It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
No Cuomo? He's got a few nice slabs of 60s muscle.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
The correct answer, of course, is that a 'good' car is one that allows me to do the job I need to do with absolutely no fuss. I get in, drive it where I want to go, and get out.
A 'bad' car is one where I have to get jump-leads to start it every so often, where I'm always worried whether it'll finish the journey without it breaking down, and where, when I'm at the destination, I'm worried if someone will key it.
Oddly enough, this means that my idea of a 'good' car is often the direct opposite of a petrol-heads. Which is why I think I'm much wiser than an average petrol-head.
I don’t give a fuck about cars, generally, and have always found most petrolheads quite weird and nerdy - but then I am sure most of them would find me weird for many reasons
However I now own a Mini JCW automatic. This is a properly fast car with a lot of vroom, and the cliche is true, it feels like a go-kart. As I have detailed on here, i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road, and it felt like it could go twice as fast
There is a genuine pleasure in a purring machine. I begin to understand it
"i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road"
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Whilst I spend quite a bit of time defending the NEU at the moment, I completely agree with this. I think the unions (sometimes) make the mistake of protecting teachers, rather than protecting education. I'd love to see the unions more rigorously focusing on students, rather than teachers themselves (to be clear, in 95% of cases protecting teachers does protect students, as happy, productive teachers make for a good education system. But in a minority of cases unions protect teachers who are serving kids and their colleagues poorly, to the detriment of schools and the system).
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
Odd that no female politician has made it onto your list.
There was a female BMC works rally driver from the early days of the Mini era who became a Conservative MP. I just can't recall which one. So a big Healey and a Mini Cooper S would hopefully be in the "good" column
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
Some years ago, part of Microsoft worked in the following manner - the bottom performing 10% were binned from the teams every year.
The scramble to not be bottom of the team caused social and work problems, until peace was restored.
It trend out that the managers had figured out that Social Darwinism was actually harmful. So they're deliberately hired a couple of no-hopers to be bottom of the team. Everyone else was happy - they knew they would be fine at the end of year review. The no-hopers were sent into the pool of people looking for assignment to a team, at the end of each year.....
Yes, the no-hopers just swapped from team to team, each year. There was a market in the useless.
This kept the managers happy. The teams were happy. The no-hopers had jobs....
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
Odd that no female politician has made it onto your list.
My sister is not a politician, but she has a collection of tractors in various states of repair (and would like a bus). I wonder where @Dura_Ace stands on tractors?
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.
On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.
My goodness Nigel. I think you win todays uninformed-bullshit-whataboutery award.
Really? I simply asked whether it is always "the government"? I did not say that they have no culpability.I know that this is a political site, and there is a tendency of those of a more rigid political perspective to be tribal but do try reading peoples' posts before trying to be a smartarse. @ydoethur's point is an interesting one, but it still doesn't remove my point, that blaming everything on "the government" is for simplistic fools. I see you confine yourself to the aforementioned category.
Nigel dissembling is always less effective when what you actually wrote is in a quote chain.
I don’t have much issue with you asking whether it is all the government’s fault (except that your question is so clearly a straw man).
But you very clearly didn’t just ask that. You attempted to lay blame for the fact that OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality.
Which is nonsense.
No I didn't. You really need some lessons on debating. I do hope you are not a teacher if your ability to analyse and debate is so poor.
I did not say that "OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality." (sic). If you thought that, then maybe your ability at literacy needs some remedial attention (indeed how you constructed the sentence also indicates that - maybe it is your rage that has caused this?). I only hope your numeracy is better.
For the avoidance of doubt and the instruction of those that cannot read well, I said that such issues (I am sure you are in denial about them) are indicative of issues relating to our education system. That clear enough for you?
In one of my six back-to-back lessons yesterday I taught non-homogenous second-order differential equations to Y13. Rather worrying, given your remarkable insight into both my intellectual abilities and state of mind.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
The result of a litigious society. It makes rigorous interviews essential.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Whilst I spend quite a bit of time defending the NEU at the moment, I completely agree with this. I think the unions (sometimes) make the mistake of protecting teachers, rather than protecting education. I'd love to see the unions more rigorously focusing on students, rather than teachers themselves (to be clear, in 95% of cases protecting teachers does protect students, as happy, productive teachers make for a good education system. But in a minority of cases unions protect teachers who are serving kids and their colleagues poorly, to the detriment of schools and the system).
That is true. However, it should be pointed out that it is the job of unions to protect teachers. It's senior leaders who should be monitoring standards.
Where it could be much more useful is if unions were more proactive in pushing staff who are identified as underperforming to retrain or indeed move jobs. But that's actually not as easy as it sounds because the relationship between them and senior leaders often tends to be very adversarial.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Maybe they would be less inclined to "malign influence" if government (s) desisted in interference every 5 minutes.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
Some years ago, part of Microsoft worked in the following manner - the bottom performing 10% were binned from the teams every year.
The scramble to not be bottom of the team caused social and work problems, until peace was restored.
It trend out that the managers had figured out that Social Darwinism was actually harmful. So they're deliberately hired a couple of no-hopers to be bottom of the team. Everyone else was happy - they knew they would be fine at the end of year review. The no-hopers were sent into the pool of people looking for assignment to a team, at the end of each year.....
Yes, the no-hopers just swapped from team to team, each year. There was a market in the useless.
This kept the managers happy. The teams were happy. The no-hopers had jobs....
In tech I've rarely worked with anyone truly 'hopeless'. There were two interesting guys at Company Y we called "Can't code, won't code", but aside from that I think everyone's found a role they could contribute in.
An issue with the 'bottom 10%' stupidity is that some people do really useful things, but in ways that do not necessarily meet the performance metrics. It also inspires a suck-up-to-the-boss mentality.
Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong. The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation. I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).
For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.
National Socialism was, originally, the idea of socialism applied on a country/racial basis.
See Mussolini’s progression to Fascism.
The whole “Nazis were/weren’t socialist” thing has become impossibly toxic, due to scumbags trying to score political points.
But they certainly believed in state control of the economy. The bit people get confused by is that the fascists didn’t want to *own* the means of production.
Krupp could be owned privately. Just as long as Krupp bought materials from the right sources (defined by the Nazi regime), employed the right amount of people in the right places, produced the right products at the right prices… and kicked back the right amount of money in “gifts” to the right people…
Hence the similarity with the Stalinists, who gave up on global revolution to build "socialism in one country".
This is the basis of why I'd argue that the Soviet Union really wasn't a true attempt at socialism/communism. The international aspect isn't just an optional bolt-on, it's the whole essence of the thing. Hence, "Workers of the World, Unite."
As soon as the Nationalism becomes more important than the Socialism then I think you're in trouble. This is why I don't trust the SNP posturing to the left, or Sinn Fein in Ireland.
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
The correct answer, of course, is that a 'good' car is one that allows me to do the job I need to do with absolutely no fuss. I get in, drive it where I want to go, and get out.
A 'bad' car is one where I have to get jump-leads to start it every so often, where I'm always worried whether it'll finish the journey without it breaking down, and where, when I'm at the destination, I'm worried if someone will key it.
Oddly enough, this means that my idea of a 'good' car is often the direct opposite of a petrol-heads. Which is why I think I'm much wiser than an average petrol-head.
I don’t give a fuck about cars, generally, and have always found most petrolheads quite weird and nerdy - but then I am sure most of them would find me weird for many reasons
However I now own a Mini JCW automatic. This is a properly fast car with a lot of vroom, and the cliche is true, it feels like a go-kart. As I have detailed on here, i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road, and it felt like it could go twice as fast
There is a genuine pleasure in a purring machine. I begin to understand it
"i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road"
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
Probably true. I’m not proud of it. Just stating a fact. Fucking fast car: lots of fun
Looking back I realise I was *passively suicidal* at the time. I was grieving over my beautiful but lost young wife (divorce), it was at the horrible tail end of Lockdown 3, which span me into unprecedented depression. Suddenly I found myself west of Dorchester and I thought, oh, the road is really empty from lockdown, let’s see if I can do 100 on an A Road. Turned out I could. Then I thought. How about 110? That’s about as fast as I’ve ever gone. It did that easily. Then i went seamlessly from 110 to 120. Then 120 slipped easily to 130. At some point I came to my senses and looked at the speedo and saw 138MPH and I thought WHAT THE FUCK
A monumentally selfish moment. I could easily have killed people, not just me. I console myself by remembering I’m not a boring, friendless, marathon-running c*nt like you
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
Odd that no female politician has made it onto your list.
There was a female BMC works rally driver from the early days of the Mini era who became a Conservative MP. I just can't recall which one. So a big Healey and a Mini Cooper S would hopefully be in the "good" column
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
The correct answer, of course, is that a 'good' car is one that allows me to do the job I need to do with absolutely no fuss. I get in, drive it where I want to go, and get out.
A 'bad' car is one where I have to get jump-leads to start it every so often, where I'm always worried whether it'll finish the journey without it breaking down, and where, when I'm at the destination, I'm worried if someone will key it.
Oddly enough, this means that my idea of a 'good' car is often the direct opposite of a petrol-heads. Which is why I think I'm much wiser than an average petrol-head.
I don’t give a fuck about cars, generally, and have always found most petrolheads quite weird and nerdy - but then I am sure most of them would find me weird for many reasons
However I now own a Mini JCW automatic. This is a properly fast car with a lot of vroom, and the cliche is true, it feels like a go-kart. As I have detailed on here, i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road, and it felt like it could go twice as fast
There is a genuine pleasure in a purring machine. I begin to understand it
"i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road"
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
Probably true. I’m not proud of it. Just stating a fact. Fucking fast car: lots of fun
Looking back I realise I was *passively suicidal* at the time. I was grieving over my beautiful but lost young wife (divorce), it was at the horrible tail end of Lockdown 3, which span me into unprecedented depression. Suddenly I found myself west of Dorchester and I thought, oh, the road is really empty from lockdown, let’s see if I can do 100 on an A Road. Turned out I could. Then I thought. How about 110? That’s about as fast as I’ve ever gone. It did that easily. Then i went seamlessly from 110 to 120. Then 120 slipped easily to 130. At some point I came to my senses and looked at the speedo and saw 138MPH and I thought WHAT THE FUCK
A monumentally selfish moment. I could easily have killed people, not just me. I console myself by remembering I’m not a boring, friendless, marathon-running c*nt like you
I might have believed the rest of that post, if it had not been for that last sentence...
Many people have lost innocent people to dickhead drivers. If you're feeling suicidal, don't drive like an asshole. Don't jump in front of trains. Get help.
This is something I feel strongly about, for reasons.
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
The correct answer, of course, is that a 'good' car is one that allows me to do the job I need to do with absolutely no fuss. I get in, drive it where I want to go, and get out.
A 'bad' car is one where I have to get jump-leads to start it every so often, where I'm always worried whether it'll finish the journey without it breaking down, and where, when I'm at the destination, I'm worried if someone will key it.
Oddly enough, this means that my idea of a 'good' car is often the direct opposite of a petrol-heads. Which is why I think I'm much wiser than an average petrol-head.
