A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
As our local garage has finally reduced their prices, and as I live in Scotland’s minimum pricing nanny state, I’m tempted to make the experiment.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The issue being that the summaries almost all say things that are a mixture of contradictory, impossible, or already being done.
What's baffling is that at least some people on your list should know that, although admittedly there are plenty of senior people in education who are utterly clueless and in the case of one principal of my acquaintance got the job literally through blackmail despite being a known risk to children.
It's also very wide-ranging. If they were to concentrate on one or two key things, they would paradoxically get further and faster.
There is one thing recommended which desperately needs doing and has done for years - technology for every child at all times, be that a tablet or a laptop (I would say tablet lower down, laptop from year 11 up). But it's so buried in among a lot of drivel that it's very easy to overlook.
And as a result, even though that enormous list of names (leaving aside there are several people on there who are repellent and stupid, I suppose being a Tv presenter with an intellectual for a father is a lever) could have achieved something really worthwhile by focusing on just that and trying to secure it, which will not be easy but would be revolutionary, nothing will happen.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
It's amazing that angry unhinged rant of @ydoethur got nine likes.
When I look at who it includes I'm not surprised by some of the names, but disappointed by others.
It's very wrong of me to be angry that people spout nonsense.
To give you some idea of how stupid their ideas are, they are the equivalent of somebody proposing to get Brunel's atmospheric railway out of retirement to power the Elizabeth Line and use HS2 rolling stock along with it.
Unfortunately, and I'm not saying this to be rude, I no longer really listen to what you say about education and the education sector because of rants and caricatures like this; for comparison, I do very much listen to Foxy on health.
You need to have a more considered answer than everyone in the DfE and Ofsted is an idiot and just let the teachers teach and give them the resources to do it - even if there might be a kernel of truth in it.
Anyway, I have to go to settle the children.
Goodnight.
Again, I note you have no answer to the FACTS I raised.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
Petrol could still be a relevant aroma to highlight if it has a petrol-like component to its overall smell. Riesling tends to be full-bodied for a white - there would definitely be a pronounced acidity, and perhaps an estery-ness, combined with a sweetness, certainly a far more invasive smell than other white wines. I could see how someone could link that to petrol in some instances.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
Jeez. It’s been a long time. The quality late evening biz class flight, from wintry london to the tropical sun
One of the minor but emphatic pleasures of life
I will wake up in a place where it is 32C and sunny
I've never been on anything other than standard class on a plane.
I got upgraded to first class once flying to Singapore from Djakarta by UTA (long since merged into Air France). Fillet steak, real china and cutlery, proper champagne and good bordeaux. Wide comfy leather seats.
They must have upgraded me sight unseen, as I was haggard and unshaven from travelling in Indonesia for a month, living off street stall chicken rice and noodles. Unfortunately I had such bad food poisoning from the night before* that I could barely keep water down and had my buttocks clenched to prevent soiling myself. Mrs Foxy happily polished off my steak as seconds, and quaffed my wine.
*made the schoolboy error of eating a hotel buffet in the tropics. Never eat anything that is kept warm.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
I posed the question early about moving a business to Asia (and living there). It seems the only response I got was Singapore, is that really the only place in Asia safe to operate a business, some talent pool of tech savvy who speak English?
Taiwan. If you discount invasion. It's considerably funkier. And better food. Has seasons as well.
I posed the question early about moving a business to Asia (and living there). It seems the only response I got was Singapore, is that really the only place in Asia safe to operate a business, some talent pool of tech savvy who speak English?
Taiwan. If you discount invasion. It's considerably funkier. And better food. Has seasons as well.
Potential invasion, I am not sure that would help with investor relations....
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
Although I feel that in general the UK is very poor at foreign languages, what is the rationale for it up to 18, especially when we know AI is already pretty good at least basic translation and I think it is a task that AI is only going to get much better at*.
* there will still be a need at the very high end for expert translators, where there needs to be knowledge of culture nuance or very subject specialist knowledge, but I think in terms of writing / reading emails for business, these AI systems are going to be excellent at being able to do this in the very near future. It will be give it the basic outline of your talking points, and it will do a very good job of constructing the text (certainly better than somebody who has only studied to 18 and nothing more).
As dealing with foreign clients you will impress them more if you can speak their language as well as they speak yours without having to use Google translate
This is certainly true, but do we need every 18 year old to do that?
A lot of businesses, there will certainly be one or two individuals who conduct those sort of meetings, but a lot of it will be done by a wider team who never meet their foreign counterparts, rather they are doing paperwork, answering emails, etc.
And that is why I said there is certainly still a role for expert foreign language speakers, but I think that what we will be seeing is something far more sophisticated than Google Translate.
Even then it still helps to get a more responsive service from a waiter abroad if you can speak their language properly
I wouldn't have had you down as a foreign language advocate, so I do applaud that. But your example begs the question how many languages should be taught until 18, and which ones?
I would allow students to choose one of French, German, Spanish or Mandarin
I appreciate this is a dumb question but is it no longer legally possible to get a full-time job at 16?
I remember being in first class trans-Atlantic flight a couple of years after 9/11....solid silver cutlery, minus the knife, apparently too dangerous....you had to use a plastic one. The fact I could smash the wine glass and cause just as much terror lost of those that made such a stupid policy.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
Not that we can do much about it when we do see it half the time, given the paucity of resources and inadequacy of council procedures.
My experience was that any teacher who had been in the classroom a few months could spot any issue with a child - SEND, health, emotional wellbeing - but actually getting anything done about it was the equivalent of banging your head very hard against a brick wall. Heck, it would be easier to convince Donald Trump he'd lost an election than to get Staffs to cough up for a plan.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
Back in 1992, albeit, but I studied all three sciences, but only got two GCSE grades ("Combined Science")!
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
I am a big fan of Alsace Reisling. Reisling is one of the great grapes of the world.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
Back in 1992, albeit, but I studied all three sciences, but only got two GCSE grades ("Combined Science")!
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
There isn't a reason to dismiss any report, by anyone, out of hand. But I'm also not sure why you're fanboying out on a list of grandees like this? I'm glad they have some figures from industry, but it's still very much a typical list of politicos/quangocrats to me. I would be impressed if Kenneth Baker had been heavily involved.
I'm also not sure why you were so confused by my suggestion that this could be just a way to harmonise education across the hoped-for re-enlarged EU. Harmonisation disguised as domestic reform (that happens to miraculously occur to everyone at once) is the MO of that organisation and its supporters, and an initiative like this would be very much in line with that effort.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
Sounds like Trockenbeerenauslese.
Tbf nothing sounds quite like Trockenbeerenauslese.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
Not that we can do much about it when we do see it half the time, given the paucity of resources and inadequacy of council procedures.
My experience was that any teacher who had been in the classroom a few months could spot any issue with a child - SEND, health, emotional wellbeing - but actually getting anything done about it was the equivalent of banging your head very hard against a brick wall. Heck, it would be easier to convince Donald Trump he'd lost an election than to get Staffs to cough up for a plan.
