Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
He was explicitly talking about what we would now call “value add”. ie, the exam results achieved given the quality of the intake. (& this was at the time he was teaching)
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (now an ex-teacher) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
I agree. I went to grammar school in the 70s and the amount of pressure was non existent. Behaviour wasn't brilliant generally. I got O levels by a weeks revision and A level was laid back.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
I think I'll just turn my gas boiler off this Winter and wear jumpers and coats.
Maybe I'll also wrap my soul in some paper and send that to the energy company too.
Get yourself a USB heated vest (the sort motorcyclists use) and lots of power packs. Electric blanket for the bed, fleecy electric throw for the living room.
Unfortunately I hold to the view I expressed last week that if things get bad enough, the west will simply bow to Russian pressure.
Ordinary people in Europe are neither prepared for the cost, nor the hardship that's coming if Russia switches the gas off.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
According to Owen Jones, Keir Starmer supporters are "the most tedious and ridiculous Waitrose customers"
Burn
Owen Jones became famous for writing a book about class warfare and name calling.
He seems to have been driven mad by his flirtation with Corbynism.
Owen Jones called for Corbyn to resign in 2017. He was right.
Yes, and then he cravenly fell in with the Corbyn crowd.
Owen lives in Islington, not far from a Waitrose which is very likely his preferred supermarket.
People who go on about other people shopping at Waitrose always shop at Waitrose themselves.
The whole Waitrose thing’s a bit weird to me.
The English elite is incredibly narrow and they all hate each other and themselves. Thus Tories who live in Islington and attend dinner parties go on about left wing luvvies who live in Islington and attend dinner parties. Privately educated Labourites go on about posh Tories. They all knew each other at Oxford. They are all awful. In theory the country deserves better, but in reality it gets the leaders it deserves.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
It is non selective, therefore a comprehensive school.
No it isn't. Comprehensive schools take from 11 to 18 normally.
Though even if you ignore the fact you have to have achieved sufficient GCSE grades to even do A Levels and added all the 6th form colleges to comprehensives, 71% of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge success rates would still be private schools or grammar schools
According to Owen Jones, Keir Starmer supporters are "the most tedious and ridiculous Waitrose customers"
Burn
Owen Jones became famous for writing a book about class warfare and name calling.
He seems to have been driven mad by his flirtation with Corbynism.
Owen Jones called for Corbyn to resign in 2017. He was right.
Yes, and then he cravenly fell in with the Corbyn crowd.
Owen lives in Islington, not far from a Waitrose which is very likely his preferred supermarket.
People who go on about other people shopping at Waitrose always shop at Waitrose themselves.
The whole Waitrose thing’s a bit weird to me.
The English elite is incredibly narrow and they all hate each other and themselves. Thus Tories who live in Islington and attend dinner parties go on about left wing luvvies who live in Islington and attend dinner parties. Privately educated Labourites go on about posh Tories. They all knew each other at Oxford. They are all awful. In theory the country deserves better, but in reality it gets the leaders it deserves.
Chippiness problem well in hand, I see
And this is how they police their borders.
If you want to be a house n*gr* I'm recruiting.
Mr Chippy in off topic flag shock
It pisses off the mods, all of whom are so much more awful than you can imagine in your wildest dreams, that they went to Cambridge.
Wasn't me. I have never off topicced anyone, at least never deliberately.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
According to Owen Jones, Keir Starmer supporters are "the most tedious and ridiculous Waitrose customers"
Burn
Owen Jones became famous for writing a book about class warfare and name calling.
He seems to have been driven mad by his flirtation with Corbynism.
Owen Jones called for Corbyn to resign in 2017. He was right.
Yes, and then he cravenly fell in with the Corbyn crowd.
Owen lives in Islington, not far from a Waitrose which is very likely his preferred supermarket.
People who go on about other people shopping at Waitrose always shop at Waitrose themselves.
The whole Waitrose thing’s a bit weird to me.
The English elite is incredibly narrow and they all hate each other and themselves. Thus Tories who live in Islington and attend dinner parties go on about left wing luvvies who live in Islington and attend dinner parties. Privately educated Labourites go on about posh Tories. They all knew each other at Oxford. They are all awful. In theory the country deserves better, but in reality it gets the leaders it deserves.
