An Englishman's Castle: Education Archives

April 29, 2010

Special School Vouchers

BBC News - David Cameron tackled over special needs in schools

Remember this? Should parents be given choice, should state schools be made to accept special need pupils, why are special schools shunned? Just give the parents of special need children the budget so they can wave the money at the headmasters. Mainstream schools get the extra dosh to accommodate them if they want to or special schools have to smarten up their act if they want to continue.
Simples, it is just the school voucher answer writ large.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 14, 2009

Hurrah for a sensible headteacher and her pupils

Marcus the sheep is dead - Telegraph

The animal was reared by pupils of Lydd Primary School but the school council voted to turn him into lamb chops to complete a project on the origins of food.
Andrea Charman, the school's headteacher, rejected promises of a home for the animal from a number of animal sanctuaries and national newspapers - and from chat show host Paul O'Grady, who already has 11 sheep at his nearby property.
She also braved a storm of criticism from parents on Facebook and in the media.
Ms Charman said the aim was to educate children about the food cycle, and that she had received support from parents, other schools with farms and the general public.
She said in a statement on Saturday: "Since the Wether lamb arrived, it has always been made clear in a tactful and factual way that lambs are meat....the children voted by an overwhelming majority for the lamb to be sold for meat.
"When we started the farm the aim was to educate the children in all aspects of a farm and everything that that implies."

My teacher of the year - and yet again kids are more realistic than the parents.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 4, 2009

An Experiment for Men

Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women - Telegraph
The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.

Now for the test:

A politician looked into a barn. Instead of counting the number of human and cows like a sensible person, he instead counted 74 heads and 196 legs. How many humans and cows are there?

Answer and next part of the test below:

H + C = 74
2H + 4C = 196
(2H + 4C) - (2H + 2C) = 196 - 148
2C = 48
C = 24
H + (24) = 74
H = 74 - 24
H = 50

Not too hard, now try this one - you may want to click on the picture to help concentrate...

What's the capital of France?

QED

Posted by The Englishman at 6:20 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

August 31, 2009

Boys and girls at work and play

Neeeoww! Let’s stick up for boisterous boys
Dreary coursework and earnest women teachers have let pupils down. Many prefer the excitement of sudden-death exams

...In reaction against the days when bigots argued that educating girls caused sterility, and more recent decades when girls were denied sciences other than Domestic, the system has swung over into a bias against boys. As fewer and fewer primary teachers are men (rightly scared of demonisation as child molesters), a feminised culture rises. Boys, says the staffroom, are “exhausting”: lazy, aggressive, disrupters and debunkers, too fond of rude jokes....Quite apart from the literal feminisation of the teaching profession, even school routines militate against young male biology: as fewer children walk to school, boys arrive with natural surplus energy, which it is a torment to suppress. One primary school that used to start with a quiet assembly tried replacing it with ten minutes of energetic running at the start of the day: boys’ disruption in class fell away.....
For those of us who have been uneasy about this for years, and hated the growing triumphalism about girls outperforming boys, there was a considerable buzz in last week’s exam figures. GCSE coursework is a plodding, dreary business, less a test of knowledge and understanding than of compliance and tidy punctuality. It has ruled the roost under new Labour, but after various scandals is gradually being cut down in favour of the more daredevil, challenging ordeal of the “sudden death” exam where you have to pull out all the stops on one hot summer day.
They cut coursework from maths for this year: and what happens? After nearly 20 years of girls outdoing boys in that subject, the moment the coursework is dropped the boys surge slightly ahead. QED. It is only one small proof, but underlines the strong probability that the style, the ethos, the expectations of schools are demoralising boyish boys.
And hear this: such a bias also damages and demoralises quite a few boyish girls, too. For just as some boys are quiet and anxious, some females are not compliant, quiet, teacher-pleasers prone to apple-polishing and recreational times-table-testing. There are swashbuckling girls who take risks, stir things up, laugh at inappropriate moments, hit deadlines in an adrenalin rush, and prefer the risky terror of the examination hall to organised, deliberative female steadiness.

Foreplay vs Vinegar strokes.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 30, 2009

Spelling - I blame the tecahers!

The Times 30/8/2009

And who says standards have dropped....

Posted by The Englishman at 7:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 24, 2009

National Theatre Spamming

NATIONAL THEATRE STRICTLY LIMITED OFFER FOR THE OBSERVER: - Google Search

marketingassistant@nationaltheatre.com is busy spamming this round blog comments; (as webmasters wake up they will be deleted.) "A gripping new play set in West Africa." The Observer and the NT, how more right on and worthy can you get? I know by copying Tamiflu conmen!

Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 21, 2009

School Vouchers Campaign

With both Labour and Conservatives pussyfooting around School Vouchers with talk of parental choice and top-up vouchers for various sub sections of schoolchildren it surely is time for a proper School Voucher campaign.

Is there one already running?
If not the blogosphere ought to start one - anyone volunteer to help? All I can do is swear at the Statist Conscription and point out it has failed, failed and failed again. And if anyone wants to borrow, or improve, these graphics please feel free to do so.

If you don't want to copy then to your own server, the preferred option, the HTML is:

(coding thanks to http://centricle.com/tools/html-entities/)

Republished from May 2007

Posted by The Englishman at 10:34 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Milburn on School Vouchers

Give parents the keys to a better school | Alan Milburn - Times Online

The evidence from countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the US is that it is not schools selecting pupils, but parents being able to choose schools that raises standards generally and helps the disadvantaged particularly....And we could give parents who do not at present have access to a good school the power to get it. I have proposed that parents be given a new right of redress to choose a better school for their child if they live in an area where the schools are consistently performing badly. Parents could be given an education credit worth 150 per cent of the cost of the child’s schooling for a state school of their choice. The extra funding would give good schools an incentive to expand pupil numbers and broaden their social intake.

Nearly there - give all parents an "education credit" (School Vouchers are obviously the verboten name now), give the schools to the governing bodies and watch the market work its magic.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 6, 2009

Harrow Council Education Fraud

Council drops school fraud case against mother | Education - guardian.co.uk

Harrow council had been attempting to prosecute Mrinal Patel for using false address to get son place at popular state school

Why isn't Harrow Council being prosecuted for fraud for purporting to run an education system, when it is quite obvious from this case it is failing to do so?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 1, 2009

Ballsing up the Education System

'Licence to teach' to be required in schools - Telegraph

To keep the licence, teachers have to demonstrate that they have "up-to-date skills and learning to be effective in the classroom".
Mr Balls said: "This is not a problem we are addressing, although it may be that we will discover some teachers who do not make the grade and some who aren't relicensed."
He said the licence will put teachers on a par with high-status professions including doctors and solicitors.

So he is claiming he is introducing a system to cure a problem that doesn't exist - I gather he doesn't like being called a liar so I'm at a loss to explain his statement. And all it means is that teachers will join the thousands of other professionals collecting CPD points from seminars, podcasts and signing in for lunch at a crappy hotel just off junction 16 of the M4.

...parents will have the right to clear information about their child's schooling, closer involvement with their child's progress through a designated personal tutor and more influence over the school.
Mr Balls said he believed legal action would be a last resort.
He said the first port of call for concerns would be the school's governing body followed by appeals to outside agencies.
"If a parent feels that the school's governing body, the local government Ombudsmen and the Secretary of State is not delivering, then in the end there is legal redress."

Is that how Mr Balls addresses the problem of poor delivery of his fruit and veg? No, he takes his money elsewhere and starts shopping down the road. Immediate, effective and simple. Cut the bloody bureaucracyand just give the parents vouchers, problem solved and billions off the budget.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

June 24, 2009

You will be assimilated

Four-year-olds given 'therapy' to improve behaviour - Telegraph

It comes amid claims that many parents are failing to instill proper values in children...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2009

Any colour you like as long as it is white.

Skin sculptures to be displayed - Telegraph
Mr Krasnow's exhibits, which include skin lampshades, flags and maps of America, will be shown at the GV Art gallery, in London, in July.
He only uses white skin because much of the suffering in the Americas has been caused by white men, according to gallery owner Robert Devcic. Mr Krasnow says his work is a commentary on human cruelty and America's morality.
Mr Devcic said: "He uses skin to make the point that suffering is universal.

"Universal but caused by whites" - yawn. Same old facile shock art with all the insight of a angry fourteen year old. Of course he wouldn't be brave enough to use any other colour.

But does it mean I can get Uncle Helmut's lampshades out of the cellar now?

Posted by The Englishman at 4:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2009

Making Education Pay

'Aspirational' sixth-form colleges end up millions of pounds in debt - Times Online

I think I see the problem with our wet and woolly colleges all "aspirational" and in debt. The vegan shoe wearing lecturers aren't up to the job of running them, up to the job of running anything actually. Time to get the man from the corner shop in...

Thousands of young Pakistanis exploited a hole in Britain’s immigration defences to enrol as students at a network of sham colleges, The Times can reveal.
The gateway, opened by fraudsters who have earned millions from the scam...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 2, 2009

Home Schooling - in danger of suffering 'significant harm'.

Mother stopped from homeschooling handicapped daughter due to child neglect law - Telegraph

Rotherham Council's social services department, backed by the school, say that Elysha could be suffering isolation and missing the company of children by being kept at home.
A Rotherham Council spokeswoman said she was unable to comment on individual cases but said : "In general the authority would always recommend that children receive a better all round learning experience from attending school."

There doesn't seem to be any other suggestion that the poor little mite is "in danger of suffering 'significant harm' as the law they have used says, just that they can't believe a Mother knows better than they do.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:06 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 14, 2009

The Case for Higher Teacher Pay

The Devil's Kitchen dissmisses teacher's demands for more money with a few well chosen words. I, however, think that teachers deserve more; in fact I don't think there should be any limit on what they earn. All we need to do is:

Abolish LEAs and all rules and restrictions as to who can run a school.
Hand over the keys and deeds of every school to the governing bodies
Give 100% of the education budget to parents as vouchers for them to spend where they want to on education.

And then if junior teachers can earn £100,000 a year because they are worth it, great.
I wonder hwy the teachers don't support that and demand the right to suck dry the public teat instead...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 9, 2009

Anjana Ahuja Talks Playground Sense

Are boys naturally violent?

...a toddler intent on waging war, often against an invisible enemy, is an awe-inspiring vision of energy, resourcefulness, creativity and imagination. And yet, to my reckoning, such behaviour is in danger of becoming pathologised. Several mothers at my daughter’s school have stopped going to the local playground because the play has become a bit rough. This includes waving broken branches around (“it could poke someone in the eye”), tearing around at high speed (“someone could get knocked over”) and shouting at younger children (“bullying”).

When a parent explained this to me, I returned an analysis of the situation: yes, there is one boy in this gang of terrors that might have behavioural problems, but they are just young boys letting off steam after a day in the classroom. Boys are a bit more rough and tumble than our girls, I shrugged, and we can always intervene if things go awry.

I might as well have admitted to having had Pol Pot over for dinner.

Attempting to cleanse our playgrounds of aggression is a pointless and, quite possibly, harmful pursuit...

A refreshing blast at the feminisation of childhood.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 3, 2009

Condemning Scottish Kids To The Scrapheap

Pupils to get lessons on texting and blogs - Scotsman.com News

A NEW school curriculum which will change the way future generations are taught in Scotland has been unveiled.
Text messaging and blogs will be used in English lessons; Scots literature and history will be at the heart of school education; environmental issues will be central in science teaching; and money and financial education will be a core part of maths.
The idea is to make school education more relevant to young people and modern life.

Relevant to the past decade maybe, short termism. Stuff that will be out of date by the time they have finished their schooling. Education is about equipping children for life, teaching the eternal principles and truths, how to think, analyse and adapt. Something that this new curriculum won't supply.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 28, 2009

Proof that schools' raison d'être is to keep the unemployable off the streets...

Teachers call for a day off for admin - Telegraph

The National Union of Teachers - Britain's biggest classroom union - insist newly-qualified staff should only spend three days out of every five in front of pupils.
It is also calling for the working week to be slashed to 35 hours and a break for any teaching session lasting more than two hours.
The demands come amid claims teachers are being over-worked.

Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet. - I doubt very much if any NUT member will understand that though...

Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 27, 2009

Gove Gets Half an Idea On Education

Political battles in the classroom | It's still about schools | The Economist

In an interview with an Economist journalist available at http://economist.com/audiovideo/britain, the shadow education spokesperson Michael Gove praised Tony Blair's education reforms while promising that a Conservative government would imitate the Swedish model to allow churches, charities and even groups of parents to open schools without seeking council permission.

Gove also said that urgent reform of the education system will be address the current situation whereby "less than half of Department for Schools, Children and the Family's total expenditure" is "spent in the classroom".

Gove believes that emulating the Swedish system, however, could quickly create 200,000 school places in England. When asked how the Party proposed to fund reforms in a recession, he answered that local authorities will "Look to cut the fat within its own system. Everything from the amount of money spent on maths advisors and school improvement partners to educational consultants. All of this is money that's not being spent in the classroom."

Posted by The Englishman at 9:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Science Exams; Are They? A: Leaf B: Easier C: A Mammal

Exam regulator Ofqual: science GCSE is dumbed down - Times Online
GCSE boards must act immediately to improve the quality of science questions in order to stretch and challenge students, the exam regulator said yesterday. It said that the qualification had been dumbed down, with too many multiple choice papers and superficial questions.
A controversial new GCSE in single science, which was intended to make the subject more relevant to teenagers, raised “significant cause for concerns” about standards, Ofqual said.

Well done, years after everyone else noticed the official body admits the bleeding obvious, and now it will take five years to change it all again....

Posted by The Englishman at 7:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 25, 2009

Bev Bashes The Grammar

Schools chief under fire - News - Manchester Evening News

A TORY education chief has defended a council's efforts to 'turn around' a failing grammar school as a government minister called for him to step down.
Stretford Grammar became the first of its kind in the country to be placed in special measures.
Children's Minister Bev Hughes, MP for Stretford and Urmston, has called for Coun John Holden, Trafford council's education executive member, to 'reconsider his position' in the wake of the school's damning Ofsted report. But Mr Holden, who recently became a governor at the school, has described the calls an 'unfounded attack' on the Conservative council.
Ofsted inspectors were highly critical of the school's leadership and management in a damning report, which came weeks after the resignation of the school's head, Peter Cookson.
Last year it was one of the top performing schools in Trafford, with 95 per cent of 15-year-olds achieving five A* to C grades at GCSE, although the figure was down from 98 per cent in 2006.
But the inspectors now say the school's overall effectiveness is 'inadequate' and it is failing to give pupils an 'acceptable standard of education'.

A reader asks "Is this a political failing?". From here it looks like it is a bloody successful school which has had a few problems with leadership, the head has resigned (how unlike our political masters) and the Tories recognise the problems and are working to deal with them. But Bev (and who would take any advice from someone called Bev?) hates Grammar Schools and schools that manage to get 95% pass rates even when failing are an embarrassment.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Eat Up Your Greens

Regulations put hot school meals at risk - Times Online

This could bring about the demise of hot meals in secondary schools, as caterers struggle to cope with the expensive and time-consuming restrictions. From September they will have to buy costly computer equipment to calculate the nutritional content of every meal. Each dish must meet 14 standards, including calorie content, fat, proteins and vitamins.
An example of dish that would meet the nutrition requirements is a chicken and vegetable stir fry with brown rice and green cabbage. A typical portion would contain 411 calories, 6.3g fat and 20.6g protein. Burgers with chips and baked beans will disappear.
At best they will have to restrict choice, by scrapping the cafeteria-style buffet common in most schools in favour of a set two-course menu that places greater emphasis on nutrition than pupils’ tastes.
Neil Porter, chairman of Laca, said these were a “step too far”. He said: “We will have to put menus and recipes through a software system which produces a graph to show whether they are compliant. These will be externally monitored and checked.

And what about the brown rice and cabbage that is left on the plates, will the kids be ordered to stay at the table and eat up until the computer says they may get down?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 3, 2009

Teaching about inefficient resource allocation

BBC NEWS | Education | School admissions 'too complex'
The secondary school admissions process in England is still too complex for many parents, research claims.
The report comes as hundreds of thousands of families receive letters telling them where their children will be going to school next year.

If schools were for educating pupils rather than teacher job preservation reserves it wouldn't be any harder than supermarket admissions; "Do you take cash, card and/or school vouchers?"

Posted by The Englishman at 6:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 26, 2009

One 16 year old gets it

School Gate - Times Online - Can we please have less politics in our GCSE's: a plea from a 16 year old.....
As a current GCSE student, I can identify with this “politicisation”. It seems to me as if the GCSE curricula, above all for science, no longer focus on understanding the subject. The core biology science curriculum now calls for very little knowledge of the biology that we had studied in the years preceding GCSE, but seems to be a governmental attempt to raise awareness of current social issues. For example, section A of the core biology exam concentrates on contraception, drugs, alcohol, smoking, obesity, anorexia and the MMR vaccines, whilst section B tackles broader issues such as global warming, GM crops, creationism vs Darwinism and alternative energy sources...
However, one of the key problems with sitting exams about topics of this nature is that the exam board are required to write mark schemes clearly detailing the answers that they want within a rigid framework. This leaves no room for debate on the part of the student, meaning that instead of producing insightful, perceptive and interesting answers, pupils tend towards putting down what they think the mark scheme is most likely to have as an acceptable response. For example, in a question about embryo screening, the advantage of screening embryos in accordance to the mark scheme was to reduce health care costs for the parents. I found it a little disconcerting, if not positively concerning, to discover that my answer that it would improve the quality of life for the child, did not feature....Arguably, the government is now more concerned with indoctrination than discussion.

Posted by The Englishman at 10:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 25, 2009

Teaching the kids that property is theft

One of my children was given this book to read tonight as homework.

The story begins that nice Mr Pennyfeather lets the kids play on his tree in his front garden, but he gets too old to live in the big house and sells it. The story continues below...

The glorious day has arrived where the mayor lives in the wicked capitalist's house, everyone is happy... should I drop a note to the teachers or am I wasting my time?

Posted by The Englishman at 10:53 PM | Comments (35) | TrackBack

February 15, 2009

Passing on a message to all parents.

Sometimes It's Peaceful: For *all* parents

The time has come for all parents to wake up and become aware of the massive legal changes to UK law that are being rolled out and will affect us all. Even parents who live outside of the UK should look out for this coming to their country and try to stop it before it happens. ....

Here, the new system is called Every Child Matters (http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/) and it seeks to monitor and control every aspect of every child's life.

The ECM regime is centred around five 'outcomes', with which every child is expected to comply, but the outcomes don't mean what they imply. "Be healthy," "Stay safe," "Enjoy and achieve," "Make a positive contribution," and "Achieve economic well-being," all sound quite harmless and beneficial, but when you scratch the surface they actually mean something quite different.

The five outcomes are all measured by a whole raft of indicators, and if your child is seen to be failing in any outcome, he or she will be put through an eCAF (http://tinyurl.com/ag6686) which is a long and extremely invasive questionnaire that collects information about every aspect of the child's life, and lodges the answers in the child's file on the new Contactpoint database. If you look at the end of the questions, you will see the requirement for an 'action plan', the progress of which is to be tracked, monitored and recorded on the child's file.

The thing is, the criteria for the outcomes is going to be so tight that it will be almost impossible for every child to reach them all the time. For example, the draft guidance for anyone coming into contact with children on 'When to suspect child maltreatment' (http://tinyurl.com/bv23r2) includes things like inappropriate, or ill-fitting clothes, not taking prescribed medicine, 'excessive clinginess', temper tantrums, or other 'inappropriate behaviour'. If you've got children, you will know that most can and will fall foul of at least one of those points in stressful circumstances. The 'Stay Safe' outcome is then breached and an eCAF carried out.

But the most worrying outcome is the last one. 'Achieve economic wellbeing' actually means that any child whose family on a lower than average income (which is actually quite high: http://tinyurl.com/b76f2r and is worked out *after* housing costs and tax) who is receiving Child Tax Credits, when both parents are not in full-time employment, will fail to meet the outcome and be made the subject of an eCAF and associated action plan. Causing a child to live in [relative] poverty is now seen as abusive and this may not affect you now, but hardly anyone's position is 100% safe in the current economic climate. To address the issue of lack of jobs, the government is working with corporate 'partners' to bring in a full-time compulsory workfare programme.

The 'Every Child Matters' and Anti-Child Poverty programmes are not designed only to help children in real need. Systems are already in place to help those children and our state welfare system ensures that nobody ever needs to go hungry in this country. The intention - and the result, if we do nothing - will be to completely change the nature of normal family life forever.

So what can we do? This is difficult. Most of the changes are happening by Statutory Instrument, which is not voted on in Parliament, so your MP is probably unable to make a difference although it might help to write to them with your concerns (http://www.writetothem.com/). Petitions are usually ignored in matters of major reform programmes such as these, and protest marches seem to have very little effect. Voting for a different political party will not help: all the main parties are committed to doing the same thing, or worse.

Perhaps the most powerful thing you can do just now is to talk to other parents. Pass this message around, post it on forums, send it in emails. If you know anyone who works with children or is likely to come into contact with them in a professional capacity, talk to them especially about it. Ask them if they realise the full extent of the planned changes and consequences.....

Posted by The Englishman at 9:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 9, 2009

Tales From The Biology Lab

"This morning we are going to be examining cells, take a wooden spatula and gently scrape a few cells from the inside of your cheek. If you have a clear specimen bring it up to the front and we can put it under the computer microscope and put it up on the big screen.
Excellent, Susan, very clear; though we don't normally expect the cells found in the mouth to have tails and be swimming..."

Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 4, 2009

All together now...

Why music in our schools matters ...

Baz Chapman director of the Gonernment's Sing-Up Programme; "The art of making music can have benefits right across the school.
Schools that are inclusive are schools where there's lots of music going on.
Music can also enliven other parts of the curriculum - where there are things to remember like dates for history..."

You didn't know the Government had a Sing-up Scheme? I wonder why they believe it important to get the little ones all singing together?

Goose stepping may have encouraged people to follow Nazis - Telegraph
Researchers have found that if groups perform tasks in unison, such as marching, dancing and chanting, they show more loyalty towards each other and are less likely to go against the norm.
The findings, published in New Scientist, could explain why the likes of Hitler and Mussolini both seemingly had the ability to bend millions of people to their will.
Dr Scott Wiltermuth, of Stanford University in California and colleagues, have found that activities performed in unison, such as marching or dancing, exercise a form of mind control over people.

Posted by The Englishman at 9:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I blame the teachers

Snow: Teachers must show grit - Telegraph

Schools faced mounting anger from parents and business leaders over their "defeatist" approach to the bad weather as one in three closed to pupils for a second consecutive day because of snow.

Around here it seems to be the secondary schools which are being pathetic. Small local primary schools in villages seem to be open with parents bravely battling through up to four inches of snow to get there, but the big schools in town have locked their doors. (At one local primary the headmaster brought his sleeping bag and slept there to ensure he was there for the pupils.)
Maybe it is something about these large state schools that makes the staff a bunch of defeatists, and not just about the weather.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 6, 2009

The Goths are at the Gates, the End of Civilisation is Nigh.

BBC NEWS | Education | University fears over Tory plans
Professor Ebdon, vice chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, is warning that Conservative plans to restrict public spending would mean cutting the number of places available to students.

University of Bedfordshire was created by the merger of the University of Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort University on 1 August 2006.... The institution was founded as the Modern School in the 1890s. It became Luton College of Higher Education with the merger of Luton College of Technology and Putteridge Bury College of Education in the mid-seventies.

Bedfordshire was ranked 84th of 113 British universities in The Times Good University Guide league table,..The Guardian's national league tables for 2008 rates the University of Bedfordshire third in the country for Media-related courses with a score of 96.90 out of 100 and 13th for Sport. However the same rankings list the university as 106 out of 110 in Computer Science and IT....The Bedford Campus of the University has been selected as an official training site for the London 2012 Olympics. The campus is hoping to attract a major national team to train there for the event.

Notable alumni (Complete List)

* Becky Jago - Presenter of BBC's Newsround - Media Performance.
* Gemma Hunt - Presenter of CBBC - Media Performance.
* Rickie Haywood Williams - Presenter of Kiss 100's breakfast show, Presenter on MTV News.
* Charlie George - Presenter on MAX TV - Media Performance.
* Matt Fisher - Station Sound Imaging Producer BBC Radio 1 - Media Performance with Radio.
* Debbie Randle - Senior Broadcast Journalist BBC Radio 1 - Modern English Studies.
* Marie Kemp - Presenter on BBC Radio Berkshire - Media Performance and Radio.
* Paul Woloszyn - BBC Digital Text - Modern English Studies.
* Abdul Ahad - Author, astronomer
* Leah O'Mahoney - Chelsea TV - Media Performance.

Shocking! How could the Tories think of crippling this country by slightly restricting the cash flowing to an institution that has nurtured such talent....

Posted by The Englishman at 7:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 27, 2008

Seeing Red

Marking in red ink banned in case it upsets schoolchildren - Telegraph
Head teacher Richard Sammonds said: "Red pen can be quite de-motivating for children.
"It has negative, old school connotations of 'See me' and 'Not good enough'.
"We are no longer producing clerks and bookkeepers. We are trying to provide an education for children coming into the workforce in the 21st century.
"We use highlighter pens in all colours of the rainbow apart from red.
"There are pinks, blues, greens and fluorescent yellows. The idea is to raise standards by taking a positive approach.
"We highlight bits that are really good in one colour and use a different colour to mark areas that could be improved."
Shirley Clarke, an associate of the Institute of Education, warned that children could soon realise that green is the new red.
She said: "In actual fact, the colour of ink used to mark is irrelevant. It would be equally damaging to keep covering a child's work in green ink, picking up on every mistake.

Don't upset them by pointing out where they are going wrong, pretend the whole world is warm and cuddly and as long as you try that's good enough. No wonder the kids like the X Factor where they can see judgement happening, where they can see a certainty that sticking to right and wrong, good and bad gives, which is missing from the wishy washy muddle of schooling.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 23, 2008

PGCE Students - Free Assignment Paper on The Motivation Of Schoolchildren

It's that time of year when PGCE students are trying to cobble together a "research" paper as they study to become teachers. Of course I'm not suggesting they copy this paper I published a year or so ago; they might get sacked, but they might find it interesting, as will anyone else interested in the motivation of schoolchildren.

The paper is below the fold:

Also available to download as a single file: Download file - Motivation of Pupils in Compulsory Education aged 11 – 16 - Word Document 500k

Excel Spreadsheet of the data available here.

Motivation of Pupils in Compulsory Education aged 11 – 16

Introduction

This is a study into pupil perceptions as to their motivations during compulsory education aged 11 – 16.

C. Smith et al (2005) “A systematic review of what pupils, aged 11–16, believe impacts on their motivation to learn in the classroom” noted that “The fact that only eight studies were identified for the in-depth review suggests that there is a lack of suitably robust studies with a focus on pupil views available. While there were many studies that used questionnaires and interviews to gather pupils’ responses to pre-identified traits of motivation, only eight could be identified that concentrated on pupil voice. “

This limited study tries to fill that gap a little.

The study is based on anonymous voluntary questionnaires distributed to six different classes at a comprehensive school in Wiltshire in the autumn of 2006. If there is any perceived criticism of the school or the staff in this report please accept that it is unintentional. The whole of the staff were regularly going beyond the call of duty to promote excellence in the pupils in a caring environment. The Head provides progressive leadership which recognises many of the problems mentioned herein and has bravely championed innovative solutions.

Background

The problem of the lack of pupil motivation is widely recognised – as an example the Scottish Parliament Education Committee’s Interim Report on Pupil Motivation (2006) reported that:

“…27 per cent of kids in Scotland did not want to be in school. That is better than the OECD average, but it is still a significant number. Fifty-six per cent—marginally higher than the OECD average—said that they often felt bored at school, which is clearly a concern. Thirty-one per cent felt that they were never given interesting homework”.
“…in the past three years, about one in 12 of the secondary schools that we have inspected has had wide-ranging issues of ethos, discipline and behaviour that involved more than just one or two departments. Many schools have problems with some classes or a small group of pupils, but about one in 12 secondary schools and one in 30 primary schools had broad issues. It is clear that a small minority of primary schools have serious problems of disaffection and demotivation”

The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2006) data shows that the School Principals’ assessment of pupils’ morale and commitment is that English schoolchildren have above average, for the countries surveyed, levels. It is striking though the large range between the levels shown by the top and the bottom quarters of students. The student’s were not invited to assess their own morale and commitment but their rating of how much support they feel they get from their teachers in mathematics is a credit to the teachers with England again being above average, again with the same large difference.

One of the most striking deficiencies of most teacher training literature is a lack of instruction in the understanding of pupil motivation.

In business the art of motivating employees is recognised of being a primary competency of a manager, and understanding the theory and practice of it are widely taught.

Many of the management theories of motivation are widely recognised and used by school management in their relations to their staff. For instance modern management of teachers has taken on board the Douglas McGregor’s “X Y theory “ of management types in his 1960 book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise' which is ably summarised at http://www.businessballs.com/mcgregor.htm (Dec 2006) thus:

McGregor maintained that there are two fundamental approaches to managing people. Many managers tend towards theory x, and generally get poor results. Enlightened managers use theory y, which produces better performance and results, and allows people to grow and develop.

Theory x ('authoritarian management' style)
The average person dislikes work and will avoid it he/she can.
Therefore most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organisational objectives.
The average person prefers to be directed; to avoid responsibility; is relatively unambitious, and wants security above all else.

Theory y ('participative management' style)
Effort in work is as natural as work and play.
People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organisational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment.
Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement.
People usually accept and often seek responsibility.
The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving organisational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.
In industry the intellectual potential of the average person is only partly utilised.

Teachers expect to be treated type “Y” people but in practice, if not always in theory, subscribe to theory “X” for their charges.
Of course teachers have the choice as to where or if they go to school and so job satisfaction is important in staff motivation and retention.

Motivation of pupils is mainly considered in terms of motivation to learn – As an example Geoffrey Petty in his “practical guide“ Teaching Today (1998) devotes a whole chapter to valuable advice of achieving this but doesn’t mention a more holistic motivation to the whole experience of schooling that is needed by pupils.

Pupils are not just compelled to be at school for academic learning and to only concentrate on their motivation for learning while ignoring the totality of the school day is as incomplete as a restaurant review would be if it just mentioned the behaviour of the staff but ignored the food.

Dr Benjamin S Bloom's 'Taxonomy Of Educational Objectives' (1956) set out three educational objectives and skills “domains” that are taught at schools - Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive (Wikipedia - Taxonomy of Educational Objectives – revised 19:40, 28 November 2006);

Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing's pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings.

Skills in the psychomotor domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument like a hand or a hammer. Psychomotor objectives usually focus on change and/or development in behaviour and/or skills.

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and "thinking through" a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives

While this recognises the school’s role is larger than classroom academic learning I do not believe it goes far enough.

The provisional categorization of the roles of schools I have produced breaks them down into four:
Childcare and control
Schooling
Training and teaching
Educating

Childcare and control - It is a simple truth that the economic prosperity of this country and the social system depends on parents having a secure and reliable place to look after their children during working hours for much of the year. This role for schools has recently been highlighted by the government's desire to increase those numbers of hours and broadening the childcare aspects of schooling.