The problem with teaching is that a lot of theory is fine and dandy, but disintegrates on contact with real students. Medical education has the same problem.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
Sounds like Trockenbeerenauslese.
Tbf nothing sounds quite like Trockenbeerenauslese.
Nothing tastes like it to be sure. Although I'm only going on distant memory, having been teetotal for yonks.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
I'm aware of that. But you still study Biology, Chemistry and Physics within them.
And as @Sunil_Prasannan has pointed out, double award has been the default in state schools for decades. I went to a state school that did the three separate sciences, but by then it was getting unusual.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
Although I feel that in general the UK is very poor at foreign languages, what is the rationale for it up to 18, especially when we know AI is already pretty good at least basic translation and I think it is a task that AI is only going to get much better at*.
* there will still be a need at the very high end for expert translators, where there needs to be knowledge of culture nuance or very subject specialist knowledge, but I think in terms of writing / reading emails for business, these AI systems are going to be excellent at being able to do this in the very near future. It will be give it the basic outline of your talking points, and it will do a very good job of constructing the text (certainly better than somebody who has only studied to 18 and nothing more).
As dealing with foreign clients you will impress them more if you can speak their language as well as they speak yours without having to use Google translate
This is certainly true, but do we need every 18 year old to do that?
A lot of businesses, there will certainly be one or two individuals who conduct those sort of meetings, but a lot of it will be done by a wider team who never meet their foreign counterparts, rather they are doing paperwork, answering emails, etc.
And that is why I said there is certainly still a role for expert foreign language speakers, but I think that what we will be seeing is something far more sophisticated than Google Translate.
Even then it still helps to get a more responsive service from a waiter abroad if you can speak their language properly
I wouldn't have had you down as a foreign language advocate, so I do applaud that. But your example begs the question how many languages should be taught until 18, and which ones?
I would allow students to choose one of French, German, Spanish or Mandarin
I appreciate this is a dumb question but is it no longer legally possible to get a full-time job at 16?
Yes, but it has to have an explicit training component (1 day a week?).
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
Sounds like Trockenbeerenauslese.
Tbf nothing sounds quite like Trockenbeerenauslese.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
As a red wine drinker, which tastes better?
Has any petrol drinker ever tried Riesling to make the experiment?
I was once taken to a Riesling wine tasting at a monastery in Germany by a customer. It was amazing. The wine was a very dark yellow and clung to the glass. I had never tasted Riesling like it. I asked if and how I could go about buying a bottle or two. I was told I couldn't.
Tasting notes. E5 petrol. Thin and insipid like a Morrisons bottom shelf wine. E10 petrol. Like a cheap riesling but with a nasty aftertaste. Diesel. Heavy and oily like Asda barolo. Riesling. Better than all the above. Shiraz. Much better than all of the above. The second glass took away the taste of the riesling. The third glass took away the taste of the diesel. The fourth glass took away the taste of the E10. The fifth glass took away the taste of the E5. Looking forward to the sixth glass.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
Although I feel that in general the UK is very poor at foreign languages, what is the rationale for it up to 18, especially when we know AI is already pretty good at least basic translation and I think it is a task that AI is only going to get much better at*.
* there will still be a need at the very high end for expert translators, where there needs to be knowledge of culture nuance or very subject specialist knowledge, but I think in terms of writing / reading emails for business, these AI systems are going to be excellent at being able to do this in the very near future. It will be give it the basic outline of your talking points, and it will do a very good job of constructing the text (certainly better than somebody who has only studied to 18 and nothing more).
As dealing with foreign clients you will impress them more if you can speak their language as well as they speak yours without having to use Google translate
This is certainly true, but do we need every 18 year old to do that?
A lot of businesses, there will certainly be one or two individuals who conduct those sort of meetings, but a lot of it will be done by a wider team who never meet their foreign counterparts, rather they are doing paperwork, answering emails, etc.
And that is why I said there is certainly still a role for expert foreign language speakers, but I think that what we will be seeing is something far more sophisticated than Google Translate.
Even then it still helps to get a more responsive service from a waiter abroad if you can speak their language properly
I wouldn't have had you down as a foreign language advocate, so I do applaud that. But your example begs the question how many languages should be taught until 18, and which ones?
I would allow students to choose one of French, German, Spanish or Mandarin
I appreciate this is a dumb question but is it no longer legally possible to get a full-time job at 16?
You now have to be in full time education, training or an apprenticeship until 18
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
Not that we can do much about it when we do see it half the time, given the paucity of resources and inadequacy of council procedures.
My experience was that any teacher who had been in the classroom a few months could spot any issue with a child - SEND, health, emotional wellbeing - but actually getting anything done about it was the equivalent of banging your head very hard against a brick wall. Heck, it would be easier to convince Donald Trump he'd lost an election than to get Staffs to cough up for a plan.
Its just building castles on clouds. A complete restructuring of Education is just not going to happen in a system where the horizon of the head is just about keeping the plates spinning until the weekend.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
Although I feel that in general the UK is very poor at foreign languages, what is the rationale for it up to 18, especially when we know AI is already pretty good at least basic translation and I think it is a task that AI is only going to get much better at*.
* there will still be a need at the very high end for expert translators, where there needs to be knowledge of culture nuance or very subject specialist knowledge, but I think in terms of writing / reading emails for business, these AI systems are going to be excellent at being able to do this in the very near future. It will be give it the basic outline of your talking points, and it will do a very good job of constructing the text (certainly better than somebody who has only studied to 18 and nothing more).
As dealing with foreign clients you will impress them more if you can speak their language as well as they speak yours without having to use Google translate
This is certainly true, but do we need every 18 year old to do that?
A lot of businesses, there will certainly be one or two individuals who conduct those sort of meetings, but a lot of it will be done by a wider team who never meet their foreign counterparts, rather they are doing paperwork, answering emails, etc.
And that is why I said there is certainly still a role for expert foreign language speakers, but I think that what we will be seeing is something far more sophisticated than Google Translate.
Even then it still helps to get a more responsive service from a waiter abroad if you can speak their language properly
I wouldn't have had you down as a foreign language advocate, so I do applaud that. But your example begs the question how many languages should be taught until 18, and which ones?
I would allow students to choose one of French, German, Spanish or Mandarin
I appreciate this is a dumb question but is it no longer legally possible to get a full-time job at 16?
You now have to be in full time education, training or an apprenticeship until 18
Thanks. An apprenticeship allows quite a lot of work opportunities for those not academically inclined I guess.
Jeez. It’s been a long time. The quality late evening biz class flight, from wintry london to the tropical sun
One of the minor but emphatic pleasures of life
I will wake up in a place where it is 32C and sunny
Mum and I flew business class from London to Kochi (Cochin) in mid-November, returned (also business class) Kochi to London in mid-December. Upgraded both times, over the counter outbound, and via an online "bid" coming back. Roughly an extra £550 for each of us on each leg.
That’s an amazing bargain. Well done!
