A new website offers a team of Oxford and Cambridge graduates

A new website, , offers “a team of Oxford and Cambridge graduates” to write coursework at anything from GCSE to degree level.For an undisclosed fee, the site will write and research essays for unmotivated but well-off students.”Whatever your subject, whatever your level, our writers can produce a lucid, incisive document on whatever you desire,” the site, which is operated by the Bristol-based company Student Media Services Ltd, boasts.”Writing Direct Limited has access to textbooks and mark schemes from many of the top exam boards. The teachers also complained that the time spent administering coursework created too much extra work and reduced the amount of time available for teaching.HOW THE WEB COMES TO THE RESCUEStudents and school pupils without the time or the inclination to do their own homework can now employ others to do it for them over the internet. Some teachers said the amount of coursework should be determined by the nature of the subject being studied, with subjects which were perceived as “academic” – such as science or maths – being assessed by examinations, and subjects which were regarded as “creative” or “practical” – such as art or design and technology – being assessed by coursework. Mr Tomlinson has criticised the coursework arrangements, saying students are often forced to duplicate very similar coursework in each subject.The poll of 1,707 secondary school teachers showed that teachers believe coursework should continue to contribute to exam grades: 73 per cent said it should be part of GCSE courses; 61 per cent said it should be part of AS courses; and 64 per cent said it should be part of A-level courses. But they were opposed to the idea of unlimited coursework: only one per cent believed there should be no upper limit on the amount of coursework. It is regarded as a means to an end.” Teachers were concerned that the assignments also favoured girls over boys, and gave middle-class candidates an advantage over students from poorer backgrounds.The report concluded: “It was felt that well-motivated girls benefited from coursework, but that it was less favourable to boys. It was felt also that students from backgrounds of social disadvantage were unable to achieve as highly in coursework assignments relative to middle-class students, who were perceived to gain from a higher level of parental support in completing the assignments, and would be more likely to have access to resources such as the internet, which would assist them in the completion of coursework.”The survey comes as Mike Tomlinson, the former chief inspector of schools, is conducting a review of secondary education and is proposing scrapping coursework in individual subjects in favour of one lengthy dissertation.

“As a result, pupils are not developing their ability to work independently and manage their work.”Another teacher said: “Coursework is becoming an activity that is purely jumping through hoops, and the pupils often cannot recognise the value of it as a result. “Unfortunately, the pressure on teachers (and pupils) to achieve grades is resulting in a lot of schools falling into the trap of “spoon-feeding” coursework,” he said. “It was also commented that students with internet access could now readily copy information for inclusion in a coursework project, and some respondents said that it was possible to download specifically tailored coursework assignments.”One teacher who responded to the survey complained that pupils were being “spoon-fed” and were not learning to work independently. He said it was “the sort of idea somebody comes up with in a bar on a Saturday night between ’string ‘em all up’ and ’send ‘em all all home’”.. Middle-class students are cheating the system by completing their GCSE and A-level coursework with too much help from their parents and the internet, a survey of teachers has found. Do we really want a law that says you can slaughter anyone who climbs in your window?”Journalists on Today are thought to have been taken aback by the choice of their listeners. Observers had assumed that the winning suggestion might be a little more light-hearted – and a little less illiberal.Indeed, there were suspicions the vote may have been hijacked by supporters of Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who was jailed for shooting a burglar.

The winning proposal enjoyed a late surge in support in the final 24 hours of the poll, a jump attributed by the BBC to the fact that telephone votes – which were more firmly in favour of the anti-burglar proposal – were added at the last minute.Today’s long-running Personality of the Year poll was scrapped in 1997, after persistent attempts by political parties to fix it.Mr Pound will go through the motions of presenting the Bill to Parliament but hoped he would fail. the bastards.”Having recovered his composure, Mr Pound told The Independent: “We are going to have to re-evaluate the listenership of Radio 4. I would have expected this result if there had been a poll in The Sun. It was trailed as a “unique chance to rewrite the law of the land”. Listeners to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme were asked to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Britain, with the promise that an MP would then attempt to get it onto the statute books.
But yesterday, 26,000 votes later, the winning proposal was denounced as a “ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation” – by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament.Mr Pound’s reaction was provoked by the news that the winner of Today’s “Listeners’ Law” poll was a plan to allow homeowners “to use any means to defend their home from intruders” – a prospect that could see householders free to kill burglars, without question.”The people have spoken,” the Labour MP replied to the programme, “… Emily added another bank, Abbey National (531p).Asked what she would do if she had loads of money, Emily replied: “I would buy a huge truck with a whole town on it.” When pressed she came up with Tibbett & Britten (404.5p) in the transport sector.And after a long City-style lunch of fish fingers and Ribena, Emily resumed her random walk with Britannic Group, the insurer (292.25p), Kesa Electricals (257.25p), owner of the Comet stores, Millennium & Copthorne (303p), the hotels group, and nCipher (152p), the software and computer group.. Benjamin’s worst share was Diagonal, a technology stock, but he struck lucky with Punch Taverns – perhaps chosen because it sounded like another children’s character – whose expansion in 2003 more than doubled the share price.This year’s tipster is Emily, aged five, daughter of the current City Editor, Damian Reece.