identity – nor about writing on a virtual wall unspeakable things that they wouldn’t say to someone.” Stuart Hyde, Cumbria

Constabulary’s deputy chief constable and the Association of Chief Police Officers’ lead on e- crime prevention, said the survey proved that hacking into other people’s private accounts had become “child’s play”. “It illustrates the importance

of keeping your passwords strong, secure and changing them regularly to help protect your accounts from unscrupulous people of all ages,” he said. “We live in a world where social

IN RESPONSE…

Ministers have pumped £6 million into creating around 3,000 new after-school sports clubs in secondary schools and colleges. The money will pay for

new equipment to help schools introduce a range of Olympic and Paralympic sports, including fencing, table tennis, badminton and wheelchair basketball. The first clubs will open in the autumn, and it is hoped they will all be up and running by Spring 2011 – in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Ben Bradshaw, secretary of state, culture, media and sport

“We hope this will be just the start and that schools across England build on this investment and deliver a network of clubs covering every Olympic sport, long after London’s closing ceremony. The 2012 games are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform sport in this country – both in terms of medals and in getting more people playing sport.”

Sir Steve Redgrave, five-time Olympic gold medallist rower

“One of the most important outcomes from the UK hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 is that we become a more

active nation. Of course that means ensuring those who are already participating in sport keep it up for life, but we also need to reach out to those who think sport is not for them. These ‘Change 4 Life’ sports clubs can help us do that and ensure a passion for sport burns brightly inside thousands of young people.”

Denise Lewis, Olympic heptathlon gold medallist

“In my role as a school sport ambassador with the Youth Sport Trust, I’ve seen how excited children are that the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be taking place here in 2012. There will

undoubtedly be an increased demand among young people for access to sports clubs following London 2012, particularly in Olympic and Paralympic sports. Often the challenge with some

community clubs is that they can be inaccessible to young people, while good junior clubs may be oversubscribed due to their size or popularity. By having more sports clubs

based on school sites, there will be better opportunities for young people to continue playing sport after-school, which also removes the problem of transportation between school and a community club.”

networking, email and the internet are embedded into our everyday lives from a far younger age, so early education is essential to ensure young people know the devastating consequences this activity can have.” Only 53 per cent of the children

surveyed thought that hacking was illegal, which Mr Hyde claims demonstrates a real need to better educate youngsters about online crime. “We need better education so

they are deterred from trying it, and also so they know how to protect their own accounts. Hacking is illegal and we need to ensure everyone understands that.” Because hacking has become more prevalent, many schools are

finding it increasingly difficult to hold students to account – even if there is strong evidence that they may have been involved in wrongdoing. Paul Ainsworth, vice-principal

at Belvoir High School in Leicestershire, told us: “It can be very difficult to prove that a student is guilty of wrongdoing, even if our records show that they have been looking at something inappropriate online, or that they have sent an offensive email. “We have had cases where

the student says that their school account was accessed by a friend who had been told, or who had guessed, their password. It is very hard to prove otherwise, and as a result it can be difficult to stamp it out.”

SecEd

Further information

For more on Bullying UK, including school-specific advice, visit www.bullying.co.uk Becta, the government’s

education technology agency, has a range of resources for strengthening school e-safety. Visit http://schools. becta.org.uk, and click e-safety

Stopping the hackers. Some simple steps to boost e-safety

• Install security software: anti-virus, anti-spyware and a firewall • Never disclose passwords or respond to emails that ask for this information

• Vary your username and passwords between sites. That way if one account is compromised it can limit the damage of others being breached

• Untick ‘remember me’ boxes for username and passwords, especially for email accounts, online banking, social media websites etc. (If your computer is used by other family members, it could therefore be used by their friends)

• Be careful what you talk about in chatrooms, you never know who you are talking to or who is listening in

• Periodically change your username and password • Protect yourself against eavesdroppers by using encryption on your wireless network

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