As do all countries.
I haven't met ALL Eritreans, but I've met a few, and it's hard to believe that Eritreans, for example deserve the leadership they've ended up with .
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
It is non selective, therefore a comprehensive school.
No it isn't. Comprehensive schools take from 11 to 18 normally.
Though even if you ignore the fact you have to have achieved sufficient GCSE grades to even do A Levels and added all the 6th form colleges to comprehensives, 71% of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge success rates would still be private schools or grammar schools
There are 5 comprehensives that feed into Peter Symonds for sixth form with no academic selection test. It is a Comprehensive.
OT. Bloody impressive CL win for Dynamo Kyiv. Winning away at Fenerbahce. Would be regardless of the circumstances. Sturm Graz up next. Would be amazing to see them make the group stages.
Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
The Elizabeth Line serves Sam Tarry's Ilford South, but NOT Wes Streeting's Ilford North!
My understanding is that it is to be renamed the Elizabeth Truss Line.
Well, the latter lady is of republican roots, I think someone mentioned on PB.
Which would save the hassle of rebranding when royalty is overthrown.
Royalty will never be overthrown and our glorious constitutional monarchy will be there long after Truss and Starmer have disappeared into the dust
The overwhelming majority of democratic nations are republics.
The overwhelming majority of dictatorships are republics too, most constitutional monarchies also have well above average gdp per capita
Middle Eastern dictatorships - monarchies. North Korea - defacto monarchy.
What is the UK if not a hereditary military dictatorship by conquest?
Certainly not the case for Scotland, James VIth didn't conquer England when he became sovereign for England and Scotland, he was invited to take the post. Scotland's Parliament requested to join a Union with England. It was also the majority of Protestant Ulster which demanded the creation of NI when the Irish Free State was created.
Wales was absorbed into the English Crown by conquest but Wales is part of the Kingdom of England anyway and it was officially united with England under the Welsh heritage Henry VIIIth
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
It is non selective, therefore a comprehensive school.
No it isn't. Comprehensive schools take from 11 to 18 normally.
Though even if you ignore the fact you have to have achieved sufficient GCSE grades to even do A Levels and added all the 6th form colleges to comprehensives, 71% of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge success rates would still be private schools or grammar schools
There are 5 comprehensives that feed into Peter Symonds for sixth form with no academic selection test. It is a Comprehensive.
Technically it isn't as you have to have got sufficient GCSE grades to enter it and it doesn't teach pupils under 16,
However even if I accept it is a comprehensive as a I said almost 3/4 of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate are private or grammar schools on that league table
I hope @CorrectHorseBattery is on the smash with Owen Jones. Mr JJones is in need of a light ale or two. Then to be debagged and radished to burst his absurd bubble of pomposity.
According to Owen Jones, Keir Starmer supporters are "the most tedious and ridiculous Waitrose customers"
Burn
Owen Jones became famous for writing a book about class warfare and name calling.
He seems to have been driven mad by his flirtation with Corbynism.
Owen Jones called for Corbyn to resign in 2017. He was right.
Yes, and then he cravenly fell in with the Corbyn crowd.
Owen lives in Islington, not far from a Waitrose which is very likely his preferred supermarket.
People who go on about other people shopping at Waitrose always shop at Waitrose themselves.
The whole Waitrose thing’s a bit weird to me.
The English elite is incredibly narrow and they all hate each other and themselves. Thus Tories who live in Islington and attend dinner parties go on about left wing luvvies who live in Islington and attend dinner parties. Privately educated Labourites go on about posh Tories. They all knew each other at Oxford. They are all awful. In theory the country deserves better, but in reality it gets the leaders it deserves.
As do all countries.
Indeed, how many leaders of a G20 nation worked in a working class job before election? In France ENA graduates, including Macron, dominate the Elysee and in the US Biden is an exception amongst most recent US Presidents in not having been to an Ivy League college
Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
The Elizabeth Line serves Sam Tarry's Ilford South, but NOT Wes Streeting's Ilford North!
My understanding is that it is to be renamed the Elizabeth Truss Line.
Well, the latter lady is of republican roots, I think someone mentioned on PB.
Which would save the hassle of rebranding when royalty is overthrown.
