Class leader: Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted’s chief schools inspector 

The watchdog said outstanding schools could have their status reviewed if their teaching was not judged to be of the top level. It is understood around 1,000 schools would meet this criteria and could stand to lose their top grade rating.

In his first keynote speech this morning, Sir Michael said: “We need clear and demanding criteria for a school to be judged good or outstanding.

“A good school should have at least good teaching, and an outstanding school should have outstanding teaching.

“Good and outstanding leadership of teaching and learning drives improvement and knows that the culture of the school and the progress of pupils depend on it.”

Under new grading guidelines, the satisfactory rating will also be replaced by a rating of “requires improvement” in a bid to improve teaching.

A high school principal in Halifax County is taking an unusual approach in an effort to get more of his students to go to college.

Marvin Bradley, who is in his first year at Northwest Halifax High School, has renamed the 11 buildings on the Littleton campus after state colleges – East Carolina University, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Wesleyan College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to name a few.

It’s part of a bigger effort to change the culture of the school, which has had a graduation rate of less than 75 percent for several years.

Last year, 73.8 percent of seniors graduated up from 57.8 percent two years earlier. Of every student who graduates, about two-thirds go on to a college or university.

Over the next two years, Bradley says, his goal is to see 80 percent of seniors graduating and going on to college.

“I think what our students need, more than anything else, is the guidance and the leadership,” said Bradley, who comes from Chicago Public Schools, where he specialized in turning schools around.

Halifax County Schools – one of three school systems in the county – is in the midst of a three-year, intensive program aimed at boosting student performance.

A Superior Court judge ordered the state to intervene in 2009, calling the district’s test scores “academic genocide.”

Nearly half of the state’s 13 lowest-performing schools have been in Halifax County, according to the state’s 2011 ABCs of Education report, and state numbers last year showed six of the district’s 11 schools didn’t improve student performance as expected – including Northwest.

That’s where Bradley comes in with his mission to change the school’s culture.

A makeover is also in store to give students more confidence about their school. He plans to repave the school’s parking lot and sidewalks.

He’s also placed a mission statement in the front of the school to get students to take their studies more seriously. The mission: “to offer a diverse education curriculum that will assist students on their path to individual, community and global success.”

And he’s engaging more with students.

“I believe the students need the opportunity, and they can make a difference,” he said. “Once we change the individual, we can change minds. Once we change minds, we can change our creation and where we are.”

Parents and students alike are excited.

“I think he’s doing a great job,” mother Sherri Patterson said.

Student body president Carissa Manley says she’s noticed a change in students’ attitudes and hopes Bradley’s efforts will help get more students like her to college and to achieve her dreams.

“Halifax has instilled in me to push for that, push forever forward.” she said.

And Bradley says he’ll keep pushing forward to meet his goal.

Everyone struggles with some amount of anxiety when taking a test like the GMAT, but some people struggle more than others. Stress can also affect your preparation before you ever get to the test center – if you’re too stressed out when studying, that will hurt your ability to make and recall memories. So what can we do to reduce studying and test-taking stress?

Know what’s coming

If you haven’t already, read the first blog post in this series:In It To Win It. The nutshell: you’re not trying to get everything right. Nobody gets everything right, including me and other 99^th percentile testers!

If you have the right attitude going into the test, that will help significantly. I like to pretend that I’m playing tennis. Nobody expects to win every single point in a tennis match – that’d be silly. But I do expect to win more points than my opponent, and I don’t stress out when I lose some points.

You will of course need to know what’s coming in terms of the formulas and rules and so on. But also know that you’re not going to know everything and that’s okay.

Manage your time well

When people try to get everything right, they often mess up the timing. Discovering that you’re behind on time just compounds your stress and makes everything worse, so we have to know how to manage time well all the way through the test. We also need to know what to do if we find ourselves in trouble on the timing.

Read this time management article and start incorporating its recommendations into your study right away.

DUCHESNE Bob Hoopes has been a teacher at Duchesne Elementary School for the past 32 years.

“I even did my student teaching here,” Hoopes said Monday with an ebullient smile.

But this school year is different than any in the past.

In addition to teaching his fifth-graders, Hoopes now teaches a special 30-minute math class each day for a combined class of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. The students are placed in the class based on their standardized testing scores from the 2010-11 school year.

The new program groups students together based on their mathematic proficiency to provide focused instruction that helps them improve their skills, said Duchesne Elementary Principal Jason Young.

“You have the kids that you’re going too slow for them, and they’ve got it and they’re bored. They’re ready to move on,” Young said. “You’ve got other students that can’t catch up. You have this wide range, and it’s frustrating to everyone.”

Young and his faculty based their math program on a similar one being used in the Sevier School District. Both the Duchesne and Sevier school districts are among 10 districts and 13 charter schools in the state that use Northwest Evaluation Association testing as part of a pilot program, according to the Utah State Office of Education.

