Pupils losing interest due to television "soundbites"

School staff are finding it hard to gauge the interest of pupils because they are more used to television "soundbites", it has been argued.

Speaking at the annual conference of the NASUWT teaching union today, new president Julian Chapman suggested that the attention span of pupils is detrimentally affected by the amount of television they watch.

This, rather than "boring" teaching, is behind the diminishing focus of students, he stated.

And this issue must be addressed if students are to be "engaged" in learning, especially with the government looking to raise the school-leaving age to 18, Mr Chapman said.

"Students' concentration span appears to have been tailored to the sound and vision bite, rather than having to undergo the more rigorous process of in-depth learning," he stated.

Mr Chapman also told delegates at the conference that the "real value" of diplomas for higher education institutions and employers remains unclear to many people in teaching jobs.

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