I don’t give a fuck about cars, generally, and have always found most petrolheads quite weird and nerdy - but then I am sure most of them would find me weird for many reasons
However I now own a Mini JCW automatic. This is a properly fast car with a lot of vroom, and the cliche is true, it feels like a go-kart. As I have detailed on here, i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road, and it felt like it could go twice as fast
There is a genuine pleasure in a purring machine. I begin to understand it
"i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road"
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
Probably true. I’m not proud of it. Just stating a fact. Fucking fast car: lots of fun
Looking back I realise I was *passively suicidal* at the time. I was grieving over my beautiful but lost young wife (divorce), it was at the horrible tail end of Lockdown 3, which span me into unprecedented depression. Suddenly I found myself west of Dorchester and I thought, oh, the road is really empty from lockdown, let’s see if I can do 100 on an A Road. Turned out I could. Then I thought. How about 110? That’s about as fast as I’ve ever gone. It did that easily. Then i went seamlessly from 110 to 120. Then 120 slipped easily to 130. At some point I came to my senses and looked at the speedo and saw 138MPH and I thought WHAT THE FUCK
A monumentally selfish moment. I could easily have killed people, not just me. I console myself by remembering I’m not a boring, friendless, marathon-running c*nt like you
JCW should top out at 150+. Go back and fucking send it.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
The result of a litigious society. It makes rigorous interviews essential.
May years ago, a female employee sued the company I was working for, claiming sexual harassment.
No one believed the complaint, not because the director in question was a nice human, but because his predilections somewhat orthogonal to her characteristics.
In clearing out her desk, it was discovered that when she moved companies (every 2-3 years) she would make a claim of harassment, get it settled for money, get an NDA and leave. So her record looked like someone rotating through IT in the City.
She had, according to the papers she left behind, done this half a dozen times.
She was, from working with her, batshit insane as well.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
Yes, and yes, although there's a certain vagueness on who to report it to. Also, on what stage it becomes serious enough to justify that. Usually, it would be triggered only if children were being put at risk which does actually happen more often than you might think.
(Mixed, is the answer. The issue is the programme is usually set by the teachers themselves, not by people telling them where they need to improve. Which is fine with a teacher who is ruthlessly honest or especially determined, not so much use if they are ambitious and will only do things that will be them promoted, or lazy.)
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
The result of a litigious society. It makes rigorous interviews essential.
May years ago, a female employee sued the company I was working for, claiming sexual harassment.
No one believed the complaint, not because the director in question was a nice human, but because his predilections somewhat orthogonal to her characteristics.
In clearing out her desk, it was discovered that when she moved companies (every 2-3 years) she would make a claim of harassment, get it settled for money, get an NDA and leave. So her record looked like someone rotating through IT in the City.
She had, according to the papers she left behind, done this half a dozen times.
She was, from working with her, batshit insane as well.
Clearly not quite as smart as she thought, not checking out which side her potential target batted, that seems like #1 on to-do list.
This Bangkok skybar is as close to being in Blade Runner as i have ever been. I am looking DOWN on the Skytrain, as it speeds sleekly between the skyscrapers. Asia is still the future. Europe is tired, Britain is knackered. America is strong but fucked, like a wrestler who has done too many steroids
Of course. Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.
A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.
Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.
I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.
These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.
In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.
You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.
I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.
You didn't make them.
Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.
I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.
If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.
Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.
Your point by point rebuttal shredded Royale's rather weak and dream laden thesis.
Why shouldn't you use profanity? You are angry at the bizarre and systematic undermining of all but elite schooling.
Secondary schooling in Wales is not great in Wales (although my children's experience in a RC comp was first class) so it is not necessarily a Party political issue. Where party politics does come into this is the Conservative Party fixation with elite selection to the detriment of all others.
I had an excellent non-selective experience and a dreadful selective experience. An experience not borne out by, for example, HY's promoted narrative. My non-selective experience was superb because at that moment in time resources, the political will and the enthused teachers to make the experience work were showered upon comprehensive schools.
I have no real idea how the nation moves forward with its vastly substandard educational system. What I do know is selective education is not the answer, and I realise that whatever we do, we can only progress when the current state of inertia that you highlight is thrown in the educational dumpster.
Education is not, and should not be all about exam success. Yes that is part of it, but the most important measure is that of value added.
I copied and pasted the headline findings of the Times Education Commission onto this blog for all to see. It was neither my dream or my thesis. It was an independent report into the future of the education sector one, in which as I pointed out, commands strong cross-party support - including from several previous Prime Ministers and ten previous Education Secretaries.
I think it's a serious piece of work. I don't yet know in full what I thought about it myself. But, I thought the future of education in England (and across the UK more broadly) was worth starting off an interesting debate on this blog. Instead, we've got a lot of petty sniping and ad hominem, largely depending upon how posters felt about the person who was saying it.
We used to be so much better than that but, if that's what pb.com has now become, quite frankly I can't be bothered and will also leave the site as many others have.
There are plenty of other blogs and forums where rocks can be pointlessly hurled if that's all we're now interested in.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
Sorry to disagree, but references can/should be used more effectively than this. Any employer is sensible to ask for permission to take up confidential preliminary references for individuals (they should NEVER be done informally without permission) prior to an offer, and possibly prior to the final stage interview. If a candidate is reluctant or reticent about providing them then proceed with any offer with considerable caution. It is reasonable to suppose that a good candidate should respond with "how many do you want?" Obviously it is unlikely that the candidate will give you the name of someone that will give them a bad reference (though it is possible), but you should, through sensible questioning of the referee fins out whether the person is a good fit for the team and where their potential development areas are.
Mr Mendy will face a retrial in the summer over an allegation of rape, relating to an incident at his home in October 2020, and an allegation of attempted rape, relating to an incident at the same address in October 2018.
Good luck getting a conviction after he's been found not guilty on all the others.
This Bangkok skybar is as close to being in Blade Runner as i have ever been. I am looking DOWN on the Skytrain, as it speeds sleekly between the skyscrapers. Asia is still the future. Europe is tired, Britain is knackered. America is strong but fucked, like a wrestler who has done too many steroids
Would be a little less confident in it, if you found out I had a hand in designing the Skytrain system.....
Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong. The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation. I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).
For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.
National Socialism was, originally, the idea of socialism applied on a country/racial basis.
See Mussolini’s progression to Fascism.
The whole “Nazis were/weren’t socialist” thing has become impossibly toxic, due to scumbags trying to score political points.
But they certainly believed in state control of the economy. The bit people get confused by is that the fascists didn’t want to *own* the means of production.
Krupp could be owned privately. Just as long as Krupp bought materials from the right sources (defined by the Nazi regime), employed the right amount of people in the right places, produced the right products at the right prices… and kicked back the right amount of money in “gifts” to the right people…
Hence the similarity with the Stalinists, who gave up on global revolution to build "socialism in one country".
This is the basis of why I'd argue that the Soviet Union really wasn't a true attempt at socialism/communism. The international aspect isn't just an optional bolt-on, it's the whole essence of the thing. Hence, "Workers of the World, Unite."
As soon as the Nationalism becomes more important than the Socialism then I think you're in trouble. This is why I don't trust the SNP posturing to the left, or Sinn Fein in Ireland.
It all comes down to some quite personal definitions in the end.
At the time quite a few Trots (and other heretics to The Revolution) labelled the Soviet Union as State Capitalism.
Fun thing - people bang on about Henry Ford and the Nazis. Strangely they forget about Henry Ford and Stalin. Stalin and the boys loved Fordism. They loved gigantic, modern factories. So they got Ford to help them build giant factories. IIRC the main factory that built T34 was a Ford built plant.
The fun bit - the Ukrainian Famine may, in part, have been due to the need to export grain, to get hard currency. To pay Ford (and the other western firms building mega projects for the Soviet Union).
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
There is CPD, though often it's run in a way that is cheap box-ticking (the school has to provide X hours of CPD, so we will do it by having an assistant headteacher talk about something for an hour at the end of school when everyone would rather be prepping for tomorrow.)
As for the whistleblowing idea, aside from duties linked to safety and safeguarding, it's never really come up in my experience. One of the problems with teaching is that standard teachers don't get much time to see what others do. Though the heirachical nature of schools makes it difficult to act with candour when you see a superior misbehaving.
Mr Mendy will face a retrial in the summer over an allegation of rape, relating to an incident at his home in October 2020, and an allegation of attempted rape, relating to an incident at the same address in October 2018.
Good luck getting a conviction after he's been found not guilty on all the others.
Retrials are an ugly concept. Feels a bit too close to Double Jeopardy. The Crown coming back time and again until it gets the result it wants
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
There's a Yes, Minister bit about that, where Humphrey (or maybe Bernard) explains that you should never employ anyone with a glowing reference, as the previous employer is clearly keen to get rid.
Ethel Kennedy used to interview people at 8am and offer them chocolate cake. If they said yes then they didn't get the job as she didn't want employees with no self-control.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
There is, but in my experience it is one of those things that no-one really has time to quality assure effectively (so, for example, sitting in a safeguarding training course run by a colleague is classed as CPD, when really there ought to be an entitlement, and an expectation, that every teacher accesses accredited training regularly).
The requirement for CPD is part of the performance-related pay cycle, and is a way for senior leaders to have some control over pay (i.e. if someone doesn't meet their development targets their pay might be frozen). This, unfortunately, can become an 'if you are liked' criterion rather than a real measure of a teacher's commitment to their own self-improvement.
On the other hand, if you are proactive as an individual teacher (at least in my experience as a maths teacher) there is an absolute wealth of excellent free training available. The main challenge is finding anyone to cover your lessons whilst you're out, so schools are more and more reluctant to let you go at the moment.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Whilst I spend quite a bit of time defending the NEU at the moment, I completely agree with this. I think the unions (sometimes) make the mistake of protecting teachers, rather than protecting education. I'd love to see the unions more rigorously focusing on students, rather than teachers themselves (to be clear, in 95% of cases protecting teachers does protect students, as happy, productive teachers make for a good education system. But in a minority of cases unions protect teachers who are serving kids and their colleagues poorly, to the detriment of schools and the system).
That is true. However, it should be pointed out that it is the job of unions to protect teachers. It's senior leaders who should be monitoring standards.
Where it could be much more useful is if unions were more proactive in pushing staff who are identified as underperforming to retrain or indeed move jobs. But that's actually not as easy as it sounds because the relationship between them and senior leaders often tends to be very adversarial.
How much of the problem in your experience were the SLTs ?
I've seen both Heads who have transformed a school, and those who've ruined one. (Of course that's partly down to governing bodies in either case.)
Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong. The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation. I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).
For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.
National Socialism was, originally, the idea of socialism applied on a country/racial basis.
See Mussolini’s progression to Fascism.
The whole “Nazis were/weren’t socialist” thing has become impossibly toxic, due to scumbags trying to score political points.
But they certainly believed in state control of the economy. The bit people get confused by is that the fascists didn’t want to *own* the means of production.
