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.
When I was at Grammar School (it was a while ago) girls were streamed into Biology and boys into Physics. Four of us boys complained and were allowed to take Biology. Six girls also complained and were allowed to take Physics. AFAIK we were the first to be allowed to do this. I believe several of the girls became engineers (shock, horror). I managed O level biology. I would never have gained O level physics. The biggest shock to the system was the boy in our class, popular, sporting, academic, all round good guy, who succeeded in being allowed to sit A level home management. Hopefully things have progressed since I was at school, though I suspect not as far as they should have.
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.
Interesting context to Harry's notorious comments about the 25 Taliban he killed. He's making the point that modern warfare is precise and monitored, so you know exactly how many people you do kill whereas before you would fire in the direction of the enemy and not know if you hit anybody. Having a precise number of individuals marked against your name puts a lot more accountability onto the ordinary soldier.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
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.
Interesting context to Harry's notorious comments about the 25 Taliban he killed. He's making the point that modern warfare is precise and monitored, so you know exactly how many people you do kill whereas before you would fire in the direction of the enemy and not know if you hit anybody. Having a precise number of individuals marked against your name puts a lot more accountability onto the ordinary soldier.
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.
Well, like I said in my first post on this subject, my overall impression is that the report points to spending a lot more money on Education.
When you're asking someone for a lot of money there are a few things that you have to achieve. You have to show them what they are going to get for their money. You have to prove that you can't achieve the same ends with less money. And you have to reassure them that you have robust reviews and checks in place to ensure that the money will be used for its intended purpose and not wasted.
So sometimes that means a bit of stating the obvious has to be done to anticipate the arguments that would be used to provide less money. You can't just simply say, "we need £x to fix problem y."
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?
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.
I'm sure that happens on occasion but I don't think it's the norm. Wine makers are always very keen for people to taste their wates, and wine is very portable, and tasting it isn't an arduous task. Why would you make up the notes without tasting the wine when you could make them up whilst tasting the wine?
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.
I'm assuming you haven't fallen asleep on your keyboard? If not I'm afraid I have no idea.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worst possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worst possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
I'm just really surprised anyone thought it was a good idea.
Even after all my years in education...
It is honestly absolute stupidity...are we sure Liz Truss wasn't involved in designing it?
And the other problem, except getting your Ferrari nicked, is not being able to find the key-thingy in the actual car. One longs for a dedicated physical slot into which one could slide the thing every time one started the engine. Perhaps even make that a precondition of the engine actually starting...
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.
Failure to realise this is the cause of failure of current politics, see GOP, ERG.
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?
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.
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.
Despite valiant efforts by some parents, the perfectly spherical child, at STP, is rarely encountered.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
He managed a fine leg in the life drawing classes.
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.
It’s getting there slowly but the landholdings are quite large and there’s a fair bit of land banking. It’s easier in the Weald or up in the valleys (I’m in the downs but a dry internal valley) as plots are smaller and more fragmented.
In due course most of the lower slopes between the M20 and the pilgrims way will be largely vines. We already have on that single slope, from West to East, Squerryes, Mark Dixon’s vast plantings near Gravesend, several huge Chapel Down vineyards, Westwell, Nyetimber (Westwell plantings), 2 vineyards in Brabourne, Terlingham. That’s not counting the plantings on the dip slope or valleys. Probably well over a thousand hectares out of a UK total of around 4,000.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Cumbria itself comes from the same root as Cymru.
I always assumed it was a corruption of 'Cambria,' which was the Latinized form of 'Cymru.'
I'm just really surprised anyone thought it was a good idea.
Even after all my years in education...
It is honestly absolute stupidity...are we sure Liz Truss wasn't involved in designing it?
And the other problem, except getting your Ferrari nicked, is not being able to find the key-thingy in the actual car. One longs for a dedicated physical slot into which one could slide the thing every time one started the engine. Perhaps even make that a precondition of the engine actually starting...
Just had that exact problem with my hire car on holibobs....brake, the bloody fob thing slid out from the tray and when under the seat. There I am pulling up to a nice restaurant with Mrs U and then having to get out and stick my arse in the air while I tried to fish the bloody thing out from under the seat much to the bemusement of the valet kid.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Cumbria itself comes from the same root as Cymru.
