Mike Ratcliffe

@mike-rat

Student and university administrator

92 Following563 Followers1,085 Posts

Is this your profile?Claim it and mike-rat.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

It’s graduation season; a wonderful time. Most students only go once, but a group of friends has been going to each other’s ceremonies all week. So they are now able to do comparisons that normally only seasoned attendees pick up on. Key is an enthusiastic presiding officer. And merch.

Andy Haldane - an enthusiastic presiding officer

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 23d

Sheffield Dip Ed Exam 1960 ‘the interaction of English education and industrial development’. Questions on the growth of science and engineering, war as incubator of technological progress or the origins of Colleges of Advanced Technology…

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD.
EXAMINATION FOR THE UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA IN EDUCATION AND THE INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION'S
CERTIFICATE IN EDUCATION, 1960.
MONDAY, May 30th. 2-4.30.
EDUCATION V (F).
THE INTERACTION OF ENGLISH EDUCATION AND
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.
Answer THrEE questions.
The numbers of the questions attempted should be written, in the order in which they are worked, on the outside of the script.
1. "Britain is a piece of coal surrounded by fish."
How did these two facts affect the growth of British science and engineering?
2. Account for the predominance of nonconformist scientists and industrial innovators in the eighteenth century.
. 3. How far is it true to say that the 1870 Education Act was the most effective Factory Act of the century?
4. Sketch the historical development and importance of the Royal Society of Arts during the first century of its foundation.
Turn over

"War is the greatest incubator of technological progress." Discuss, in the light of the Napoleonic or Crimean War, the validity of this statement.
6. Estimate the influence of Germany on the development of scientific education in Britain in the nineteenth century.
7. What was the Science and Art Department? In what ways did it affect the development of English education ?
8. Write a short account of the origins and development of Colleges of Advanced Technology.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 23d

Sheffield Dip Ed Exam 1960 ‘Some Problems of Mass Education’. Questions on visual education, new media, visual aids, ‘is television a new medium or a new menace’?

2
4. "The educational rôle of (sound) broadcasting consists essentially in arousing latent intellectual curiosity in the listener, and in encouraging it to pass from a state of potentiality to definite and practical action " (Report of the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation,
1935). Discuss.
5. Is television a new medium or a new menace?
Evaluate in your answer recent work on the effects of television in our modern society.
6. The Where Committee on Children and the Cinema in 1950 commented: " A large number of films are exposing children regularly to the suggestion that the highest values in life are riches, power, luxury and public adulation and that it does not matter very much how these are attained or used." Evaluate the remedies which have been suggested for the propagation of false values in films.
7. Outline the methods which you would adopt to give secondary school children an understanding of what Professor M. M. Swann has called " the inaccuracy and extreme selectiveness of even the good newspaper and much more of the bad ones"
8. Write a critical account of the development in Britain since 1900 of either museums or art galleries.
9. What ought the basic functions of the various means of mass communication to be in modern society?

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 23d

Here’s some exam questions for the 1960 Dip Ed at Sheffield. What are the drawbacks of minimum entry qualifications to Higher Education? What current educational ideas are likely to be outdated by technology? (Staying in former hall of residence which has sets of past exam papers as decoration)

Either: Summarize and discuss the arguments used in the Crowther Report in favour of the raising of the school-leaving age.
Or: Discuss the assertion that if the Crowther Report had explored the possibilities of making entrance to an English university open only to those who could, at the time of entry, show themselves to be both numerate and literate, that such an exploration would have affected the education of all grammar and public school children and might have made it necessary to devise a new examination in place of the outmoded "O" level.
[Turn over]

9. How far do present trends in education solve the problem of vocational preparation?
10. How far have recent developments in educational finance and administration reversed a previous tendency to link aid to closer control?
11. What current educational ideas are likely to be outdated by a further decade of accelerating technological development ?