Royalty will never be overthrown and our glorious constitutional monarchy will be there long after Truss and Starmer have disappeared into the dust
The overwhelming majority of democratic nations are republics.
The overwhelming majority of dictatorships are republics too, most constitutional monarchies also have well above average gdp per capita
Middle Eastern dictatorships - monarchies. North Korea - defacto monarchy.
What is the UK if not a hereditary military dictatorship by conquest?
Certainly not the case for Scotland, James VIth didn't conquer England when he became sovereign for England and Scotland, he was invited to take the post. Scotland's Parliament requested to join a Union with England. It was also the majority of Protestant Ulster which demanded the creation of NI when the Irish Free State was created.
Wales was absorbed into the English Crown by conquest but Wales is part of the Kingdom of England anyway and it was officially united with England under the Welsh heritage Henry VIIIth
A glimpse into the deranged BritNat mind.
True, but please remember his is a small minority view.
I hope @CorrectHorseBattery is on the smash with Owen Jones. Mr JJones is in need of a light ale or two. Then to be debagged and radished to burst his absurd bubble of pomposity.
I think I'll just turn my gas boiler off this Winter and wear jumpers and coats.
Maybe I'll also wrap my soul in some paper and send that to the energy company too.
Get yourself a USB heated vest (the sort motorcyclists use) and lots of power packs. Electric blanket for the bed, fleecy electric throw for the living room.
Unfortunately I hold to the view I expressed last week that if things get bad enough, the west will simply bow to Russian pressure.
Ordinary people in Europe are neither prepared for the cost, nor the hardship that's coming if Russia switches the gas off.
This reminds me of Tsar Nicholas' observation that his most reliable generals, Janvier et Février, would win the Crimean War. Unexpectedly he died in February 1855 (new style), prompting a famous Punch cartoon (Général Février turned traitor):
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples:
London Lab 54% Con 20% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 38% Lab 32% LD 19% Grn 7% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 35% LD 8% Ref 6% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 46% Con 28% LD 8% Grn 10% Ref 4%
Scotland SNP 43% Con 24% Lab 22% Grn 7% LD 4%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results Sample Size: 1692; 21st - 22nd July 2022)
Swing of 0.5% SNP to SCon since 2019
Keep believing.
They might even gain Gordon from the SNP on that swing, Labour would also pick up Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from the SNP on the Yougov Scottish figures
Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
The Elizabeth Line serves Sam Tarry's Ilford South, but NOT Wes Streeting's Ilford North!
My understanding is that it is to be renamed the Elizabeth Truss Line.
Well, the latter lady is of republican roots, I think someone mentioned on PB.
Which would save the hassle of rebranding when royalty is overthrown.
Royalty will never be overthrown and our glorious constitutional monarchy will be there long after Truss and Starmer have disappeared into the dust
The overwhelming majority of democratic nations are republics.
The overwhelming majority of dictatorships are republics too, most constitutional monarchies also have well above average gdp per capita
Middle Eastern dictatorships - monarchies. North Korea - defacto monarchy.
What is the UK if not a hereditary military dictatorship by conquest?
Certainly not the case for Scotland, James VIth didn't conquer England when he became sovereign for England and Scotland, he was invited to take the post. Scotland's Parliament requested to join a Union with England. It was also the majority of Protestant Ulster which demanded the creation of NI when the Irish Free State was created.
Wales was absorbed into the English Crown by conquest but Wales is part of the Kingdom of England anyway and it was officially united with England under the Welsh heritage Henry VIIIth
A glimpse into the deranged BritNat mind.
True, but please remember his is a small minority view.
Dubious. One sees far more of the deranged BritNats than the empathetic, likeable sort.
That’s why they made a huge mistake smearing Penny Mordaunt. She’d’ve been a breathe of fresh air.
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples:
London Lab 54% Con 20% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 38% Lab 32% LD 19% Grn 7% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 35% LD 8% Ref 6% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 46% Con 28% LD 8% Grn 10% Ref 4%
Scotland SNP 43% Con 24% Lab 22% Grn 7% LD 4%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results Sample Size: 1692; 21st - 22nd July 2022)
Swing of 0.5% SNP to SCon since 2019
Keep believing.