Krupp could be owned privately. Just as long as Krupp bought materials from the right sources (defined by the Nazi regime), employed the right amount of people in the right places, produced the right products at the right prices… and kicked back the right amount of money in “gifts” to the right people…
Hence the similarity with the Stalinists, who gave up on global revolution to build "socialism in one country".
This is the basis of why I'd argue that the Soviet Union really wasn't a true attempt at socialism/communism. The international aspect isn't just an optional bolt-on, it's the whole essence of the thing. Hence, "Workers of the World, Unite."
As soon as the Nationalism becomes more important than the Socialism then I think you're in trouble. This is why I don't trust the SNP posturing to the left, or Sinn Fein in Ireland.
It all comes down to some quite personal definitions in the end.
At the time quite a few Trots (and other heretics to The Revolution) labelled the Soviet Union as State Capitalism.
Fun thing - people bang on about Henry Ford and the Nazis. Strangely they forget about Henry Ford and Stalin. Stalin and the boys loved Fordism. They loved gigantic, modern factories. So they got Ford to help them build giant factories. IIRC the main factory that built T34 was a Ford built plant.
The fun bit - the Ukrainian Famine may, in part, have been due to the need to export grain, to get hard currency. To pay Ford (and the other western firms building mega projects for the Soviet Union).
Only may?
One of the ways Khrushchev was very different from Stalin is when he ran short of grain in 1963 he was willing to buy from the Americans and Australians. Stalin would just have let people starve to death. Knowing Stalin, he would probably have worked it so it was those he considered politically unsound who suffered most e.g. the Baltic states and Ukraine (again).
This Bangkok skybar is as close to being in Blade Runner as i have ever been. I am looking DOWN on the Skytrain, as it speeds sleekly between the skyscrapers. Asia is still the future. Europe is tired, Britain is knackered. America is strong but fucked, like a wrestler who has done too many steroids
Would be a little less confident in it, if you found out I had a hand in designing the Skytrain system.....
Quite the opposite, the Skytrain is great! Well done. It makes travel across trafficky Bangkok seriously easy, when it used to be horrendous
The only problem is that it is now TOO popular. Always crowded
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Whilst I spend quite a bit of time defending the NEU at the moment, I completely agree with this. I think the unions (sometimes) make the mistake of protecting teachers, rather than protecting education. I'd love to see the unions more rigorously focusing on students, rather than teachers themselves (to be clear, in 95% of cases protecting teachers does protect students, as happy, productive teachers make for a good education system. But in a minority of cases unions protect teachers who are serving kids and their colleagues poorly, to the detriment of schools and the system).
That is true. However, it should be pointed out that it is the job of unions to protect teachers. It's senior leaders who should be monitoring standards.
Where it could be much more useful is if unions were more proactive in pushing staff who are identified as underperforming to retrain or indeed move jobs. But that's actually not as easy as it sounds because the relationship between them and senior leaders often tends to be very adversarial.
Agreed. I think one of the most impactful changes that could be made to the education system is a 'reset' in relations between unions and senior leaders. Both sides would need to be willing, though, which is difficult to imagine at the moment (strained resources are forcing both camps to entrench IME).
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
Some years ago, part of Microsoft worked in the following manner - the bottom performing 10% were binned from the teams every year.
The scramble to not be bottom of the team caused social and work problems, until peace was restored.
It trend out that the managers had figured out that Social Darwinism was actually harmful. So they're deliberately hired a couple of no-hopers to be bottom of the team. Everyone else was happy - they knew they would be fine at the end of year review. The no-hopers were sent into the pool of people looking for assignment to a team, at the end of each year.....
Yes, the no-hopers just swapped from team to team, each year. There was a market in the useless.
This kept the managers happy. The teams were happy. The no-hopers had jobs....
In tech I've rarely worked with anyone truly 'hopeless'. There were two interesting guys at Company Y we called "Can't code, won't code", but aside from that I think everyone's found a role they could contribute in.
An issue with the 'bottom 10%' stupidity is that some people do really useful things, but in ways that do not necessarily meet the performance metrics. It also inspires a suck-up-to-the-boss mentality.
Some years ago, I had an interview with a manager who loved the fact that he got rid of the bottom x percent each year. He spent half an hour telling me how awesome this was.
He was looking for a team lead.
I was very pleased to find out, from the agent, that the manager said I wasn't suitable.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I've had my own issues with Casino, but I think that unfair. Like the rest of us, he has a mix of good and bad points.
Of course. Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.
A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.
Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.
I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.
These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.
In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.
You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.
I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.
You didn't make them.
Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.
I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.
If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.
Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.
You didn't rebut me point by point, you just posted a rant. The TEC report and its headline findings triggered you, and that was your response.
It was in no sense considered or insightful, and I learnt nothing from it other than what I already knew: you hate the DfE, Ofsted and politicians - and teachers already do all this/need more funding and for government to stay out of their hair.
There might be something in it, but it isn't the whole of the answer - particularly where public policy requires join-up across education sectors, industry and communities - and more targeted investment, so it deserved more thought than your knee-jerk diatribe provided, particularly since there were plenty of education experts on the commission itself.
That is simply not true. I pointed out where they were wrong and why. Especially, I pointed out where they wanted people to do things that were already happening, and made statements that were nonsensical (which I might add is not easy to rebut, because if I say 'pixies don't exist' proving a negative is hard) or where they had misunderstood the problem (OFSTED).
I also noted they did make one very good point, on technology, but had misidentified the cause of the problem and therefore did not have a solution for it.
No way is that an expert report. Whoever wrote it is profoundly ignorant of education, and the way it was couched was actually pure rudeness. I responded in kind.
The genuine irony is that you are complaining about people doing in your field what they were doing in mine.
They were perfectly reasonable and innocuous headline statements. You read into them a level of rudeness that was not there, presumably because you inferred that the headline recommendations suggested they were not already being done/done effectively by teachers and you found that offensive.
The authors included head teachers of secondary schools, those from further/adult education colleges and universities and - whilst I don't doubt your qualifications in the slightest - neither do I doubt theirs and your views are but one input into forming my views on the education sector as a whole.
If you're asking me to just dismiss those of anyone else who works in the sector, and take yours at face value and no-one elses, I'm afraid I don't do that, particularly since I know you are emotionally triggered depending on who provides the source which I think could colour your judgement.
So basically, you couldn't rebut it, but I must be wrong because I'm too close to it?
Surprisingly few of the TEC you were quoting are actually teachers. I make it four in total. And one of them works at Ark, which is a very peculiar organisation indeed that has some very dodgy past episodes that it mysteriously gets away with. Others include the astronomer royal (why?) and Tristram Hunt (also why)?
Their recommendations may have been well meant but were positively offensive. Which is disappointing. Some of the evidence they took is very interesting but they drew some extremely strange conclusions from it. For example, just 10% of teachers trust OFSTED, so reform it? But if it's that mistrusted, just abolish it. Go back to local authority supervision instead. (Get rid of the ISI at the same time please, because they're even worse.)
The further irony is I have every sympathy with you complaining that people are ignoring your expertise, or quoting others who mean well but don't quite get the problems, because I know exactly how you feel. As does every teacher. Because it's what you're doing right now.
We're going round in circles here.
I don't dismiss your view as an experienced teacher. In fact, in your calmer moments, i find them interesting. I just don't think your views wins out over everyone else and that you have the sole claim to authority on the subject of education.
This position is not inconsistent.
I am a specialist in the delivery of megaprojects and I have a civil engineering background. I don't profess to know everything, nor could I. I am not a gas engineer. I am not a heating engineer. I am not a financier. I am not au fait with the local housing conditions or challenges in every part of the UK. So, I would be interested in hearing the views of any of those people on the challenges of retrofitting the housing stock with new domestic heating systems.
What I am familiar with is the complexities in defining, financing, setting up and delivering complex projects and how the many different stakeholders and interfaces need to be resolved to make that work. So, I comment in that capacity and expect that view to at least be considered.
What I don't do is dismiss that anyone else within my sector or industry has anything of validity to contribute nor demand that my own view, and only my view, should be accepted. I do dismiss people entirely outwith my sector telling me i haven't a clue what I'm talking about and resorting to ad hominem instead.
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Whilst I spend quite a bit of time defending the NEU at the moment, I completely agree with this. I think the unions (sometimes) make the mistake of protecting teachers, rather than protecting education. I'd love to see the unions more rigorously focusing on students, rather than teachers themselves (to be clear, in 95% of cases protecting teachers does protect students, as happy, productive teachers make for a good education system. But in a minority of cases unions protect teachers who are serving kids and their colleagues poorly, to the detriment of schools and the system).
That is true. However, it should be pointed out that it is the job of unions to protect teachers. It's senior leaders who should be monitoring standards.
Where it could be much more useful is if unions were more proactive in pushing staff who are identified as underperforming to retrain or indeed move jobs. But that's actually not as easy as it sounds because the relationship between them and senior leaders often tends to be very adversarial.
How much of the problem in your experience were the SLTs ?
I've seen both Heads who have transformed a school, and those who've ruined one. (Of course that's partly down to governing bodies in either case.)
To be honest, it's difficult to judge because most of the times I've seen seriously underperforming heads (I'd go for twice) the problems were highly intractable so it's understandable they were struggling. Even if they did pile more rubbish on themselves.
I did work in a school with a good head that was going badly because it was simply too big, and an excellent school with quite a weak head and indeed SLT more widely that got along solidly because with the exception of maybe one department the middle management were all top class.
The thing I would say is that it's very common for ambitious, rather than really capable, teachers to be promoted, so you can get some right dross out there. Equally, of course, being a good teacher is no guarantee somebody would be a good head, as it's a very different job.
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
After a few hours of reading mindless drivel on ConHome they return. Sometimes with a new name.
This Bangkok skybar is as close to being in Blade Runner as i have ever been. I am looking DOWN on the Skytrain, as it speeds sleekly between the skyscrapers. Asia is still the future. Europe is tired, Britain is knackered. America is strong but fucked, like a wrestler who has done too many steroids
Would be a little less confident in it, if you found out I had a hand in designing the Skytrain system.....
Quite the opposite, the Skytrain is great! Well done. It makes travel across trafficky Bangkok seriously easy, when it used to be horrendous
The only problem is that it is now TOO popular. Always crowded
Looking back, rather crazily one of my first ever jobs (before even uni) was part of a team designing an MRT station in Singapore that doubles as an emergency bomb shelter.....I am not massively confident I would want to rely on it if the Zombie Apocalypse ever comes, given I spent far too many week nights out on the town.
Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong. The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation. I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).
For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.
National Socialism was, originally, the idea of socialism applied on a country/racial basis.
See Mussolini’s progression to Fascism.
The whole “Nazis were/weren’t socialist” thing has become impossibly toxic, due to scumbags trying to score political points.
But they certainly believed in state control of the economy. The bit people get confused by is that the fascists didn’t want to *own* the means of production.
Krupp could be owned privately. Just as long as Krupp bought materials from the right sources (defined by the Nazi regime), employed the right amount of people in the right places, produced the right products at the right prices… and kicked back the right amount of money in “gifts” to the right people…
Hence the similarity with the Stalinists, who gave up on global revolution to build "socialism in one country".