I am actually thinking of flying back via Kochi. It sounds enticing. Never been. Exotic and storied
@Leon Just realised I got back over three weeks ago but forgot to post this:
If you do get to Kochi, it might not look like much, but this is the earliest Portuguese Catholic church in India, originally dating from c.1500. Vasco da Gama was buried here for a few years before his remains were shipped back to Portugal. However, it's now owned by the Anglican Church of South India:
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
It has about 2/3 of the depth. What you'd expect, really. Science A Levels are designed to follow smoothly on from GCSE double award, and I've had students do well from either route.
(Since it follows on neatly from here, I'd argue that science is a better training in practical numeracy than maths. We deal with MoE variations all the time, and get used to knowing what to ignore.)
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
I'm aware of that. But you still study Biology, Chemistry and Physics within them.
And as @Sunil_Prasannan has pointed out, double award has been the default in state schools for decades. I went to a state school that did the three separate sciences, but by then it was getting unusual.
Indeed, and often that is not enough depth to get an A at A level Chemistry, which tends to be required for Medical School.
Fox Jr's comprehensive did triple science for those who wanted it, but many schools lack that capability.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
Not that we can do much about it when we do see it half the time, given the paucity of resources and inadequacy of council procedures.
My experience was that any teacher who had been in the classroom a few months could spot any issue with a child - SEND, health, emotional wellbeing - but actually getting anything done about it was the equivalent of banging your head very hard against a brick wall. Heck, it would be easier to convince Donald Trump he'd lost an election than to get Staffs to cough up for a plan.
It's proving to be nigh on impossible in a special school. We all know what the issues are. There isn't anyone to deal with them.
* Having a ECHP isn't a magic bullet anyways. We have those who legally are entitled to a laptop. We can't make said laptop work.
Sadly Riesling is one variety nobody in England has managed to make consistently into good wine, despite it being at least officially a cool climate variety.
I know what the petrol thing is getting at, it’s the volatile whiff of a nearby filling station. Older Riesling does have that.
It’s good to see plenty of PB interest in decent wine. You’ll hopefully all be buying my Kentish blanc de noirs in about 4 years time when it’s ready to sell.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
Wine tasting notes are often written by people who have never actually tasted the wine. They’re there as marketing blurb, nothing more.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
I am just gob smacked by the lack of curiosity regarding science by most people. Just take the interesting properties of water. Ask people why they are not surprised icebergs float and you find it has never crossed their mind. Ask people why they feel cold when they are wet and the usual answer is 'because you are wet', with no curiosity as to why that should make you feel cold and the reason for it. Most people haven't a clue what the Calories/Joules written on food means other than to do with diets. Most have no idea that reference to Sodium for example in food refers to Sodium compounds. They certainly would if they came across a lump of sodium. The list is near infinite.
With the lag from rainfall to recharge and the wet weather forecast over the next fortnight I think we’re on the cusp of the drought being fully wiped out across most of the country soon.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
A silkworm would know - though I think they eat the leaves.
Except most Mulberry trees in the UK are not the same kind as Silkworms eat AFAIK
10/10. Silkworms eat white mulberry leaves. That well known dork Henry VIII imported black mulberry trees to kickstart the English silk industry.
BTW white/black are not about fruit colour. White mulberry fruit when ripe can be white red or black.
Shock, horror! Henry VIII is infallible according to Brexiteers. Maybe Brexiteers are wrong about everything else as well.
Genuine question - after taking over the position of Head of The English Church, did Henry or any of his descenders claim he equivalent of Papal Infallibility in religious terms?
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
Not that we can do much about it when we do see it half the time, given the paucity of resources and inadequacy of council procedures.
My experience was that any teacher who had been in the classroom a few months could spot any issue with a child - SEND, health, emotional wellbeing - but actually getting anything done about it was the equivalent of banging your head very hard against a brick wall. Heck, it would be easier to convince Donald Trump he'd lost an election than to get Staffs to cough up for a plan.
When I was a Childrens Panel member, the child’s teacher was usually the most valuable contributor, especially when reading between the lines, although the good social workers (the majority) were invaluable as well. Professionals know much more than some people on here think.
2D pictures of your holibobs is so last year, you should be making NeRFs.....
What's a NeRF?
Its a technique for novel view synthesis.
Its an AI driven way of turning a collection of photos (or video) of a scene into a 3D representation, such that you can then generate a novel photo from an angle you never shot from (or properly alter things like focal length, zoom, in 3d space etc), or just create a video moving through the scene (again including angles you never actually shot from).
There are already a couple of IoS apps out that use this approach and make it trivial to capture something on your smart phone and generate this e.g. https://lumalabs.ai/
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
So what about this biscuity champagne we hear about? Good thing there's only one sort of biscuit, or if more they all taste much the same.
There's a lot of laziness in wine tasting reports. Riesling is often described as smelling of petrol. Now I've smelt petrol and I've smelt and tasted plenty of riesling and they couldn't be more different.
Rielsings smell of petrol because they actually contain petrol, in hopefully small amounts. 1,1,6-trimethyl-1,2-dihydronaphthalene is the precise compound (had look that up)
Sadly Riesling is one variety nobody in England has managed to make consistently into good wine, despite it being at least officially a cool climate variety.
I know what the petrol thing is getting at, it’s the volatile whiff of a nearby filling station. Older Riesling does have that.
It’s good to see plenty of PB interest in decent wine. You’ll hopefully all be buying my Kentish blanc de noirs in about 4 years time when it’s ready to sell.
Brazil today showing once again the cultural hegemony of the USA. Like it or not much of the rest of the world’s political discourse, including in supposed enemies like Russia, is just imitation of US culture wars.
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
As you mentioned avɔn ˈhavrɛn I have a related history question.
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
If the summary reflects the report, it isn't a serious plan. That's partly for the reasons I've given, but there's another issue. It hasn't actually done what's needed to begin any serious plan: asked the right question.
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
My anecdotal experience might be a bit out of date, but from everything that I've ever heard about special needs in schools, parents have to fight really hard to get the needs of their children recognised, and extra support provided.
A lot of this might come down to funding - perhaps the teachers are being forced to act as hyper-vigilant gatekeepers in order to ration the extra support available - but I find a response of, "teachers are perfect at this already, thanks," a bit jarring. And that's speaking as someone whose mother was a teacher, and whose ex's mother was a special needs teacher.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
It has about 2/3 of the depth. What you'd expect, really. Science A Levels are designed to follow smoothly on from GCSE double award, and I've had students do well from either route.
(Since it follows on neatly from here, I'd argue that science is a better training in practical numeracy than maths. We deal with MoE variations all the time, and get used to knowing what to ignore.)
Re your para in brackets, I have never thought of that but it makes sense. For most people calculus in everyday life is useless. What is useful is arithmetic, probability, stats, basic logic.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
It really doesn't matter what words they use to describe the taste, provided they are consistent and you drink wine often enough to pick up the lingo. Taste a red wine that says hint of mulberry and compare to a red wine that says notes of cherry, and eventually you should pick up the difference.
I don't drink enough wine to build up my experience, but I'm doing quite well on darker beers.
