If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
So the idea was that Remain would say “It’s not 350m, it’s only 280m”? When Leave could have said “280m” and been correct? What would have been the refutation?
Needless to say, there are other advantages around flexibility of where/when people are hired, avoiding cases where people end up on permanent sick pay, etc.
Missing a very big point. The people who do this (the contract/agency staff) choose to do this. It offers them flexibility. Simplistic analysis by those on the left who will never understand business, or that not all individuals want to be treated as the same.
I'm not really convinced we give a shit about kids in this country, except our annoyance at them when they become feral.
We care far more about animals.
Labour have an opportunity to become the party for families, 35h free childcare from age 1, huge investment in schools and bring uni fees back down to £1k per year. For once tell the nation that ensuring kids are educated is more important than ensuring some 89 year old can live for another 2 years at huge expense to the NHS.
You keep making this point but it’s not as simple as that for a politician
Most on the money in the NHS goes on overhead (nurses, doctors, ancillary staff, management, pensions, facilities and comparatively little on actual medicine…)
So to save the money that you are suggesting you would have to reduce capacity in the NHS (not just stop treating old people).
How many nurses are you going to sack?
Even more fundamentally, most people value people they know living for longer, but don't really value the quality of education for kids (you can tell based on the amount of extra teaching they pay for, which is usually zero). It's hard for a democracy to sustainably tax people and give them apples when they want lemons.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
You could make a case for his cruelty to the Irish being partly mythical, on the grounds many of his worst atrocities were directed against his fellow English who happened to be in Ireland.
But personally, I'm far too fond of my teeth to say that to an Irish person.
I'm not really convinced we give a shit about kids in this country, except our annoyance at them when they become feral.
We care far more about animals.
Labour have an opportunity to become the party for families, 35h free childcare from age 1, huge investment in schools and bring uni fees back down to £1k per year. For once tell the nation that ensuring kids are educated is more important than ensuring some 89 year old can live for another 2 years at huge expense to the NHS.
They'd hoover up votes if they did that.
The subsidised nursery care for 3-4 year olds (which was a LD policy, to be fair) is hugely popular with parents, and certainly makes our lives easier.
If they guaranteed class sizes of not more than 20 in the state sector they would kill private education stone dead anyway, apart from a handful of real snob schools.
Not necessarily it is the intake which boosts private and grammar schools most not the class size
At last, you concede that Grammar schools are not better schools.
Not better than all private schools, better than almost all comprehensives and academies however
How can they be better if, as you say, it is their intake which boosts them, not their teaching and learning…
As they get better results and more pupils percentage wise into top universities.
You can have a better value added school which still gets worse results than most private and grammar schools overall
So which is the better school, the one where students progress much better than their peers or the one where they do just about as well as their peers?
The latter overall if they get better exam results and higher percentage into top universities.
A school might have better value added but still be worse overall in terms of exam results than the latter.
Just because an Olympic athlete improves from going out in the first round to a silver medallist, an athlete who won the gold on both occasions is still better
But as a parent you definitely want to send your kid to the better value added school, because they will get better grades there. That's the definition of value added.
No they won't, a child entering the school with D grades who ends up with B grades has had better value added input than a child entering a school with A grades and leaving with A grades.
The school producing the latter is still better than the former
How on earth is it better. If they had gone to the other school with 'added value' they would have done even better because, well 'added value'. That is what 'added value' means. The children do better.
No it doesn't, just they have more D grade pupils to add value to unlike Eton or a top grammar
Why do you assume it is easier to add value to a D grade student and not an A grade student. Any evidence for that. Personally I assume it is easier to teach A grade students and therefore easier to add value to them.
My only concern regarding exceptionally gifted students would be whether the school had the expertise available to teach them.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
This does not match either my direct experience nor the comments I see from others here.
I can only assume it is because they include things like PRUs and private schools which are proportionately are larger part of the system than in most other countries and have much smaller class sizes which bring down the overall figure. You do also of course get smaller class sizes with setting and streaming in the bottom sets, which may affect the overall figure. Finally, don't forget that's for all subjects. A-level French will bring that number down!
Organisations have always hired temporary staff to fill holes left by strike action, and those have always been much more expensive than the usual salaries.
All this rubbish goes back to the energy crisis, which carries with it the lion's share of inflation. Our action on Russia is at least partly responsible, but even if you argue that such action has been unavoidable, it has been compounded by the utter failure to do anything to increase domestic energy supply.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
You could make a case for his cruelty to the Irish being partly mythical, on the grounds many of his worst atrocities were directed against his fellow English who happened to be in Ireland.
But personally, I'm far too fond of my teeth to say that to an Irish person.
It did work the other way as well a few years earlier. One of the big claims being made by the Parliamentarians during the first year of the war was that the Royalists were bringing Irish savages over to fight in the CIvil War and that they were indulging in horrendous crimes against the English. In fact almost all of those brought over from Ireland were English troops who had been sent over to Ireland in the years preceding the war to fight against the Irish. Almost all were Protestants rather than Catholics but they suffered from a series of massacres when cornered by Parliamentarian troops.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Did he have the option? It was the Army deposed him.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
The Tories were in power 1979 to 1997 and have been since 2010. The nhs is still there, and has more money coming in than ever. It’s still free at the point of use. When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
John Redwood has an interesting piece today on the BOE's bond selling programme, and the fact that the Treasury has handed them £11 billion to cover their losses.
To summarise, the ECB, the Fed, and the BOE all have huge losses on their bond portfolios having raised interest rates.
The Fed is selling off their bonds at a loss, but with no reimbursement from the US Treasury, which is just making the Fed do some accounting trick to cover it.
The ECB aren't selling theirs off at all.
Only the BOE is selling them off at a loss, with the Treasury footing the bill, as if the Government can just afford to lose £11bn at the moment.
How is Sunak/Hunt the team of prudence and 'the grown ups in the room', when they can apparently afford to spaff 11bn at the BOE to cover a totally unnecessary activity?
They printed the money in the first place so it’s an accounting loss not a cash loss. Effectively it means they can’t eliminate all of the money supply expansion they created without funding from elsewhere.
So we have a choice: reduce the money supply (which should help with inflation) at the cost of other spending choices
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Did he have the option? It was the Army deposed him.
No. But James VII and II got turfed out in much the same way, and he didn't take it so well!
The Tories were in power 1979 to 1997 and have been since 2010. The nhs is still there, and has more money coming in than ever. It’s still free at the point of use. When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
When a competent Tory becomes leader. Look I finally found a benefit of Brexit.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
Such as? (And don't quote Cummings as a source, please. He makes David Irving look honest.)
I agree with you to an extent about the anti-elitism, but that actually comes more from the civil service and the managers than from ordinary teachers. We respect bright people.
As for the lowest common denominator, again that is a function of the National Curriculum and - ironically - the grammar schools for all process, which was a civil service invention under first Wilson, carried on through Callaghan and then finally came to fruition under Thatcher.
I think it's easier to blame teachers than ask the really difficult question - if it's their fault, why have people ostensibly in power for so many years let them get away with it?
Because they had power. Because they should be listened to as the people delivering the education at the sharp end but when they were given that power and listened to they misused that power for ideological ends (note, as I said in my previous comment I am referring to teaching organisations rather than individual teachers).
If this is all the fault of Cummings and Gove then why did the UK PISA rankings drop from 7th in the world in 2000 to 26th in the world in 2009? At a time when Labour were supposedly spending lots more money on education? Our rankings had actually improved substantially between 2015 and 2018 - a time when teachers were decrying all the curriculum changes that were taking place.
Education is a mess and that is the fault of decades of anti-elitism and ideology. But teaching organisations bear a great deal of responsibility for that alongside the civil servants and politicians.
Read my previous comment. I didn't blame Cummings and Gove. I said they accelerated it. The big problem with the two of them is they did exactly what the DfE wanted while being fooled into thinking they were doing the opposite. Our rankings, in any case, are more about priorities. Cummings and Gove buggered every other subject for a short term gain in maths, essentially. It didn't last and because they didn't understand what they were doing or address the fundamentals it was never going to.
As for your last comment, that's pure prejudice. It's like saying the current state of the oil industry is because the HSE prizes lives over accidents. The reason it is a mess, ironically, is precisely because of that sort of attitude.
The rankings I am referring to cover Maths, reading and science, not just maths alone.
And the current very good state of the Oil Industry is exactly because we (and the authorities) prize lives over accidents. The transformation of the oil industry post Piper Alpha and the Cullen report has made the industry safer, more technologically advanced, more profitable and more successful. Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you all those things have come about exactly because we have put safety first and above all other things and have developed an attitude of elitism and intolerance to poor performance and lowest common denominator practices. Governments could learn a hell of a lot from the oil industry when it comes to radical improvement.
And out of curiosity, did you achieve this improvement by listening to the people working in the industry or by civil servants and accountants who used the oil?
First and foremost it was imposed on the industry through changes to the statutory authorities, giving them far more power and massively increasing the legislative control over every aspect of the industry. You don't really think oil companies would have agreed to it without it first being imposed by the Government do you?
Setting strict controls which are backed up by prosecution and where companies can and are prevented from operating if they don't meet the standards demanded has meant that we have seen massive improvements in both safety and environmental controls. And once that was imposed and the companies found that working within those rules they could actually get much better performance as organisations (having been dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation) it is now such an integral part of what we do that I find it almost impossible to imagine not doing things that way.
Where did you get the information from to impose those standards?
