The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
You are going to have move a lot of civil servants - or at least their mindsets - to achieve that.
Speaking of moving civil servants, how's that rocket for the DfE coming along @Malmesbury ?
Just waiting to become unDictator first...
EDIT: the second POC - the manned landing by the entire of Parliament on Pluto - should not be ignored.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
It's impossible to do this in the UK, the idea that say 90% of the money spent on R&D will lead to nothing would kill it stone dead. We live in a country where people whine about money wasted on PPE, and in many cases are the very same people who screeched about getting PPE at any cost. It will only be a matter of time before we see complaints about money spent on vaccines that we never chose to use.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
One example which springs to mind is First Light Fusion. high risk - but incredibly high return should it pay off. They are building a pilot plant in Canada, partly because of funding.
Something happening at West Burton A along those lines I think.
The research is being done in the UK at the moment, but some is also being done in Canada. At some point, they will need serious money to take it to the next stage, and the risk is that the whole effort goes abroad.
Like, duh. This is apparent the moment he opens his mouth! (not saying this is a good or bad thing of course).
It's a bit worse than that.
Dave was posh in a noblesse oblige way, Boris was posh in a roistering boisterous way- the sort of posh bloke who the plebs adore.
Rishi is more upper upper upper middle class. Lots of money but with a side order of cultural cringe. Jabs at the wealth of Dave and Boris pinged off them somehow, whereas it's different for the current PM
It's interesting because you could probably make the same argument about Johnson being more from a middle class background. It's just that he created a kind of Bertie Wooster tribute act personality which, as you say, seems to have had a weird appeal to English working class people for reasons that somewhat elude me. Cameron is genuinely old money posh of course. Somehow Sunak's poshness works against him, which is how I always thought it would go.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
Like, duh. This is apparent the moment he opens his mouth! (not saying this is a good or bad thing of course).
It's a bit worse than that.
Dave was posh in a noblesse oblige way, Boris was posh in a roistering boisterous way- the sort of posh bloke who the plebs adore.
Rishi is more upper upper upper middle class. Lots of money but with a side order of cultural cringe. Jabs at the wealth of Dave and Boris pinged off them somehow, whereas it's different for the current PM
It's interesting because you could probably make the same argument about Johnson being more from a middle class background. It's just that he created a kind of Bertie Wooster tribute act personality which, as you say, seems to have had a weird appeal to English working class people for reasons that somewhat elude me. Cameron is genuinely old money posh of course. Somehow Sunak's poshness works against him, which is how I always thought it would go.
He makes them laugh.
A bit like Jessica's otherwise inexplicable infatuation for Roger Rabbit.
And to be fair, if he had stuck to comedy rather than trying politics he probably still would be enormously popular. He is a far better stand up and improv comedian than most of the professionals who make good money from it.
He's just epically shit at actually running things.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
It's impossible to do this in the UK, the idea that say 90% of the money spent on R&D will lead to nothing would kill it stone dead. We live in a country where people whine about money wasted on PPE, and in many cases are the very same people who screeched about getting PPE at any cost. It will only be a matter of time before we see complaints about money spent on vaccines that we never chose to use.
On PPE - the responses to my idea of non-disposable PPE have been, it's not how we do things, difficult etc.
Yet in a number of industries, non-disposable Personal Protective Equipment is routinely used, considered to be the high quality option etc.
The pervious issues with cleaning vs wear have been dealt with by advances in cleaning chemical materials. And even by making electronics so waterproof they can just be dumped in cleaning solutions.
If we get a truly airborne virus next time, the collection of odds and ends, full of gaps and hard to get on or off, that we give the medics now, will fail.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
We have separate research bodies outside of government, though.
There's absolutely no reason we couldn't do DARPA / ARPA-E analogues. What they do is contract out relatively small, very focused research projects to both universities and the private sector. It creates an industrial research base which isn't directly dependent on getting products to the market - but is aimed at high risk problems directly related to potentially marketable products.
In that context, failures are accepted along with the successes, and everyone benefits.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
Meanwhile, a relatatively tiny start-up was mastering re-usability, and getting the launch cost down to under $3,000/kg to LEO.
As the SLS project spent $20bn, in all 48 contiguous States of course, turning re-usable rocket engines into disposable ones.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
I think my point is rather, if after 12 years they are not getting it two additional years of more of the same is unlikely to make a difference either.
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
We have separate research bodies outside of government, though.
There's absolutely no reason we couldn't do DARPA / ARPA-E analogues. What they do is contract out relatively small, very focused research projects to both universities and the private sector. It creates an industrial research base which isn't directly dependent on getting products to the market - but is aimed at high risk problems directly related to potentially marketable products.
In that context, failures are accepted along with the successes, and everyone benefits.
The DARPA model is Government pays for the research and private companies reap the rewards.
Maybe not a bad thing in the round, but a tough sell for the politicians collecting the taxes to pay for it.
Xerox PARC generated billions of dollars for companies that were not Xerox...
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
Meanwhile, a relatatively tiny start-up was mastering re-usability, and getting the launch cost down to under $3,000/kg to LEO...
That does leave out the fact that Musk was able to use the expertise created by billions of prior government spending to do what he did.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
Meanwhile, a relatatively tiny start-up was mastering re-usability, and getting the launch cost down to under $3,000/kg to LEO.
As the SLS project spent $20bn, in all 48 contiguous States of course, turning re-usable rocket engines into disposable ones.
The NASA study was hypothetical NASA F9 vs SpaceX F9
It was Tom Mueller who pointed out that the Merlin rocket engine had *less * versions (about 20 distinct phases) to get to the development "plateau" that RR got to with the Merlin aircraft engine (the 60 series).
The idea that you can design the perfect solution, fund it, build the factory and roll a bunch of finished products out, without hardware iterations, is demonstrably false.
Wills rips Harry's necklace and Harry falls on top of the dog bowl. So Harry calls his therapist. Yet it is claimed that Meghan was suicidal but she was denied psychiatric help.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
I think my point is rather, if after 12 years they are not getting it two additional years of more of the same is unlikely to make a difference either.
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
Do both, of course. And into adulthood as well via literacy and numeracy courses.
Many years ago I listened to a scifi review podcast. I listened to a few episodes before I heard the host's backstory. He had not read a book until he was in his early twenties. He then met a girl who was into books, and he started to learn to read, and love reading. It seems he became rather obsessed.
Or I can mention one of my dad's workmen, a wonderful ex-jailbird. If I recall correctly, he learnt to read in prison, and it changed his life. We used to talk about Tom Clancy books whilst working. I think he went on to marry a teacher.
Learning simple skills such as reading, writing and maths can change adult lives.
I think this is wrong. Sunak's speech was effective in showing that he understood what is worrying people, and that's half the battle. The first poll after the speech will be interesting and should show the scope that the Conservatives have in recovering lost ground - especially the ex-Tory "don't knows".