Schooling is the most value-neutral term I can use for what for much of what schools do. Just as horses and dogs must be “schooled” to become of value, so must children be schooled to become useful citizens and pleasant human beings. There are a wide variety of initiatives that schools must follow to perform this function. Everything from instilling discipline, indoctrinating children with values of citizenship, institutionalising, or socialising, them to be happy and compliant members of society and so forth. This schooling also encompasses the encouragement of the psychological neoteny of young adults.
“(I)n which ever-more people retain for ever-longer the characteristic behaviours and attitudes of earlier developmental stages. Whereas traditional societies are characterized by initiation ceremonies marking the advent of adulthood, these have now dwindled and disappeared. In a psychological sense, some contemporary individuals never actually become adults. A child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviours and knowledge is probably adaptive in modern society because people need repeatedly to change jobs, learn new skills, move to new places and make new friends. It seems that this adaptation is achieved by the expedient of postponing cognitive maturation – a process that could be termed psychological neoteny. (‘Neoteny’ refers to the biological phenomenon whereby development is delayed such that juvenile characteristics are retained into maturity.) Psychological neoteny is probably caused by the prolonged average duration of formal education, since students’ minds are in a significant sense ‘unfinished’. Since modern cultures favour cognitive flexibility, ‘immature’ people tend to thrive and succeed, and have set the tone of contemporary life: the greatest praise of an elderly person is to state that they retain the characteristics of youth. But the faults of youth are retained with well as its virtues: short attention span, sensation- and novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of cultural shallowness.” (Bruce G. Charlton 2006)

Training has been increasingly recognised as a role that schools perform, whether it is how to write, to read, to use a computer, wire a plug or any of the other specific skills that are taught in schools. This is training. A lot of teaching also comes under the role of training, when it is designed to train pupils to perform one closely defined task such as pass a specific exam.

Teachers would like to believe they are educating their charges when they actually spend very little time doing it. Albert Jay Nock drew the distinctions between training and educating in his essay “The Disadvantages Of Being Educated”,

…while education was still spoken of as a "preparation for life," the preparation was of a kind which bore less directly on intellect and character than in former times, and more directly on proficiency. It aimed at what we used to call training rather than education; and it not only did very little with education, but seemed to assume that training was education, …. A trained mechanic, banker, dentist or man of business got all due credit for his proficiency, but his education, if he had any, lay behind that and was not confused with it. His training, in a word, bore directly upon what he could do or get, while his education bore directly on neither; it bore upon what he could become and be.

...Training is excellent, it can not be too well done, and opportunity for it can not be too cheap and abundant. Probably a glorified crèche for delayed adolescents here and there is a good thing, too; no great harm in it anyway. ….
Education is divisive, separatist; training induces the exhilarating sense that one is doing with others what others do and thinking the thoughts that others think.

Education, in a word, leads a person on to ask a great deal more from life than life, as at present organized, is willing to give him; and it begets dissatisfaction with the rewards that life holds out. Training tends to satisfy him with very moderate and simple returns. A good income, a home and family, the usual run of comforts and conveniences, diversions addressed only to the competitive or sporting spirit or else to raw sensation - training not only makes directly for getting these, but also for an inert and comfortable contentment with them. Well, these are all that our present society has to offer, so it is undeniably the best thing all round to keep people satisfied with them, which training does, and not to inject a subversive influence, like education, into this easy complacency. Politicians understand this - it is their business to understand it - and hence they hold up "a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage" as a satisfying social ideal. But the mischief of education is its exorbitance. The educated lad may like stewed chicken and motor-cars as well as anybody, but his education has bred a liking for other things too, things that the society around him does not care for and will not countenance. It has bred tastes which society resents as culpably luxurious, and will not connive at gratifying. Paraphrasing the old saying, education sends him out to shift for himself with a champagne appetite amidst a gin-guzzling society.

Training, on the other hand, breeds no such tastes; it keeps him so well content with synthetic gin that a mention of champagne merely causes him to make a wry face. ...

The success of the education system in enabling increasing numbers of pupils to pass exams is widely celebrated and shows that effective training is widespread.

The success of schools in actually educating their charges as well is more subjective, the evident delight of some school leavers in cultural activities suggests it happens, the extent and effectiveness is beyond the scope of this modest investigation.

The Investigation

To investigate the motivation of the school children I devised a ten question Likert scale questionnaire. The questions were intended to provide a broad overview of possible motivational incentives which covered the range of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”, which he subsequently extended. His theory contends that as humans meet 'basic needs', they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy, with deficiency needs being the first that need to be satisfied. (Source – Wikipedia - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs)

Deficiency needs

The physiological needs of the organism, eating and drinking - those enabling homeostasis, take first precedence.

When physiological needs are met, the need for safety and security will emerge. These include:

Physical security - safety from violence, delinquency, aggressions
Security of employment
Security of revenues and resources

After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social. This involves emotionally-based relationships in general, such as friendship, sexual intimacy and having a supportive and communicative family. Humans generally need to feel belonging and acceptance by groups of others.

The highest level of need is “esteem”. According to Maslow, all humans have a need to be respected, to have self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves in order to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution and self-value. There are two levels to Esteem needs. The lower of the levels relates to elements like fame, respect, and glory. The higher level is contingent to concepts like confidence, competence, and achievement. The lower level is generally considered poor. It is dependent upon other people, or someone who needs to be reassured because of lower esteem. People with low esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again are dependent on others. However confidence, competence and achievement only need one person and everyone else is inconsequential to one's own success.

Growth needs

Though the deficiency needs may be seen as "basic", and can be met and neutralized (i.e. they stop being motivators in one's life), self-actualization and transcendence are "being" or "growth needs" (also termed "B-needs"), i.e. they are enduring motivations or drivers of behaviour.

Self-actualization is defined as the instinctual need of humans to make the most of their unique abilities and to strive to be the best they can be.

Maslow writes the following of self-actualizing people:

* They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them.
* They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
* They are creative.
* They are interested in solving problems

At the top, there is self-transcendence which is also sometimes referred to as spiritual needs.

My questionnaire was given out to five classes on an anonymous and voluntary basis. The classes were chosen as ones I had built a rapport with the pupils in so they would trust my interest in their genuine views and handling of the data – over 95% were returned. The classes were among the lower achieving groups in the school. There were two small year 11 (15 year olds) classes, a year 9 and two year 8 classes. The one year 7 (11 year olds) class was of more “average” ability, according to the school.

Naively I set the questions and gathered the data before I reached any conclusions, with hindsight I would have broadened the scope of the limited questioning even further to encompass the whole school experience, especially the out of classroom time. The statements the pupils were invited to Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree or Strongly Disagree with were:

1) I enjoy learning.

2) My friends work hard at school.

3) I like to keep my test results to myself.

4) I like it when teachers praise my work in front of the whole class.

5) How well I do at school is important to my family.

6) I get rewards, such as treats or money, at home if I get good results.

7) I get punished if I don’t work hard.

8) I want to go to university and so I am working hard.

9) I think I need good exam results to get a good job.

10) I think what I learn at school will not help me as an adult.

The questions were written so that choices were expected to be across the range, any answer papers that showed a pattern, such as all “Strongly Agree”, could therefore be assumed to be non genuine. No such patterns were produced and no completed questionnaires discarded

The Results

All the results and derived graphs are available in an Excel Spreadsheet.

The most basic level of Maslow’s hierarchy is the need to avoid pain or discomfort. For thousands of years this motivator has been used; Sun Tzu (c. 400-320 B.C.) famously taught courtesans to drill to his orders by executing a couple of reluctant ones, “pour encourager les autres”, and from the Bible we get; "He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24) and "Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs 23:13-14) – attributed to Solomon c. 1000 B.C.
Within the changed zeitgeist of the last few years the use of physical punishment is unacceptable and the results – Graph “Q.7 Punishment” – show that punishment of any type is not a major issue for these pupils.

After the physiological needs are met Maslow believes the next most pressing need is securing resources, or in the terms of this questionnaire aiming for a “good job”.

Graph “Q.9” shows that believing they need good exam results to get such a job is almost universal among the newly arrived pupils. But this belief shows a marked and consistent decrease as the pupils approach the exams and employment. This, maybe more realistic, view of the importance of exams shows that despite the best endeavours of the school this motivational incentive does not work for a large minority of the pupils it is aimed at.

Graph “Q .10” shows as the pupils get older their belief in the long term value of what they learn at school also decreases along with the belief in the value of exams results. The question was set in the negative so care must be taken in interpreting the results but it is clear that the relevance of school to “real life” is perceived as much less than its relevance to passing exams.

The general finding of relevance agrees with Pippa Lord and Megan Jones (2006) who report in their review of the national curriculum:

• The academic relevance of the curriculum is prevalent in learners’ views.
Learners see the curriculum as relevant to passing exams, getting grades and as a passport to their next steps. These perceptions emerge more strongly as pupils get older, but are also apparent at all ages when nearing assessment.

….the real-life relevance of the curriculum would seem to need enhancing
and making more visible – pupils do not always see these connections.. Recognition of aspects relevant to adult life similarly narrow to literal interpretations (such as the ability to read a map so as not to get lost with regard to geography)

Why the pupils questioned show a decrease in belief of the importance of exams as a “passport” where as the review shows the opposite is of interest. The questions asked are obviously slightly different but this may show the bias of this investigation in choosing lower ability pupils who it may be argued are the ones whose motivation is of most importance.

Graph Q.8 shows that the incentive of a place at university largely disappears in the older lower ability groups. This may be a reflection on their prospects but also is indicative of a decreasing desire to learn.

The more short term motivation by rewards is shown in Graph Q.6 “Rewards”. This shows a slight decrease in the expectation of rewards at home for good results as the pupils progress through the school. Of course there is a probability that some of the more senior students never have “good results” and so that needs to factored in. From informal discussions with pupils it seems that such rewarding is seen as juvenile and is put aside as a childish thing as they mature.

But Graph Q 5 “Family Importance” shows that how well they do at school is of importance to most of them and actually increases from the start of schooling to the older years. This suggests that Maslow’s third level of Love/Belonging Needs are of increasing importance, unlike the more basic needs that the school inculcates. There is a populist view that many low achieving school children suffer from an uncaring home environment and that their listless academic behaviour stems from their out of school feral existence. The results and informal interviews with some of the pupils contradict this view. For the vast majority of even the lowest achieving pupils in this survey parental influence is the most important motivator.

As well as a feeling of belonging within a family the influence of peers is recognised as another group pressure to conform to a norm. Graph Q2 is intended to show how pupils few the work ethic of their peers, with the implicit implication as how they view their own efforts. The results are quite striking, the younger pupils believe their friends work hard, but as they age they mostly become neutral in their belief. It appears to be strange that they do not know if their friends work hard or not, or is it that they are non-judgemental?

Graph Q3 shows how the older groups like to keep their test results to themselves which suggests their views echo Luke 6:37 “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned”.

Maslow places the needs to be respected by others and to respect others as well as pride in achievement as higher needs. These needs appear to be unfulfilled by the students in this survey.

The pupils desire to be respected by others scholastically also shows a marked decrease as they rise through the school – See Graph Q4.

The highest level of need is “self-actualisation” the desire to be creative, to problem solve, to learn. The top aim of this school, according to its curriculum and mission statement is to “encourage a love of learning”.

Graph Q1 “I Enjoy Learning” shows that less than one third of the older pupils agree with the statement. In their first year at this school two thirds do. This is a dramatic fall, especially when set against the priority of the school to promote it.

Conclusions

Smith et al “The EPPI-Centre review of student motivation” (2006) summarises that:

Six themes were identified from the studies as key to motivation. These themes are presented in the order of frequency with which they were identified by the studies in the in-depth review:
1. the role of self
2. utility
3. pedagogy
4. peer-group influences
5. learning
6. curriculum

We see that the curriculum and learning are low down on the list; it is the usefulness of the knowledge and most importantly the role of self that are most important. “The role of self” becomes the “dominant influence” when pupils have made the “decisions about school subjects as a result of a range of interconnected factors that occur over time.” These factors include family and non-school influences.

Motivation at school involves far more than motivation for learning.
More than not being bored in lessons, more than being shown the relevance of the knowledge, more than having self-esteem raised,

Pupils are subjected to disciplines, routines and lessons quite foreign to their experiences at home or outside the school gates. While it is relatively easy to see how to motivate within a set academic lesson there is very little recent research into motivation for the whole school experience.

As Slade and Trent (2000) found with regards to boys:

The theme that their experiences at school were out of date and bore no resemblance to the concerns of their lives or the environment and wider society kept re-occurring. The cause of disruption and behaviour difficulties was directly tied to resistance and feelings of frustration that they were bored, disrespected, and never listened to. Adult behaviour is almost impossible to achieve in an environment which has no basis in trust.
School presents too many contradictions: for example, it purports to prepare pupils for adult life but participation in adult activities – such as part-time work, establishing relationships, owning a car and taking part in sports, etc. – are seen as impinging on schoolwork and homework.

Boys see themselves stuck with an unsuitable learning environment that they cannot change largely because it is constituted by teachers who do not care. Although they identify the curriculum as irrelevant and unchallenging, their experience with ‘good’ teachers has shown this to be an unnecessary outcome. Furthermore, it is one that is made worse because it is dominated by making education an unpleasant experience, and creating a pre-occupying focus on getting out of school as soon as possible. Once again, their experience with ‘good’ teachers has shown them that this is also an unnecessary outcome.
Boys actually achieve a great deal in this age group: drivers’ licences, part-time jobs, physical, social and sexual maturity, and a largely optimistic attitude to the adverse conditions of schooling. Recognising these achievements, abandoning the discourse of ‘fixing boys’ and updating curriculum, teacher training, pedagogy and school organisation in light of the rapid and extraordinary changes in the wider environment would create less of a rupture between the culture of schools and the culture at large.
Boys would like an aging adult world to ‘genuinely listen’, and to ‘catch up’ to bring the culture and focus of schooling up to date so that it might be better placed to keep pace with the economic, social and cultural changes that are already making demands that cannot meet, and that in the coming decades will be as dramatic as they are inevitable.

This survey of pupils shows that parental influence is the foremost motivator of these pupils. It is of note that recently Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, was reported in The Times as saying;

“that a greater involvement of parents in the education of their children should have a dramatic impact on standards.”
“Parental involvement in education trumps every other factor in terms of whether a child is going to do well,” he said. “It is more important than ethnicity, more important than social background.”
Many parents, particularly from poorer backgrounds, do not get in touch with schools because they are intimidated by the educational establishment. “Parents are sometimes loath to trouble a school unless they feel welcome, so a strategy that encourages people to express their concerns is really sensible,” Mr Johnson said.
“When you talk about the most difficult to reach, it’s the parents who don’t feel particularly empowered, are not as pushy as they might be because they are inhibited or lack confidence.

Schools are seen as being an agent of the state and controlling the schooling of children. Whereas schools may hold themselves to be "in loco parentis" neither they nor the Government can be said to act "in loco discipulus".
The aims and purposes of schooling for the government and the professional educators do not necessarily align with those of the pupils. The holistic experience of school involves the school satisfying its governmental and staff stakeholders. Their objectives are different to those of the pupils and their parents.

As John Stuart Mill said in “On Liberty”, Chapter Five:
If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. The objections which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon itself to direct that education: which is a totally different thing. That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is in so backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any proper institutions of education, unless the government undertook the task: then, indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils, take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it may that of joint stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape fitted for undertaking great works of industry, does not exist in the country. But in general, if the country contains a sufficient number of persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to those unable to defray the expense.

The Government wants a well trained population for the benefit of society; the education system, in common with any other near monopolistic one, naturally has succumbed to a level of “producer capture” – defined as where a service is run for the benefit of the producers rather than the “customers” – and has influenced schooling for its own purposes. But as shown pupils are not motivated to be these considerations, they and their parents want them to be educated for their own reasons.

In a consumerist world families expect choice and control over the services that they are supplied with. The present system provides little practical choice or control for the majority of families. Without the buy in of families, and of pupils themselves, then many schoolchildren will remain the recalcitrant subjects of the system; whining, with their satchels and shining morning faces, creeping like snails, unwillingly to school.

The dichotomy is either schooling is imposed for the good of society over-riding any desires of the pupil or the principle of subsidiarity is applied to education and the pupil and family take control. The latter will result in better motivation and a differently educated population. The former can only be justified if it results in a far superior system, and for that there is no evidence.

The results of this survey and the research present a sorry picture of the comprehensive system. This is not a reflection on this particular school, it seems to be endemic to the system, as Sir Eric Anderson (2007) says:

“The 40 year experiment with comprehensive schools has fallen far short of its aims. It was meant to provide, in Harold Wilson’s words, “grammar schools for all” and it was meant to lead to increased social mobility. It has done neither. It has not raised the standards of all and, as recent studies show, we now have a less mobile society than we had in the 1950s and 1960s."

Within such an apparently flawed and failing system good teachers are more important then ever to enable all pupils to flourish and achieve the best they are capable of. The pupils I worked with were lucky to have such teachers and a supportive school.

References

Anderson E. Sir (Introduction) Three Cheers for Selection: how grammar schools help the poor - Norman Blackwell – CPS London http://www.cps.org.uk/cpsfile.asp?id=667 2nd Jan 2007

Charlton B. The rise of the boy-genius: Psychological neoteny, science and modern life • Medical Hypotheses, Volume 67, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 679-681 http://intl.elsevierhealth.com//journals/MeHy/Default.cfm

Lord P. and Jones M. “Pupils' experiences and perspectives of the National Curriculum and assessment: research review” QCA – Available online at http://www.qca.org.uk/17670.html - downloaded 29th Dec 06

“douglas mcgregor's motivational theory x theory y”
http://www.businessballs.com/mcgregor.htm downloaded 18th Dec 06

Gatto J. The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher New Society Publishers, New York, 1992 Available online at www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt 2nd Jan 07

Johnson A. The Times - 28th December 2006 London – article available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-2520873,00.html
Downloaded 28th Dec. 06

Nock A.J. The Disadvantages of Being Educated – originally printed in Free Speech and Plain Language, New York 1937 Copy accessed at http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/nock-albert-jay_on-education.html 18th Dec 2006

OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2006)
PISA 2003 Country Profiles http://pisacountry.acer.edu.au/ Accessed 2nd Jan 2007

Petty G. 1998 “Teaching Today” 2nd Edition, Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes

Scottish Parliament Education Committee’s Interim Report on Pupil Motivation http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/education/reports-05/pmInterim.pdf downloaded 18th Dec 06

Slade M, Trent F (2000) What the boys are saying: an examination of the views of boys about declining rates of achievement and retention. International Education Journal 1: 201–229 http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v1n3/V1N3.PDF accessed 2nd Jan 2007

Smith C, Dakers J, Dow W, Head G, Sutherland M, Irwin R (2005) A systematic review of what pupils, aged 11–16, believe impacts on their motivation to learn in the classroom. In: Research Evidence in Education Library. London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/EPPIWebContent/reel/review_groups/motivation/motivation_rv1/Motivation_rv1.pdf and http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=614 downloaded 18th Dec 06

The Holy Bible 1611 London

Theory into Practice, Vol. 9, No. 1, Motivation: The Desire to Learn (Feb., 1970) - http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841%28197002%299%3A1%3C%3E1.0.CO%3B2-C downloaded 18th Dec 06

Wikipedia - Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_of_Educational_Objectives revised 19:40, 28 November 2006 downloaded 18th Dec 06

Wikipedia - Maslow's hierarchy of needs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
revised 03:01, 19 December 2006 downloaded 18th Dec 06

Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 19, 2008

Poetry in Schools

Those of us of a certain age were brought up with poems as part of our education and odd snippets resonate time and time again on our primrose path through life. But it seems not to be the case anymore as official teaching of poetry has fallen through the gap of either being presented as museum pieces or being teacher approve "relevant", the sure sign of a crap poem.

Joseph T. Thomas writes

This certainly is the case with official school poetry for children. Of course, this mode of poetry will always have a place in the classroom, where adults often have good reasons for teaching what they teach — but ..the poetry emerging from the cultures of childhood is too often overlooked... This poetry is "turned down" and "voiced over" by official school poetry and the critical conversation surrounding it, and it does in fact exist as pragmata of the child's daily life, as a body of work that children use and manipulate generally without adult intervention, "explanation," or "reassuring placement." This poetry is the poetry of the playground.

As its production is not monitored by authority figures, poetry of the playground is often vulgar, violent, and, I might add, uproariously funny: it embodies "the renegade tendencies of [. . .] the unconscious, and the child"

Tic Tac Toe
Granny on the Loo
Did a Fart
Did a Poo
It won't be YOU

as my children chant. And yet they remember not a word of officially approved poems...

Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 3, 2008

There is grandeur in this view of life.

Darwin at the Natural History Museum: the original of the species - Times Online

The Natural History Museum is one of London's and the world's great buildings, and, in the place of honour, looking down across the great Central Hall, Darwin offers his mild gaze in stone across to the prancing dinosaur Diplodocus. On Friday the museum is opening an exhibition on Darwin that will take in his 200th birthday, February 12, and end on the 127th anniversary of his death. Next year is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin, the book that shook the world - and is still shaking it.

It is a marvellous exhibition, not least in that it is full of marvels. ...

This exhibition is a vivid experience for anyone who has an interest in life. You can gaze on stuffed specimens of the animals that were part of the subtle and cumulative process of reaching his eureka. You can see demonstrations of its unquestionable validity in, for example, the bones of a human hand and arm, the wing of a fruit bat and the foot of a Komodo dragon: all showing their staggering similarities, their incontrovertible kinship.

The man - his life, his thoughts, the long process that led to his revelation - are presented for us to wonder at. The real implication of his work is something we have to work out for ourselves.

The only question is will one visit be enough.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 2, 2008

Don't let Schooling Interfere With Your Education

Google generation has no need for rote learning - Times Online
Memorising facts and figures is a waste of time for most schoolchildren because such information is readily available a mere mouse click away, a leading commentator has said.

A far better approach would be to teach children to think creatively so that they could learn to interpret and apply the knowledge available online. “Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is,” Tapscott said. “Kids should learn about history to understand the world and why things are the way they are. But they don’t need to know all the dates. It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorise that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google,” he said.

Tapscott denies that his approach is anti-learning. He argues that the ability to learn new things is more important than ever “in a world where you have to process new information at lightning speed”. He said: “Children are going to have to reinvent their knowledge base multiple times. So for them memorising facts and figures is a waste of time.”

Expect the horror storm from those dull witted fact regurgitating company cogs who make up the educational establishment. Information isn't knowledge, memorised facts are unreliable, imagination, conjecture, and just bloody thinking are much more important, and far harder to test and are dangerous to the complacency and obedience that schools prefer.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 26, 2008

Student Wasters

Thousands of teenagers drop out of university after being pushed onto 'pointless' courses - Telegraph

Many young people take "Mickey Mouse" degrees only to see little or no financial reward, it is claimed.
Britain currently produces fewer graduates in law, science, mathematics and health than most other developed nations, but more teenagers study humanities and the arts, said the report.
It comes despite the fact that British students taking these courses gain the least financial benefit. They add no more than £51,500 to a graduate's lifetime earnings, the study said, compared to £340,000 for those taking medicine.
Researchers blamed an over-bureaucratic education system - coupled with more "teaching to the test" at schools - which meant many teenagers were too reliant on tutors, teachers, careers advisors and Government recommendations to get along.
"Removing individual involvement and decisions from the process has the danger of undermining the values of successful education - personal discipline, curiosity, independence of thought and hard work," said the report.
The study called for a dismantling of the "education maze" which has seen post-18 policy dictated by 29 quangos and 101 different large-scale initiatives in recent years.
It said the £9.6 billion currently spent teaching 18 to 21-year-olds should be used to create so-called "individual education accounts" worth £13,000 for all young people.

More on the report produced by Reform should be here later today - if you can't find it then I have a copy I can send you.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 25, 2008

The Complete Guide to Education

Mrs. du Toit - Educating Your Children
When Thomas Jefferson set about the goals for public education, he focused very closely on what we were trying to achieve for our children:

To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;

To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing;

To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;

To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;

To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;

And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

--Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818

In a nutshell, we were interested in ensuring that our children were as BS-proof as possible, to be able to express themselves in discussion and in writing, and to have sufficient grounding in history and literature to understand the path of the Enlightenment, and why that was so important. Our children’s minds were not constrained,......

Go read and print it out.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 7, 2008

Flyover Britain

Islam is the reason British teachers are suddenly happy to teach creationism :: Damian Thompson

One in three teachers believe that creationism should be taught in school science lessons. Why? It's not becausethey've developed a sudden respect forfundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Bible. It's because devout Muslim pupils - and their parents - regard Darwin's teachings as blasphemous.
.....
This is a battle that the educational establishment just isn't prepared for. Guardian readers associate creationism with US Republicans, not ethnic minorities. Now they face a painful dilemma: should they fight to exclude the creationist viewpoint from science lessons, risking accusations of Islamophobia from angry parents, or should they embrace pseudoscience in the name of cultural diversity? It's a tough one.

Not that tough a call for me....

Posted by The Englishman at 10:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 6, 2008

Cold Snap Teaches Union Members a Lesson

Teachers' strike averted, says NUT - Telegraph

The National Union of Teachers - Britain's biggest classroom union - confirmed it would not be walking out following a ballot of members.

The benefits of a bit of cold weather, they don't fancy getting their fat arses out of the staffroom and out into the wind and rain. The NUT - working to keep the unemployable off the streets....

Posted by The Englishman at 8:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 28, 2008

Labour - Bottom of the Class

Reform Maths Challenge
As part of our campaign to promote a rigorous maths curriculum, Reform is proud to announce the 2008 Reform maths challenge to coincide with this year’s Party conferences.

The questions have been set by Dr Tony Gardiner, Reader in Mathematics and Mathematics Education at the University of Birmingham, and founder of the UK maths challenge.

We will announce a maths champion from each of the three Party conferences, and we will publish the average score of each Party.

And the answer is:

Labour's sums don't add up

The average scores for each Party conference were:
* Liberal Democrats: 83%
* Conservatives: 71%
* Non-attendees: 71%
* Labour: 65%

Make of that what you will...

Click here to download the Maths Challenge

(Answers here)

Posted by The Englishman at 8:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 20, 2008

Those who can't....

Half of all trainee teachers are failing basic numeracy test - Telegraph

However, the trainee teachers are allowed to sit the test as many times as they need and record numbers are failing.

The numeracy test takes 48 minutes and contains 12 mental arithmetic questions, to be completed without the aid of a calculator. There are several longer questions with data manipulation which can involve a calculator. The 45-minute literacy test is in four parts – spelling, grammar, punctuation and comprehension.

The basic skills tests are taken online in literacy, numeracy and ICT and the pass marks are 60 per cent.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said trainees on some routes into teaching – such as on-the-job training programmes – were exempt from taking the skills tests.

"Ofsted tell us that the standard of teaching training has never been higher and big rises in results show that quality of teaching is improving massively year-in, year-out," he said.

Glorious tractor production continues to rise under the great helmsman.

(If you want to see if you could be a teacher here is a sample test...)

Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

October 3, 2008

Gloucester's Ersatz Bullingdon

BBC NEWS | UK | University to probe initiations
The video obtained by the BBC shows a group of University of Gloucestershire students lined up against a wall with white plastic bags over their heads.

Another student, dressed in a Nazi-style uniform, is seen to encourage them to drink. Several students then vomit onto the ground before being paraded though the streets.

Bloody disgrace - I'm outraged. Shabby little students at a shabby little polytechnic in a pathetic ritual. These things should only be done when properly dressed, in ancient colleges and after a proper feasting. Just ask Dave.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 24, 2008

Let the Wirral kids go organic!

'Chemical cosh' Ritalin: The facts - Telegraph

Prescriptions vary widely around the country with the Wirral dispensing one drug such as Ritalin or similar for every seven children compared to Stoke on Trent where there was just one prescription for every 159 children

It is safe to presume that the vast majority of children "diagnosed" with ADHD are male, the "always on the move, running, climbing or jumping, as if driven by a motor that cannot be switched off" are very male characteristics. So up in the Wirral 2 out of 7 bys are drugged to control their behaviour, it isn't for their benefit, though much is made of it being necessary for them so they do well at school. It is for the benefit of their parents, and teachers, giving them control through drugs. Is that the way children should be brought up?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 13, 2008

Habituating the kids to a surveillance society

PFI schools 'designed like jails', say experts - Scotsman.com News

The design of the playground was a major concern at the PPP school, which was not named, with one teacher describing the small outside space, surrounded by a high fence and monitored by cameras, as "like a prison courtyard".

Another issue some raised with the new school playground was that the space was too open and very noisy, with no "nooks or crannies or semi-private spaces", making it difficult for groups of pupils to find a quiet spot.

Dr Brown added: "There seems to be evidence that we are now experiencing a new era of surveillance in our schools."

Posted by The Englishman at 7:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 10, 2008

Calling the shots at the East Anglia Polytechnic

Cambridge University's Alison Richard condemns push for state pupils - Times Online

In Cambridge today she will condemn attempts to force elite universities to recruit more pupils from state schools and disadvantaged backgrounds.

In a robust attack on government “meddling”, Alison Richard, the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, will say that universities are not “engines for promoting social justice”.

Poor love, she obviously hasn't grasped the essential reason behind the State's funding of education across schools and universities. The State is the piper and is paying for the institutions to turn out what the State wants, obedient productive citizens in regulated proportions of class and colour. Any individual's benefit or education, as opposed to training, is purely a fortuitous byproduct. Her speech continues, and shows her appalling naiveté, she wants more State funding - and still she hopes for less interference...

University funding ‘must be increased or brightest minds will go elsewhere’ - Times Online

In a speech in Cambridge, Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, says that higher education in the UK is hopelessly underfunded and that the Government should not use the excuse of the economic downturn to keep a lid on funding.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 7, 2008

Gov Orders Children to Have Happy Thoughts

Pupils taught how to be happy - Times Online

The weather is grim, the economy is in a mess, but ministers believe that they can restore the feelgood factor – by teaching children how to look on the bright side of life.

The government is backing a new project designed to “immunise” youngsters from getting the blues by educating them in the art of happiness at a young age.

Among the ministers who are backing the project are Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and James Purnell, who will give the keynote speech at the Conference on Wellbeing.

The only way those three on a platforn could make me happy was if there were three lengths of rope, a lever and a trap door also involved...

Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 2, 2008

Chrome - the new browser

Official Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser

Introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome with a comic.

We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

Gets the old techie juices running, I was selling Internet connectivity before browsers existed and so remember the launch of Netscape, altavista, the first Microsoft Browser, .... kids today, they don't believe you if they say there was a time before the web....

Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 21, 2008

Don't worry about results, just give us your money

Heads withhold results in protest at the ‘factory farming’ of pupils - Times Online

Eton, St Paul’s and Winchester College are among dozens of independent schools boycotting league tables by refusing to release their exam results.

Their head teachers claim that the rankings penalise schools that take weaker pupils and encourage the teaching of softer subjects.

Glib comparisons using league tables are unfair, but when parents are choosing schools they want as much information as possible. It almost sounds as though Eton et al don't think the parents are clever enough to understand the system, and should just trust the school. And I worry that the failing schools in the State sector will take up the same excuse to hide their deficiencies.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 10, 2008

Tractor Factory Results - a quarter of Directors claim to believe them

Spending spree has ‘failed pupils’ - Times Online

THE literacy and numeracy of new employees have tumbled over the past decade despite Labour’s £28 billion increase in education spending, according to research by a leading employers’ organisation.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) found 71% of its members believed the writing abilities of new employees had worsened, while 60% believed numeracy had also declined; 52% reported a worsening of the basic ability to communicate.

With the exam results season under way, more than 60% of directors now think GCSEs and A-levels are less demanding than a decade ago. Overall, only 27% believe schools have got better.

A-level results to be released this Thursday are expected to show the number of passes going above 97% ..

27% of directors believe schools have got better! Find them, name them, and sell any shares you have in their companies as they must be in the Rocking Horse Shit supply business for La-la land.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 9, 2008

Giles Coren On Polly Watch

All the lawns are manicured in Polly Toynbee land - Times Online

Leafing through The Guardian this week, I have been gripped by extracts from a new book by Polly Toynbee and David Walker, ..Polly? Really, Dave? Then you're even stupider than you come across on paper.

And they get stupider. And more bitter. And more teacherly and smug...sour old Trots like Toynbee. ...the prose dripping with that familiar and uniquely Guardian fetishising of black youth that seems to drip with middle-aged female lust for the noble savage. ..