I want you to imagine that the same thing had happened. But the standards were written by a second hand car salesman in Plymouth, with input from all his mates. While drunk. And that the priority was not to save lives, but to ensure the aforesaid mates got good headlines and cushy numbers in Whitehall. And then, having written them, they refused any change even when their ideas of dressing everyone in clown suits and padded jackets had failed to make a difference.
At this point, you will begin to have some idea of what it is like to work in education.
I have never lectured you on oil rigs because I know nothing about them. I know they're difficult and dangerous places to work and you need high qualifications and lots of experience to thrive in that scenario. I use oil (far more than I want to at the moment) but I've no idea how to extract it and I'm content to leave it to the professionals.
Out of curiosity why do you think your views on education as a parent and somebody who's read a couple of books, one written by a notorious liar, are more meaningful than those of people who work in it, to the extent that you can lecture us on what does or doesn't work? I wouldn't say your views are worthless. I do say that you would benefit from pausing to consider whether perhaps the fact every teacher on this board is telling you your views are overly simplistic is a sign they might, in fact, be overly simplistic.
As an aside, I think I would say the real enemy of good education is dogmatism. 'This is what I think, so we'll do it and it will work.' As everyone child is different and so is every teacher and every school, such dogmatism is highly counterproductive. It's one of the big weaknesses with both OFSTED and the DfE that they do still see the scenario as 'our policies are right and you must follow them' and one reason why our school system struggles.
Well for a start I have never read a single book written by your bete noir Cummings and it was I earlier who pointed out what a liar he was over the NHS claim (which started all this discussion off).
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
The Tories were in power 1979 to 1997 and have been since 2010. The nhs is still there, and has more money coming in than ever. It’s still free at the point of use. When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
When a competent Tory becomes leader. Look I finally found a benefit of Brexit.
John Redwood has an interesting piece today on the BOE's bond selling programme, and the fact that the Treasury has handed them £11 billion to cover their losses.
To summarise, the ECB, the Fed, and the BOE all have huge losses on their bond portfolios having raised interest rates.
The Fed is selling off their bonds at a loss, but with no reimbursement from the US Treasury, which is just making the Fed do some accounting trick to cover it.
The ECB aren't selling theirs off at all.
Only the BOE is selling them off at a loss, with the Treasury footing the bill, as if the Government can just afford to lose £11bn at the moment.
How is Sunak/Hunt the team of prudence and 'the grown ups in the room', when they can apparently afford to spaff 11bn at the BOE to cover a totally unnecessary activity?
They printed the money in the first place so it’s an accounting loss not a cash loss. Effectively it means they can’t eliminate all of the money supply expansion they created without funding from elsewhere.
So we have a choice: reduce the money supply (which should help with inflation) at the cost of other spending choices
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
The Tories were in power 1979 to 1997 and have been since 2010. The nhs is still there, and has more money coming in than ever. It’s still free at the point of use. When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
When a competent Tory becomes leader. Look I finally found a benefit of Brexit.
Thatcher was incompetent?
Thatcher had plenty of other assets she could sell off without having to eye-up the NHS.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
That Charles II seemed a good choice at the time says a lot.
I really like the fact that Charles III has taken on the challenge. Dire though his other actions seem to have been.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
Such as? (And don't quote Cummings as a source, please. He makes David Irving look honest.)
I agree with you to an extent about the anti-elitism, but that actually comes more from the civil service and the managers than from ordinary teachers. We respect bright people.
As for the lowest common denominator, again that is a function of the National Curriculum and - ironically - the grammar schools for all process, which was a civil service invention under first Wilson, carried on through Callaghan and then finally came to fruition under Thatcher.
I think it's easier to blame teachers than ask the really difficult question - if it's their fault, why have people ostensibly in power for so many years let them get away with it?
Because they had power. Because they should be listened to as the people delivering the education at the sharp end but when they were given that power and listened to they misused that power for ideological ends (note, as I said in my previous comment I am referring to teaching organisations rather than individual teachers).
If this is all the fault of Cummings and Gove then why did the UK PISA rankings drop from 7th in the world in 2000 to 26th in the world in 2009? At a time when Labour were supposedly spending lots more money on education? Our rankings had actually improved substantially between 2015 and 2018 - a time when teachers were decrying all the curriculum changes that were taking place.
Education is a mess and that is the fault of decades of anti-elitism and ideology. But teaching organisations bear a great deal of responsibility for that alongside the civil servants and politicians.
Read my previous comment. I didn't blame Cummings and Gove. I said they accelerated it. The big problem with the two of them is they did exactly what the DfE wanted while being fooled into thinking they were doing the opposite. Our rankings, in any case, are more about priorities. Cummings and Gove buggered every other subject for a short term gain in maths, essentially. It didn't last and because they didn't understand what they were doing or address the fundamentals it was never going to.
As for your last comment, that's pure prejudice. It's like saying the current state of the oil industry is because the HSE prizes lives over accidents. The reason it is a mess, ironically, is precisely because of that sort of attitude.
The rankings I am referring to cover Maths, reading and science, not just maths alone.
And the current very good state of the Oil Industry is exactly because we (and the authorities) prize lives over accidents. The transformation of the oil industry post Piper Alpha and the Cullen report has made the industry safer, more technologically advanced, more profitable and more successful. Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you all those things have come about exactly because we have put safety first and above all other things and have developed an attitude of elitism and intolerance to poor performance and lowest common denominator practices. Governments could learn a hell of a lot from the oil industry when it comes to radical improvement.
And out of curiosity, did you achieve this improvement by listening to the people working in the industry or by civil servants and accountants who used the oil?
First and foremost it was imposed on the industry through changes to the statutory authorities, giving them far more power and massively increasing the legislative control over every aspect of the industry. You don't really think oil companies would have agreed to it without it first being imposed by the Government do you?
Setting strict controls which are backed up by prosecution and where companies can and are prevented from operating if they don't meet the standards demanded has meant that we have seen massive improvements in both safety and environmental controls. And once that was imposed and the companies found that working within those rules they could actually get much better performance as organisations (having been dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation) it is now such an integral part of what we do that I find it almost impossible to imagine not doing things that way.
Where did you get the information from to impose those standards?
I want you to imagine that the same thing had happened. But the standards were written by a second hand car salesman in Plymouth, with input from all his mates. While drunk. And that the priority was not to save lives, but to ensure the aforesaid mates got good headlines and cushy numbers in Whitehall. And then, having written them, they refused any change even when their ideas of dressing everyone in clown suits and padded jackets had failed to make a difference.
At this point, you will begin to have some idea of what it is like to work in education.
I have never lectured you on oil rigs because I know nothing about them. I know they're difficult and dangerous places to work and you need high qualifications and lots of experience to thrive in that scenario. I use oil (far more than I want to at the moment) but I've no idea how to extract it and I'm content to leave it to the professionals.
Out of curiosity why do you think your views on education as a parent and somebody who's read a couple of books, one written by a notorious liar, are more meaningful than those of people who work in it, to the extent that you can lecture us on what does or doesn't work? I wouldn't say your views are worthless. I do say that you would benefit from pausing to consider whether perhaps the fact every teacher on this board is telling you your views are overly simplistic is a sign they might, in fact, be overly simplistic.
As an aside, I think I would say the real enemy of good education is dogmatism. 'This is what I think, so we'll do it and it will work.' As everyone child is different and so is every teacher and every school, such dogmatism is highly counterproductive. It's one of the big weaknesses with both OFSTED and the DfE that they do still see the scenario as 'our policies are right and you must follow them' and one reason why our school system struggles.
Well for a start I have never read a single book written by your bete noir Cummings and it was I earlier who pointed out what a liar he was over the NHS claim (which started all this discussion off).
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
Yes. Because they are.
How can I put this? I would far rather be answerable to parents than civil servants, because after all, they are the ones most concerned with what I'm doing. And parents, like you clearly do, who want the best for their children are both exacting and at the same time valuable as managers. Much easier to work with the children of such people because they know what they want and they're eager to get it.
However, what I do rather expect is that when parents have told me what it is they want, they will be guided by me as to the best way to achieve it. Because I have the knowledge, the experience and the skill set to get what they want for their child.
If they start telling me the correct process based on other factors, e.g. the newspapers, I tend to discount their views.
The irony is, I think you and I both want what's best for the nation's children, and you're clearly highly intelligent and well motivated. it's just I have the experience to make a more informed judgment than you do. That doesn't of course necessarily make me right, it just makes me more likely to be right.
On the subject of Cummings, a poster once told me that exam board choice should be abolished based on Cummings' views as expressed in his book. I thought it was you. If not, I apologise and withdraw that remark.
I'm not really convinced we give a shit about kids in this country, except our annoyance at them when they become feral.
We care far more about animals.
Labour have an opportunity to become the party for families, 35h free childcare from age 1, huge investment in schools and bring uni fees back down to £1k per year. For once tell the nation that ensuring kids are educated is more important than ensuring some 89 year old can live for another 2 years at huge expense to the NHS.
You keep making this point but it’s not as simple as that for a politician
Most on the money in the NHS goes on overhead (nurses, doctors, ancillary staff, management, pensions, facilities and comparatively little on actual medicine…)
So to save the money that you are suggesting you would have to reduce capacity in the NHS (not just stop treating old people).
How many nurses are you going to sack?
Even more fundamentally, most people value people they know living for longer, but don't really value the quality of education for kids (you can tell based on the amount of extra teaching they pay for, which is usually zero). It's hard for a democracy to sustainably tax people and give them apples when they want lemons.
