It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
Given where the battery is placed in the car (i.e. as part of the structure of the floor with in the case of the Model Y the rest of the cabin interior bolted on top I'm not sure how easy that would be.
Tonight's debate can be downstreamed from the Sun's Youtube channel if you don't have Talk TV. Stream starts just before six o'clock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPamKOPabFc
Help me out guys: when I go onto YouTube later, at what time was the discussion of our new alien overlords and how we're going to deal with them?
It came shortly before the bit on Dalle 2, and after their discussion of the lab leak theory of Covid.
Apparently Anthony Fauci now says he's 'open minded' on it, which I'd take as confirmation, wouldn't you?
I don't think we can ever know, so a pointless discussion, hence it's position in my response to @rcs1000.
Why do you say that? The evidence out there could easily be enough to establish the answer one way or the other with at least as much certainty as we think is enough to convict people for murder.
I think it somewhere between your two opinions. Clearly had it been a lab leak, it might be possible to obtain definitive evidence. Natural origins are rather more difficult; there are several cases where it's never been possible to determine virus origins with any certainty.
That the locus of investigation in either case is China makes it harder.
Again, ironic to reflect then that the new Maths GCSE is actually pretty well useless, particularly in terms of setting up further study.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
Our brutal parliamentary system, in which heads of government are removed by voters or MPs and rarely come to a dignified end of their term, makes the torment of being replaced even harder to bear. This is particularly severe if a PM believes they never did anything wrong — think Heath — or if they consider the electorate always backed them but their MPs were too weak to stick with them — think Thatcher.
Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be Heath with jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
Did anyone note last night's obvious tribute to Thatcher's super strength hairspray ?
Rishi was using hairspray?!
Hairspray fumes might explain why Rishi was so hyped up at the start. He risks alienating voters and not just the female ones by constantly interrupting and talking over Liz Truss.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
The heart warming story about how awesome private schools are and how they can transform the children of non white immigrants into fantastic people who can run the country and are at the top of industry.
#GivePrivateSchoolsBiggerTaxBreaks
It's interesting that Sunak's elite education seems to bother Tory members in a way that Johnson's and Cameron's didn't.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
The heart warming story about how awesome private schools are and how they can transform the children of non white immigrants into fantastic people who can run the country and are at the top of industry.
#GivePrivateSchoolsBiggerTaxBreaks
It's interesting that Sunak's elite education seems to bother Tory members in a way that Johnson's and Cameron's didn't.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
Tbf 500-600 miles would be plenty for most people, meaning you could travel through Europe and only have to charge overnight.
Our brutal parliamentary system, in which heads of government are removed by voters or MPs and rarely come to a dignified end of their term, makes the torment of being replaced even harder to bear. This is particularly severe if a PM believes they never did anything wrong — think Heath — or if they consider the electorate always backed them but their MPs were too weak to stick with them — think Thatcher.
Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be Heath with jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
Does he do 'vindictive'? Has he ever had to seek revenge?
He was pretty swift to throw out the Brexit rebels, even the pillars of the party like Ken Clarke, and someone lost the whip last week for missing a plane for a single vote. Perhaps not so much revenge as a "Don't mess with me" message.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
The heart warming story about how awesome private schools are and how they can transform the children of non white immigrants into fantastic people who can run the country and are at the top of industry.
#GivePrivateSchoolsBiggerTaxBreaks
It's interesting that Sunak's elite education seems to bother Tory members in a way that Johnson's and Cameron's didn't.
They liked those two.
They don't like Sunak, not I think so much because of his skin colour but because he dissed Massive Johnson.
It's not however (apart from a few who are clearly clinically insane) OK to say you still like a convicted criminal, fluent liar and total failure and that's why you hate the people who brought him down.
Easier to blame awkward moments with petrol pumps, or Wykehamism, or non-dom status.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
The heart warming story about how awesome private schools are and how they can transform the children of non white immigrants into fantastic people who can run the country and are at the top of industry.
#GivePrivateSchoolsBiggerTaxBreaks
It's interesting that Sunak's elite education seems to bother Tory members in a way that Johnson's and Cameron's didn't.
It’s not that he had a good education, as much as it’s that his immense wealth insulates him from many of the most important issues facing the country.
He’s totally captured by the Treasury mandarins and the WEF agenda, and appears to have very little empathy for the rising cost of living - which is going to be the top news story this autumn and winter.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
And that's the big problem. EVs are currently too expensive compared to ICE cars. They are a plaything for the upper middle classes and the rich.
Having said that, I just went for a stroll and our immediate neighbours have three EVs now: one Leaf, and two electric Minis. The latter might be skewed because there's a large BMW showroom in the village.
How much has the cell pack cost been decreasing over recent years?
Again, ironic to reflect then that the new Maths GCSE is actually pretty well useless, particularly in terms of setting up further study.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
Well I'll bow to your far superior knowledge of the current situation. I think we should try to move back towards the examination standards of the past though.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
The heart warming story about how awesome private schools are and how they can transform the children of non white immigrants into fantastic people who can run the country and are at the top of industry.
#GivePrivateSchoolsBiggerTaxBreaks
It's interesting that Sunak's elite education seems to bother Tory members in a way that Johnson's and Cameron's didn't.
It’s not that he had a good education, as much as it’s that his immense wealth insulates him from many of the most important issues facing the country.
He’s totally captured by the Treasury mandarins and the WEF agenda, and appears to have very little empathy for the rising cost of living - which is going to be the top news story this autumn and winter.
Indeed, Tory members loved him until he put taxes up during a CoL crisis.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
And that's the big problem. EVs are currently too expensive compared to ICE cars. They are a plaything for the upper middle classes and the rich.
Having said that, I just went for a stroll and our immediate neighbours have three EVs now: one Leaf, and two electric Minis. The latter might be skewed because there's a large BMW showroom in the village.
How much has the cell pack cost been decreasing over recent years?
An EV is great as a second car, for a known commute or local running around, if you have a house with a driveway and can always charge it at home - while still having an ICE car for road trips. Except that you need to do 80,000 miles or more in the EV, before it makes financial sense over the normal car.
Where it does make huge financial sense, is as a company car. That’s by far the biggest driver of EV demand at the moment, but purely as a consequence of government policy on BIK income tax, which will will probably change in the near future. A £100k Tesla Model S or Porsche Taycan, costs the same as a £35k petrol Golf GTI as a company car, in lease and BIK for a 40% taxpayer.
The price of batteries has fallen substantially over the past decade (it was $1k/kWh 15 years ago), but the innovation in chemistry has stalled, at least commercially, and rising demand for rare earth metals is now keeping prices from falling further.
I am but a lowly voter, clearly no match for the intellectual titans who make up the Parliamentary Conservative Party, but I still genuinely have no idea what the strategy was for supporting Sunak.
We knew from the first YouGov poll that he lost every matchup, whether it was against Mordaunt, Badenoch or Tugendhat. My assumption was that MPs would understand there's a substantial anyone-but-Rishi vote and that it's non-ideological; somewhere between 30/40% was Sunak's ceiling, and the rest of the membership would back anyone to stop him.
So if you're an MP and you're backing Sunak in the first round of voting, you haven't seen the poll, fine, I get that. And I understand backing him when the field is crowded with Zahawi, Hunt, etc. But I cannot understand, after the second YouGov poll confirming that members have made their minds up and there's no viable path for Sunak to win over the membership, why MPs kept voting for him? Surely it is a suicide mission, handing the leadership to whoever is going against him? Unless you think Sunak can win over the membership despite starting at a massive disadvantage and against all logic or conventional wisdom - but as we've just seen, he can't?
I'm honestly not trolling - can anyone explain this to me?
