Lucinda Preston

Concern over plunging demand for arts and humanities A-levels - Research Professional News Experts say “ridiculously narrow” UK post-16 education system is overweighting scientific courses

And yet these will be the key subjects as creativity, empathy and critical thinking become the most important facets of living in an automated world. We have got almost everything about post-16 education wrong. We need to go back to the beginning. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

Absolutely disgraceful. Shameful, actually.

I come from a poor and also quite challenging background/family situation. My qualifications were - and remain - transformative. My education shaped career and self-esteem. This idea that your schooling doesn’t really matter troubled me.

Totally agree with this. Time and again people say things to me which is downright David Icke style stuff. Every couple of days I'm reminded that the formal news agenda of the BBC etc hides a completely different and subterranean world of pseudo-news communicated via WhatsApp and Facebook.

Feel your pain! I struggled with DT at school!

The people working around you have talent !! Foster that, encourage them, and allow them to thrive in who they are and what they do - all. the. time. #HR #HRCommunity #GlobalHR #EncouragementFriday

Really - anyone who seriously believes there will be a free and fair US Presidential election in 2028, please contact me about some magic beans I have going cheap. I'm throwing in London Bridge for free.

Starmer's best moment as PM And the Powellisation of conservative thought

Have written about Starmer's speech- his best moment yet as PM. He implicitly identified what sits at the heart of this story: the emergence of a common UK/US online right, headed by the radicalised Musk.

It is making extremist, until recently fringe politics mainstream in British conservatism.

Lately, the winter sunsets have been beautiful. My phone can’t quite capture the colours and gorgeous patterns.

How Dickens made Christmas white In the UK, Christmas is usually snowless. So why do we still picture the ‘ideal’ Christmas as a white one?

Of course, the snowy, unusual 1810s. (1786 was another famous cold snap in London.) Surprised I’m only coming across this now in connection with Dickens’ childhood, but we think more about climate patterns these days. #EnvHist 🗃️

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Merry Christmas Bluesky people! 🎄🎄🎄

A timeline titled "The Golden Age of Antibiotics" shows when each antibiotic drug class was first available for medical use, with example antibiotics labeled. Classes are color-coded by their source: actinomycetes, other bacteria, fungi, or synthetic. Milestones include the first antibiotics (arsphenamines in 1910), as well as the discovery of many actinomycetes-derived antibiotics, such as streptomycin, and sulfonamides, penicillins, and tetracyclines. Data: Hutchings, Truman, Wilkinson (2019). Created by Saloni Dattani for Our World in Data.

Many people talk about the "Golden Age of Antibiotics", but I hadn't seen it visualized properly.

Just how many types of antibiotics were discovered during that time?

So, I visualized it myself!

Photo shows Charles Handy 1932 - 2024

It is with great sadness that we heard of the passing of Charles Handy. He transformed the way we understand workplaces, leadership, and the human spirit within organisations, leaving an indelible mark on the #HR profession and the CIPD community. His work is a cornerstone of CIPD qualifications.

So many people think 'oh it'll all be okay'. Just like so many people thought 'oh, Dems will pull it out in the end, the other side are loopy'. Nope, and... nope. It might not be okay. Just like it wasn't okay in November.

Jewish students ‘alienated’ as antisemitic incidents at new high Number of university-related antisemitic incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust doubles, with spike of reports in October 2023

Antisemitism is a scourge - an ancient, insidious hatred that acts like a barometer of a society's moral health. We in universities must do more to attack it head on and root it out.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/jewish-...

And it's largely better because the target was reduced and we had more applications from outside the EU.

Gertrud Kauders 10: My great aunt Gertrud Kauders’ works were concealed behind the walls of a Prague house before the Nazis murdered her, were forgotten and found by chance in 2018. Almost 700 works, her whole studio. Single at a cafe.

"Students in the North East are facing a double blow as rising tuition fees and dwindling access to arts and humanities courses narrow their choices and increase financial pressures"

The GE petition that’s got 417k signatures is fake.

As in, bots.

It got 300k signatures OVER NIGHT.

And the activity graph is incredibly uniform.

This is a manipulation, and I’ll be interested what the parliamentary petitions committee investigation will be like.

Infographic titled 'Top 10 Evidence-Based Tips for Building High-Performing Teams' by CIPD. 1 Match skills to roles 2 Focus on skills first 3 Build trust 4 Create a safe space 5 Encourage team bonding 6 Align on thinking 7 Promote open sharing 8 Know team strengths 9 Reflect as a team 10 Celebrate effort

Top-10 CIPD evidence-based tips for building high performing teams. 🚀 Would you make any additions to our list?

You can read our full report and more recommendations for practice here: www.cipd.org/en/knowledge... #HR #Teams

We are all prone to mind-wandering when we read complex texts. This small university study indicates training students on some reflective metacognitive strategies can reduce mind-wandering:

psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

High-ranking Sheffield University departments among those targeted by redundancies Top performing courses and departments at the University of Sheffield have been identified among those targeted by redundancies.

Heartbreaking. These are high ranking departments - the architecture department is the top one in the country. I despair to see my old university in this state. www.thestar.co.uk/education/hi...

My old university. This makes me so sad.

I vividly remember the excitement of snow but after just five minutes of making a snowman, my hands would be hurting with cold and I’d be desperate to go back inside.

A glorious thread!

Don’t we want to be ambitious for our country? HE has been one of our success stories. Humanities aren’t the same as STEM. Maybe a student wants to attend institution A for History as it offers a brilliant module on poor laws but another student chooses B because Imperial Rome is their interest.

I agree. So much wrong with this. Where do you start? 😩

Wow. Wrong on so many levels. No course is exactly the same. Why shouldn’t students choose a course with particular modules they like? This would hit students less able to travel far. Why are people like this working in HE?

A depressing article but, sadly, pretty much spot on.