I think you are right but would also point out that often parents are actively criticised for spending money to improve their children's education. The disdain directed towards parents who have their kids tutored, even by some on here, is quite revealing.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
John Redwood has an interesting piece today on the BOE's bond selling programme, and the fact that the Treasury has handed them £11 billion to cover their losses.
To summarise, the ECB, the Fed, and the BOE all have huge losses on their bond portfolios having raised interest rates.
The Fed is selling off their bonds at a loss, but with no reimbursement from the US Treasury, which is just making the Fed do some accounting trick to cover it.
The ECB aren't selling theirs off at all.
Only the BOE is selling them off at a loss, with the Treasury footing the bill, as if the Government can just afford to lose £11bn at the moment.
How is Sunak/Hunt the team of prudence and 'the grown ups in the room', when they can apparently afford to spaff 11bn at the BOE to cover a totally unnecessary activity?
They printed the money in the first place so it’s an accounting loss not a cash loss. Effectively it means they can’t eliminate all of the money supply expansion they created without funding from elsewhere.
So we have a choice: reduce the money supply (which should help with inflation) at the cost of other spending choices
I don't pretend to understand the complexities of this issue. However, whether the losses the Bank is taking on its QT programme are cash or 'accounting' losses, the cash that the Treasury is handing over is real, and has a significant impact.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
This does not match either my direct experience nor the comments I see from others here.
Which year is your son in, if you don't mind me asking?
GCSE option classes and A Level groups in schools can be very small, which would drag the average down.
Whether that's good news resource management is an excellent question!
Does anyone know if there's a similar imbalance in say, France? I believe their choice is much more circumscribed so you don't have the same variation.
But then, you have a whole different culture and ethos in their system anyway.
I'm not really convinced we give a shit about kids in this country, except our annoyance at them when they become feral.
We care far more about animals.
Labour have an opportunity to become the party for families, 35h free childcare from age 1, huge investment in schools and bring uni fees back down to £1k per year. For once tell the nation that ensuring kids are educated is more important than ensuring some 89 year old can live for another 2 years at huge expense to the NHS.
They'd hoover up votes if they did that.
The subsidised nursery care for 3-4 year olds (which was a LD policy, to be fair) is hugely popular with parents, and certainly makes our lives easier.
If they guaranteed class sizes of not more than 20 in the state sector they would kill private education stone dead anyway, apart from a handful of real snob schools.
Not necessarily it is the intake which boosts private and grammar schools most not the class size
At last, you concede that Grammar schools are not better schools.
Not better than all private schools, better than almost all comprehensives and academies however
How can they be better if, as you say, it is their intake which boosts them, not their teaching and learning…
As they get better results and more pupils percentage wise into top universities.
You can have a better value added school which still gets worse results than most private and grammar schools overall
So which is the better school, the one where students progress much better than their peers or the one where they do just about as well as their peers?
The latter overall if they get better exam results and higher percentage into top universities.
A school might have better value added but still be worse overall in terms of exam results than the latter.
Just because an Olympic athlete improves from going out in the first round to a silver medallist, an athlete who won the gold on both occasions is still better
But as a parent you definitely want to send your kid to the better value added school, because they will get better grades there. That's the definition of value added.
No they won't, a child entering the school with D grades who ends up with B grades has had better value added input than a child entering a school with A grades and leaving with A grades.
The school producing the latter is still better than the former
Suppose your kid would get a B other things being equal. She goes to a school where most kids would get an A other things being equal, but which does nothing to improve kids' grades relative to the baseline. So your kid gets a B, even though the average kid at the school gets an A. Or she goes to a school where most kids get a C other things being equal, but the school improves every kid's score by one grade. So at this school your kid gets an A, even though the average kid at the school gets a B. On your definition the first school is "best", but your kid does better at the second school, which in my view is the better school.
In most cases value added schools focus on getting D grade pupils to C grades or at most some to B grades. Rarely are they focused on getting A grades which schools where most pupils get A grades are
That's just not true. There are schools with high value added scores with average grades right across the piste. From the point of view of an individual pupil they are far better off going to a school that will improve their grades rather than one that won't, end of story.
John Redwood has an interesting piece today on the BOE's bond selling programme, and the fact that the Treasury has handed them £11 billion to cover their losses.
To summarise, the ECB, the Fed, and the BOE all have huge losses on their bond portfolios having raised interest rates.
The Fed is selling off their bonds at a loss, but with no reimbursement from the US Treasury, which is just making the Fed do some accounting trick to cover it.
The ECB aren't selling theirs off at all.
Only the BOE is selling them off at a loss, with the Treasury footing the bill, as if the Government can just afford to lose £11bn at the moment.
How is Sunak/Hunt the team of prudence and 'the grown ups in the room', when they can apparently afford to spaff 11bn at the BOE to cover a totally unnecessary activity?
They printed the money in the first place so it’s an accounting loss not a cash loss. Effectively it means they can’t eliminate all of the money supply expansion they created without funding from elsewhere.
So we have a choice: reduce the money supply (which should help with inflation) at the cost of other spending choices
I don't pretend to understand the complexities of this issue. However, whether the losses the Bank is taking on its QT programme are cash or 'accounting' losses, the cash that the Treasury is handing over is real, and has a significant impact.
The BoE is in fact the magic money tree. They can magic money into existance. The problem they have is that this sort of smoke and mirrors is an old game and everyone has spotted it.
The Tories were in power 1979 to 1997 and have been since 2010. The nhs is still there, and has more money coming in than ever. It’s still free at the point of use. When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
When a competent Tory becomes leader. Look I finally found a benefit of Brexit.
Thatcher was incompetent?
Thatcher had plenty of other assets she could sell off without having to eye-up the NHS.
The Tories were in power 1979 to 1997 and have been since 2010. The nhs is still there, and has more money coming in than ever. It’s still free at the point of use. When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
When a competent Tory becomes leader. Look I finally found a benefit of Brexit.
Thatcher was incompetent?
Thatcher had plenty of other assets she could sell off without having to eye-up the NHS.
100%, given time she would off got round to it
I just don’t think this is true. If anything it will expanded health insurance to pay for the NHS that happens.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
This does not match either my direct experience nor the comments I see from others here.
Which year is your son in, if you don't mind me asking?
GCSE option classes and A Level groups in schools can be very small, which would drag the average down.
Whether that's good news resource management is an excellent question!
Does anyone know if there's a similar imbalance in say, France? I believe their choice is much more circumscribed so you don't have the same variation.
But then, you have a whole different culture and ethos in their system anyway.
This was what I went to try and look at. But given the numbers for UK class sizes are so warped from my perception (and apparently others) I am not sure of what value to place on the numbers for other countries. At face value the UK class sizes are somewhat below average but that doesn't seem to match with reality on the ground.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
Such as? (And don't quote Cummings as a source, please. He makes David Irving look honest.)
I agree with you to an extent about the anti-elitism, but that actually comes more from the civil service and the managers than from ordinary teachers. We respect bright people.
As for the lowest common denominator, again that is a function of the National Curriculum and - ironically - the grammar schools for all process, which was a civil service invention under first Wilson, carried on through Callaghan and then finally came to fruition under Thatcher.
I think it's easier to blame teachers than ask the really difficult question - if it's their fault, why have people ostensibly in power for so many years let them get away with it?
Because they had power. Because they should be listened to as the people delivering the education at the sharp end but when they were given that power and listened to they misused that power for ideological ends (note, as I said in my previous comment I am referring to teaching organisations rather than individual teachers).
If this is all the fault of Cummings and Gove then why did the UK PISA rankings drop from 7th in the world in 2000 to 26th in the world in 2009? At a time when Labour were supposedly spending lots more money on education? Our rankings had actually improved substantially between 2015 and 2018 - a time when teachers were decrying all the curriculum changes that were taking place.
Education is a mess and that is the fault of decades of anti-elitism and ideology. But teaching organisations bear a great deal of responsibility for that alongside the civil servants and politicians.
Read my previous comment. I didn't blame Cummings and Gove. I said they accelerated it. The big problem with the two of them is they did exactly what the DfE wanted while being fooled into thinking they were doing the opposite. Our rankings, in any case, are more about priorities. Cummings and Gove buggered every other subject for a short term gain in maths, essentially. It didn't last and because they didn't understand what they were doing or address the fundamentals it was never going to.
As for your last comment, that's pure prejudice. It's like saying the current state of the oil industry is because the HSE prizes lives over accidents. The reason it is a mess, ironically, is precisely because of that sort of attitude.
The rankings I am referring to cover Maths, reading and science, not just maths alone.
And the current very good state of the Oil Industry is exactly because we (and the authorities) prize lives over accidents. The transformation of the oil industry post Piper Alpha and the Cullen report has made the industry safer, more technologically advanced, more profitable and more successful. Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you all those things have come about exactly because we have put safety first and above all other things and have developed an attitude of elitism and intolerance to poor performance and lowest common denominator practices. Governments could learn a hell of a lot from the oil industry when it comes to radical improvement.
And out of curiosity, did you achieve this improvement by listening to the people working in the industry or by civil servants and accountants who used the oil?
First and foremost it was imposed on the industry through changes to the statutory authorities, giving them far more power and massively increasing the legislative control over every aspect of the industry. You don't really think oil companies would have agreed to it without it first being imposed by the Government do you?
Setting strict controls which are backed up by prosecution and where companies can and are prevented from operating if they don't meet the standards demanded has meant that we have seen massive improvements in both safety and environmental controls. And once that was imposed and the companies found that working within those rules they could actually get much better performance as organisations (having been dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation) it is now such an integral part of what we do that I find it almost impossible to imagine not doing things that way.
Where did you get the information from to impose those standards?