If Sunak had got 200+ votes in the final round, he might well be favourite right now. The members aren't voting in a vacuum; some of them at least would take note of results from the MPs ballots. Sunak probably didn't win by enough to swing many people's votes, though.
Also, be very wary of interpreting voodoo polls of Tory members - the more vocal and easy-to-find ones aren't necessarily representative of the whole. Sunak is more competitive than you might think.
He'll still lose, though. Unless something big drops in the next few weeks.
Are you willing to put a vote percentage for "more competitive than you think"?
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
The focus on the hair shirt, is what’s killing Rishi in the leadership contest (and Biden in the US). The Treasury and WEF undoubtedly see high energy costs as a good thing, and don’t want to see them fall after the immediate problems have passed.
Meanwhile, the average person is facing spending almost as much on their heating bills as on their mortgage this winter. It’s completely unsustainable.
Governments in Europe should be buying up every diesel generator they can get their hands on at the moment - this winter is going to be horrific, if and when Putin decides to play games with the gas supply.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
Tbf 500-600 miles would be plenty for most people, meaning you could travel through Europe and only have to charge overnight.
That would be plenty enough. It would last me three months.
Improving the range is important but also reducing the size and the weight of the battery as well.
The first model Leaf used to do 80 miles on a full charge.
There is a lot of investment and development going into these products. The prices will come down and the products will become more efficient. The govt should stick to their guns on phasing out the combustion engine. As more electric vehicles are on the road the price of petrol and diesel will continue to go up irrespective of what oil does and the compost benefit of an electric car becomes more apparent.
Well I'll bow to your far superior knowledge of the current situation. I think we should try to move back towards the examination standards of the past though.
Which part, and why?
For example, originally examinations were viva voce. The actual content was you memorised a book, and recited it word-perfectly from memory while two examiners listened. This proved you were a scholar. (Incidentally that is still how Italian universities award doctorates.)
Then, there came the idea that, y'know, just proving you'd read something wasn't necessarily the best way of showing you had a functioning brain. So examinations became about defending a thesis you had created. This is the origin of the modern viva that dominates PhD awards in this country.
But even that didn't work as larger and larger number started to sit exams and there simply wasn't time to do vivas for them all. And so written exams began. Initially these were confined to certain subjects but gradually after 1870 they were spread to all subjects, but only a small minority of the population. Until 1944 most people left school at 14 without qualifications. Even after this until the 1960s it was accepted that exams were not for everyone, which is why the CSE syllabus was introduced. And that might be examined or not, depending on a range of factors.
It wasn't until the comprehensive system, which was sold as 'grammar schools for all,' came in that everyone started to think of exams as something everyone sat. But GCEs intended for 15% of the population were clearly not suitable for such a mass system. Which is why GCSEs were introduced in the first place - so they would show roughly where people were across a wide ability spectrum. Even then, they weren't very good at it because of the obsession with 'rigour' (by which the government meant, 'exams like the ones we sat') meaning they were simply far too hard for about 40% of children.
I notice this context is completely absent from either of Reform's reports.
Now, we have a question. Are exams the right thing to do to assess knowledge? For many subjects, possibly the answer is yes. Physics, maths, chemistry, foreign languages spring to mind. For others, the answer is 'probably not.' History, for example, is actually usually more accurately gauged through coursework, which is why postgraduate courses at reputable unis have abandoned exams in it. Exams may test memory, but they don't generally favour those with good analytical skills as they favour quite superficial analysis due to the limits to the amount of knowledge a brain can hold. (Continued)
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
If it's even a fair representation of what Musk said. I would treat the NY Post with about as much credibility as I'd treat the flint knappers gazette's exposé on being anal probed by an alien with a euphonium.
Again, ironic to reflect then that the new Maths GCSE is actually pretty well useless, particularly in terms of setting up further study.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
Well I'll bow to your far superior knowledge of the current situation. I think we should try to move back towards the examination standards of the past though.
That's what Gove's reforms did. Pre Gove GCSE's gave you a formula book so you didn't need to know everything and could refer back it things if you weren't 100% sure.
Post Gove all those things went so you either knew it off by heart or failed to answer the question.
Now back in the 1980's before the internet that made complete since, nowadays if I'm not 100% sure of something I go and check first (the joke that all code is copy and pasted from Stackoverflow is lie but it's not far from the truth) and I would expect the same behaviour to be taught in schools.
Up to 2017 it was, since 2018 it's a complete farce...
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
The focus on the hair shirt, is what’s killing Rishi in the leadership contest (and Biden in the US). The Treasury and WEF undoubtedly see high energy costs as a good thing, and don’t want to see them fall after the immediate problems have passed.
Meanwhile, the average person is facing spending almost as much on their heating bills as on their mortgage this winter. It’s completely unsustainable.
Governments in Europe should be buying up every diesel generator they can get their hands on at the moment - this winter is going to be horrific, if and when Putin decides to play games with the gas supply.
It's enlighting that two very large expenditures in recent times were smart motorways and smartmeters. Two wheezes that have cost a fortune, caused plenty of headaches and added barely any and no capacity to our road and energy systems respectively.
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
And that's the big problem. EVs are currently too expensive compared to ICE cars. They are a plaything for the upper middle classes and the rich.
Having said that, I just went for a stroll and our immediate neighbours have three EVs now: one Leaf, and two electric Minis. The latter might be skewed because there's a large BMW showroom in the village.
How much has the cell pack cost been decreasing over recent years?
An EV is great as a second car, for a known commute or local running around, if you have a house with a driveway and can always charge it at home - while still having an ICE car for road trips. Except that you need to do 80,000 miles or more in the EV, before it makes financial sense over the normal car.
Where it does make huge financial sense, is as a company car. That’s by far the biggest driver of EV demand at the moment, but purely as a consequence of government policy on BIK income tax, which will will probably change in the near future. A £100k Tesla Model S or Porsche Taycan, costs the same as a £35k petrol Golf GTI as a company car, in lease and BIK for a 40% taxpayer.
The price of batteries has fallen substantially over the past decade (it was $1k/kWh 15 years ago), but the innovation in chemistry has stalled, at least commercially, and rising demand for rare earth metals is now keeping prices from falling further.
I went as far as ordering a Tesla Model Y as a company car, but have scrapped the idea. Turns out my (personally owned) Outlander PHEV is pretty much perfect for my needs after all.
As and when there is a full EV SUV - not a crossover but a proper one - that isn't a billion pounds to buy and isn't 2 miles per kWh inefficient, I will get one.
The debate was abysmal and they never even got onto social care . If you drop the NI rise where is the money coming from. Will this just be borrowed instead ?
Trying to be objective I think Truss has improved in the debates , my main issue with her putting aside my different politics is that she’s beholdent to the ERG and will keep or promote people like Braverman , Dorries and JRM .
Again, ironic to reflect then that the new Maths GCSE is actually pretty well useless, particularly in terms of setting up further study.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
Well I'll bow to your far superior knowledge of the current situation. I think we should try to move back towards the examination standards of the past though.
That's what Gove's reforms did. Pre Gove GCSE's gave you a formula book so you didn't need to know everything and could refer back it things if you weren't 100% sure.
Post Gove all those things went so you either knew it off by heart or failed to answer the question.
Now back in the 1980's before the internet that made complete since, nowadays if I'm not 100% sure of something I go and check first (the joke that all code is copy and pasted from Stackoverflow is lie but it's not far from the truth) and I would expect the same behaviour to be taught in schools.
Up to 2017 it was, since 2018 it's a complete farce...