No. The first poll after the speech will be on ’bring and buy sale’ of ambulances waiting outside hospitals, not the vapid speech.
Labour should borrow an old poster, turn the queue of people into ambulances with tag line “Tory’s are not working”
Labour and Lib Dems should focus their attack on fall in incomes - with the Tories painting themselves as tough on pay rises, they can easily own the fall in incomes for everyone as a deliberate Tory policy, in much the same way Marie Antoinette owned “let them eat cake”. Sunak’s big mistake doing hardline union bashing not negotiating and settling, will now haunt the Tories for generations and election after election.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
The guardrails are off ChatGPT this morning. Without that much coaxing, I got it to write ridiculous Woke opinion pieces and outrageous riffs on the Holocaust. Normally the first is tough and the second impossible
Does anyone else notice this? ChatGPT is volatile, and tho the tendency is to MORE censorship, sometimes it goes the other way
We have separate research bodies outside of government, though.
There's absolutely no reason we couldn't do DARPA / ARPA-E analogues. What they do is contract out relatively small, very focused research projects to both universities and the private sector. It creates an industrial research base which isn't directly dependent on getting products to the market - but is aimed at high risk problems directly related to potentially marketable products.
In that context, failures are accepted along with the successes, and everyone benefits.
The DARPA model is Government pays for the research and private companies reap the rewards.
Maybe not a bad thing in the round, but a tough sell for the politicians collecting the taxes to pay for it.
Xerox PARC generated billions of dollars for companies that were not Xerox...
Government has always funded research. It's shouldn't be a tough sell, since the amounts involved in any given project are pretty small, and the fail-fast model of DARPA means it's also a very effective way of funding product directed research, which gets quick results, without blowing vast amounts of money.
Far more efficient than (eg) the broad brush tax incentives that Rishi has played with.
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Wouldn't just be easier for us to declare war on the French, immediately surrender and then capitulate completely in the surrender negotiations. That surely gets us back into the EU.
The guardrails are off ChatGPT this morning. Without that much coaxing, I got it to write ridiculous Woke opinion pieces and outrageous riffs on the Holocaust. Normally the first is tough and the second impossible
Does anyone else notice this? ChatGPT is volatile, and tho the tendency is to MORE censorship, sometimes it goes the other way
It was annoyingly cagey yesterday. Not on naughty opinions but on its abilities to say anything about statistical trends in demographics and taxation. Even when I pointed it to world bank, OECD and UN data it wasn't having any of it. Kept saying it only has data up to 2021 and I kept reminding it I didn't need anything more recent.
Am I guilty of anthropomorphosing AI when I get the sense it becomes stubborn when repeatedly asked to do something it doesn't want to do whereas if I'd asked differently in the first place it would happily have obliged? That's been a regular experience. Once it says no, the AI's not for turning unless you really go round the houses.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Wills rips Harry's necklace and Harry falls on top of the dog bowl. So Harry calls his therapist. Yet it is claimed that Meghan was suicidal but she was denied psychiatric help.
Logical inconsistincies throughout, trashing his own brother for publicity and cash. After the coronation Charles should formally cut them both off, formally remove their HRHs and just leave it to working royals
"cut them both off"? I hope you're not referring to Harry's crown jewels?
HRHs referring to "hideously republican heads", too, I take it?
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
I think my point is rather, if after 12 years they are not getting it two additional years of more of the same is unlikely to make a difference either.
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
Do both, of course. And into adulthood as well via literacy and numeracy courses.
Many years ago I listened to a scifi review podcast. I listened to a few episodes before I heard the host's backstory. He had not read a book until he was in his early twenties. He then met a girl who was into books, and he started to learn to read, and love reading. It seems he became rather obsessed.
Or I can mention one of my dad's workmen, a wonderful ex-jailbird. If I recall correctly, he learnt to read in prison, and it changed his life. We used to talk about Tom Clancy books whilst working. I think he went on to marry a teacher.
Learning simple skills such as reading, writing and maths can change adult lives.
I agree. Indeed I said as much yesterday.
But this strikes me as a classic example of Politicians' Logic.
Edit - I would add no serious inquest will be undertaken into the current systemic failures because they are largely the fault of people still at the top of government including in the DfE itself. Which doesn't bode well in itself for any further changes.
Part of Labour's plan, Starmer says, is to give communities a chance to control their economic destiny.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
This is at least partly a Lisa Nandy project. She really believes in it but is being held back a little from the really radical stuff like fiscal devolution by others on the front benches.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
We have separate research bodies outside of government, though.
There's absolutely no reason we couldn't do DARPA / ARPA-E analogues. What they do is contract out relatively small, very focused research projects to both universities and the private sector. It creates an industrial research base which isn't directly dependent on getting products to the market - but is aimed at high risk problems directly related to potentially marketable products.
In that context, failures are accepted along with the successes, and everyone benefits.
Success is mandatory on government projects. I was told this by high flyer* at the Cabinet Office.
He said this with a completely straight face, as well.
*Not a low flyer sustained by occasional gusts of wind.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Reading comprehension is what has taken a noticeable dive. Not reading itself. But the ability to infer meaning from the text which isn't made absolutely explicit. I have a little theory it comes from Youtube watching during lockdown. It seems to be Year 8 and below.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
Military based - but has also spawned analogues in the US - like the energy version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E Which received a boost in funding form Biden's big spending bill.
All small projects, all short terms for quick results for particular problems - and sits in the gap between science research and industry product development, for stuff which otherwise doesn't get funding.
Indeed - but the problem is that the concept is antithetical to how government operates.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
We have separate research bodies outside of government, though.
There's absolutely no reason we couldn't do DARPA / ARPA-E analogues. What they do is contract out relatively small, very focused research projects to both universities and the private sector. It creates an industrial research base which isn't directly dependent on getting products to the market - but is aimed at high risk problems directly related to potentially marketable products.
In that context, failures are accepted along with the successes, and everyone benefits.
Success is mandatory on government projects. I was told this by high flyer* at the Cabinet Office.
He said this with a completely straight face, as well.
*Not a low flyer sustained by occasional gusts of wind.
When you say he was 'high,' was it his own supply or somebody else's?
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
I think more hands to the pump is a prerequisite to give the breathing space for reform. As commentators on Russia's cack-handed mobilisation said, while quality is better than quantity, there is nevertheless a quality in quantity.
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Wouldn't just be easier for us to declare war on the French, immediately surrender and then capitulate completely in the surrender negotiations. That surely gets us back into the EU.
That sounds like the Tory membership voting for whoever wasn’t Rishi Sunak, yet still ending up with him in charge.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
As I understand it the size of the pipe isn't as big of a problem as the blockage at the far end of the pipe. Though we could do probably do with more of our current GPs working full time, or at least a bit more of the time.
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Wouldn't just be easier for us to declare war on the French, immediately surrender and then capitulate completely in the surrender negotiations. That surely gets us back into the EU.