They might even gain Gordon from the SNP on that swing, Labour would also pick up Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from the SNP on the Yougov Scottish figures
Have you the faintest conception of what the MoE is on subsamples? Even correctly weighted ones? About 8%. Good luck with those seat predictions.
The SCons were on 19% in the last proper, full-sample Scottish poll.
O/T Germany look beatable on tonight's showing, albeit they will win if England allow the occasion to get to them.
4-2 to England would be nice.
England are very strong defensively, I wasn't so convinced by the German defence.
Women's football is quite different, with a lot more short to medium passes, and more direct forward play, but little longball stuff. I think all these teams would struggle against a pressing team, but that probably requires a much higher level of concentration and fitness.
Leicester City Women season tickets are £42 this year, with the home matches at the King Power. Not a great side, and only stayed up by the skin of their teeth. I think they will get reasonable interest at that price.
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples:
London Lab 54% Con 20% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 38% Lab 32% LD 19% Grn 7% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 35% LD 8% Ref 6% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 46% Con 28% LD 8% Grn 10% Ref 4%
Scotland SNP 43% Con 24% Lab 22% Grn 7% LD 4%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results Sample Size: 1692; 21st - 22nd July 2022)
Swing of 0.5% SNP to SCon since 2019
Keep believing.
They might even gain Gordon from the SNP on that swing, Labour would also pick up Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from the SNP on the Yougov Scottish figures
Have you the faintest conception of what the MoE is on subsamples? Even correctly weighted ones? About 8%. Good luck with those seat predictions.
The SCons were on 19% in the last proper, full-sample Scottish poll.
Either way poor figures for Sturgeon given her desire for a thumping SNP win and big SNP gains at the next general election when the SC likely confirms no indyref2 affecting the Union without UK government consent.
Instead the SNP even falling back on the 45% they got in 2019
I think I'll just turn my gas boiler off this Winter and wear jumpers and coats.
Maybe I'll also wrap my soul in some paper and send that to the energy company too.
Get yourself a USB heated vest (the sort motorcyclists use) and lots of power packs. Electric blanket for the bed, fleecy electric throw for the living room.
Unfortunately I hold to the view I expressed last week that if things get bad enough, the west will simply bow to Russian pressure.
Ordinary people in Europe are neither prepared for the cost, nor the hardship that's coming if Russia switches the gas off.
This reminds me of Tsar Nicholas' observation that his most reliable generals, Janvier et Février, would win the Crimean War. Unexpectedly he died in February 1855 (new style), prompting a famous Punch cartoon (Général Février turned traitor):
I've a feeling that WFH is going to be a lot less popular come January.
I think back in 2021 I was spending an extra £100 a month in Jan/Feb on utility bills compared to the year before, heaven knows how much difference that would be this time round.
Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
The Elizabeth Line serves Sam Tarry's Ilford South, but NOT Wes Streeting's Ilford North!
My understanding is that it is to be renamed the Elizabeth Truss Line.
Well, the latter lady is of republican roots, I think someone mentioned on PB.
Which would save the hassle of rebranding when royalty is overthrown.
Royalty will never be overthrown and our glorious constitutional monarchy will be there long after Truss and Starmer have disappeared into the dust
The overwhelming majority of democratic nations are republics.
The overwhelming majority of dictatorships are republics too, most constitutional monarchies also have well above average gdp per capita
Middle Eastern dictatorships - monarchies. North Korea - defacto monarchy.
What is the UK if not a hereditary military dictatorship by conquest?
Certainly not the case for Scotland, James VIth didn't conquer England when he became sovereign for England and Scotland, he was invited to take the post. Scotland's Parliament requested to join a Union with England. It was also the majority of Protestant Ulster which demanded the creation of NI when the Irish Free State was created.
Wales was absorbed into the English Crown by conquest but Wales is part of the Kingdom of England anyway and it was officially united with England under the Welsh heritage Henry VIIIth
A glimpse into the deranged BritNat mind.
True, but please remember his is a small minority view.
Dubious. One sees far more of the deranged BritNats than the empathetic, likeable sort.
That’s why they made a huge mistake smearing Penny Mordaunt. She’d’ve been a breathe of fresh air.
She didn't respond well to the smears, but it would have been a pleasant change to have someone not from yhe incestuous World of Oxford student politics in charge. Mordaunt has her foibles but does radiate normality in a way that none of Truss, Sunak or Johnson could.
