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Category: Education, languages and health

Schools need to prepare today’s students to tackle global challenges

Schools need to prepare today’s students to tackle global challenges

Professor Peter Twinning, Professor of Education (Futures) at The Open University discusses why the UK’s school system needs to change. Traditional models of schooling are based on a desire for standardisation and compliance, for a mass of industrial age ‘production line’ workers (with the majority of the small number of leaders and thinkers coming from […]

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The OU has the highest number of students declaring a mental health condition in the UK

The OU has the highest number of students declaring a mental health condition in the UK

On University Mental Health Day (7 March), The Open University has announced that it has the highest number of students declaring a mental health condition across the UK (6,025), and that proportion has increased year-on-year over the past 10 years. As a proud supporter of University Mental Health Day, it’s essential that as the debate about […]

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Keep reading to children into their teenage years, urge experts

Keep reading to children into their teenage years, urge experts

Only 32% of British children under 13 are read to daily by an adult, for pleasure, down 9% since 2012, according to the annual reading habits survey by Nielsen Book Research. The research also reveals that most parents stop reading to their child by the age of eight. Teresa Cremin, Professor of Literacy and a […]

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Meet the Expert: Martin Weller

Meet the Expert: Martin Weller

Last month, Martin Weller, Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University delivered his inaugural lecture to an audience of over 200. As part of the OU’s 50th anniversary celebrations, Martin examined the meaning of the term ‘open’ and considered what an ‘Open University’ would look like if we were to invent it now. Martin has […]

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Report finds an urgent need for independent regulation of social media

Report finds an urgent need for independent regulation of social media

On Monday 18 February 2019, the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee published its long awaited final report on Disinformation and ‘fake news’. The report covered an enquiry that spanned 18 months, oral evidence from 73 witnesses including The Open University, over 4350 questions and a final ‘International Grand Committee’ meeting in November 2018. Its […]

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Sleeping teenager

Teens sleep debate is a health issue, says OU academic

As MPs debate whether the school day should start later, The OU’s Dr Paul Kelley said there are biological reasons why teenagers do stay up late and lie in longer. A petition of more than 179,000 signatures online has sparked the debate on Monday February 11 in Parliament, focused on schools in England, to consider […]

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Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week

Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental health problems affect 1 in 10 children and young people, with more than half (56%) saying that they worry ‘all the time’ about at least one thing to do with their school life, home life or themselves. As we mark Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week (4-10 February), Dr Jackie Musgrave, Programme Leader for Early Childhood and Primary […]

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Time to Talk Day – importance of friendship

Time to Talk Day – importance of friendship

On the 7 February 2019, it’s Time to Talk Day – a day to encourage conversations about mental health and raise funds and awareness for charities, Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. Mental health affects one in four of us each year in the UK, with anxiety and depression being the most common problems. Even with so […]

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How do junk food adverts affect your children? – new OpenLearn course gives us the facts

How do junk food adverts affect your children? – new OpenLearn course gives us the facts

The Open University has launched a free OpenLearn course, which explores children’s food, marketing, eating and health in the context of their rights. Children and young people: food and food marketing, asks what the factors are that influence the foods that children eat – is it children’s or parents’ choices? Family or cultural influences? Or the wider food […]

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Millennial burnout: building resilience is no answer – we need to overhaul how we work

Millennial burnout: building resilience is no answer – we need to overhaul how we work

Dr Rajvinder Samra, Lecturer in Health at The Open University discusses millennial burnout for The Conversation. In a popular BuzzFeed article, Anne Helen Petersen describes how millennials (people born between 1981 and 1996) became “the burnout generation”. She describes some of the stark consequences of edging towards burnout and identifies what she calls “errand paralysis”, marked by […]

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