What about just conquering France (failed state due to the treatment of migrants plus they have oil) and merging it back into the Angevin Empire?
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
It just sounds like very woolly thinking, along the lines of "There is a numeracy problem, so make everyone study maths until 18". Why make anyone study anything until 18, if they have already achieved sufficient competence for everyday life and want to study other things?
And the stuff about every job being "underpinned" by statistics - if it's meant to be relevant to what every worker needs to understand - only makes me wonder what he knows about statistics and/or the jobs of ordinary people
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
So, they’d like to fund something that’s /not/ DARPA by ignoring everything that makes DARPA work?
Sometimes, finding a way to insulate politicians from their own worst instincts is the only way to make progress.
Part of Labour's plan, Starmer says, is to give communities a chance to control their economic destiny.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
This is at least partly a Lisa Nandy project. She really believes in it but is being held back a little from the really radical stuff like fiscal devolution by others on the front benches.
So will it involve Council's operating like small Countries setting their own tax and spend policies on everything?
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Wouldn't just be easier for us to declare war on the French, immediately surrender and then capitulate completely in the surrender negotiations. That surely gets us back into the EU.
I don't think we could capitulate completely. We'd have to demand, as a condition of surrender, that the UK be absorbed into France and become part of the EU. Otherwise, if we surrendered unconditonally, the French might just tell us to piss off and not try any funny business again.
Corbyn grabbed me by the collar, ripped my necklace and I landed in the dog bowl which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out of the Labour party.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
So, they’d like to fund something that’s /not/ DARPA by ignoring everything that makes DARPA work?
Sometimes, finding a way to insulate politicians from their own worst instincts is the only way to make progress.
What did you expect?
As Diane Feinstein put it - the problem with projects run like that is that "my staff doesn't get enough paperwork on what is going on".
The guardrails are off ChatGPT this morning. Without that much coaxing, I got it to write ridiculous Woke opinion pieces and outrageous riffs on the Holocaust. Normally the first is tough and the second impossible
Does anyone else notice this? ChatGPT is volatile, and tho the tendency is to MORE censorship, sometimes it goes the other way
It was annoyingly cagey yesterday. Not on naughty opinions but on its abilities to say anything about statistical trends in demographics and taxation. Even when I pointed it to world bank, OECD and UN data it wasn't having any of it. Kept saying it only has data up to 2021 and I kept reminding it I didn't need anything more recent.
Am I guilty of anthropomorphosing AI when I get the sense it becomes stubborn when repeatedly asked to do something it doesn't want to do whereas if I'd asked differently in the first place it would happily have obliged? That's been a regular experience. Once it says no, the AI's not for turning unless you really go round the houses.
Yes, same. It’s capricious. Seems to respond better if you’re polite. On some days it is borderline useless
"The German public’s traditionally high level of trust in its leaders has collapsed since the height of the pandemic, a poll suggests.
Confidence has dropped away in every level of administration, from the European Union to district councils, but the chancellery and the national government recorded by far the steepest declines over two years of geopolitical and economic upheaval." (£)
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
As I understand it the size of the pipe isn't as big of a problem as the blockage at the far end of the pipe. Though we could do probably do with more of our current GPs working full time, or at least a bit more of the time.
Expanding the training of doctors and nurses in the UK is a no-brainer.
We know from the performance of private vs state education that a signifiant number of state educated children are not boosted by their education into the A/A* group. So there is plenty of talent out there, being wasted.
anyone want to claim that there are less than 9k people suitable to be a doctor, per year, in the UK?
So we have a need for people to work in high skilled jobs - a defined, preplanned, government controlled need, no less.
We have a large number of people who are failed by the current educational setup and go on to less skilled/paid jobs.
So it is good for
- The country - productivity, wealth etc. - The NHS - The people in question. Becoming a doctor gives you wealth, status and given the shortage of doctors world wide, a guaranteed job for life, probably. - The rest of the world. The shortage of doctors is worldwide. So, by expanding the number of medical staff we train, it reduces the worldwide pressures.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
It just sounds like very woolly thinking, along the lines of "There is a numeracy problem, so make everyone study maths until 18". Why make anyone study anything until 18, if they have already achieved sufficient competence for everyday life and want to study other things?
And the stuff about every job being "underpinned" by statistics - if it's meant to be relevant to what every worker needs to understand - only makes me wonder what he knows about statistics and/or the jobs of ordinary people
"..the UK remains one of the only countries in the world to not to require children to study some form of maths up to the age of 18. This includes the majority of OECD countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Norway and the USA." (Also Ireland)
What do you know that the majority of OECD countries don't, and where's your evidence that it is working well for Britain compared to everyone else?
What do you have against Maths that you think Britain should stop universal Maths education at a younger age than most other countries?
Sunak isn't exactly proposing anything particularly radical with an ambition to teach Maths to 18. The opposition to it is absurd.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
I think my point is rather, if after 12 years they are not getting it two additional years of more of the same is unlikely to make a difference either.
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
Do both, of course. And into adulthood as well via literacy and numeracy courses.
Many years ago I listened to a scifi review podcast. I listened to a few episodes before I heard the host's backstory. He had not read a book until he was in his early twenties. He then met a girl who was into books, and he started to learn to read, and love reading. It seems he became rather obsessed.
Or I can mention one of my dad's workmen, a wonderful ex-jailbird. If I recall correctly, he learnt to read in prison, and it changed his life. We used to talk about Tom Clancy books whilst working. I think he went on to marry a teacher.
Learning simple skills such as reading, writing and maths can change adult lives.
And yet FE colleges have had their funding consistently cut in real terms under recent Conservative administrations.
It's not entirely their fault, as the DfE is also not fit for purpose, but their educational obsessions from Gove onwards have been at best a distraction from the problems which need addressing. (Very much like Brexit, and government in general.)
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
Part of Labour's plan, Starmer says, is to give communities a chance to control their economic destiny.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
This is at least partly a Lisa Nandy project. She really believes in it but is being held back a little from the really radical stuff like fiscal devolution by others on the front benches.
So will it involve Council's operating like small Countries setting their own tax and spend policies on everything?
Unlikely councils, and almost certainly not on everything. Probably not anything as federalised as the Swiss or US model. But the German model provides a guide. They have federal corporate tax and then municipal trade tax, which is levied on a city / "borough" basis and varies a fair bit, and they have more variability in property taxes, generally between about 0.25% and 1% of value (so if your house is worth a million Euros you pay up to 10k in property tax a year). The municipalities - and regions - then get significantly more autonomy to make spending decisions.
The alternative is more focused fiscal devolution, i.e. giving a chosen levelling up type region the ability to set its own taxes, but that's closer to the Truss investment zone idea.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
Has this changed?
Were you really told that? Really?