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples:
London Lab 54% Con 20% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 38% Lab 32% LD 19% Grn 7% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 35% LD 8% Ref 6% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 46% Con 28% LD 8% Grn 10% Ref 4%
Scotland SNP 43% Con 24% Lab 22% Grn 7% LD 4%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results Sample Size: 1692; 21st - 22nd July 2022)
Swing of 0.5% SNP to SCon since 2019
Keep believing.
They might even gain Gordon from the SNP on that swing, Labour would also pick up Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from the SNP on the Yougov Scottish figures
Have you the faintest conception of what the MoE is on subsamples? Even correctly weighted ones? About 8%. Good luck with those seat predictions.
The SCons were on 19% in the last proper, full-sample Scottish poll.
Either way poor figures for Sturgeon given her desire for a thumping SNP win and big SNP gains at the next general election when the SC likely confirms no indyref2 affecting the Union without UK government consent
Pro-independence parties at 51% BritNat parties at 48%
I think I'll just turn my gas boiler off this Winter and wear jumpers and coats.
Maybe I'll also wrap my soul in some paper and send that to the energy company too.
Get yourself a USB heated vest (the sort motorcyclists use) and lots of power packs. Electric blanket for the bed, fleecy electric throw for the living room.
Unfortunately I hold to the view I expressed last week that if things get bad enough, the west will simply bow to Russian pressure.
Ordinary people in Europe are neither prepared for the cost, nor the hardship that's coming if Russia switches the gas off.
This reminds me of Tsar Nicholas' observation that his most reliable generals, Janvier et Février, would win the Crimean War. Unexpectedly he died in February 1855 (new style), prompting a famous Punch cartoon (Général Février turned traitor):
I've a feeling that WFH is going to be a lot less popular come January.
I think back in 2021 I was spending an extra £100 a month in Jan/Feb on utility bills compared to the year before, heaven knows how much difference that would be this time round.
On the other hand commuting ain't going to be cheap either.
You can't post on here whilst incoherently drunk. That is Leon's gig. There is a copywright issue
Not just Leon to be fair.
Oh look, a creepy old probably mid to late sixties fuck egging on a bloke who sounds to be early twenties, to drink to excess. Probably bored of giving it to the missus once a year and regretting never having swung the other way?
What's your tipple FFS. How eeeuw can it really get?
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples:
London Lab 54% Con 20% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 38% Lab 32% LD 19% Grn 7% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 35% LD 8% Ref 6% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 46% Con 28% LD 8% Grn 10% Ref 4%
Scotland SNP 43% Con 24% Lab 22% Grn 7% LD 4%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results Sample Size: 1692; 21st - 22nd July 2022)
Swing of 0.5% SNP to SCon since 2019
Keep believing.
They might even gain Gordon from the SNP on that swing, Labour would also pick up Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from the SNP on the Yougov Scottish figures
Have you the faintest conception of what the MoE is on subsamples? Even correctly weighted ones? About 8%. Good luck with those seat predictions.
The SCons were on 19% in the last proper, full-sample Scottish poll.
Either way poor figures for Sturgeon given her desire for a thumping SNP win and big SNP gains at the next general election when the SC likely confirms no indyref2 affecting the Union without UK government consent
Pro-independence parties at 51% BritNat parties at 48%
Fill yer breeks Franco Fan.
SNP and Greens at 50% combined not 51%, she would need to get pro independence parties well over 60% to have any leeway over a UK government which will continue to refuse indyref2 whether Starmer or Truss/Sunak is PM (unless Tories win most seats in a hung parliament and Starmer changes his mind to get into No 10)
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
Yet less so than getting C grade GCSEs, as that is what will determine their league table position given the vast majority of comprehensives cannot hope to challenge most private and grammar schools on Oxbridge entry
Good news on the grain front. Lloyds of London are providing insurance for Ukrainian shipments.
In terms of gas supply this winter, assuming Europe maxes out its inbound LNG imports, with Norwegian gas diverted to the continent and the UK using LNG imports, I'd think they could make it through. But then one assumes there will be other countries outbid for the LNG shipments, and they will suffer.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
Why? India is not racist just because it does not have a white PM.