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 23d

Former sites of HEIs: a series. Sheffield City Training College opened in 1905. In 1966 it was renamed the Sheffield City College of Education. It merged with Sheffield Polytechnic in 1976. It is, for now, a campus of Sheffield Hallam. #histed

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 23d

Bring on the new ‘Greater Oxford’ unitary authority. Report overgrown tree via FixMyStreet County says to email City. I email City. City forwards email to County. County emails me to ask I post it on FixMyStreet …

Screenshot of FixMyStreet

New updates on
Footpath obstructed by tree.
Thank you for your report.
Please contact Oxford Direct Services Parks and Open Spaces team via their email odsparks@odsgroup.co.uk
State changed to: Investigation complete
Oxfordshire County Council

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 24d

It’s interesting that the Northampton Institute building is something of a response to the Martyr’s memorial church which pre-dated it. Now the church is long gone. historicengland.org.uk/images-books...

Photo of the Church next to the site of City University before it was built.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· 26d

Excellent to see Sir Gavin Williamson reprising his graduation speech at RCL, talking about the value of a British degree. This time he is wearing a Liverpool PhD gown (but not the hood). Not sure what the gown was last time. www.youtube.com/live/OGnQECY...

Sir Gavin - in Liverpool gown but not the hood.

Sir Gavin at the winter graduation- gown looks a bit like Bath or Bradford, but isn’t.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 11

A proportion of the drivers who go the wrong way in New High Street in Headington can’t know it’s a one-way street. Apparently @oxfordshirecc.bsky.social can’t repaint the road entry, but this is so regular that something needs to be done quicker than ‘later in the year’.

Car driving the wrong way (note the very big arrow on the road)

Car turning in a one way street (note the shark on the left)

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 10

Does Unite Group mention a long term strategy for dealing with rubbish from its accommodation?

The rubbish at Beech House, a Unite property in Headington. The yellow line you can see is the disabled car parking space.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 9

You have to admire the approach of some of the colleges to the approach from the Royal Commission in 1850 for information about their statutes and expenditures. Try writing back to the OfS thus: “I am desired respectfully to state we do not feel ourselves at liberty to publish information”

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 8

Final question on the performance of the HE regulator: Phillipson says OfS had been politicised, but now has a much better focus. She praised its excellent chair and its focus on financial sustainability but also on access and information for students.

Ruskin College - with banners for the summer schools in occupation.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 8

Theme of freedom ran through the speech - but to make this work there needs to be real choice. Phillipson stresses that for too many young people filling in the UCAS form is the only prestigious choice as the other choices not valued.

Bridget Phillipson taking questions at Ruskin College

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 8

Focus on early years in Bridget Phillipson’s keynote at Ruskin - a comprehensive education from birthplace to workplace. On HE, it’s wonderful that there’s much more access but it’s not felt evenly, plus there needs to be parity of esteem across academic and technical routes.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 7

Hello delayrepay, my old friend I've come to talk with you again…

Trains cancelled to Oxford because of ‘severe weather’

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 6

I have just the shirt. As there’s limited opportunity to be seen in it while the game is on, I wore it on Saturday.

T shirt from the Philosophy Football team - issued for the 2000 Euros. Tintin - whose name is on the back (not shown)

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 4

A nice piece for a concert on 4 July is Ives Variations on ‘America’ where the “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” theme has a different resonance here.

St Giles orchestra at St Michael & All Angels , Summertown

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 2

Of the 21 members of the House of Lords that spoke in the debate today, 12 have direct links to Oxford. Baroness Deech is a former head of house and 3 current heads of colleges spoke. Oxford doesn’t need to be so well represented in a crisis that it is mostly inoculated from.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 2

A @houseoflords.parliament.uk debate on higher education is always worth engaging with, although there’s a tendency towards supporting the elite end of the sector. Baroness Deech opening the debate by calling for more hierarchy: even so far as a return to Polytechnics.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jul 1

Presumably WTC is one of the 13 providers whose registration application was not paused in Dec 2024 and were in progress in July 2025. Franchise providers with 300 or more students need to submit an application by today ahead of new finance rules in 28/29.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 30

OfS register news - one new provider. Westminster Theological Centre is Registered - fee cap. It offers a PT BA and MA in kingdom theology, based in Cheltenham but delivered through hub churches. This is the first new registration since Sept 25 (also intrigued by empty rows in the spreadsheet)

Westminster Theological Centre’s entry on the register

There are empty rows in the OfS register spreadsheet. More providers coming?