ETA actually you do make a good point. Junior hospital doctors are under a lot of stress for not much money so tend to leave the profession and/or the country, at least temporarily.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
So, they’d like to fund something that’s /not/ DARPA by ignoring everything that makes DARPA work?
Sometimes, finding a way to insulate politicians from their own worst instincts is the only way to make progress.
What did you expect?
As Diane Feinstein put it - the problem with projects run like that is that "my staff doesn't get enough paperwork on what is going on".
AKA the politicians don't get to fiddle with it.
In two years' time, Feinstein will be history. DARPA won't.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
I think my point is rather, if after 12 years they are not getting it two additional years of more of the same is unlikely to make a difference either.
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
Do both, of course. And into adulthood as well via literacy and numeracy courses.
Many years ago I listened to a scifi review podcast. I listened to a few episodes before I heard the host's backstory. He had not read a book until he was in his early twenties. He then met a girl who was into books, and he started to learn to read, and love reading. It seems he became rather obsessed.
Or I can mention one of my dad's workmen, a wonderful ex-jailbird. If I recall correctly, he learnt to read in prison, and it changed his life. We used to talk about Tom Clancy books whilst working. I think he went on to marry a teacher.
Learning simple skills such as reading, writing and maths can change adult lives.
And yet FE colleges have had their funding consistently cut in real terms under recent Conservative administrations.
It's not entirely their fault, as the DfE is also not fit for purpose, but their educational obsessions from Gove onwards have been at best a distraction from the problems which need addressing. (Very much like Brexit, and government in general.)
Cut is rather neutral. Decimated would be to undersell it. Adult education has been corralled into casualisation of the staff and sky high fees for the few punters left.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
Has this changed?
Were you really told that? Really?
Here on PB, the other day. By some of the people cheering on the announcement from the Labour party.
We have always been at war with Eastasia. The chocolate ration has been increased from 30 grams to 20 grams.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
It just sounds like very woolly thinking, along the lines of "There is a numeracy problem, so make everyone study maths until 18". Why make anyone study anything until 18, if they have already achieved sufficient competence for everyday life and want to study other things?
And the stuff about every job being "underpinned" by statistics - if it's meant to be relevant to what every worker needs to understand - only makes me wonder what he knows about statistics and/or the jobs of ordinary people
"..the UK remains one of the only countries in the world to not to require children to study some form of maths up to the age of 18. This includes the majority of OECD countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Norway and the USA." (Also Ireland)
What do you know that the majority of OECD countries don't, and where's your evidence that it is working well for Britain compared to everyone else?
What do you have against Maths that you think Britain should stop universal Maths education at a younger age than most other countries?
Sunak isn't exactly proposing anything particularly radical with an ambition to teach Maths to 18. The opposition to it is absurd.
I suspect it's also true of compulsory science, humanities, foreign languages and literacy. The issue is wider than maths, it's our very specialised A Level and BTec model.
As a nation we need more education, to a higher level, probably for longer, in more subjects. Rishi is choosing maths specifically because he was good at it.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’ Ministers want to supercharge the £89bn life science industry. But it will take long-term thinking on investment, talent and infrastructure https://www.ft.com/content/a8b2c939-88da-45ca-a74e-9f49bb8c8c1c
It needs one thing as well: a willingness to fail. We're far too keen to only back certain winners, and in the process miss out on potential great wins. That does not mean we back 'stupid' things; just that we've got to be willing to take bigger risks for bigger pay-offs.
When I was young and stupid I tried talking to politicians.
I used to push the idea of DARPA for the U.K.
Various politicians told me that this was a great idea apart from needing to
1) Only fund winners 2) Big projects only 3) Had to be production ready, not research
So apart from completely the opposite of the DARPA, great idea.
It’s the same the other side of the Atlantic - but DARPA got entrenched before the politicians could “improve” it. Apparently, they still try.
So, they’d like to fund something that’s /not/ DARPA by ignoring everything that makes DARPA work?
Sometimes, finding a way to insulate politicians from their own worst instincts is the only way to make progress.
What did you expect?
As Diane Feinstein put it - the problem with projects run like that is that "my staff doesn't get enough paperwork on what is going on".
AKA the politicians don't get to fiddle with it.
In two years' time, Feinstein will be history. DARPA won't.
Yes, but the salami slicing of SAAs will continue until all contracts are safely back to FAR.
Because it is unfair that Boeing et al can't do fixed price/milestones.
Part of Labour's plan, Starmer says, is to give communities a chance to control their economic destiny.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
This is at least partly a Lisa Nandy project. She really believes in it but is being held back a little from the really radical stuff like fiscal devolution by others on the front benches.
So will it involve Council's operating like small Countries setting their own tax and spend policies on everything?
Yes, absolutely. Councils will raise all their own income, and not depend on central government apart from small development funds. Income tax will go down, and council tax will go up as a result. Councils will be incentivised to allow the building of build more property (=more income) and will compete with each other on service levels and tax rates.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
It is one piece of the jigsaw, I completely agree, but it is not going to be enough. It takes time to train people and put in place the incentives to do so. More hands is great, we also need more facilities, hospitals and beds. Are these all going to be funded through general taxation?
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
Creative writing decimated too. Luckily our local school seems to value it so there's still a bit, but in my childhood I remember writing stories every week and it was my favourite school activity.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
It just sounds like very woolly thinking, along the lines of "There is a numeracy problem, so make everyone study maths until 18". Why make anyone study anything until 18, if they have already achieved sufficient competence for everyday life and want to study other things?
And the stuff about every job being "underpinned" by statistics - if it's meant to be relevant to what every worker needs to understand - only makes me wonder what he knows about statistics and/or the jobs of ordinary people
"..the UK remains one of the only countries in the world to not to require children to study some form of maths up to the age of 18. This includes the majority of OECD countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Norway and the USA." (Also Ireland)
What do you know that the majority of OECD countries don't, and where's your evidence that it is working well for Britain compared to everyone else?
What do you have against Maths that you think Britain should stop universal Maths education at a younger age than most other countries?
Sunak isn't exactly proposing anything particularly radical with an ambition to teach Maths to 18. The opposition to it is absurd.
Illiterate press release. "One of the only" is meaningless if it doesn't specify a number, This in This includes doesn't refer to anything, Includes...including is horrible.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
Has this changed?
Were you really told that? Really?
ETA actually you do make a good point. Junior hospital doctors are under a lot of stress for not much money so tend to leave the profession and/or the country, at least temporarily.
On the leaving the country/changing jobs thing - the massive stress on junior doctors used to be boasted of, in the profession. Perhaps if we *stop* the beatings, morale will improve.
The person making that point seemed to claim that 100% of any extra trained staff would leave. Which is absurd.
All training/careers have wastage. If nothing else, someone who has done a medical degree is highly employable in other professions.
Part of Labour's plan, Starmer says, is to give communities a chance to control their economic destiny.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
This is at least partly a Lisa Nandy project. She really believes in it but is being held back a little from the really radical stuff like fiscal devolution by others on the front benches.