I always assumed it was a corruption of 'Cambria,' which was the Latinized form of 'Cymru.'
I'm just really surprised anyone thought it was a good idea.
Even after all my years in education...
It is honestly absolute stupidity...are we sure Liz Truss wasn't involved in designing it?
And the other problem, except getting your Ferrari nicked, is not being able to find the key-thingy in the actual car. One longs for a dedicated physical slot into which one could slide the thing every time one started the engine. Perhaps even make that a precondition of the engine actually starting...
Just had that exact problem with my hire car on holibobs....brake, the bloody fob thing slid out from the tray and when under the seat. There I am pulling up to a nice restaurant with Mrs U and then having to get out and stick my arse in the air while I tried to fish the bloody thing out from under the seat much to the bemusement of the valet kid.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
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?
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
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".
Or slashed to deliver tax cuts to the donor class and preserve the advantages of the privately educated.
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?
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.
It’s getting there slowly but the landholdings are quite large and there’s a fair bit of land banking. It’s easier in the Weald or up in the valleys (I’m in the downs but a dry internal valley) as plots are smaller and more fragmented.
In due course most of the lower slopes between the M20 and the pilgrims way will be largely vines. We already have on that single slope, from West to East, Squerryes, Mark Dixon’s vast plantings near Gravesend, several huge Chapel Down vineyards, Westwell, Nyetimber (Westwell plantings), 2 vineyards in Brabourne, Terlingham. That’s not counting the plantings on the dip slope or valleys. Probably well over a thousand hectares out of a UK total of around 4,000.
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.
Failure to realise this is the cause of failure of current politics, see GOP, ERG.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Cricket is possibly the only sport where 0 can be a good score. Just another reason why it is the best of sports.
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.
Only the top 10% by IQ are likely to be able to do things AI can't, maybe even only the most creative 1%
I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce.
Rome clearly must have done quite a lot of its Empire-ing in Latin, because if you look at the Spanish, French, etc, languages they are descendants of Latin, not Greek. So the average provincial had enough use for Latin that in the longer settled provinces it pushed out the original languages entirely.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh bits to be called Welsh, without actually being Welsh, as that won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like the original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Right. It may be too late and night and I'm not sure I followed this very well. However:
1) Yes, most pre-Roman tribes probably spoke similar languages, although they may have been somewhat different in pronunciation and certainly diverged more over time. Breton and Welsh are similar, Breton and Deeside Gaelic are not. As far as I know there isn't any evidence for an especially English subset of the Celtic languages, although that doesn't mean there wasn't one.
2) Greek was a lingua franca for Rome, although there were many different reasons for that, not just commerce. I've no idea how widespread its use was in the British Isles. Probably not that widespread because, roughly speaking, the further you got from the old Macedonian Empire (which imposed their culture by force) the weaker Greek influence was.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
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.
I'm assuming you haven't fallen asleep on your keyboard? If not I'm afraid I have no idea.
I had Trockenbeerenauslese* once, a present from my FiL, and great with Christmas pudding. Like most sweet wines it tastes nothing special on its own, but paired with the right food very nice indeed. Not much else (perhaps a good Malmsey?) can stand up to the richness of Christmas pud. A Beerenauslese is easier to find, and nearly as good.
*I love German compound nouns, as they are so beautifully literal. It translates as "dry berries left out", and that is just about how it is made. You leave the grapes out unharvested until they are drying like raisins, then pick them and make your wine. Hence its rich syrupy raisin flavour. It needs particular climatic conditions at the right time of the year, so is only made every few years.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Is my pun so awesomely subtle that you missed it?
Or so awesomely bad you elected not to dignify it?
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce.
Rome clearly must have done quite a lot of its Empire-ing in Latin, because if you look at the Spanish, French, etc, languages they are descendants of Latin, not Greek. So the average provincial had enough use for Latin that in the longer settled provinces it pushed out the original languages entirely.