I want you to imagine that the same thing had happened. But the standards were written by a second hand car salesman in Plymouth, with input from all his mates. While drunk. And that the priority was not to save lives, but to ensure the aforesaid mates got good headlines and cushy numbers in Whitehall. And then, having written them, they refused any change even when their ideas of dressing everyone in clown suits and padded jackets had failed to make a difference.
At this point, you will begin to have some idea of what it is like to work in education.
I have never lectured you on oil rigs because I know nothing about them. I know they're difficult and dangerous places to work and you need high qualifications and lots of experience to thrive in that scenario. I use oil (far more than I want to at the moment) but I've no idea how to extract it and I'm content to leave it to the professionals.
Out of curiosity why do you think your views on education as a parent and somebody who's read a couple of books, one written by a notorious liar, are more meaningful than those of people who work in it, to the extent that you can lecture us on what does or doesn't work? I wouldn't say your views are worthless. I do say that you would benefit from pausing to consider whether perhaps the fact every teacher on this board is telling you your views are overly simplistic is a sign they might, in fact, be overly simplistic.
As an aside, I think I would say the real enemy of good education is dogmatism. 'This is what I think, so we'll do it and it will work.' As everyone child is different and so is every teacher and every school, such dogmatism is highly counterproductive. It's one of the big weaknesses with both OFSTED and the DfE that they do still see the scenario as 'our policies are right and you must follow them' and one reason why our school system struggles.
Well for a start I have never read a single book written by your bete noir Cummings and it was I earlier who pointed out what a liar he was over the NHS claim (which started all this discussion off).
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
Yes. Because they are.
How can I put this? I would far rather be answerable to parents than civil servants, because after all, they are the ones most concerned with what I'm doing. And parents, like you clearly do, who want the best for their children are both exacting and at the same time valuable as managers. Much easier to work with the children of such people because they know what they want and they're eager to get it.
However, what I do rather expect is that when parents have told me what it is they want, they will be guided by me as to the best way to achieve it. Because I have the knowledge, the experience and the skill set to get what they want for their child.
If they start telling me the correct process based on other factors, e.g. the newspapers, I tend to discount their views.
The irony is, I think you and I both want what's best for the nation's children, and you're clearly highly intelligent and well motivated. it's just I have the experience to make a more informed judgment than you do. That doesn't of course necessarily make me right, it just makes me more likely to be right.
On the subject of Cummings, a poster once told me that exam board choice should be abolished based on Cummings' views as expressed in his book. I thought it was you. If not, I apologise and withdraw that remark.
No I can honestly say that wasn't me. I don't begin to understand the exam board stuff but have never been bothered enough about it to find out as I always assumed they would all be working to a similar level give or take.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
Such as? (And don't quote Cummings as a source, please. He makes David Irving look honest.)
I agree with you to an extent about the anti-elitism, but that actually comes more from the civil service and the managers than from ordinary teachers. We respect bright people.
As for the lowest common denominator, again that is a function of the National Curriculum and - ironically - the grammar schools for all process, which was a civil service invention under first Wilson, carried on through Callaghan and then finally came to fruition under Thatcher.
I think it's easier to blame teachers than ask the really difficult question - if it's their fault, why have people ostensibly in power for so many years let them get away with it?
Because they had power. Because they should be listened to as the people delivering the education at the sharp end but when they were given that power and listened to they misused that power for ideological ends (note, as I said in my previous comment I am referring to teaching organisations rather than individual teachers).
If this is all the fault of Cummings and Gove then why did the UK PISA rankings drop from 7th in the world in 2000 to 26th in the world in 2009? At a time when Labour were supposedly spending lots more money on education? Our rankings had actually improved substantially between 2015 and 2018 - a time when teachers were decrying all the curriculum changes that were taking place.
Education is a mess and that is the fault of decades of anti-elitism and ideology. But teaching organisations bear a great deal of responsibility for that alongside the civil servants and politicians.
Read my previous comment. I didn't blame Cummings and Gove. I said they accelerated it. The big problem with the two of them is they did exactly what the DfE wanted while being fooled into thinking they were doing the opposite. Our rankings, in any case, are more about priorities. Cummings and Gove buggered every other subject for a short term gain in maths, essentially. It didn't last and because they didn't understand what they were doing or address the fundamentals it was never going to.
As for your last comment, that's pure prejudice. It's like saying the current state of the oil industry is because the HSE prizes lives over accidents. The reason it is a mess, ironically, is precisely because of that sort of attitude.
The rankings I am referring to cover Maths, reading and science, not just maths alone.
And the current very good state of the Oil Industry is exactly because we (and the authorities) prize lives over accidents. The transformation of the oil industry post Piper Alpha and the Cullen report has made the industry safer, more technologically advanced, more profitable and more successful. Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you all those things have come about exactly because we have put safety first and above all other things and have developed an attitude of elitism and intolerance to poor performance and lowest common denominator practices. Governments could learn a hell of a lot from the oil industry when it comes to radical improvement.
And out of curiosity, did you achieve this improvement by listening to the people working in the industry or by civil servants and accountants who used the oil?
First and foremost it was imposed on the industry through changes to the statutory authorities, giving them far more power and massively increasing the legislative control over every aspect of the industry. You don't really think oil companies would have agreed to it without it first being imposed by the Government do you?
Setting strict controls which are backed up by prosecution and where companies can and are prevented from operating if they don't meet the standards demanded has meant that we have seen massive improvements in both safety and environmental controls. And once that was imposed and the companies found that working within those rules they could actually get much better performance as organisations (having been dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation) it is now such an integral part of what we do that I find it almost impossible to imagine not doing things that way.
Where did you get the information from to impose those standards?
I want you to imagine that the same thing had happened. But the standards were written by a second hand car salesman in Plymouth, with input from all his mates. While drunk. And that the priority was not to save lives, but to ensure the aforesaid mates got good headlines and cushy numbers in Whitehall. And then, having written them, they refused any change even when their ideas of dressing everyone in clown suits and padded jackets had failed to make a difference.
At this point, you will begin to have some idea of what it is like to work in education.
I have never lectured you on oil rigs because I know nothing about them. I know they're difficult and dangerous places to work and you need high qualifications and lots of experience to thrive in that scenario. I use oil (far more than I want to at the moment) but I've no idea how to extract it and I'm content to leave it to the professionals.
Out of curiosity why do you think your views on education as a parent and somebody who's read a couple of books, one written by a notorious liar, are more meaningful than those of people who work in it, to the extent that you can lecture us on what does or doesn't work? I wouldn't say your views are worthless. I do say that you would benefit from pausing to consider whether perhaps the fact every teacher on this board is telling you your views are overly simplistic is a sign they might, in fact, be overly simplistic.
As an aside, I think I would say the real enemy of good education is dogmatism. 'This is what I think, so we'll do it and it will work.' As everyone child is different and so is every teacher and every school, such dogmatism is highly counterproductive. It's one of the big weaknesses with both OFSTED and the DfE that they do still see the scenario as 'our policies are right and you must follow them' and one reason why our school system struggles.
Well for a start I have never read a single book written by your bete noir Cummings and it was I earlier who pointed out what a liar he was over the NHS claim (which started all this discussion off).
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
Yes. Because they are.
How can I put this? I would far rather be answerable to parents than civil servants, because after all, they are the ones most concerned with what I'm doing. And parents, like you clearly do, who want the best for their children are both exacting and at the same time valuable as managers. Much easier to work with the children of such people because they know what they want and they're eager to get it.
However, what I do rather expect is that when parents have told me what it is they want, they will be guided by me as to the best way to achieve it. Because I have the knowledge, the experience and the skill set to get what they want for their child.
If they start telling me the correct process based on other factors, e.g. the newspapers, I tend to discount their views.
The irony is, I think you and I both want what's best for the nation's children, and you're clearly highly intelligent and well motivated. it's just I have the experience to make a more informed judgment than you do. That doesn't of course necessarily make me right, it just makes me more likely to be right.
On the subject of Cummings, a poster once told me that exam board choice should be abolished based on Cummings' views as expressed in his book. I thought it was you. If not, I apologise and withdraw that remark.
No I can honestly say that wasn't me. I don't begin to understand the exam board stuff but have never been bothered enough about it to find out as I always assumed they would all be working to a similar level give or take.
Then I am sorry I confused you with another poster.
It is a lot more complicated than that, although I have to say I find myself in agreement with Cummings (having actually worked for them) that exam boards are something of a monstrosity. His proposed solution however would have been much worse.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
This does not match either my direct experience nor the comments I see from others here.
Which year is your son in, if you don't mind me asking?
GCSE option classes and A Level groups in schools can be very small, which would drag the average down.
Whether that's good news resource management is an excellent question!
Year 11. Doing his mocks next week.
Fair enough. May he get the appropriate balance of affirmation and backside-kicking that he needs from his mock exams.
Doing my best with that but I fear he is too much like me. I loved school and learning but was never better than a very average student. If he copies my O level 'success' then he is in trouble because, unlike me, it won't be enough to get him into the 6th form. Currently it is borderline but I hope that between now and May when he does his GCSEs we can get him up enough to get him over the line.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
Such as? (And don't quote Cummings as a source, please. He makes David Irving look honest.)
I agree with you to an extent about the anti-elitism, but that actually comes more from the civil service and the managers than from ordinary teachers. We respect bright people.
As for the lowest common denominator, again that is a function of the National Curriculum and - ironically - the grammar schools for all process, which was a civil service invention under first Wilson, carried on through Callaghan and then finally came to fruition under Thatcher.