I like Gove in general but everything you said there makes total sense. Understanding how to use the formula, which can be referenced, matters far more than memorising it.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
The focus on the hair shirt, is what’s killing Rishi in the leadership contest (and Biden in the US). The Treasury and WEF undoubtedly see high energy costs as a good thing, and don’t want to see them fall after the immediate problems have passed.
Meanwhile, the average person is facing spending almost as much on their heating bills as on their mortgage this winter. It’s completely unsustainable.
Governments in Europe should be buying up every diesel generator they can get their hands on at the moment - this winter is going to be horrific, if and when Putin decides to play games with the gas supply.
It's enlighting that two very large expenditures in recent times were smart motorways and smartmeters. Two wheezes that have cost a fortune, caused plenty of headaches and added barely any and no capacity to our road and energy systems respectively.
Smart Motorways only worked by adding risk (broken down cars on a lane running at x miles an hour) to the network - as the desire for risk changed it's not surprising they've become less used and less popular.
Smart Meters are very much a learn to walk before you try and run problem - all the issues of the first versions related to obvious flaws that should have stopped them being implemented (you can't have a system that ties you to provider A when customers are allowed to change provider)
The current issues seem to relate to fall out from that initial disaster...
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
And that's the big problem. EVs are currently too expensive compared to ICE cars. They are a plaything for the upper middle classes and the rich.
Having said that, I just went for a stroll and our immediate neighbours have three EVs now: one Leaf, and two electric Minis. The latter might be skewed because there's a large BMW showroom in the village.
How much has the cell pack cost been decreasing over recent years?
It's always been the same for every new technology, fridges, mobile phones, computers, ICE cars themselves, everything starts out as too expensive compared to the status quo, until it isn't.
I'd advocate doing what we can to speed that process along - purchase subsidies, matching investment into new factories, etc.
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I've never even heard of further maths GCSE. My daughter is planning to do maths and further maths A level. I'm worried now!
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
Why is there a lack of proper algebra at GCSE?
From memory I was using a lot of algebra at school at 14 (though that was overseas and I was 2 years ahead on my maths).
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
The focus on the hair shirt, is what’s killing Rishi in the leadership contest (and Biden in the US). The Treasury and WEF undoubtedly see high energy costs as a good thing, and don’t want to see them fall after the immediate problems have passed.
Meanwhile, the average person is facing spending almost as much on their heating bills as on their mortgage this winter. It’s completely unsustainable.
Governments in Europe should be buying up every diesel generator they can get their hands on at the moment - this winter is going to be horrific, if and when Putin decides to play games with the gas supply.
It's enlighting that two very large expenditures in recent times were smart motorways and smartmeters. Two wheezes that have cost a fortune, caused plenty of headaches and added barely any and no capacity to our road and energy systems respectively.
Smart Motorways only worked by adding risk (broken down cars on a lane running at x miles an hour) to the network - as the desire for risk changed it's not surprising they've become less used and less popular.
Smart Meters are very much a learn to walk before you try and run problem - all the issues of the first versions related to obvious flaws that should have stopped them being implemented (you can't have a system that ties you to provider A when customers are allowed to change provider)
The current issues seem to relate to fall out from that initial disaster...
I don't get why anyone needs a smartmeter. The grid only needs to know how much energy is being pulled in aggregate; not at an individual level. The old fashioned meters tot up energy anyway.
Again, ironic to reflect then that the new Maths GCSE is actually pretty well useless, particularly in terms of setting up further study.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
Well I'll bow to your far superior knowledge of the current situation. I think we should try to move back towards the examination standards of the past though.
That's what Gove's reforms did. Pre Gove GCSE's gave you a formula book so you didn't need to know everything and could refer back it things if you weren't 100% sure.
Post Gove all those things went so you either knew it off by heart or failed to answer the question.
Now back in the 1980's before the internet that made complete since, nowadays if I'm not 100% sure of something I go and check first (the joke that all code is copy and pasted from Stackoverflow is lie but it's not far from the truth) and I would expect the same behaviour to be taught in schools.
Up to 2017 it was, since 2018 it's a complete farce...
I like Gove in general but everything you said there makes total sense. Understanding how to use the formula, which can be referenced, matters far more than memorising it.
Yes, understanding concepts and research skills matter much more in the modern world.
In IT, for example, the technology is now moving so fast, and becoming more diverse, that one can’t hope to learn it from a book as we used to. Go back 20 years, and Windows 2000 Server came out. We’d all read the book, play with the software and do an exam on it, then do the same a few years later when the new version appeared. Now, there’s half a dozen different platforms in use in the average company, and they all update every 18 months at best. One person can’t possibly understand everything in depth.
When someone asks me an obscure question, I’ll spend some time messing around on PB researching the issue, and come back with a response. It’s a very rare problem, for which there isn’t already a huge online library of solutions or instructions.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
Why is there a lack of proper algebra at GCSE?
From memory I was using a lot of algebra at school at 14 (though that was overseas and I was 2 years ahead on my maths).
I have no idea. You would have to ask Liz Truss and Amanda Spielmann.
My guess - and it is a guess - is that there was so much other content they wanted to cram in that there simply wasn't room for it.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
My son is penguin mad at the moment, and I do penguigebra on the way into school. "Eight penguins plus 5 is 77. What is penguin?"
He could do these really well, but it took him a couple of months to start being able to answer: "Eight x plus 5 is 77. What is x?"
The debate was abysmal and they never even got onto social care . If you drop the NI rise where is the money coming from. Will this just be borrowed instead ?
Trying to be objective I think Truss has improved in the debates , my main issue with her putting aside my different politics is that she’s beholdent to the ERG and will keep or promote people like Braverman , Dorries and JRM .
Under any measure this should worry people !
The Magical Money Tree has been renamed the Fiscal Headroom.
Again, ironic to reflect then that the new Maths GCSE is actually pretty well useless, particularly in terms of setting up further study.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
Well I'll bow to your far superior knowledge of the current situation. I think we should try to move back towards the examination standards of the past though.
That's what Gove's reforms did. Pre Gove GCSE's gave you a formula book so you didn't need to know everything and could refer back it things if you weren't 100% sure.
Post Gove all those things went so you either knew it off by heart or failed to answer the question.
Now back in the 1980's before the internet that made complete since, nowadays if I'm not 100% sure of something I go and check first (the joke that all code is copy and pasted from Stackoverflow is lie but it's not far from the truth) and I would expect the same behaviour to be taught in schools.
Up to 2017 it was, since 2018 it's a complete farce...
I like Gove in general but everything you said there makes total sense. Understanding how to use the formula, which can be referenced, matters far more than memorising it.
Yes, understanding concepts and research skills matter much more in the modern world.
In IT, for example, the technology is now moving so fast, and becoming more diverse, that one can’t hope to learn it from a book as we used to. Go back 20 years, and Windows 2000 Server came out. We’d all read the book, play with the software and do an exam on it, then do the same a few years later when the new version appeared. Now, there’s half a dozen different platforms in use in the average company, and they all update every 18 months at best.
When someone asks me an obscure question, I’ll spend some time messing around on PB researching the issue, and come back with a response. It’s a very rare problem, for which there isn’t already a huge online library of solutions or instructions.
If there isn't an answer - hit stack overflow and ask the question.
If Stack Overflow doesn't provide an answer - return to stack overflow (using a different account) and post your solution as the answer.
This gives you cover when things don't work out 100% until the point you leave and the poor sod trying to fix a problem discovers the trick you pulled - hang on isn't that guy another former colleague and the mate of the person who asked the question..
Yes I know I've covered this story before - but it resulted in us wasting 10 man days (or about £7k).
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
My son is penguin mad at the moment, and I do penguigebra on the way into school. "Eight penguins plus 5 is 77. What is penguin?"