True dat but you have a westward bias - that's all to the left of Italy. Not saying Greek caught on in the East like Latin did in the west, but nor did latin.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
But if he's the Son of God he'd have understood. That ought not to be a question for believers.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Is my pun so awesomely subtle that you missed it?
Or so awesomely bad you elected not to dignify it?
Neither. Your original unedited post said 'bat out a draw', as you well know, and I was responding to that. I wasn't stumped by your pun.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Cricket is possibly the only sport where 0 can be a good score. Just another reason why it is the best of sports.
Standing around in a field for five days a sport doth not make.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Is my pun so awesomely subtle that you missed it?
Or so awesomely bad you elected not to dignify it?
Neither. Your original unedited post said 'bat out a draw', as you well know, and I was responding to that. I wasn't stumped by your pun.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Is my pun so awesomely subtle that you missed it?
Or so awesomely bad you elected not to dignify it?
Neither. Your original unedited post said 'bat out a draw', as you well know, and I was responding to that. I wasn't stumped by your pun.
I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce.
Rome clearly must have done quite a lot of its Empire-ing in Latin, because if you look at the Spanish, French, etc, languages they are descendants of Latin, not Greek. So the average provincial had enough use for Latin that in the longer settled provinces it pushed out the original languages entirely.
True dat but you have a westward bias - that's all to the left of Italy. Not saying Greek caught on in the East like Latin did in the west, but nor did latin.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
But if he's the Son of God he'd have understood.
That was the Holy Ghost. Book of Acts.
That's the kind of slipperyness that turned me away from Christianity. I mean. You're either divine, thus unbound by human logic or not? Not just a little bit, in certain circumstances. Whose parameters are defined accurately and unmistakably by human logic.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh bits to be called Welsh, without actually being Welsh, as that won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like the original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Right. It may be too late and night and I'm not sure I followed this very well. However:
1) Yes, most pre-Roman tribes probably spoke similar languages, although they may have been somewhat different in pronunciation and certainly diverged more over time. Breton and Welsh are similar, Breton and Deeside Gaelic are not. As far as I know there isn't any evidence for an especially English subset of the Celtic languages, although that doesn't mean there wasn't one.
2) Greek was a lingua franca for Rome, although there were many different reasons for that, not just commerce. I've no idea how widespread its use was in the British Isles. Probably not that widespread because, roughly speaking, the further you got from the old Macedonian Empire (which imposed their culture by force) the weaker Greek influence was.
I agree, as most English people know as much Greek today as Welsh, and invented the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” - the Roman’s likely didn’t push Greek very much by funding evening classes in it after their invasions. I agree once you go North and leave Albion, that term how Rome bundled Wales and England together as one, it’s Gaelic, a most likely more refined language than modern Scottish - Scottish to us English is just a sequence of angry sounding grunts none of us understand. And Yorkshire is very Viking influenced, they must have scared the Celtic locals away or just stabbed them all.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
Like Sahara desert (desert desert)
New Zealand is full of lakes called Rotorua and Rototoiti, meaning "lake" and "another lake" respectively. I imagine early explorers diligently writing those names down as they view the scene with their Baldrick-like guides.
I was disappointed to find out that the Queensland city of Townsville was named after Mr Towns, rather than the obvious.
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.
For us O level biology was compulsory. Options were chemistry or history, physics or art. A couple of lads who chose history saw the error of their ways and did O level chemistry in the 6th form along side their A levels.
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
'O' level art was compulsory at my school. I got the worse possible grade, largely because I chose to play cricket for the school team at the time I should have been sitting the exam. Teachers pretended not to notice. I think they knew that it wouldn't make any difference.
Did you draw?
Possibly, actually. Famously, I was once part of a last-wicket partnership for my county junior team that scored 53 runs. My contribution was 0 not out, as I played out seven maidens. Inspiration - G. Boycott.
Is my pun so awesomely subtle that you missed it?
Or so awesomely bad you elected not to dignify it?
Neither. Your original unedited post said 'bat out a draw', as you well know, and I was responding to that. I wasn't stumped by your pun.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Small point of order - wasn’t chocolate unknown in Roman times? It came over from the Americas in the 16th century, didn’t it?
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce.