This is the basis of why I'd argue that the Soviet Union really wasn't a true attempt at socialism/communism. The international aspect isn't just an optional bolt-on, it's the whole essence of the thing. Hence, "Workers of the World, Unite."
As soon as the Nationalism becomes more important than the Socialism then I think you're in trouble. This is why I don't trust the SNP posturing to the left, or Sinn Fein in Ireland.
It all comes down to some quite personal definitions in the end.
At the time quite a few Trots (and other heretics to The Revolution) labelled the Soviet Union as State Capitalism.
Fun thing - people bang on about Henry Ford and the Nazis. Strangely they forget about Henry Ford and Stalin. Stalin and the boys loved Fordism. They loved gigantic, modern factories. So they got Ford to help them build giant factories. IIRC the main factory that built T34 was a Ford built plant.
The fun bit - the Ukrainian Famine may, in part, have been due to the need to export grain, to get hard currency. To pay Ford (and the other western firms building mega projects for the Soviet Union).
Only may?
One of the ways Khrushchev was very different from Stalin is when he ran short of grain in 1963 he was willing to buy from the Americans and Australians. Stalin would just have let people starve to death. Knowing Stalin, he would probably have worked it so it was those he considered politically unsound who suffered most e.g. the Baltic states and Ukraine (again).
Given that the Ukrainian Famine was "managed" to target out groups, there is no "probably" there.
Under Stalin, resources were explicitly directed to groups he favoured and denied to those he didn't. This was open policy.
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
The correct answer, of course, is that a 'good' car is one that allows me to do the job I need to do with absolutely no fuss. I get in, drive it where I want to go, and get out.
A 'bad' car is one where I have to get jump-leads to start it every so often, where I'm always worried whether it'll finish the journey without it breaking down, and where, when I'm at the destination, I'm worried if someone will key it.
Oddly enough, this means that my idea of a 'good' car is often the direct opposite of a petrol-heads. Which is why I think I'm much wiser than an average petrol-head.
I don’t give a fuck about cars, generally, and have always found most petrolheads quite weird and nerdy - but then I am sure most of them would find me weird for many reasons
However I now own a Mini JCW automatic. This is a properly fast car with a lot of vroom, and the cliche is true, it feels like a go-kart. As I have detailed on here, i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road, and it felt like it could go twice as fast
There is a genuine pleasure in a purring machine. I begin to understand it
"i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road"
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
Probably true. I’m not proud of it. Just stating a fact. Fucking fast car: lots of fun
Looking back I realise I was *passively suicidal* at the time. I was grieving over my beautiful but lost young wife (divorce), it was at the horrible tail end of Lockdown 3, which span me into unprecedented depression. Suddenly I found myself west of Dorchester and I thought, oh, the road is really empty from lockdown, let’s see if I can do 100 on an A Road. Turned out I could. Then I thought. How about 110? That’s about as fast as I’ve ever gone. It did that easily. Then i went seamlessly from 110 to 120. Then 120 slipped easily to 130. At some point I came to my senses and looked at the speedo and saw 138MPH and I thought WHAT THE FUCK
A monumentally selfish moment. I could easily have killed people, not just me. I console myself by remembering I’m not a boring, friendless, marathon-running c*nt like you
JCW should top out at 150+. Go back and fucking send it.
I am more than happy to cede the PB speeding record to you. It was fun tho, however insane and selfish
You might enjoy this splendidly anecdotal biography of Ring of Bright Water author Gavin Maxwell, by Douglas Botting
Maxwell was a chain smoking, risktaking, sexually voracious, manic depressive ex-special forces soldier. One thing that caught my eye in this great book: he used to love driving his sports car around the Highlands, quite drunk, at 150mph (fuck knows what car could do that in the 1950s)
Of course. Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.
A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.
Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.
I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.
These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.
In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.
You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.
I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.
You didn't make them.
Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.
I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.
If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.
Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.
You didn't rebut me point by point, you just posted a rant. The TEC report and its headline findings triggered you, and that was your response.
It was in no sense considered or insightful, and I learnt nothing from it other than what I already knew: you hate the DfE, Ofsted and politicians - and teachers already do all this/need more funding and for government to stay out of their hair.
There might be something in it, but it isn't the whole of the answer - particularly where public policy requires join-up across education sectors, industry and communities - and more targeted investment, so it deserved more thought than your knee-jerk diatribe provided, particularly since there were plenty of education experts on the commission itself.
That is simply not true. I pointed out where they were wrong and why. Especially, I pointed out where they wanted people to do things that were already happening, and made statements that were nonsensical (which I might add is not easy to rebut, because if I say 'pixies don't exist' proving a negative is hard) or where they had misunderstood the problem (OFSTED).
I also noted they did make one very good point, on technology, but had misidentified the cause of the problem and therefore did not have a solution for it.
No way is that an expert report. Whoever wrote it is profoundly ignorant of education, and the way it was couched was actually pure rudeness. I responded in kind.
The genuine irony is that you are complaining about people doing in your field what they were doing in mine.
They were perfectly reasonable and innocuous headline statements. You read into them a level of rudeness that was not there, presumably because you inferred that the headline recommendations suggested they were not already being done/done effectively by teachers and you found that offensive.
The authors included head teachers of secondary schools, those from further/adult education colleges and universities and - whilst I don't doubt your qualifications in the slightest - neither do I doubt theirs and your views are but one input into forming my views on the education sector as a whole.
If you're asking me to just dismiss those of anyone else who works in the sector, and take yours at face value and no-one elses, I'm afraid I don't do that, particularly since I know you are emotionally triggered depending on who provides the source which I think could colour your judgement.
So basically, you couldn't rebut it, but I must be wrong because I'm too close to it?
Surprisingly few of the TEC you were quoting are actually teachers. I make it four in total. And one of them works at Ark, which is a very peculiar organisation indeed that has some very dodgy past episodes that it mysteriously gets away with. Others include the astronomer royal (why?) and Tristram Hunt (also why)?
Their recommendations may have been well meant but were positively offensive. Which is disappointing. Some of the evidence they took is very interesting but they drew some extremely strange conclusions from it. For example, just 10% of teachers trust OFSTED, so reform it? But if it's that mistrusted, just abolish it. Go back to local authority supervision instead. (Get rid of the ISI at the same time please, because they're even worse.)
The further irony is I have every sympathy with you complaining that people are ignoring your expertise, or quoting others who mean well but don't quite get the problems, because I know exactly how you feel. As does every teacher. Because it's what you're doing right now.
We're going round in circles here.
I don't dismiss your view as an experienced teacher. In fact, in your calmer moments, i find them interesting. I just don't think your views wins out over everyone else and that you have the sole claim to authority on the subject of education.
This position is not inconsistent.
I am a specialist in the delivery of megaprojects and I have a civil engineering background. I don't profess to know everything, nor could I. I am not a gas engineer. I am not a heating engineer. I am not a financier. I am not au fait with the local housing conditions or challenges in every part of the UK. So, I would be interested in hearing the views of any of those people on the challenges of retrofitting the housing stock with new domestic heating systems.
What I am familiar with is the complexities in defining, financing, setting up and delivering complex projects and how the many different stakeholders and interfaces need to be resolved to make that work. So, I comment in that capacity and expect that view to at least be considered.
What I don't do is dismiss that anyone else within my sector or industry has anything of validity to contribute nor demand that my own view, and only my view, should be accepted. I do dismiss people entirely outwith my sector telling me i haven't a clue what I'm talking about and resorting to ad hominem instead.
Does that make sense?
The point is, I wasn't judging them on their knowledge or experience although I'm not surprised to learn most of them weren't teachers. I was judging them on their report as summarised.
Now, if the summary's wrong, I'll retract my comments. Otherwise, I'm happy I was right to say what I did. And if you don't like it, tough.
Of course. Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.
A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.
Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.
I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.
These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.
In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.
You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.
I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.
You didn't make them.
Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.
I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.
If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.
Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.
Your point by point rebuttal shredded Royale's rather weak and dream laden thesis.
Why shouldn't you use profanity? You are angry at the bizarre and systematic undermining of all but elite schooling.
Secondary schooling in Wales is not great in Wales (although my children's experience in a RC comp was first class) so it is not necessarily a Party political issue. Where party politics does come into this is the Conservative Party fixation with elite selection to the detriment of all others.
I had an excellent non-selective experience and a dreadful selective experience. An experience not borne out by, for example, HY's promoted narrative. My non-selective experience was superb because at that moment in time resources, the political will and the enthused teachers to make the experience work were showered upon comprehensive schools.
I have no real idea how the nation moves forward with its vastly substandard educational system. What I do know is selective education is not the answer, and I realise that whatever we do, we can only progress when the current state of inertia that you highlight is thrown in the educational dumpster.
Education is not, and should not be all about exam success. Yes that is part of it, but the most important measure is that of value added.
I copied and pasted the headline findings of the Times Education Commission onto this blog for all to see. It was neither my dream or my thesis. It was an independent report into the future of the education sector one, in which as I pointed out, commands strong cross-party support - including from several previous Prime Ministers and ten previous Education Secretaries.
I think it's a serious piece of work. I don't yet know in full what I thought about it myself. But, I thought the future of education in England (and across the UK more broadly) was worth starting off an interesting debate on this blog. Instead, we've got a lot of petty sniping and ad hominem, largely depending upon how posters felt about the person who was saying it.
We used to be so much better than that but, if that's what pb.com has now become, quite frankly I can't be bothered and will also leave the site as many others have.
There are plenty of other blogs and forums where rocks can be pointlessly hurled if that's all we're now interested in.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
You've mentioned the Conservative Party twice this morning. I haven't at all. It's the be all and end all of how you see me and any of my contributions on any subject.
I think the sad thing about you is you genuinely believe you're intelligent enough to do deconstructive analysis whereas you are actually just a partisan troll.
The only engagement you want to have is to score points for your side. I'm totally uninterested in that - sorry.
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
There is, but in my experience it is one of those things that no-one really has time to quality assure effectively (so, for example, sitting in a safeguarding training course run by a colleague is classed as CPD, when really there ought to be an entitlement, and an expectation, that every teacher accesses accredited training regularly).
The requirement for CPD is part of the performance-related pay cycle, and is a way for senior leaders to have some control over pay (i.e. if someone doesn't meet their development targets their pay might be frozen). This, unfortunately, can become an 'if you are liked' criterion rather than a real measure of a teacher's commitment to their own self-improvement.
On the other hand, if you are proactive as an individual teacher (at least in my experience as a maths teacher) there is an absolute wealth of excellent free training available. The main challenge is finding anyone to cover your lessons whilst you're out, so schools are more and more reluctant to let you go at the moment.
I would strongly suspect that the shortage of teachers is the biggest element "protecting" useless teachers. Thoughts?
You've mentioned the Conservative Party twice this morning. I haven't at all. It's the be all and end all of how you see me and any of my contributions on any subject.
I think the sad thing about you is you genuinely believe you're intelligent enough to do deconstructive analysis whereas you are actually just a partisan troll.