He could do these really well, but it took him a couple of months to start being able to answer: "Eight x plus 5 is 77. What is x?"
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
These changes can happen very fast. If you'd told me in 1990 that we'd have virtually no coal power generation in the UK within thirty years, I would not have believed you.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
I don't think we should worry about keeping coal going in the short to medium term, in the long run the repair costs & lowering costs of wind and solar will make it unviable anyway. There's too much of a focus on wearing the hair shirt when it comes to 'going green', rather than focussing on what will actually work.
The focus on the hair shirt, is what’s killing Rishi in the leadership contest (and Biden in the US). The Treasury and WEF undoubtedly see high energy costs as a good thing, and don’t want to see them fall after the immediate problems have passed.
Meanwhile, the average person is facing spending almost as much on their heating bills as on their mortgage this winter. It’s completely unsustainable.
Governments in Europe should be buying up every diesel generator they can get their hands on at the moment - this winter is going to be horrific, if and when Putin decides to play games with the gas supply.
It's enlighting that two very large expenditures in recent times were smart motorways and smartmeters. Two wheezes that have cost a fortune, caused plenty of headaches and added barely any and no capacity to our road and energy systems respectively.
Because the plan is to avoid adding capacity, rather it’s the use of technology to manage the peak demand.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
What percentage of the cost of an EV is the battery?
It depends on the car and the battery, but an 80kWh battery runs to about £20k from a production line, probably about £30k retail and fitted. The cell packs themselves are about $150/kWh.
And that's the big problem. EVs are currently too expensive compared to ICE cars. They are a plaything for the upper middle classes and the rich.
Having said that, I just went for a stroll and our immediate neighbours have three EVs now: one Leaf, and two electric Minis. The latter might be skewed because there's a large BMW showroom in the village.
How much has the cell pack cost been decreasing over recent years?
An EV is great as a second car, for a known commute or local running around, if you have a house with a driveway and can always charge it at home - while still having an ICE car for road trips. Except that you need to do 80,000 miles or more in the EV, before it makes financial sense over the normal car.
Where it does make huge financial sense, is as a company car. That’s by far the biggest driver of EV demand at the moment, but purely as a consequence of government policy on BIK income tax, which will will probably change in the near future. A £100k Tesla Model S or Porsche Taycan, costs the same as a £35k petrol Golf GTI as a company car, in lease and BIK for a 40% taxpayer.
The price of batteries has fallen substantially over the past decade (it was $1k/kWh 15 years ago), but the innovation in chemistry has stalled, at least commercially, and rising demand for rare earth metals is now keeping prices from falling further.
It's incorrect to say that innovation is stalled. There's continued incremental improvement every year, and from time to time there will be step changes - such as the current increasing adoption of silicon anodes. The limiting factor is the time it takes to build new factories. The car industry is having to replace an entire global infrastructure, and that will take a decade at least.
But the £20k mass market EV will arrive in the next five years.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
I agree with @Pulpstar - whole government approach to sustainability needs to shift from hairshirt (rife in academia and 3rd sector, but also creeps into public policy - and basically focused on a desire to tell people/force people) and towards making people's lives even better by offering a cheaper, cleaner and nicer alternative so they choose it.
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
A good effort A*
I agree wholeheartedly that exams are often a poor measurement of academic excellence.
I am also minded that middle class parents produce the best coursework. "My" A* Geography project done in a few hours on a Sunday evening a handful of years ago demonstrated this.
In my own field of in-work assessments, a system trumpeted by HY as a means to "educate" the hoi poloi, I see little added value, particularly in many lower level awards. The system we use is not a system of indentured apprenticeships as in Germany.
I don't know the answer. You seem to have some great ideas. Ideas that would never be adopted in a month of Sundays by the Conservatives. Are you lobbying other political parties? Are you harassing the Shadow Education Secretary for some blue skies thinking?
Truss's disingenuous ramblings about her "sub-standard" education at Roundhay School demonstrate the utter contempt Conservatives have for non-selective Secondary education. Mind you, if education is to be so underfunded, at least with well funded selection at 11 Grammar Schools, some very, very few may gain a benefit by merit alone.
Our brutal parliamentary system, in which heads of government are removed by voters or MPs and rarely come to a dignified end of their term, makes the torment of being replaced even harder to bear. This is particularly severe if a PM believes they never did anything wrong — think Heath — or if they consider the electorate always backed them but their MPs were too weak to stick with them — think Thatcher.
Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be Heath with jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
Does he do 'vindictive'? Has he ever had to seek revenge?
He was pretty swift to throw out the Brexit rebels, even the pillars of the party like Ken Clarke, and someone lost the whip last week for missing a plane for a single vote. Perhaps not so much revenge as a "Don't mess with me" message.
What history is there of people missing or voting against the government in confidence votes and retaining the whip?
The thing that suprises me about Liz Truss is that she has been in Government for years and her record is not being used against her. Very odd for a modern politician in this social media/24 hours news age.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
Why is there a lack of proper algebra at GCSE?
From memory I was using a lot of algebra at school at 14 (though that was overseas and I was 2 years ahead on my maths).
Lots of algebra in my 'O' level. I can't say I remember it too well these days mind. (I'm sure we did calculus for 'O" level too, but maybe I'm misremembering and that was 'A' level.)
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I've never even heard of further maths GCSE. My daughter is planning to do maths and further maths A level. I'm worried now!
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
If the Tories were in opposition right now and these were the two candidates to take them into Government, I think we'd be predicting how large the Labour victory was going to be.
The reality is that after 12 years in office, it is always going to be difficult. We know this full well with what happened to Labour in 2010.
I just do not feel like either of these people are the ones to stop a Labour victory. The idea of "change" is not coming from either of them to a sufficient degree. For all my utter hatred of the man and his policies, somehow Johnson delivered that perception. I do not buy that Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak are the same.
If Labour's policies don't scare the horses and they stick to a few very basic things - NHS investment, more police officers, renewable energy, making Brexit work, FTTP etc - Keir Starmer really is a disaster if he loses. The scary factor is out, it's evident to anyone that Starmer is not going to do any real damage. And the SNP threat is also reduced by the fact Scottish Labour are now in second, so they are perceived as the opponents to the SNP - that is quite a big change.
I like the odds of Labour as largest party. My central forecast remains 2010 in reverse for the next election. 1992 repeat for the Tories is their upside, Labour's best case is a tiny majority.
The thing that suprises me about Liz Truss is that she has been in Government for years and her record is not being used against her. Very odd for a modern politician in this social media/24 hours news age.
Foreign Secretary is the perfect position for that. Great office of state, high profile meetings, barely any hard decisions to be made. It's the complete opposite to Home (A graveyard) and Treasury always has tough calls.
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I've never even heard of further maths GCSE. My daughter is planning to do maths and further maths A level. I'm worried now!
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
I don't know, but I would guess it came about with modularisation and AS-levels, which allowed that sort of combination anyway.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
The thing that suprises me about Liz Truss is that she has been in Government for years and her record is not being used against her. Very odd for a modern politician in this social media/24 hours news age.
Foreign Secretary is the perfect position for that. Great office of state, high profile meetings, barely any hard decisions to be made. It's the complete opposite to Home (A graveyard) and Treasury always has tough calls.
Agree. Yet Boris managed to drop clangers in the role.
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
When was 'your day'? I did Maths and Further Maths A-Levels, and that was in 1995...
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
When was 'your day'? I did Maths and Further Maths A-Levels, and that was in 1995...
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
When was 'your day'? I did Maths and Further Maths A-Levels, and that was in 1995...
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
If you had the education brief for a full parliamentary term, together with some funding headroom, how might you reform the system ? And what would you prioritise for greatest effect ?