Rome clearly must have done quite a lot of its Empire-ing in Latin, because if you look at the Spanish, French, etc, languages they are descendants of Latin, not Greek. So the average provincial had enough use for Latin that in the longer settled provinces it pushed out the original languages entirely.
True dat but you have a westward bias - that's all to the left of Italy. Not saying Greek caught on in the East like Latin did in the west, but nor did latin.
Romanian - clue is in the name!
More complicated than that, ρωμαίος according to Patrick Leigh Fermor was used a couple of generations ago to mean Greek by Greeks (but then he did rather bullshit about his knowledge of the language). Roman can also mean Byzantine.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
I think that there are 2 reasons for it, and both likely true:
The first is that he is like Will off The Inbetweeners, a public school nerd in a bewildering world of ordinary people. Maths mattered to him as a junior analyst in the City. Why doesn't everybody get rich the same way?
The second is that he cannot get his fractious colleagues to agree on anything else apart from the most unexceptional business of government. There is nothing other than apple pie in his 5 pledges, nothing contentious at all. Hence he needed an innocuous policy to make it distinctive.
150 arrested in Brazil. Government offices secured. Cleverly backs Lula. No pasaran! is the official Tory line. AOC calls for Bolsinaro to be extradited.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Small point of order - wasn’t chocolate unknown in Roman times? It came over from the Americas in the 16th century, didn’t it?
Glad I deleted the bit of Jesus eating fish & chips on his jolly to Cornwall.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. Hebrew would have been his liturgical language.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
Fuck me, why does everyone think that someone "debunking" something as "fake news" is automatically on the money?
You know what is hilarious about that bloke? He thinks it's called tor pen how, and that is how he says it. Trippener is how it's pronounced by anyone who has ever been there. It's like thinking the royal family are called wind sore. So he has evidently made his little video without running any risk of catching nasty germs by talking to any actual local person about it.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Small point of order - wasn’t chocolate unknown in Roman times? It came over from the Americas in the 16th century, didn’t it?
Glad I deleted the bit of Jesus eating fish & chips on his jolly to Cornwall.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce.
Rome clearly must have done quite a lot of its Empire-ing in Latin, because if you look at the Spanish, French, etc, languages they are descendants of Latin, not Greek. So the average provincial had enough use for Latin that in the longer settled provinces it pushed out the original languages entirely.
True dat but you have a westward bias - that's all to the left of Italy. Not saying Greek caught on in the East like Latin did in the west, but nor did latin.
As the Germanic invaders who brought down the Western Empire either were, or became, Christian, Latin remained the lingua franca.
The Arab invaders, who conquered Syria and Egypt had a different religion, so Arabic replaced Greek.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
I think that there are 2 reasons for it, and both likely true:
The first is that he is like Will off The Inbetweeners, a public school nerd in a bewildering world of ordinary people. Maths mattered to him as a junior analyst in the City. Why doesn't everybody get rich the same way?
The second is that he cannot get his fractious colleagues to agree on anything else apart from the most unexceptional business of government. There is nothing other than apple pie in his 5 pledges, nothing contentious at all. Hence he needed an innocuous policy to make it distinctive.
The maths scheme feels to me like something that 'should just be happening'. Not 100% sold on it being purely maths, but just 'educated in numbers, stats, the way they are presented' - whatever.
I'm not sure why it's a "Prime Minister Speak to the Nation' matter, Other than 'We have run out of ideas'....
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Small point of order - wasn’t chocolate unknown in Roman times? It came over from the Americas in the 16th century, didn’t it?
Glad I deleted the bit of Jesus eating fish & chips on his jolly to Cornwall.
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?
Welsh was also spoken in Cumbria (eg. "Penrith").
Torpenhow (hill, hill, hill in Gaelic/Welsh/Norse).
I think Bredon Hill in Worcs is another hill,hill,hill
Like Sahara desert (desert desert)
New Zealand is full of lakes called Rotorua and Rototoiti, meaning "lake" and "another lake" respectively. I imagine early explorers diligently writing those names down as they view the scene with their Baldrick-like guides.
I was disappointed to find out that the Queensland city of Townsville was named after Mr Towns, rather than the obvious.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. Hebrew would have been his liturgical language.