I'm glad Giles waded through it for us, saving us the effort.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 8, 2008

Noting the decline of GCSEs

Top grades for music students - even if they don't know the score - Times Online

Asked how he made his music more forceful than others, Keith Moon, The Who’s hellraising drummer, replied: “Hit the drums harder.” The advice would have stood him a strong chance of a GCSE in music.

To the consternation of musicians, tutors and critics, an inability to understand sheet music has now become no hindrance to success at GCSE. Students can achieve a Grade A without reading or writing a single note.

I know Paul McCartney has achieved a Doctorate in Music without allegedly being able to read music, but that's not quite the same. A GCSE is meant to show you understand the nuts and bolts of a subject and if you can't understand the dots on the lines then you shouldn't be awarded a top grade.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 5, 2008

Education Tractor Factory Results

More children make the grade in 'vintage year' for exam passes - Scotsman.com News

PUPILS across Scotland will enjoy a "vintage year" for exam results with an increase in pass rates for both Standard Grade and Higher exams announced today.
Pass rates for Highers and Intermediate 2 exams have shown a significant increase, as thousands of students prepare to receive their results this morning.

The overall pass rate for Highers jumped to 73.4 per cent, compared to 71.7 per cent last year...Figures from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) showed that the overall pass rate for Standard Grades had risen from 97.6 per cent in 2007 to 98 per cent this year.

Congratulations to all of the children who have worked hard and what a shame their hard work is devalued because no one believes that the exam system is fair - not even the teachers.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 3, 2008

The war against teaching children science

Review interview: Richard Dawkins - Times Online

Dawkins believes that many science teachers who do believe in evolution are selling our children short by kowtowing to political correctness. At the moment, he points out, Darwinian evolution is taught in British schools at key stages 3 and 4, but under the national curriculum, alternative theories such as “intelligent design” (part of the creationist credo) “could be discussed in schools . . . in the context of being one of a range of views on evolution”, according to a government education minister.

“It’s fine to teach children about scientific controversies,” Dawkins says. “What is not fine is to say, ‘There are these two theories. One is called evolution, the other is called Genesis.’ If you are going to say that, then you should talk about the Nigerian tribe who believe the world was created from the excrement of ants.”

Cowardice is at the root of the problem, he feels. When it comes to presenting the truth of science against the “mythology” of religion, science teachers duck the issue for fear of reprimand. And not only from evangelical Christians. In his view, devout Muslims are a large part of the problem.

“Islam is importing creationism into this country,” he says....“It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist,” says Dawkins. “It’s almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country, because [if you do] you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.”

Posted by The Englishman at 7:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 28, 2008

Philip Parkin Precautionary Principle Prat - Don't expose your children to the danger!

Teacher's Unions should be banned from schools, say Wireless internet - Telegraph

Philip Parkin, general secretary of the teaching union Voice, said: "I don't know whether unions are safe but there is an accumulation of evidence that suggests they can have a significant impact on growing children, in particular the development of the nervous system."

Around three-quarters of primary schools and almost all secondaries in England already have teachers in unions.

But Mr Parkin insisted that - until research proves it is safe - all further expansion of unionisation should be halted.

"Our view would be that nobody should move in any significant way until the results of that review are known," he said. "We need to be absolutely sure it is safe. We need more clear and definitive evidence."

In other news teachers who are scared of the big wide world and students accessing it are proposing wearing tinfoil hats to protect themselves from the waves...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 23, 2008

Boys into Books

Deprived white boys inspired by ripping yarns, Ofsted says - Times Online

White boys from deprived backgrounds need action-packed stories about danger or sport to inspire them in lessons, Ofsted, the education regulator, said yesterday.

They do worse at school than any other group, which has increased concerns that white, working-class boys are becoming an educational underclass.

A good dose of daring do stories and less Barney we all love everyone tosh - a starting point would be for every school library to take out a subscription to Commando Magazine - that would make the librarian choke on her Muesli sandwich!

The Government has produced a list of 160 books they recommend for boys - here

Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 18, 2008

How good teachers get treated

Headteacher Vanessa Aldridge barred from school for working too hard - Telegraph

A devoted headteacher was suspended from her rural primary school for working too hard - only eight days before she was due to retire.

Vanessa Aldridge, 60, was shocked to be escorted from the school’s premises and told to stay away because it was considered she was working too many hours.

Yesterday, the day she should have been enjoying her first day of retirement after 18 years at Marshchapel Primary School, near Louth, Lincs, she told how she had been left devastated and confused as to why she had been put on “gardening leave”.

Mrs Aldridge has yet to be given a formal explanation for the decision to remove her from the 34-pupil school, however she believes it stems from earlier this year when she injured her back.

She was off work from March 6 to June 23, then allowed to start a “phased return” which involved restricted hours.

It is believed that she was allowed back on the understanding that she only worked her contracted hours — between 8.40am and 3.45pm — because governors were concerned that if she hurt herself again outside of those hours they could be held liable for compensation.

The first Mrs Aldridge knew anything was wrong was when two governors turned up at the school a week ago. She said: “They read out a letter telling me I would be escorted from the premises. I’ve been told I may have worked too many hours.”

And if that doesn't encapsulate so much of what is wrong with the system then nothing does.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 16, 2008

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

The working class hide their light under a bushel of cash | Robert Crampton - Times Online

Not every intelligent working-class child betrayed by the school system meekly accepts his or her fate, as many supporters of grammars imply. Many find a different route up and out.

Specifically, formal education's loss has been entrepreneurship's gain. There are many explanations for the stunning success of British business in the past quarter of a century - is it possible that the decline of the grammar schools is one? Smart men and women of humble origin, previously assimilated into the anti-business culture of the educated middle class, have instead raised British retail, catering, fashion, finance and entertainment in some cases from mediocrity, in other cases from the dead. The difference between them and their grammar school-educated predecessors is that as they moved up, they did not adopt middle-class cultural values.

Middle-class commentators bemoan the decline of the grammars so loudly because they provided the sort of Roy Jenkins, Michael Howard, ditch-your-regional-accent, start-going-to-the-opera social mobility of which the middle class so approves.

Starting a business, making a shedload of cash and moving to Essex or Cheshire may not be everyone's idea of acceptable social mobility, but it is social mobility all the same.

And that is the best argument I have ever heard for the abolition of Grammar Schools. It is well known that some of the most successful business men were never ruined by college. Schooling isn't about education.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:23 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

July 9, 2008

JFGI - The Lesson For Today

How the Google generation thinks differently - Times Online

Digital natives and digital immigrants are terms coined by the American futurist Marc Prensky to distinguish between those who have grown up with technology and those who have adapted to it. .. Natives multi-task, thrive on instant gratification and claim to function best when networked....What is new and perturbing is the emerging evidence of the consequences of this digital divide. According to researchers we are in the midst of a sea change in the way that we read and think. Our digitally native children have wonderfully flexible minds. They absorb information quickly, adapt to changes and are adept at culling from multiple sources. But they are also suffering from internet-induced attention deficit disorder....

Children do have the capacity to assimilate learning faster and simultaneously from multiple sources; “The downside is that they expect more variety, so their boredom threshold is falling. Some teaching is adapting to that and becoming more dynamic, some is not.”

"Downside"? "Perturbing"? Not for the kids or for their ability to learn - no it is only worrying for the old dinosaurs in the teaching trade who moan the kids don't want to listen to them drone on for sixty minutes about one subject. It's not how kids learn now, and I'm not sure it ever was.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 7, 2008

Schools for education? Not under this government. 3

Red Box - Times Online's Westminster blog: Shakespeare is less important than healthy eating classes, emotional needs lessons and sex education - Labour MP

Dawn Butler, vice chair of the Labour Party, has just issued this press release.

Dawn Butler MP, member of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) Select Committee has called for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) to be made compulsory in schools. Dawn says "I questioned the Minister, Jim Knight, quite robustly at the last DCSF Select Committee meeting, as I believe that PSHE is an important subject in terms of equipping young people with the necessary skills for later life. Shakespeare is important, but I would prioritise PSHE.

An Englishman's Castle: Schools for education? Not under this government.

Schools used for 'social engineering', claims headteacher - Telegraph

Rod MacKinnon, the head of Bexley Grammar School, south-east London, said schools were being forced to shun traditional lessons as ministers manipulated the education system for the purposes of "social engineering".

"There are those who wish to use children and schools as social engineers with a view to creating a different society but we should not even be trying to do such things," he said. "Children need to be nurtured, educated and cared for, not thrown into the frontline of social reform. Muddled thinking is guaranteeing failure for the noble aspirations we all commonly hold for the education of the young."

The state pays for schooling so the state designs schooling to train children into its pattern, it is only either accidentally or by the luck of having a brave teacher that children actually get educated as well as being taught.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Schools for education? Not under this government. 2

NCB | Young Children and Racial Justice: Taking action for racial equality in the early years, by Jane Lane, was published by the National Children's Bureau.

Jane Lane, the author, who is not a member of NCB staff, but an advocate worker for racial equality in the early years sector, said:
‘Children are like sponges and the early years of their lives are critical for helping them learn to respect the opinions, differences, similarities and needs of others.’

"I wrote Young Children and Racial Justice because I am increasingly aware that there are people who do not take issues of racial equality sufficiently seriously...This has led to a situation where important early years anti-racist practice is misunderstood by those responsible for implementing it.

"A child may react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying, 'Yuck!"'.

That may indicate a lack of familiarity with that particular food, or "more seriously a reaction to a food associated with people from a particular ethnic or cultural community".

An Englishman's Castle: Schools for education? Not under this government.

Rod MacKinnon, the head of Bexley Grammar School, south-east London, said schools were being forced to shun traditional lessons as ministers manipulated the education system for the purposes of "social engineering".

Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Schools for education? Not under this government.

Schools used for 'social engineering', claims headteacher - Telegraph

Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 4, 2008

Leviticus 19:18 vs 2 Kings 2:23-24

Hug-a-hoody speechwriter mugged by hoodies - Times Online

The former Tory adviser behind David Cameron's controversial “hug a hoody” campaign got a bloody lip when he was punched by a hooded teenager as he tried to stop a gang stealing a moped.

I wrote ‘hug a hoodie’ and I’m proud of it | The Spectator

Danny Kruger, who was David Cameron’s speechwriter, defends his most notorious piece of work for the Tory leader and says that love is a neglected crime-fighting device

My main memory of this incident is rather horrid: the spit-filled mouth of the little rat-faced boy who punched me. Short, white, in a grey hooded tracksuit, he shouted at me with all the rage of Cain...

You are a better man than me if you can love such a "neighbour" - Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: Leviticus 19:18 (King James Version) (Old Testament - that surprised you!)

I tend to favour Elisha's story:
2 Kings 2 (King James Version)

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 30, 2008

GCSEs Dumbed Down? F*** Off!

Markers award students for writing obscenities on GCSE papers - Times Online

Pupils are being rewarded for writing obscenities in their GCSE English examinations even when it has nothing to do with the question.

One pupil who wrote “f*** off” was given marks for accurate spelling and conveying a meaning successfully.

His paper was marked by Peter Buckroyd, a chief examiner who has instructed fellow examiners to mark in the same way. He told trainee examiners recently to adhere strictly to the mark scheme, to the extent that pupils who wrote only expletives on their papers should be awarded points.

Write ‘f*** off’ on a GCSE paper and you’ll get 7.5%. Add an exclamation mark and it’ll go up to 11%

Presumably without the asterisks....

Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 29, 2008

Let's Party!

School leavers want a prom just like on US television show The OC - Telegraph

...teenagers turn to American-style prom celebrations complete with stretch limousines, dinner jackets and ballgowns. ..

Not everyone is thrilled with the invasion of such an American rite of passage. Gerald Haigh, a former primary school headteacher, worries..: "A friend emailed me to say that outside his local primary school on the night of the Year 6 leaving party, he'd counted four stretch Lincolns, two stretch Hummers, assorted Jags, BMWs and Mercs, all queuing to drop off buffed and puffed sprogs and sprogettes. Doesn't it make you yearn, just a little, for a more
innocent time?"

Hurray - the kids have aspirations! They want glitz and fun - how unlike the grumps and the new survivalists

...Sally Hill, 37, a former teacher, wants her two young children, five-year-old Abby and three-year-old Ben, to live a self-sufficient lifestyle, because she believes the Government will not be able to do anything about future oil shortages.

"When you've given up trying to save the world, the next best solution is working out how to save yourself," says Mrs Hill, whose husband, Matt, 40, a graphic designer, shares her sustainable lifestyle on the south coast. They have a wood-burning stove, kerosene lamps and essential supplies in the cellar to prepare for the possibility of food shortages or prolonged power cuts.

She is guided by the impulse that it is better to be safe than sorry, teaching her children how to grow vegetables as part of their education.

Funny how it is always the "former teachers"....

Posted by The Englishman at 8:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 27, 2008

Council Not Meant To Run Schools Anymore - Says Council Supremo

Let companies run state schools for profit, says Sir Simon Milton - Times Online

Private companies should be allowed to run state schools at a profit and be free to dismiss teachers who are not up to the job, the head of the Local Government Association (LGA) said yesterday.

They should also be able to “sweat” the most from their assets by hiring out their buildings and grounds in the holidays, Sir Simon Milton said.

In remarks that brought condemnation from teachers’ unions, Sir Simon said that the role of councils should be to buy education services on the open market from a variety of providers, including for-profit private concerns.

“I have no difficulty with that idea,” he said. “My view, and the LGA’s view, is that councils are not meant to run schools any more.”

The LGA! The bloody LGA are saying this, oh the tide is turning, now why can't the Tories be as bold?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 24, 2008

Teaching Parents To Eat

School note for parents who give children unhealthy pack lunches - Times Online

Parents cleaning out their child's lunchbox at the end of the school day could be in for a nasty surprise — a scolding note from teacher alongside the half-eaten sandwiches and empty crisp packets.

The School Food Trust wants teachers to send out warning letters to parents who fail to comply with school healthy-eating policies. And in advice that could be seen as patronising, the government-funded body suggests further that they send congratulatory letters to those who pack healthy lunches for their children.

No, I won't have children telling me what to eat | Mick Hume - Times Online

Once upon a time, not so long ago, parents were supposed to educate children in the ways of the world. But the Government appears to have turned that arrangement on its head. Now it is deemed the job of children to teach parents right from wrong.

A Department of Health survey reveals that a third of parents say that their children know more than them about healthy eating campaigns. This will come as little surprise to those who are aware of how sermons on eating five portions of fruit and vegetables, recycling everything and never bullying a fly have replaced religious indoctrination in our schools.

For Dawn Primandproper, the Health Minister, the survey proves that children can teach ignorant adults a lesson. “We welcome the fact that children are absorbing our five-a-day messages and can teach their parents to eat more healthily.”

Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

June 23, 2008

English Schools (Only) to Indoctrinate Britishness

BBC NEWS | Education | Classrooms focus on 'Britishness'

More than 500 schools in England will focus on the subject of Britishness as part of a government initiative.

Is it only being English schools being forced to follow Gordon's British line? Yes, no irony here, nothing to see, please move along.

Posted by The Englishman at 1:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fatherless

Father's Day cards banned in Scottish schools - Telegraph

Thousands of primary pupils were prevented from making Father's Day cards at school for fear of embarrassing classmates who live with single mothers and lesbians.

The politically correct policy was quietly adopted at schools "in the interests of sensitivity" over the growing number of lone-parent and same-sex households.

The making of Mother's Day cards and crafts, in the run-up to Mothering Sunday, remains generally permitted.

But the Father's Day edict follows a series of other politically correct measures introduced in primary schools, including the removal of Christian references from festive greetings cards.

It's a wise child that knows its father, and these days the ever benevolent state and its agents, the teachers, prefer it to be them rather than any poor sap of a man who might be biologically related.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 22, 2008

Ball's Schooling

Grammar-hating Ed Balls has a little Eton secret - Times Online

If the grammar school-baiting Ed Balls succeeds in his struggle against selection in education, the class war will have been won – at least in part – on the playing fields of Eton.

The schools secretary has revealed that as a child he lived briefly at the Berkshire public school when his father, Michael, taught there in the early 1970s.

He was fiercely opposed to grammar schools, organising the campaign against the 11-plus in Norfolk. This did not stop him later educating his son privately at Nottingham High School.
Balls, despite his privileged education, has gained a reputation for trying to close off attempts by the middle classes to dominate the best schools in the state system.

I hadn't realised that Ed Balls was the product of the private, £9000-a-year Nottingham high school and then Keble College, Oxford, where his dad had also been educated. No wonder he is opposed to any parent trying to improve their child's chances in education by using money, influence or faith - they might turn the child in the obnoxious little creep that he has to face in the mirror every morning.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 21, 2008

Give Me the Child Until He Is Seven, and I Will Show You the Man

Toddlers to be taught about human rights - Telegraph

Nurseries across the country are adopting the project, which will see teachers explaining to children as young as three that people across the world live different lives but everyone has a right to food, water and shelter.

Staff will also be expected to ensure that children are treated as independent human beings, and have the "right" to choose their toys or have a drink of water whenever they want.

It is an extension of a Unicef scheme already in use in primary schools, in which pupils analyse the responsibilities of fairytale characters and sign a joint declaration with teachers of how people should be treated.

The move comes amid growing concern about the Government's "nappy curriculum", a set of 69 learning targets for under-fives...

Poor little mites aren't allowed to play anymore, it is as though Pyongyang set our education policy.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

June 11, 2008

The Shame of our Schools

Equality has made dunces of children | - Times Online

Education, education, education? For shame, for shame, for shame. New Labour’s failure to rescue state education, let alone improve it, will be its most disgraceful legacy. The Conservatives should not crow; when in office they also failed to take on the forces destroying education.

Each week the news is full of reports of stagnating standards, more university dropouts (one in seven students, despite government “investment” of £1 billion since 2003), a shortage of teachers, particularly in maths and science, and a majority of underqualified teachers. However, two dismal stories stood out last week, both as symptom and explanation of what is wrong.

One of the three leading universities in the country, Imperial College London, announced that in 2010 it would introduce an entrance exam for applicants because it cannot rely on A-level results....

Also last week, Professor John White of the notoriously progressive Institute of Education told us that traditional lessons were too middle class. Instead, he said, schools should teach skills such as “energy saving and civic responsibility” through “theme or project-based learning”....

As these two stories demonstrate, quality has been sacrificed to the pursuit of equality. It is shameful..

Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 26, 2008

Teaching them a lesson for life

Schools in revolt over under-5s curriculum - Times Online

A powerful coalition of England’s leading independent schools is demanding that the Government scale back its new national curriculum for the under-fives, claiming that it violates parents’ human rights by denying them the freedom to choose how they educate their children....
The framework becomes law in the autumn and will affect all 25,000 nurseries and childcare settings in England, whether they are run by the state, charities or private companies. It sets out up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on 69 writing, problem solving and numeracy skills....

The ISC also complains that the requirements for teachers to produce written observations on each child will result in teachers “acting as time and motion experts hovering around children with clipboards, Post-it notes and cameras to collect ‘evidence’ ”.

Ah, but that is just preparing the kids for life in modern Britain; spied on, reported on, judged on, Government target driven robots.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 22, 2008

IQ and Class in the Classroom

Student union rejects academic's IQ claims | higher news | EducationGuardian.co.uk

Elite universities are failing to recruit working-class students because IQ is, on average, determined by social class, according to an academic.
Bruce Charlton, a reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University, claims that the greater proportion of students from higher social classes at highly selective universities is not a sign of admissions prejudice but rather the result of simple meritocracy.

Student union leaders responded angrily to his claim, which was also dismissed by a minister.

I haven't seen his paper, or the report of it in the Times Higher Education, and I guess neither have the rent a quote Gemma Tumelty, NUS president, or Bill Rammell, the higher education minister. As with most of the education debate in this country they prefer to stick their fingers in their ears and chant "nah, nah, nah we can't hear you" when anything that disagrees with their cosy view of how the world should be is threaten by a report of how the world actually is.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 21, 2008

Imposing ceilings

Education: State school students miss out on big salaries - Telegraph

Pupils from state schools are missing out on £90,000 salaries as teachers refuse to push them towards elite universities, according to a new study.

Half of comprehensive school students believe there is no difference in earning potential associated with a degree from a top university compared with a former polytechnic, it was disclosed.

Poverty of Aspirations is the probably the biggest curse the state sector inflicts on its charges, that and the ignorance of the second rate teachers who prefer their blinkered world view to actually looking at the truth.

Though The Telegraph doesn't paint that rosy a picture for graduates, ..nearly a fifth of students who graduated from leading universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, the London School of Economics, St Andrews and University College London were earning £90,000 a decade after graduating.
Nine grand a year?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2008

Failing the examiners

Education: Pupils 'should not expect correct marking' - Telegraph

GCSE and A-level students should not always expect to receive the correct marks in tests, according to the new examinations watchdog.

Kathleen Tattersall, the chairman of Ofqual, said the public had a "simplistic" expectation that the marking system should be "perfect".

Don't start condescending to us lady, you demand the kids get the right answers so we expect the examiners to do so too. Not "perfect" but as near as humanly possible to perfect; these exams are hugely important and let me put it simply, it's your bloody job to do it right. If you set the bar low and excuse your staff making cockups before you start then you aren't the person for the job.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 11, 2008

A Quite Interesting proposal for education

The QI equation for an enriched IQ - Times Online

Think about that list of great men who barely went to school: Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, William Cobbett, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell. Our most independent thinkers were more or less self-educated. You will also find that the best schools – for example, Eton and Westminster – have the shortest terms and do the least teaching, a paradox that would suggest we need less formal education all round.

In the QI edition of The Idler, Lloyd and Mitchinson present a five-point manifesto for educational reform.

“There would be no work, for a start,” said Lloyd. “It would all be play. Plato said that education should be a form of amusement. That way you will be much better able to discover the child’s natural bent.”

This approach is in direct contrast, of course, to the largely Gradgrindian approach common to most schools. As Mitchinson points out, it is actually a method of containment: “There’s that great line: you’re taught for the first five years of your life how to walk and talk; and for the next 10, you’re told to shut up and sit down.”

For Mitchinson, schools have turned into wage-slave production farms rather than places of learning....

Posted by The Englishman at 8:41 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

May 8, 2008

Offensive education

State education so poor it's offensive, says schools chief - Telegraph

Chris Parry, the new chief executive of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), said standards were "offensive" to parents who pay their taxes and forced hundreds of thousands to go private.

Speaking a week after taking up his post, Mr Parry also criticised the ideological opposition to fee-paying schools that was perpetuated by teachers in the state system.

The system is rotten to the core, it is beyond gentle reform with barrow loads of cash, it needs the pressure of real parental choice, it needs school vouchers.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 1, 2008

School Lottery

Letters: Class war over Brighton's school lottery | Schools special reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk

We are a group of academics writing in support of Brighton and Hove city council's decision to introduce a new system for schools admissions, which combines fixed catchment areas with a lottery for oversubscribed schools. Together with new government rules on admissions policies, this decision indicates a welcome shift towards an educational system based on equal opportunities for all, rather than the privileged few.

For anybody involved in the education system in contemporary Britain, the starting point has to be fairness. As academics, we all too often meet students who, for reasons of social deprivation and class prejudice, have not had the same opportunities as their peers.....

Father commits suicide over daughter's school place - Telegraph

Steve Don, 43, threw himself under a train after telling his wife that if Brighton and Hove education authority would not listen to him while he was alive, “perhaps they will if I was dead”.

The inquest in Brighton heard that Mr Don, a surveyor, believed his inability to get his daughter into the chosen school made him an “unfit” parent. The school where she had originally been allocated a place was five miles from the family home in Brighton and two bus rides away.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 2, 2008

Teachers don't want independent school governors, wonder why.

Paid workers may replace school volunteers - Telegraph

Thousands of volunteers running state schools may be replaced by paid professionals, under proposals being considered in a Government review.

The move to replace the traditional school governors, who are all volunteers, with salaried workers, is aimed at boosting education standards.

It comes amid growing fears that the existing system of running schools is no longer "fit for purpose".

More than 300,000 volunteers are currently responsible for primary, secondary and special schools in England and Wales, but critics claim many are not cut out for the increasingly complex role.

Last week, the NASUWT teachers' union said that "massive investment of public money should not be in the hands of untrained volunteers, however well-meaning".

Volunteer governors, I mean they actually work for the benefit of the children for free with out going out on strike if they are asked to use a stapler or miss their afternoon nap. What we need is more people like us, more NuLabour union stooges who understand schools are there to provide employment for teachers and not awkward parents who wonder why their kids aren't being given the education they pay for. Look what a success the LEAs and teacher unions have made of schools, give us complete power and the tractor production will soar....

Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 28, 2008

School news roundup

'Keep pupils in to stop them eating junk food' - Telegraph

Children should be banned from leaving school at lunchtime so they cannot gorge themselves on junk food, a Government body says today.

Teachers to get search powers - Telegraph
Teachers should be able to search pupils for alcohol, drugs and stolen goods, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday.

At the moment staff must call in the police to carry out a search if they suspect pupils of carrying drink or drugs. Only if they believe the child is in possession of a gun or knife can they carry out a search themselves.

From The Barrel of a Gun - Hey, Teacher, Leave Them Kids Alone! It's not just teachers that need to leave them alone, so do these assholes. Every ounce of freedom has already been sucked out of schools themselves, but still those pesky kids won't just sit down and do as their told like good little zombies. No, what needs to be done is to extend the rules of the womb-prison indoctrination camps out to cover areas beyond its own boundaries.

Sometimes I think the answer may lie elsewhere:

Houston Chronicle
A middle school principal threatened to kill a group of science teachers if their students did not improve their standardized test scores, according to a complaint filed with the New Braunfels Police Department.

Now that is the way to treat the piss-poor whining underperforming jokes who infest the staff room.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 25, 2008

Teachers - yes to imams, no to infantry.

BBC NEWS | Education | Pupils 'lured' into armed forces

Teachers are accusing the Ministry of Defence of using "sophisticated" methods to lure youngsters, often in deprived areas, into the armed forces.

National Union of Teachers delegates in Manchester will debate a motion later calling for an end to "recruitment" in schools in England and Wales.

BBC NEWS | Education | Call to offer faith class choice

Head teachers should allow imams, rabbis and priests to offer religious instruction to pupils in all state schools, teachers' leaders have said.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said the move would be a way to reunite divided communities.

ArchBish Cranmer reports When the BBC first reported this story, they headlined it ‘Schools could offer Koran classes’ in order to ruffle a few feathers. Later on in the day, the headline was changed to ‘Call to offer faith class choice’, though it is still possible to search for it under the original provocative headline.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Freeing Schools

Michael Gove's idea to free our failing schools - Telegraph

....In a reasonable world, the proposal that he puts forward would scarcely require outstanding courage. It is a common-sense judgment to which all politicians committed to raising educational standards should assent.

What Mr Gove is promising is that a Conservative government would take incorrigibly poor schools in deprived areas out of the control of the local education authorities that have clearly shown themselves to be incapable of improving them.

That such a reasonable policy must be seen as daring is a testimony to how much political leverage local councils have managed to maintain over successive governments, in spite of their often dire history in running education....

In spite of what it claims is its passionate sense of urgency about the academic fate of children in failing schools, the Government has agreed to give at least a further four years to turn them round.

But the Conservatives, whose depth of concern about poor children has often been suspect, are now committed to handing over the running of the 638 worst schools to independent organisations of various kinds - City Academies, charitable trusts or even parents' co-operatives - thus freeing them from local authority power and revolutionising their chances of improvement.

Not only is this a refreshingly firm promise from an Opposition that often seems reluctant to make hard-and-fast commitments, but it is politically well-judged. By beginning the emancipation of schools with those that are failing poor children, the Conservatives can inspire confidence in their social concerns, as well as paving the way for a wider move towards giving all schools independence from political control.

It is a start, and maybe as far as the Tories can politically go. In fact they may be hoping that it is not trumpeted as merely a stepping stone on the way to the abolition of LEA and introducing competition into the education system, but it ought to be.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 24, 2008

You don't have to be mad to work here, but...

Under-fives to be subjected to 500 developmental targets - Times Online

The new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS), which becomes law in the autumn, lays down up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on writing, problem solving and numeracy skills. It will apply to about 25,000 nurseries, plus registered childminders in England.

I was going to say it was absolute madness until I noticed the next headline..Recruitment drive as mentally ill teachers asked back to school - that about sums it up.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 20, 2008

When Churchill met Elvis

Winston Churchill was first to walk on the Moon, say children - Times Online

Winston Churchill: leader, victor, and, according to a third of schoolchildren, astronaut. The most celebrated British Prime Minister of the 20th century was the first man to walk on the Moon, one in three young people told a survey.

The black hole in their knowledge was revealed after an online poll asked 1,400 children, aged from 6 to 14, some basic astronomical questions.

Not only did a significant number confuse Neil Armstrong with the statesman who led the Allies to victory, it also revealed that 72 per cent were unable to identify the Moon in a series of pictures.

Makes you proud of the system eh? Though of course some might wonder about The Times implying that Churchill was Supreme Allied Commander.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 19, 2008

We want your children

Just a Girl in short shorts talking about whatever: Homeschooling in the Police State

“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.”

In other words, the purpose of the public schools is to indoctrinate children into a particular communal ethos promoted by the state, whether or not the parents agree on the specifics of what the “public welfare” entails.

Presumably if parents obtain the proper credentials they will not only not beat their kids, but instill the secular values of the Nanny and Welfare States.

This is frightening stuff.

There are really two primary purposes of compulsory public eduction.

First, over the period of twelve years the mindset of children can be molded into one of conformity and obedience to authority.

Second, public schooling enables government officials to fill children’s minds with officially approved political, historical, and economic doctrine.

No wonder that Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Mussolini were enthusiastic supporters of compulsory public education.

Posted by The Englishman at 10:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 5, 2008

Hurray for parents who cheat

That is what parents are meant to do, fight for their kids even against the all benevolent and knowing state. Doesn't the headline reveal in all its nastiness how parents are viewed when it comes to responsibility for their kids education, to be sneered at as "pushy" or "cheats", when they try to gain a little advantage in the state rigged system.

The online headline is slightly different:
Crackdown ordered on parents who try to cheat the state-school system - Times Online

Posted by The Englishman at 7:23 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 4, 2008

Teacher Job Protection Lottery slammed.

Children lose out in first schools lottery - Telegraph
The use of lotteries to award school places has been criticised as it emerged the first random selection scheme resulted in fewer children getting places at their preferred secondary this year.

Teachers' leaders said the idea that parents could choose between the best state schools was a myth.

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "People regard themselves as having an equal chance of getting into the best schools under this system, so they are willing to chance their arm.

'That clearly is not the case. The more you talk about 'choice' when it comes to school admissions, the more people will try to exercise that choice and the more they will be disappointed."

A Government-funded report by Sheffield Hallam University - published earlier this year - backed the use of admissions lotteries, saying they could "make access to popular schools fairer".

These lotteries have one purpose only, not to improve fairness, not to help pupils but to protect the staff at the less good schools from the rigours of parental choice. If I had to choose who supplied me with potatoes by lottery do you think quality, service and prices would improve? The only fair way to give parental choice and help pupils is to give parents full free choice backed with vouchers. If good schools get too many applicants, well as businesses let them sort it out; and if the bog standard don't get enough, ditto.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 2, 2008

Open-arses

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet - Student Edition

Now will he sit under a medlar tree
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open et cetera, thou a pop'rin pear!

"et cetera"? Now you don't think old Will really wrote that do you?

He was writing about Medlars
- which are very hard and acidic. They become edible after being softened ("bletted") by frost, or naturally in storage given sufficient time. Once softening begins, the skin rapidly takes a wrinkled texture and turns dark brown, and the inside reduces to a consistency and flavour reminiscent of apple sauce. As D.H. Lawrence said: "Wineskins of brown morbidity, autumnal excrementa ... an exquisite odour of leave taking"

So what he (or whoever) wrote was:

Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!