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
A good effort A*
I agree wholeheartedly that exams are often a poor measurement of academic excellence.
I am also minded that middle class parents produce the best coursework. "My" A* Geography project done in a few hours on a Sunday evening a handful of years ago demonstrated this.
In my own field of in-work assessments, a system trumpeted by HY as a means to "educate" the hoi poloi, I see little added value, particularly in many lower level awards. The system we use is not a system of indentured apprenticeships as in Germany.
I don't know the answer. You seem to have some great ideas. Ideas that would never be adopted in a month of Sundays by the Conservatives. Are you lobbying other political parties? Are you harassing the Shadow Education Secretary for some blue skies thinking?
Truss's disingenuous ramblings about her "sub-standard" education at Roundhay School demonstrate the utter contempt Conservatives have for non-selective Secondary education. Mind you, if education is to be so underfunded, at least with well funded selection at 11 Grammar Schools, some very, very few may gain a benefit by merit alone.
The rest are left on the scrapheap though, like Mrs P.
As a July baby who'd lost a year's education through illness she was at a disadvantage and narrowly failed her 11-plus. Consigned the the local secondary modern, she had to fight hard to get the Maths and English 'O' levels she needed to train as a nurse (since the school didn't usually bother). After a successful nursing career she later did a degree and masters in History.
Plenty of others in her position have been similarly failed not lucky enough to overcome it.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
If you had the education brief for a full parliamentary term, together with some funding headroom, how might you reform the system ? And what would you prioritise for greatest effect ?
Thinking ahead to when the PB Party takes power, eh?
TSE as PM, @Foxy in charge of Health @ydoethur running Education @Dura_Ace at Defence (erm??)
I'll be happy with some lowly role but on reflection I'd better take on CoE as I'm clearly the only one on here with sound radical ideas on taxation.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average down to around 500 a week...but COVID deaths now back to nearly 600 a week, so overall excess deaths still around 1,000 a week.
Since the week ending 22 May 2020 (i.e. once most COVID deaths began to be recorded accurately), non-COVID deaths are 43,000 below the five year-average. Obviously, some will have been counted as COVID deaths, but I suspect there's still a fair amount of low hanging fruit that the reaper didn't get due to lockdowns reducing the spread of flu etc.
Week-ending | 5-year average | COVID deaths | non-COVID deaths | non-COVID deaths in excess of the 5-year average
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
If you had the education brief for a full parliamentary term, together with some funding headroom, how might you reform the system ? And what would you prioritise for greatest effect ?
Sacking the whole DfE and not replacing them would be the most essential step. Most of the problems in education stem form their efforts to micromanage things, very incompetently.
Getting rid of Academy chains would also be important. They were essentially a power grab by the DfE and a very costly (in all senses) mistake.
For good or ill we are stuck with the exam system we have. It is enormously disruptive and expensive to change it and would probably jam the whole system solid if anyone even tried. The reason this is my first actual summer holiday in six years is because all the others have involved enormous amounts of work rewriting the curriculum to match the changes. (It wouldn't even be that if I hadn't quit, although 2023 might be easier.)
I would however look to have loose federations of local schools and universities working on curriculums and possibly qualifications as well. That would, however, require fairly dramatic reforms of the university QA system.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
If you had the education brief for a full parliamentary term, together with some funding headroom, how might you reform the system ? And what would you prioritise for greatest effect ?
Thinking ahead to when the PB Party takes power, eh? Good idea!
I'm up for that. A government of all the talents, led by our fatherly dictator Mr TSE.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Yes. OFSTED don't like it. Particularly under the new, less than brilliantly imagined or implemented 'curriculum inspection framework' that considers KS1 is two years, KS2 is four years, KS3 is three years...
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Yes. OFSTED don't like it. Particularly under the new, less than brilliantly imagined or implemented 'curriculum inspection framework' that considers KS1 is two years, KS2 is four years, KS3 is three years...
That's f***ing stupid.
Hold back bright kids? What f***ing purpose can that possibly have?
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
"2 year's ahead Maths"? Did you skip English Language? ;-)
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Yes. OFSTED don't like it. Particularly under the new, less than brilliantly imagined or implemented 'curriculum inspection framework' that considers KS1 is two years, KS2 is four years, KS3 is three years...
That's f***ing stupid.
It's OFSTED. Run by the same woman who gave us the Maths GCSE. What do you expect?
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
"2 year's ahead Maths"? Did you skip English Language? ;-)
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Yes. OFSTED don't like it. Particularly under the new, less than brilliantly imagined or implemented 'curriculum inspection framework' that considers KS1 is two years, KS2 is four years, KS3 is three years...
That's f***ing stupid.
Hold back bright kids? What f***ing purpose can that possibly have?
No doubt once the Tories get back into power they'l be able to sort that. Oh...
I agree with @Pulpstar - whole government approach to sustainability needs to shift from hairshirt (rife in academia and 3rd sector, but also creeps into public policy - and basically focused on a desire to tell people/force people) and towards making people's lives even better by offering a cheaper, cleaner and nicer alternative so they choose it.
This is a problem with the ideological right and left. The hairshirt. It cuts across so many areas of policy.
On the ecological left the climate crisis is seen too often as a moral judgment on the decadence of the human race, rather than a technological and ecological problem which needs to be addressed (urgently of course) based on evidence. If that involves some pain then so be it, but pain should be a side effect to be avoided where possible, not a feature. Same with the "soak the rich" approach to equality.
On the free market right there remains an assumption that people will not work hard or "strive" unless they are forced into it by a punitive benefits system and sanctions, and the only way to manage immigration is for the home office to be as wilfully difficult as possible to people wanting to come and work here.
Both are driven by a biblical view of the human condition: that we are sinners who need to suffer for redemption. Or, on the right specifically, we are misbehaving children who need iron discipline to stop us running riot.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
"2 year's ahead Maths"? Did you skip English Language? ;-)
As a result, it's possible to be a complete idiot and still get a good grade in a History exam (Cummings waves hello - there's nothing wrong with his memory except a determination to rewrite his past, but he is incapable of analysing or understanding anything beyond a very superficial level).
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I've never even heard of further maths GCSE. My daughter is planning to do maths and further maths A level. I'm worried now!
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
I agree with @Pulpstar - whole government approach to sustainability needs to shift from hairshirt (rife in academia and 3rd sector, but also creeps into public policy - and basically focused on a desire to tell people/force people) and towards making people's lives even better by offering a cheaper, cleaner and nicer alternative so they choose it.
This is a problem with the ideological right and left. The hairshirt. It cuts across so many areas of policy.
On the ecological left the climate crisis is seen too often as a moral judgment on the decadence of the human race, rather than a technological and ecological problem which needs to be addressed (urgently of course) based on evidence. If that involves some pain then so be it, but pain should be a side effect to be avoided where possible, not a feature. Same with the "soak the rich" approach to equality.
On the free market right there remains an assumption that people will not work hard or "strive" unless they are forced into it by a punitive benefits system and sanctions, and the only way to manage immigration is for the home office to be as wilfully difficult as possible to people wanting to come and work here.
Both are driven by a biblical view of the human condition: that we are sinners who need to suffer for redemption. Or, on the right specifically, we are misbehaving children who need iron discipline to stop us running riot.
That's why we need PR leading to continual centre-left or centre-right coalitions keeping the extremists on both sides on the margins.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
If you had the education brief for a full parliamentary term, together with some funding headroom, how might you reform the system ? And what would you prioritise for greatest effect ?
Thinking ahead to when the PB Party takes power, eh?
TSE as PM, @Foxy in charge of Health @ydoethur running Education @Dura_Ace at Defence (erm??)