Every field of specialism is impenetrable to an outsider, and I guess wine-tasting is a specialism. The problem comes if it's all made up, and so inconsistent - but I would need to drink more wine to come to any conclusions. I'll pencil it for the 2030s.
I am specialised enough to conclude this guy was being a twat. I do find, though, that wine tastes of wine, not berries or pencil shavings.
Wine is remarkable in its complexity - the sugars, yeasts, tannins in the grape skins, esters from fermentation, vanillins from ageing in oak - it does have the ability to echo all sorts of other flavours and aromas. You try to pinpoint these as much as possible. So if you discern an 'earthy' aroma, is it minerally, mushroomy, or farmyardy? If it's farmyardy, that's when you might say it smells like a Jersey cow-shed, because you're tying it to something you remember, and hoping that others remember and can identify with.
Wine tasting notes are often written by people who have never actually tasted the wine. They’re there as marketing blurb, nothing more.
Not really, at least not the ones anyone bothers to read (decanter.com/vivino/Jancis etc.) I only look at the blurb on the bottle for varieties and ABV, and it seems to be typeset by teenagers and 6 points too small to read by the target market.
Sadly Riesling is one variety nobody in England has managed to make consistently into good wine, despite it being at least officially a cool climate variety.
I know what the petrol thing is getting at, it’s the volatile whiff of a nearby filling station. Older Riesling does have that.
It’s good to see plenty of PB interest in decent wine. You’ll hopefully all be buying my Kentish blanc de noirs in about 4 years time when it’s ready to sell.
Is that 100% pinot noir?
It’ll be roughly 60:40 Pinot Meunier/Pinot Noir. Meunier does well in our area. Cooler than the downs scarp slope or lower Weald and flinty clay soils similar to Val de Marne.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
Combined science is a way to trick girls into taking physics and boys into biology. True story.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
No history or science?
In the workplace unless you want to teach or research history or work in a museum or be a scientist or doctor or engineer you don't need history or science day to day. They should be compulsory to 16 as any educated person should have some core knowledge of them but not beyond that.
However most office and admin jobs today need effective English language and communication skills, core numeracy and IT.
I agree re history. It is very interesting but not essential for most people, although a knowledge of recent history can be very useful. I don't agree re science. I am appalled by the lack of scientific knowledge of most people and how useful it can be.
As I said science would still be compulsory to 16 for me. Now you don't have to study all 3 sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics individually to 16 or history. You can drop them at 14
You still have to study all three sciences to 16. You may not sit separate exams in them.
You only study them in proper depth if you do separate exams in all 3 of them. Double award doesn't do the same depth
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
A silkworm would know - though I think they eat the leaves.
Except most Mulberry trees in the UK are not the same kind as Silkworms eat AFAIK
10/10. Silkworms eat white mulberry leaves. That well known dork Henry VIII imported black mulberry trees to kickstart the English silk industry.
BTW white/black are not about fruit colour. White mulberry fruit when ripe can be white red or black.
Shock, horror! Henry VIII is infallible according to Brexiteers. Maybe Brexiteers are wrong about everything else as well.
Genuine question - after taking over the position of Head of The English Church, did Henry or any of his descenders claim he equivalent of Papal Infallibility in religious terms?
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
If the summary reflects the report, it isn't a serious plan. That's partly for the reasons I've given, but there's another issue. It hasn't actually done what's needed to begin any serious plan: asked the right question.
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
My anecdotal experience might be a bit out of date, but from everything that I've ever heard about special needs in schools, parents have to fight really hard to get the needs of their children recognised, and extra support provided.
A lot of this might come down to funding - perhaps the teachers are being forced to act as hyper-vigilant gatekeepers in order to ration the extra support available - but I find a response of, "teachers are perfect at this already, thanks," a bit jarring. And that's speaking as someone whose mother was a teacher, and whose ex's mother was a special needs teacher.
Where do I say that? I said that the report was telling us to do something we were already doing.
Nothing is more annoying than being told you're not doing something and need to do it when you're doing it.
Teachers, by and large, want to help children learn. Sure, there are some scummy gits who are in it for their own careers, e.g. Woodhead, but most will try and get children the help they need. And most of them know what to look for.
It's just a nightmare trying to get it. Because it costs money so the county try to stop you.
That's my 16 years' experience as first an LSW and then a teacher.
According to James Bond lore, he put pepper into his vodka in order to remove the petrol contamination. “It’s a trick the Russians taught me that time you attached me to the Embassy in Moscow,” apologized Bond. “There’s often quite a lot of fusel oil on the surface of this stuff-at least there used to be when it was badly distilled. Poisonous. In Russia, where you get a lot of bath-tub liquor, it’s an understood thing to sprinkle a little pepper in your glass. It takes the fusel oil to the bottom.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
My anecdotal experience might be a bit out of date, but from everything that I've ever heard about special needs in schools, parents have to fight really hard to get the needs of their children recognised, and extra support provided.
A lot of this might come down to funding - perhaps the teachers are being forced to act as hyper-vigilant gatekeepers in order to ration the extra support available - but I find a response of, "teachers are perfect at this already, thanks," a bit jarring. And that's speaking as someone whose mother was a teacher, and whose ex's mother was a special needs teacher.
Where are you getting "perfect" from? The suggestion I was responding to was that they are completely untrained. I know they are not perfect is because I have a SEN child.
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
As you mentioned avɔn ˈhavrɛn I have a related history question.
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
Which English people? The Saxons, or the pre-Roman Celts?
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
Hmmm.
From personal experience, at the local state schools, they didn’t identify several children of acquaintances/friends who had mild SENs issues. They did identify 2 children with massive symptoms (children of a relative) that missing it was impossible. But only after several years.
At the private schools my daughter attends, the teachers are given extra training on SENs - which they described to me as “eye opening”. They are backed by SENs specialist s, employed by the school, in turn backed by professional shrinks.
I would certainly advocate the latter methodology, to the state one. Which seems, from what I can see, to consist of giving teachers who have 348 responsibilities, another folder to balance on top of the pile they are carrying.
Sadly Riesling is one variety nobody in England has managed to make consistently into good wine, despite it being at least officially a cool climate variety.
I know what the petrol thing is getting at, it’s the volatile whiff of a nearby filling station. Older Riesling does have that.
It’s good to see plenty of PB interest in decent wine. You’ll hopefully all be buying my Kentish blanc de noirs in about 4 years time when it’s ready to sell.
Is that 100% pinot noir?
It’ll be roughly 60:40 Pinot Meunier/Pinot Noir. Meunier does well in our area. Cooler than the downs scarp slope or lower Weald and flinty clay soils similar to Val de Marne.
I'm rather surprised the North Downs scarp slope isn't covered in vineyards these days - it must be ideal.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
If the summary reflects the report, it isn't a serious plan. That's partly for the reasons I've given, but there's another issue. It hasn't actually done what's needed to begin any serious plan: asked the right question.
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
Isn't the answer simply going to be a reasonably messy compromise of all of the above.