I think it's easier to blame teachers than ask the really difficult question - if it's their fault, why have people ostensibly in power for so many years let them get away with it?
Because they had power. Because they should be listened to as the people delivering the education at the sharp end but when they were given that power and listened to they misused that power for ideological ends (note, as I said in my previous comment I am referring to teaching organisations rather than individual teachers).
If this is all the fault of Cummings and Gove then why did the UK PISA rankings drop from 7th in the world in 2000 to 26th in the world in 2009? At a time when Labour were supposedly spending lots more money on education? Our rankings had actually improved substantially between 2015 and 2018 - a time when teachers were decrying all the curriculum changes that were taking place.
Education is a mess and that is the fault of decades of anti-elitism and ideology. But teaching organisations bear a great deal of responsibility for that alongside the civil servants and politicians.
Read my previous comment. I didn't blame Cummings and Gove. I said they accelerated it. The big problem with the two of them is they did exactly what the DfE wanted while being fooled into thinking they were doing the opposite. Our rankings, in any case, are more about priorities. Cummings and Gove buggered every other subject for a short term gain in maths, essentially. It didn't last and because they didn't understand what they were doing or address the fundamentals it was never going to.
As for your last comment, that's pure prejudice. It's like saying the current state of the oil industry is because the HSE prizes lives over accidents. The reason it is a mess, ironically, is precisely because of that sort of attitude.
The rankings I am referring to cover Maths, reading and science, not just maths alone.
And the current very good state of the Oil Industry is exactly because we (and the authorities) prize lives over accidents. The transformation of the oil industry post Piper Alpha and the Cullen report has made the industry safer, more technologically advanced, more profitable and more successful. Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you all those things have come about exactly because we have put safety first and above all other things and have developed an attitude of elitism and intolerance to poor performance and lowest common denominator practices. Governments could learn a hell of a lot from the oil industry when it comes to radical improvement.
And out of curiosity, did you achieve this improvement by listening to the people working in the industry or by civil servants and accountants who used the oil?
First and foremost it was imposed on the industry through changes to the statutory authorities, giving them far more power and massively increasing the legislative control over every aspect of the industry. You don't really think oil companies would have agreed to it without it first being imposed by the Government do you?
Setting strict controls which are backed up by prosecution and where companies can and are prevented from operating if they don't meet the standards demanded has meant that we have seen massive improvements in both safety and environmental controls. And once that was imposed and the companies found that working within those rules they could actually get much better performance as organisations (having been dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation) it is now such an integral part of what we do that I find it almost impossible to imagine not doing things that way.
Where did you get the information from to impose those standards?
I want you to imagine that the same thing had happened. But the standards were written by a second hand car salesman in Plymouth, with input from all his mates. While drunk. And that the priority was not to save lives, but to ensure the aforesaid mates got good headlines and cushy numbers in Whitehall. And then, having written them, they refused any change even when their ideas of dressing everyone in clown suits and padded jackets had failed to make a difference.
At this point, you will begin to have some idea of what it is like to work in education.
I have never lectured you on oil rigs because I know nothing about them. I know they're difficult and dangerous places to work and you need high qualifications and lots of experience to thrive in that scenario. I use oil (far more than I want to at the moment) but I've no idea how to extract it and I'm content to leave it to the professionals.
Out of curiosity why do you think your views on education as a parent and somebody who's read a couple of books, one written by a notorious liar, are more meaningful than those of people who work in it, to the extent that you can lecture us on what does or doesn't work? I wouldn't say your views are worthless. I do say that you would benefit from pausing to consider whether perhaps the fact every teacher on this board is telling you your views are overly simplistic is a sign they might, in fact, be overly simplistic.
As an aside, I think I would say the real enemy of good education is dogmatism. 'This is what I think, so we'll do it and it will work.' As everyone child is different and so is every teacher and every school, such dogmatism is highly counterproductive. It's one of the big weaknesses with both OFSTED and the DfE that they do still see the scenario as 'our policies are right and you must follow them' and one reason why our school system struggles.
Well for a start I have never read a single book written by your bete noir Cummings and it was I earlier who pointed out what a liar he was over the NHS claim (which started all this discussion off).
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
Yes. Because they are.
How can I put this? I would far rather be answerable to parents than civil servants, because after all, they are the ones most concerned with what I'm doing. And parents, like you clearly do, who want the best for their children are both exacting and at the same time valuable as managers. Much easier to work with the children of such people because they know what they want and they're eager to get it.
However, what I do rather expect is that when parents have told me what it is they want, they will be guided by me as to the best way to achieve it. Because I have the knowledge, the experience and the skill set to get what they want for their child.
If they start telling me the correct process based on other factors, e.g. the newspapers, I tend to discount their views.
The irony is, I think you and I both want what's best for the nation's children, and you're clearly highly intelligent and well motivated. it's just I have the experience to make a more informed judgment than you do. That doesn't of course necessarily make me right, it just makes me more likely to be right.
On the subject of Cummings, a poster once told me that exam board choice should be abolished based on Cummings' views as expressed in his book. I thought it was you. If not, I apologise and withdraw that remark.
No I can honestly say that wasn't me. I don't begin to understand the exam board stuff but have never been bothered enough about it to find out as I always assumed they would all be working to a similar level give or take.
Then I am sorry I confused you with another poster.
It is a lot more complicated than that, although I have to say I find myself in agreement with Cummings (having actually worked for them) that exam boards are something of a monstrosity. His proposed solution however would have been much worse.
At some point I will have to take a look at it but right now, with my son right in the middle of it all, I think it would just annoy me.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
Such as? (And don't quote Cummings as a source, please. He makes David Irving look honest.)
I agree with you to an extent about the anti-elitism, but that actually comes more from the civil service and the managers than from ordinary teachers. We respect bright people.
As for the lowest common denominator, again that is a function of the National Curriculum and - ironically - the grammar schools for all process, which was a civil service invention under first Wilson, carried on through Callaghan and then finally came to fruition under Thatcher.
I think it's easier to blame teachers than ask the really difficult question - if it's their fault, why have people ostensibly in power for so many years let them get away with it?
Because they had power. Because they should be listened to as the people delivering the education at the sharp end but when they were given that power and listened to they misused that power for ideological ends (note, as I said in my previous comment I am referring to teaching organisations rather than individual teachers).
If this is all the fault of Cummings and Gove then why did the UK PISA rankings drop from 7th in the world in 2000 to 26th in the world in 2009? At a time when Labour were supposedly spending lots more money on education? Our rankings had actually improved substantially between 2015 and 2018 - a time when teachers were decrying all the curriculum changes that were taking place.
Education is a mess and that is the fault of decades of anti-elitism and ideology. But teaching organisations bear a great deal of responsibility for that alongside the civil servants and politicians.
Read my previous comment. I didn't blame Cummings and Gove. I said they accelerated it. The big problem with the two of them is they did exactly what the DfE wanted while being fooled into thinking they were doing the opposite. Our rankings, in any case, are more about priorities. Cummings and Gove buggered every other subject for a short term gain in maths, essentially. It didn't last and because they didn't understand what they were doing or address the fundamentals it was never going to.
As for your last comment, that's pure prejudice. It's like saying the current state of the oil industry is because the HSE prizes lives over accidents. The reason it is a mess, ironically, is precisely because of that sort of attitude.
The rankings I am referring to cover Maths, reading and science, not just maths alone.
And the current very good state of the Oil Industry is exactly because we (and the authorities) prize lives over accidents. The transformation of the oil industry post Piper Alpha and the Cullen report has made the industry safer, more technologically advanced, more profitable and more successful. Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you all those things have come about exactly because we have put safety first and above all other things and have developed an attitude of elitism and intolerance to poor performance and lowest common denominator practices. Governments could learn a hell of a lot from the oil industry when it comes to radical improvement.
And out of curiosity, did you achieve this improvement by listening to the people working in the industry or by civil servants and accountants who used the oil?
First and foremost it was imposed on the industry through changes to the statutory authorities, giving them far more power and massively increasing the legislative control over every aspect of the industry. You don't really think oil companies would have agreed to it without it first being imposed by the Government do you?
Setting strict controls which are backed up by prosecution and where companies can and are prevented from operating if they don't meet the standards demanded has meant that we have seen massive improvements in both safety and environmental controls. And once that was imposed and the companies found that working within those rules they could actually get much better performance as organisations (having been dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation) it is now such an integral part of what we do that I find it almost impossible to imagine not doing things that way.
Where did you get the information from to impose those standards?
I want you to imagine that the same thing had happened. But the standards were written by a second hand car salesman in Plymouth, with input from all his mates. While drunk. And that the priority was not to save lives, but to ensure the aforesaid mates got good headlines and cushy numbers in Whitehall. And then, having written them, they refused any change even when their ideas of dressing everyone in clown suits and padded jackets had failed to make a difference.
At this point, you will begin to have some idea of what it is like to work in education.
I have never lectured you on oil rigs because I know nothing about them. I know they're difficult and dangerous places to work and you need high qualifications and lots of experience to thrive in that scenario. I use oil (far more than I want to at the moment) but I've no idea how to extract it and I'm content to leave it to the professionals.
Out of curiosity why do you think your views on education as a parent and somebody who's read a couple of books, one written by a notorious liar, are more meaningful than those of people who work in it, to the extent that you can lecture us on what does or doesn't work? I wouldn't say your views are worthless. I do say that you would benefit from pausing to consider whether perhaps the fact every teacher on this board is telling you your views are overly simplistic is a sign they might, in fact, be overly simplistic.