Open-arse - now that is a proper name for the fruit, but not one that Waitrose uses...

Thomas Dekker also draws a saucy comparison in his play The Honest Whore: "I scarce know her, for the beauty of her cheek hath, like the moon, suffered strange eclipses since I beheld it: women are like medlars. No sooner ripe but rotten"

(And in checking the text Microsoft provided me with a fine example of literary criticism...See below)

Posted by The Englishman at 3:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 23, 2008

The Testing Industry

BBC NEWS | Education | Parents fail comprehension test
If conspiracy theorists ever got into education, one of the first places that they might point their suspicious fingers is the tangled undergrowth of tests, qualifications and assessment.

They might well ask whether the whole baffling system had been created to be incomprehensible to parents.

Anyone with a child in the last year of primary school will already be keenly aware of the Sats tests to be taken in May.

But this week even more fog was pumped into the subject with the debate over a new type of primary school test, a kind of son of Sats, known as the “single-level test”.

The results of a pilot test involving 22,000 children were initially delayed, while officials examined the bewildering finding that younger children had got higher marks than older children.

Although "marks" is not the right word, because in these Alice in Wonderland-ish tests, pupils only take them when they are good enough to pass.

There is no mark, because no one who is deemed likely to fail takes them in the first place.

Pupils have not failed, they have suffered from an "inappropriate entry".

....

In terms of unnecessary complications, the primary school tests are just the nursery slopes. Secondary and higher education qualifications enter into another realm of the incomprehensible.

The national qualifications framework has nine levels of difficulty. Download the list at level one and there are more than 1,200 different options, including various Key Skills, NVQs and BTEC courses.

Each of these abundant level one options are equivalent to GCSE grades D to G. Hold on, did not D to G use to be an… inappropriate entry?

There will be even more scope for confusion when Diplomas are added to the mix. Will A-levels versus Diplomas become education's first format war? And what about the children who end up with the Betamax version for the rest of their lives?

Qualifications and testing are an industry – and any business has its own jargon. But spare a thought for the pupils, schools and parents who have to make sense of it all.

That's the whole point, the tests aren't for the kids or to provide useful information on how the kids are doing, they are are just tests for the testing industry!

Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 22, 2008

Half marks to the QCA

'Softer' A-levels award common sense answers with top marks - Telegraph

A-level candidates can gain top grades in some subjects merely by using common sense and recounting anecdotes about their own lives, exam chiefs say today.

A report by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the exam watchdog, finds pupils taking subjects such as sociology and media studies are "less impressive" than those taking more traditional courses.

Well they must be last people on earth to realise that then. Universities, employers and pupils all know a Micky Mouse subjet when they see one, the only people who don't are the teachers, most of whom only have Mickey mouse degrees...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 18, 2008

NEET news

Tories: 'Lost generation' rely on benefits - Telegraph

A "lost generation" of young people stuck in a cycle of unemployment and benefits dependency is exposed in a damning dossier on youth poverty released on Monday...".When Labour came to power the number of young people living in poverty was falling. Today it is rising again, and is higher than it was in 1997.

"Together with the fact that unemployment among young people is also higher than it was 10 years ago, the reality is that the Government has run out of ideas when it comes to dealing with the challenges facing many young people."

I beg to disagree Labour still stick to their core ideas - shovelling money at the state sector to create crappy non-jobs and fudging the figures to reduce the headline figures. It is only as the money runs out and the new categories to put the unemployed into become stale that the problem emerges. Which is why they are so keen to enslave the 16-18 year olds into education to keep the numbers down - it will be zero under the new scheme. An only grumpy old carpers like me will wonder if the kids are actually doing anything productive.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 16, 2008

X rated Tea Time

Schools face ban on serving tea to under-16s - Telegraph

Schools could be told to stop serving hot tea to under-16s on health and safety grounds.

The Government-funded School Food Trust said restrictions may be added to guidelines on drinks approved for consumption in state schools.

In a consultation document, it said hot coffee and tea had "minimal" nutritional benefits and posed potential safety risks.
...

"Should tea and coffee sales be limited to adults and children 16 and over?" the consultation asked.

And for once they have found a teacher to speak sense...Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "I can understand the anxiety about young people eating appropriate food but this nannying really has to end.

''This just cuts into people's civil liberties."

Posted by The Englishman at 8:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 13, 2008

Unique Learner Number

Every child in school numbered for life - Times Online

All 14-year-old children in England will have their personal details and exam results placed on an electronic database for life under a plan to be announced tomorrow.

Under the terms of the scheme all children will keep their individual number throughout their adult lives, The Times has learnt. The database will include details of exclusions and expulsions.

Officials said last night that the introduction of the unique learner number (ULN)was not a step towards a national identity card.

The new database — which will store a “tamper-proof CV” — will be known as MIAP (managing Information Across Partners). To be registered on the new database every 14-year-old will be issued with a unique learner number. Unlike the current unique pupil number now given to children in school but destroyed when they leave, the ULN will be used by government agencies to track individuals until they retire. Ultimately, it will create a numbered database for every citizen aged 14-plus in the UK.

The MIAP is part of a push for more government departments to share information on ordinary citizens with each other. The new Education and Skills Bill to raise the education leaving age from 16 to 18, for example, contains sweeping powers for local authorities to access information from schools, health agencies and social services to track young people between the ages of 16 and 18.

Haven't we been here before?

Unique Learner Number as previously deployed.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

February 8, 2008

The Primary Failure of Schools

Starting school at 4 'no help to children' - Telegraph

Children in England start school lessons earlier and sit more tests but still perform no better than in other countries, researchers say today.

They find school "stressful" as they are subjected to academic lessons in English and maths at the age of four.

In countries such as Sweden and Finland, where children do not start school until seven, pupils often outperform English children by the age of 11.

English primaries are also bigger than in most other countries - with an average of 224 pupils against 128 in Scotland - and make pupils sit exams more often, at a younger age and in more subjects.

In a further conclusion, today's report shows that English schools focus more lessons on politically correct themes such as "diversity, tolerance and multi-culturalism" than in other nations.

A study by Glasgow University said this was "especially evident" in RE, history, geography and citizenship. France and Japan were more prepared to celebrate home-grown values in the curriculum.

In a damaging conclusion, it is claimed more parents educate their children at home or in alternative Steiner schools because they believe schools are "too constrained by the imperatives of performativity".

Apart from wanting to shoot anyone who uses the word "performativity" it sounds like the report is on the right track, and the cause is the Government managing the education process, not allowing parents and teachers to do so.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 28, 2008

MCDegrees

McDonald’s A level in running a burger bar - Times Online
McDonald’s and other big businesses will award their own qualifications equal to GCSEs, A levels and degrees, in subjects such as fast-food restaurant management, the Government will announce today.

As an employer I would trust and respect a degree from McDonalds more than one from our Mickey Mouse universities.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 23, 2008

Why it is right to lie to help your kids.

David Cameron defends church school 'cheats' - Times Online

Parents who pretend that they have Christian beliefs in order to win places in church schools are doing the best for their children, David Cameron believes.

The Tory leader refuses to criticise the “middle-class parents with sharp elbows”. Asked for his views on the families accused of playing the system, he says: “I think it’s good for parents who want the best for their kids. I don’t blame anyone who tries to get their children into a good school. Most people are doing so because it has an ethos and culture. I believe in active citizens.”

Well said Dave, parents have a duty to lie, cheat and play the system in anyway they can to do the best for their children, their primary duty is to their children not to some socialist system where the individual children's interests come very low down the priorities.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 21, 2008

Teaching to teach

Las Cruces Sun-News - Educational failure to thrive
....the problem in education is the use of the factory model of education. It assumes all students are basically the same; all teachers are basically the same and all schools should be the same. Anyone spending time in our schools will know that the factory model doesn't work.

The students, teachers and administrators are all different as can be expected since they are human...That is the secret that the politicians do not get. They want every lesson across America to be the same, every teacher in America teaching the same way and every American child learning in the same way. The standardized tests with No Child Left Behind are the darling of the data people who themselves have never taught.

Tim Worstall on the Adam Smith Blog expands:, Teach First's idea is to take bright graduates, give them a few weeks of training to polish their educational skills and then stick them into bad schools. The schools that they find it very difficult to get fully trained teachers to go to.

On the face of it this seems absurd: for as we're constantly and consistently told, teaching is a profession, one which requires either a full degree in the subject or at minimum a one year post-graduate course after a non-education major degree. How could merely clever people pick it up in weeks?

Quite how well can they? Results from the American equivalent show:

...research on Teach for America that suggests these teachers outperform other starting teachers, and even the more sanguine evidence (eg. work by Jonah Rockoff and coauthors) has Teach for America teachers being no worse.

So we seem to have a situation where an absence of specific training in education produces better educators: or at the very least, ones that are no worse.

An excellent result I think all can agree: the policy implication is therefore clear, make teacher training a 5 or 6 week course, close the vast majority of the educating to educate system, save a great deal of money and possibly improve the education system, or at least leave it no worse.

And remember, we're doing it for the children.

Exactly the whole "teaching to teach profession" is a worthless house of cards, but we have an entrenched compulsory unionised closed shop to ensure its continence. Public schools always used to thrive by just hiring bright minds to teach rather than trained teachers, says it all really.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 16, 2008

Teaching the BBC world view

BBC website takes political coverage to all secondary school pupils - Times Online

The BBC is to provide political analysis for every schoolchild, in a controversial web venture...The portal will give children the BBC’s analysis of issues such as the European Union Treaty...he new venture, which remains uncosted...

Iain Dale, who publishes an influential political blog, said: “Not all of us want children emerging from the educational system with a BBC-engendered outlook.”

Iain, as always, puts it much more politely than some of us would.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 15, 2008

Inclusion in Schools

Adam Smith Institute - Common No. 9

"It is wrong to allow bright children to go to special schools. This deprives the ordinary schools of their beneficial influence."
If you regard children as the property of the state, existing to serve it, then it is explicable why the bright ones should be regarded as a scarce commodity, and rationed accordingly....
The vicious notion is that children, whether bright or not, should be regarded as the instruments of the ends of others, instead of ends in themselves. Children do not exist to serve the purposes of the state, it is the other way round. The concern should be with what is of benefit to the individuals concerned, rather than with how they can be made to serve some ideological view of society....

Read the rest, I would add that it isn't only the bright kids who are suffering from this ideology. Special needs schools have been closing at an alarming rate and part of the reasoning is that integrating the those kids into "normal" schools improves the morals of the other children. Poor bloody kids in wheelchairs or with learning difficulties, don't deserve to be used as object lessons in how caring society should be towards them, they just deserve the best chances they can get, and that often means "special" schools. More and David Cameron's view

Posted by The Englishman at 7:52 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 14, 2008

Educational Conscription - the reasoned case against

Don’t make them stay at school | John Redwood's Diary The Education Bill we will debate today in the Commons contains the worse kind of gesture politics. Frustrated at the lack of progress in raising standards in schools, and worried by the continuing difficulties of getting 16-18 year olds into work where they are not studying A levels, the government has come up with the proposal to require 16-18 year olds to study and train, whether they wish to or not....

Read the rest of the demolition of the policy idea.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2008

Failing to Understand the Basics

Schools failing 500,000 pupils - Telegraph

More than half a million children are being taught in under-performing schools, official league tables show today.

They are languishing in comprehensives where fewer than 30 per cent of pupils leave with five good GCSEs, including the vital subjects of English and mathematics.

Ministers say today that the number is down on last year and represents a dramatic improvement since 1997, when more than half of schools were failing to give pupils a good education in the three Rs.

But opposition MPs accused the Government of complacency, saying the 30 per cent target was too low.

An analysis of official data shows almost 550,000 children are taught at these under-performing schools, while 1.75 million - more than half - are in comprehensives where fewer than 50 per cent of pupils leave with acceptable GCSEs.

So in 1997 "more than half of schools were failing to give pupils a good education in the three Rs.", in 2007 "more than half - are in comprehensives where fewer than 50 per cent of pupils leave with acceptable GCSEs." And that is "a dramatic improvement".

I'm having trouble with my reading and arithmetic because I'm failing to see it, still if the glorious tractor production figures are up then it must be so, all praise to the comrades.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Youngest in Class

Pupils born in summer more likely to struggle - Telegraph

25/10/2007

Children born in the summer could also be held back a year before starting school, the report suggested, to give them a better chance.

Numberwatch - October 2007

Now schools no longer run themselves, but are subject to endless interference and targetry by Government ministers and underemployed bureaucrats. Pupils are repeatedly tested into a state of coma. Expensive research is commissioned to replace what was once common knowledge. Stupid interventions and “urgent action” are thought up at the drop of a hat. “Equity” and “efficiency” are the watchwords, while teachers and parents are deemed too stupid to be able to make the allowances that they once made without instruction from above.

Furthermore, changes are suggested that are self-evidently nonsense. However many children are “held back” there is always going to be one who is the youngest in the class, while those held back now become the eldest, so there is always a difference of one year between them. Even common sense is no longer common.

Children born in summer could start classes a year later - Times Online
January 10, 2008 Children born in the summer could start school a year later than their peers under government plans announced yesterday.

The youngest pupils in each academic year suffer in exams throughout their school lives.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:10 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 6, 2008

Teaching the Lowest Common Denominator

Most boys missing GCSE targets - Telegraph

Just over 62 per cent of boys in "community schools" - as comprehensive schools are officially known - failed to achieve the target of five A* to C grades at GCSE, including the two vital subjects.

Boys in other types of schools fare better, with more than half achieving the benchmark in voluntary-aided schools, which include many church schools.

Teacher unions argue that league tables are simply a measure of how middle-class a school's intake is.

But don't worry the Council's have a plan..

The Government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme.

The ambitious £45 billion programme, introduced by ministers in 2005, will rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in the country by 2020....parents fear that BSF is a "Trojan horse" that will redraw secondary schools in the image of councils that are opposed to selection, hostile to faith schools and determined to eliminate the ability of the middle classes to work the system...

Some Labour politicians have been open about what they think BSF should do. David Chaytor, a member of the influential Commons education select committee, wants to see it bring an end to England's remaining 164 grammar schools. "BSF … provides a unique opportunity, not only to reflect the emerging 14-19 curriculum, but also to end the anachronism of the 11-plus," said the MP for Bury North.

It is not just selective schools that are under threat. Staff, parents and pupils at St George's school, in Salford, are bemused and angry over a proposal to close the school as part of BSF.

Described by inspectors as a "good school with many outstanding features", the secondary gets more than half its pupils through the hurdle of five good GCSEs, compared with a local average of 32 per cent. The decision to close it under the city's £150 million BSF reorganisation does seem utterly baffling - until Harrop Fold comprehensive, barely a stone's throw away, is taken into account.

Salford's Labour-controlled city council is already committed to a £25 million private finance agreement at the severely under-subscribed school, which has struggled to improve and where last year just 19 per cent of pupils gained five good GCSEs.

St George's, a small Catholic high school, will be sacrificed to boost the fortunes of the comprehensive school over the hedge, where pupils enter the school with below-average results from primary school.

.Profound curriculum changes are also planned under BSF. Vocational diplomas in subjects such as hairdressing, engineering and media will be the raison d'être for many of the new buildings. In Wolverhampton, schools will become "project based" rather than "discipline based", doing away with traditional subjects such as history and geography, and emphasising "social skills" and "personal attributes".

Which doesn't fool anyone... universities are drawing up blacklists of “soft” A-level subjects that will bar applicants from winning places on their degree courses.

They are warning that candidates who take more than one of the subjects such as accountancy, leisure studies and dance are unlikely to gain admission. They say they lack the academic rigour to prepare students for courses and are alarmed at the way increasing numbers of state schools are using them to boost pupils’ top grades.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 31, 2007

An Englishman Abroad

Empire was built by improvising - loudly - Telegraph

The Briton abroad has been a uniquely popular figure ever since, clanking with armour, he first blundered through the Holy Land lopping the heads off peaceable Islamic pedestrians with something that looked like a scaffolding pole.

Back when the map was pink, he brought civilisation to the uncivilised, complicated railway systems to those without, and free trade to those who had never even realised they needed it.

Everywhere his solar topee was sighted, the locals would greet him with cheerful cries of "Allez à l'enfer, cochon!", "Could you untie me now, bwana - it's been three weeks and I'm jolly thirsty" or "Aiee! He's back! Run for your lives!"

In the 1980s, his great-grandchildren adorned the Spanish coast with concrete golf courses, egg and chips, and broken glass coloured with lager and blood. In the 1990s, his merchant-banker descendants brightened up Umbria and Provence with their bogus bohemianism, ludicrous straw hats and open-necked shirts.

He may not always have been popular, you see, but he had a certain distinctiveness, a certain panache, a certain - dare I venture it? - je ne sais rien. He was our advertisement to the world - and he succeeded precisely because, knowing nothing whatsoever about anything, he had the freedom to improvise.

And now they want to ruin it for our children...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 29, 2007

Guns for Boys - Offically Good for Them

Ministers tell nurseries to allow boys toy guns - Times Online
Boys should be allowed to play with toy weapons at nursery, according to government advice that contradicts guidance from police and teachers.

Ministers do not mention toy guns specifically but they claim that some form of “weapons play” could help to engage boys in education.

However, teachers said that the guidance, published today, had no basis in educational practice, could encourage aggression among pupils and would anger and confuse parents.

Children have been suspended from school previously, or even arrested, when caught playing with toy guns.

The advice, from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, says that nursery staff should ignore their “natural instinct” to stop young boys playing games with weapons. It says that such activities can help to engage them.

I thought those mushrooms last night tasted a bit strange because I must be hallucinating, sensible advise from the Department? Though I would have been a bit more robust in telling the whining teachers that their "natural instinct" is nothing of the sort but is just another manifestation of the feminising wussyness that pollutes the whole education system.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 27, 2007

Make Boys Girly - Official

Schools told to teach boys netball - Telegraph

Schools have been told to encourage boys to play netball and take dance lessons in the name of equality.

Thousands of schools are being forced to ensure that pupils are more "gender balanced" as part of discrimination legislation introduced this year...
Last night, the guidance was criticised by head teachers, who said they were already struggling under the strain of bureaucracy.

Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "It doesn't make any sense to promote things to boys that they don't want to do, simply so you can tick a box on a form."

It is refreshing to see some headmasters recognising that there are limits to the indoctrination they can perform on their charges, they have enough trouble already with the feminised curriculum to keep the boys interest.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 24, 2007

Follow the money

Education funding 'spent in Labour strongholds' - Telegraph

Billions of pounds are being spent on schools in deprived districts in Labour strongholds at the expense of pupils in more affluent areas, new figures show....Almost all the local authorities that have seen the biggest increases in spending since 1997 are dominated by Labour councillors and MPs.

Ministers insisted that spending had been targeted at those areas of the greatest social need.

Michael Gove, the Tory shadow children's secretary, said: "These figures only underline how important it is that we have educational reforms which put spending power in the hands of the parents, not Labour-controlled bureaucrats."

Dominated by the social need of the politicians to continue sticking their snouts in the trough. Grove is correct we need to put the spending power in the hands of the parents, not Labour, nor Tory bureaucrats. Give the money to the parents to spend, if we think that some deprived families need more money to help them, give them more . Don't give it to some bureaucrat to spend on their behalf as though they are some sub-normal case who patronisingly needs caring for.

School Vouchers NOW.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 8, 2007

We don't know how to teach so we will tell you how to do it.

Parents targeted to boost children's education - Telegraph

Ministers will target the family in a major drive to boost education standards and improve children's lives over the next decade.

In a tacit admission that 10 years of Labour reforms have failed to deliver, a major policy document to be published on Tuesday is expected to place a fresh onus on parents to keep children healthy and help them learn at home.

So they admit they aren't much good at educating the kids themselves, so they are going to tell, cajole and order us how to do it, As the old saying says; if you can't do it, teach; and if you can't teach, teach the teachers; and if you can't do that become an administrator.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 6, 2007

The Chosen Few

Faith schools dominate test tables - Telegraph

Two thirds of the 250 primaries in England achieving "perfect" test results were Church of England, Roman Catholic or Jewish schools.

Despite making up just a third of schools nationally, faith schools increased their hold on the top places from 44 per cent two years ago to 66 per cent in 2007. Last night, they hailed the results as a testament to good teaching and discipline.

I can't find the numbers but I think the real story is that the Roman Catholic an Jewish schools are the real stars - there aren't that many of them yet they seem to be very common in the top of the table. Of course many CofE schools are so imbued with the spirit of trendy correctness that they are indistinguishable from the Local Authority sinks.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 4, 2007

Judge me on our record on Education

Britain nosedives in education league tables - Telegraph
British teenagers have plummeted down an international education league table, sparking fresh fears that schoolchildren are failing to master the basics.

They fell in a set of new rankings comparing reading, mathematics and science standards in 57 nations - accounting for 90 per cent of the world’s economy.

And no, more money isn't the answer; getting the government out of education and putting parents in charge is by giving them real choice is.

Posted by The Englishman at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 3, 2007

One easy step to radically improve schools

Prue Leith's radical recipe: free school meals and eating with a knife and fork - Telegraph

For her, the aim is as much cultural as nutritional. She does not just want children to acquire a taste for fruit and veg - she wants them to learn some table manners too.

"They should sit down and eat properly with a knife and fork. Everyone thinks this is just a food problem and it's not, it's a social cohesion problem."

The quickest easiest way for teachers to improve their pupils performance and behaviour would for the teachers to not hide in the staff room but eat lunch with their pupils and get to know them outside of the classroom as fellow human beings. It is no coincidence that to break bread with someone has universally been acknowledged for thousands of years to bring peace and understanding.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 29, 2007

Mr Brown's Record on Education...

Britain’s schools fell to 14th place from 4th in 2000 in the latest rankings for secondary school science teaching from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD)
Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) survey

The results of the Progress in International Reading Literacy study, published yesterday showed a rapid decline in reading standards among English children. The study ranked England 19th out of 45 countries and provinces for children's literacy standards - down from 3rd place five years ago.
(Source)

Mr Brown said he would be judged on his record for investing in the NHS and education.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2007

Who stole childhood?

Extra tuition and clubs give pupils no rest from learning - Times Online
Children’s lives are becoming increasingly “scholarised” as parents are encouraged to turn the home into an extension of school, research suggests.

As playtimes are cut to make time for more learning and as children increasingly find themselves under adult supervision in breakfast clubs and after-school centres, their opportunities for independence and free play are being diminished.

The research, by Berry Mayall, a professor of childhood studies at the Institute of Education in London,..

Professor Mayall warned that children were likely to “resist” attempts to control their home lives in this way.

Formal teaching at five hinders development - Telegraph

Forcing children to learn to read and write at the age of five can seriously undermine their long-term development, according to one of the world's leading experts on nursery education.

Such an early introduction to formal learning can turn many children off books for life, said Professor Lilian Katz, from Illinois University.

She said boys were often worse hit than girls and insisted schooling should not start until aged seven to give children time to grow up.

The comments came as the Government announced yesterday that £600million would be spent on better playgrounds and toys for toddlers in nurseries.

Early schooling isn't for the kids, it is for the convenience of the parents who get free child care, the teachers who get jobs and institutionalised children, and the Government which believes it should control children from birth to eighteen.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 17, 2007

School Marx

Thank Marx for our children's low marks - Telegraph

What sort of country has to provide 7.5 million training places to improve the skills of its workforce? One with Mickey Mouse schools, of course. I tried to detect some shame on the part of the Government yesterday when it announced this scheme. Half the places are to improve the most basic skills of all, numeracy and literacy. What a mess.

For decades, lies have been told about our education system and its products. ...Isn't it time the lies stopped, and the Government owned up to the severe failings of the education system?
advertisement

This is where the Marxist drivel taught in teacher training colleges for the past 40 years or so has got us. ...

Labour cannot see educational excellence without wishing to destroy it. I rejoice that Buckinghamshire is promising to open a new grammar school, and hope other local authorities will follow suit - and that the Tory party will shut up on the subject. At a time when the failure of our schools is so manifest, central government cannot be trusted to put the problem right. Only by others taking the lead and doing so will the Government be shamed into retreat - and the day might yet dawn when people leave school able to read, write and count.

Government isn't the solution to the education crises, it is the problem. Give the power back to the parents and keep the man in Whitehall a very long way from the kids. When are we going to see a proper School Voucher campaign?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2007

Give me an A

A-level reputation in severe decline...now even an exam board chief doubts their value - Times Online
The reputation of A levels has been dealt a blow after the head of an exam board expressed doubts about their value. Simon Lebus, group chief executive of the Cambridge Assessment board, part of Cambridge University, said that examiners, regulators and politicians had all been wrong in failing to address declining public confidence in “A-level currency”....He cited research from Dr Robert Coe, of Durham University, showing that A-level results for pupils of the same ability improved by two grades between 1988 and 2006.

The A-level pass rate has risen for 25 successive years, reaching 96.9 per cent this year, with nearly one in ten candidates achieving three A grades.

The Government and examination boards have emphasised that improvements to A-level standards are the result of better teaching and learning, even though opinion polls have shown that nearly half the public believe that A levels have become easier.

"A" level students work incredibly hard and are bright, and it is insulting to them that their achievements are now in a devalued currency. It means that they are being insulted and put down because the Government want "everyone to be a winner". It's a bit like boasting of climbing Snowdon, but now being allowed to take the train. Their pride is being stolen by the system and that is unforgivable.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:24 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Voting with their feet

Middle classes abandon state schools - Telegraph

A growing proportion of middle-class parents are giving up on state education after 10 years of Labour rule by paying to educate their children in the independent sector, official figures have disclosed...

The increases are despite an estimated 40 per cent rise in private school fees over the past five years, which analysts feared was pricing many middle-classes parents out of the independent sector. Head teachers said many families were making sacrifices to send children to fee-paying schools because it was hard to get them into good state schools.....

"The overwhelming majority of parents are clearly satisfied with the state education system," said a Government spokesman. "New research from Keele University shows that nine out of 10 are happy with their children's schools.

It's strange and I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I only ever seem to meet the one in ten when it comes to secondary schools...

Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 5, 2007

Brainwashed

The great reading row. Just watch my lips | Carol Sarler: Thunderer - Times Online
Much bickering in the playground resulted from the publication of the largest inquiry into primary education for 40 years when it came to the disagreeable conclusion that – despite the £500 million poured into beefing-up literacy – government investment has had “almost no impact” and schooling standards have barely improved since the 1950s. “S’not true!” squeaked Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister. “Tis, too!” retorted teachers. I tend to believe the teachers; nobody can know better the rigours of the cat on the mat.

The problem with such internecine wrangling, however, is that it serves to consolidate the view that the whole matter is for the State and nothing much to do with the rest of us.

...When I started school in the 1950s I already read fluently, as did most of the rest of my, admittedly white, middle-class contemporaries; being taught to read was as much a part of home preparation for the wider world as was learning to handle a spoon.

Today, according to one head teacher friend, only about 35 per cent arrive at school with “some words”; almost none is able to tackle a book. Some of this is can be blamed on indolence or lack of aspiration in the parents; too much, though, is the result of not daring, rather than not caring. So hammered are parents by the professionalisation of what was once a simple passing down of family skills, so in hock are they to educational fashion .. that they are made helpless by the fear of getting it “wrong”.

But there can be nothing worse than haranguing the best-intentioned of parents, belittling their amateurism and having their children arrive at school wholly, but needlessly, illiterate because Mum was just too scared to suck it and see.

Schools play only a part in how children learn, but the whole education system has been captured by the spurious "professionalism" of teachers with the connivance of the State, telling parents to leave those kids alone, let only the professionals teach them. All your children are belong to us....

Posted by The Englishman at 6:12 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, run the schools.

Education | How to be top | Economist.com
What works in education: the lessons according to McKinsey

THE British government, says Sir Michael Barber, once an adviser to the former prime minister, Tony Blair, has changed pretty much every aspect of education policy in England and Wales, often more than once. “The funding of schools, the governance of schools, curriculum standards, assessment and testing, the role of local government, the role of national government, the range and nature of national agencies, schools admissions”—you name it, it's been changed and sometimes changed back. The only thing that hasn't changed has been the outcome. According to the National Foundation for Education Research, there had been (until recently) no measurable improvement in the standards of literacy and numeracy in primary schools for 50 years...
...
Why bother, you might wonder. Nothing seems to matter. Yet something must. There are big variations in educational standards between countries. These have been measured and re-measured by the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which has established, first, that the best performing countries do much better than the worst and, second, that the same countries head such league tables again and again: Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea.
...
Schools, it says*, need to do three things: get the best teachers; get the best out of teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind. That may not sound exactly “first-of-its-kind” (which is how Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's head of education research, describes McKinsey's approach): schools surely do all this already? Actually, they don't. If these ideas were really taken seriously, they would change education radically....

The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else.

A bias against the brightest (teacher trainees) happens partly because of lack of money (governments fear they cannot afford them), and partly because other aims get in the way. Almost every rich country has sought to reduce class size lately. Yet all other things being equal, smaller classes mean more teachers for the same pot of money, producing lower salaries and lower professional status. That may explain the paradox that, after primary school, there seems little or no relationship between class size and educational achievement.

...You might think that schools should offer as much money as possible, seek to attract a large pool of applicants into teacher training and then pick the best. Not so, says McKinsey. If money were so important, then countries with the highest teacher salaries—Germany, Spain and Switzerland—would presumably be among the best. They aren't. In practice, the top performers pay no more than average salaries.....
....Having got good people, there is a temptation to shove them into classrooms and let them get on with it. For understandable reasons, teachers rarely get much training in their own classrooms (in contrast, doctors do a lot of training in hospital wards). But successful countries can still do much to overcome the difficulty....

Lastly, the most successful countries are distinctive not just in whom they employ so things go right but in what they do when things go wrong, as they always do. For the past few years, almost all countries have begun to focus more attention on testing, the commonest way to check if standards are falling. McKinsey's research is neutral on the usefulness of this, pointing out that while Boston tests every student every year, Finland has largely dispensed with national examinations. Similarly, schools in New Zealand and England and Wales are tested every three or four years and the results published, whereas top-of-the-class Finland has no formal review and keeps the results of informal audits confidential.

But there is a pattern in what countries do once pupils and schools start to fail. The top performers intervene early and often. ...

None of this is rocket science. Yet it goes against some of the unspoken assumptions of education policy.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 30, 2007

Could try harder

Educational Conscription: The pieces fall into place

There seems to have been surprisingly little commentary so far from the right-wing blogosphere about the latest development on the from-ALevels-to-diplomas evolution saga, though these two make for interesting reading. (Care to link here, gentlemen?)

I think the case provides a useful illustration of the difference between NewLabour under Blair and NewLabour under Brown. Mr Blair, it will be recalled, at least expressed opposition to the abolition of A-levels, even if we never quite knew with him how much any given expression of sentiment actually amounted to. In the enthusiasm to focus hostility on the person rather than the ideology, it may have been forgotten that in many ways Mr Blair represented a brake on the more extreme collectivist-egalitarian elements of his party. Dr Brown, whatever his true underlying belief system may really be (it's a bit obscure, though we can be fairly sure it is not libertarian), seems less willing or able to resist those collectivist forces.....

What I find interesting about this development is that it explains two of the puzzles thrown up by the plan to force all 16 to 18-year-olds into education: (a) what are they going to do there, and (b) how are we going to avoid having the non-egalitarian horror of a two-tier system?
Time allowed: 15 minutes.
Pens down, please.
Answers
(a) They will do diplomas, in subjects ranging from "health and social care" to "hair and beauty" to "sport and leisure" to "travel and tourism".
(b) There will be no A-levels. Everyone will do diplomas, which will become the "jewel in the crown" of ~~Brown & Balls~~ the British education system.

I hadn't commented on it as I hadn't thought it through, so thanks for the explanation; all shall have prizes and all shall be the same....

Posted by The Englishman at 5:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 22, 2007

More on the teaching of "proles".