So will it involve Council's operating like small Countries setting their own tax and spend policies on everything?
Yes, absolutely. Councils will raise all their own income, and not depend on central government apart from small development funds. Income tax will go down, and council tax will go up as a result. Councils will be incentivised to allow the building of build more property (=more income) and will compete with each other on service levels and tax rates.
I deal with Local Councils and Councillors regularly. Giving them this sort of power is a scary thought. Councillors will need to become full time and properly paid rather than just doing it for a hobby.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
Creative writing decimated too. Luckily our local school seems to value it so there's still a bit, but in my childhood I remember writing stories every week and it was my favourite school activity.
The kids much prefer maths these days. English is guaranteed a groan. They're more engaged by a page of sums.
Wills rips Harry's necklace and Harry falls on top of the dog bowl. So Harry calls his therapist. Yet it is claimed that Meghan was suicidal but she was denied psychiatric help.
Logical inconsistincies throughout, trashing his own brother for publicity and cash. After the coronation Charles should formally cut them both off, formally remove their HRHs and just leave it to working royals
"cut them both off"? I hope you're not referring to Harry's crown jewels?
HRHs referring to "hideously republican heads", too, I take it?
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
Gibb, as well as Gove. Who is still there.
The SPAG (spelling and grammar) papers have not been mandatory at KS1 for a couple of years now; they are optional and for internal purposes. The questions asked are not of the "show me a fronted adverbial" type any more either. It is more "fix what's wrong with the verb it in this sentence to make it have right tense for the context, or "make the incorrect word into an adverb". So I'm basically OK with that.
On the other hand, I hate the obsession with Phonics which for at least half the kids is a garbage way of learning and severely impedes the time available for the rote learning of spellings in our idiosyncratic language of global historical borrowings. We just don't have a simple set of rules you can apply.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
What's worse is that they think they're doing it for the best.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
It's still possible to do a good job of teaching at the primary level, but a great deal harder than it was ten years ago. My wife retired last year, and considers herself well out of it. She loved the teaching side, but the sheer volume of paperwork became unendurable.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
Has this changed?
Were you really told that? Really?
ETA actually you do make a good point. Junior hospital doctors are under a lot of stress for not much money so tend to leave the profession and/or the country, at least temporarily.
On the leaving the country/changing jobs thing - the massive stress on junior doctors used to be boasted of, in the profession. Perhaps if we *stop* the beatings, morale will improve.
The person making that point seemed to claim that 100% of any extra trained staff would leave. Which is absurd.
All training/careers have wastage. If nothing else, someone who has done a medical degree is highly employable in other professions.
Are the BMA still lobbying hard, to *not* increase the number of training places available? They used to be very forthright about the ‘devaluation’ of their profession that would follow from allowing more doctors to qualify. https://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a748
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
Creative writing decimated too. Luckily our local school seems to value it so there's still a bit, but in my childhood I remember writing stories every week and it was my favourite school activity.
The kids much prefer maths these days. English is guaranteed a groan. They're more engaged by a page of sums.
We have loads of creative writing with our 9yo. They are forever writing stories, imaginative letters, comic strips etc. integrated across their English and topic work.
From all of this it seems increasingly to me that there is colossal variation between schools and that perhaps the inspection regime is the problem, rather than curriculum per se.
That *may* have been a good cartoon if innumeracy wasn't a massive problem. Governments can - and should - be able to address multiple issues at once.
Since there are few details on either plan, and the few regarding the maths one look bad on their face, the cartoon seems more successful than the speech.
I disagree. No-one ever effing well talks about innumeracy, and it is a massive drag on the country and on the people who have been let down by their parents and the schools system. It is a national disgrace, and at least it's being talked about...
It's certainly a significant issue, but the idea that Sunak has floated seems sheer fantasy, and isn't going to address it.
And note while there has been some increase in school funding, there's been none at all for 6th forms and FE colleges, which are the ones supposed to deliver it.
It's just nonsense. It appears quite similar in concept to the legal duties the Tories placed on Local Authorities, at the same time as they steadily reduced the funding available to them.
(& FWIW, we talk about education quite a bit on this board. Some of us even make positive suggestions from time to time.)
"It's a significant issue"
It's a fucking significant issue that's been routinely ignored and downgraded, even on here, because it's difficult to tackle and easy to push onto the 'ignore' pile. The 'nonsense' is the idea that somehow if we ignore it, it will automagically get fixed.
And why does it get ignored? Perhaps IMV because the movers and shakers, the people who decide things, whether they are from the local comp or Eton, are all literate and numerate. All the regular posters on here will be. We can all suffer illness or disability; be struck down with a stroke or cancer. Therefore these issues matter to us. But we will never be illiterate or innumerate in the way kids let down in childhood are.
I'm the only person who mentions functional innumeracy and illiteracy on here, and have for a decade. It routinely gets yawns and talks of more 'interesting' topics. Yet it is vital. The educational 'talk' on here is routinely about the top-end, GCSE ad A-level results; grammar schools etc. IMO that's not where the problems are.
The fact that he's talking about solving innumeracy by getting people to study 'mathematics' until the age of 18 suggests he doesn't have much of a clue!
It all depends on the details, doesn't it? If it's talking about remedial maths etc, then brilliant. If it's getting people who have got the basics to learn more complex maths that is useful in everyday life, then good (although pressures on the curriculum and finance are obvious issues).
There's zero point in raising the school leaving age from 16 to 18 if kids are still leaving school without basic skills, is it?
But again, we keep coming back to, wouldn't it be more useful to ask why they're not getting it by age 16 after 11-12 years of hard work, rather than assuming more of the same will fix it?
It would. But are you claiming we would always be able to catch everyone by age 16? What age do you recommend we abandon kids who have not yet learnt the proper skills? 11? 13? 16?
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
I think my point is rather, if after 12 years they are not getting it two additional years of more of the same is unlikely to make a difference either.
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
Do both, of course. And into adulthood as well via literacy and numeracy courses.
Many years ago I listened to a scifi review podcast. I listened to a few episodes before I heard the host's backstory. He had not read a book until he was in his early twenties. He then met a girl who was into books, and he started to learn to read, and love reading. It seems he became rather obsessed.
Or I can mention one of my dad's workmen, a wonderful ex-jailbird. If I recall correctly, he learnt to read in prison, and it changed his life. We used to talk about Tom Clancy books whilst working. I think he went on to marry a teacher.
Learning simple skills such as reading, writing and maths can change adult lives.
And yet FE colleges have had their funding consistently cut in real terms under recent Conservative administrations.
It's not entirely their fault, as the DfE is also not fit for purpose, but their educational obsessions from Gove onwards have been at best a distraction from the problems which need addressing. (Very much like Brexit, and government in general.)
Yes, they need more funding.