Sunak has many qualities that could make him an effective PM but his race should not be a factor. It might boost UK Indian relations but his failure to win the post does not mean the UK or Tories are racist, polling showed members voting for Badenoch
In my opinion the figures should be something like this: [assumes the new boundaries are in force]
NOM 2.22 Con Maj 2.22 Lab Maj 10
Important point about new boundaries. The oft quoted extra 10 Tory seats are projected assuming a repeat of the 2019 vote share. There is evidence with a Labour lead of around 6 that there is no gain for the Conservatives whatsoever.
Synthetic underwear is quite good at keeping out the cold. In fact, it can be too good, so I usually don't wear my heaviest when I am cross country skiing, unless the temperature outside is colder than, say, -20 Celsius.
And, of course, a hat is practical when the inside temperature is, say, 5 to 10 degrees colder than you prefer.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
Of course it could. But what's the point of producing more academically advanced teenagers when they're going to universities anyway? That's the part I don't get.
In my opinion the figures should be something like this: [assumes the new boundaries are in force]
NOM 2.22 Con Maj 2.22 Lab Maj 10
Important point about new boundaries. The oft quoted extra 10 Tory seats are projected assuming a repeat of the 2019 vote share. There is evidence with a Labour lead of around 6 that there is no gain for the Conservatives whatsoever.
Probably true wrt a 6% Labour lead. My guess is that by the time of the next general election campaign the best Labour can hope for is to be neck-and-neck with the Tories in terms of vote share. But maybe I'm being too pessimistic as far as Starmer/Labour are concerned.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
One of the mysteries of human nature is that voters prefer a education system based on ability to buy a property in a catchment area with good schools (which is the reality of what happens) rather than selection based on merit. Voters actually prefer selection by wealth/income than selection by ability. I find that impossible to understand but all the opinion polls show that's what people support.
In my opinion the figures should be something like this: [assumes the new boundaries are in force]
NOM 2.22 Con Maj 2.22 Lab Maj 10
Important point about new boundaries. The oft quoted extra 10 Tory seats are projected assuming a repeat of the 2019 vote share. There is evidence with a Labour lead of around 6 that there is no gain for the Conservatives whatsoever.
Probably true wrt a 6% Labour lead. My guess is that by the time of the next general election campaign the best Labour can hope for is to be neck-and-neck with the Tories in terms of vote share. But maybe I'm being too pessimistic as far as Starmer/Labour are concerned.
As someone from the opposite political camp, I don't think you are. I still make Tory majority a slight favourite. However, I do think the new boundaries are overplayed. Truss is risky. Higher ceiling, lower floor than Sunak imho.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
One of the mysteries of human nature is that voters prefer a education system based on ability to buy a property in a catchment area with good schools (which is the reality of what happens) rather than selection based on merit. Voters actually prefer selection by wealth/income than selection by ability. I find that impossible to understand but all the opinion polls show that's what people support.
Ability is almost immutably distributed, while if you really want income you can work like a beast for it? Perhaps that's it?
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
Yet less so than getting C grade GCSEs, as that is what will determine their league table position given the vast majority of comprehensives cannot hope to challenge most private and grammar schools on Oxbridge entry
They tend to focus on helping all their kids achieve the best grades they can irrespective of their ability. Which is kind of the whole point of them. I attended a comprehensive as do my kids so I probably know more about them than you do.
I'm bemused by the fixation on lockdown. The past has happened and can't be changed. Yes you can learn lessons for the future. But anger about the past, rather than looking forward is quite futile. It's gone.
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
Of course it could. But what's the point of producing more academically advanced teenagers when they're going to universities anyway? That's the part I don't get.
If you are from a working class background in a poor seaside or ex industrial town or northern inner city, you are far more likely to get into a top university from a grammar school than the local comp
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
One of the mysteries of human nature is that voters prefer a education system based on ability to buy a property in a catchment area with good schools (which is the reality of what happens) rather than selection based on merit. Voters actually prefer selection by wealth/income than selection by ability. I find that impossible to understand but all the opinion polls show that's what people support.
Though at least they don't go as far as saying the grammar schools still remaining should be abolished, as the left of Labour want
Ok, I’m going to try and mount a defence of Liz Truss re the schooling.