Education is the only way to close class divide - Telegraph

So the England rugby fans apparently managed to find their way out of Paris without wrecking a single bar, overturning a single car or bottling a single South African supporter – let alone waging a pitched battle on the Champs-Elysées with a squad of armoured police.

Even those who arrived without tickets, drank with abandon and were reduced to sleeping rough in the streets – a sure-fire prescription for carnage if this had been a football World Cup – made no trouble for the authorities.

There are a few commentators who staunchly insist that this is not about class: that the difference between what Dave Tattoo and his mates would have done to Paris after losing a football World Cup final, and what the sad but non-violent rugby fans did, is nothing to do with the ugly social divide that still pervades Britain.

Well, delude yourself if you like – but this is about class. What confuses the issue now is that class is not all about money.
....

Look at the photographs of the England football team who won the World Cup in 1966. How respectable and middle class they appear – and how gentlemanly was their behaviour on the pitch by comparison to the rich sociopaths who now dominate the game.

Whatever happened to the decency and civility that was personified by Bobby Moore and the Charlton brothers? What happened to the desire of young working-class men to rise above the violence and borderline criminality that lay in wait for people of their backgrounds whose self-discipline was allowed to slip?

It disappeared under a new wave of garbage culture and what seemed to me – a shocked outsider – like a positive conspiracy to maintain the separateness of working-class life, engineered jointly by sentimental media hokum and patronising middle-class guilt.....generations of working-class children had their feet set in social and cultural concrete by schools that refused to teach them how to speak and write their own language properly.....

If you, as a society, do not expect correct speech, decent behaviour and a sense of responsibility from some of your fellow citizens – do not, in other words, demand from them what civilised life requires – then you deny them the chance to enter that life more effectively than if you had barred the gates to every centre of learning in the land.

The patronising muddled marxist middle class thinking of many teachers and most of the teacher training is a "Birkenstock stamping on a human face. Forever." * No wonder social mobility has halted in this country. Is it because their philosophy demands a disenchanted "prole" class, or is it sheer incompetence?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 19, 2007

Until they become conscious they will never rebel

GCSE pupils stumble at the three Rs - Telegraph
Fewer than half of teenagers in England mastered the three Rs in their GCSEs this summer, official figures show.

The Government report in full

Check out the GCSE results at your local school

Despite record levels of investment in education under Labour, almost 350,000 failed to gain five good GCSEs including the key subjects of English and mathematics – the Government's official benchmark of an acceptable education.

More than 113,600 teenagers – one in five – failed to get a single good GCSE.

A report published yesterday also showed that almost a quarter of boys did not earn any A* to C grades – leading to fresh fears over the gender gap in education.

Last night teachers claimed young people were being let down by a "flawed, exam-based" education system.

They warned that many pupils were being left on the scrapheap as they finish school with no useful qualifications.

It is almost as though it was a system designed to turn out worker drones and state dependent proles.....

In Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four the society of Oceania was divided into 3 distinct classes: Inner Party, Outer Party, and proles, 85% of the population are proles. They were given little education, worked at jobs in which tough physical labor was the norm, lived in poverty, had plenty of children, and usually died by the age of sixty.
Proles were still free. As the Party's slogan put it: "Proles and animals are free." This is a sharp contrast to the control of the members of Inner and Outer Parties. That is mostly due to a fact that proles were not considered to be human beings. They did not have the intellectual power to understand that they are exploited by the Party (as a source of cheap labor) and were unable and/or unwilling to organize resistance. Their functions were simple: work and breed. They did not care much about anything else than taking care of home and family, quarreling with neighbors, watching films and football, drinking beer, and buying lottery tickets. They were not required to express their support to the Party. The Party created meaningless songs, novels, even pornography for the proles (All written by machines, except pornography, which was compiled by humans in the Outer Party and only ever readable by party members who worked inPornosec.) Proles did not have to wear a uniform; they could use cosmetics...

To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice. Even the civil police interfered with them very little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers and racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles themselves, it was of no importance. In all questions of morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code.

If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.

One of the recurring themes in the novel is if proles revolted they could establish something like a utopia. It's a struggle between a wild hope carried by Winston Smith, the main character, and his realization that proles were incapable of such an act. Winston admired proles because as he said, “Proles remained human.” That means that they preserved emotions which Party members had to avoid because they were in constant surveillance of telescreens. Any “non-patriotic” emotion expressed, even involuntarily, by a Party member resulted in “vaporisation” (i.e., total deletion from all the records – such people, for all intents and purposes, never existed). Thus Winston believed that if there were any hope, it lay with proles. Proles preserved the essence of life, human emotions, and even the English language (Oldspeak) and the Party could not control it. However, Winston's hope clashes with O'Brien’s view that the proles would never revolt because they would never have the need to do so. Winston also recognized that proles were not capable and/or willing of organizing a revolution. It is also important to note, that nobody (even Winston) had any thoughts that the Party could collapse by itself. It had too tight control over the Party members who had already lost their human feelings (Winston himself recognized that he no longer felt compassion; children reported their parents to the Thoughtpolice on a daily basis; sex became a “duty to the Party” with the only purpose to produce children). The younger generation (represented by Winston’s love of Julia) showed a rapid degradation of humanity.
Until they become conscious they will never rebel,
and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 12, 2007

Much too young

Children who can’t write their own name - Times Online

Forty per cent of children struggle to write their own name or to sound out letters to form simple words such as “dog” or “red” by the age of 5, government figures show....

Around £21 billion has been invested in a series of initiatives but the latest results for schools in England show little improvement in children’s language and literacy and personal, social and emotional development.

The findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of flagship government schemes such as Sure Start to boost the development of the under-5s, although some critics point out that in many countries children are not expected to start to read or write until they are 7.

Quite. Children start school far too young, most are simply not ready for it, but the schools bully parents to send them to keep their numbers up, and other parents want free daytime childcare so they want to send the kids. But the if the little tots are too young then there is no point to it. All they learn is what is officially called "institutionalisation" - they pavlovianly learn to obey the system.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 9, 2007

Whose Schools?

BBC NEWS | Education | Reforms 'improve teachers' lives'

Schools have used workload reforms to improve teachers' lives but not necessarily to improve education, the inspectorate Ofsted has said....

Martin Johnson, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said :

"However, we know much still needs to be done, in particular to reduce the workload of school leaders, improve access to continuing professional development, and further cut teachers' workloads.

"We will keep up the pressure to ensure these issues are tackled."

Nothing about improving the education of the kids, that, my friends, is the definition of "Producer Capture" - the education system is run purely for its employees, or as Mr FM once said it is a system for keeping the unemployable, the socially retarded and psychologically flawed off the streets.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 6, 2007

So much to cook so little time

Google has made finding recipes even easier. I have been using Google searches rather than wade through books for a couple of years now. The best part is the totally unexpected recipes it throws up sometimes - ~~always~~ sometimes worth a try.

Posted by The Englishman at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 3, 2007

The Prison Walls Close Round Our Children

Rad Geek People’s Daily 2007-10-02 – Public schooling
One of the worst things about so-called public education, i.e. government-controlled schooling, is that students are forced into an institution that they consistently find unpleasant and boring, whether or not the individual student thinks that it’s worth the trouble. That fact, combined with the fact that the victims are all young and many of them are poor or black or otherwise marked as at-risk youth in need of special surveillance and control, naturally and systematically corrupts the way that the school relates to its students. It leads administrators and political decision-makers to focus on restraining the unruly behavior of the coerced students, by making authority, control, security, and discipline top priorities. In practice this means monitoring, intimidation, and coercion. These facts in turn result in attitudes and institutional practices throughout State schools that are often hard to distinguish from those prevailing in a prison camp.

Via Coyote Blog: Government Thugs

In the first story, a 13-year-old girl was asked to strip naked because school security thugs has "reliable" information that she had an ibuprofen tablet - basically a freaking aspirin.

In the second story, security officers quiz high school girls about whether they are having their period to see if it is OK that they are carrying a small purse.

In story number three, a fifteen-year-old girl was tackled by security officers, forced down on a table, and had her wrist broken in an arm lock. Later she was arrested and charged with assault. All because she failed to fully clean up a piece of cake she dropped on the floor.
....

Twenty years ago, when I would have called myself a conservative instead of a libertarian as I do today, I probably would have said, "Oh, there are probably two sides of the story. He probably provoked them." I am embarrassed to admit it, but that might have been my reaction. But watch the video that is linked from Rad Geeks post. What could he have possibly done to warrant this? You can see in the video he was just circling the security guards filming them until one pointed at him, the other came at him, and then this. This boy was led from the school in handcuffs and spent the night in jail. Sick.

And over here in England, the unaccountable powers to search children are celebrated.

House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 26 July 2007 (pt 0038)

Jim Knight: Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families: Knife incidents in schools in England are extremely rare. To help maintain that, we gave head teachers a power, from May 2007, to search a pupil without consent when, after screening with metal detectors or on other grounds, they suspect the presence of a weapon. This supports the efforts of the police to reduce crime by and against young people on the streets around schools and supplements initiatives by the Department for Children, Schools and Families on, for example, improving behaviour and learning about responsibility, conflict resolution and safety. We do not burden schools by asking them to report whether they do or will screen.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 2, 2007

Schools; find the best examples and destroy them.

Private schools 'should join the state sector' - Telegraph

The Government will today urge private schools to abandon fees and academic selection to join the state sector.

A prospectus is being published outlining how they can convert into state schools as city academies.

Public schools issue 'hands off' warning - Telegraph
"We need to protect our independence because it's under threat.

"Above all, it's under threat, deliberately or unwittingly — I suspect a mixture of both — from Government. So we must say, very firmly, hands off. We are independent.

"We need to be very robust in defence of our independence — and fight this latest creeping regulation."

Dr Trafford attacked plans to force independent schools to register with the education inspectorate Ofsted, instead of the Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families. He described the schools' watchdog as the "Government's rottweiler" which would use "data-obsessed methods" to bring independent schools into line.

His comments follow similar remarks by Chris Woodhead, the former head of Ofsted, who runs a series of independent schools. He said last year that headmasters should refuse to open their doors to Ofsted.

Dr Trafford said the independent sector achieved such good results because it was "freed from the pressures of the currently insane levels of Government-required accountability". He added: "There is a lesson here for Government. If it really wants to see its own schools flourish it needs to set them truly free."

In a further development, Dr Trafford said reforms of laws governing charities were being used by Left-wingers to attack the independent sector. As reported in The Daily Telegraph, schools may have to offer a "menu" of services to state schools or community groups to prove their "public benefit" and retain tax breaks worth millions every year.

Dr Trafford said: "People just want to have a go with any weapon they can, the public benefit debate is the latest one. The politics of envy — a peerless example of malignity if ever I saw one — is alive and well."

He also accused ministers of trying to "nick" the word "independent" by claiming that their flagship privately sponsored city academies are "independent" state schools.

It is one way of reducing the gap between the failing state system and the independent system, destroy the latter. The ASI has a better suggestion

Open Access to UK Schools: What Britain can learn from Swedish Education Reform, is published today.

Inspired by Sweden's experience, the report calls for the UK to implement a universal open access scheme, which would allow parents to send their children to any school of their choice – whether state, private or religious – and make these schools eligible for government funding on a per–pupil basis. Two conditions must be met: the schools must not charge additional fees, and must accept pupils on a first-come-first-served basis.

You can download a copy of the full report here.

I haven't read it all so I can't see why the two conditions are needed apart from being a sop to the present system.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 27, 2007

Sacrifice your children to the Education Gods

Middle class 'should choose worst schools' - Telegraph

Better-off parents should consider sending their children to struggling state schools, an education minister, Jim Knight, said yesterday.

As a parent your first responsibility is to your children, to subject them unnecessarily to a crap and violent schooling "for the greater good" or to demonstrate your "right-on credentials" is just plain fucking wrong.
Can children sue their parents for dereliction of duty?

Posted by The Englishman at 5:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2007

Exam Balls

New 'dumbed-down' GCSE will be as easy as A, B, or C - Times Online

Pupils taking GCSE exams will be asked multiple choice questions for the first time and be allowed to take unlimited resits.

It has also emerged that, under a planned overhaul of the system, up to half of GCSE English marks would be awarded for basic skills such as punctuation.

The planned reform of the exam system has fuelled accusations that testing standards are being lowered. Bethan Marshall, a senior lecturer in English education at King’s College London, told the Times Educational Supplement: “If you make 50 per cent of the GCSE about doing the basics, you are dumbing down.

“The subject is about so much more than being able to communicate accurately. And if you’re still doing basic skills at GCSE level, Heaven help you. It’s pretty boring.” ....

One suggested question for an English test reportedly asks pupils which word is spelt incorrectly in the sentence: “Be careful, the kettel is hot.”...
Dumbing down fears force exam shake-up - Times Online
The body that regulates examinations is to be made independent in a radical attempt to end the annual row about the dumbing down of school standards, Mr Balls ....will tell Labour delegates that he wants GCSE and A-level students to be able to take pride in their A-grades without facing the continual carping by critics that their results are a devalued currency. The move would enable the QCA independently to monitor school standards, free from political interference, and would distance the government of the day from criticisms of involvement.

Although the QCA theoretically is independent from government at present,

So it is independent, but Ministers keep sticking their oar in, just like the Bank of England! So he is going to make it independent again, and Ministers will still keep sticking their oars in, but with plausible deniability.

Who is going to be the first schools minister to allow exam results to go down on his watch?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 15, 2007

Facts, Mr Gradgrind, facts!

‘Children need freedom and chaos, not tests, ticks, and smiley faces’ review | Children's Books - Times Online
...Rosen is a vociferous opponent of current education policy, which he describes variously as loony, disastrous and backward; “teachers are treated like squaddies”, children fare even worse. One of his poems, in an anthology called No Breathing in Class, is about a teacher who is so strict that she bans breathing.

There had been “this extraordinary shift in the past ten years: you don’t talk about teaching and learning, you talk about management”...

As the children get older, many schools say they don’t have time to read “whole” books.

“What is the point if you never learn about outcome? The reason why you read novels or stories is in great part because you want to see whether the baddie gets their comeuppance, whether the girl gets their boy, why their dad lied to them. It’s crucial to it.

“If all you do is just look at a page and then answer five questions about adjectives and clauses or whatever, it denies what any of us are in the business for. Any writer, ever, from Homer onwards.”

This “completely misleads teachers and children, and from them parents, that the way we respond to stories is about facts”. In doing so, it “curtails the emotional response”.

At the same time – and Rosen finds this a piquant absurdity – government ministers are calling for emotional literacy, or happiness lessons. Nothing to do with our children’s happiness, he said, only that of adults.

“All anxieties about children and youth are not about them at all, it’s about our anxieties about our future as adults,” he said.

“We’re busy screwing up and so we project all that on to children saying, ‘My God, the little beasts don’t say please any more’. ”

If you let Rosen talk, he quite rapidly takes an idea and runs away with it, expanding into radical reform of education, scrapping “backward” faith schools, rethinking the “19th-century” curriculum, letting children decide what they want to learn. It’s imaginative and possibly hopelessly left-wing.

Cosy it is not, but it acknowledges the maverick side of children that longs for freedom, not restraint
....

A damning indictment of the system, read the rest; but why is wanting to give children freedom to learn and to educate them rather than teach and school them "hopelessly left-wing"?

Posted by The Englishman at 9:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 13, 2007

The State of Universities in a Nutshell

They fiddled the figures: do you agree or disagree? | Terence Kealey: Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham - Times Online

Students like paying fees.. ..students like these fees so much so that applications to English universities rose by 7.2 per cent last year. Fees not only ensure that spending per student rises to a tolerable level; but they also create an expectation that both staff and students will work hard for each other.

What’s more, the higher the fees the happier the students. The results of the National Student Survey, commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), published today in The Times Higher Education Supplement, show that the two most popular universities are the Open University and the University of Buckingham. These are the only two British universities that have historically charged realistic fees.

The only tarnish on the NSS has been the way the government agency HEFCE has presented the results. The survey asked every final year undergraduate 22 questions about everything from the quality of teaching to assessment. On those questions the THES put Buckingham first. Yet that was a problem for the Government because Buckingham is the only university independent of the State.

The Government produced its own ranking that curiously puts the Open University first. Why should that be? HEFCE did so by conveniently ignoring 21 of the questions. Instead it ranked the universities by answers to only one statement: “Overall I am satisfied with by the quality of my course”. That question came with five possible answers, ranging from “definitely agree” to “definitely disagree”; had HEFCE averaged the responses (as last year) Buckingham would have come top even of that one question. But this year HEFCE condensed all five responses into two broad categories, which put the State-funded Open University first.

The way the Government uses data has become controversial, which is why ministers have been forced to concede a new independent Statistics Board to reinforce trust in national statistics. But for the THES, the people of Britain might have believed that a state university had come top of the NSS. Independence matters in statistics and newspapers, as in universities.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 5, 2007

No appeal to justice in school

Heads can 'prosecute' parents of errant pupils - Telegraph
Head teachers will be able to take parents to court if their children misbehave under tough powers announced yesterday.
From this week, they can apply for a civil order requiring mothers and fathers of wayward pupils to take parenting classes, with fines if children continue to step out of line.
...
Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, called for parents to be stripped of the ability to appeal against a head's decision to exclude pupils - a power that has seen many children reinstated.
"Let's not kid ourselves that these measures, welcome as they are, do anything like enough to solve the problem," he said. "You can't have a proper discipline policy unless heads are free to exclude disruptive pupils without being second-guessed."
...

Martin Ward, the deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Some parents may come to view schools in a similar role to the police and courts."

Except that even the Tories seem to think that there should be no right of appeal, with Heads being deemed to be superhuman founts of justice and knowledge instead of being over-burdened fallible humans like the rest of us. It is all part of the new jumping up and down screaming at the kids culture in schools because they frankly haven't got a clue what to do.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 4, 2007

Respect or else

BBC NEWS | Education | Tougher rules for excluded pupils
Regulations coming into force in England this week require parents to keep pupils under supervision for the first five days of an exclusion...
Parents will face fines if they do not supervise children who have been excluded.
There is to be a new offence of failing to ensure a child is not found in a public place without reasonable justification....

Remind me again whose children they are. Oh, the State's, of course, silly me.

This autumn will also see the introduction of lessons in secondary schools teaching respect and "emotional intelligence"...

Teachers ape our political leaders in "demanding respect" - listen fuckheads, acting like a hoody demanding respect may get you sullen silence but not respect. The only way you get respect is to be GIVEN it, by earning it, by being a human being to be looked up at. The slovenly repressed whiners who get their kicks from shouting at kids don't get it, and don't deserve it.
And is it any wonder that kids get excluded in increasing numbers as they see through the pathetic tantrums of the teachers. It is not a lack of powers that prevent teachers being inspirational leaders but the pisspoor training and expectations of the teacher training courses.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 3, 2007

Failure, Failure, Failure

Burning our money: Spending Without Result
Education, education, education.

And as everyone should have understood, that was going to cost money, money, money.

Since Labour came to power, spending on Britain's state schools has more than doubled. Last year they spent £44.7bn, up from £22.2bn in 1996-97 (see here and prior PESAs). Even adjusting for general inflation, the increase is over 60%, a massive uplift.

Fair enough you say. That's what the voters wanted.

But spending money is easy. What we haven't had is the results.

Let's just recap the latest revelations:

Pre-primary skills among five-year olds are unchanged despite a £21bn programme to improve them (see this blog)

3Rs skills among seven-year olds are stalled, with eg 20% failing to reach the minimum expected standard in writing (see here)

3Rs skills among eleven-year olds are stalled, with 60% failing to reach the minimum expected standard in reading, writing, and maths (see this blog and this)

Core attainment among fourteen-year olds is also stalled, with nearly 40% failing to reach the minimum expected standard in English, maths, and science (see here)
At GCSE 54% still fail to gain 5 A-C grades including both English and Maths (see excellent Chris Woodhead article here)

A Level results continue to soar, but we now know they are two whole grades easier than twenty years ago (see this blog)

Once again- as if we needed any further proof- the dirigiste techniques of Stalinist central planning and tractor output targets have simply failed to deliver.....

Posted by The Englishman at 9:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 29, 2007

Collect GCSE, do not pass Go, go directly to Jail

Make science easier, examiners are told - Times Online
Examiners will have to set easier questions in some GCSE science papers, under new rules seen by The Times. A document prepared by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents awarding bodies across Britain, says that, from next year, exam papers should consist of 70 per cent “low-demand questions”, requiring simpler or multiple-choice answers. These currently make up just 55 per cent of the paper.

The move follows growing concern about the “dumbing down” of science teaching at GCSE and grade inflation of exam results, which critics claim is the result of a government drive to reverse the long-term decline in the number of pupils studying science....

Try your hand at the GCSE physics paper - answers at the bottom of the article

Why not just stick the bloody certificates on the backs of Cornflake packets. It doesn't fool anyone, except teachers and the government, which frankly isn't hard to do. Universities know, employers know and even the kids know they are being fobbed off with crap teaching and given shiny stars to pretend it is all OK.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Please Mr State take care of my children

Scotsman.com News - Politics - The high cost of 'free' schooling

MOST parents struggle to meet their children's school costs, under pressure to fund trips and buy expensive uniforms, a report warned yesterday.

Some schools pester parents to make "voluntary" contributions towards their children's education, the charity Citizens Advice said.

And with uniforms reportedly costing up to £500, one in ten parents said associated expenses had influenced their choice of school.

The charity warned poorer families could find the cost of uniforms, photos and books too much to bear. David Harker, chief executive of Citizens Advice, called on ministers to take a tougher line with schools.

"Parents shouldn't have to spend sleepness nights worrying about how they are going to pay for what their child needs simply to go to school," he said.

FFS - even I have noticed Tesco advertising 3 school shirts for £3.75. Before a single one of these whinging scroungers is allowed to open the fat crisp filled face to demand the the taxpayer further subsidised the bastard offspring of their sordid and seedy lives I would love to know how many £40 football shirts the little brats already have. They are your children take some bloody responsibility for them.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 20, 2007

Boys will be boys

Irons in the Fire: "Gangs, alas, are offering what boys need"
...a lady reports on a year spent digging into why the gang problem in Britain has become so bad. Her two main points are:
Young boys join gangs, they told me, because they are afraid. There is nobody else to protect them, certainly no responsible adult.
The second:
Teenage boys need different treatment to girls to become responsible members of society. They need a role model.

Now, I know a lot of you are rolling your eyes over the latter and thinking things along the lines of "Well, no shit!" And a lot of people have said this over time and been ignored(I think she's probably catching a lot of crap for daring to state that 'boys need different treatment', thus violating the pc demands that there's no difference between boys and girls other than genitals). I have no hope for the upper reaches of the Brit government, it overall having shown itself to be so dedicated to nanny-state BS that no pointing out of facts will sway them. And the way their government is set up(as I understand it) the people in general have real problems trying to change things. At least until, as Kim puts it, the Glorious Day arrives.

...In times of war we value their aggression, their sense of immortality, their loyalty to one another. But in peacetime they are at best a nuisance, at worst a threat.

The old old refrain...
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;..

Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Teacherz is 2 blaim

CBI Press Release
Tech-savvy youngsters are making a great impression on employers with their IT skills, but too often they lack basic abilities in English and maths, the CBI warned today.

In advance of GCSE results, a survey by the UK’s biggest business group revealed that - in an increasingly technology-driven work environment - nine out of ten employers are happy with the IT skills of “Generation Text”.

However, more than half of employers are unhappy with the fundamental English and maths skills of these school leavers, with many businesses having to retrain teenagers on basics that should have been covered in the classroom....

Richard Lambert, CBI Director-General, said: “Young people are clearly doing some things very well. These technology-smart whizz kids are making a great impression at businesses with their expertise in IT and computing.

“Their fluency with iPods, mobiles and MySpace has translated well into the workplace, and often gives them an edge over their bosses. The greater focus on IT in schools and investment in computers is also helping.

“The challenge ahead is for schools to channel that same enthusiasm into numeracy and literacy skills, where far too many young people are struggling.

The computers in school are great for keeping the kids quiet but to think their "their fluency with iPods, mobiles and MySpace" has anything to do with schools is laughable. These skills are self taught with in peer groups, usually despite the school which will have banned iPods, mobiles and MySpace. Kids are inquisitive, smart and keen to learn, so they do with these skills. Maths and English have billions of pounds and reams of resources thrown at them and fail to be presented properly in the gulags of our classrooms. It's not the kids' fault. The fault lies in the compulsory monolithic state education system, and the cure probably needs more of our children to learn basic carpentry and knot tying, I'll supply the hempen rope.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 1, 2007

Poverty of Aspirations

Middle-class teenagers made 'whipping boys' - Telegraph

Middle-class teenagers are being turned into "whipping boys" as ministers discriminate against them in favour of students from poor homes, teachers warned.

Education is being "dumbed down" as universities turn their attention towards easy subjects like surfing studies, beauty therapy and knitwear to attract more working-class students, it is claimed.

In a fierce attack, the Professional Association of Teachers called for the Government to halt its drive towards so-called "social engineering".

There was a time that social mobility and encouraging the working class kids to have aspirations was the policy. Don't feel too sorry for the middle classes, they will pay and influence their kids to become reasonably educated. It is the poor sods on the bottom of the pack who are being patronised and demeaned by the dumbing down -" they are too poor and stupid to be taught that they can become anything other than worker drones". No wonder they spit on the whole system.

Is this creation of a disaffected working class just the result of absent-minded policies or is the abandonment of the teaching of culture,which has been defined as the activities in which one could seek and actually find release from the alienation and fragmentation produced by the capitalist mode of production, deliberate?

Indeed, Marx himself seemed to fear that the working class would deplete or exhaust its revolutionary energies in the pursuit of culture and the physical pleasures of everyday life.*

Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 17, 2007

Filthy Flaying in the Playground

White board projectors halted by shedding skin | Uk News | News | Telegraph
Nearly 160 classroom whiteboard projectors have broken after being clogged up with the "wrong type of skin".

The machines, used for interactive presentations, were among 250 supplied to schools in West Sussex by the electronics giant Toshiba.

The company says the 157 failures are due to classroom dust and blame the fact that children shed their skin faster than adults.

Old Chalky used to be enthusiastic with the cane, and there may have been a few drops of blood on the wood block floor next to his "special" chair, and I'm not entirely sure what the stains the other side of the desk were after he had beaten one of the prettier fags, but skin? What are they doing to these kids? Flaying them alive? Or are schools as filthy as hospitals?

And to complete the Dickensian school experience....
Saturday school 'for poor children' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Children from poor homes should be forced to go to school at weekends and during holidays and climb up chimneys out of sheer gratitude of their paternalistic betters.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 9, 2007

When your dinners are Jamied

After Jamie Oliver, children lose their appetite for lunch - Times Online
When Jamie Oliver revolutionised school meals he was lauded by teachers, health-conscious parents and politicians keen for some reflected glory.

His campaign has, however, proved less popular with the children. There has been a 20 per cent fall in the uptake of secondary school meals since Jamie’s School Dinners was screened two years ago, according to official figures. Numbers have reportedly fallen to about four in ten pupils – thought to be the lowest level since provision became mandatory in 1944. Older pupils in particular are rejecting the organic and healthy meals in favour of packed lunches or takeaways.

Result! The kids eat more takeaway chips and bags of crisps now. Ask any schoolchild what they think of Jamie Oliver and expect a Gordon Ramsey style response as tasteless stodge has replaced the old school dinners. And of course it is easier to score crack than a sachet of salt in most schools so the greens remain uneaten.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 3, 2007

Brown missing the point on going private

Scotsman.com News - Politics - Brown misses the point about why parents opt for private education It's not facilities: it's the ethos of achievement
Gordon Brown still seems to be off the pace. He has declared his desire to raise the level of funding in every state school to the level of the private sector, building state-of-the-art facilities and gleaming new schools everywhere - as if that will miraculously erase all the differences between the two sectors.

In doing so he is demonstrating that he misses the point completely. The reason that parents send their children to private schools is not because the facilities are better than their state counterparts, because often they are not. It is because, on one hand, private schools have lower class sizes but also, and possibly more importantly, because they instil an attitude of achievement from day one, demand hard work and enforce their rules with discipline.

When Tony Blair was at Fettes, conditions were primitive in the extreme. Pupils slept on rock-hard, horse-hair mattresses in draughty rooms, and the classroom facilities were archaic. Yet Mr Blair, like so many of his privileged school colleagues, went on to a good university. Their success had nothing to do with the amount of money being spent on facilities and infrastructure and everything to do with the ethos of achievement at the school.

Simply throwing money at state schools will not make them as good as independent schools, and demand for private education will continue to rise until the politicians in both London and Edinburgh realise that.

The Labour-led governments, north and south of the Border, have been quite happy to reap the benefits of the booming housing market for the last ten years. What is less clear is whether Gordon Brown and the Labour Party are prepared for the much subtler, but probably more influential, social changes which have been brought along in its wake.

And Cameron also misses the point as well, and it is not just about the ethos of achievement, it is about the parent being able to choose the ethos of the school they choose. And for some kids that isn't about exam results, it is about fulfilment at the areas they are good at. By having real parental choice, from the wallet or vouchers, parents can choose.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 2, 2007

How to push ahead, stay back

For the best start at school, stop at home -Times Online
Like most aspirational trends it is already so rampant across the United States that it has an American name: “redshirting”.

This is an American football term, but refers to the practice of pushy parents pushing for their child to start primary school a year late. That doesn’t sound good, I hear you say. ....But science has finally proved what teachers have known for years: being the youngest in your class can damage your chances, for life.

Parents aren’t stupid. And pushy parents are the least stupid of all. Yes, we could tinker with the rule that states children in England have to start school in the year they turn 5. But the same effect is shown from Canada, which is more flexible about when a child starts school, to the more regimented Japan. Since the advantage is not in being older, but simply that you are older than your classmates, in any given group some children will always be the poor young ones.

And guess who is more likely to be among the poor young ones? Yes, the poor....

Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 25, 2007

The Case For Grammars, again.

Grammar schools needed to raise standards | Uk News | News | Telegraph
More grammar schools and low-cost private schools are needed to raise the "dire" standards of the education system, a report by one of the most respected economic think-tanks says today.

Millions of people cannot read, write or count and millions more can barely do so because of the "socialist" state-directed system and comprehensive education, the Economic Research Council says.

Better off parents have escaped the worst aspects of comprehensive education by paying private fees, buying tuition or moving home to be close to the best schools, says the report. It is families on the lowest incomes that have suffered from the progressive theories and dumbing down of standards.

The Economic Research Council, Britain's oldest economic think-tank, says it is "rotten schooling" and not grammar schools that has harmed social mobility.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 24, 2007

The Hydra of Trendy Teaching Lives On

Ditch lessons, schools are told - Times Online
STATE secondary schools are being told to ditch lessons in academic subjects and replace them with month-long projects on themes such as global warming.

The pressure to scrap the traditional timetable in favour of cross-curricular topics is coming from the government’s teaching advisers, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).

It has provoked anger from traditionalists who believe it marks a return to discredited “trendy” techniques.

...The project-led approach took hold in primary schools in the 1970s after a report from a government-appointed education committee.

Teachers were told to emphasise soft skills and “learning by doing”. Schools were told to scrap projects in 1992 after an inquiry found pupils were missing out on the basics. ...

Mick Waters, the QCA’s curriculum director, believes the changes will help spur enthusiasm and cut truancy. He said: “The challenge for schools is to create a nourishing and appetising feast that will sustain learners and meet their needs.

Hydra

The Hydra which lived in the swamps near to the ancient city of Lerna in Argolis. The Hydra had the body of a serpent and many heads of which one could never be harmed by any weapon, and if any of the other heads were severed another would grow in its place. Also the stench from the Hydra's breath was enough to kill man or beast. When it emerged from the swamp it would attack herds of cattle and local villagers, devouring them with its numerous heads. It totally terrorized the vicinity for many years.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Cotton Wool Kids

Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Teachers 'must try harder' to be PC to pupils

Scottish teachers are being told not to put negative comments in reports for fear of upsetting sensitive youngsters....And whereas reports in the past were opened with unalloyed dread, the guidance states that - in future - pupils should be spared the fear factor, by having a say in writing it.