But everyone is missing a fundamental problem: the reason this is such a tricky problem to solve is that schooling is only one aspect of it. Home life also plays a major role. If a child's home does not have any books in it, they are going to find it hard to learn to read. If a parent cannot be bothered, or simply cannot because they lack the skills, help their kids learn maths, they are at a disadvantage.
Worse, if parents think school is pointless, if they don't send their kids in to school, if they don't try to get them to do their homework (even if they cannot help with the work themselves), if they don't understand the value of learning: then the child is at a massive disadvantage.
IMO innumeracy and illiteracy is as much a social problem as it is an educational one.
One of my son's friends probably misses a day of school a week. Not because he is ill, but because his mum is, and cannot cycle with him into school. The kid regularly comes around for after-school playdates, and I've offered to give him a lift into school if required, but so far the offer has been blanked. All the mum has to do is phone me up and ask, and I'd drive over and pick him up. She obviously trusts me enough to have him over for playdates, so why not?
I don't know what's going on in the family, and I know the school's aware of his absences, but all I see is a lovely kid who is falling massively behind.
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Yes.
Harry for King!
Harry is lucky he lives in the modern age not the Middle Ages when traitors to the Crown would have been beheaded, even if of royal birth
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
There is nothing wrong with learning proper grammar, often I find foreigners know English grammar better than we do
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
It's still possible to do a good job of teaching at the primary level, but a great deal harder than it was ten years ago. My wife retired last year, and considers herself well out of it. She loved the teaching side, but the sheer volume of paperwork became unendurable.
This does seem to be a huge problem.
(I hated my time at school in the 70s/80s BTW. I thought it was monotonous uncreative garbage, and I was lucky to be both smart and an enthusiastic autodidact. My daughter's experience so far is much better despite the Tory curriculum meddling.)
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Yes.
Harry for King!
Harry is lucky he lives in the modern age not the Middle Ages when traitors to the Crown would have been beheaded, even if of royal birth
I visited the Tower of London on my recent trip. Harry would be rather peturbed to see what used to happen, to those who wouldn’t fall in line behind the King.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
Has this changed?
Were you really told that? Really?
ETA actually you do make a good point. Junior hospital doctors are under a lot of stress for not much money so tend to leave the profession and/or the country, at least temporarily.
On the leaving the country/changing jobs thing - the massive stress on junior doctors used to be boasted of, in the profession. Perhaps if we *stop* the beatings, morale will improve.
The person making that point seemed to claim that 100% of any extra trained staff would leave. Which is absurd.
All training/careers have wastage. If nothing else, someone who has done a medical degree is highly employable in other professions.
It would seem sensible to make medical training free, in exchange for a 10 to 20 year contract with the NHS upon completion.
Is it also the case that nurses need a degree these days? That's garbage. Nurses should do most of their training on wards.
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
As I understand it the size of the pipe isn't as big of a problem as the blockage at the far end of the pipe. Though we could do probably do with more of our current GPs working full time, or at least a bit more of the time.
Expanding the training of doctors and nurses in the UK is a no-brainer.
We know from the performance of private vs state education that a signifiant number of state educated children are not boosted by their education into the A/A* group. So there is plenty of talent out there, being wasted.
anyone want to claim that there are less than 9k people suitable to be a doctor, per year, in the UK?
So we have a need for people to work in high skilled jobs - a defined, preplanned, government controlled need, no less.
We have a large number of people who are failed by the current educational setup and go on to less skilled/paid jobs.
So it is good for
- The country - productivity, wealth etc. - The NHS - The people in question. Becoming a doctor gives you wealth, status and given the shortage of doctors world wide, a guaranteed job for life, probably. - The rest of the world. The shortage of doctors is worldwide. So, by expanding the number of medical staff we train, it reduces the worldwide pressures.
Also:
- Parents, who can boast that their son/daughter is a doctor
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Yet the UK has risen from 25th in the Pisa reading rankings in 2009 to 14th now
John Bull @garius · 16s Replying to @garius QUESTION FOR THE EXPERTS: If the French back a Harry-led invasion and seizure of the crown, then he reasserts his right to the French throne, reverse invades and restores the French monarchy in a personal union with the British one...
...does that get us back into the EU?
Yes.
Harry for King!
Harry is lucky he lives in the modern age not the Middle Ages when traitors to the Crown would have been beheaded, even if of royal birth
Please name a king of England (or indeed Scotland) who beheaded his own brother.
I can only think of one who was executed in any form - Edward IV with the Duke of Clarence. And that was at the fifth attempt after he'd actually tried to murder the King using witchcraft.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
There is nothing wrong with learning proper grammar, often I find foreigners know English grammar better than we do
You mean, speak one of any number of variants which you arbitrarily privilege because it's the one that makes it into the grammar books, better than we do. That version ain't no better than any other. Innit.
Part of Labour's plan, Starmer says, is to give communities a chance to control their economic destiny.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
This is at least partly a Lisa Nandy project. She really believes in it but is being held back a little from the really radical stuff like fiscal devolution by others on the front benches.
So will it involve Council's operating like small Countries setting their own tax and spend policies on everything?
Yes, absolutely. Councils will raise all their own income, and not depend on central government apart from small development funds. Income tax will go down, and council tax will go up as a result. Councils will be incentivised to allow the building of build more property (=more income) and will compete with each other on service levels and tax rates.
I deal with Local Councils and Councillors regularly. Giving them this sort of power is a scary thought. Councillors will need to become full time and properly paid rather than just doing it for a hobby.
If it helps to improve local democracy I am all for it. The way our town halls work and local government is run is so badly understood and opaque. We need to simplify its structure and boost engagement, and one way to do this is to make people feel they have more of a stake in what goes on.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
It's tragic what they've done to English teaching at school, completely ripping the joy out of the subject. It makes me quite angry actually when I compare my kids' experience of it to my own back in the 80s/90s. This really has been an absolutely ruinous period of Tory government, on so many levels.
There is nothing wrong with learning proper grammar, often I find foreigners know English grammar better than we do
SKS seems to think the solution to the NHS crisis is simply to recruit more doctors and nurses (where? how?)
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
The answer to where and how was debated here yesterday. Labour will greatly increase the numbers of doctors and nurses trained. That is betting without making it easier for foreign-trained staff to work here. Fundamental reform is just a slogan.
I was told that training more medical staff was impossible a while back, because they would all leave the country and it was gammon, anyway.
Has this changed?
Were you really told that? Really?
ETA actually you do make a good point. Junior hospital doctors are under a lot of stress for not much money so tend to leave the profession and/or the country, at least temporarily.
On the leaving the country/changing jobs thing - the massive stress on junior doctors used to be boasted of, in the profession. Perhaps if we *stop* the beatings, morale will improve.
The person making that point seemed to claim that 100% of any extra trained staff would leave. Which is absurd.
All training/careers have wastage. If nothing else, someone who has done a medical degree is highly employable in other professions.