I find it somewhat curious that the Guardian is now seeking to uphold the quality of state school education under the Thatcher government. I suspect that their issue here isn’t someone complaining that they didn’t feel their state school was able to compete in giving opportunities to their students, but who is saying it. Funny, that.
I also find it amusing that so much energy is being expended to rebut Truss’s experiences (what happened to people’s own “truth”?) which I suspect would not be the case if, say, a figure on the left had the same complaints.
A lot of what Truss says rings true in the state school system of that era: there were good and bad schools, but no matter how good the school was run or well meaning the teachers were they couldn’t compete with the private sector in terms of the opportunities and attention they could bestow on their students. I’m not suggesting that means the school was terrible (perhaps Truss could be accused of over-egging the pudding here).
The angle I think is far more damaging is the fact that she is complaining about the Thatcher era education system whilst… err… running as the heir to Thatcher. In fact there seems to be a lot about Tory governments Liz doesn’t like. She didn’t think her school was up to scratch under Thatcher, she thinks that the Tory government she’s been a member of wasn’t radical enough on the economy, and she certainly doesn’t agree with her government’s tax rises. Perhaps someone needs to ask Liz what she is doing running for leader of a Party she seems to have been at odds with for large chunks of her life?
Someone - maybe an enterprising young journalist perhaps! - should ask her whether she thinks her school would have been better staying as two separate (girl/boy) grammars and being 11+ plus selective or as a merged, expanded comp.
Richard Quest in his S Times piece says a lot of the problems were around shellshocked former grammar school teachers suddenly facing a new, wider non-11-plus intake and being totally lost and unable to maintain control.
That I can well believe. My father (an ex-headmaster) used to say that a lot of grammar (and private) schools coasted on the ability of their selective intake who could mostly teach themselves in a pinch. He believed they ought to have got far better results out of their intake, but no one was pulling them up on how poor their teaching actually was.
It is not that poor for the more academic intake, it is focused on top A level and GCSE grades, Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and hence then entry to the professions and senior management and largely delivers that.
Hence of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate, 48 are independent, 23 are grammars, 19 are sixth form colleges and just 7 are comprehensives or academies.
Comprehensives main target, inevitably as a result of their intake, is usually just getting most to get 5 C grade GCSEs
Er, hang on a minute. Comprehensives are not Secondary Moderns, there is no selection, so they should have a full range of abilities in their intake.
Most comprehensives intake would have gone to secondary moderns when education was selective UK wide, hence their main target is focused on getting most of their pupils to C grade GCSEs.
No it isn't, and what you say makes no sense.
Yes it does, grammar schools generally took the top 10 to 25% of the academic spectrum, the rest went to secondary moderns. So most comprehensives intake inevitably would have been in the 75% who went to secondary moderns
But that doesn’t mean that their only goal is 5 GCSE passes.
That is their main goal.
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Every comprehensive school I have visited has photos of its top performing pupils detailing their high exam grades. Getting good grades for their top performing pupils is very much one of their main goals.
He doesn't care about the schools that 85+% of UK pupils go to. Only Oxbridge and Russell Group matter to him.
I am a Tory, I support private schools and grammar schools and would happily have more of them and that has always been my position. I believe in choice and would happily have a grammar school and private school in every town and city in the UK if a general election could be won enabling that
Of course it could. But what's the point of producing more academically advanced teenagers when they're going to universities anyway? That's the part I don't get.
If you are from a working class background in a poor seaside or ex industrial town or northern inner city, you are far more likely to get into a top university from a grammar school than the local comp
Except that very few of those places have grammar schools at all.
I'm bemused by the fixation on lockdown. The past has happened and can't be changed. Yes you can learn lessons for the future. But anger about the past, rather than looking forward is quite futile. It's gone.
Bit like Brexit. I voted Remain but accepted the result as soon as it was in. We might rejoin in 20 or 30 years time if circumstances change.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Symonds_College
Desperate stuff.