The only engagement you want to have is to score points for your side. I'm totally uninterested in that - sorry.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I am not trying to get personal. Quite the opposite. The best way to enjoy this site is ignore posters one disagrees with or dislikes. If Casino wants to engage I will respond. I very much doubt he can sway my opinion though.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
There is CPD, though often it's run in a way that is cheap box-ticking (the school has to provide X hours of CPD, so we will do it by having an assistant headteacher talk about something for an hour at the end of school when everyone would rather be prepping for tomorrow.)
As for the whistleblowing idea, aside from duties linked to safety and safeguarding, it's never really come up in my experience. One of the problems with teaching is that standard teachers don't get much time to see what others do. Though the heirachical nature of schools makes it difficult to act with candour when you see a superior misbehaving.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
On the whistleblowing point, no, other than safeguarding as Stuart says.
With huge caveats (defining substandard is hard) I think it is definitely an area the profession could improve on.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.
On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.
My goodness Nigel. I think you win todays uninformed-bullshit-whataboutery award.
Really? I simply asked whether it is always "the government"? I did not say that they have no culpability.I know that this is a political site, and there is a tendency of those of a more rigid political perspective to be tribal but do try reading peoples' posts before trying to be a smartarse. @ydoethur's point is an interesting one, but it still doesn't remove my point, that blaming everything on "the government" is for simplistic fools. I see you confine yourself to the aforementioned category.
Nigel dissembling is always less effective when what you actually wrote is in a quote chain.
I don’t have much issue with you asking whether it is all the government’s fault (except that your question is so clearly a straw man).
But you very clearly didn’t just ask that. You attempted to lay blame for the fact that OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality.
Which is nonsense.
No I didn't. You really need some lessons on debating. I do hope you are not a teacher if your ability to analyse and debate is so poor.
I did not say that "OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality." (sic). If you thought that, then maybe your ability at literacy needs some remedial attention (indeed how you constructed the sentence also indicates that - maybe it is your rage that has caused this?). I only hope your numeracy is better.
For the avoidance of doubt and the instruction of those that cannot read well, I said that such issues (I am sure you are in denial about them) are indicative of issues relating to our education system. That clear enough for you?
In one of my six back-to-back lessons yesterday I taught non-homogenous second-order differential equations to Y13. Rather worrying, given your remarkable insight into both my intellectual abilities and state of mind.
Thanks for that, it sounds quite exhausting, though your comment is quite illuminating. I had no idea when I said that I rather hope your numeracy is better than your literacy how apt that was. If I may suggest, and in the spirit of your first pugilistic comment to me, please stick to the beauty and predictability of mathematics and avoid anything that requires cogency of balanced argument and linguistic capability when teaching the future generation for their sake, and yours.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
What is the point of this? Can we not just discuss stuff without it being personal? Are we not better than this?
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I've had my own issues with Casino, but I think that unfair. Like the rest of us, he has a mix of good and bad points.
Every post he makes is calling somebody stupid, wrong, a troll or an idiot. Every post he makes is condescending, I can literally picture the type of guy he is.
Salary is currently £48006 - surely a huge saving by removing the drivers! Not!
Which is quite a bit less than tube drivers - so CR was right about that.
But you are also correct that the 'saving' is low. As it would cost an absolute fortune to convert the tube to true 'staffless' operation (and the heavy rail network is much, much worse), the saving are irrelevant.
(Terminology matters here. Trains can be 'driverless', but if you still need a staff member on board to check the doors are clear, then it is not 'staffless'. Personally I think it'd be impossible to convert the heavy rail network to true staffless operation, even if that was desirable.)
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Whilst I spend quite a bit of time defending the NEU at the moment, I completely agree with this. I think the unions (sometimes) make the mistake of protecting teachers, rather than protecting education. I'd love to see the unions more rigorously focusing on students, rather than teachers themselves (to be clear, in 95% of cases protecting teachers does protect students, as happy, productive teachers make for a good education system. But in a minority of cases unions protect teachers who are serving kids and their colleagues poorly, to the detriment of schools and the system).
That is true. However, it should be pointed out that it is the job of unions to protect teachers. It's senior leaders who should be monitoring standards.
Where it could be much more useful is if unions were more proactive in pushing staff who are identified as underperforming to retrain or indeed move jobs. But that's actually not as easy as it sounds because the relationship between them and senior leaders often tends to be very adversarial.
How much of the problem in your experience were the SLTs ?
I've seen both Heads who have transformed a school, and those who've ruined one. (Of course that's partly down to governing bodies in either case.)
To be honest, it's difficult to judge because most of the times I've seen seriously underperforming heads (I'd go for twice) the problems were highly intractable so it's understandable they were struggling. Even if they did pile more rubbish on themselves.
I did work in a school with a good head that was going badly because it was simply too big, and an excellent school with quite a weak head and indeed SLT more widely that got along solidly because with the exception of maybe one department the middle management were all top class.
The thing I would say is that it's very common for ambitious, rather than really capable, teachers to be promoted, so you can get some right dross out there. Equally, of course, being a good teacher is no guarantee somebody would be a good head, as it's a very different job.
And the skill sets needed in different schools are different- someone brilliantly effective in school X can crash and burn in school Y.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
@Casino_Royale can be grouchy. And touchy. He is also consistently articulate, intelligent and honest
You talk candidly about your mental health issues (and good luck to you); you don’t really help yourself by launching these embittered personal assaults on other PB-ers who are probably quite sympathetic
You've mentioned the Conservative Party twice this morning. I haven't at all. It's the be all and end all of how you see me and any of my contributions on any subject.
I think the sad thing about you is you genuinely believe you're intelligent enough to do deconstructive analysis whereas you are actually just a partisan troll.
The only engagement you want to have is to score points for your side. I'm totally uninterested in that - sorry.
Pot calling the kettle black
I am going to resist responding to your (multiple) provocations on this thread because I have sympathy with the mental health issues you've admitted you are working through.
There are several other pb regulars who've met me who can attest (and have) to the fact that your characterisation of me is totally incorrect.
I don't have anything to prove to you, I'm afraid. If you want to continue to believe this about me, and it helps you, then you go right ahead.
Salary is currently £48006 - surely a huge saving by removing the drivers! Not!
Which is quite a bit less than tube drivers - so CR was right about that.
But you are also correct that the 'saving' is low. As it would cost an absolute fortune to convert the tube to true 'staffless' operation (and the heavy rail network is much, much worse), the saving are irrelevant.
(Terminology matters here. Trains can be 'driverless', but if you still need a staff member on board to check the doors are clear, then it is not 'staffless'. Personally I think it'd be impossible to convert the heavy rail network to true staffless operation, even if that was desirable.)
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I've had my own issues with Casino, but I think that unfair. Like the rest of us, he has a mix of good and bad points.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...
I don't think good references are particularly relevant to employment decisions these days, since they are usually taken up after the preliminary decision on whether or not to employ has already been made. They are more of a final check.
I find them somewhat maddening. Very often in a set company format. I provide a lot of references for our past students, so no I don't have knowledge of their 'employment' etc. It seems a lot of modern references are about making sure the person actually did the job they say they did, rather than seeing if the referee can actually advise the new employer
Some years ago, part of Microsoft worked in the following manner - the bottom performing 10% were binned from the teams every year.
The scramble to not be bottom of the team caused social and work problems, until peace was restored.
It trend out that the managers had figured out that Social Darwinism was actually harmful. So they're deliberately hired a couple of no-hopers to be bottom of the team. Everyone else was happy - they knew they would be fine at the end of year review. The no-hopers were sent into the pool of people looking for assignment to a team, at the end of each year.....
Yes, the no-hopers just swapped from team to team, each year. There was a market in the useless.
This kept the managers happy. The teams were happy. The no-hopers had jobs....
In tech I've rarely worked with anyone truly 'hopeless'. There were two interesting guys at Company Y we called "Can't code, won't code", but aside from that I think everyone's found a role they could contribute in.
An issue with the 'bottom 10%' stupidity is that some people do really useful things, but in ways that do not necessarily meet the performance metrics. It also inspires a suck-up-to-the-boss mentality.
Some years ago, I had an interview with a manager who loved the fact that he got rid of the bottom x percent each year. He spent half an hour telling me how awesome this was.
He was looking for a team lead.
I was very pleased to find out, from the agent, that the manager said I wasn't suitable.
If getting rid of the bottom x % is a bad idea, why do they still do it in football?
Today Maugham finds himself cancelled by many former allies, uncomfortably sitting on the same side as those he purports to revile. It’s perhaps a little early to invite the tax lawyer to the dark side, but it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
In my experience, those in capability tend to resign before they're dismissed, which makes it easier to obtain another teaching post.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I am not trying to get personal. Quite the opposite. The best way to enjoy this site is ignore posters one disagrees with or dislikes. If Casino wants to engage I will respond. I very much doubt he can sway my opinion though.
Point of order. If we all “ignored posters we disagreed with” PB would die on its arse
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.
On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.
My goodness Nigel. I think you win todays uninformed-bullshit-whataboutery award.
Really? I simply asked whether it is always "the government"? I did not say that they have no culpability.I know that this is a political site, and there is a tendency of those of a more rigid political perspective to be tribal but do try reading peoples' posts before trying to be a smartarse. @ydoethur's point is an interesting one, but it still doesn't remove my point, that blaming everything on "the government" is for simplistic fools. I see you confine yourself to the aforementioned category.
Nigel dissembling is always less effective when what you actually wrote is in a quote chain.
I don’t have much issue with you asking whether it is all the government’s fault (except that your question is so clearly a straw man).
But you very clearly didn’t just ask that. You attempted to lay blame for the fact that OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality.
Which is nonsense.
No I didn't. You really need some lessons on debating. I do hope you are not a teacher if your ability to analyse and debate is so poor.
I did not say that "OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality." (sic). If you thought that, then maybe your ability at literacy needs some remedial attention (indeed how you constructed the sentence also indicates that - maybe it is your rage that has caused this?). I only hope your numeracy is better.
For the avoidance of doubt and the instruction of those that cannot read well, I said that such issues (I am sure you are in denial about them) are indicative of issues relating to our education system. That clear enough for you?
In one of my six back-to-back lessons yesterday I taught non-homogenous second-order differential equations to Y13. Rather worrying, given your remarkable insight into both my intellectual abilities and state of mind.
Thanks for that, it sounds quite exhausting, though your comment is quite illuminating. I had no idea when I said that I rather hope your numeracy is better than your literacy how apt that was. If I may suggest, and in the spirit of your first pugilistic comment to me, please stick to the beauty and predictability of mathematics and avoid anything that requires cogency of balanced argument and linguistic capability when teaching the future generation for their sake, and yours.
You seem determined to stick to ad hominem (I concede that you would be well within your rights to claim I started it, apologies, I enjoy a good round in the ring. My first comment was directed at your arguments, not you, but realise that may not have been clear).
For the record, I do think your points about rewarding effective teachers and extracting ineffective ones from the classroom are valid and important. I just think at the moment the far bigger problem is not having (specialist) teachers in the classroom at all.
Of course. Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.
A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.
Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.
I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.
These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.
In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.
You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.
I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.
You didn't make them.
Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.