Paul’s letters are written in Greek, from where he was in Greece. This means he must have expected his audience to read Greek? When they say Hellenised Jews it means not just interested in Greek stuff, like Greek philosophy, but the ability to talk, read and write it I suspect.
So like Greek was used for commerce, why not use it as liturgical language for Christianity (another Greek word) for exactly the same reason, it helps it spread around like in the flowing rivers going all over the world… known world to them, flat etc. provided of course you want your good news about the chosen one to be celebrated by everyone, not just an argument within the Jewish people that he was the Messiah.
I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce.
Rome clearly must have done quite a lot of its Empire-ing in Latin, because if you look at the Spanish, French, etc, languages they are descendants of Latin, not Greek. So the average provincial had enough use for Latin that in the longer settled provinces it pushed out the original languages entirely.
True dat but you have a westward bias - that's all to the left of Italy. Not saying Greek caught on in the East like Latin did in the west, but nor did latin.
As the Germanic invaders who brought down the Western Empire either were, or became, Christian, Latin remained the lingua franca.
The Arab invaders, who conquered Syria and Egypt had a different religion, so Arabic replaced Greek.
Up to a point, but Spain weathered being Arab for quite a bit while retaining a language which is pretty much pure Latin.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
I would be rather surprised if he built cupboards to put Jews in. He was a devout Catholic, and devout Catholics of that era were not exactly pro Jewish.
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?
Yes! The question you asked me very well sums up what I am asking. I read that “Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup” it gave me the idea some people of Brittonic subgroups, of what Romans called Albion (which isn’t an English word I think it’s Roman for “white chocolate” because when they saw our white cliffs from their little boats they thought the whole country was made from white chocolate) might have spoke similar so understood each other much better than we do now when people use Welsh. English could have diverged a lot with continental and Scandinavian immigration, and the original Celtic influenced language not moved as much in the Welsh land (commonly known as Wales) to be known now as Welsh language without actually being Welsh to start with, if similar Celt spoken all over won’t really make it Welsh then, more belongs to us in England as well - if for three thousands of its four thousand year history something like Welsh was used by all Albion, it’s only English that’s a newfangled European influenced language - Welsh more like our jointly shared original?
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
The question Ben asked is the question I was thinking when I read Leon’s article in the times about Jesus Christ in Cornwall - could any Cornish people understand Jesus when he visited, or could Jesus understand anything anyone was saying in Cornwall? It would have been hard ordering meals and takeaways.
If Jesus ever had visited Cornwall, it is unlikely he would have understood what people were saying. Apart from anything else, he didn't technically live in the Roman Empire so it's unlikely he had to learn either Latin or Greek especially as Nazareth was something of a rural backwater.
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. Hebrew would have been his liturgical language.
Paul’s letters are written in Greek, from where he was in Greece. This means he must have expected his audience to read Greek? When they say Hellenised Jews it means not just interested in Greek stuff, like Greek philosophy, but the ability to talk, read and write it I suspect.
So like Greek was used for commerce, why not use it as liturgical language for Christianity (another Greek word) for exactly the same reason, it helps it spread around like in the flowing rivers going all over the world… known world to them, flat etc. provided of course you want your good news about the chosen one to be celebrated by everyone, not just an argument within the Jewish people that he was the Messiah.
He was from Tarsus in Cilicia (Southern Turkey), ex Greek colony, Roman since 65BC. Greek was the literary standard language of the time.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
At last! A policy to vote for. If we could also train them to deliver letters and parcels a La Harry Potter and food, especially to those of us in rural locations so much the better.
Anyway, where do I sign to get my mathematical owl?
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
I would be rather surprised if he built cupboards to put Jews in. He was a devout Catholic, and devout Catholics of that era were not exactly pro Jewish.
That is a good point. It’s snuck into my mind from somewhere for me to say it. 🤔
Maybe once wayfair have supplied the cabinet space, you can store what you choose in it, so used for Jews as well as Catholics in some cases?
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
I would be rather surprised if he built cupboards to put Jews in. He was a devout Catholic, and devout Catholics of that era were not exactly pro Jewish.