It adds: "Pupils should be included in discussion about what he or she thinks might be included in their report. Alternatively the pupil might draft their own version prior to your completion of the report."

What the teachers might say… and what they mean

• Kylie remains in a period of deferred success in relation to her elementary mathematics skills

Kylie is forehead-smackingly thick at sums

• Kevin is always keen to share his thoughts with the class

Kevin needs to learn that when I open my mouth he shuts his

• Nigel consistently meets the highest standards and has an exceptionally enquiring brain

Nigel is a geek who bugs the hell out of me by asking too many questions

• Britney has strong listening skills and is keen to promote a good learning environment

Britney is a sneak and a sleekit little clype

• Brian is mature for his age and is keen to develop his personal and social education

Brian is a 20-a-day smoker, swigs cider at playtime and keeps trying to look up my skirt

• Michaela has a challenging attitude towards guidance and discipline

Save time by getting her measured up for a prison uniform now

Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 23, 2007

Child Snatchers

Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Bid to ban military from making school visits in the capital

COUNCILLORS are considering a ban on allowing the armed forces to speak in schools and colleges.

The idea has won backing among some Edinburgh city councillors after being raised by Maggie Chapman, a Green councillor and university lecturer.

She wants to put a stop to the "aggressive recruiting" of "impressionable" teenagers. Her call comes after a similar proposal was passed by the Educational Institute of Scotland, Scotland's largest teachers' union....

Ms Chapman, who represents Leith Walk in the city, said: "We oppose aggressively recruiting children who are perhaps at quite a vulnerable stage in their lives.

"It's not appropriate to go into schools and colleges and tell children that it's a great career and a great opportunity to see the world, especially if there's not a lot of information available about what it's like to work in somewhere like Iraq.

"Our concern is that armed forces' recruitment may be targeting schools in more deprived areas where children, arguably, are not going to have as many career options available."

Probably not got many career options because they haven't been taught to read and write by their trendy teachers.

More from a Traditional Tory in Edinburgh

Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 22, 2007

Creating an Untermenschen

White boys 'let down by education system' | Uk News | News | Telegraph
White boys are being turned into an unemployable underclass - as they fall behind children from other racial groups at school, new research shows.

Almost half of all children leaving school without any good GCSEs are white British males, according to figures published today.

They outnumber white girls by two to one and have vastly inferior reading and writing skills at the age of 11.
...
In a damning indictment of the education system in England, they say that thousands of children - particularly boys, working class pupils and those with special needs - are being let down by primary schools.

After moving up many then remain at the bottom of the pile between the ages of 11 and 16 as the Government's secondary school reforms fail to have any significant impact.

Prof Robert Cassen, one of the report's authors, said that thousands of disadvantaged children were "behind educationally before they enter school".
....

"If boys do worse than girls at early stages, this may be part of the explanation of their later worse performance," the study says.

"The anti-education culture may be something boys take refuge in, something that gives them an alternative identity, placing value and self-esteem in things other than those offered by school."

The report goes on to say: "This is a somewhat different view from the sociological observation that working class children may be rebelling against a school experience that is essentially middle class."

There is a clear link between failure at school and a life of crime, the authors say. "Only about a fifth of the lowest achievers go on to a further education college and acquire any other sort of education or training.

"Many of them have few prospects in the jobs market. Not surprisingly, they may end up unemployed and vulnerable, and a proportion will become single parents or involved in drugs and crime."

The Government defended its record...

Labour gets a very poor school report | Uk News | News | Telegraph
A quarter of teenagers are leaving school with practically nothing to show for 11 years of compulsory education, a report discloses today.

Last year, about 147,000 pupils failed to get any GCSEs higher than a grade D. This included 28,000 - almost one in 20 - who failed to gain a qualification of any kind.

The system is broken, and we all are paying for it. I have dealt with those teenage underperforming white working class boys, of course they " take refuge" in an anti-education culture, it is the only place they can thrive. School knocks out of them all the spark, originality, inquisitiveness, boisterousness, and sheer fun of being a boy. Give them back that and they are great kids, deny it to them and they are a nightmare.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 13, 2007

Grammars Help The Working Class

Study shows grammars benefit poor pupils | Uk News | News | Telegraph
The row over academic selection was reignited last night after a study concluded that more grammar schools would boost the results of working class pupils and raise education standards nationwide.
...
The study by the London School of Economics which suggests children from working class backgrounds benefit from a grammar school education.

It shows that an expansion of grammars in Northern Ireland - the only country in the British Isles to retain a wholly selective system - has helped poor pupils as much as those from wealthy backgrounds.

The research also revealed the presence of selective education in the province has helped boost grades in comparison to England, and that it does not have a damaging effect on children "left behind" to attend comprehensives.....

Willets asked for the evidence, it seems to be coming in now....

Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 11, 2007

The Rotten Heart of Education

'Political meddling' ruining learning in schools | Uk News | News | Telegraph
The curriculum in state schools in England has been stripped of its content and corrupted by political interference, according to a damning report by an influential, independent think-tank.

It warns of the educational apartheid opening up between the experience of pupils in the state sector and those at independent schools, which have refused to reduce academic content to make way for fashionable causes.

No major subject area has escaped the blight of political interference, according to the report published by Civitas.

"The traditional subject areas have been hijacked to promote fashionable causes such as gender awareness, the environment and anti-racism, while teachers are expected to help to achieve the Government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students," it says.
...
History has become so divorced from facts and chronology that pupils might learn the new "skills and perspectives" through a work of fiction, such as Lord of the Rings, it says.
advertisement

Teenagers studying for GCSEs are being asked to write about the September 11 atrocities using Arab media reports and speeches from Osama bin Laden as sources without balancing material from America, it reveals.

In English, the drive for gender and race equality has led an exam board to produce a list of modern poems from around the world without a single poet from England or Wales being represented.

The new 21st-century science curriculum introduced last September substitutes debates on abortion, genetic engineering and the use of nuclear power for lab work and scientific inquiry, it says.

Designed to make science more popular, the results of a study show it has had the opposite effect, with pupils less interested in the subject and less keen to pursue it in the sixth form than they were under the previous, more fact-based lessons.

Future scientists will be even more likely to come from independent schools because the new GCSE courses will leave state pupils ill-quipped for further study, it says.

Most comprehensive schools are teaching the new science for examination next year but the vast majority of independent and grammar schools have seized the opportunity to continue to teach biology, chemistry and physics as separate subjects....

The Department for Education defended the curriculum changes and accused the Civitas report of being "based on a profound misunderstanding of the national curriculum and modern teaching methods".

"It is insulting to the hard work of pupils and teachers to claim that the education system is just a political football to promote political or social goals," said a spokesman.

It isn't insulting to those at the chalkface, they aren't the ones being criticised. It is the vast body of leeching bureaucrats and politicians who impose these policies. Shows like Brainiacs aren't popular because they hold debates on the rights of women scientists, they interest kids by showing what science can do, make and explode.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:17 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Out to lunch

Pupils ‘should supervise lunches’-Life & Style-Education-TimesOnline
Older pupils should become paid dinner supervisors in school canteens and lunch-times should be made longer not shorter, a Government-funded report advises today.

The School Food Trust, the quango in charge of improving the standard of school meals, suggests that lengthening the daily lunch break would allow pupils to relax, eat properly and recuperate for the afternoon’s lessons. It also says that teachers should sit among pupils and communicate using coloured cards.

How about a more radical idea? - teachers actually talking to their pupils rather than waving cards at them, and instead of them hiding in the staffroom while the school bullies operate the lunch money protection racket actually sit down at tables with the kids and show them by example how to be civilised at a meal time - though probably many teachers would need remedial education in this themselves first.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 31, 2007

Knives in School

Security guards to frisk school pupils for knives-News-UK-Crime-TimesOnline

Security guards will be able to search pupils for knives at the school gates without their consent under government guidance to be published today...

Any school instituing such a policy is reminded that it should follow a suitable code in regard to the wearing of knives for Religous reasons:

Purpose
The purpose of this document is to address concerns arising from the Sikh tradition of carrying the Kirpan, a ceremonial sword or dagger. It provides advice to schools that applies specifically to male members of the Sikh community.
Aims
The aims of this guidance are to:
• Ensure religious tolerance and harmony within schools serving diverse religious and ethnic communities
• Encourage and value pupils’ religious and cultural practices
• Ensure the health, safety and well being of all pupils.

Guidelines
• There should be no objection to the practice of wearing the five K’s, including the Kirpan.....

• The Kirpan should not be more than 6 inches in length (including both blade and handle) and the blade should not exceed 3 inches in length; the Kirpan should always be sheathed and worn out of sight...

No news yet if the freedom to carry a knife into school also applies to those ethnics from north of the border and their sgian dubhs...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Tory Fights Back Over Grammars

I went into politics to give equal opportunities | Dt Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph

Graham Brady wades into Cameron over Grammar Schools - basically calling him irrational and acting as a teenage girl with a crush on the present Headgirl - and most damagingly presenting the evidence that two-Brains promised but never delivered on how Grammar Schools affect local communities.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 29, 2007

Willetts on School Vouchers

David Willetts speech on grammar schools | Uk News | News | Telegraph

there is another approach which appears to have great appeal because it trusts parents - introduce school vouchers. The idea is to empower parents to choose the good schools by giving them direct spending power. There is a subtle, and more attractive form of a voucher in which you adjust the spending power for the social background of the student so that children from a poor area have, if you like, a higher price on their head. If a parent's request for their child to get to the school of their choice is written on the back of a cheque to pay for it then the letter is going to get far more attention. This is a powerful and important argument. We do need to go further towards clearer, more predictable per capita funding of pupils, aimed particularly at the poorer children being let down at the moment....

We already have more per capita funding than in the past and we officially have a system of school choice. But it hasn't transformed educational standards as we hoped. This is because there are no mechanisms in place to enable successful schools to expand, to take over failing schools or for new schools to be created. This explains why school choice, which has done wonders for educational attainment in Sweden, The Netherlands, and some parts of the United States, has not had the same impact here.

Every MP must have had the experience of a parent turning up at a surgery saying that they had chosen the best school for their child but had then been told that the school wasn't able to let the child in. Suddenly a politician's promise of choice has degenerated into a mere chance to express a preference. If we simply issued vouchers for an unreformed education system, that problem would be repeated in spades. It is as if we were lovingly focusing on the details of exactly what free railway tickets we should hand out to people without tackling the problem that the trains people want to take are full to bursting already, health and safety regulations make it very hard to add extra carriages and planning rules obstruct the building of new track. It is the failure to open up the supply side which is the reason why, despite years of ambitious attempts at education reform, Britain now lags behind many other advanced western countries....

Nor do I believe that handing out education vouchers in an unreformed schools system genuinely empowers parents because it is so hard for schools to respond to their preferences. The crucial step is not to focus on the demand side but on the supply side. We have already got parents who want to choose and a significant amount of public money that would follow them. Indeed, the latest evidence is of more parents appealing against admission decisions than ever before. What we haven't created are the mechanisms to provide more of the good schools that they want to choose. We must make it easier for people, including parents themselves, to set up new schools. New school providers must be able to enter the maintained sector, responding to what parents want.

So does that mean he is saying that they after they have sorted out the supply side of schools then vouchers will be a good idea? Is that the long term plan?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 28, 2007

Tell them how much control parents should have over schooling

How much control should parents have over local schools? | News | Telegraph

British ministers from both main parties have tried everything to improve standards in schools: literacy and numeracy hours, new timetables, discipline codes, school dinner strategies. Nothing appears to have worked.

Now, in the second week of our Think Local campaign, we suggest that the solution to the problem is to allow parents to transfer their share of education funding to the school of their choice, forcing schools, freed from state interference, to improve their performance.

Would you take advantage of this opportunity for your children? Or, if you would remain loyal to your local state school, how do you think it could improve standards and what role should central government play in helping it do so?

How much control, economic or political, should parents have over their local schools? If you live abroad, does your education system have lessons for the UK?

To send a letter to the editor of The Daily Telegraph, email dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 27, 2007

School vouchers - another half-hearted proposal

Three steps to sort out our failing schools | St Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph By Kenneth Baker

...we should introduce an education credit equivalent to the amount the state pays for a primary education place, £3,150, and a secondary school place, £4,070, to those parents whose children attend a school that is designated by the Department for Education and Skills as failing, and who are dissatisfied with the education provided for their children. The parents of pupils in such schools would have the cash to purchase better education for their children, either in a local state school or at an independent school. This would achieve greater social mobility than undermining the grammar schools. Education at independent schools costs more than this, but such a change would encourage the start-up of new schools, particularly at the primary level, geared to that level of funding. What's more, this is just the sort of school that businesses could be encouraged to support.

Critics will point out that such credits are another name for educational vouchers. That is true. But in the past when they have been advocated they were attacked for creating a get-out for middle-class parents faced with a poor comprehensive. This new credit would be available only for the worst schools (mostly in the inner cities) because the children there need real help. The education establishment and the teacher unions will fight hard against the idea but what is wrong in extending to parents in the inner cities the choice that richer parents in the leafy suburbs already have?

I was encouraged to hear David Cameron say in an interview that he wants to see "parents choosing schools, not schools choosing parents". Well, this is one way to achieve that aim....

It is no good for a party in opposition to simply mirror what the Government is doing. The Conservatives should use the time to open up the education debate and find new practical solutions to help the children who need it most.

Oh stop pussy footing around - school vouchers for all and bollocks to the teacher's unions, they aren't going to vote for you anyway.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 26, 2007

Pay Attention at the Back

Educational Conscription

Not standing by idly while 17-year-olds are deprived of their liberty...

For some reason I had missed this blog before, don't you do likewise

Posted by The Englishman at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2007

Cameron's Big Idea on Education - A Hissy Fit

Cameron attacks ‘deluded’ grammar school defenders-News-Politics-TimesOnline

His head-on confrontation was criticised privately by some party frontbenchers. “I’m not sure that coming out all guns blazing is [the way] to damp it down. Trying to turn this into some sort of Clause Four moment is unusually ill-advised,” said one.

Although there was no sign of a frontbench resignation last night, MPs said that local party members were preparing to quit.

Mr Cameron is determined not to give ground on the 11-plus but is preparing to offer an olive branch to traditional supporters by announcing plans to toughen discipline in schools.

He will call for head teachers to have greater freedom to expel unruly pupils by removing a parent’s right to appeal against a head’s decision to exclude their child.

He will also say that Ofsted inspectors should have a new remit to report on consistency of discipline policy across a school, to ensure that some teachers are not strict and others soft, leaving children confused over what is acceptable behaviour.

Pathetic - he might be right on Grammar Schools, the cri de coeur of the parents worried about the state of education isn't going to be satisfied by giving Ofsted inspectors another box to tick. People look back at Grammar schools as representing a time when education was better and offered social mobility for the aspiring, the very people who the Tory party should appeal to. If they aren't the way forward, just offering Tony Blair's acadamys as the solution isn't the way the Tory party should respond, it should be putting forward strong radical proposals and not insulting its core members who have stood with the party through thick and thin.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 17, 2007

Reading for Boys

The 160 books all boys must read @ NewKerala.Com News Channel

The UK's Education Secretary is hoping that including books violence and sporty working-class heroes in a list of the top 160 books for teenage boys will them more interested in reading.

The list includes works of authors from the past and present such as Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights (His Dark Materials', Daniel Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe', J RR Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and E E Richardson's 'The Intruders'.

'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' by Robert LeRoy Ripley, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams and 'King Solomon's Mines' by H Rider Haggard also appear on the list.

The common feature all these authors share is that their novels are full of gritty, fighting, spying, fantastical, bloodthirsty and sporty working-class heroes.

The Guardian view is that:
The resulting list is a pile of cack - sub-Tolkien and not-really-books - studded here and there with gems.

What do you think? The full list is below:

1. The Top 10 of Everything 2007 by Russell Ash, Hamlyn (2008 edition available in the autumn)

2. Strange Powers of the Human Mind (Forbidden Truths) by Herbie Brennan, Faber

3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Black Swan,

4. I Know You Got Soul by Jeremy Clarkson, Penguin

5. Guinness Book of Records 2007, Guinness (2008 edition available in the autumn)

6. 101 Things You Need To Know (And Some You Don’t) by Richard Horne, Bloomsbury

7. 101 Things To Do Before You’re Old and Boring by Richard Horne, Bloomsbury

8. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! by Robert LeRoy Ripley, Century

9. The Boys’ Book; How to be the Best at Everything by Guy McDonald, Buster Books

10. Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food by Eric Schlosser, Puffin

11. How to Spot a Hadrosaur in a Bus Queue by Andy Seed, Hodder

12. How to Avoid a Wombat’s Bum by Mitchell Symons, Doubleday

13. Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? by Mick O'Hare, Profile Books

14. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Macmillan

15. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Puffin

16. King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard, Penguin

17. Northern Lights (His Dark Materials) by Philip Pullman, Scholastic

18. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Bloomsbury

19. Kidnapped (adapted by) Alan Grant, Barrington Stoke

20. Treasure Island by R L Stevenson, Bloomsbury

21. The Hobbit by J RR Tolkien, HarperCollins

22. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Penguin

23. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Penguin

24. Like Father Like Son by Tony Bradman (ed), Kingfisher

25. Unreal! by Paul Jennings, Puffin

26. Flight by Kazu Kibuishi, Image Comics

27. One Beastly Beast by Garth Nix, HarperCollins

28. The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, Puffin

29. It Was A Dark and Silly Night by Art Spiegelman, HarperCollins

30. Scientific Progress Goes Boink (Calvin and Hobbes) by Bill Watterson, Time Warner

31. Talking Turkeys by Bejamin Zephaniah, Puffin

32. Arthur and the Invisibles by Luc Besson, Faber

33. The Spellgrinder’s Apprentice by N M Browne, Bloomsbury

34. The Forgotten Spell (Spellcaster Gamebooks) by Louisa Dent, Wizard Books

35. Castle of Wizardry (The Belgariad) by David Eddings, Corgi

36. Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke, Chicken House

37. Mirrormask by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, Bloomsbury

38. Samurai (Saint of Dragons) by Jason Hightman, HarperCollins

39. Blade of Fire (The Icemark Chronicles) by Stuart Hill, Chicken House

40. Eldest by Christopher Paolini, Corgi

41. Clash of the Sky Galleons (The Edge Chronicles) by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, Doubleday

42. Bloodsong by Melvin Burgess, Puffin

43. The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer, Puffi

44. Small-Minded Giants by Oisin McGann, Corgi

45. Takedown by Graham Marks, Catnip

46. Jango (Noble Warriors) by William Nicholson, Egmont

47. Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride) by James Patterson, Headline

48. A Darkling Plain (Mortal Engines Quartet) by Philip Reeve, Scholastic

49. Storm Thief by Chris Wooding, Scholastic

50. Darkside by Tom Becker, Scholastic

51. The Spook’s Secret (Wardstone Chronicles) by Joseph Delaney, Bodley Head

52. The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven, Doubleday

53. Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Bloomsbury

54. Setting of a Cruel Sun (The Lost Souls Stories) by Alan Gibbons, Orion

55. Nightrise (Power of Five) by Anthony Horowitz, Walker

56. Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, HarperCollins

57. Breathe by Cliff McNish, Orion

58. Devil for Sale by E E Richardson, Barrington Stoke

59. The Intruders by E E Richardson, Corgi

60. Blood Beast (Demonata) by Darren Shan, HarperCollins

61. Crazy Creatures (Reality Check) by Gillian Arbuthnott, Barrington Stoke

62. The Fighting Pit (Bear Kingdom) by Michael Coleman, Orchard

63. Flanimals of the Deep by Ricky Gervais

64. High Rhulain (Redwall) by Brian Jacques, Puffin

65. The Dark Portal (Deptford Mice) by Robin Jarvis, Hodder

66. Mouse Noses on Toast by Darren King, Faber

67. Soul Eater (Chronicles of Ancient Darkness) by Michelle Paver, Orion

68. Fall 1152 (Mouse Guard) by David Petersen, Archaia (Publication due in June)

69. Nathan Fox by L Brittney, Macmillan

70. Mines of the Minotaur (Companion’s Quartet) by Julia Golding, Oxford

71. The Ship Between the Worlds by Julia Golding, Oxford

72. The Black Book of Secrets by F E Higgins, Macmillan

73. Here There be Dragons (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica) by James A Owen, Simon & Schuster

74. Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve, Scholastic

75. Larklight by Philip Reeve, Bloomsbury

76. Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan, Puffin

77. Physik (Septimus Heap) by Angie Sage, Bloomsbury

78. My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick, Orion

79. Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton, Puffin

80. Ptolemy’s Gate (Bartimaeus Trilogy) by Jonathan Stroud, Corgi

81. Bloodline by Kevin Brooks, Barrington Stoke

82. Johnny Delgado Like Father Like Son by Kevin Brooks, Barrington Stoke

83. Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer, Puffin

84. Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer, Puffin

85. Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Macmillan

86. Grk and the Hot Dog Trail by Joshua Doder, Andersen Press

87. Final Lap (Traces) by Malcolm Rose, Kingfisher

88. The Crime Lord (F.E.A.R. Adventures) by Jak Shadow, Wizard Books

89. Tins by Alex Shearer, Macmillan

90. Great Britain (Jack Stalwart) by Elizabeth Singer Hunt, Red Fox

91. The Curse of the Nightwolf (Barnaby Grimes) by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, Doubleday

92. Montmorency’s Revenge by Eleanor Updale, Scholastic

93. The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) by Catherine Webb, Atom

92. The Boy who was Wanted Dead or Alive – or both (Blart) by Dominic Barker, Bloomsbury

93. Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools by Philip Cavney, Bodley Head

94. The Moomy’s Curse (Cows in Action) by Steve Cole, Red Fox

95. Toonhead by Fiona Dunbar, Orchard

96. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, Bloomsbury

97. So You Think You Know the Simpsons? by Clive Gifford, Hodder

98. It’s True You Can Make Your Own Jokes by Sharon Holt, Allen & Unwin

99. Ryan’s Brain (Jiggy McCue) by Michael Lawrence, Orchard

100. Measle and the Slitherghoul (Measle Stubbs Adventures) by Ian Ogilvy, OUP

101. Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People by Dav Pilkey, Scholastic

102. Urgum the Axe Man by Kjartan Poskitt, Scholastic

103. A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett, Doubleday

104. Zip’s Apollo by Philip Ridley, Puffin

105. The Great Cow Race (Bone) by Jeff Smith, Cartoon Books

106. Boy and Going Solo by Roald Dahl, Puffin

107. Once by Morris Gleitzman, Puffin

108. Crusade by Elizabeth Laird, Macmillan (Publication due in June)

109. Secrets of the Fearless by Elizabeth Laird, Macmillan

110. The Highwayman’s Footsteps by Nicola Morgan, Walker

111. Billy the Kid by Michael Morpurgo, Collins

112. Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo, HarperCollins

113. Rebel Cargo by James Riordan, Frances Lincoln

114. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Bodley Head

115. Divided City by Theresa Breslin, Corgi

116. Game Boy (4u2read.ok) by Alan Durant, Barrington Stoke

117. Stat Man (FYI) by Alan Durant, Barrington Stoke

118. Lady Friday (Keys to the Kingdom) by Garth Nix, HarperCollins

119. The Penalty by Mal Peet, Walker

120. Dream On by Bali Rai, Barrington Stoke

121. Goal 2: Living the Dream by Robert Rigby, Corgi

122. Agent Orange (Spy High) by A J Butcher, Atom

123. Sakkara (New Heroes) by Michael Carroll, HarperCollins

124. Jimmy Coates: Revenge by Joe Craig, HarperCollins

125. True Spy Stories (Usborne True Stories) by Paul Dowswell and Fergus Fleming, Spies (Publication due in June)

126. The Flight of the Silver Turtle by John Fardell, Faber

127. The Devil’s Breath by David Gilman, Puffin (Publication due in June)

128. Double or Die (Young Bond) by Charlie Higson, Puffin

129. Ark Angel (Alex Rider) by Anthony Horowitz, Walker

130. Meltdown (Special Agents) by Sam Hutton, HarperCollins

131. Deep Waters (Zac Power) by H I Larry, Egmont

132. The Fall (Cherub) by Robert Muchamore, Hodder

133. Deadline by John Townsend, Barrington Stoke

134. S.T.O.R.M. by E L Young, Macmillan

135. The Hand of the Devil by Dean Vincent Carter, Corgi

136. The Aztec Code by Steve Cole, Bloomsbury

137. Bunker 10 by J A Henderson, OUP

138. Sure Fire by Jack Higgins and Justin Richards, HarperCollins (Publication due in May)

139. Bloodbones (Fighting Fantasy) by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, Wizard Books

140. Troll Blood (Troll trilogy) by Katherine Langrish, HarperCollins

141. The Beast Within (Nemesis) by Catherine Macphail, Bloomsbury

142. Avenger (Boy Soldier) by Andy McNab, Corgi

143. Operation Typhoon Shore (Guild Trilogy) by Joshua Mowll, Walker

144. Boffin Boy and the Invaders from Space (Boffin Boy) by David Orme, Ransom

145. Time Runners: Freeze Framed (Time Runners) by Justin Richards, Simon & Schuster

146. Flash Flood (Code Red Adventures) by Chris Ryan, Red Fox

147. Book the Thirteenth: The End by Lemony Snicket, Egmont

148. The Web of Fire by Steve Voake, Faber

149. Smokescreen by Bernard Ashley, Usborne

150. Mutant (Gr8reads) by Theresa Breslin, Barrington Stoke

151. Being by Kevin Brooks, Puffin

152. Billy Elliot by Melvin Burgess, Chicken House

153. The Bone Room by Anne Cassidy, Barrington Stoke

154. Moon Man by David Donohue, Egmont

155. The Road of Bones by Anne Fine, Corgi

156. The Thing with Finn by Tom Kelly, Macmillan

157. Flush by Carl Hiaasen, Corgi

158. Under the Skin by Catherine Macphail, Barrington Stoke

159. Captives by Tom Pow, Corgi

160. BurnOut by Robert Swindells, Barrington Stoke

161. Case Closed by Gosho Aoyama, Gollancz

162. Help I’m a Classroom Gambler by Pete Johnson, Corgi

163. The Paradise Plot by Natasha Narayan, Egmont

164. The Inventors by Alexander Gordon Smith, Faber

165. Tide of Terror (Vampirates) by Justin Somper, Simon & Schuster

166. Running the Risk (Shapeshifter) by Ali Sparkes, OUP

167. H.I.V.E. (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) by Mark Walden, Bloomsbury

Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

May 16, 2007

Grammar School boy agrees with Public School Boys that Comprehensives are good enough for everyone else

Tories to 'sever links' with academic selection | Uk News | News | Telegraph

The Conservative Party will officially sever links with academic selection in the state sector today, accusing grammar schools of entrenching social advantage.

David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, will warn grammar supporters in the party that they cannot harp back to the past.
advertisement

"We must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright, poor kids," he will say.

"This is a widespread belief but we just have to recognise that there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it."

OK - what evidence? 70 per cent of parents want a return to Grammar Schools, if you want to persuade them that their widespread belief is wrong then you will have to do better than just parroting the DFES line and actually show how you are going to reverse the deplorable decrease in social mobility that has happened, uniquely for a developed nation, under Tony Blair.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:26 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 11, 2007

Bath Students - What a Shower

BathStudent : Bath University Students Union takes me back to my old college days as they prevent Nasty Nick Griffen speaking at a meeting in the University.

The following is the Statement of Belief agreed upon at EGM on Thursday 10th May condemning the BNP. Following debate, this was the agreed version with one exception. The Executive, in their capacity as trustees of the Union, chose to remove University of Bath Students’ Union Notes point 7 on legal grounds as there were potential libel issues.

University of Bath Students’ Union Notes:
1. The British National Party (BNP) is a far right political party.

Try racist authoritarian socialists - in favour of renationialisation of the Railways for instance and even the nationalisation of the RNLI

2. Prominent members of the BNP have historically promoted anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
3. In 2006, the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, was charged by police on offences of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. Though was later acquitted, other leading BNP figures have been convicted of race hatred and criminal offences.

He was tried and aquitted - or don't you believe in due process of law?

4. The BNP limits party membership on basis of skin colour, claiming that “To be truly British one has to have a British genotype, as well as to have fully adopted British culture."

With Bath Student Societies ranging from the Afro-Caribbean Society to Welsh, and while obviously Afro-Caribbeans are welcome to join the Welsh society and visa versa, maybe objecting to closed cultural groups is a bit pot and kettle.

5. The BNP’s opinion on homosexuality, that this should not be taught by schools, that "homosexuality, which affects less than 2% of the population, is not the norm” and that civil partnerships are a “flaunting or celebrating of homosexuality”
Are Catholics and Muslims banned as well for similar views?

6. Many organisations believe that the BNP is a fascist, discriminatory organisation.
And it is the duty of the Student Union to prevent Students making up their own minds rather than rely on hearsay?

~~7. A proportion of members of the BNP have had criminal dealings, some election candidates have even been gang members, drug dealers and rapists.~~

Bless 'em, such ernest rage and stamping of little feet will stand in them in good stead when they become Labour MPs.

The Previous EGM is another classic: See below.

BUSU against the war in Iraq
Date: 6/4/03

"Extraordinary General Meeting Believes:
1. The involvement of Britain in costly wars such as the war in Iraq, is a waste of tax payers money, which would be much better spent on improving education on all levels. This irresponsible behaviour puts the education of our students in jeopardy, hence affecting students as students.
2. By acting as an aggressor, the British Government breeds hatred towards the western world, resulting in a greater support for terrorist groups. This will further undermine British security, and hence could have an impact on the lives of all students study in our country.
3. The UK-US military action taken in Iraq was in breach of International Law and has stripped the U.N. of all credibility, demonstrating a dangerous neo-colonialist and imperialist disregard for the rest of the world.

Extraordinary General Meeting Mandates
1. The SU finance committee not to fund our campaigns
2. The Media can Communications Officer to publish a press release stating our condemnation of the war that took place in Iraq, the imperialist occupation of Iraq, and any further aggressions of this nature
3. The Union to allow Bath Student Stop the War Coalition to publicise B.U.S.U.’s stance"

Obviously it is the neo-colonial oppression by Bush that prevents them writing grammatical English - or is that just an imperialist disregard of the rights of students to be illiterate?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 10, 2007

Home Schooling - Good News?

New rules to cover rise in home schooling | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Parents educating children at home will be subjected to tighter controls amid fears that many young people receive little or no tuition.

A record number of parents are thought to be educating their children at home because of mounting disillusionment with state schools.

The Government's own research reveals that the number of young people withdrawn from school is on the increase following concern over indiscipline and the quality of lessons.

Researchers found records of 16,000 home-schooled children - nearly three times as many as eight years ago - although numbers are likely to be much higher as many parents choose not to register with local councils. Some studies estimate as many as 150,000 school-age children are taught at home.

However, officials fear that many do little or no work as parents use home education as a front for truancy.

I'm sure Officials fear home schooling for all sorts of reasons...

Sometimes It's Peaceful: I'm in heaven.... seems happy with the new proposals on home schooling and as she is bright and industrious enough to actually have read them I will go with her analysis. Though of course the kids may miss out on exciting new initiatives such as Schools encouraged to teach gipsy language unless they actually are Gypsies home schooling as they trundle around the country.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 8, 2007

Virtual Cohesion

Schools: 'promote race relations or close' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Schools with large numbers of white pupils may be taken over or closed if they fail to promote race relations and links between different religious groups, according to Government guidance.

The Standard continues

Lessons in all subjects should help to teach children tolerance and break down prejudice.

Schools must encourage pupils to strike up e-mail friendships with children at schools with a different racial or religious mix. They should also consider inviting imams and vicars to talk.