I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.
If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.
Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.
Your point by point rebuttal shredded Royale's rather weak and dream laden thesis.
Why shouldn't you use profanity? You are angry at the bizarre and systematic undermining of all but elite schooling.
Secondary schooling in Wales is not great in Wales (although my children's experience in a RC comp was first class) so it is not necessarily a Party political issue. Where party politics does come into this is the Conservative Party fixation with elite selection to the detriment of all others.
I had an excellent non-selective experience and a dreadful selective experience. An experience not borne out by, for example, HY's promoted narrative. My non-selective experience was superb because at that moment in time resources, the political will and the enthused teachers to make the experience work were showered upon comprehensive schools.
I have no real idea how the nation moves forward with its vastly substandard educational system. What I do know is selective education is not the answer, and I realise that whatever we do, we can only progress when the current state of inertia that you highlight is thrown in the educational dumpster.
Education is not, and should not be all about exam success. Yes that is part of it, but the most important measure is that of value added.
I copied and pasted the headline findings of the Times Education Commission onto this blog for all to see. It was neither my dream or my thesis. It was an independent report into the future of the education sector one, in which as I pointed out, commands strong cross-party support - including from several previous Prime Ministers and ten previous Education Secretaries.
I think it's a serious piece of work. I don't yet know in full what I thought about it myself. But, I thought the future of education in England (and across the UK more broadly) was worth starting off an interesting debate on this blog. Instead, we've got a lot of petty sniping and ad hominem, largely depending upon how posters felt about the person who was saying it.
We used to be so much better than that but, if that's what pb.com has now become, quite frankly I can't be bothered and will also leave the site as many others have.
There are plenty of other blogs and forums where rocks can be pointlessly hurled if that's all we're now interested in.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
You've mentioned the Conservative Party twice this morning. I haven't at all. It's the be all and end all of how you see me and any of my contributions on any subject.
I think the sad thing about you is you genuinely believe you're intelligent enough to do deconstructive analysis whereas you are actually just a partisan troll.
The only engagement you want to have is to score points for your side. I'm totally uninterested in that - sorry.
Don't have to apologise to me old boy. Best if you ignore my partisan trolling and I'll try my best to avoid yours.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.
On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.
My goodness Nigel. I think you win todays uninformed-bullshit-whataboutery award.
Really? I simply asked whether it is always "the government"? I did not say that they have no culpability.I know that this is a political site, and there is a tendency of those of a more rigid political perspective to be tribal but do try reading peoples' posts before trying to be a smartarse. @ydoethur's point is an interesting one, but it still doesn't remove my point, that blaming everything on "the government" is for simplistic fools. I see you confine yourself to the aforementioned category.
Nigel dissembling is always less effective when what you actually wrote is in a quote chain.
I don’t have much issue with you asking whether it is all the government’s fault (except that your question is so clearly a straw man).
But you very clearly didn’t just ask that. You attempted to lay blame for the fact that OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality.
Which is nonsense.
No I didn't. You really need some lessons on debating. I do hope you are not a teacher if your ability to analyse and debate is so poor.
I did not say that "OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality." (sic). If you thought that, then maybe your ability at literacy needs some remedial attention (indeed how you constructed the sentence also indicates that - maybe it is your rage that has caused this?). I only hope your numeracy is better.
For the avoidance of doubt and the instruction of those that cannot read well, I said that such issues (I am sure you are in denial about them) are indicative of issues relating to our education system. That clear enough for you?
In one of my six back-to-back lessons yesterday I taught non-homogenous second-order differential equations to Y13. Rather worrying, given your remarkable insight into both my intellectual abilities and state of mind.
Thanks for that, it sounds quite exhausting, though your comment is quite illuminating. I had no idea when I said that I rather hope your numeracy is better than your literacy how apt that was. If I may suggest, and in the spirit of your first pugilistic comment to me, please stick to the beauty and predictability of mathematics and avoid anything that requires cogency of balanced argument and linguistic capability when teaching the future generation for their sake, and yours.
You seem determined to stick to ad hominem (I concede that you would be well within your rights to claim I started it, apologies, I enjoy a good round in the ring. My first comment was directed at your arguments, not you, but realise that may not have been clear).
For the record, I do think your points about rewarding effective teachers and extracting ineffective ones from the classroom are valid and important. I just think at the moment the far bigger problem is not having (specialist) teachers in the classroom at all.
Nice post. A good one to finish on. It is not ad hominem, I assure you (particularly as I don't know you), and it probably says more about me (or my dark side) than you, as I have a sometimes unhealthy propensity to be rude to those that I feel have been rude to me or others. I have the greatest admiration for teachers (the good ones) and teachers of mathematics in particular.
Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.
Driverless does not exist.
“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“
You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.
The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.
The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.
This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC
The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.
Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.
I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.
No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off again? You're clearly in a touchy mood today because you've had your trousers pulled down.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
In my experience, those in capability tend to resign before they're dismissed, which makes it easier to obtain another teaching post.
It happens, but serial offenders should get found out. Though capability is not just about the useless - the problem can simply be inadequate training or support. I know of one teacher who resigned (as you describe) who went on to become an outstanding teacher in a more supportive school.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
You measure by value add.
Which OFSTED used to do, but not in the last four years.
Point of order. If we all “ignored posters we disagreed with” PB would die on its arse
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
And, whatever happens, don’t whine
Says the guy who blocked me on Twitter cos he couldn't hack it
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
You measure by value add.
At the private school I attended, back in the day, they had exams at the end of each year.
Which stream you went into for the that subject, for the next year, was decided by the exam.
It was known in the school, that teachers who "dropped" too many into the C stream from the A or B stream were given an interview without coffee by the headmaster....
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I am not trying to get personal. Quite the opposite. The best way to enjoy this site is ignore posters one disagrees with or dislikes. If Casino wants to engage I will respond. I very much doubt he can sway my opinion though.
Point of order. If we all “ignored posters we disagreed with” PB would die on its arse
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I've had my own issues with Casino, but I think that unfair. Like the rest of us, he has a mix of good and bad points.
Thanks.
I second that motion. We have strongly disagreed on Brexit, but I think you are not a bad chap. I quite like @CorrectHorseBattery and @ydoethur too. Please kiss and make up
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
You measure by value add.
At the private school I attended, back in the day, they had exams at the end of each year.
Which stream you went into for the that subject, for the next year, was decided by the exam.
It was known in the school, that teachers who "dropped" too many into the C stream from the A or B stream were given an interview without coffee by the headmaster....
No head ever gave me coffee in any conversation. I never realised it bore this significance. I assumed it was just because I don't drink coffee.
Point of order. If we all “ignored posters we disagreed with” PB would die on its arse
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
And, whatever happens, don’t whine
Says the guy who blocked me on Twitter cos he couldn't hack it
Different rules, though. There's no blocking facility on PB, and Twitter is of use for other things than getting into arguments.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
There is, but in my experience it is one of those things that no-one really has time to quality assure effectively (so, for example, sitting in a safeguarding training course run by a colleague is classed as CPD, when really there ought to be an entitlement, and an expectation, that every teacher accesses accredited training regularly).
The requirement for CPD is part of the performance-related pay cycle, and is a way for senior leaders to have some control over pay (i.e. if someone doesn't meet their development targets their pay might be frozen). This, unfortunately, can become an 'if you are liked' criterion rather than a real measure of a teacher's commitment to their own self-improvement.
On the other hand, if you are proactive as an individual teacher (at least in my experience as a maths teacher) there is an absolute wealth of excellent free training available. The main challenge is finding anyone to cover your lessons whilst you're out, so schools are more and more reluctant to let you go at the moment.
I would strongly suspect that the shortage of teachers is the biggest element "protecting" useless teachers. Thoughts?
At the moment, wholeheartedly yes, but I think the system has its part to play too. Even when more teachers were around ineffective ones were hard to move on or support to improve.
Right now, far too often we interview and sit down afterwards asking whether we can bear to appoint any of them because the quality isn't there. And we are popular school to work at. We end up having to say yes to the least-worst candidate.
But, and its a big but, I think what makes an ineffective teacher isn't static. For example I am less effective now than I was before I had kids. Not because I have less expertise, but because I cut corners at every single opportunity to get out of the door in time to pick my kid up from nursery, and then can't open up my computer again until he has gone to bed. I used to work much longer hours (I'm not complaining - the holidays more than compensate) which allowed me to do more of the things around the edges (more personal subject feedback, more contact home, more one-to-one conversations with kids) that can transform kids' experience at school from mediocre to life-changing.
I think that we could significantly improve the effetiveness of most (though definitely not all) teachers by reducing workload and better resourcing the profession (I can dream, I know).
In response to OpenAI's 'ChatGPT', DeepMind is considering a private beta release of their 'Sparrow' chatbot some time in 2023.
They should face off against each other in an AI version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Somebody is obviously going to link it so they talk to one another and see if we get a singularity and the world blows up....
This is one reason i am sure we are going to reach AGI really quite soon
The big tech companies (and, behind them, the superpowers) are now in an AI arms race. Microsoft are pumping $10bn into OpenAI and apparently incorporating ChatGPT into Bing. This could be a Google-killer. Are Google going to sit back and accept defeat? Course not, they have their own AI ready to roll - apparently very good - they have only been held back, it is said, by worries about AI-spewed racism and the bad fit with their business model - but if they face an existential threat they will roll the dice
Meanwhile, what about Amazon? Bezos has spent billions on Alexa to relatively little effect. What would make Alexa amazing and a must-have? Put a real intelligence inside it. Wow. And he could maybe do that tomorrow with a software update if he has the AI - the hardware is out there, in homes, waiting
Then what about the Chinese giants? And quirky companies like DeepMind? They all know that real AGI will be intensely powerful and will make trillions for whoever succeeds
Point of order. If we all “ignored posters we disagreed with” PB would die on its arse
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
And, whatever happens, don’t whine
Says the guy who blocked me on Twitter cos he couldn't hack it
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
You measure by value add.
You can try, but VA at the level of individual teachers and classes has an awful lot of confounders. To quote the organisation that does a lot to promote and calculate VA for schools;
We know that value-added is not always the same as effectiveness. While it seems to make sense to judge the effectiveness of teaching from its impact on assessed learning, we know that, in theory, a number of factors will influence students’ achievements.
For example, one of the simplest ways for a teacher to achieve high value-added scores is to follow a teacher whose value-added is low. Another is to teach top sets, selected for their likelihood of attaining high grades.
In practice, therefore, to attribute an ‘effect’ to an individual teacher or school is to judge what is outside the control of that individual.
(Anecdote time: I used to work in a school that had separate teachers for biology, chemistry and physics at GCSE, but the same teaching groups. The differences between groups were big, but the differences between teachers of the same groups were small, apart from the SLT member who got brilliant results from coursework.)
I mentioned back in November that my mad-as-a-box-of-frogs brother-in-law, Ben, was heading down to Chile to be dropped off on Antarctica for a stroll across the continent to the South Pole.