Fundamentally, if politics is about anything, it's about a peaceful way of resolving competing priorities. Generally speaking this is always going to resolve into a messy compromise to one degree or another, but if it can be a reasonably well-planned and ably executed sort of compromise then so much the better.
How strange, we didn't seem to be against Harry killing then.
Talk to any serviceman who has actually been in action. They thought he was a twat for saying it then just as they do now.
Well, unlike the tabloids and the people whose noses are lead by them, at least they're being consistent. Since we've only got Topping and Dura Ace on here to give the serviceman's view, let's see if they're in accord with 'any serviceman'.
Trying to generalise about the subject is impossible as service personnel are people and people are different. Some like talking about it, some don't mind if asked and some will never discuss what they've done. It does make people treat you differently once they know hence occasional reticence.
Most, but by no means all, of mine were from the air so an exact tally is difficult but I am well into double figures. Probably just short of a full 'Harry'.
According to James Bond lore, he put pepper into his vodka in order to remove the petrol contamination. “It’s a trick the Russians taught me that time you attached me to the Embassy in Moscow,” apologized Bond. “There’s often quite a lot of fusel oil on the surface of this stuff-at least there used to be when it was badly distilled. Poisonous. In Russia, where you get a lot of bath-tub liquor, it’s an understood thing to sprinkle a little pepper in your glass. It takes the fusel oil to the bottom.
I think that is in Blades i.e. the equivalent of Whites or Bucks? It seems odd: if you don't trust the vodka, ask for gin.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
If the summary reflects the report, it isn't a serious plan. That's partly for the reasons I've given, but there's another issue. It hasn't actually done what's needed to begin any serious plan: asked the right question.
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
It's trying to be all four. Not possible.
It's failing to be all four.
And in so doing it's failing to be any of them.
Better to pick one and do it really well.
I personally like the idea of 3 but I can see why 1 and 4 might be popular. And it's hard to achieve 3 without some measure of 1!
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
My anecdotal experience might be a bit out of date, but from everything that I've ever heard about special needs in schools, parents have to fight really hard to get the needs of their children recognised, and extra support provided.
A lot of this might come down to funding - perhaps the teachers are being forced to act as hyper-vigilant gatekeepers in order to ration the extra support available - but I find a response of, "teachers are perfect at this already, thanks," a bit jarring. And that's speaking as someone whose mother was a teacher, and whose ex's mother was a special needs teacher.
Where are you getting "perfect" from? The suggestion I was responding to was that they are completely untrained. I know they are not perfect is because I have a SEN child.
The heading for that point of the plan is literally "Better training" - how exactly does that imply that teachers are currently untrained? It certainly would seem that a reasonable inference that anyone opposing better training thinks that the status quo is at least as close to perfection as reasonably possible, if not actually perfect.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
If the summary reflects the report, it isn't a serious plan. That's partly for the reasons I've given, but there's another issue. It hasn't actually done what's needed to begin any serious plan: asked the right question.
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
Isn't the answer simply going to be a reasonably messy compromise of all of the above.
Fundamentally, if politics is about anything, it's about a peaceful way of resolving competing priorities. Generally speaking this is always going to resolve into a messy compromise to one degree or another, but if it can be a reasonably well-planned and ably executed sort of compromise then so much the better.
No. Because it's impossible to do all of them. It's actually impossible to do any two of them. The current attempt to do more than one (1, 4 and to a lesser extent, 2) is one reason our education system is imploding.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
Hmmm.
From personal experience, at the local state schools, they didn’t identify several children of acquaintances/friends who had mild SENs issues. They did identify 2 children with massive symptoms (children of a relative) that missing it was impossible. But only after several years.
At the private schools my daughter attends, the teachers are given extra training on SENs - which they described to me as “eye opening”. They are backed by SENs specialist s, employed by the school, in turn backed by professional shrinks.
I would certainly advocate the latter methodology, to the state one. Which seems, from what I can see, to consist of giving teachers who have 348 responsibilities, another folder to balance on top of the pile they are carrying.
That's funding though, isn't it? We could all do plenty when "backed by SENs specialist s, employed by the school, in turn backed by professional shrinks." The public sector used to have it. But it's been slashed to protect the "frontline".
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
The best test of how good a piece of writing is, is how actually good it actually is. You don't answer Ydoethur's criticisms, you just go off down a meta rabbithole about "like" counts. And here's a thing about the Real World: most of those Important People you list have done nothing beyond the equivalent of clicking like/retweet about this farrago of nonsense. I mean, you present as a parent: have you honestly never noticed that teachers are already trained to recognise children with SEN?
My anecdotal experience might be a bit out of date, but from everything that I've ever heard about special needs in schools, parents have to fight really hard to get the needs of their children recognised, and extra support provided.
A lot of this might come down to funding - perhaps the teachers are being forced to act as hyper-vigilant gatekeepers in order to ration the extra support available - but I find a response of, "teachers are perfect at this already, thanks," a bit jarring. And that's speaking as someone whose mother was a teacher, and whose ex's mother was a special needs teacher.
Where are you getting "perfect" from? The suggestion I was responding to was that they are completely untrained. I know they are not perfect is because I have a SEN child.
The heading for that point of the plan is literally "Better training" - how exactly does that imply that teachers are currently untrained? It certainly would seem that a reasonable inference that anyone opposing better training thinks that the status quo is at least as close to perfection as reasonably possible, if not actually perfect.
Because that isn't the pinchpoint. There's no point at all in 'better training' when the issue is you can't get any help for children when you've seen what they need as it will be vetoed on cost and capacity grounds.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
I'm not sure why the stated plan should elicit such a hostile response. My first thought on reading the 12-point plan is that it sounds like a lot of extra spending.
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
If the summary reflects the report, it isn't a serious plan. That's partly for the reasons I've given, but there's another issue. It hasn't actually done what's needed to begin any serious plan: asked the right question.
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
I haven't entered this debate. But I would just add that none of the 12 things itemised in the summary are brand new - in fact, nearly all of them have been proposed at some stage in the last 30 years (see the Dearing Report, for example). Indeed, there have been some efforts to implement several of them (e.g. bridging the academic/vocational divide), but they have generally foundered. There's nothing particularly new here.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
A silkworm would know - though I think they eat the leaves.
Except most Mulberry trees in the UK are not the same kind as Silkworms eat AFAIK
10/10. Silkworms eat white mulberry leaves. That well known dork Henry VIII imported black mulberry trees to kickstart the English silk industry.
BTW white/black are not about fruit colour. White mulberry fruit when ripe can be white red or black.
Shock, horror! Henry VIII is infallible according to Brexiteers. Maybe Brexiteers are wrong about everything else as well.
Genuine question - after taking over the position of Head of The English Church, did Henry or any of his descenders claim he equivalent of Papal Infallibility in religious terms?
No but George III did make Catholics taking office swear an oath rejecting Papal infallibility, in part to ensure rejection of Papal forgiveness of regicide
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
As you mentioned avɔn ˈhavrɛn I have a related history question.
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
Which English people? The Saxons, or the pre-Roman Celts?