That is a good point. It’s snuck into my mind from somewhere for me to say it. 🤔
Maybe once wayfair have supplied the cabinet space, you can store what you choose in it, so used for Jews as well as Catholics in some cases?
You're assuming that putting people in cupboards is a friendly act.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
I would be rather surprised if he built cupboards to put Jews in. He was a devout Catholic, and devout Catholics of that era were not exactly pro Jewish.
That is a good point. It’s snuck into my mind from somewhere for me to say it. 🤔
Maybe once wayfair have supplied the cabinet space, you can store what you choose in it, so used for Jews as well as Catholics in some cases?
You're assuming that putting people in cupboards is a friendly act.
Well, the cupboards in question were the prize possessions of the owners. They would literally die to protect their existence. Little John did.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
I would be rather surprised if he built cupboards to put Jews in. He was a devout Catholic, and devout Catholics of that era were not exactly pro Jewish.
That is a good point. It’s snuck into my mind from somewhere for me to say it. 🤔
Maybe once wayfair have supplied the cabinet space, you can store what you choose in it, so used for Jews as well as Catholics in some cases?
You're assuming that putting people in cupboards is a friendly act.
Yes if a life saver for them.
I think it was in my mind because attitudes to Jews waxed and waned - the Calvinist protectorate quite friendly to them, but when they become under attack again, what was, as Malmesbury rightly said, originally built to hide Catholics and items for worship, later used to aid Jews.
150 arrested in Brazil. Government offices secured. Cleverly backs Lula. No pasaran! is the official Tory line. AOC calls for Bolsinaro to be extradited.
If the USA won't even punish the instigator of their own, let's be generous, electoral disturbance, even those in his own party who said he was responsible for it not doing so, it would be a bit weird to seek to punish Bolsonaro, who has at least kept his mouth shut most of the time since the election.
Q - Unscramble the sentence below to identify the extra word: Went causing fence the the bolt horses to fireworks off
A - The extra word in this sentence is "causing." The sentence should be rearranged as: "The fireworks causing the bolt to go off fence went the horses." The extra word "causing" does not fit in the sentence, so it is an extra word.
On topic, it seems to me that in part Sunaks Maths scheme is good, though any real plan for implementation is absent. It reminds me of Ed Milibands "Free Owls" policy offer. Attractive in principle, but falling down at delivery.
We could combine the two and make sure all owls are educated in maths till age 18.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
Would that include Big Johns?
I have known of Little John. He built cupboards to put Jews and Catholics in. But I was at art college when the 2015 election was on, so I missed Millibands policy on that. Why were the Owls in captivity?
I would be rather surprised if he built cupboards to put Jews in. He was a devout Catholic, and devout Catholics of that era were not exactly pro Jewish.
That is a good point. It’s snuck into my mind from somewhere for me to say it. 🤔
Maybe once wayfair have supplied the cabinet space, you can store what you choose in it, so used for Jews as well as Catholics in some cases?
You're assuming that putting people in cupboards is a friendly act.
Yes if a life saver for them.
I think it was in my mind because attitudes to Jews waxed and waned - the Calvinist protectorate quite friendly to them, but when they become under attack again, what was, as Malmesbury rightly said, originally built to hide Catholics and items for worship, later used to aid Jews.
Calvinist? I think Calvin influenced, but not 100% Calvinist
There is an interesting echo in the idea that the “true majority” in a nation is “the godly”. A self defined minority. Who having defined themselves as “the elect”, get to implement “the perfect government”. Anyone getting in the way is “ungodly” and will be errr… helped
150 arrested in Brazil. Government offices secured. Cleverly backs Lula. No pasaran! is the official Tory line. AOC calls for Bolsinaro to be extradited.
If the USA won't even punish the instigator of their own, let's be generous, electoral disturbance, even those in his own party who said he was responsible for it not doing so, it would be a bit weird to seek to punish Bolsonaro, who has at least kept his mouth shut most of the time since the election.
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.
Inspired by the old joke:
Man walks into a bar and orders a Jäegermeister. Downs it in one and demands a refill. Downs that as well.
The barman is impressed: “are you celebrating something?”
