Category
A statutory framework setting out the subjects and content that must be taught — and the crucial point is that a large proportion of English schools are not required to follow it, which surprises
A judgement about a school's provision against a published framework — and the system has changed substantially, which matters for interpreting any report you read. The single-word judgements —
Not criticism, and not scepticism about everything — it means evaluating the strength of a claim's support rather than reporting the claim. What tutors are actually asking for when feedback says
They differ in structure, purpose and how the reader is expected to use them — and marks are lost mainly by writing one in the shape of another. Essay. A continuous argument in prose. No headings in
Not front to back — that is the single habit that makes academic reading slow and demoralising, and nobody who does it professionally reads that way. The core principle: read to answer a question,
Very differently from a commercial loan — the amount you repay each month depends on your income, not on how much you borrowed, which changes almost every intuition people bring to it. The mechanics:
They differ on two axes that matter: whether you repay it, and what qualifies you for it. Loan. Money you repay. In the UK student finance system, tuition fee loans and maintenance loans are repaid
Peer review is the process by which a journal asks other researchers in a field to assess a submitted paper before publication — and understanding what it does and does not check is essential to
Clearing is the process that matches applicants without a confirmed place to courses with vacancies — and its reputation as a last resort for failure is substantially out of date. Who goes through
The terms overlap confusingly, and in Britain they mean different things from their American usage — which is the main source of the confusion. University. An institution with degree-awarding powers,
The evidence is unusually favourable for a decision students frequently agonise over — graduates who completed a placement year tend to do better on employment outcomes, and the mechanisms behind
In England, apprenticeships are labelled by a level number that maps onto the national qualifications framework — so the number tells you the academic equivalence, not the trade or the duration. The
Through a structured process designed to produce consistency across many markers, which is a harder problem than marking accuracy itself. The mark scheme. Written alongside the paper, it specifies
Contact hours are the timetabled hours you spend with academic staff — lectures, seminars, tutorials, labs and supervised practicals. They are typically a minority of the total study time a course
The measured rise in grades is real and well documented. Why it happened is genuinely contested, and the term itself smuggles in an assumption worth examining. What the data shows. Across many
To give admissions tutors evidence of suitability and motivation for the subject that grades alone cannot provide. It is not an autobiography, and the most common failure is treating it as one. What
They are two levels of support for children with special educational needs in England, differing in who decides, what is legally enforceable, and how it is funded. SEN support is the first level,
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty primarily affecting the accuracy and fluency of word reading and spelling. It is neurological in origin, persists across the lifespan, and is unrelated to
Scaffolding is temporary support that enables a learner to do something they could not manage alone, withdrawn progressively as they become able to do it independently. The construction metaphor is
They differ in size, and size determines everything else about how they work and what you should do in them. Lecture. One academic presenting to a large group — dozens to hundreds. The purpose is
Dual coding is combining words and visuals so that information is processed through two channels rather than one. It has reasonable evidence behind it and is frequently confused with the discredited
They are different qualification types in England, differing in how they are assessed and what they prepare you for. GCSEs. Taken at around 16, at the end of compulsory secondary education. Typically
Metacognition is thinking about your own thinking — specifically, knowing what you know, monitoring how well learning is going, and adjusting your approach accordingly. It is consistently among the
Because the boundaries are the mechanism that keeps the standard constant when the paper is not. The underlying problem. It is impossible to write two exams of exactly equal difficulty. Question