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Expulsion for ‘hackers’ who ‘changed their marks’

A school in California, US, has expelled 11 students after they were accused of hacking teachers’ computers and changing their marks. It is believed that “keyloggers” – devices or software that record the keystrokes of people using a computer – were used to help students gain access. Police want to interview a 28-year-old private tutor in connection with the incident. The school, Corona Del Mar High in Newport Beach, said it was investigating the scope of the cheating scandal and is reportedly re-examining 750,000 grades.

If you've written a review for Education Matters on the Best of Salford website, one of you has won £100!!!!!!! I don't know who, but it will be announced on Salford City Radio this evening!

Tackling truancy has a dramatic impact on student attainment, a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has found.

High-performing school systems, such as those in Japan and in Shanghai, China, have relatively low truancy rates, according to the OECD, which runs the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa).

On average, 18 per cent of students skipped at least one class and 15 per cent missed an entire day in the two weeks before the last round of Pisa tests in 2012, the report says. In Argentina, more than 40 per cent of students missed at least one day, while just 0.6 per cent in Shanghai skipped a day.

The OECD report shows that, on average, children who skipped one or two days of school in the two weeks before the tests gained scores of 52 points lower than those who did not miss any school in that time.

Pisa has found that schools can help to reduce truancy by improving the disciplinary climate in classrooms. Students who got on with their teachers and felt they were listened to were less likely to play truant.

Shutting schools because of occasional bad weather, such as snow, does not adversely affect learning, according to a study from Harvard University. The research, led by academic Joshua Goodman, aims to put to an end to the perennial winter argument of whether schools should try to stay open during periods of heavy snow. The report analyses seven years of US test results, concluding that there is no evidence of snow closures damaging learning. Student absenteeism through sickness or truancy was a much bigger problem, Professor Goodman said.