The man blushes. “My first blowjob!”
“Congratulations! Have another on the house!”
“Nah. If two don’t get ride of the taste a third won’t help…”
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.
I disagree
Correct data on need will drive future provision (potentially). Unidentified issues both impact the children and reduce probability of better system funding
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.
I disagree
Correct data on need will drive future provision (potentially). Unidentified issues both impact the children and reduce probability of better system funding
When I and the SENCO have to waste hours fighting to get even limited support for a child whose EHCP says they are entitled to a full-time TA but Staffs will refuse to provide one on grounds of cost, it is not data that is the issue.
If I think of the works of art, literature, music that have moved, impressed, engaged, even infuriated me, do I think AI would have done it better?
No, because there is more to these things than being technically proficient. And, it can often be the flaws in great works that make them interesting.
The Poe poem goes beyond technically proficient.
I would absolutely bet that Joyce specialists would not distinguish on a better than chance basis real from CG excerpts from Finnegans Wake.
The point about this year’s AI developments is not that current AI is better than the best of human, but that it is improving at a sustainable rate that means it will overtake all of us soon.
I’d draw an analogy with global warming. We’re already shocked at the weather extremes taking place now. But in a few years’ time those will become normal. I remember when 38.2C was shocking. Then a decade later it was 38.7C. Then 3 years later we were suddenly over 40. AI will be the same. It’s certainly not at its peak.
I’m not generally catastrophist in temperament but I’m quite sure this is a big thing.
Yes, if you consider where we were with AI art two years ago then the advance is scary good. And it you consider where we were with AI poetry just two DAYS ago then fffffuck. As my writer friend put it
That Poe poem is better than 90% of “professional” poetry
Aren't you just overegging the AI pudding because you're confident you can invent false personas better than any AI can, and you want to distract attention from your socks at PB that (you think) nobody has discovered yet? (Not Eadric and LadyG etc., but the ones that come across in different styles entirely, and with decently worked-on legends.)
I support teaching more maths, but how about teaching the maths that is actually taught so that it sinks in? What's Sunak's plan for youngsters like the lad who works in my local Tesco's who must have had at least 11 years of maths at school but doesn't have the slightest clue how to reduce prices by 90%? (Sadly he was being ribbed by workmates for this.)
Comments
https://twitter.com/A_Loyd_Times/status/1612057450227838976
Thank goodness art wasn't compulsory, or it would have been a fail for me.
When you're asking someone for a lot of money there are a few things that you have to achieve. You have to show them what they are going to get for their money. You have to prove that you can't achieve the same ends with less money. And you have to reassure them that you have robust reviews and checks in place to ensure that the money will be used for its intended purpose and not wasted.
So sometimes that means a bit of stating the obvious has to be done to anticipate the arguments that would be used to provide less money. You can't just simply say, "we need £x to fix problem y."
In due course most of the lower slopes between the M20 and the pilgrims way will be largely vines. We already have on that single slope, from West to East, Squerryes, Mark Dixon’s vast plantings near Gravesend, several huge Chapel Down vineyards, Westwell, Nyetimber (Westwell plantings), 2 vineyards in Brabourne, Terlingham. That’s not counting the plantings on the dip slope or valleys. Probably well over a thousand hectares out of a UK total of around 4,000.
Han Solo: "Who's scruffy-looking?"
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nerf
This brings us to what Ben asked, could the tribes Rome found here understand each other very well? They do on Britannia on Sky, using lots of Anglo Saxon. I know Rome used Greek as the language of its Empire because I taught that in Sunday school as the empire was a commercial one, and Greek so widely spoken it was used for commerce. So did the Roman’s bring Greek with them, and set up a lot of evening classes in Greek for everyone?
Like Sahara desert (desert desert)
1) Yes, most pre-Roman tribes probably spoke similar languages, although they may have been somewhat different in pronunciation and certainly diverged more over time. Breton and Welsh are similar, Breton and Deeside Gaelic are not. As far as I know there isn't any evidence for an especially English subset of the Celtic languages, although that doesn't mean there wasn't one.
