1 DAY AGO - Elevated passageway connecting Uffizi Galleries with Pitti Palace was for centuries used only by those with powerOver history, dukes, dictators and Europe’s illustrious elite have walked through the Vasari corridor, a narrow, 750-metre-long elevated passageway crossing the Arno River in Florence.Now visitors to the Tuscan capital can follow in their footsteps when the newly restored landmark, which connects the Uffizi Galleries with the Pitti Palace and the Boboli gardens, opens on Saturday to the general public for the first time. Continue reading... Collapse

1 DAY AGO - Survey finds post-1992 universities leading the way on sustainability and ethicsMore universities are banning fossil fuel companies from recruitment fairs in a sign of the sector’s shrinking social licence among young people.The annual survey of sustainability and ethics in higher education found there has been a 30% rise in the number of institutions stopping fossil fuel companies taking part in graduate fairs this year. Continue reading... Collapse

1 DAY AGO - Report argues for more powers, but teachers say this could strain already fraught relationships with parentsMinisters should give teachers the power to fine parents if they do not engage with the school to tackle an “epidemic” of bad behaviour, according to the thinktank led by Tony Blair.Educators should have the same legal powers they have over non-attendance to compel parents to turn up to meetings with the school and agree an action plan for their child, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) says in a new report. Continue reading... Collapse

2 DAYS AGO - My friend Claudette Williams, who has died aged 69 after a heart attack, was an educationist specialising in early years, as well as an author, activist, feminist and campaigner for social justice.Aged 19, she volunteered as a youth worker at Brixton Recreation Centre, south London; she also joined the Black Panthers. Later, she participated as a teacher and organiser in the Ahfiwe supplementary school, set up in the 1970s by Ansel Wong to raise the educational attainment standards of Black children. I first met her in 1979, when we were both members of the Brixton Black Women’s Group, through which, in the mid-1980s, we formed part of a women’s delegation to Nicaragua. Continue reading... Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - Judge says killers home schooled Sara as a ‘ruse’ to hide evidence of 10-year-old’s repeated beatings A senior judge who jailed the killers of Sara Sharif has said the 10-year-old’s murder “starkly illustrates the dangers” of parents automatically being able to homeschool their children.Sara had twice been pulled out of school by her father, Urfan Sharif, and stepmother, Beinash Batool, as a “ruse adopted for wholly selfish purposes” to cover up evidence of her repeated beatings. Continue reading... Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - Ministry of Defence says risk is low and ‘robust safeguards’ have been put in place by suppliersAn artificial intelligence tool hosted by Amazon and designed to boost UK Ministry of Defence recruitment puts defence personnel at risk of being identified publicly, according to a government assessment.Data used in the automated system to improve the drafting of defence job adverts and attract more diverse candidates by improving the inclusiveness language, includes names, roles and emails of military personnel and is stored by Amazon in the US. This means “a data breach may have concerning consequences, ie identification of defence personnel”, according to documents detailing government AI systems published for the first time today.The possibility of inappropriate lesson material being generated by a AI-powered lesson-planning tool used by teachers based on Open AI’s powerful large language model, GPT-4o. The AI saves teachers time and can personalise lesson plans rapidly in a way that Collapse

4 DAYS AGO - Museums are using VR and immersive experiences to boost attendances – and while it can provide an amazing spectacle, critics say it can be an expensive distractionIt starts with a low rumble, then an explosion and a deafening roar. A pyroclastic flow bursts from the volcano and hurtles towards us at a frightening speed. Showers of ash appear to pummel the space around us – well technically, it’s a pumice lapilli unique to Mount Vesuvius – and for a few minutes, visitors to the National Museum of Australia are in Pompeii 1,946 years ago.Immersive experiences, including increasingly sophisticated virtual reality technology, have gone from gimmick to essential component of blockbuster museum exhibitions in recent years, despite criticism from scholarly quarters that whiz-bang special effects can distract viewers from the actual artefacts and exhibits, and are training a future generation to assume entertainment is the primary function of museums.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our Collapse

5 DAYS AGO - The system has been stretched to breaking point. The government needs to come up with a planThe urgent need for reform of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system in England is arguably the greatest challenge facing the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson. A crisis that built up over the past decade, and whose full impact was eased but also disguised by Conservative measures, has escalated to the point where it is impossible to ignore.The number of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which grant statutory entitlements to support, has risen by 180,000 or 71% in six years, and now makes up 5% of all pupils in English schools. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) set out last week, around half the overall increase in school funding over the past decade has gone towards helping these pupils and around 1 million others who have high needs but not an EHCP. But despite funding increases, waiting times for assessment remain high while Collapse

6 DAYS AGO - More than half of students are now using generative AI, casting a shadow over campuses as tutors and students turn on each other and hardworking learners are caught in the flak. Will Coldwell reports on a broken systemThe email arrived out of the blue: it was the university code of conduct team. Albert, a 19-year-old undergraduate English student, scanned the content, stunned. He had been accused of using artificial intelligence to complete a piece of assessed work. If he did not attend a hearing to address the claims made by his professor, or respond to the email, he would receive an automatic fail on the module. The problem was, he hadn’t cheated.Albert, who asked to remain anonymous, was distraught. It might not have been his best effort, but he’d worked hard on the essay. He certainly didn’t use AI to write it: “And to be accused of it because of ‘signpost phrases’, such as ‘in addition to’ and ‘in contrast’, felt very demeaning.” The consequences of the accusation rattled around Collapse