I have often thought wondered how difficult it must have been for traders to communicate with their buyers in the middle ages and before, what with the myriad of languages and dialects, and limited mobile phone coverage.
A lot of mid range wine tasting is just more descriptive version of what people smell and taste. It’s a skill but one I think AI could master quite easily.
For example, take a Rhône white dominated by Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne. You could say:
- Neutral slightly fruity smell - Rich rounded taste - A bit like Chardonnay but more spicy
Or you could say:
- Generous nose, beeswax and stone fruits, hints of toasted nuts - Peach and lychee on the palate, a hint of cardamom, masala chai
An AI could do that I think.
Just read tasting notes on a prob rather ordinary Chilean pinot noir which said hint of mulberry. WTF knows what a mulberry tastes like? I do because I have a mulberry tree, but I bet the author didn't, nor over .001% of his intended audience.
A silkworm would know - though I think they eat the leaves.
Except most Mulberry trees in the UK are not the same kind as Silkworms eat AFAIK
10/10. Silkworms eat white mulberry leaves. That well known dork Henry VIII imported black mulberry trees to kickstart the English silk industry.
BTW white/black are not about fruit colour. White mulberry fruit when ripe can be white red or black.
Shock, horror! Henry VIII is infallible according to Brexiteers. Maybe Brexiteers are wrong about everything else as well.
Genuine question - after taking over the position of Head of The English Church, did Henry or any of his descenders claim he equivalent of Papal Infallibility in religious terms?
Very good question. James VI/I was both a divine right nutter (wrote a book about it) and a great biblical scholar or at least organizer of scholars, so the answer ought to be yes. But that is qualified by the recency of the doctrine of PI. The truly infallible source says
"This doctrine, defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870 in the document Pastor aeternus, is claimed to have existed in medieval theology and to have been the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation."
There's a real question as to whether it was cooked up ex nihilo in 1869.
CBA to read the wiki article but I believe that only 2 infallible pronouncements have been made: first that infallibility is a thing, and second that the BVM was conceived free of sin.
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
As you mentioned avɔn ˈhavrɛn I have a related history question.
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
Which English people? The Saxons, or the pre-Roman Celts?
I have often thought wondered how difficult it must have been for traders to communicate with their buyers in the middle ages and before, what with the myriad of languages and dialects, and limited mobile phone coverage.
Ever wondered why the Jews were famous as merchants in the Middle Ages?
Because they not only spoke, but wrote, the same language across all countries.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
1 A British Baccalaureate It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with parity in funding per pupil in both routes, and a slimmed-down set of exams at 16 to bring out the best in every child.
2 ‘Electives premium’ To be spent on activities including drama, music, dance and sport and a National Citizen Service experience for every pupil, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits to ensure that activities enjoyed by the most advantaged become available to all.
3 New cadre of Career Academies Elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms and a new focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education to unleash the economic potential of Britain.
4 Significant boost to early years funding The extra funding should be targeted at the most vulnerable. A unique pupil number would be given to every child from birth, to level the playing field before they get to school. Every primary school should have a library.
5 Army of undergraduate tutors The students would earn credit towards their degrees by helping pupils who fall behind to catch up.
6 Making the most of tech A laptop or tablet for every child, greater use of artificial intelligence in schools, colleges and universities to personalise learning, reduce teacher workload and prepare young people better for future employment.
7 Wellbeing at the heart of education A counsellor should be placed in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils carried out to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support students once problems have arisen.
8 Bring out the best in teaching Profession’s status and appeal would be increased with better career development, revalidation every 5 yrs & a new category of consultant teachers, promoted within the classroom, as well as a new teaching apprenticeship.
9 A reformed Ofsted Ofsted should work collaboratively with schools to secure sustained improvement, and a new “report card” with a wider range of metrics including wellbeing, school culture, inclusion & attendance to unleash the potential of schools.
10 Better training Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs, a greater focus should be placed on inclusion and a duty put on schools to remain accountable for the pupils they exclude to draw out the talent in every child.
11 New university campuses New campuses should be created in 50 HE “cold spots”, including satellite wings in FE colleges. In addition, pay and conditions in FE sector should be improved and a transferrable credit system between universities and colleges created to boost stalled British productivity.
12 A 15-year strategy Drawn up in consultation with business leaders, scientists, local mayors, civic leaders & cultural figures, putting education above short-term party politics and bringing out the best in our schools, colleges and universities.
1) Bullshit. You can have qualifications as intense as A-level (whether they're rigorous is a different question, and I would argue the current ones are not) or you can have more of them. In Australia, for example, you do more subjects at 18 but they're much closer to GCSEs than A-levels in terms of assessment and content.
2) What the fuck does that even mean? It's drivel.
3) Those already exist, so why rebadge them? The key is not elitism. That's what's killed British (and I do mean British) education for centuries. We've always had good elite systems. Where we fall down is in doing a proper job for everyone else.
4) No Shit Sherlocks. Unless you say how it's to be paid for, that's meaningless.
5) Again, already happens on a modest scale. And it can't be expanded because there are lots of undergraduates you don't want near schoolchildren and would be as much use as Spielman in a classroom. How fucking ignorant are these people?
6) Some university faculties have a staff student ratio of 1;46. Are they willing for a fourfold increase in uni funding? Tablets/laptops are a good idea but it's being blocked by the DfE for mostly spurious official reasons which are too long to list here but in reality because of cost.
7) There already is. What planet are these fuckers on?
8) These people don't have a fucking clue. Teachers already do extensive ANNUAL training due to performance related pay. Reaccrediting every five years is simply a way to keep a load of useless unemployable wankers at the DfE in work and add yet more work to teachers.
9) OFSTED is a risk to children, because its head is ignoring safeguarding, possibly because she's stupid and possibly because she's arrogant. It was designed to bring teachers under the drink sodden retards of the DfE and is despised by teachers as a waste of time and effort. It needs abolishing not reforming.
10) WE ALREADY FUCKING DO YOU USELESS DRUG ADDLED WANKERS. BETTER TRAINING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT BUT YOU SHUTTING YOUR USELESS STUPID PATRONISING MOUTHS MIGHT.
11) what the fuck does this even mean? Name one county with no university. I can come up with Rutland and Northumberland. But after that I'm struggling. Even Hereford has one.
12) sod strategies. What we need are useless wankers who think they are brilliant but are in fact thick to fuck off and stop meddling. Starting with the DfE and whatever drunken retards came up with this drivel.
Honestly. Maybe the country's had enough of experts but I've left teaching partly because I'd had enough of ignorant stupid patronising wankers with small brains and smaller dicks telling me how to do my job despite knowing nothing about it.
Feel better now?
Why? Have you shot some of these idiots?
Here is the list of commissioners on that review - it includes plenty of heads and teachers.
Do you think they are all idiots?