I'll be happy with some lowly role but on reflection I'd better take on CoE as I'm clearly the only one on here with sound radical ideas on taxation.
I bags Minister for "Brexit Opportunities". Will suit a dosser like me perfectly being as there aren't any. Can work on my golf.
I agree with @Pulpstar - whole government approach to sustainability needs to shift from hairshirt (rife in academia and 3rd sector, but also creeps into public policy - and basically focused on a desire to tell people/force people) and towards making people's lives even better by offering a cheaper, cleaner and nicer alternative so they choose it.
This is a problem with the ideological right and left. The hairshirt. It cuts across so many areas of policy.
On the ecological left the climate crisis is seen too often as a moral judgment on the decadence of the human race, rather than a technological and ecological problem which needs to be addressed (urgently of course) based on evidence. If that involves some pain then so be it, but pain should be a side effect to be avoided where possible, not a feature. Same with the "soak the rich" approach to equality.
On the free market right there remains an assumption that people will not work hard or "strive" unless they are forced into it by a punitive benefits system and sanctions, and the only way to manage immigration is for the home office to be as wilfully difficult as possible to people wanting to come and work here.
Both are driven by a biblical view of the human condition: that we are sinners who need to suffer for redemption. Or, on the right specifically, we are misbehaving children who need iron discipline to stop us running riot.
That's why we need PR leading to continual centre-left or centre-right coalitions keeping the extremists on both sides on the margins.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
As @ydoethur points out - KS3 runs from Y7 to Y10 - ages 11 to 14. Woe betide you shrink that.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
If you had the education brief for a full parliamentary term, together with some funding headroom, how might you reform the system ? And what would you prioritise for greatest effect ?
Thinking ahead to when the PB Party takes power, eh?
TSE as PM, @Foxy in charge of Health @ydoethur running Education @Dura_Ace at Defence (erm??)
I'll be happy with some lowly role but on reflection I'd better take on CoE as I'm clearly the only one on here with sound radical ideas on taxation.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Yes. OFSTED don't like it. Particularly under the new, less than brilliantly imagined or implemented 'curriculum inspection framework' that considers KS1 is two years, KS2 is four years, KS3 is three years...
That's f***ing stupid.
Hold back bright kids? What f***ing purpose can that possibly have?
I agree with @Pulpstar - whole government approach to sustainability needs to shift from hairshirt (rife in academia and 3rd sector, but also creeps into public policy - and basically focused on a desire to tell people/force people) and towards making people's lives even better by offering a cheaper, cleaner and nicer alternative so they choose it.
This is a problem with the ideological right and left. The hairshirt. It cuts across so many areas of policy.
On the ecological left the climate crisis is seen too often as a moral judgment on the decadence of the human race, rather than a technological and ecological problem which needs to be addressed (urgently of course) based on evidence. If that involves some pain then so be it, but pain should be a side effect to be avoided where possible, not a feature. Same with the "soak the rich" approach to equality.
On the free market right there remains an assumption that people will not work hard or "strive" unless they are forced into it by a punitive benefits system and sanctions, and the only way to manage immigration is for the home office to be as wilfully difficult as possible to people wanting to come and work here.
Both are driven by a biblical view of the human condition: that we are sinners who need to suffer for redemption. Or, on the right specifically, we are misbehaving children who need iron discipline to stop us running riot.
That's why we need PR leading to continual centre-left or centre-right coalitions keeping the extremists on both sides on the margins.
Estonia, which is frequently eulogised by @Cicero, has a PR system and recently had ethnonationalists in power pursuing a white Estonia policy.
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
I would need to go and check but I suspect far fewer people do A level maths now than before the reforms. The Twin's school only allowed those with an 8 or 9 to do A level maths as even those with a 7 were finding the leaps and work required too much..
This is what I found as well when running the sixth form. Because ordinary GCSE doesn't prepare you properly, you can't do A-level maths without further maths GCSE unless you are incredibly able (in which case, why not do FM anyway)?
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
One reason for that is that the new GCSE syllabuses are so full you can't do what used to happen. Prior to 2017 a common approach would be for the top stream to do GCSE maths in Year 10, walk away with an A/B and study Further Maths in Year 11.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
As against that, the three year GCSE is becoming the norm. Simply because the courses are so overstuffed.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
Everyone knows that GCSE's now require 3 years but woe betide any school caught by Ofsted teaching the GCSE course in year 9 or allowing pupils to select topics in Year 9. Which means that schools need to guess the important topics and teach a combination of in depth (likely to be examined) and superficial to get everything covered in time.
Of course you know that but others may not.
Why would a school get in trouble for teaching a year ahead?
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
Yes. OFSTED don't like it. Particularly under the new, less than brilliantly imagined or implemented 'curriculum inspection framework' that considers KS1 is two years, KS2 is four years, KS3 is three years...
That's f***ing stupid.
Hold back bright kids? What f***ing purpose can that possibly have?
Not yet 10 am and you're boiling over. Again.
In fairness Bart has been given a good reason to boil over, particularly if the system is set up to encourage schools to hold back kids. I hope it isn't true, but ....
I agree with @Pulpstar - whole government approach to sustainability needs to shift from hairshirt (rife in academia and 3rd sector, but also creeps into public policy - and basically focused on a desire to tell people/force people) and towards making people's lives even better by offering a cheaper, cleaner and nicer alternative so they choose it.
This is a problem with the ideological right and left. The hairshirt. It cuts across so many areas of policy.
On the ecological left the climate crisis is seen too often as a moral judgment on the decadence of the human race, rather than a technological and ecological problem which needs to be addressed (urgently of course) based on evidence. If that involves some pain then so be it, but pain should be a side effect to be avoided where possible, not a feature. Same with the "soak the rich" approach to equality.
On the free market right there remains an assumption that people will not work hard or "strive" unless they are forced into it by a punitive benefits system and sanctions, and the only way to manage immigration is for the home office to be as wilfully difficult as possible to people wanting to come and work here.
Both are driven by a biblical view of the human condition: that we are sinners who need to suffer for redemption. Or, on the right specifically, we are misbehaving children who need iron discipline to stop us running riot.
That's why we need PR leading to continual centre-left or centre-right coalitions keeping the extremists on both sides on the margins.
It isn't extremism. It's Puritanism. A persistent strain in this country.
I'm interested to know why the format of A level maths has changed from the past. In my day we had Pure maths A level and Applied maths A level. As an alternative there was a Combined Maths A level that consisted of the first two (easier) papers of the other two A level. Ideal for those needing a good maths grounding at University but not doing maths. Seems sensible to me. Like to know the argument for the change.
When was 'your day'? I did Maths and Further Maths A-Levels, and that was in 1995...
1971 - 73. Sorry I'm ancient.
I did O level a year early (79) and then 'Additional maths' O level.
At A level I think there were different possibilities depending on the Sixth form college - so one offered Pure Maths and Applied Maths as two seperate A levels, but the others had Maths and Further Maths - with a complication that there were both traditional and SMP varieties. There was also an S level paper for Maths, but oddly not one for Further Maths.
Comments
https://web.archive.org/web/20120406100205/http://www.reform.co.uk/pages/2145/view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPamKOPabFc
Clearly had it been a lab leak, it might be possible to obtain definitive evidence. Natural origins are rather more difficult; there are several cases where it's never been possible to determine virus origins with any certainty.
That the locus of investigation in either case is China makes it harder.
What I find instructive about all Gove's education reforms (of which Truss was part) is how they not merely didn't work but usually had the polar opposite effect of the one intended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_suspension_of_rebel_Conservative_MPs
They don't like Sunak, not I think so much because of his skin colour but because he dissed Massive Johnson.