2) Greek was a lingua franca for Rome, although there were many different reasons for that, not just commerce. I've no idea how widespread its use was in the British Isles. Probably not that widespread because, roughly speaking, the further you got from the old Macedonian Empire (which imposed their culture by force) the weaker Greek influence was.
*I love German compound nouns, as they are so beautifully literal. It translates as "dry berries left out", and that is just about how it is made. You leave the grapes out unharvested until they are drying like raisins, then pick them and make your wine. Hence its rich syrupy raisin flavour. It needs particular climatic conditions at the right time of the year, so is only made every few years.
Or so awesomely bad you elected not to dignify it?
But if traders went to Cornwall, the local rulers and merchants would have spoken Latin.
That ought not to be a question for believers.
Good night.
I mean. You're either divine, thus unbound by human logic or not?
Not just a little bit, in certain circumstances. Whose parameters are defined accurately and unmistakably by human logic.
I was disappointed to find out that the Queensland city of Townsville was named after Mr Towns, rather than the obvious.
Me too.
Hill Hill Hill Hill, debunked, debunked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo
I think that there are 2 reasons for it, and both likely true:
The first is that he is like Will off The Inbetweeners, a public school nerd in a bewildering world of ordinary people. Maths mattered to him as a junior analyst in the City. Why doesn't everybody get rich the same way?
The second is that he cannot get his fractious colleagues to agree on anything else apart from the most unexceptional business of government. There is nothing other than apple pie in his 5 pledges, nothing contentious at all. Hence he needed an innocuous policy to make it distinctive.
Cleverly backs Lula.
No pasaran! is the official Tory line.
AOC calls for Bolsinaro to be extradited.
What on Earth would they talk about otherwise?
You know what is hilarious about that bloke? He thinks it's called tor pen how, and that is how he says it. Trippener is how it's pronounced by anyone who has ever been there. It's like thinking the royal family are called wind sore. So he has evidently made his little video without running any risk of catching nasty germs by talking to any actual local person about it.
Which by my quick googling suggests should cover them for life, pretty much.
The Arab invaders, who conquered Syria and Egypt had a different religion, so Arabic replaced Greek.
I'm not sure why it's a "Prime Minister Speak to the Nation' matter, Other than 'We have run out of ideas'....
So like Greek was used for commerce, why not use it as liturgical language for Christianity (another Greek word) for exactly the same reason, it helps it spread around like in the flowing rivers going all over the world… known world to them, flat etc. provided of course you want your good news about the chosen one to be celebrated by everyone, not just an argument within the Jewish people that he was the Messiah.
Anyway, where do I sign to get my mathematical owl?
Maybe once wayfair have supplied the cabinet space, you can store what you choose in it, so used for Jews as well as Catholics in some cases?
Trump aides Bannon, Miller advising the Bolsonaros on next steps
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/23/brazil-bolsonaro-bannon/
Have you ever seen an owl naked?
“Beneath these feathers, I am naked.”
I think it was in my mind because attitudes to Jews waxed and waned - the Calvinist protectorate quite friendly to them, but when they become under attack again, what was, as Malmesbury rightly said, originally built to hide Catholics and items for worship, later used to aid Jews.
https://academic.oup.com/book/26418/chapter-abstract/194806943?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Q - Unscramble the sentence below to identify the extra word: Went causing fence the the bolt horses to fireworks off
A - The extra word in this sentence is "causing." The sentence should be rearranged as: "The fireworks causing the bolt to go off fence went the horses." The extra word "causing" does not fit in the sentence, so it is an extra word.
There is an interesting echo in the idea that the “true majority” in a nation is “the godly”. A self defined minority. Who having defined themselves as “the elect”, get to implement “the perfect government”. Anyone getting in the way is “ungodly” and will be errr… helped
Sound familiar?
That sounds like incitement, to me.
Man walks into a bar and orders a Jäegermeister. Downs it in one and demands a refill. Downs that as well.
The barman is impressed: “are you celebrating something?”
The man blushes. “My first blowjob!”
“Congratulations! Have another on the house!”
“Nah. If two don’t get ride of the taste a third won’t help…”
Correct data on need will drive future
provision (potentially). Unidentified issues both impact the children and reduce probability of better system funding