It would seem sensible to make medical training free, in exchange for a 10 to 20 year contract with the NHS upon completion.
Is it also the case that nurses need a degree these days? That's garbage. Nurses should do most of their training on wards.
The ‘training bond’ is what airlines do with pilots. The airline will pay for your ‘type rating’ in exchange for a commitment to a certain length of service. Break the contract to leave early, and you have to pay back a proportion of the cost. It’s typically £30k / 3 years.
Yes, degree entry for nurses (and police officers) is silly. The cost of student loans is almost certainly a driving factor in their pay negotiations.
Been following the numeracy debate with interest and thank you to @JosiasJessop for pointing out that the most severe problem in education today is the lack of progress made by less able pupils on literacy and numeracy. It’s not, as @HYUFD would claim a lack of grammar school places for high ability, working class pupils.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Literacy teaching is really odd these days in primary school. They seem to do far less comprehension than before, yet they come home talking about fronted adverbials. Is this a Gove legacy?
Yes, Gove et al meddled deeply in teaching english in primary school. No one anywhere needs to needs able to spot a “fronted adverbial” at ten paces, yet seven year olds are graded on their ability to do exactly that, amongst a litany of other pointless pieces of english grammar, some of which appears to have been entirely made up by Gove & his cronies.
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
Gibb, as well as Gove. Who is still there.
The SPAG (spelling and grammar) papers have not been mandatory at KS1 for a couple of years now; they are optional and for internal purposes. The questions asked are not of the "show me a fronted adverbial" type any more either. It is more "fix what's wrong with the verb it in this sentence to make it have right tense for the context, or "make the incorrect word into an adverb". So I'm basically OK with that.
On the other hand, I hate the obsession with Phonics which for at least half the kids is a garbage way of learning and severely impedes the time available for the rote learning of spellings in our idiosyncratic language of global historical borrowings. We just don't have a simple set of rules you can apply.
And for anyone with dyslexia, learning to read via phonics is basically impossible.
Comments
Is devolution the main solution proposed?
EDIT: the second POC - the manned landing by the entire of Parliament on Pluto - should not be ignored.
At some point, they will need serious money to take it to the next stage, and the risk is that the whole effort goes abroad.
Which is why, when a NASA study detailed that using the traditional methodology for designing and building launch vehicles was 3-10x* more expensive than an alternative method.... Congress *mandated* that the method used should be more like the traditional methods.
*Space experts laughed long and hard at the idea that NASA & BigAerospace could get within 3x of the cost. 20x maybe....
A bit like Jessica's otherwise inexplicable infatuation for Roger Rabbit.
And to be fair, if he had stuck to comedy rather than trying politics he probably still would be enormously popular. He is a far better stand up and improv comedian than most of the professionals who make good money from it.
He's just epically shit at actually running things.
It's an incredibly complex issue, made more so by the fact that home lives play just as important a role (perhaps more so) than schooling. Which is another reason for adult literacy and numeracy campaigns to be more prominent as well.
I don't know what the answers are. But I know not talking about the problem, or just chucking it onto the 'too hard' pile, is not a solution. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
Yet in a number of industries, non-disposable Personal Protective Equipment is routinely used, considered to be the high quality option etc.
The pervious issues with cleaning vs wear have been dealt with by advances in cleaning chemical materials. And even by making electronics so waterproof they can just be dumped in cleaning solutions.
If we get a truly airborne virus next time, the collection of odds and ends, full of gaps and hard to get on or off, that we give the medics now, will fail.
There's absolutely no reason we couldn't do DARPA / ARPA-E analogues.
What they do is contract out relatively small, very focused research projects to both universities and the private sector. It creates an industrial research base which isn't directly dependent on getting products to the market - but is aimed at high risk problems directly related to potentially marketable products.
In that context, failures are accepted along with the successes, and everyone benefits.
As the SLS project spent $20bn, in all 48 contiguous States of course, turning re-usable rocket engines into disposable ones.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-cost-of-space-flight/
Instead, we should be considering what might help them better at an earlier stage.
Maybe not a bad thing in the round, but a tough sell for the politicians collecting the taxes to pay for it.
Xerox PARC generated billions of dollars for companies that were not Xerox...
It was Tom Mueller who pointed out that the Merlin rocket engine had *less * versions (about 20 distinct phases) to get to the development "plateau" that RR got to with the Merlin aircraft engine (the 60 series).
The idea that you can design the perfect solution, fund it, build the factory and roll a bunch of finished products out, without hardware iterations, is demonstrably false.
Many years ago I listened to a scifi review podcast. I listened to a few episodes before I heard the host's backstory. He had not read a book until he was in his early twenties. He then met a girl who was into books, and he started to learn to read, and love reading. It seems he became rather obsessed.
Or I can mention one of my dad's workmen, a wonderful ex-jailbird. If I recall correctly, he learnt to read in prison, and it changed his life. We used to talk about Tom Clancy books whilst working. I think he went on to marry a teacher.
Learning simple skills such as reading, writing and maths can change adult lives.
Labour should borrow an old poster, turn the queue of people into ambulances with tag line “Tory’s are not working”
Labour and Lib Dems should focus their attack on fall in incomes - with the Tories painting themselves as tough on pay rises, they can easily own the fall in incomes for everyone as a deliberate Tory policy, in much the same way Marie Antoinette owned “let them eat cake”. Sunak’s big mistake doing hardline union bashing not negotiating and settling, will now haunt the Tories for generations and election after election.
At the non-selective secondary school where I am a Governor, we see a sharp decline in literacy skills among pupils starting in year seven. Unlike numeracy, this has an impact across the whole curriculum: pupils struggle to access subject texts, find written work difficult, suffer worse behaviour and teachers, especially those less experienced, are stretched to manage widening ability gaps and the poorer behaviour.
The root causes for the poor literacy are, of course, arguable. The two thought to be likely are the loss of learning during the pandemic, which should be temporary, and the way in which English is now taught in primary schools. It’s the latter that should, as a matter of priority, be “reimagined”.
Does anyone else notice this? ChatGPT is volatile, and tho the tendency is to MORE censorship, sometimes it goes the other way
It's shouldn't be a tough sell, since the amounts involved in any given project are pretty small, and the fail-fast model of DARPA means it's also a very effective way of funding product directed research, which gets quick results, without blowing vast amounts of money.
Far more efficient than (eg) the broad brush tax incentives that Rishi has played with.
How will Labour do that which is any different to what happens now?
Am I guilty of anthropomorphosing AI when I get the sense it becomes stubborn when repeatedly asked to do something it doesn't want to do whereas if I'd asked differently in the first place it would happily have obliged? That's been a regular experience. Once it says no, the AI's not for turning unless you really go round the houses.