"Rachel Sylvester Chairwoman
Sir Anthony Seldon Deputy chairman. Contemporary historian, former head of Brighton College and Wellington College and former vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
Geoff Barton General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
Lord Bilimoria Founder of Cobra Beer, president of the CBI and chancellor of Birmingham University
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, who leads a group studying the adolescent brain and behaviour
Sir Damon Buffini Permira founding partner, chairman of National Theatre and Cultural Recovery Fund Board
Dame Sally Coates Director at United Learning, which runs 90 schools; author of review of education in prison
Evelyn Forde Head of Copthall School in Barnet and winner of TES head of the year 2020
Kiran Gill Founder of The Difference, which sends high-flying teachers to referral units and alternative provision schools
Robert Halfon Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of Commons education select committee
Lucy Heller Chief executive of Ark, an educational charity that runs schools
Tristram Hunt Victoria & Albert Museum director, former Labour MP
Lord Johnson of Marylebone Former universities minister, chairman of TES
Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Lucy Kellaway Teacher at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney and co-founder of Now Teach
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Chairwoman of WeTransfer, Open University chancellor, Lords Covid-19 select committee chairwoman
Anne Longfield Former children’s commissioner for England
Professor Heather McGregor Executive dean of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University
Amanda Melton Principal of Nelson and Colne FE college in Lancashire
Sir Michael Morpurgo Author, poet and playwright, and former teacher"
Shit. That's not any Appeal to Authority, it's an M&S Appeal to Authority. Never mind the names, look at the actual document. "Teachers should be trained to identify children who have special educational needs" is like saying "Chefs should be trained in the art of rendering foodstuffs more edible and/or palatable by the sustained application of heat."
Those are the headline executive summaries in just one or two sentences. And I had to edit those just to get them to fit in the vanilla character limit.
There is no credible reason to dismiss the report, unless you are a headbanger. The list of commissioners is venerable and the fact that all 10 previous education secretaries and several sitting/former PMs have welcomed its findings is impressive in itself.
It is a very serious piece of work and deserves to be taken so - particularly as our education sector does lag our competitors.
I will certainly be reading it in full (I am yet to do so) and coming to my own conclusions on the detailed findings, and look forward to it.
Hmmm.
From personal experience, at the local state schools, they didn’t identify several children of acquaintances/friends who had mild SENs issues. They did identify 2 children with massive symptoms (children of a relative) that missing it was impossible. But only after several years.
At the private schools my daughter attends, the teachers are given extra training on SENs - which they described to me as “eye opening”. They are backed by SENs specialist s, employed by the school, in turn backed by professional shrinks.
I would certainly advocate the latter methodology, to the state one. Which seems, from what I can see, to consist of giving teachers who have 348 responsibilities, another folder to balance on top of the pile they are carrying.
Which takes us back to the elephant in the room. If you have twice as much funding per pupil, you can do a lot more.
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
As you mentioned avɔn ˈhavrɛn I have a related history question.
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
Which English people? The Saxons, or the pre-Roman Celts?
I have often thought wondered how difficult it must have been for traders to communicate with their buyers in the middle ages and before, what with the myriad of languages and dialects, and limited mobile phone coverage.
I understand credit card acceptance was a bit iffy as well.
I am really surprised there hasn't been a class action lawsuit over the vulnerability of keyless entry car systems. This mode of attack has been going on for years now and yet it seems so many models are still vulnerable to what is a really low tech attack of boosting the signal when you are in your house or blocking it when you are out.
Certainly there is a strong case for Maths to 18, just add English language, IT and a foreign language too
Although I feel that in general the UK is very poor at foreign languages, what is the rationale for it up to 18, especially when we know AI is already pretty good at least basic translation and I think it is a task that AI is only going to get much better at*.
* there will still be a need at the very high end for expert translators, where there needs to be knowledge of culture nuance or very subject specialist knowledge, but I think in terms of writing / reading emails for business, these AI systems are going to be excellent at being able to do this in the very near future. It will be give it the basic outline of your talking points, and it will do a very good job of constructing the text (certainly better than somebody who has only studied to 18 and nothing more).
As dealing with foreign clients you will impress them more if you can speak their language as well as they speak yours without having to use Google translate
This is certainly true, but do we need every 18 year old to do that?
A lot of businesses, there will certainly be one or two individuals who conduct those sort of meetings, but a lot of it will be done by a wider team who never meet their foreign counterparts, rather they are doing paperwork, answering emails, etc.
And that is why I said there is certainly still a role for expert foreign language speakers, but I think that what we will be seeing is something far more sophisticated than Google Translate.
Even then it still helps to get a more responsive service from a waiter abroad if you can speak their language properly
Doing paperwork and answering emails is the exact stuff likely to be done by AI. We should be training people up to be as high skilled as possible.
Severn Trent was up to 79.6% capacity last Monday, will presumably be higher now.
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
As you mentioned avɔn ˈhavrɛn I have a related history question.
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
Which English people? The Saxons, or the pre-Roman Celts?
I have often thought wondered how difficult it must have been for traders to communicate with their buyers in the middle ages and before, what with the myriad of languages and dialects, and limited mobile phone coverage.
That's how you get pidgin and then creole languages: if peeps are desperate enough to do business they will find a way of communicating. E.G. Swahili is a creole of arabic, and bantu family languages. So 1,2,3,4,5 are Bantu, but that's as high as they went, and after that it's nearly pure Arabic.
Comments
What's baffling is that at least some people on your list should know that, although admittedly there are plenty of senior people in education who are utterly clueless and in the case of one principal of my acquaintance got the job literally through blackmail despite being a known risk to children.
It's also very wide-ranging. If they were to concentrate on one or two key things, they would paradoxically get further and faster.
There is one thing recommended which desperately needs doing and has done for years - technology for every child at all times, be that a tablet or a laptop (I would say tablet lower down, laptop from year 11 up). But it's so buried in among a lot of drivel that it's very easy to overlook.
And as a result, even though that enormous list of names (leaving aside there are several people on there who are repellent and stupid, I suppose being a Tv presenter with an intellectual for a father is a lever) could have achieved something really worthwhile by focusing on just that and trying to secure it, which will not be easy but would be revolutionary, nothing will happen.
If you don't listen, how will you learn?
https://twitter.com/JakeSullivan46/status/1612196085023526912?s=20&t=s5obqBfRnt3QqRAMXYwusA
https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1612194081672658949?s=20&t=5Y4i8IKwpQ4LV7eksc-gYw
Anything from the UK government yet?
They must have upgraded me sight unseen, as I was haggard and unshaven from travelling in Indonesia for a month, living off street stall chicken rice and noodles. Unfortunately I had such bad food poisoning from the night before* that I could barely keep water down and had my buttocks clenched to prevent soiling myself. Mrs Foxy happily polished off my steak as seconds, and quaffed my wine.
*made the schoolboy error of eating a hotel buffet in the tropics. Never eat anything that is kept warm.
If you discount invasion.
It's considerably funkier.
And better food. Has seasons as well.
I liked it for the sheer quality of the invective. You don't get that with AI.
My experience was that any teacher who had been in the classroom a few months could spot any issue with a child - SEND, health, emotional wellbeing - but actually getting anything done about it was the equivalent of banging your head very hard against a brick wall. Heck, it would be easier to convince Donald Trump he'd lost an election than to get Staffs to cough up for a plan.