It's not however (apart from a few who are clearly clinically insane) OK to say you still like a convicted criminal, fluent liar and total failure and that's why you hate the people who brought him down.
Easier to blame awkward moments with petrol pumps, or Wykehamism, or non-dom status.
Shall we call it the Kinnock effect?
But he backed Mordaunt over Truss in the first part of the process.
And he is now supporting Sunak.
https://twitter.com/John2Win/status/1551443306260971523?s=20&t=qdrt9Ta3Ay-f-ECCRMgQBw
The strike prices of solar and particularly wind make this a truly viable system here.
He’s totally captured by the Treasury mandarins and the WEF agenda, and appears to have very little empathy for the rising cost of living - which is going to be the top news story this autumn and winter.
Having said that, I just went for a stroll and our immediate neighbours have three EVs now: one Leaf, and two electric Minis. The latter might be skewed because there's a large BMW showroom in the village.
How much has the cell pack cost been decreasing over recent years?
Baldrick: Why not?
Blackadder (irritably): She's met him.
BTW, I see the government have done a deal with EDF to keep West Burton A power station (coal) open for an extra six or so months over the winter. I know it's environmentally damaging, but IMV it makes sense...
Where it does make huge financial sense, is as a company car. That’s by far the biggest driver of EV demand at the moment, but purely as a consequence of government policy on BIK income tax, which will will probably change in the near future.
A £100k Tesla Model S or Porsche Taycan, costs the same as a £35k petrol Golf GTI as a company car, in lease and BIK for a 40% taxpayer.
The price of batteries has fallen substantially over the past decade (it was $1k/kWh 15 years ago), but the innovation in chemistry has stalled, at least commercially, and rising demand for rare earth metals is now keeping prices from falling further.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/12/even-ev-elon-musk-mocks-bidens-green-hucksters/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site buttons&utm_campaign=site buttons
Meanwhile, the average person is facing spending almost as much on their heating bills as on their mortgage this winter. It’s completely unsustainable.
Governments in Europe should be buying up every diesel generator they can get their hands on at the moment - this winter is going to be horrific, if and when Putin decides to play games with the gas supply.
Improving the range is important but also reducing the size and the weight of the battery as well.
The first model Leaf used to do 80 miles on a full charge.
There is a lot of investment and development going into these products. The prices will come down and the products will become more efficient. The govt should stick to their guns on phasing out the combustion engine. As more electric vehicles are on the road the price of petrol and diesel will continue to go up irrespective of what oil does and the compost benefit of an electric car becomes more apparent.
For example, originally examinations were viva voce. The actual content was you memorised a book, and recited it word-perfectly from memory while two examiners listened. This proved you were a scholar. (Incidentally that is still how Italian universities award doctorates.)
Then, there came the idea that, y'know, just proving you'd read something wasn't necessarily the best way of showing you had a functioning brain. So examinations became about defending a thesis you had created. This is the origin of the modern viva that dominates PhD awards in this country.
But even that didn't work as larger and larger number started to sit exams and there simply wasn't time to do vivas for them all. And so written exams began. Initially these were confined to certain subjects but gradually after 1870 they were spread to all subjects, but only a small minority of the population. Until 1944 most people left school at 14 without qualifications. Even after this until the 1960s it was accepted that exams were not for everyone, which is why the CSE syllabus was introduced. And that might be examined or not, depending on a range of factors.
It wasn't until the comprehensive system, which was sold as 'grammar schools for all,' came in that everyone started to think of exams as something everyone sat. But GCEs intended for 15% of the population were clearly not suitable for such a mass system. Which is why GCSEs were introduced in the first place - so they would show roughly where people were across a wide ability spectrum. Even then, they weren't very good at it because of the obsession with 'rigour' (by which the government meant, 'exams like the ones we sat') meaning they were simply far too hard for about 40% of children.
I notice this context is completely absent from either of Reform's reports.
Now, we have a question. Are exams the right thing to do to assess knowledge? For many subjects, possibly the answer is yes. Physics, maths, chemistry, foreign languages spring to mind. For others, the answer is 'probably not.' History, for example, is actually usually more accurately gauged through coursework, which is why postgraduate courses at reputable unis have abandoned exams in it. Exams may test memory, but they don't generally favour those with good analytical skills as they favour quite superficial analysis due to the limits to the amount of knowledge a brain can hold.
(Continued)
However, all politicians and civil servants, however dim, got where they were by being good at passing exams. Which means they firmly, fervently and probably quite honestly believe that's the best way of showing who is intelligent. Plus, they believe the exams were harder when they sat them and so, they need to be 'reformed' to be 'more rigorous.'
However, because they don't know what they're talking about, we have ended up with a train crash. Maths GCSE is the classic example. It's designed to be 'more rigorous' because the old one was 'too easy.' This means that if it had been properly assessed 40% of children would have failed it. Because that was politically unacceptable the pass mark had to be dropped, rendering the whole exercise worthless anyway. A simpler, more flexible exam that had a decent spread of grades would have been much more useful as a qualification.
And, since it does not cover any of the A-level content in any sort of depth anyway, to do well at A-level you really need to do Further Maths GCSE on top as well. Which negates the whole purpose of 'democratising' the qualification as most state schools don't offer it.
So - which standards? And how? And why?
Post Gove all those things went so you either knew it off by heart or failed to answer the question.
Now back in the 1980's before the internet that made complete since, nowadays if I'm not 100% sure of something I go and check first (the joke that all code is copy and pasted from Stackoverflow is lie but it's not far from the truth) and I would expect the same behaviour to be taught in schools.
Up to 2017 it was, since 2018 it's a complete farce...
As and when there is a full EV SUV - not a crossover but a proper one - that isn't a billion pounds to buy and isn't 2 miles per kWh inefficient, I will get one.
Trying to be objective I think Truss has improved in the debates , my main issue with her putting aside my different politics is that she’s beholdent to the ERG and will keep or promote people like Braverman , Dorries and JRM .
Under any measure this should worry people !
Apparently, the issue is the lack of proper algebra at GCSE which is the dominant component of A-level. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know, I don't know enough about the uses of algebra to make an informed guess. I just know that that's a really, really stupid mistake to have made.
Smart Meters are very much a learn to walk before you try and run problem - all the issues of the first versions related to obvious flaws that should have stopped them being implemented (you can't have a system that ties you to provider A when customers are allowed to change provider)
The current issues seem to relate to fall out from that initial disaster...
I'd advocate doing what we can to speed that process along - purchase subsidies, matching investment into new factories, etc.
From memory I was using a lot of algebra at school at 14 (though that was overseas and I was 2 years ahead on my maths).
In IT, for example, the technology is now moving so fast, and becoming more diverse, that one can’t hope to learn it from a book as we used to. Go back 20 years, and Windows 2000 Server came out. We’d all read the book, play with the software and do an exam on it, then do the same a few years later when the new version appeared. Now, there’s half a dozen different platforms in use in the average company, and they all update every 18 months at best. One person can’t possibly understand everything in depth.
When someone asks me an obscure question, I’ll spend some time messing around on PB researching the issue, and come back with a response. It’s a very rare problem, for which there isn’t already a huge online library of solutions or instructions.
I suspect there was an assumption that the same logic would be followed post the reforms and there are multiple reasons (all decisions made by Gove and co) as to why that isn't the case
My guess - and it is a guess - is that there was so much other content they wanted to cram in that there simply wasn't room for it.
He could do these really well, but it took him a couple of months to start being able to answer: "Eight x plus 5 is 77. What is x?"
Brains are weird.
Plenty of money there.
If Stack Overflow doesn't provide an answer - return to stack overflow (using a different account) and post your solution as the answer.