As an aside, I think I would say the real enemy of good education is dogmatism. 'This is what I think, so we'll do it and it will work.' As everyone child is different and so is every teacher and every school, such dogmatism is highly counterproductive. It's one of the big weaknesses with both OFSTED and the DfE that they do still see the scenario as 'our policies are right and you must follow them' and one reason why our school system struggles.
Well for a start I have never read a single book written by your bete noir Cummings and it was I earlier who pointed out what a liar he was over the NHS claim (which started all this discussion off).
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
Yes. Because they are.
How can I put this? I would far rather be answerable to parents than civil servants, because after all, they are the ones most concerned with what I'm doing. And parents, like you clearly do, who want the best for their children are both exacting and at the same time valuable as managers. Much easier to work with the children of such people because they know what they want and they're eager to get it.
However, what I do rather expect is that when parents have told me what it is they want, they will be guided by me as to the best way to achieve it. Because I have the knowledge, the experience and the skill set to get what they want for their child.
If they start telling me the correct process based on other factors, e.g. the newspapers, I tend to discount their views.
The irony is, I think you and I both want what's best for the nation's children, and you're clearly highly intelligent and well motivated. it's just I have the experience to make a more informed judgment than you do. That doesn't of course necessarily make me right, it just makes me more likely to be right.
On the subject of Cummings, a poster once told me that exam board choice should be abolished based on Cummings' views as expressed in his book. I thought it was you. If not, I apologise and withdraw that remark.
No I can honestly say that wasn't me. I don't begin to understand the exam board stuff but have never been bothered enough about it to find out as I always assumed they would all be working to a similar level give or take.
Then I am sorry I confused you with another poster.
It is a lot more complicated than that, although I have to say I find myself in agreement with Cummings (having actually worked for them) that exam boards are something of a monstrosity. His proposed solution however would have been much worse.
At some point I will have to take a look at it but right now, with my son right in the middle of it all, I think it would just annoy me.
I think you're very wise. Because it would.
I actually just abandoned a longer comment on it because I didn't want to give you or him anything else to think about right now.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
Writing's on the wall which is why tory MPs are getting out. 15 years in the wilderness isn't where these bright young things are at.
It doesn't matter how long the tories try to procrastinate, the cull will be the same. Indeed, if they're seen to run too long into 2024 that in itself will generate a further tawdry meme: that they're clinging on in desperation against the wishes of the people. Major tried it in 1997 with an absurdly long election campaign.
The only question is how big the Labour majority will go.
On this story, I can understand why the state acts abominably - it is increasingly in its nature to do so; but why has a university compounded the outrage by acting by the letter of some rules? That bit is odd. You would think a decent uni would be rolling out the red carpet.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
Sadly, the article doesn't say whether Operation Get Tough will work, though there are strong hints that Sunak is being forced to make promises on Europe and immigration that will be hard to deliver.
Oh, and that sleaze might force a by-election in a strongly Leave area.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
So the idea was that Remain would say “It’s not 350m, it’s only 280m”? When Leave could have said “280m” and been correct? What would have been the refutation?
Basically Remain couldn’t help themselves because they loved to point out that leavers were wrong. And the leave campaign used that.
It’s was actually 360.
The figure of £350m a week was based on official Treasury figures for Britain’s gross contribution to the EU budget for 2014, that figure was £18.8bn, so would work out closer to £360m a week by my maths. Also to be further fair to the leave campaign poster on the bus, £18.8b leave used for the calculation was actually under the highest we have paid, they didn’t pick on the highest contribution!
Remoaners would be a bit right to say though that £18.8b = £360M a week is a gross figure, ignoring the fact that a good deal of this money comes back to Britain to produce a net figure. The week the poster was launched I remember someone called Shirley on Broadcasting House getting very very worked up about it when arguing with The Lord Howard. My Dad thought a net figure would be more honest too.
To start with there was still some of Maggies rebate Blair missed, rebate reduced Britain’s 2014 contribution from £18.8bn to £14.4bn. There were further billions to Britain mostly spent on payments to farmers (not us i don’t think) and landowners, or some deemed poorest regions of the UK also got EU funds reducing Britain’s 2014 contribution down to about £9.8bn - £10B a year was a more accurate figure for UK annual NET contribution to the EU as on average is what our regular NET contribution had been in lead up to the referendum.
It sounded a lot of money on the side of the bus, but in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn. The total EU public expenditure in the same year was only around £118bn, so our contribution to EU was about 0.6 per cent of our national income.
But that was then, here’s the new twist. in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn, It is now 1 Trillion. Is this a brilliant uplift and fantastic Brexit dividend or not 🙂 It’s come from the 0.6 of our National Income we have stopped giving the EU? Or Brexiteers in government throwing money around to achieve Brexit promises using government borrowing and high taxes?
If the uplift to 1 Trillion is so brilliant, why was Truss and her supporters so angry about it? 🤷♀️
On this story, I can understand why the state acts abominably - it is increasingly in its nature to do so; but why has a university compounded the outrage by acting by the letter of some rules? That bit is odd. You would think a decent uni would be rolling out the red carpet.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
On this story, I can understand why the state acts abominably - it is increasingly in its nature to do so; but why has a university compounded the outrage by acting by the letter of some rules? That bit is odd. You would think a decent uni would be rolling out the red carpet.
One does wonder. Probably frightened of HMG - remember unis are penalised on the drop of a tickbox, and that cutoff date is imposed by HMG.
'Asked why the university had not held Khadka’s place open for him in the exceptional circumstances, the spokeswoman said that it had been required to report all non-enrolments to the government on 17 October. “On this date, Sulav was still in detention in a holding facility and we understood that he was being returned to Nepal,” she said. She added that starting the course late was “not in a student’s interests”.'
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
HMS Clap HMS Boner HMS Knobjockey
So good to see Gavin Williamson's time as Defence Secretary commemorated.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
HMS Clap HMS Boner HMS Knobjockey
So good to see Gavin Williamson's time as Defence Secretary commemorated.
What would his time as education secretary rate? HMS Clusterfuck?
Writing's on the wall which is why tory MPs are getting out. 15 years in the wilderness isn't where these bright young things are at.
It doesn't matter how long the tories try to procrastinate, the cull will be the same. Indeed, if they're seen to run too long into 2024 that in itself will generate a further tawdry meme: that they're clinging on in desperation against the wishes of the people. Major tried it in 1997 with an absurdly long election campaign.
The only question is how big the Labour majority will go.
I get the feeling you are teeing up an I Predicted This In November 2022 And Everybody Laughed At Me campaign for 2024/5. For the record, everyone agrees the tories are in serious trouble, you are not alone in remembering the mid to late 90s, and there are similarities. And differences.
I see that another institution is described as "institutionally misogynist and racist" with "decades of avoidance" of the issues.
"The level of prejudice against women is dangerous".
Nazis Azfal wrote the report about the London Fire Brigade. Interviewed on Channel 4, he said that other organisations need to do a similar review, that he thinks prejudice against women is like a "pandemic" within society.
Well, yes.
Perhaps if people in positions of power had listened to women for years, instead of dismissing their concerns .....
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
HMS Clap HMS Boner HMS Knobjockey
So good to see Gavin Williamson's time as Defence Secretary commemorated.
What would his time as education secretary rate? HMS Clusterfuck?
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
HMS Clap HMS Boner HMS Knobjockey
So good to see Gavin Williamson's time as Defence Secretary commemorated.
What would his time as education secretary rate? HMS Clusterfuck?
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
HMS Clap HMS Boner HMS Knobjockey
So good to see Gavin Williamson's time as Defence Secretary commemorated.
What would his time as education secretary rate? HMS Clusterfuck?
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
So the idea was that Remain would say “It’s not 350m, it’s only 280m”? When Leave could have said “280m” and been correct? What would have been the refutation?
Basically Remain couldn’t help themselves because they loved to point out that leavers were wrong. And the leave campaign used that.
It’s was actually 360.
The figure of £350m a week was based on official Treasury figures for Britain’s gross contribution to the EU budget for 2014, that figure was £18.8bn, so would work out closer to £360m a week by my maths. Also to be further fair to the leave campaign poster on the bus, £18.8b leave used for the calculation was actually under the highest we have paid, they didn’t pick on the highest contribution!
Remoaners would be a bit right to say though that £18.8b = £360M a week is a gross figure, ignoring the fact that a good deal of this money comes back to Britain to produce a net figure. The week the poster was launched I remember someone called Shirley on Broadcasting House getting very very worked up about it when arguing with The Lord Howard. My Dad thought a net figure would be more honest too.
To start with there was still some of Maggies rebate Blair missed, rebate reduced Britain’s 2014 contribution from £18.8bn to £14.4bn. There were further billions to Britain mostly spent on payments to farmers (not us i don’t think) and landowners, or some deemed poorest regions of the UK also got EU funds reducing Britain’s 2014 contribution down to about £9.8bn - £10B a year was a more accurate figure for UK annual NET contribution to the EU as on average is what our regular NET contribution had been in lead up to the referendum.
It sounded a lot of money on the side of the bus, but in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn. The total EU public expenditure in the same year was only around £118bn, so our contribution to EU was about 0.6 per cent of our national income.
But that was then, here’s the new twist. in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn, It is now 1 Trillion. Is this a brilliant uplift and fantastic Brexit dividend or not 🙂 It’s come from the 0.6 of our National Income we have stopped giving the EU? Or Brexiteers in government throwing money around to achieve Brexit promises using government borrowing and high taxes?