Seemed only right and proper.
I'm also not sure why you were so confused by my suggestion that this could be just a way to harmonise education across the hoped-for re-enlarged EU. Harmonisation disguised as domestic reform (that happens to miraculously occur to everyone at once) is the MO of that organisation and its supporters, and an initiative like this would be very much in line with that effort.
And as @Sunil_Prasannan has pointed out, double award has been the default in state schools for decades. I went to a state school that did the three separate sciences, but by then it was getting unusual.
E5 petrol. Thin and insipid like a Morrisons bottom shelf wine.
E10 petrol. Like a cheap riesling but with a nasty aftertaste.
Diesel. Heavy and oily like Asda barolo.
Riesling. Better than all the above.
Shiraz. Much better than all of the above. The second glass took away the taste of the riesling. The third glass took away the taste of the diesel. The fourth glass took away the taste of the E10. The fifth glass took away the taste of the E5. Looking forward to the sixth glass.
Southern Water reservoirs:
Bewl 78%
Darwell 88%
Powdermill 100%
Weir Wood 100%
https://www.southernwater.co.uk/water-for-life/reservoir-levels
Just realised I got back over three weeks ago but forgot to post this:
If you do get to Kochi, it might not look like much, but this is the earliest Portuguese Catholic church in India, originally dating from c.1500. Vasco da Gama was buried here for a few years before his remains were shipped back to Portugal. However, it's now owned by the Anglican Church of South India:
Perhaps the full report has gathered the evidence, and created the sort of comprehensive plan that can justify the additional spending, and maybe if the money is found then this would be seen as a turning point in British education. We could certainly do with one.
I think Education has suffered in Britain from a lot of hobby horses and faddish policies. If we now have a serious plan, using the best evidence, for a better way forward, then it might be possible to improve things. A Beveridge Report for Education sort of thing.
(Since it follows on neatly from here, I'd argue that science is a better training in practical numeracy than maths. We deal with MoE variations all the time, and get used to knowing what to ignore.)
Not sure what the groundwater levels are like but since it's been consistently soggy for several months they're hopefully rising too.
I said back in the autumn that we needed a wet, mild and windy winter and then glumly noted the long range forecast was indicating the opposite. Fortunately the long range forecast was about as accurate as my average cricket forecast.
Fox Jr's comprehensive did triple science for those who wanted it, but many schools lack that capability.
We all know what the issues are. There isn't anyone to deal with them.
* Having a ECHP isn't a magic bullet anyways.
We have those who legally are entitled to a laptop.
We can't make said laptop work.
I know what the petrol thing is getting at, it’s the volatile whiff of a nearby filling station. Older Riesling does have that.
It’s good to see plenty of PB interest in decent wine. You’ll hopefully all be buying my Kentish blanc de noirs in about 4 years time when it’s ready to sell.
Its an AI driven way of turning a collection of photos (or video) of a scene into a 3D representation, such that you can then generate a novel photo from an angle you never shot from (or properly alter things like focal length, zoom, in 3d space etc), or just create a video moving through the scene (again including angles you never actually shot from).
There are already a couple of IoS apps out that use this approach and make it trivial to capture something on your smart phone and generate this e.g. https://lumalabs.ai/
In the dark ages, 1500 years ago and earlier, when English people went to Wales, could they understand the language spoken?
What do we want our education system to achieve?
Is it to educate everyone to be successful in the workplace?
Is it to prepare for further study?
Is it to make people useful members of society and achieve some kind of personal eudaimonia?
Or is it a baby sitting service so both parents can earn money to pay a mortgage and keep house prices up?
You can only have one of those things, because the approach you take to achieve them is quite different from each other. You can't, for example, do lots of education while babysitting eight till six fifty weeks a year. Equally, you can't do full on education nine hours a day fifty weeks a year. And equipping people to be effective in the work place means training them to subordinate their personal desires for freedom of action to economic needs.
Until we answer that question - and it's not a question politicians or civil servants alone can answer - any plan or report is frankly a waste of time and effort.
A lot of this might come down to funding - perhaps the teachers are being forced to act as hyper-vigilant gatekeepers in order to ration the extra support available - but I find a response of, "teachers are perfect at this already, thanks," a bit jarring. And that's speaking as someone whose mother was a teacher, and whose ex's mother was a special needs teacher.
(Yes, the shabby labcoat with the mysterious burn marks, thanks.)
Not possible.
Nothing is more annoying than being told you're not doing something and need to do it when you're doing it.
Teachers, by and large, want to help children learn. Sure, there are some scummy gits who are in it for their own careers, e.g. Woodhead, but most will try and get children the help they need. And most of them know what to look for.
It's just a nightmare trying to get it. Because it costs money so the county try to stop you.
That's my 16 years' experience as first an LSW and then a teacher.
“It’s a trick the Russians taught me that time you attached me to the Embassy in Moscow,” apologized Bond. “There’s often quite a lot of fusel oil on the surface of this stuff-at least there used to be when it was badly distilled. Poisonous. In Russia, where you get a lot of bath-tub liquor, it’s an understood thing to sprinkle a little pepper in your glass. It takes the fusel oil to the bottom.
From personal experience, at the local state schools, they didn’t identify several children of acquaintances/friends who had mild SENs issues. They did identify 2 children with massive symptoms (children of a relative) that missing it was impossible. But only after several years.
At the private schools my daughter attends, the teachers are given extra training on SENs - which they described to me as “eye opening”. They are backed by SENs specialist s, employed by the school, in turn backed by professional shrinks.
I would certainly advocate the latter methodology, to the state one. Which seems, from what I can see, to consist of giving teachers who have 348 responsibilities, another folder to balance on top of the pile they are carrying.
Fundamentally, if politics is about anything, it's about a peaceful way of resolving competing priorities. Generally speaking this is always going to resolve into a messy compromise to one degree or another, but if it can be a reasonably well-planned and ably executed sort of compromise then so much the better.
Most, but by no means all, of mine were from the air so an exact tally is difficult but I am well into double figures. Probably just short of a full 'Harry'.
And in so doing it's failing to be any of them.
Better to pick one and do it really well.
I personally like the idea of 3 but I can see why 1 and 4 might be popular. And it's hard to achieve 3 without some measure of 1!
We could all do plenty when "backed by SENs specialist s, employed by the school, in turn backed by professional shrinks."
The public sector used to have it.
But it's been slashed to protect the "frontline".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility#:~:text=The Church of England and,Articles of Religion (1571):
"This doctrine, defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870 in the document Pastor aeternus, is claimed to have existed in medieval theology and to have been the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation."
There's a real question as to whether it was cooked up ex nihilo in 1869.
CBA to read the wiki article but I believe that only 2 infallible pronouncements have been made: first that infallibility is a thing, and second that the BVM was conceived free of sin.
Because they not only spoke, but wrote, the same language across all countries.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/high-tech-thieves-stalking-car-how-thwart/
Even after all my years in education...