NWEA scores provide educators with a wealth of specific data on areas of strength and weakness in various subcategories of language arts, reading and math. That information allows teachers to pinpoint their instruction to help kids succeed, Young said.

“Some students, they struggle with a certain area, so they just say, ‘Oh, I’m not good at math,’ and that’s it,” he said. “We’re hoping with this (program) we can catch those gaps and give them some confidence.”

Students at Duchesne Elementary still get one hour of math instruction each day, on top of the new, specialized math class. The program is in its first year, so empirical data hasn’t been gathered about its impact on learning. But anecdotal evidence shows it’s working.

“The feedback I’ve had from parents, from students themselves and from our teachers are that our students are doing better in math,” Young said. “They’re understanding and they’re able to progress at a quicker pace in the regular math class because of the extra help.”

Hoopes said his students’ frustrations with math have faded this year.

“I’m having more fun right now than I’ve ever had in my whole career,” Hoopes said. “It’s kind of hard to think about retirement.”

The new math program has parents excited as well, the veteran teacher said.

“Any time you take a kid by the hand, you take their parents right by the heart,” Hoopes said. “That’s a good thing, and parents are really supportive.”

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Clemson coach Brad Brownell got plenty of congratulations from Tigers fans content with the strong effort they saw in a 73-66 loss to No. 8 Duke.

Brownell’s not buying that for a minute.

“We lost and we’re here to win games,” a disappointed Brownell said Sunday night.

Clemson (9-8, 1-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) did lots of things right against the Blue Devils.

The Tigers started fast, played tight defense to hold Duke’s Austin Rivers and Seth Curry to half their combined scoring average and made several big shots down the stretch to cut the Blue Devils’ 13-point second half lead to 68-64 in the final minute. In the end, Andre Dawkins took over with 24 points off five 3-pointers as Duke (15-2, 3-0) to beat Clemson for the 26th time in 28 meetings.

“We’re not having a great year at all, so everybody can say we had a good effort or that it was a good try,” Brownell said. “You can’t let that fool you.”

Clemson didn’t help itself at the foul line, either, making just half its 20 chances. Milton Jennings, who led the Tigers with 16 points, was 1 of 4 on free throws.

“How many times do you shoot more free throws than Duke?” Brownell said. The Blue Devils were 15 of 18 from the line.

In the end, it was simply too much of Dawkins, Duke’s 6-foot-4 junior.

“Andre is capable of that if we do a good job getting him open,” Duke forward Mason Plumlee said. “He created stuff for himself as well. He met the challenge today and played just unbelievable.”

Dawkins made three foul shots down the stretch after Clemson cut the lead to four points on two 3-pointers by Andre Young, helping the Blue Devils beat Clemson for the 26th time in the last 28 meetings.

If Dawkins “has a bad night, we’re going to win the game,” Tigers coach Brad Brownell said.

Milton Jennings had 16 points for the Tigers and Devin Booker added 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Duke looked as if it had put the game out of reach when it opened the second half on a 14-7 run. Quinn Cook had a jumper and a 3-pointer and Seth Curry added a bucket. Miles Plumlee put back his brother Mason’s miss for two more points. By the time Dawkins made his third 3-pointer of the game, the Blue Devils were ahead 46-33.

The Blue Devils were still in front by 10 points on Rivers’ layup less with less than seven minutes to go when Clemson put on a final charge. Andre Young hit a 3-pointer and K.J. McDaniel a basket to cut the lead to 65-61.

After Dawkins answered with his final three, Young came back with another long-range shot to bring the Tigers within four one last time. That’s when Dawkins extended the margin with his foul shots and Clemson could not respond.

Mason Plumlee scored 12 points and Cook had 10 for the Blue Devils. Miles Plumlee had a game-high 14 rebounds.

Clemson drew a large crowd to Littlejohn Coliseum, partly because of last week’s 20-point win over Florida State in the ACC opener and partly because of the football team’s visiting recruits.

Duke gutted out a 61-58 win over No. 16 Virginia on Thursday night and was prepared for a similar struggle at Littlejohn Coliseum. The Blue Devils came in having won 10 of their past 11 games at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Krzyzewski was so upset after Tanner Smith’s unchallenged drive to the hoop, he called timeout less than two minutes in and replaced his five starters. Clemson’s lead eventually reached 16-7 on Devin Coleman’s foul shot with 11:46 to go in the half.

That’s when Duke began to find its offense. Ryan Kelly scored five points in a two minute span to draw the Blue Devils to 18-14. Mason Plumlee’s three-point play with 5:29 left gave Duke its first lead of the game, 21-20. Seth Curry followed with a high-arcing 3-pointer over Clemson’s 7-foot-2 center Catalin Baciu. Andre Dawkins closed the half with eight straight points and Duke took a 32-28 lead into the break.

The Tigers lost a second straight ACC game after opening league play with a 79-59 win over Florida State last week.