59 days of solo ski-ing later, dragging a 110kg sled (which did, to be fair, progressively get lightened as he ate his way through his provisions), seven hundred miles through fields of sastrugi (frozen snow-and-ice dunes), blizzards, white-out, pain and fatigue, and up slope after slope to the 9000' above sea-level South Polar Plateau, he arrived at 0430 this morning.
Fortunately he can catch a Twin Otter aircraft back to the drop-off point rather than have to turn around and slog his way back.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
You measure by value add.
Problem is, by the time I get a Y11 class sitting their GCSEs, much of the value added (or not) is baked in. VA is great at measuring the effectiveness of schools, or departments, but not (always) individual teachers.
At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.
Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".
Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.
What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.
Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.
What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.
For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.
Yes, I agree. Rationally, I'd like to see teachers higher paid, thereby attracting better teachers. But then you see representatives of National Education Union, and your emotional reaction is 'there is no way that person should be better paid'.
The teachers at my kids' primary school are largely very good, but there is one who is half-useless. We have dodged him so far. But it seems unfair that he gets paid as much as his much more competent colleagues who are educating their charges considerably better. There was one who was entirely, laughably useless, but fortunately for us (though not for his new charges down south) he has moved schools. How do we arrange matters so we better reward - and therefore retain - the good teachers while removing the bad ones? I say this not out of spite towards the bad teachers (some of whom are quite pleasant people) but our of a desire to see kids not have a year of their education blighted by having an idiot in charge (or, God forbid, one of the talking heads who get trotted out to represent the views of the NEU).
Pity the kids that have the half useless teacher for a whole year, or possibly more. This is the bit that actually makes me angry. Listen to the pure vitriol that is aimed at a company that provides a bad service, but on something that is as important as a child's education people are prepared to accept this type of mediocrity or worse, and blame the government, no doubt.
People think teachers slag off the DfE?
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
Genuine question, rather than debating point: is there an requirement for CPD within teaching (and if there is how well do you think it works?) and is there any whistleblowing requirement for a teacher to report substandards in others if they are detrimental to the children?
There is, but in my experience it is one of those things that no-one really has time to quality assure effectively (so, for example, sitting in a safeguarding training course run by a colleague is classed as CPD, when really there ought to be an entitlement, and an expectation, that every teacher accesses accredited training regularly).
The requirement for CPD is part of the performance-related pay cycle, and is a way for senior leaders to have some control over pay (i.e. if someone doesn't meet their development targets their pay might be frozen). This, unfortunately, can become an 'if you are liked' criterion rather than a real measure of a teacher's commitment to their own self-improvement.
On the other hand, if you are proactive as an individual teacher (at least in my experience as a maths teacher) there is an absolute wealth of excellent free training available. The main challenge is finding anyone to cover your lessons whilst you're out, so schools are more and more reluctant to let you go at the moment.
I would strongly suspect that the shortage of teachers is the biggest element "protecting" useless teachers. Thoughts?
At the moment, wholeheartedly yes, but I think the system has its part to play too. Even when more teachers were around ineffective ones were hard to move on or support to improve.
Right now, far too often we interview and sit down afterwards asking whether we can bear to appoint any of them because the quality isn't there. And we are popular school to work at. We end up having to say yes to the least-worst candidate.
But, and its a big but, I think what makes an ineffective teacher isn't static. For example I am less effective now than I was before I had kids. Not because I have less expertise, but because I cut corners at every single opportunity to get out of the door in time to pick my kid up from nursery, and then can't open up my computer again until he has gone to bed. I used to work much longer hours (I'm not complaining - the holidays more than compensate) which allowed me to do more of the things around the edges (more personal subject feedback, more contact home, more one-to-one conversations with kids) that can transform kids' experience at school from mediocre to life-changing.
I think that we could significantly improve the effetiveness of most (though definitely not all) teachers by reducing workload and better resourcing the profession (I can dream, I know).
A personal idea I have, is that the culture of flattening organisations has eliminated too many specialist paper pushers and admins. So we see police officers spending a majority of their time doing repetitive data entry in multiple system.....
This seems to be true in the NHS - how about teaching?
If anyone disagrees with your point of view you take umbrage and return home with your bat and ball. Surely one of the elements of this site is to deconstruct arguments one disagrees with. It is not a personal slur on yourself to suggest that a posted argument you agree with is inconsistent with reality for some of the rest of us.
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
Go on Pete!!!
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I am not trying to get personal. Quite the opposite. The best way to enjoy this site is ignore posters one disagrees with or dislikes. If Casino wants to engage I will respond. I very much doubt he can sway my opinion though.
Point of order. If we all “ignored posters we disagreed with” PB would die on its arse
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
And, whatever happens, don’t whine
Leon, 99% of the time you are infuriating, but then 1% of the time you go and post something that makes up for all the nonsense. It is really quite discombobulating.
ETA: I expressly avoided liking your post, just to keep you happy. I don't know what has come over me.
Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?
No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.
So anecdote of an anecdote. Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.
Also how does one measure good or bad teachers?
I had teachers at Grammar School who were heralded as brilliant because they got 100% pass marks for all those entered for O and A levels. The small print didn't identify that anyone who might fail was pulled from O levels and entered for CSE and borderline A level candidates were just pulled. Oh and they were poor teachers who just taught by rote.
You measure by value add.
At the private school I attended, back in the day, they had exams at the end of each year.
Which stream you went into for the that subject, for the next year, was decided by the exam.
It was known in the school, that teachers who "dropped" too many into the C stream from the A or B stream were given an interview without coffee by the headmaster....
No head ever gave me coffee in any conversation. I never realised it bore this significance. I assumed it was just because I don't drink coffee.
The one to watch for is when you realise you are standing on plastic sheeting.....
It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
Yes there were. From the story:-
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.
Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.
The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.
Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to
DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"
BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."
Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?
Good 1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT 2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM 3. Biden - '67 C2 vert 4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach) 5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch 6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo 7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002 8. Shappsie - F80 330i 9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura 10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire
Bad 1. Johnson - Toyota Previa 2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order. 3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type 4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.) 5. Starmer - RAV4 6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth 7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off. 8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ. 9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron. 10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier
The correct answer, of course, is that a 'good' car is one that allows me to do the job I need to do with absolutely no fuss. I get in, drive it where I want to go, and get out.
A 'bad' car is one where I have to get jump-leads to start it every so often, where I'm always worried whether it'll finish the journey without it breaking down, and where, when I'm at the destination, I'm worried if someone will key it.
Oddly enough, this means that my idea of a 'good' car is often the direct opposite of a petrol-heads. Which is why I think I'm much wiser than an average petrol-head.
I don’t give a fuck about cars, generally, and have always found most petrolheads quite weird and nerdy - but then I am sure most of them would find me weird for many reasons
However I now own a Mini JCW automatic. This is a properly fast car with a lot of vroom, and the cliche is true, it feels like a go-kart. As I have detailed on here, i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road, and it felt like it could go twice as fast
There is a genuine pleasure in a purring machine. I begin to understand it
"i once drove it at 138mph, in Dorset, at noon, on an A Road"
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
Probably true. I’m not proud of it. Just stating a fact. Fucking fast car: lots of fun
Looking back I realise I was *passively suicidal* at the time. I was grieving over my beautiful but lost young wife (divorce), it was at the horrible tail end of Lockdown 3, which span me into unprecedented depression. Suddenly I found myself west of Dorchester and I thought, oh, the road is really empty from lockdown, let’s see if I can do 100 on an A Road. Turned out I could. Then I thought. How about 110? That’s about as fast as I’ve ever gone. It did that easily. Then i went seamlessly from 110 to 120. Then 120 slipped easily to 130. At some point I came to my senses and looked at the speedo and saw 138MPH and I thought WHAT THE FUCK
A monumentally selfish moment. I could easily have killed people, not just me. I console myself by remembering I’m not a boring, friendless, marathon-running c*nt like you
JCW should top out at 150+. Go back and fucking send it.
I am more than happy to cede the PB speeding record to you. It was fun tho, however insane and selfish
You might enjoy this splendidly anecdotal biography of Ring of Bright Water author Gavin Maxwell, by Douglas Botting
Maxwell was a chain smoking, risktaking, sexually voracious, manic depressive ex-special forces soldier. One thing that caught my eye in this great book: he used to love driving his sports car around the Highlands, quite drunk, at 150mph (fuck knows what car could do that in the 1950s)
I mentioned back in November that my mad-as-a-box-of-frogs brother-in-law, Ben, was heading down to Chile to be dropped off on Antarctica for a stroll across the continent to the South Pole.
59 days of solo ski-ing later, dragging a 110kg sled (which did, to be fair, progressively get lightened as he ate his way through his provisions), seven hundred miles through fields of sastrugi (frozen snow-and-ice dunes), blizzards, white-out, pain and fatigue, and up slope after slope to the 9000' above sea-level South Polar Plateau, he arrived at 0430 this morning.
Fortunately he can catch a Twin Otter aircraft back to the drop-off point rather than have to turn around and slog his way back.
Some people will do anything to escape Christmas lunch with the family...
Comments
If anything ever showed the fact that you are a B-grade narcissistic wanker, that is it.
The scramble to not be bottom of the team caused social and work problems, until peace was restored.
It trend out that the managers had figured out that Social Darwinism was actually harmful. So they're deliberately hired a couple of no-hopers to be bottom of the team. Everyone else was happy - they knew they would be fine at the end of year review. The no-hopers were sent into the pool of people looking for assignment to a team, at the end of each year.....
Yes, the no-hopers just swapped from team to team, each year. There was a market in the useless.
This kept the managers happy. The teams were happy. The no-hopers had jobs....
(I'd quite like a Tractor, but I'm afraid getting one would fill up not just mine, but also three neighbouring gardens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_37#/media/File:5191693456_59e928f289_Steve_Jones.jpg
You should hear what they say about their underperforming colleagues.
It makes rigorous interviews essential.
Where it could be much more useful is if unions were more proactive in pushing staff who are identified as underperforming to retrain or indeed move jobs. But that's actually not as easy as it sounds because the relationship between them and senior leaders often tends to be very adversarial.
An issue with the 'bottom 10%' stupidity is that some people do really useful things, but in ways that do not necessarily meet the performance metrics. It also inspires a suck-up-to-the-boss mentality.
This is the basis of why I'd argue that the Soviet Union really wasn't a true attempt at socialism/communism. The international aspect isn't just an optional bolt-on, it's the whole essence of the thing. Hence, "Workers of the World, Unite."
As soon as the Nationalism becomes more important than the Socialism then I think you're in trouble. This is why I don't trust the SNP posturing to the left, or Sinn Fein in Ireland.
Looking back I realise I was *passively suicidal* at the time. I was grieving over my beautiful but lost young wife (divorce), it was at the horrible tail end of Lockdown 3, which span me into unprecedented depression. Suddenly I found myself west of Dorchester and I thought, oh, the road is really empty from lockdown, let’s see if I can do 100 on an A Road. Turned out I could. Then I thought. How about 110? That’s about as fast as I’ve ever gone. It did that easily. Then i went seamlessly from 110 to 120. Then 120 slipped easily to 130. At some point I came to my senses and looked at the speedo and saw 138MPH and I thought WHAT THE FUCK
A monumentally selfish moment. I could easily have killed people, not just me. I console myself by remembering I’m not a boring, friendless, marathon-running c*nt like you
Many people have lost innocent people to dickhead drivers. If you're feeling suicidal, don't drive like an asshole. Don't jump in front of trains. Get help.