If the uplift to 1 Trillion is so brilliant, why was Truss and her supporters so angry about it? 🤷♀️
The argument against the £350 million was not because of what we get back. It was because the rebate part of that figure never actually left the UK. We never paid £18.8 billion nor were we liable to do so. We paid £14.6 billion. What we got back in terms of grants etc was irrelevant. You don't calculate tax paid based on how much you get back in education, police, NHS etc.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
I know Cummings argument but I think that is just him justifying the lie after the event.
Well, that is his normal modus operandi and has been for years.
Is this the moment to talk about his - ummm - impact on education again ?
Only if you are willing to discuss why our education system has been failing compared to many others for decades (and long before Cummings came along).
I'm perfectly happy to discuss how the incompetent and complacent meddling of civil servants arrogating more and more power to themselves and making a shambles of everything due to their stupidity, and the self-aggrandisement of failed teachers like say, Chris Woodhead have led over many decades via the accelerations brought about by Cummings, Friedman, Gove, Morgan, Gibb and Spielman, to the current clusterfuck.
And how about the self importance of some influential teacher's organisations who have, for decades, put ideology ahead of the best interests of the children. The anti-elitism that infects every corner of the teaching profession and which we as both former pupils and now parents still see rampant in our schools. Our whole state education sector has been based for the last 40 years on the principle of equality through lowest common denominator.
You choose to lay the blame on one side of the equation whilst conveniently forgetting the other side. I see the blame (more or less) equally on both sides.
As somebody who worked in 14-19 education throughout my career, I've two objections to your comment:
1. Anti-elitism doesn't "infect every corner of the teaching profession". Far from it. Most state school and college teachers, to give one example, are immensely proud when they get kids into Oxbridge and other 'elite' HE institutions. Many are, however, against privilege by accident of birth.
2. For 40 years, you say, our education sector has been based on "the principle of equality through lowest common denominator". That's also inaccurate. If you'd written "equality of opportunity" then you may have a point. But equality? That's for the birds; there's no notion of equality underpinning any of our education or examination system. Equality of opportunity, however, seems a noble cause.
And yet it is that 'for the birds' policy that the teaching organisations have pursued in defence of their ideology. Just go and look at the stated policy of the NEU right now - they are opposed to streaming and setting because "Setting and streaming can exacerbate inequalities and hold back disadvantaged pupils."
1. The NEU doesn't necessarily reflect what teachers do or think.
2. Actually, the NEU is right in saying that 'setting and streaming can ...... hold back disadvantaged pupils'. This was more commonplace some years ago, when the 'bottom' sets/streams were frequently allocated all the worst teachers, with predictable, self-fulfilling consequences.
1. I have consistently said teacher's organisations not teachers. And the NEU is the largest teacher's organisation out there.
2. The NEU opposes streaming as a matter of policy. It explicitly prioritises equality over excellence.
Elitism should not be a dirty word in teaching any more than it is in sport or the military. Equality should not be the overwhelming guiding principle of everything because, as you already said, it is unattainable and, as I have already said, these days the way it is pushed usually leads to a race to the bottom.
The point is setting and streaming doesn't necessarily promote excellence ahead of equality. It can do, if used at the right time and in the right way. But very often it's actually anti-elitist because it leaves you with the ablest children in very large classes where they get much less attention from the teacher. (There is a reason why the statisticians of the DfE insist you get better results from large classes, and that is it.)
Setting and not setting both have significant drawbacks, as well as benefits. It is true that the NEU does have a view on the subject that is dogmatic for no very good reason, but ultimately they are irrelevant. I've been a union activist, a timetabler and somebody who decided who went in what group. I can assure you my union's wishes never entered into my head when I was doing it.
Ultimately, as long as we see 30 as about the right size for a class, it is to a great degree irrelevant as to who we have in it. We will continue to have a state education system that underperforms.
I agree with you about class sizes. And the question I ask now is not in any way to refute either your claims about class sizes nor their effects. I have seen myself the class sizes in schools of my kids so know what you are talking about is correct. So the question I ask is a genuine one about a massive discrepancy between what is being widely reported and what seems to me (and you and other teachers) to be the reality.
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
This does not match either my direct experience nor the comments I see from others here.
Which year is your son in, if you don't mind me asking?
GCSE option classes and A Level groups in schools can be very small, which would drag the average down.
Whether that's good news resource management is an excellent question!
Does anyone know if there's a similar imbalance in say, France? I believe their choice is much more circumscribed so you don't have the same variation.
But then, you have a whole different culture and ethos in their system anyway.
This was what I went to try and look at. But given the numbers for UK class sizes are so warped from my perception (and apparently others) I am not sure of what value to place on the numbers for other countries. At face value the UK class sizes are somewhat below average but that doesn't seem to match with reality on the ground.
I remember looking at the OECD data on class sizes a while back and while UK state secondary school classes are pretty normal on average our primary school classes of 30 or so are much bigger than normal.
I see that another institution is described as "institutionally misogynist and racist" with "decades of avoidance" of the issues.
"The level of prejudice against women is dangerous".
Nazis Azfal wrote the report about the London Fire Brigade. Interviewed on Channel 4, he said that other organisations need to do a similar review, that he thinks prejudice against women is like a "pandemic" within society.
Well, yes.
Perhaps if people in positions of power had listened to women for years, instead of dismissing their concerns .....
That would have meant admitting women are thinking creatures who might deserve to have their views listened to.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
Thank goodness your condition doesn't require Mercury.
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
{HMS Pansy, HMS Virile, HMS Teaser, HMS Tickler, HMS Thruster, HMS Thrasher, HMS Flirt and HMS Cockchafer have entered the chat}
Well, whatever the known facts the use of him as part of myth making is not useful.
When I become the country’s first directly elected dictator one of my earliest decrees will be to make sure we honour Cromwell properly.
So build a modest staue in a ditch? He was pretty awful. Sort of Blair-like, but nowhere near the horror of Boris and Brown.
Hasn't the Protector got one in Parliament Square already?
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
Yes.
PS I think it was @Malmesbury who was telling us the story of W. Churchill (when First Lord of the Admiralty) trying to get a dreadnought name of HMS Cromwell past the Royal eye and KGV not letting that slip by.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
Yup - Churchill lost that one. KGV as a sailor, nixed HMS Pitt as well. On the grounds that every single sailor would refer to HMS Sh*t.
The RN seems to have survived several centuries of Shithead Reviews, not to mention HMS Herpes* and the entire *unt class of destroyers.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
Thank goodness your condition doesn't require Mercury.
I see that another institution is described as "institutionally misogynist and racist" with "decades of avoidance" of the issues.
"The level of prejudice against women is dangerous".
Nazis Azfal wrote the report about the London Fire Brigade. Interviewed on Channel 4, he said that other organisations need to do a similar review, that he thinks prejudice against women is like a "pandemic" within society.
Well, yes.
Perhaps if people in positions of power had listened to women for years, instead of dismissing their concerns .....
That would have meant admitting women are thinking creatures who might deserve to have their views listened to.
Hope your trip to America was fruitful.
That would have meant admitting women are thinking creatures who might deserve to have their views listened to.
The most likely Election date is probably mid-October 2024. If so, we are now as near to Polling Day as to the first week of 2021. That was the time of Lockdown 3 - and when talk of vaccines was in the air. Much has changed since those days.
If I were playing the happy europhile game c.2008-2011 I would point out that 'Europe' is at least 10th on this list under a generous interpretation, and probably lower, and therefore "no-one cares about Europe" - as dozens of thread headers argued at the time.
But, that would be churlish - so I won't.
I guess that’s before NHS buses. Would it be churlish to mention the NHS hasn’t seen the extra £350m a week it was promised?
I think the NHS has had more than a 350 million a week increase since the EU ref ?
Yep they have.
Not convinced by the causal link though. I argued at the time of the referendum it was a false figure to be quoting and never understood why they used it when the real figure of £280 million a week was bad enough. Just made a rod for their own backs.
I though the reason was well known. Cummings has gone on about the theory and practice enough.
Yes, the £350 million was false, but it could only be rebutted by talking about other large figures, making the point Vote Leave wanted made.
Appalling dishonesty, but excellent practical vote winning. We'll never know if that was what tipped the balance.
So the idea was that Remain would say “It’s not 350m, it’s only 280m”? When Leave could have said “280m” and been correct? What would have been the refutation?
Basically Remain couldn’t help themselves because they loved to point out that leavers were wrong. And the leave campaign used that.
It’s was actually 360.
The figure of £350m a week was based on official Treasury figures for Britain’s gross contribution to the EU budget for 2014, that figure was £18.8bn, so would work out closer to £360m a week by my maths. Also to be further fair to the leave campaign poster on the bus, £18.8b leave used for the calculation was actually under the highest we have paid, they didn’t pick on the highest contribution!
Remoaners would be a bit right to say though that £18.8b = £360M a week is a gross figure, ignoring the fact that a good deal of this money comes back to Britain to produce a net figure. The week the poster was launched I remember someone called Shirley on Broadcasting House getting very very worked up about it when arguing with The Lord Howard. My Dad thought a net figure would be more honest too.
To start with there was still some of Maggies rebate Blair missed, rebate reduced Britain’s 2014 contribution from £18.8bn to £14.4bn. There were further billions to Britain mostly spent on payments to farmers (not us i don’t think) and landowners, or some deemed poorest regions of the UK also got EU funds reducing Britain’s 2014 contribution down to about £9.8bn - £10B a year was a more accurate figure for UK annual NET contribution to the EU as on average is what our regular NET contribution had been in lead up to the referendum.