London
Lab 54%
Con 20%
LD 12%
Grn 9%
Ref 2%
Rest of South
Con 38%
Lab 32%
LD 19%
Grn 7%
Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales
Lab 40%
Con 35%
LD 8%
Ref 6%
Grn 6%
PC 3%
North
Lab 46%
Con 28%
LD 8%
Grn 10%
Ref 4%
Scotland
SNP 43%
Con 24%
Lab 22%
Grn 7%
LD 4%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results
Sample Size: 1692; 21st - 22nd July 2022)
Electric blanket for the bed, fleecy electric throw for the living room.
Unfortunately I hold to the view I expressed last week that if things get bad enough, the west will simply bow to Russian pressure.
Ordinary people in Europe are neither prepared for the cost, nor the hardship that's coming if Russia switches the gas off.
Though even if you ignore the fact you have to have achieved sufficient GCSE grades to even do A Levels and added all the 6th form colleges to comprehensives, 71% of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge success rates would still be private schools or grammar schools
Private schools and grammar schools by their generally more selective intake however have a main goal of maximising top A* and A grade GCSEs and A Levels and Oxbridge entry
Bloody impressive CL win for Dynamo Kyiv.
Winning away at Fenerbahce.
Would be regardless of the circumstances.
Sturm Graz up next. Would be amazing to see them make the group stages.
However even if I accept it is a comprehensive as a I said almost 3/4 of the top 100 schools by Oxbridge entry success rate are private or grammar schools on that league table
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jul/27/uk-energy-bills-forecast-to-hit-3850-pounds-russia-cuts-gas-supply-further-europe-pipeline
Long-term this could prove a catalyst for moving away from fossil-fuels but short term only government intervention can keep the economy going.
Short-term massive subsidies of fuel costs funded from wealth taxes and/or additional borrowing, is my suggestion.
At last - something I can agree with her.
https://www.alamy.com/general-fevrier-turned-traitor-by-john-leech-1817-1864-tsar-nicholas-i-died-march-2nd-1855-he-had-said-russia-has-two-generals-in-whom-she-can-confide-generals-janvier-and-fevrier-from-punch-march-10th-1855-image247320987.html
4-2 to England would be nice.
That’s why they made a huge mistake smearing Penny Mordaunt. She’d’ve been a breathe of fresh air.
The SCons were on 19% in the last proper, full-sample Scottish poll.
Women's football is quite different, with a lot more short to medium passes, and more direct forward play, but little longball stuff. I think all these teams would struggle against a pressing team, but that probably requires a much higher level of concentration and fitness.
Leicester City Women season tickets are £42 this year, with the home matches at the King Power. Not a great side, and only stayed up by the skin of their teeth. I think they will get reasonable interest at that price.
Instead the SNP even falling back on the 45% they got in 2019
Con Maj 3.9
Lab Maj 4.5
I think back in 2021 I was spending an extra £100 a month in Jan/Feb on utility bills compared to the year before, heaven knows how much difference that would be this time round.
BritNat parties at 48%
Fill yer breeks Franco Fan.
Possibly, symbolically on August 1st. She's sound on this.
What's your tipple FFS. How eeeuw can it really get?
How would they propose to do that?
Practically?
Also. Doubt she would pre-publicise her exact travel plans.
New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected
Covid learning loss has been a global disaster
Millions of children are still out of school. The costs are stacking up"
https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1545639423890579456
Incredibly important science figure in last 50 odd years.
In terms of gas supply this winter, assuming Europe maxes out its inbound LNG imports, with Norwegian gas diverted to the continent and the UK using LNG imports, I'd think they could make it through. But then one assumes there will be other countries outbid for the LNG shipments, and they will suffer.
NOM 2.22
Con Maj 2.22
Lab Maj 10
Shutting schools was clearly a disaster and it is high time the public inquiry got going.
The oft quoted extra 10 Tory seats are projected assuming a repeat of the 2019 vote share.
There is evidence with a Labour lead of around 6 that there is no gain for the Conservatives whatsoever.
And, of course, a hat is practical when the inside temperature is, say, 5 to 10 degrees colder than you prefer.
Obese alcoholic gammons are at far more risk than children.
Truss is risky. Higher ceiling, lower floor than Sunak imho.
I am rather bemused why there is not more Opposition pressure for the public inquiry?
Could it be because Starmer wanted even more lockdowns?
The past has happened and can't be changed.
Yes you can learn lessons for the future. But anger about the past, rather than looking forward is quite futile. It's gone.