This is something I feel strongly about, for reasons.
No one believed the complaint, not because the director in question was a nice human, but because his predilections somewhat orthogonal to her characteristics.
In clearing out her desk, it was discovered that when she moved companies (every 2-3 years) she would make a claim of harassment, get it settled for money, get an NDA and leave. So her record looked like someone rotating through IT in the City.
She had, according to the papers she left behind, done this half a dozen times.
She was, from working with her, batshit insane as well.
(Mixed, is the answer. The issue is the programme is usually set by the teachers themselves, not by people telling them where they need to improve. Which is fine with a teacher who is ruthlessly honest or especially determined, not so much use if they are ambitious and will only do things that will be them promoted, or lazy.)
You are not backwards in coming forward when someone criticises the Conservative Party.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-63677581
Telegraph reporting he faces a retrial:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/13/benjamin-mendy-cleared-sex-attacks-could-face-retrial/
Mr Mendy will face a retrial in the summer over an allegation of rape, relating to an incident at his home in October 2020, and an allegation of attempted rape, relating to an incident at the same address in October 2018.
Good luck getting a conviction after he's been found not guilty on all the others.
At the time quite a few Trots (and other heretics to The Revolution) labelled the Soviet Union as State Capitalism.
Fun thing - people bang on about Henry Ford and the Nazis. Strangely they forget about Henry Ford and Stalin. Stalin and the boys loved Fordism. They loved gigantic, modern factories. So they got Ford to help them build giant factories. IIRC the main factory that built T34 was a Ford built plant.
The fun bit - the Ukrainian Famine may, in part, have been due to the need to export grain, to get hard currency. To pay Ford (and the other western firms building mega projects for the Soviet Union).
As for the whistleblowing idea, aside from duties linked to safety and safeguarding, it's never really come up in my experience. One of the problems with teaching is that standard teachers don't get much time to see what others do. Though the heirachical nature of schools makes it difficult to act with candour when you see a superior misbehaving.
The requirement for CPD is part of the performance-related pay cycle, and is a way for senior leaders to have some control over pay (i.e. if someone doesn't meet their development targets their pay might be frozen). This, unfortunately, can become an 'if you are liked' criterion rather than a real measure of a teacher's commitment to their own self-improvement.
On the other hand, if you are proactive as an individual teacher (at least in my experience as a maths teacher) there is an absolute wealth of excellent free training available. The main challenge is finding anyone to cover your lessons whilst you're out, so schools are more and more reluctant to let you go at the moment.
Condescending_Royale is a nasty piece of work, his arrogance and attitude seeps through every post he makes. The kind of person I'd spend my life avoiding at work, I've seen his type many, many times.
I've seen both Heads who have transformed a school, and those who've ruined one.
(Of course that's partly down to governing
bodies in either case.)
One of the ways Khrushchev was very different from Stalin is when he ran short of grain in 1963 he was willing to buy from the Americans and Australians. Stalin would just have let people starve to death. Knowing Stalin, he would probably have worked it so it was those he considered politically unsound who suffered most e.g. the Baltic states and Ukraine (again).
The only problem is that it is now TOO popular. Always crowded
https://twitter.com/pauljdavison/status/1613564301985599488
He was looking for a team lead.
I was very pleased to find out, from the agent, that the manager said I wasn't suitable.
Like the rest of us, he has a mix of good and bad points.
I don't dismiss your view as an experienced teacher. In fact, in your calmer moments, i find them interesting. I just don't think your views wins out over everyone else and that you have the sole claim to authority on the subject of education.
This position is not inconsistent.
I am a specialist in the delivery of megaprojects and I have a civil engineering background. I don't profess to know everything, nor could I. I am not a gas engineer. I am not a heating engineer. I am not a financier. I am not au fait with the local housing conditions or challenges in every part of the UK. So, I would be interested in hearing the views of any of those people on the challenges of retrofitting the housing stock with new domestic heating systems.
What I am familiar with is the complexities in defining, financing, setting up and delivering complex projects and how the many different stakeholders and interfaces need to be resolved to make that work. So, I comment in that capacity and expect that view to at least be considered.
What I don't do is dismiss that anyone else within my sector or industry has anything of validity to contribute nor demand that my own view, and only my view, should be accepted. I do dismiss people entirely outwith my sector telling me i haven't a clue what I'm talking about and resorting to ad hominem instead.
Does that make sense?
I did work in a school with a good head that was going badly because it was simply too big, and an excellent school with quite a weak head and indeed SLT more widely that got along solidly because with the exception of maybe one department the middle management were all top class.
The thing I would say is that it's very common for ambitious, rather than really capable, teachers to be promoted, so you can get some right dross out there. Equally, of course, being a good teacher is no guarantee somebody would be a good head, as it's a very different job.
Under Stalin, resources were explicitly directed to groups he favoured and denied to those he didn't. This was open policy.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/dlr-passenger-service-agent-29-01-2022.227623/ - I've posted this because there are no current vacancies.
Salary is currently £48006 - surely a huge saving by removing the drivers! Not!
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-14d140cbeb6ef309e89a7ebeba3d7af0
You might enjoy this splendidly anecdotal biography of Ring of Bright Water author Gavin Maxwell, by Douglas Botting
https://www.amazon.com/Gavin-Maxwell-Life-Douglas-Botting/dp/1780601069
Maxwell was a chain smoking, risktaking, sexually voracious, manic depressive ex-special forces soldier. One thing that caught my eye in this great book: he used to love driving his sports car around the Highlands, quite drunk, at 150mph (fuck knows what car could do that in the 1950s)
I heard echoes
Now, if the summary's wrong, I'll retract my comments. Otherwise, I'm happy I was right to say what I did. And if you don't like it, tough.
I think the sad thing about you is you genuinely believe you're intelligent enough to do deconstructive analysis whereas you are actually just a partisan troll.
The only engagement you want to have is to score points for your side. I'm totally uninterested in that - sorry.
Currently £48006 for DLR PSAs, £55,000 for tube drivers, hardly a difference and not going to save any money by converting the tube.
With huge caveats (defining substandard is hard) I think it is definitely an area the profession could improve on.
But you are also correct that the 'saving' is low. As it would cost an absolute fortune to convert the tube to true 'staffless' operation (and the heavy rail network is much, much worse), the saving are irrelevant.
(Terminology matters here. Trains can be 'driverless', but if you still need a staff member on board to check the doors are clear, then it is not 'staffless'. Personally I think it'd be impossible to convert the heavy rail network to true staffless operation, even if that was desirable.)
You talk candidly about your mental health issues (and good luck to you); you don’t really help yourself by launching these embittered personal assaults on other PB-ers who are probably quite sympathetic
There are several other pb regulars who've met me who can attest (and have) to the fact that your characterisation of me is totally incorrect.
I don't have anything to prove to you, I'm afraid. If you want to continue to believe this about me, and it helps you, then you go right ahead.
Today Maugham finds himself cancelled by many former allies, uncomfortably sitting on the same side as those he purports to revile. It’s perhaps a little early to invite the tax lawyer to the dark side, but it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
https://thecritic.co.uk/The-mob-comes-for-Maugham/
Many of us come here expressly to joust. There are, however, rules to follow, as there are in jousting. If you run at someone with your lance you can expect them to subsequently biff you on the head with a spiky metal ball, you don’t get a free hit.
And, whatever happens, don’t whine
For the record, I do think your points about rewarding effective teachers and extracting ineffective ones from the classroom are valid and important. I just think at the moment the far bigger problem is not having (specialist) teachers in the classroom at all.
hmmmm
4000 tube drivers on £55K * 3 (for employment costs) = 660 million
4000 DLR type bods on £48K * 3 = 576 million
TfL spends 3.3 billion a year on all services....
Though capability is not just about the useless - the problem can simply be inadequate training or support. I know of one teacher who resigned (as you describe) who went on to become an outstanding teacher in a more supportive school.
Which stream you went into for the that subject, for the next year, was decided by the exam.
It was known in the school, that teachers who "dropped" too many into the C stream from the A or B stream were given an interview without coffee by the headmaster....
There's no blocking facility on PB, and Twitter is of use for other things than getting into arguments.
Right now, far too often we interview and sit down afterwards asking whether we can bear to appoint any of them because the quality isn't there. And we are popular school to work at. We end up having to say yes to the least-worst candidate.
But, and its a big but, I think what makes an ineffective teacher isn't static. For example I am less effective now than I was before I had kids. Not because I have less expertise, but because I cut corners at every single opportunity to get out of the door in time to pick my kid up from nursery, and then can't open up my computer again until he has gone to bed. I used to work much longer hours (I'm not complaining - the holidays more than compensate) which allowed me to do more of the things around the edges (more personal subject feedback, more contact home, more one-to-one conversations with kids) that can transform kids' experience at school from mediocre to life-changing.
I think that we could significantly improve the effetiveness of most (though definitely not all) teachers by reducing workload and better resourcing the profession (I can dream, I know).
How about I come up with ten awesome puns to see if one will lighten the mood?
The big tech companies (and, behind them, the superpowers) are now in an AI arms race. Microsoft are pumping $10bn into OpenAI and apparently incorporating ChatGPT into Bing. This could be a Google-killer. Are Google going to sit back and accept defeat? Course not, they have their own AI ready to roll - apparently very good - they have only been held back, it is said, by worries about AI-spewed racism and the bad fit with their business model - but if they face an existential threat they will roll the dice
Meanwhile, what about Amazon? Bezos has spent billions on Alexa to relatively little effect. What would make Alexa amazing and a must-have? Put a real intelligence inside it. Wow. And he could maybe do that tomorrow with a software update if he has the AI - the hardware is out there, in homes, waiting
Then what about the Chinese giants? And quirky companies like DeepMind? They all know that real AGI will be intensely powerful and will make trillions for whoever succeeds
Brace. AGI is coming. This decade, I believe
We know that value-added is not always the same as effectiveness.
While it seems to make sense to judge the effectiveness of teaching from its impact on assessed learning, we know that, in theory, a number of factors will influence students’ achievements.
For example, one of the simplest ways for a teacher to achieve high value-added scores is to follow a teacher whose value-added is low. Another is to teach top sets, selected for their likelihood of attaining high grades.
In practice, therefore, to attribute an ‘effect’ to an individual teacher or school is to judge what is outside the control of that individual.
https://www.cem.org/blog/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-value-added
(Anecdote time: I used to work in a school that had separate teachers for biology, chemistry and physics at GCSE, but the same teaching groups. The differences between groups were big, but the differences between teachers of the same groups were small, apart from the SLT member who got brilliant results from coursework.)
This seems to be true in the NHS - how about teaching?
ETA: I expressly avoided liking your post, just to keep you happy. I don't know what has come over me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-U_1WImxw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbiGS65gigY
But that is an absolutely awesome achievement.