Schools Minister Jim Knight said one school in his Dorset South constituency had been rated as "outstanding" by Ofsted for its RE teaching.

But pupils had only limited experience of those from other backgrounds.

"They had never met anyone of the Muslim faith, they had never met a Hindu," he said.

"As part of delivering the duty, we could encourage more of that sort of contact. You could do it online."

He gave the "perfect example" of a link between a primary in Weymouth and another in Tower Hamlets.

The inner London borough has among the highest concentration of ethnic minority pupils in the country.

"The relationship had been forged by a member of staff who moved from a school in Tower Hamlets to Weymouth.

"They developed a relationship by e-mail between individual pupils, and then were going to visit."

I wonder why they didn't. Probably best to just to continue to "encourage more - e-mail friendships - that sort of contact. You could do it online." You wouldn't want to actually meet them when you can just have a nice safe virtual "cohesion" with them, would you. I'm sure the teenage white boys in Dorset South are leading the way with Asian Babe websites...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

File under Ursine Arborial Fecal Deposition

BBC NEWS | Education | Arts students 'less keen on work'

Posted by The Englishman at 6:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 6, 2007

Exam Factories

All work, no play at Blair flagship school-News-UK-TimesOnline

Britain’s most expensive state school is being built without a playground because those running it believe that pupils should be treated like company employees and do not need unstructured play time.

The authorities at the £46.4m Thomas Deacon city academy in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, due to open this autumn, also believe that the absence of a playground will avoid the risk of “uncontrollable” numbers of children running around in breaks at the 2,200-pupil school.

“We are not intending to have any play time,” said Alan McMurdo, the head teacher. “Pupils won’t need to let off steam because they will not be bored.”

Dr James Le Fanu, Sunday Telegraph

The standard view expressed last week by Prof Alan Smithers, of the University of Buckingham, is that schools have been turned into exam factories at the expense of cultivating the inquisitive mind. But the more substantial problem stretches back to the educational reforms of the 1980s, and particularly Kenneth Baker's "core" curriculum,which introduced a major bias in favour of the sciences at the expense of the humanities.

The upshot now is that pupils spend a massively disproportionate amount of time learning (or supposedly so) about saturated fats and Ohm's law but nothing of the great achievements of Western civilisation. Their glorious island history is an optional subject and the creative arts are marginalised to the point of non-existence....

This might seem a far cry from the concerns of the family doctor, but the enforced tedium of the classroom must be responsible, at least in part, for the rising incidence of adolescent psychological and behavioural problems. The solution is simple:science should cease to be compulsory, thus freeing up time for pupils to learn about the real world.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:27 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

May 3, 2007

The school of "Machiavellian skullduggery"

Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Teachers prove masters of backstabbing

...teachers have scored top marks in a new survey of workplace backstabbing.

The office politicking that goes on in between lessons makes teaching the most gossipy job of all, with eight in ten teachers admitting they regularly criticise fellow staff members behind their backs.

A further 27 per cent of teachers revealed that they gossip about colleagues at least once every week.

More than half (54 per cent) admit they withhold important information to get ahead at their colleagues' expense and curry favour with their head teacher.

The most popular behind-the-back topic on teachers' curriculum is criticising colleagues' work performance.

No wonder Guy Fawkes reveals Gordon was, as always, at a photo op at a school. He must feel at home in the staffroom.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 1, 2007

10 years of Blairite education - the verdict

Children 'damaged by exam factories' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Schools under Labour have been turned into "factories" that churn out exam results but fail to educate children properly, according to a leading Government adviser.

In a damning indictment of Tony Blair's school reforms, Alan Smithers, the professor of education at Buckingham University, says the Government has "done quite a lot of harm" to children by subjecting them to repeated tests.

Addressing a conference today, he will say that the Prime Minister has produced a generation of children regarded as the most unhappy in the western world....

Prof Smithers, an expert on school standards, says there is mounting evidence that children's self-esteem and long-term development is being undermined by the target-driven culture in state schools. This move is driving rising numbers to educate children in the private sector.

Oh Happy Anniversary Mr Blair! I hope just somehow behind that smug insincere grin we will see today as you celebrate 10 years in Downing Street there is a worm of doubt biting into your soul as you contemplate the damage and hurt you have done to the children.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:21 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 26, 2007

Doing Time in Schools

Spying in the classroom? I’d give it 10 out of 10-Comment-Columnists-Guest contributors-TimesOnline

.....where on earth is the moral justification for compelling attendance at state schools when learning is impossible? The first question that any parent should ask a head teacher is, can you assure me that my child will not be left unsupervised with children who steal, bully, lie, cheat or seek ways to frustrate teaching and learning?
Like prisons, schools are now places where the inmates are obliged to keep company with others whom they might prefer to avoid. Parents need to know about these things.

Peter Inson is a former head teacher of a state school

Posted by The Englishman at 1:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Do the Math

Chinese maths level embarrasses English system

Mathematics tests set by universities for undergraduate chemistry students in their first term to diagnose remedial requirements are disconcertingly simple. They encapsulate the challenge facing this country. Dr Pike called for action now to sort the problem: "What we need is not another study with yet another report left unimplemented on the shelf but a focused investigation, engendering credibility, transparency and inspiration across all sectors and leading to actions that really do place this country at the forefront of education.

"Our future depends upon it."

Take the test for the chance to win £500 - Just have a look at it and despair at our education system.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 18, 2007

Playing hookey

BBC NEWS | Education | Fines 'failing to tackle truancy'

Penalty notices or on-the-spot fines for parents whose children play truant do not work, research has suggested....

The report - School absenteeism and the implementation of truancy-related penalty notices - argues that truancy should be understood as a "complex social and historical issue".

It says: "Irresponsible parents may not be the main cause of children's absence from schools.....

The report calls for school absenteeism to be addressed through "a long-term effort of empowering the parents",

Fines just remind and condition the kids to the State demanding they do "time" at the State's will. Something they will become more used to as they continue their careers as petty thieves. Maybe, just maybe it isn't the parents fault, maybe it isn't the kids fault, how about the education system taking a bit of the blame. But then schools don't have to worry about their consumer appeal, the law makes them turn up.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 15, 2007

Dumb and Dumber

New science A-levels are 'dumbed down' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

New science A-levels are being "dumbed down" to such an extent that some courses will demand no prior knowledge of the subject.

Draft syllabuses for chemistry and biology published by one exam board state that the first part of the qualification, the AS-level, can be tackled without the candidate having studied the subject before.

They complain that content is being dumped so that the A-level will be accessible to pupils taking the general science GCSE, which has been heavily criticised since it was introduced in September.

Dubbed "pop-science", the GCSE has replaced the study of fundamental scientific principles with debate about "science-related" issues, such as nuclear power, nutrition and the use of drugs.
Teachers fear that the A-level is now going the same way.

So they make the GCSE a joke, and then the little darlings who have been conned into thinking they have been taught real science can't do the A level. So they have to dumb that down as well. And two years later the universities will need to "adjust" their courses for the poor bloody kids let down yet again by the Education Industry.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 11, 2007

Respect!

Disruptive pupils 'should be given prizes' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Difficult and disruptive pupils should be praised and given prizes to encourage them to behave, Government guidance said yesterday....

But schools must avoid discriminating against particular racial groups when punishing children for misbehaving in class.

As examples, the document said: "Gold rings and earrings are often viewed as an intrinsic part of Gypsy/Roma identity; Sikh pupils may be required by their religion to carry a kirpan (ceremonial knife)."

... teachers are told to be aware of the risk of certain pupils being "over disciplined" through misinterpretation of their behaviour, such as a "loud" social style.

Ah - I think they mean Chav culture where screaming at each other is the primary form of communication apart from grunting - nice to see it is recognised alongside the knife carriers and didicoys as being a valid and respected culture.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 8, 2007

Go to the ants thous sluggards!

BBC NEWS | Education | Teachers seek more training days

Teachers are calling for secondary schools to close for an extra two days so they can prepare for the "overload" of new initiatives next year.

How about the lazy sods actually doing a bit of work in their "holidays"?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Disadvantages of Being Educated

The Remittance Man: "Untrained" Teachers Scandal? Bloody Good Thing I Say

The Telegraph reports in shocked and awed tones that graduates without teacher training qualifications are being hired as "teaching instructors" and being sent to schools as supply teachers for up to 12 months. To which my only answer is: "And you say that like it's a bad thing?"
Quite frankly I think I'd much rather know that a child of mine was being taught physics by someone with a physics degree rather than somebody with a degree in "education" with a few evening classes in science as an afterthought. Hell! Back in the good old days there was no such thing as a teacher training college. Teachers were recruited straight from university and expected to get on with the job.
Of course in those days classes were generally well behaved and teachers had some measure of sanction over their charges. But since I doubt the modern training establishments offer prospective teachers much help in that direction anyway, what is their point? From where I sit, their only perpose is to brainwash successive generations of otherwise rational people with the latest doctrinal fad to have gained favour with the establishment.
And I am not alone. The former Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, is very disparaging on the subject of teacher training colleges. He has expressed the view that education might be better served if such establishments were abolished. And I suspect that he does know something about education. He's now Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham and chairman of Cognita a company that specialises in starting and running private schools.
So sod it. Far from decrying this turn of events, we should be cheering it. Maybe with a few more untainted minds in the teaching ranks something positive may come of this.

No point in me penning my own response when Mr RM has channelled my thoughts exactly. Call it research not plagiarism, that's what trainee teachers do.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 6, 2007

NUTters

BBC NEWS
....advertising which targets children should be more tightly controlled because it encourages poor diets and general ill-health.

The call comes from the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers in Harrogate, where delegates will also discuss education reforms.

I'm more worried about the effects of subjecting children to the views of members of the NUT..

NUT on the Web

Do you think education and health should be privatised?

Have you added your name to the Europe-wide petition to protect our key public services?

Key public services, known in the EU as services of general interest (SGIs) or services of general economic interest (SGEIs), are being undermined by liberalisation, privatisation, and the introduction of free market rules. SGIs have a decisive influence on the quality of people's lives, and are central to social, economic and regional cohesion in Europe.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:16 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 5, 2007

Edu-bollocks

You are all invited to attend the fourth CEIC global citizenship education
seminar to take place on Tuesday 17th April in room 1WN 3.17.University of Bath
4.45pm-6.15pm (Tea & coffee from 4.30pm):

We will be welcoming PAUL TARC from the University of York, Toronto.

TITLE: What is the 'International' of the International Baccalaureate?
Learning from the past, from what present, toward what futures?

This seminar will describe and discuss the conceptual approach and a number
of significant lines of analysis/findings of his dissertation research that
is broadly aimed at illuminating limits and possibilities of international
education (as a form of schooling) in a globalizing world. Specifically, he
has taken the "international" of IB as his object of analysis to illuminate
how ideas and ideals of international education, as historically contingent,
have shifted in the last four decades in response to world change.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score 22.7 - in other words it is pretentious Edu-bollocks, no wonder these "universities" can't turn out decent teachers. Any "teacher" worth their salt would slap this pretentious prat around the face with a stinking kipper and go down the pub instead.

Posted by The Englishman at 4:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Education for All and Education for One Miserable Scotsman in Particular

How we can liberate every child in the world-Comment-Columnists-Guest contributors-TimesOnline

Everyday 80 million children worldwide do not go to school. Every one of them should have the right to a free education, and when I say that I am thinking of hundreds of young people desperate for the chance of schooling that I have seen with my own eyes.

A few months ago, at Abuja in Nigeria, I met children sitting three to a desk in crowded classrooms, lucky if they had an exercise book or pens to themselves and heard of dozens more children turned away at the door because there was no more room.

A few miles up the road, I was told, an Islamic madrassa was offering education free of charge — in far better classrooms, and to anyone who wanted it.

But the price of education in that madrassa, and in others like it, was indoctrination...

So you are against "faith" schools - fair enough but why then do you continue..

At Gleneagles today, Kofi Annan, Hilary Benn, Jack McConnell and I will meet faith groups and charities to reflect..

It isn't faith schools you are against, it is just you want the kids to be indoctrinated by the State and the particular set of values you expouse.

..by investing in education for all, we can make a reality of our goal that by 2015 every child in the world should be able to go to school.
It will have to be education free of charge. Because we know that when Kenya made education free of charge one million children appeared from nowhere to enrol for school

May I suggest instead of spending the day with three of the world's prize windbags you spend the day reading some of the material from the excellent E.G. West Centre, based in the School of Education, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. The UK’s only university research centre dedicated to understanding the role of choice, competition and entrepreneurship in the delivery of "Education for All".

As he started on about Nigeria:

Private and public schooling in low-income areas of Lagos State, Nigeria: A census and comparative survey A census and survey of schools in selected poor areas of Lagos State explored the nature and extent of private education, and compared inputs to public and private schooling. Of all schools (71%) were found to be private, with more unregistered private than government and registered private schools. It was estimated that 33% of school children were enrolled in private unregistered schools, and 75% in private schools in general. Teaching activity was found to be considerably higher in private than government schools, and teacher absenteeism was lowest in private schools. Most school inputs showed either comparable levels of provision in government and private schools, or superiority in private schools.

And he mentioned Kenya:

K E N YA’ S F O R G O T T E N
I N D E P E N D E N T S C H O O L
MOVEMENT

The rise and fall of Kenya’s independent school
movement suggest that comments such as those
expressed by the Provisional Commissioner for Kikuyu
province in 1929, ‘It is indisputable that the Kikuyu
people, in their present stage of development, are
incapable of organising, financing, and running
efficient schools without European supervision’, were
entirely misplaced. Just as E. G. West has previously
shown that the vast majority of families in midnineteenth-
century England were capable of financing
and operating their own schools without government
support, so too were the indigenous communities in
Kenya during the first half of the twentieth century.
These findings also help to shed light on the
importance of independently controlled schools in
a free and democratic society. In Kenya’s struggle
against colonial rule it was their schools which first
gained independence providing the momentum for
future reforms. Finally, on becoming President of
Kenya in 1964, Jomo Kenyatta championed the
Harambee spirit of self-help which he believed
the future development of Kenya would depend
upon. It is now clear where the inspiration for this
movement came from.

And if reading is too hard what about a film? From the transcript of Schools Out (July 2005) A 20 minute TVE film produced for BBC World which examines the growth of private schools for the poor in Lagos, Nigeria

PROFESSOR JAMES TOOLEY, Head of Education Studies, University of Newcastle upon Tyne: I believe these private schools are a threat to governments, to international agencies and to academics. They’re a threat to governments because if governments can’t get basic education right then what can they get right. They are a threat to international agencies because they’ve spent billions over the years on public education – perhaps that money’s been misdirected. And they threaten academics’ ideological purity, if you like. They threaten that because they believe in state education – somehow the poor don’t go along with their beliefs.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The results of abandoning your toddler

Children left in nursery care 'turning into yobs' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Toddlers left in nursery for more than seven hours a day are being turned into yobs, according to a Government-backed report.

Children who were forced to spend all day separated from parents were found to be bossy, disruptive, attention seekers and even bullies.

The findings, disclosed in an analysis of more than 800 toddlers at 100 nurseries and one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, will come as a blow to the Government which has encouraged a huge expansion in group day care over the past 10 years.

As the state tries to replace parents as the raiser of their children it is sowing a whirlwind of destruction, "a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked." I worry for the next generation.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 4, 2007

Kids are too bright for school

Bright pupils 'dragged down' | Uk News | News | Telegraph

t least 120,000 bright children are effectively going backwards in secondary schools, prompting fresh fears over the way top pupils are taught.

One child in five who was doing well in some core subjects at the end of primary school failed to make any further progress in the first three years of secondary education, according to figures obtained by the Conservatives. Many of the top performing pupils at 11 actually did worse by the age of 14.

But last night the Tories blamed poor results on the continued use of mixed ability classes at many state secondary schools, which they say is dragging bright children down.

In a class of thirty kids you will have six who can't read, in some lessons a TA (Teaching Assistant) will come and sit with them to keep them quiet, six will ignore the lesson, six will struggle to work to please mummy and daddy, six will be average in everything, and six will be the bright kids. One or two of them will push themselves but the others will be bored out of their minds and will have imbued the spirit of mediocrity and failure that is endemic in the teaching profession. If you are lucky they will just vegetate, but idle hands soon get into mischief; your best chance if one of those kids is yours is that they will run the in-school drug cartel and make obscene amounts of tax-free cash to look after you in your pensionless old age.

Posted by The Englishman at 5:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 2, 2007

Pandering to Prejudice

No lessons on the Holocaust | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Schools are dropping controversial subjects from history lessons - such as the Holocaust and the Crusades - because teachers do not want to cause offence, Government research has discovered.

The way the slave trade is taught can lead white children as well as black pupils to feel alienated, according to a study by the Historical Association.

A lack of knowledge among teachers, particularly in primary schools, is also leading to "shallow" lessons on emotive and difficult subjects.

Some teachers dropped the Holocaust completely from lessons because of fears that Muslim pupils might express anti-semitic reactions. One school avoided teaching the Crusades because its "balanced" handling of the topic would directly contradict what was taught in local mosques.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

The New Schools Act

BBC NEWS | Education | Teachers' rights law takes effect

Previously, teachers had been allowed to restrain pupils under common law, with the same authority as parents.

But the new law explicitly states that teachers have the right to physically restrain and remove unruly pupils, and impose detention, including sessions outside school hours and on Saturdays.

Teachers will be able to discipline pupils outside school too - if they see children behaving badly on public transport, for instance.

..The Act extends schools' powers to make parents take responsibility for their children's actions if they misbehave, through the use of parenting contracts, enforceable with a fine of up to 1,000 pounds.

Other gems included in the act are:

(1) A local education authority in England must-
(a) prepare for each academic year a document containing their strategy to promote the use of sustainable modes of travel to meet the school travel needs of their area ("a sustainable modes of travel strategy"),
(b) publish the strategy in such manner and by such time as may be prescribed, and
(c) promote the use of sustainable modes of travel to meet the school travel needs of their area.

...

A local education authority in England shall exercise their functions under this section with a view to-
(a) securing diversity in the provision of schools, and
(b) increasing opportunities for parental choice."

No admission arrangements for a community, foundation or voluntary school may make provision for selection by ability ...No admission arrangements for a maintained school may require or authorise any interview with an applicant for admission to the school or his parents, where the interview is to be taken into account (to any extent) in determining whether the applicant is to be admitted to the school.

A bit of a dogs dinner, clearing up what reasonable teachers can do and where is probably a good thing, extending teachers rights over parental rights for out of school hours detentions is a worrying step. And the inclusion of all this equality and sustainability guff is plain wrong.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 27, 2007

Cameron runs scared of Education's Special Interest Groups

Cameron tells parents to regain control | Uk News | News | Telegraph

David Cameron yesterday laid down a challenge to parents and adults to regain authority over children

His Speech has a promising start..

"British children are among the poorest and least educated in the developed world....Government can't bring up children. But government decisions have an influence on how children are brought up...Education is another area where children are not getting what they deserve.... Local government too has a role to play. Councils look after some of the most vulnerable children in society - those who, for whatever reason, can't be cared for by their parents. There are 61,000 children in care, 60 per cent of them aged 10 or older and the situation isn't encouraging.

The figure has risen from 52,000 in 1997, an increase of 18%. Educational outcomes for children in care in comparison to other children are dreadful. 54 per cent will fail to achieve a single qualification at school. Only 1 per cent make it to university. They are 10 times more likely to be excluded from school.

That makes it pretty clear that Local Authorities are fucking awful at looking after children, and that central Government can't do it either. So why the fuck Mr Potato Head Cameron do you then start waffling on about more local authority interference being what is needed? Get the money leeching fuckers out of the way. Go back to your original thought and give parents more authority over how their kids are bought up, and this time include the small matter of allowing them real choice in how their kids are educated, give them back their money - "school vouchers now!"

Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 26, 2007

Parents, leave those kids alone

In class, on time – and even well-behaved-News-UK-Education-TimesOnline

Teachers in West Yorkshire have experienced some pleasant surprises since a fleet of yellow school buses started ferrying children to and from school a year ago.

As well as increasing pupil attendance and punctuality and cutting down on traffic congestion around the school, the buses have had the unexpected benefit of improving pupil behaviour.

Christine Eves, deputy head of North Halifax Grammar School, said: “For many children, travelling on these buses is the first taste of independence they have ever had. It helps build their confidence.

Far too many kids are ferried from home to the school, to the approved after-school class, to have tea with the kids of mummy's friends and back to carefully screened television watching. Without freedom no wonder they behave as toddlers.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 21, 2007

Cash For Kids

BBC NEWS | Education | Education spending to reach £74bn in 2010

Total education spending in England was £29bn in 1997 and is £60bn this year.
Spending per pupil, which was £2,500 in 1997, would from now to 2010 rise by a further 10% in real terms to £6,600, Mr Brown said.

This was "continuing to narrow the gap in investment per pupil between state and private schools".

The broad range of school fees at independent schools are as follows:

		Day	Boarding
Preparatory schools	(5-7)	£2,500 - £4,000
	(8-13)	£4,000 - £7,500	£8,000 - £12,000
Secondary Schools	Girls	£5,000 - £8,000	£13,000 - £16,750
(11/13-18)	Boys	£5,000 - £9,000	£13,000 - £16,750
	Co-educational	£5,000 - £9,000	£13,000 - £16,750
Tutorial colleges	GCSE:	£1,400 - £1,900 per subject per annum
	A Level:	£2,500 - £4,250 per subject per annum

Examples from: 2002 - Source

So no more excuses for the failing State Sector please, they've got the money so why can't they deliver the goods?

Posted by The Englishman at 8:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 15, 2007

The betrayed generation

Poor white boys have been deserted by Labour | Dt Leaders | Opinion | Telegraph

Iain Duncan Smith deserves the credit for exposing the way the education system has failed working-class boys.

Last November's report by his Social Justice Policy Group revealed that just 17 per cent of poor white boys gained five or more A to C grades at GCSE, while the equivalent figure for black boys from poor backgrounds (traditionally seen as the lowest academic achievers) was 19 per cent. For Indian boys, it was 40 per cent; for Chinese, 70 per cent.

These left-behind boys are an underclass in the making. However, it was this very group - "our people" - that New Labour came to power to help. A decade on, their position has, incredibly, worsened.

Let down by the school system, they are ill-equipped for adult life. Too many of them drift into lives of low-level criminality, drug abuse and fecklessness. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary - the man who an awestruck Tony Blair said was "really working-class" because he fathered three children in his teens - has finally addressed the issue. His speech to the Fabian Society yesterday sought to put the problem of low achievement by working-class schoolboys in the wider social context of the collapse of traditional industries that in the past have given poorly educated school leavers work, training and - crucially - discipline.

Yet what was absent from the Johnson analysis was the fact that this betrayal of a generation of poorer schoolboys has happened under New Labour.

It is no good blaming the closure of the steel mills, Hollywood films or the parents - the blame lies squarely with the education system. It is not fit for purpose, and as long as schools are controlled by government and teacher unions it never will be. Even the most feckless parent wants better for their child, give the power back to the parents and it will be sorted.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 6, 2007

No more Just William and the Outlaws

Nurseries are opening the gender gap by failing to let boys be boys-News-UK-Education-TimesOnline

Nurseries are stifling the ability of small boys to learn by forcing them to stay indoors and sit still for too long in class, according to a report today on preschool education....Experts have long maintained that boys would be far better served by having more male teachers who understand the way they work. Instead, the achievement gap begins at preschool age and tends to grow wider throughout full-time education, with 59 per cent of first-class and upper-second degrees going to women.

At Westfield Farm, in Lincolnshire, Hannah Dring has recognised that boys learn far better when they are outside looking at tractors than when inside painting.

“Boys don’t want to sit down, so when they’re outside — as they are most days — they’re learning but don’t realise it. They’re counting the wheels and lights on the tractors. If we go on nature walks, they’ll collect leaves and learn about shapes and colours, as well as trees.”

I really pity boys at school, every "male" behaviour is now seen as "unnatural" to the girly run education system, it is "high level" autism, ADD or ADHD, dyspraxia or "failure to institutionalise" or whatever new label they can come up with. The poor kids are drugged to the eyeballs with ritalin the rich ones given therapy. Of course no man dares to become a primary school teacher unless he is happy to be pointed out as kiddy fiddler these days. I believe a wise man once wrote an essay on the dangers to society of Pussification, we know the problem, and the solution is not to trap young boys in unsuitable schools at an early age.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 2, 2007

Salting the Greens

SaltSensibility: The Bitter Truth about Vegetables

In an effort to encourage lower sodium consumption, UK policymakers have removed the salt shakers from school lunchrooms. As a result, students are not only eating less sodium but also, unfortunately, fewer vegetables. Simply put, the most nutritious cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collard greens, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and turnips) have a strong bitter component. Since it has been universally established that most children (and adults as well) need to increase their vegetable consumption significantly, the UK approach of substantial salt reduction seems misguided to say the least. The use of salt to improve the palatability of vegetables will do far more to promote an optimal diet than reducing the small amount of sodium chloride needed to make vegetables more palatable.

I can hear the "Healthy Eating" fascists heads spinning and threatening to explode, the idea that anyone doesn't want to live on tasteless grey sludge which is "good for them" is beyond their ken...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 28, 2007

Parent power worrying schools

200,000 miss out on first choice school | Uk News | News | Telegraph

By Graeme Paton, Education Correspondent

An estimated 200,000 children may miss out on their first choice secondary school this year.

Amid unprecedented competition for the best schools, around a third of all applicants in some parts of the country will fail to get a preferred place.

Some schools report 10 pupils competing for every free desk.

Experts warned last night that the clamour for places will intensify under Government plans to give families more freedom to choose schools.

It is feared the shift, a major part of Labour education policy, will prompt a free-for-all as parents resort to desperate measures to get a place at the best comprehensives.

"experts warn, ...it is feared" Yes, an outbreak of parent power is bloody worrying for the educational establishment, and the establishments inability to respond to it will be worrying, but this sort of consumer pressure is just what the whole rotten set-up needs. Back up the choice with giving the parents the actual money - school vouchers - and give schools the ability to respond and all will be well, eventually!

Posted by The Englishman at 6:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2007

Education - what a sorry waste

BBC NEWS | Education | Poor basic skills 'costing firms'

Millions of employees believe that their lack of basic skills has lost money for their companies and themselves, according to a survey.

A survey for Learndirect, the adult training agency, highlights the extent of weaknesses in English and maths.

Based on a sample of 1,000 people, the survey projected that 14.6m workers had lost their firms money because of literacy and numeracy mistakes.

...
A government-commissioned report into skills, published by Lord Leitch in December, called for a radical overhaul in adult training - and warned that the UK's skill base was lower than many international competitors.
The report said

* out of 30 OECD countries, the UK lies 17th on low skills, 20th on intermediate skills and 11th on high skills;
* 5 million adults in the UK lack functional literacy;
* 17 million adults in the UK have difficulty with numbers; and
* more than one in six young people leave school unable to read, write or add up properly.

Time to admit the system is not fit for purpose rather than relying on adults having to go back to get these skills through the programs this report is promoting I would have thought.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 18, 2007

Suffer the little children

Peer exposes the 'horror' of Labour special needs policy | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Pupils with special needs forced to attend mainstream secondary schools faced a "horror" that could leave them suicidal, claims a peer who helped to bring in the policy, writes Julie Henry.

And parents were left "terrified and exhausted" in their efforts to get proper provision for their children, says Baroness Warnock, in the foreword to a new book, Included or Excluded?

Her hard-hitting criticism of the Government's record comes despite ministers' attempts to rein in the effects of their "inclusion" agenda, which has seen thousands of special needs children sent to mainstream schools.

ouncils have used the policy to close expensive special schools, with nearly 9,000 places lost since 1997.

Baroness Warnock, who two years ago renounced the inclusive approach which she had helped enshrine in the 1981 Education Act, said she was convinced that there were some children, particularly with autism, Asperger's Syndrome, attention disorders and behavioural difficulties, who simply failed to be educated in mainstream schools.

"No adaptation of the school can turn it in to an environment in which such children can learn," she said.

"Such a child may no longer even pretend to keep up, feeling defeated by the inevitable demands of the environment, the bustle and clamour, the pushing and shoving, the rushing from one classroom to another. The tragic result for some children is trauma and even regression.

"A special school may be the only place where a fragile child will learn anything at all."

The baroness went on to say that the parents of special needs children "must laugh" when they read the Government's White Paper on school choice, which she criticised as "intensely confusing".

"For the majority of them there is no choice," she said. "They cannot choose what school their child will go to. They must take a place in any mainstream school willing to accept a difficult pupil. This will probably be the school with the lowest standards."

Of course if you are a Labour Minister you can afford £15,000 to send your dyslexic child to a private school so it isn't really a problem is it? But for the rest of us? Stick your head round the corner of any secondary school and sitting in the corner you will see the poor bloody kid, shunned and shouted at, who struggles to learn anything, just wants to go home or to be dead. Betrayed by trendy theories and economies coinciding.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 17, 2007

All Your Grammar Are Belong To Us

Chris Woodhead -Education-TimesOnline

Hum - If I were him I would sue for that misquote. He actually says:

A knowledge of grammar is the fundamental requirement in learning a language, and it is best to teach that grammar in a systematic way.

I am tempted to add that if English teachers taught more grammar, more of our children might be able to speak and write English.

Do you think that applies to Times Online Sub-eds?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

What the Dickens?

Teachers defy list of untouchable authors | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Teachers are threatening to defy Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, over his list of "untouchable" authors.

They say Charles Dickens and George Eliot are too difficult for many pupils aged 11 to 14 and could put them off great writers for life.

The National Association for the Teaching of English called Mr Johnson a "bird brain" yesterday. The English Association questioned if he had read the books he was forcing on pupils.

Mr Johnson has insisted that in the first three years of secondary education pupils read classic authors. But Ian McNeilly, the director of Nate, accused the Education Secretary of trying to win favour with "Middle England".

"The guy's a bird brain," he said. "Forcing children to study texts that are inappropriate puts them off the text, the author and the subject."

Yeh matez Yoo gotta bring da issue to da street, respect.

I would have thought that Dickens is a good example of a classic author who describes "working class" life and struggles which aren't too hard to relate to.
An example of not teaching "hard English" was posted as a comment yesterday on my Chav article, make of it what you will....

Yeh matez Whats tha big deal bout all these chavs! There is nuttin' wrong wid a chav! it'z probz cause you cant fit in wid them. Now it 2007 yeh get with it! this is da furure! Yeh hopefully not cuz da dimwitted chavs in gnna be able to stop shit such az globel warmin n they wnt hav a gud enuf head for da amount of gud jobz needed but just remeber yo alwayz got da geekz 4 tht! Chavs no how to hav fun they go for all da good brandz n dont just shop in primark lyk sum yoo cheapo'z. Most of em wuld neva even think of frownin' at n old personz but da chavz tht do steal old ladiez handbagz n shit giv chavz a bad name! Yo snobberz people onli reed lyk posh newspaperz so you only read bout majour incidentz wid chavz lyk them murderin people n stuff. But if you got issuez wid em n dnt wnneh start a nust up on da street yoo gotta no how to respect em they'll respect yoo. They aint all tht solid but thy aint all tht week. Mst of em can knock yoo down wid 1 chunk! yoo dont hav to talk all chavvy n wear all chavvy clothz to get on wid a chav. yoo gotta giv em chav respect. heck i no sum gothz tht get on well wid chavs (freakz init) but it good work! Stopz alotta fytz! Some of you probably got sworn at by a chav n tried talkin 2 one n got rejected. yoo gotta hit on em at da right time m8. Hope yoo muvaz get too get chilled wid da chavz soon cuz you all talkin bout em hear behind there bakz. no chav will waste time readin this unless they wnna no wot yo'll think. Yoo gotta bring da issue to da street. Letem no how yoo offend em nd they let u no how u offend em. for now keep it peaced and i dont giv a shiterz wot yoo fink of how i talk or type of swear itz now everyday think so keep up yo sooo last decade! peace im out just memba to respect yeh!

Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 9, 2007

Teachers Buggered With Four Inches

Schools turn 1m children away | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Schools were accused of being over-cautious yesterday as more than a million children were forced to stay at home when 4in of snow paralysed the education system.

In many cases, pupils were able to travel in but were turned away amid claims that staff from further afield could not make the journey.

Other head teachers blamed icy conditions for making playgrounds unsafe, while some insisted that school buses could not get through. Parents' groups accused teachers of "over-reacting" and said the scale of the closures had a huge knock-on effect, as thousands of parents were forced to take the day off work.

And you thought I was joking yesterday when I said four inches of snow would bring Britain to a halt. (I must admit the eldest Englishette was late to school, but that was because we went sledging on the hills before breakfast....)

Posted by The Englishman at 6:21 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

February 1, 2007

Boris Johnson on the Pussification of Primary Schools

I'll tell you why women are running out of men to marry | Dt Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph

I was half asleep in the front seat the other day, coming back from some exhausting tour of an educational establishment, and in the back seat were two twentysomething female graduates. They were talking about men, so I tried to focus, while keeping my eyes cunningly half closed.

One of them made the eternal feminine complaint. "All men are useless these days," she said. "Yeah," said the other. "The trouble is that they haven't risen to the challenge of feminism. They don't understand that we need them to be more masculine, and instead they have just copped out."....

It is a gloomy truth that 40 per cent of female graduates born in 1970 are likely to enter their forties childless.

As a result of the same instinct — female desire to procreate with their intellectual equals — the huge increase in female university enrolments is leading to a rise in what the sociologists call assortative mating. A snappier word for it is homogamy. The more middle-class graduates we create, the more they seem to settle down with other middle-class graduates, very largely because of the feminine romantic imperative already described. The result is that the expansion of university education has actually been accompanied by a decline in social mobility, and that is because these massive enrolments have been overwhelmingly middle-class.....

...we have widening social divisions, and two particularly miserable groups: the female graduates who think men are all useless because they can't find a graduate husband, and the male non-graduates who feel increasingly trampled on by the feminist revolution, and resentful of all these hoity-toity female graduates who won't give them the time of day.

What is the answer, my friends? I don't know. We could try fiscal incentives for heterogamy. We could have plotlines in soap operas, in which double first girls regularly marry illiterate brickies.

But the only long-term solution for the "uselessness" of young men, as complained of by my twentysomething colleagues, is to get serious with the education of males in primary schools. And if the Equal Opportunities Commission wants to say something sensible for a change, it should start campaigning for more male teachers.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 25, 2007

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner...

A for Horses
B for mutton
C for islanders
D for dumb
E for brick
F for vescence
G for police
H for teen
I for Novello
J for oranges
K for troops
L for leather
M for sis
N for lope
O for the garden wall
P for relief
Q for a bus
R for mo
S for you
T for two
U for me
V for La France
W for a bob
X for breakfast
Y for mistress
Z for motor car

Posted by The Englishman at 5:11 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

January 23, 2007

Regrets, I have a few...

BBC NEWS | Education | School drop-outs regret quitting

Half of young adults who dropped out of school aged 16 regretted their decision later, a survey suggests.

An alternative headline might be " School drop-outs don't regret quitting". With 59% choosing to go back to some sort of education within five years I would guess that the general level of education achieved by 60% volunteers is better than the 100% compulsion the government favours. Horses to water and all that.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 15, 2007

School Vouchers - Now

Pupils kept in crumbling classrooms by red tape - Britain - Times Online

Hundreds of thousands of pupils will be taught in dilapidated classrooms because the Government is abandoning its targets for a ｣45 billion schools rebuilding programme.

The plans, heralded by Gordon Brown in successive budget speeches, have become mired in red tape, forcing the Government to admit that three years after promising to rebuild all 3,500 secondary schools before 2020 not a single project has been completed. It expects to open just 14 of the 100 new schools it had planned to by the end of this year

Not a lack of money but "Red Tape" is forcing kids to endure leaking mobiles and antiquated classrooms. Look it is quite simple, government is hopeless at running local enterprises like schools, whether it is the curriculum, the admissions, the staffing or the buildings the dead weight of the bureaucratic hand prevents the parents and pupils getting what they want and deserve.
The political parties are running scared of the unions and refuse to back the obvious answer, so who will campaign for school vouchers?

Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2007

Wiltshire Schools - Comprehensive Failure

It isn't easy to get the school results figures down into a spreadsheet to dig through the data oneself - but I have done it with the figures from Wiltshire

Download file

All the headlines dump all the schools together - whereas there is a huge divide between comprehensive and independent (of various sorts) schools. 46% vs 92% achieving the new "Gold Standard" of GCSEs in the core subjects.

According to the figures 4739 kids were of an age to take GCSEs at comprehensive schools last year in Wiltshire 2198 (46%) achieved 5 or more grades A*-C including English and maths GCSEs.

The independent schools figures are:779, 713 (92%) - I have taken out Dauntseys as they didn't enter pupils for GCSEs.

(The figures for Independent schools are pulled down by Stonar at only 65%, which claims GCSE results of "achieved a 100% pass rate yet again this year. With a 91.8% pass at A* - C grade and a significant increase on the number of A* grades, 18.6% compared to 16.8 % last year" - obviously some of the girls weren't entered for one of the core subjects, but then Stonar is a very nice school for very nice girls so maybe they don't need it...)

Posted by The Englishman at 6:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

School Report - Comprehensive Failure

Telegraph | Education | Secondary School and College Achievement and Attainment Tables 2007

The annual performance tables for schools published on these pages are drawn from official data collected and supplied by the Department for Education and Skills.

They show how all schools and sixth form colleges in England performed in the 2006 examination cycle, except for special schools which are omitted because they are assessed on different criteria.

The publication of the school by school data is consistently opposed by the teacher unions which say it gives a misleading picture of how well pupils are taught...

Proportion of pupils achieving five or more A*-C grades including Maths and English
This is the Government’s new “gold standard” benchmark and is helping to focus attention on the need to ensure that as many pupils as possible leave school at 16 with a good grasp of the basics. The Maths and English requirement reduces the performance of schools overall by as much as 66 per cent in the worst case. Independent schools are furious that they may look to be doing less well because increasing numbers are entering pupils for the more traditional ICCSEs, which they say are a better preparation for sixth form study, mainly in Maths but also in English. The Government does not allow state schools to do these and so they are not counted in the tables.

One in 10 schools are failing to teach 80% of their pupils basic reading, writing and maths.

Four out of five teenagers at more than 300 state schools could not muster C-grades in both maths and English in last year's GCSE exams, league tables showed.

Nationally, the results showed that only 45% of pupils scored five C grades in GCSE subjects including maths and English - the government's new "gold standard" measurement.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2007

No choice for the consumer

Telegraph | News | Supermarketl catchment areas to be scrapped

Middle-class families may miss out on the best supermarkets under plans to decide product choice by "lottery".
New buying rules, published yesterday by Alan Johnson, the Shopping Secretary, suggest that Shop Managers in leafy suburbs should draw names from a hat to stop supermarkets becoming monopolised by families who buy houses nearby. Supermarkets are also banned from considering customers' backgrounds, interviewing families or pricing poor children out by displaying goods from expensive suppliers.

The new code - which shops have to follow - is designed to eliminate selection "by the back door" and ensure all children have a fair chance of buying what they want in their preferred shop. A recent survey said that homes surrounding some of the best supermarkets were up to £25,000 more expensive.
To loosen the middle-class grip on successful supermarkets, a handful of Waitrose’s already operate so-called "random allocation" policies, ensuring that Turkey Twizzlers are sold rather than Duchy Original Organic Chicken .
The new rules, which come into force next month for entry in 2008, suggest that lotteries should be used by other popular urban supermarkets, although it is not mandatory and "may not be suitable in rural areas".
The code says: "Random product choice” can widen access to supermarkets for those unable to afford to buy houses near to favoured supermarkets and create greater social equity."
The Conservatives criticised the move and said it was tantamount to "social engineering".
Nick Gibb, the shadow supermarkets minister, said: "Lotteries, like fair-banding tests, are designed to get a cross-section of socio-economic groups in a shop. But to do that, you may end up rejecting a products which suit customer who live next door to the shop while bussing a customers from across the other side of the town.
"We are against bussing customers across towns for reasons of social engineering."

Back in the real world: "The NASUWT teachers' union welcomed the new code, saying it should "secure more clarity, fairness and equity".

General secretary Chris Keates said: "The outlawing of the process of interviewing parents and pupils, an invidious form of selection which was creeping into some schools, is particularly important."

Of course the bloody unions don't want parents choosing the schools their kids go to. If you give parents the choice the deadbeat teachers and pisspoor schools would be out of business by tomorrow week. It is only because schools get their "customers" by imprisoning those who refuse to send their children that they stay in bloody business poisoning the minds of the kids with their outdated failed bollocks.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 8, 2007

Doing right

Telegraph | News | Minister's choice of private school is 'slap in face' for state education

Labour faced fresh accusations of hypocrisy last night after it emerged that the child of a Cabinet minister had been removed from a state school to be educated in the private sector.

The move, the latest in a series of "defections" by the children of Labour MPs from state to private schools, was branded a "slap in the face" by a senior backbencher.

Ian Gibson, the Labour MP for Norwich North, said the decision was "wrong" and the minister involved should "set an example" by supporting state education.

"It's a slap in the face for the teachers and the pupils in the school that the child has been taken out of."

The minister, who cannot be named because of a court order, is an ally of Tony Blair and has been "closely involved" with the Prime Minister's education policy.

Hypocracy maybe - but the right decision - your family is your number one responsibility and doing what is right for your kids out trumps upsetting the poor teachers and unions..

Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 6, 2007

The basic failure of comprehensive schools

Telegraph | News | Hidden truth behind GCSEs

The majority of teenagers are leaving secondary school without gaining an acceptable standard of education, according to new-style Government league tables to be published next week.

It will show that 58 per cent of pupils left school with five A* to C grades last summer. But, the proportion plummets to only 45 per cent when English and maths is added...

Only 25.7 per cent of children gained five good GCSEs last summer when English, maths, science and a foreign language is included....

In other words if you ignore the subjects such as "leisure and tourism or health and beauty" and concentrate on the core subjects, the basis for being educated the system is a failure - no if or buts, a failure.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 5, 2007

Liberty and Education

The Devil's Kitchen joins in the education debate:

Via Bishop Hill, this rather lovely quote from John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (chapter 5).

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.

In fact the whole passage of Mills on education is worth reading - it isn't long, so here it is:

It is in the case of children, that misapplied notions of liberty are a real obstacle to the fulfilment by the State of its duties. One would almost think that a man's children were supposed to be literally, and not metaphorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the smallest interference of law with his absolute and exclusive control over them; more jealous than of almost any interference with his own freedom of action: so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than power. Consider, for example, the case of education. Is it not almost a self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognise and assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed will deny that it is one of the most sacred duties of the parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the father), after summoning a human being into the world, to give to that being an education fitting him to perform his part well in life towards others and towards himself. But while this is unanimously declared to be the father's duty, scarcely anybody, in this country, will bear to hear of obliging him to perform it. Instead of his being required to make any exertion or sacrifice for securing education to the child, it is left to his choice to accept it or not when it is provided gratis! It still remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at the charge, as far as possible, of the parent. 12
Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach, and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and parties, causing the time and labour which should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about education. If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. The objections which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon itself to direct that education: which is a totally different thing. That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is in so backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any proper institutions of education, unless the government undertook the task: then, indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils, take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it may that of joint stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape fitted for undertaking great works of industry, does not exist in the country. But in general, if the country contains a sufficient number of persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to those unable to defray the expense. 13
The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other than public examinations, extending to all children, and beginning at an early age. An age might be fixed at which every child must be examined, to ascertain if he (or she) is able to read. If a child proves unable, the father, unless he has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be subjected to a moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his labour, and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in every year the examination should be renewed, with a gradually extending range of subjects, so as to make the universal acquisition, and what is more, retention, of a certain minimum of general knowledge, virtually compulsory. Beyond that minimum, there should be voluntary examinations on all subjects, at which all who come up to a certain standard of proficiency might claim a certificate. To prevent the State from exercising, through these arrangements, an improper influence over opinion, the knowledge required for passing an examination (beyond the merely instrumental parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use) should, even in the higher classes of examinations, be confined to facts and positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion, politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the truth or falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or churches. Under this system, the rising generation would be no worse off in regard to all disputed truths, than they are at present; they would be brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, the State merely taking care that they should be instructed churchmen, or instructed dissenters. There would be nothing to hinder them from being taught religion, if their parents chose, at the same schools where they were taught other things. All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil; but it may very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person possesses the knowledge, requisite to make his conclusions, on any given subject, worth attending to. A student of philosophy would be the better for being able to stand an examination both in Locke and in Kant, whichever of the two he takes up with, or even if with neither: and there is no reasonable objection to examining an atheist in the evidences of Christianity, provided he is not required to profess a belief in them. The examinations, however, in the higher branches of knowledge should, I conceive, be entirely voluntary. It would be giving too dangerous a power to governments, were they allowed to exclude any one from professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees, or other public certificates of scientific or professional acquirements, should be given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand the test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over competitors, other than the weight which may be attached to their testimony by public opinion.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 4, 2007

More on Education - and a simple solution

Pupils would be able to choose what they study, ask each other for help in answering questions, mark their own work and grade their teachers’ performance under ambitious government plans to tailor education to the needs of individual children and young people.

Traditional grades or marks would go, to be replaced by “feedback”, where the teacher would suggest what steps a pupil could take to improve performance. Pupils would be entered for exams as soon as they were ready to take them, rather than wait until they reached a certain age.

Catch-up classes for those who trail behind and extra tuition for the brightest pupils are also recommended in a review of personalised learning published today.

The review, written by Christine Gilbert before her recent appointment as head of Ofsted, sets out the Government’s vision for schooling by 2020. It aims to stop some children falling behind by replacing a “one size fits all” approach to teaching with one designed to fit the needs of each child. (Times)

Boys should be taught separately to stop them falling further behind girls as part of an extensive overhaul of the education system, a powerful Government-backed review says today.
..
It says parents should get state funding to give their children extra private tuition if they are struggling with English or maths.

"for too many pupils, school does not engage them or equip them with the skills they need".

"Pupils and their parents could be offered a range of options, some provided by the school, some by other approved providers," it says. Officials said this could include private tuition.

It also suggests that high-flying pupils should be allowed to sit exams early and progress to the next year if they are clever enough — calling for a generation of schools focused on "stage not age". (Telegraph)

Let's cut to the chase here - the educational establishment is finally realising after forty years of failure that the one size fits all comprehensive system doesn't work. So they intend to spend billions creating literally millions of individual learning plans commanded and controlled from above. It is equivalent of David (Miliband or Cameron - I forget which is which) madly believing that he should control what each individual shopper buys each week (oh wait they do believe that). There is a simpler way. In politically acceptable speech it is called "subsidiarity", give the decision back to the pupils and the parents, get the government out of the way. Or even simpler, in a slogan that even Dave might understand - "SCHOOL VOUCHERS"

Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 3, 2007

Motivation of Pupils in Compulsory Education aged 11 – 16

I know some of you take an interest in the education of our children, all of us should.

Below the fold is a draft of an investigation into the motivation of children at school - I have been asked to offer it up here for your comments and suggestions so it can be improved before it is presented for a PGCE course.

It also makes an interesting and alarming read...

Also available to download as a single file: Download file - Motivation of Pupils in Compulsory Education aged 11 – 16 - Word Document 500k

Excel Spreadsheet of the data available here.

Motivation of Pupils in Compulsory Education aged 11 – 16

Introduction

This is a study into pupil perceptions as to their motivations during compulsory education aged 11 – 16.

This limited study tries to fill that gap a little.

Background

One of the most striking deficiencies of most teacher training literature is a lack of instruction in the understanding of pupil motivation.

In business the art of motivating employees is recognised of being a primary competency of a manager, and understanding the theory and practice of it are widely taught.

The provisional categorization of the roles of schools I have produced breaks them down into four:
Childcare and control
Schooling
Training and teaching
Educating

…while education was still spoken of as a "preparation for life," the preparation was of a kind which bore less directly on intellect and character than in former times, and more directly on proficiency. It aimed at what we used to call training rather than education; and it not only did very little with education, but seemed to assume that training was education, …. A trained mechanic, banker, dentist or man of business got all due credit for his proficiency, but his education, if he had any, lay behind that and was not confused with it. His training, in a word, bore directly upon what he could do or get, while his education bore directly on neither; it bore upon what he could become and be.

...Training is excellent, it can not be too well done, and opportunity for it can not be too cheap and abundant. Probably a glorified crèche for delayed adolescents here and there is a good thing, too; no great harm in it anyway. ….
Education is divisive, separatist; training induces the exhilarating sense that one is doing with others what others do and thinking the thoughts that others think.

Education, in a word, leads a person on to ask a great deal more from life than life, as at present organized, is willing to give him; and it begets dissatisfaction with the rewards that life holds out. Training tends to satisfy him with very moderate and simple returns. A good income, a home and family, the usual run of comforts and conveniences, diversions addressed only to the competitive or sporting spirit or else to raw sensation - training not only makes directly for getting these, but also for an inert and comfortable contentment with them. Well, these are all that our present society has to offer, so it is undeniably the best thing all round to keep people satisfied with them, which training does, and not to inject a subversive influence, like education, into this easy complacency. Politicians understand this - it is their business to understand it - and hence they hold up "a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage" as a satisfying social ideal. But the mischief of education is its exorbitance. The educated lad may like stewed chicken and motor-cars as well as anybody, but his education has bred a liking for other things too, things that the society around him does not care for and will not countenance. It has bred tastes which society resents as culpably luxurious, and will not connive at gratifying. Paraphrasing the old saying, education sends him out to shift for himself with a champagne appetite amidst a gin-guzzling society.

Training, on the other hand, breeds no such tastes; it keeps him so well content with synthetic gin that a mention of champagne merely causes him to make a wry face. ...

The success of the education system in enabling increasing numbers of pupils to pass exams is widely celebrated and shows that effective training is widespread.

The Investigation

Deficiency needs

The physiological needs of the organism, eating and drinking - those enabling homeostasis, take first precedence.

When physiological needs are met, the need for safety and security will emerge. These include:

Physical security - safety from violence, delinquency, aggressions
Security of employment
Security of revenues and resources

After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social. This involves emotionally-based relationships in general, such as friendship, sexual intimacy and having a supportive and communicative family. Humans generally need to feel belonging and acceptance by groups of others.

The highest level of need is “esteem”. According to Maslow, all humans have a need to be respected, to have self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves in order to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution and self-value. There are two levels to Esteem needs. The lower of the levels relates to elements like fame, respect, and glory. The higher level is contingent to concepts like confidence, competence, and achievement. The lower level is generally considered poor. It is dependent upon other people, or someone who needs to be reassured because of lower esteem. People with low esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again are dependent on others. However confidence, competence and achievement only need one person and everyone else is inconsequential to one's own success.

Growth needs

Though the deficiency needs may be seen as "basic", and can be met and neutralized (i.e. they stop being motivators in one's life), self-actualization and transcendence are "being" or "growth needs" (also termed "B-needs"), i.e. they are enduring motivations or drivers of behaviour.

Self-actualization is defined as the instinctual need of humans to make the most of their unique abilities and to strive to be the best they can be.

Maslow writes the following of self-actualizing people:

* They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them.
* They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
* They are creative.
* They are interested in solving problems

At the top, there is self-transcendence which is also sometimes referred to as spiritual needs.

1) I enjoy learning.

2) My friends work hard at school.

3) I like to keep my test results to myself.

4) I like it when teachers praise my work in front of the whole class.

5) How well I do at school is important to my family.

6) I get rewards, such as treats or money, at home if I get good results.

7) I get punished if I don’t work hard.

8) I want to go to university and so I am working hard.

9) I think I need good exam results to get a good job.

10) I think what I learn at school will not help me as an adult.

The Results

All the results and derived graphs are available in an Excel Spreadsheet.

After the physiological needs are met Maslow believes the next most pressing need is securing resources, or in the terms of this questionnaire aiming for a “good job”.

The general finding of relevance agrees with Pippa Lord and Megan Jones (2006) who report in their review of the national curriculum:

Maslow places the needs to be respected by others and to respect others as well as pride in achievement as higher needs. These needs appear to be unfulfilled by the students in this survey.

The pupils desire to be respected by others scholastically also shows a marked decrease as they rise through the school – See Graph Q4.

Conclusions

Smith et al “The EPPI-Centre review of student motivation” (2006) summarises that:

Six themes were identified from the studies as key to motivation. These themes are presented in the order of frequency with which they were identified by the studies in the in-depth review:
1. the role of self
2. utility
3. pedagogy
4. peer-group influences
5. learning
6. curriculum

Motivation at school involves far more than motivation for learning.
More than not being bored in lessons, more than being shown the relevance of the knowledge, more than having self-esteem raised,

As Slade and Trent (2000) found with regards to boys:

The theme that their experiences at school were out of date and bore no resemblance to the concerns of their lives or the environment and wider society kept re-occurring. The cause of disruption and behaviour difficulties was directly tied to resistance and feelings of frustration that they were bored, disrespected, and never listened to. Adult behaviour is almost impossible to achieve in an environment which has no basis in trust.
School presents too many contradictions: for example, it purports to prepare pupils for adult life but participation in adult activities – such as part-time work, establishing relationships, owning a car and taking part in sports, etc. – are seen as impinging on schoolwork and homework.

Boys see themselves stuck with an unsuitable learning environment that they cannot change largely because it is constituted by teachers who do not care. Although they identify the curriculum as irrelevant and unchallenging, their experience with ‘good’ teachers has shown this to be an unnecessary outcome. Furthermore, it is one that is made worse because it is dominated by making education an unpleasant experience, and creating a pre-occupying focus on getting out of school as soon as possible. Once again, their experience with ‘good’ teachers has shown them that this is also an unnecessary outcome.
Boys actually achieve a great deal in this age group: drivers’ licences, part-time jobs, physical, social and sexual maturity, and a largely optimistic attitude to the adverse conditions of schooling. Recognising these achievements, abandoning the discourse of ‘fixing boys’ and updating curriculum, teacher training, pedagogy and school organisation in light of the rapid and extraordinary changes in the wider environment would create less of a rupture between the culture of schools and the culture at large.
Boys would like an aging adult world to ‘genuinely listen’, and to ‘catch up’ to bring the culture and focus of schooling up to date so that it might be better placed to keep pace with the economic, social and cultural changes that are already making demands that cannot meet, and that in the coming decades will be as dramatic as they are inevitable.

This survey of pupils shows that parental influence is the foremost motivator of these pupils. It is of note that recently Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, was reported in The Times as saying;

“that a greater involvement of parents in the education of their children should have a dramatic impact on standards.”
“Parental involvement in education trumps every other factor in terms of whether a child is going to do well,” he said. “It is more important than ethnicity, more important than social background.”
Many parents, particularly from poorer backgrounds, do not get in touch with schools because they are intimidated by the educational establishment. “Parents are sometimes loath to trouble a school unless they feel welcome, so a strategy that encourages people to express their concerns is really sensible,” Mr Johnson said.
“When you talk about the most difficult to reach, it’s the parents who don’t feel particularly empowered, are not as pushy as they might be because they are inhibited or lack confidence.

“The 40 year experiment with comprehensive schools has fallen far short of its aims. It was meant to provide, in Harold Wilson’s words, “grammar schools for all” and it was meant to lead to increased social mobility. It has done neither. It has not raised the standards of all and, as recent studies show, we now have a less mobile society than we had in the 1950s and 1960s."

References

Anderson E. Sir (Introduction) Three Cheers for Selection: how grammar schools help the poor - Norman Blackwell – CPS London http://www.cps.org.uk/cpsfile.asp?id=667 2nd Jan 2007

“douglas mcgregor's motivational theory x theory y”
http://www.businessballs.com/mcgregor.htm downloaded 18th Dec 06

Gatto J. The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher New Society Publishers, New York, 1992 Available online at www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt 2nd Jan 07

Johnson A. The Times - 28th December 2006 London – article available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-2520873,00.html
Downloaded 28th Dec. 06

OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2006)
PISA 2003 Country Profiles http://pisacountry.acer.edu.au/ Accessed 2nd Jan 2007

Petty G. 1998 “Teaching Today” 2nd Edition, Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes

Scottish Parliament Education Committee’s Interim Report on Pupil Motivation http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/education/reports-05/pmInterim.pdf downloaded 18th Dec 06

The Holy Bible 1611 London

Theory into Practice, Vol. 9, No. 1, Motivation: The Desire to Learn (Feb., 1970) - http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841%28197002%299%3A1%3C%3E1.0.CO%3B2-C downloaded 18th Dec 06

Wikipedia - Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_of_Educational_Objectives revised 19:40, 28 November 2006 downloaded 18th Dec 06

Wikipedia - Maslow's hierarchy of needs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
revised 03:01, 19 December 2006 downloaded 18th Dec 06

Posted by The Englishman at 3:51 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

You want to know what it is really like teaching?

A new blog is out the trap with a must read - and a nomination to the Swear-blogger award of the week!

somethingfishy: Education Part One. Advisory warning, read after 9:00pm watershed

Posted by The Englishman at 3:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 2, 2007

Education, education, education

If you want to crunch the numbers of how well kids are doing in school compared to other countries here is the data base:

PISA 2003 database

PISA is a survey of 15-year-old students' skills and knowledge as they apporach the end of compulsory education. This is the data set from the data collection which took place in 2003 and involved the participation of the 30 OECD member countries and 11 partner countries.
Professional researchers can download the data set. It is also possible to make an interactive data selection and submit a query to an automated servcie for multi-dimensional data requests.
For customer queries there is also a lind to a help desk.

Presumably the level of spelling and proof reading there is indicative of something....

Posted by The Englishman at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Forty Years Of Failure

Telegraph The 40-year experiment with comprehensive education has failed.

We have some very good individual schools, including some good comprehensives, but the system as a whole simply does not achieve enough. International results put Britain so far down the league tables that it must be time to look at another way of doing things. Between 2000 and 2003, for instance, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) showed the UK slipping from fourth to 11th in science and from eighth to 18th in maths. However, there was one dazzlingly good result: when Pisa divided state schools from the private sector in 31 developed countries, our independent schools came top of the 62 groups.

So if Britain is running the best schools in the world, why are we not also running the best state schools? I think, after 46 years in and around teaching, that I know the answer. An outworn ideology prevents the country from learning from the successful model in its midst.

More than three quarters of people believe that bright children should be taught separately to push them further, according to a new study.

The overwhelming majority either want more streaming by ability in comprehensive schools or the chance to send high-fliers to selective grammar schools.

Almost as many people said that weaker children could also benefit from being segregated at school, said the report by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), a Right-wing think-tank.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 29, 2006

The Neotenification Of The Western Male

Kim du Toit The Pussification Of The Western Male

"We have become a nation of women."

Of course I wouldn't disagree with my old friend Kim but I have been noticing a different slant to the same problem.

"We have become a nation of children"

Look around you at men of your age, still dressed as teenagers, still doing teenage things. Al Fin has collected and opined on this physiological neoteny at length and quotes:

...it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.

As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry.

...Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished.”

“The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity,” he explained.

“But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility."

"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”

Charlton pointed out that past cultures often marked the advent of adulthood with initiation ceremonies.

While the human mind responds to new information over the course of any individual’s lifetime, Charlton argues that past physical environments were more stable and allowed for a state of psychological maturity. In hunter-gatherer societies, that maturity was probably achieved during a person’s late teens or early twenties, he said.

“By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity...

So combine the mind numbing effects of modern schooling with the infantile "Yoof" culture so ably marketed to the gullible and we have ended up with a nation of children.

Of course girls become women, largely because, I think, biology forces them to do so; but boys stay as boys. Boys used to have men to look up to, now all they see is a continuum of immature behaviour stretching away in front of them to the soup dribblers shuffling in their slippers and romper suits.

We gave up adult initiation ceremonies a long time ago, though putting on a uniform and breaking the square had and still has the right effect, and so this problem grows as each generation follows a more immature one.

The upside is that these immature minds are more receptive and adaptable, more suitable to modern commerce, but at what cost to society?

What became of When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 28, 2006

Paying for Education - the benefits of fees

Parents are tackling universities over poor grades and lack of teaching time as they seek better value for money from their children’s degrees.

As students increasingly turn to their families to help with tuition fees, Baroness Deech, head of the student complaints watchdog, has given warning that parental disgruntlement will escalate. ..

So as parents prepare to pay off their children’s fees to spare them years of debt, they are beginning to question what they are getting for their money....

...students are already seeking better value for money.

Last month, students at the University of Bristol complained after learning that they were to have two hours’ lecture time a week in their final year, instead of a promised six.

And this is being reported as though it bad news? Universities are no different to butchers, bakers and candlestick makers - the consumer should be demanding a bloody good deal, and the fact the lecturers and administrators don't like it is tough.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

School Vouchers - a chink of hope

Telegraph | News | Best pupils to get extra lesson vouchers

The brightest 800,000 pupils in England are to have vouchers to spend on extra lessons as part of a national talent search that starts next week....

The scheme also introduces to schools for the first time the concept of "vouchers" as part of an education market in which pupils are the consumers and decide how and what they want to learn. It follows a decision by the Tories last month to drop plans for a full-blown voucher, in which parents would get £5,000 a year to spend at the school of their choice — state or private.

It's a start - bloody typical that it isn't the Tories getting the much needed School voucher system up and running. Without the kids and parents "acting as consumers" and exercising real choice the monopolistic state comprehensive system will continue to fail them

As Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary also says in another story today

“Parental involvement in education trumps every other factor in terms of whether a child is going to do well,” he said. “It is more important than ethnicity, more important than social background.”

Many parents, particularly from poorer backgrounds, do not get in touch with schools because they are intimidated by the educational establishment. “Parents are sometimes loath to trouble a school unless they feel welcome, so a strategy that encourages people to express their concerns is really sensible,” Mr Johnson said.

“When you talk about the most difficult to reach, it’s the parents who don’t feel particularly empowered, are not as pushy as they might be because they are inhibited or lack confidence.

Quite - they may feel intimidated by the Head Master's Secretary if they try to complain but they know how to use their wallets and purses to get the deal they want...

Posted by The Englishman at 6:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 27, 2006

Scottish Green Party - the voice of reason

BBC NEWS | Scotland | ID card call to 'stop bullying'

All secondary pupils in Scotland should be given ID cards in an effort to stamp out bullying, according to a teaching union.
The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA) says many schools already have card systems in place for school lunches and libraries.
It believes adding a picture would stop pupils missing meals because they have been bullied into handing over cards.

The SSTA's general secretary, David Eaglesham, said the time had come for photographic identification to be added to the cards used to access school facilities.
He said that introducing such a system would also help prepare young people for "the realities of identity management in the 21st Century".

However, Green MSP Patrick Harvie said the suggestion was troubling.

"We should be preparing young people for the reality of defending their privacy and civil liberties against ever-more intrusive government systems," he argued.

"We've heard proposals for airport-style scanners and random drug testing in schools, fingerprinting is already in place in some schools. There's a risk of creating environments which feel more like penal institutions than places of learning.

"These ID cards will do absolutely nothing to address the causes of bullying. Instead they will teach the next generation that an ID card culture is 'normal', and that they should have to prove their entitlement to services."

Ye Gods - what has it come to when the Green Party is the voice of sanity against the Command and Control Teachers - Poor bloody kids being taught by the likes of the SSTA. If the teachers got off their arses and took their meals with the kids, and got to know them, then the problem would not exist but instead to protect a few kids from being bullied into handing over their meal vouchers they approve of subjecting the whole herd to branding..

Posted by The Englishman at 7:19 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack