Free speech lives here Enjoy journalism that’s proud to share your values Enjoy a full year’s access to The Telegraph for £29. | | English and maths GCSE resits could be scrapped in favour of driving licence-style certificates proving basic ability, The Telegraph can reveal.
The pass rate for GCSEs in those subjects fell to its lowest level in a decade yesterday, driven by a surge in the number of children forced to retake them after failing last year.
As it stands, pupils are required to resit English and maths repeatedly until they achieve at least a grade 4 in the two subjects – equivalent to a C.
Poppy Wood, our Education Editor, reveals that a review of the curriculum ordered by Labour is expected to recommend replacing this current system.
One member of the panel advising ministers said experts were considering a “building block” replacement that would see pupils tested on fundamental skills in incremental stages instead.
They said colleges had become “stuck in a flawed mindset that says if [pupils] just keep resitting enough times, one day they’ll strike lucky”. Others, including the head of the Royal Society, have called for mandatory resits to be replaced with a certificate showing pupils have basic skills, such as arithmetic and grammar, that are needed to get on in life.
The Government is likely to face pressure to prove it is not lowering standards for underachievers if it does decide to scrap the current resits model.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, warned yesterday in this newsletter that four in five white working-class children were failing to get the English language and mathematics skills required to succeed in life.
Judith Woods has picked up on that point, writing that the white working-class timebomb is ready to explode, and how the plummeting GCSE results spell disaster for us all.
Read Judith’s column here ➤
Continue reading ➤ | | Robert Jenrick People across the country are right to protest and ‘raise the colours’ to try to restore our sense of national identity Continue reading ➤ Robert Service Britain needs a Churchill. Instead it has Starmer Continue reading ➤ Daniel Johnson Russia is the new dividing line on Britain’s Right Continue reading ➤ | Get the full experience Unlock our award-winning website, app and newsletters One year for £29 | | Patsy (Joanna Lumley) and Edina (Jennifer Saunders) in ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’ (2016) | | There was something extraordinary about the protest in Parliament Square in support of the terrorist group Palestine Action earlier this month: half of the people arrested were aged 60 or above. Almost 100 of them were in their 70s. As well as risking arrest, baby boomers are drinking more alcohol than any other age group and having more unsafe sex. What happened to knitting, gardening and Midsomer Murders, asks Melissa Twigg. Continue reading ➤ | |  | | A call handler for the Department for Work and Pensions has lifted the lid on Britain’s spiralling benefits system amid warnings it will cost taxpayers £300bn this year. Benefits claimants are treating state support as a “pension for life” because they do not have to look for work, the civil servant revealed to The Telegraph. “I see cases where people have failed checks nine or 10 times, but they stick at it and then they’re on the gravy train,” they said. Continue reading ➤ | | | Monica Lewinsky (left) with Amanda Knox earlier this week | | It’s the most unlikely friendship in the US: Monica Lewinsky, famous for having an affair with President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and Amanda Knox, wrongfully accused of murder two decades later. But there’s far more to their “sisterly” bond than media firestorms and accusations of sexual deviancy, as Marianka Swain reveals. Continue reading ➤ | | | People working in Britain are increasingly tempted by the improved lifestyle afforded by a move to Dubai – but there are signs that a certain “British arrogance” means businesses there, which can cherry-pick from the best candidates in the world, aren’t quite so enamoured. It’s one reason the Dubai jobs market is now much harder to crack. MaryLou Costa spoke to the expats disappointed by the sobering reality of the Dubai job market. Continue reading ➤ | | | Russia’s “swarm” warfare, enabled by its ability to mass-produce low-cost, long-range attack drones, has exhausted and overwhelmed Ukraine’s air defences. To counter this, Kyiv is ramping up its own production of interceptor drones – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles designed to take out Russia’s deadly Shaheds. Volodymyr Zelensky has set a target of producing 1,000 such drones a month, in the hope of blunting Russia’s relentless attacks and saving civilian lives. Continue reading ➤ | | | Coca-Cola promises ultimate refreshment, from the hiss of the ring-pull to the first ice-cold sip. But could you recognise the taste of “the real thing” – and would you be tempted to switch to an own-label dupe? In her taste test of 25 colas, Xanthe Clay finds an alternative that might win you over. Continue reading ➤ Below are two more articles I hope you find helpful: | | Chris Martin of Coldplay performing in Hull | Pop Coldplay
Hull’s Craven Park ★★★★★ Amidst all the fervour about the noisy return of Oasis, their heirs as the UK’s most popular band have slipped back into the country to play a record-breaking 10 nights at Wembley Stadium. Oasis logged seven. Earlier this week, Coldplay performed for 50,000 fans over two nights in Hull, which may be an intimate warm-up for them, but they treated it like it was the greatest honour ever bestowed upon a humble rock band, writes Neil McCormick.
Playing 10 nights at Wembley from tonight
Theatre Twelfth Night
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Until Oct 25 TV Hostage
Netflix ★★☆☆☆ At the beginning of five-part mini-series Hostage, we are informed that prime minister Abigail Dalton (Suranne Jones) went into politics to “really help people”. Right, I thought, this should make a cracking comedy. But no, that line was being delivered for real. A kidnapping, an NHS crisis and a sex scandal all follow in Netflix’s new political thriller – but sometimes less is more, writes Keith Watson. | Top of the crops Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes...
A couple of days ago, this section posed the question: has Britain stopped picking blackberries? Autumn is beckoning, the hedges glint with fruit – and there, according to several readers, much of it remains, sadly unharvested. What is going on?
Well, I’ve had a bumper crop of responses assuring me that rumours of this tradition’s demise are somewhat exaggerated. “I went blackberrying only yesterday with my 15-year-old granddaughter,” wrote Gillian Loveday. “She managed to stay off her phone the whole time. She said it was quite absorbing, and compared it to searching for sea glass on the coast.”
One thing that puts people off this activity, it seems, is the prospect of tangling with brambles. But Peter Alexander has “solved the problem. I wear a pair of heavy-duty motorbike trousers and boots, which allow me to wade straight in. This means I leave a trail for others who are less protected”.
That’s public service for you. Sylvia Quixley described an alternative technique: “One afternoon, I watched a horse carefully picking and eating blackberries. He rolled back his lips so that he didn’t catch them on a thorn. I have no idea how he came to learn this skill. It certainly worked.”
So you’ve acquired your fruit, with only minimal battle scratches. Then what? Angela Heather, a stalwart blackberry picker since childhood, “freezes them for use in sweet and savoury dishes throughout the year: apple and blackberry crumble, venison stew... Delicious”.
Diana Burnett, meanwhile, recommended “blackberry gin, which is ideal in the winter months”. If that doesn’t have you grabbing your baskets and racing to the nearest hedgerow... As ever, you can contact me here, or head to our Your Say page, on the Telegraph app. | Make your voice heard Join our journalists in conversation on today’s biggest topics One year for £29 | Plan your day with the telegraph | Set your alarm to catch up with journalists on the Your Say page and listen to their analysis on our latest podcasts.
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The solution to yesterday’s clue was UNPLUGGED. Come back tomorrow for the answer to today’s puzzle. | | Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.
Chris Evans, Editor
P.S. I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here. | |
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