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 29

Also, worth recalling UCL is the original commuter university in England - designed explicitly for students living at home. In his pitch to set it up Thomas Campbell worked out how many ‘middling rich’ families lived within a two hour walking distance of the site. #histed

Slide from AUA presentation (from 2015)

For effectively and multifariously teaching, examining, exercising and rewarding with honours in the liberal arts and sciences the youth of our middling rich people... an establishment availing itself of all the
experience and experiments that can be appealed to for facilitating the art of teaching, a University combining the advantages of public and private education, the emulative spirit produced by examination before numbers, and by honours conferred before the public, the cheapness or domestic residence and all the moral influence that results from home.
Extract from letter of Thomas Campbell to Mr Brougham, published in the Times, 9 February 1825, quoted in Allchin, W, 1905, An Account of the Reconstruction of the University of London

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 29

History of higher education puts change into perspective. . Modern universities “tend to be over-weighted with professional and vocational training ... a [new] small university … should concern itself primarily with the kind of higher education that produces general culture” Exeter 1955 #histed

Slide from 2015 AUA South West Regional Conference -
University of Exeter 1955
The modern university tends to be over-weighted with professional and vocational training and its vast laboratories for science and technology tend to overshadow the provision which is made for liberal studies. In an industrial age in which great store is set by professional training at the highest levels ... it may be fitting that a small university with a highly-developed residential system and located in a historic city in a non-industrial region, should concern itself primarily with the kind of higher education that produces general culture and avoids some of the pitfalls of excessive specialization.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 29

History of higher education puts change into perspective. The rise of new technologies can be overstated; here Prof AJ Grant notes that printing didn’t eliminate teaching and neither will new innovations. This is 1930 and he’s referring to the claims made about radio. #histed

Slide from AUA presentation given in 2015: Academic Life

Perhaps the professor may be eliminated someday and his place taken by a loud speaker symbolically robed in cap and gown. But I think not. The one thing that counts in education is the impact of mind on mind. The invention of printing did not eliminate the teacher and the lecture; and there is little probability that the less important inventions of our own era will have that result...
Grant, AJ, 1930 'Academic Life' in Martin (ed) The life of a Modern University, London, Student Christian Movement Press pp31-32b

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 21

Another fine Sunday, another set of contractors working away on the Old Rd Campus. This time it’s the Global Health building - which is at internal fit out, but there’s still noisy machinery operating on site until 4pm.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 20

There’s a plethora of frameworks, conditions, advice and guidance from the OfS, here @smitajamdar.bsky.social & @registrarism.bsky.social sensibly call for it to be sorted out. Reminder of how you could regulate half the HE sector, mostly through one handbook (there was PCFC too).

The CNAA handbook for 1991-92 - the definitive guide to how the polytechnic and college sector was regulated.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 19

A small consolation for a ruined evening (no lecture on HE at St John’s, no concert in the new concert hall at the Schwarzman Centre) is a brief visit to the UK Defence Academy at Shrivenham on the bus from Swindon to Oxford.

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 19

Train stuck outside Didcot, but affords a fine view of this data centre. It’s built like a medieval castle - there are two rows of walls and it has ramparts and on one side there’s even a moat. Maybe the computing power in there could make the signals work…

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 19

A trip back to Bristol and GWR can’t find enough staff to run the quicker and cheaper train.

Screen shot of National Rail:

journey has been cancelled because of a shortage of train crew
07:00 Cancelled
Bristol Temple Meads (BRI)
1h 20m • 4 stops • Great Western Railway

Mike Ratcliffe@mike-rat· Jun 16

OfS degree awarding powers news. The Power to Award Degrees etc. (New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering) (Amendment) Order 2026 amends the 2023 Order by extending it one year. Presumably still limited to this subject list (OfS now just uses broader subject codes)