This gives you cover when things don't work out 100% until the point you leave and the poor sod trying to fix a problem discovers the trick you pulled - hang on isn't that guy another former colleague and the mate of the person who asked the question..
Yes I know I've covered this story before - but it resulted in us wasting 10 man days (or about £7k).
Seriously: nice story.
There's continued incremental improvement every year, and from time to time there will be step changes - such as the current increasing adoption of silicon anodes.
The limiting factor is the time it takes to build new factories. The car industry is having to replace an entire global infrastructure, and that will take a decade at least.
But the £20k mass market EV will arrive in the next five years.
However, it does highlight the muddled thinking on this issue. If you're going to have a different exam to set up A-level, and have everyone sit the 'ordinary' maths exam, why not make that reasonably straightforward so you can see where in the ability spectrum somebody falls rather than just saying the 50% who can't really get anything from it must be being badly taught or something?
Then, have a third in the top grades further sorted by further maths?
Still what do I know? I'm only an expert with a functioning brain, two ways I'm different from those in charge of education.
I agree wholeheartedly that exams are often a poor measurement of academic excellence.
I am also minded that middle class parents produce the best coursework. "My" A* Geography project done in a few hours on a Sunday evening a handful of years ago demonstrated this.
In my own field of in-work assessments, a system trumpeted by HY as a means to "educate" the hoi poloi, I see little added value, particularly in many lower level awards. The system we use is not a system of indentured apprenticeships as in Germany.
I don't know the answer. You seem to have some great ideas. Ideas that would never be adopted in a month of Sundays by the Conservatives. Are you lobbying other political parties? Are you harassing the Shadow Education Secretary for some
blue skies thinking?
Truss's disingenuous ramblings about her "sub-standard" education at Roundhay School demonstrate the utter contempt Conservatives have for non-selective Secondary education. Mind you, if education is to be so underfunded, at least with well funded selection at 11 Grammar Schools, some very, very few may gain a benefit by merit alone.
Lots of algebra in my 'O' level. I can't say I remember it too well these days mind. (I'm sure we did calculus for 'O" level too, but maybe I'm misremembering and that was 'A' level.)
Trigonometry, now, that often comes in useful.
The reality is that after 12 years in office, it is always going to be difficult. We know this full well with what happened to Labour in 2010.
I just do not feel like either of these people are the ones to stop a Labour victory. The idea of "change" is not coming from either of them to a sufficient degree. For all my utter hatred of the man and his policies, somehow Johnson delivered that perception. I do not buy that Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak are the same.
If Labour's policies don't scare the horses and they stick to a few very basic things - NHS investment, more police officers, renewable energy, making Brexit work, FTTP etc - Keir Starmer really is a disaster if he loses. The scary factor is out, it's evident to anyone that Starmer is not going to do any real damage. And the SNP threat is also reduced by the fact Scottish Labour are now in second, so they are perceived as the opponents to the SNP - that is quite a big change.
I like the odds of Labour as largest party. My central forecast remains 2010 in reverse for the next election. 1992 repeat for the Tories is their upside, Labour's best case is a tiny majority.
It's the complete opposite to Home (A graveyard) and Treasury always has tough calls.
Of course you know that but others may not.
As a July baby who'd lost a year's education through illness she was at a disadvantage and narrowly failed her 11-plus. Consigned the the local secondary modern, she had to fight hard to get the Maths and English 'O' levels she needed to train as a nurse (since the school didn't usually bother). After a successful nursing career she later did a degree and masters in History.
Plenty of others in her position have been similarly failed not lucky enough to overcome it.
TSE as PM,
@Foxy in charge of Health
@ydoethur running Education
@Dura_Ace at Defence (erm??)
I'll be happy with some lowly role but on reflection I'd better take on CoE as I'm clearly the only one on here with sound radical ideas on taxation.
When I was in school I was 2 year's ahead on Maths because I was a year ahead physically (thanks to changing hemispheres), plus streamed into top-set on Maths which taught a year ahead.
Are you suggesting a school with streaming that runs a year ahead for kids that are ahead would get in trouble?
https://tinyurl.com/mttr6j92
Non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average down to around 500 a week...but COVID deaths now back to nearly 600 a week, so overall excess deaths still around 1,000 a week.
Since the week ending 22 May 2020 (i.e. once most COVID deaths began to be recorded accurately), non-COVID deaths are 43,000 below the five year-average. Obviously, some will have been counted as COVID deaths, but I suspect there's still a fair amount of low hanging fruit that the reaper didn't get due to lockdowns reducing the spread of flu etc.
Week-ending | 5-year average | COVID deaths | non-COVID deaths | non-COVID deaths in excess of the 5-year average
01-Apr-22 | 9,672 | 853 | 8,987 | -685
08-Apr-22 | 10,316 | 960 | 9,727 | -589
15-Apr-22 | 10,591 | 1,003 | 8,916 | -1,675
22-Apr-22 | 10,158 | 1,042 | 9,638 | -520
29-Apr-22 | 10,278 | 1,125 | 11,316 | 1,038
06-May-22 | 9,494 | 735 | 9,206 | -288
13-May-22 | 9,840 | 719 | 11,329 | 1,489
20-May-22 | 10,104 | 547 | 10,973 | 869
27-May-22 | 9,864 | 410 | 10,450 | 586
03-Jun-22 | 8,086 | 186 | 6,639 | -1,447
10-Jun-22 | 9,989 | 284 | 11,458 | 1,469
17-Jun-22 | 9,400 | 264 | 10,580 | 1,180
24-Jun-22 | 9,296 | 285 | 10,551 | 1,255
01-Jul-22 | 9,229 | 332 | 10,025 | 796
08-Jul-22 | 9,304 | 423 | 9,809 | 505
15-Jul-22 | 9,402 | 585 | 9,930 | 528
Getting rid of Academy chains would also be important. They were essentially a power grab by the DfE and a very costly (in all senses) mistake.
For good or ill we are stuck with the exam system we have. It is enormously disruptive and expensive to change it and would probably jam the whole system solid if anyone even tried. The reason this is my first actual summer holiday in six years is because all the others have involved enormous amounts of work rewriting the curriculum to match the changes. (It wouldn't even be that if I hadn't quit, although 2023 might be easier.)
I would however look to have loose federations of local schools and universities working on curriculums and possibly qualifications as well. That would, however, require fairly dramatic reforms of the university QA system.
Hold back bright kids? What f***ing purpose can that possibly have?
On the ecological left the climate crisis is seen too often as a moral judgment on the decadence of the human race, rather than a technological and ecological problem which needs to be addressed (urgently of course) based on evidence. If that involves some pain then so be it, but pain should be a side effect to be avoided where possible, not a feature. Same with the "soak the rich" approach to equality.
On the free market right there remains an assumption that people will not work hard or "strive" unless they are forced into it by a punitive benefits system and sanctions, and the only way to manage immigration is for the home office to be as wilfully difficult as possible to people wanting to come and work here.
Both are driven by a biblical view of the human condition: that we are sinners who need to suffer for redemption. Or, on the right specifically, we are misbehaving children who need iron discipline to stop us running riot.
I'm blaming auto-ageing.
Malcolmg Sec of state for Scotland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GjVfm0jZRw
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1645515/Boris-Johnson-coup-legal-challenge-Tory-membership-high-court-bid-Lord-Cruddas-update
https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/estonia-white-power-sign-martin-helme-mart-helme
It's Puritanism. A persistent strain in this country.
At A level I think there were different possibilities depending on the Sixth form college - so one offered Pure Maths and Applied Maths as two seperate A levels, but the others had Maths and Further Maths - with a complication that there were both traditional and SMP varieties. There was also an S level paper for Maths, but oddly not one for Further Maths.