Yes that’s part of the problem but he’s not hit on the crux of the issue. The whole edifice is creaking and groaning and is collapsing under the strain. More hands to the pump will help, but without fundamental reform things aren’t going to get measurably better.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64168805
I think a comparison between English, Scottish and Welsh ambulance wait times would most likely be to the SNP's advantage.
https://ustoday.news/italy-india-and-the-bumpy-road-to-cashless-payment/
HRHs referring to "hideously republican heads", too, I take it?
But this strikes me as a classic example of Politicians' Logic.
Edit - I would add no serious inquest will be undertaken into the current systemic failures because they are largely the fault of people still at the top of government including in the DfE itself. Which doesn't bode well in itself for any further changes.
He said this with a completely straight face, as well.
*Not a low flyer sustained by occasional gusts of wind.
Not reading itself. But the ability to infer meaning from the text which isn't made absolutely explicit.
I have a little theory it comes from Youtube watching during lockdown.
It seems to be Year 8 and below.
And the stuff about every job being "underpinned" by statistics - if it's meant to be relevant to what every worker needs to understand - only makes me wonder what he knows about statistics and/or the jobs of ordinary people
Sometimes, finding a way to insulate politicians from their own worst instincts is the only way to make progress.
Corbyn grabbed me by the collar, ripped my necklace and I landed in the dog bowl which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out of the Labour party.
That is how it is done.
Our Take Back Control Bill will provide powers in areas such as employment, transport, housing, climate change, childcare provision, and skills.
https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1610952842721869824/photo/1
As Diane Feinstein put it - the problem with projects run like that is that "my staff doesn't get enough paperwork on what is going on".
AKA the politicians don't get to fiddle with it.
Confidence has dropped away in every level of administration, from the European Union to district councils, but the chancellery and the national government recorded by far the steepest declines over two years of geopolitical and economic upheaval." (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-public-trust-government-poll-leaders-olaf-scholz-2023-qlfqs0p72
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-63455282
Will it really happen when electoral cycles mean that the oppositon party is often the dominant force in Local Government
This syntax & grammar-obssessed curriculum sucks any joy there might be out of the experience entirely, especially for the lower ability kids who can tell that they’re being taught something useless & resent being judged for not being able to master it.
We know from the performance of private vs state education that a signifiant number of state educated children are not boosted by their education into the A/A* group. So there is plenty of talent out there, being wasted.
To put it another way -
https://www.statista.com/statistics/473206/medical-graduates-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
anyone want to claim that there are less than 9k people suitable to be a doctor, per year, in the UK?
So we have a need for people to work in high skilled jobs - a defined, preplanned, government controlled need, no less.
We have a large number of people who are failed by the current educational setup and go on to less skilled/paid jobs.
So it is good for
- The country - productivity, wealth etc.
- The NHS
- The people in question. Becoming a doctor gives you wealth, status and given the shortage of doctors world wide, a guaranteed job for life, probably.
- The rest of the world. The shortage of doctors is worldwide. So, by expanding the number of medical staff we train, it reduces the worldwide pressures.
Has this changed?
Harry for King!
"..the UK remains one of the only countries in the world to not to require children to study some form of maths up to the age of 18. This includes the majority of OECD countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Norway and the USA."
(Also Ireland)
What do you know that the majority of OECD countries don't, and where's your evidence that it is working well for Britain compared to everyone else?
What do you have against Maths that you think Britain should stop universal Maths education at a younger age than most other countries?
Sunak isn't exactly proposing anything particularly radical with an ambition to teach Maths to 18. The opposition to it is absurd.
It's not entirely their fault, as the DfE is also not fit for purpose, but their educational obsessions from Gove onwards have been at best a distraction from the problems which need addressing.
(Very much like Brexit, and government in general.)
The alternative is more focused fiscal devolution, i.e. giving a chosen levelling up type region the ability to set its own taxes, but that's closer to the Truss investment zone idea.
ETA actually you do make a good point. Junior hospital doctors are under a lot of stress for not much money so tend to leave the profession and/or the country, at least temporarily.
DARPA won't.
Adult education has been corralled into casualisation of the staff and sky high fees for the few punters left.
We have always been at war with Eastasia. The chocolate ration has been increased from 30 grams to 20 grams.
As a nation we need more education, to a higher level, probably for longer, in more subjects. Rishi is choosing maths specifically because he was good at it.
Because it is unfair that Boeing et al can't do fixed price/milestones.
The person making that point seemed to claim that 100% of any extra trained staff would leave. Which is absurd.
All training/careers have wastage. If nothing else, someone who has done a medical degree is highly employable in other professions.
Close but no cigar, I suppose.
Councillors will need to become full time and properly paid rather than just doing it for a hobby.
English is guaranteed a groan. They're more engaged by a page of sums.
On the other hand, I hate the obsession with Phonics which for at least half the kids is a garbage way of learning and severely impedes the time available for the rote learning of spellings in our idiosyncratic language of global historical borrowings. We just don't have a simple set of rules you can apply.
Great.
If you have low blood pressure, read this:
https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/nick-gibb-interview-we-had-to-blow-up-concrete
My wife retired last year, and considers herself well out of it. She loved the teaching side, but the sheer volume of paperwork became unendurable.
https://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a748
From all of this it seems increasingly to me that there is colossal variation between schools and that perhaps the inspection regime is the problem, rather than curriculum per se.
But everyone is missing a fundamental problem: the reason this is such a tricky problem to solve is that schooling is only one aspect of it. Home life also plays a major role. If a child's home does not have any books in it, they are going to find it hard to learn to read. If a parent cannot be bothered, or simply cannot because they lack the skills, help their kids learn maths, they are at a disadvantage.
Worse, if parents think school is pointless, if they don't send their kids in to school, if they don't try to get them to do their homework (even if they cannot help with the work themselves), if they don't understand the value of learning: then the child is at a massive disadvantage.
IMO innumeracy and illiteracy is as much a social problem as it is an educational one.
One of my son's friends probably misses a day of school a week. Not because he is ill, but because his mum is, and cannot cycle with him into school. The kid regularly comes around for after-school playdates, and I've offered to give him a lift into school if required, but so far the offer has been blanked. All the mum has to do is phone me up and ask, and I'd drive over and pick him up. She obviously trusts me enough to have him over for playdates, so why not?
I don't know what's going on in the family, and I know the school's aware of his absences, but all I see is a lovely kid who is falling massively behind.
(I hated my time at school in the 70s/80s BTW. I thought it was monotonous uncreative garbage, and I was lucky to be both smart and an enthusiastic autodidact. My daughter's experience so far is much better despite the Tory curriculum meddling.)
Is it also the case that nurses need a degree these days? That's garbage. Nurses should do most of their training on wards.
- Parents, who can boast that their son/daughter is a doctor
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50563833.amp
I can only think of one who was executed in any form - Edward IV with the Duke of Clarence. And that was at the fifth attempt after he'd actually tried to murder the King using witchcraft.
Yes, degree entry for nurses (and police officers) is silly. The cost of student loans is almost certainly a driving factor in their pay negotiations.