It sounded a lot of money on the side of the bus, but in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn. The total EU public expenditure in the same year was only around £118bn, so our contribution to EU was about 0.6 per cent of our national income.
But that was then, here’s the new twist. in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn, It is now 1 Trillion. Is this a brilliant uplift and fantastic Brexit dividend or not 🙂 It’s come from the 0.6 of our National Income we have stopped giving the EU? Or Brexiteers in government throwing money around to achieve Brexit promises using government borrowing and high taxes?
If the uplift to 1 Trillion is so brilliant, why was Truss and her supporters so angry about it? 🤷♀️
The argument against the £350 million was not because of what we get back. It was because the rebate part of that figure never actually left the UK. We never paid £18.8 billion nor were we liable to do so. We paid £14.6 billion. What we got back in terms of grants etc was irrelevant. You don't calculate tax paid based on how much you get back in education, police, NHS etc.
It’s not often you are wrong On Brexit Richard, but if you want to die in a ditch over its 14.6 net not 10bn net, it’s not just me, I got it from the ONS.
Probably because is not a case of what you get back through investing in police, education, NHS - this was coming back in actual hand outs and funding, so can be used to calculate down from the £14.6bn to the £10bn net?
Writing's on the wall which is why tory MPs are getting out. 15 years in the wilderness isn't where these bright young things are at.
It doesn't matter how long the tories try to procrastinate, the cull will be the same. Indeed, if they're seen to run too long into 2024 that in itself will generate a further tawdry meme: that they're clinging on in desperation against the wishes of the people. Major tried it in 1997 with an absurdly long election campaign.
The only question is how big the Labour majority will go.
I get the feeling you are teeing up an I Predicted This In November 2022 And Everybody Laughed At Me campaign for 2024/5. For the record, everyone agrees the tories are in serious trouble, you are not alone in remembering the mid to late 90s, and there are similarities. And differences.
Good evening
There at least three dangers for labour in complacency, arrogance, and hubris which we see in @Heathener posts
It looks odds on Starmer will be be the next PM but I expect he would warn against these three
The most likely Election date is probably mid-October 2024. If so, we are now as near to Polling Day as to the first week of 2021. That was the time of Lockdown 3 - and when talk of vaccines was in the air. Much has changed since those days.
Indeed and it's been an extraordinary journey since the last election less than three years ago.
So much has happened - so much of it unforeseeable. It has been a truly extraordinary time.
The ramifications of the events of 2020-22 will be with us for a considerable time..
Comments
Why is it that all the statistics and reports I am looking at (I went looking for class numbers for other countries as part of this ongoing discussion) are saying that average secondary class sizes are around 20-23 in the UK and thus below many other International levels? My son is at the local Grammar school and I don't think any of his class sizes are that low.
https://eenee.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EENEE_AR33.pdf (average secondary school class size 19)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1078267/students-per-class-in-europe/ (average class size 23)
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/25/england-class-sizes-largest-in-nearly-20-years (average class size 22)
This does not match either my direct experience nor the comments I see from others here.
But personally, I'm far too fond of my teeth to say that to an Irish person.
My only concern regarding exceptionally gifted students would be whether the school had the expertise available to teach them.
All this rubbish goes back to the energy crisis, which carries with it the lion's share of inflation. Our action on Russia is at least partly responsible, but even if you argue that such action has been unavoidable, it has been compounded by the utter failure to do anything to increase domestic energy supply.
He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor and successor in some ways, though that would not always be very hard. And his son didn't try to maintain the Cromwellian dynasty by armed force.
When is the dastardly plan going to happen?
So we have a choice: reduce the money supply (which should help with inflation) at the cost of other spending choices
And whereas you have never set foot on an oil rig, all of us have spent a large amount of our lives in and out of schools for one reason or another and have had to deal directly with the system rather than simply with its products. So, I don't claim I know more but I do claim I know what I have experienced both as a student and a parent (including the unhappy experience of dealing with schools whilst part of a PTA).
In the end, you are the one who has to account for the poor performance of the education system as someone who is actually delivering it, and claiming it is all about the civil servants and politicians when many of us have seen the poor standards of teaching and the actions of the teaching organisations at first hand does not endear us to your arguments. Note it is not I who is claiming it is 'all about teachers' but it is you who is using the excuse of it being entirely the fault of a series of people you happen to personally dislike and are happy to blame by name.
There is BTW a HMS Protector - Antarctic survey ship; name's been used for survey etc ships for centuries. Original one was a fifth rate ship of the line c. 1750, rather confusingly serving in India as the same time as the Hon'ble Company's Ship Protector. So I am not sure that Oliver had anything to do with that name, unless WSC's Whiggish views were breaking out early.
I really like the fact that Charles III has taken on the challenge. Dire though his other actions seem to have been.
How can I put this? I would far rather be answerable to parents than civil servants, because after all, they are the ones most concerned with what I'm doing. And parents, like you clearly do, who want the best for their children are both exacting and at the same time valuable as managers. Much easier to work with the children of such people because they know what they want and they're eager to get it.
However, what I do rather expect is that when parents have told me what it is they want, they will be guided by me as to the best way to achieve it. Because I have the knowledge, the experience and the skill set to get what they want for their child.
If they start telling me the correct process based on other factors, e.g. the newspapers, I tend to discount their views.
The irony is, I think you and I both want what's best for the nation's children, and you're clearly highly intelligent and well motivated. it's just I have the experience to make a more informed judgment than you do. That doesn't of course necessarily make me right, it just makes me more likely to be right.
On the subject of Cummings, a poster once told me that exam board choice should be abolished based on Cummings' views as expressed in his book. I thought it was you. If not, I apologise and withdraw that remark.
GCSE option classes and A Level groups in schools can be very small, which would drag the average down.
Whether that's good news resource management is an excellent question!
But then, you have a whole different culture and ethos in their system anyway.
It is a lot more complicated than that, although I have to say I find myself in agreement with Cummings (having actually worked for them) that exam boards are something of a monstrosity. His proposed solution however would have been much worse.
I actually just abandoned a longer comment on it because I didn't want to give you or him anything else to think about right now.
*1980s joke Doctor, I think I've got hermes
Surely you mean herpes?
No, i'm a carrier.
Writing's on the wall which is why tory MPs are getting out. 15 years in the wilderness isn't where these bright young things are at.
It doesn't matter how long the tories try to procrastinate, the cull will be the same. Indeed, if they're seen to run too long into 2024 that in itself will generate a further tawdry meme: that they're clinging on in desperation against the wishes of the people. Major tried it in 1997 with an absurdly long election campaign.
The only question is how big the Labour majority will go.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/26/treated-like-a-criminal-nepali-student-wrongly-detained-at-uk-border-loses-uni-place
And to be frank I think there is limited mileage in Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman trying to court the racist vote, for obvious reasons.
Oh, and that sleaze might force a by-election in a strongly Leave area.
Remoaners would be a bit right to say though that £18.8b = £360M a week is a gross figure, ignoring the fact that a good deal of this money comes back to Britain to produce a net figure. The week the poster was launched I remember someone called Shirley on Broadcasting House getting very very worked up about it when arguing with The Lord Howard. My Dad thought a net figure would be more honest too.
To start with there was still some of Maggies rebate Blair missed, rebate reduced Britain’s 2014 contribution from £18.8bn to £14.4bn. There were further billions to Britain mostly spent on payments to farmers (not us i don’t think) and landowners, or some deemed poorest regions of the UK also got EU funds reducing Britain’s 2014 contribution down to about £9.8bn - £10B a year was a more accurate figure for UK annual NET contribution to the EU as on average is what our regular NET contribution had been in lead up to the referendum.
It sounded a lot of money on the side of the bus, but in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn. The total EU public expenditure in the same year was only around £118bn, so our contribution to EU was about 0.6 per cent of our national income.
But that was then, here’s the new twist. in 2014-15 UK public spending was £735bn, It is now 1 Trillion. Is this a brilliant uplift and fantastic Brexit dividend or not 🙂
It’s come from the 0.6 of our National Income we have stopped giving the EU? Or Brexiteers in government throwing money around to achieve Brexit promises using government borrowing and high taxes?
If the uplift to 1 Trillion is so brilliant, why was Truss and her supporters so angry about it? 🤷♀️
You think the border force are c***s? You should try the bastards who deal with education visas.
'Asked why the university had not held Khadka’s place open for him in the exceptional circumstances, the spokeswoman said that it had been required to report all non-enrolments to the government on 17 October. “On this date, Sulav was still in detention in a holding facility and we understood that he was being returned to Nepal,” she said. She added that starting the course late was “not in a student’s interests”.'
"The level of prejudice against women is dangerous".
Nazis Azfal wrote the report about the London Fire Brigade. Interviewed on Channel 4, he said that other organisations need to do a similar review, that he thinks prejudice against women is like a "pandemic" within society.
Well, yes.
Perhaps if people in positions of power had listened to women for years, instead of dismissing their concerns .....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Tarantula
Hope your trip to America was fruitful.
Steady on, old chap!
Probably because is not a case of what you get back through investing in police, education, NHS - this was coming back in actual hand outs and funding, so can be used to calculate down from the £14.6bn to the £10bn net?
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-payments-idUKKBN1D01PS
And some would argue much much lower than even the 10bn net many leavers have now conceded
https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/
There at least three dangers for labour in complacency, arrogance, and hubris which we see in @Heathener posts
It looks odds on Starmer will be be the next PM but I expect he would warn against these three
And of course there are 'events' that come along
So much has happened - so much of it unforeseeable. It has been a truly extraordinary time.
The ramifications of the events of 2020-22 will be with us for a considerable time..