I went to a State Grammar school...we were streamed in the first year into five groups- I was top of my first year class, and then consistently in the top two students of the A stream thereafter and went onto to get 4 A Grade A's at A'Level. I still failed to get into Oxford whilst the same institution was dishing out places for Eton boys on 2 E's at A Level who were primed for a year on it's entrance exam.
The very impressive Graham Brady, a working class (a year older) who I shared my 6th form Latin Class with didn't even try for Oxbridge as far as I remember such were the odds against people from our backgrounds getting there.
Private education isn't about class. It's about stacking the odds in the favour of people with money. It's about buying opportunity and life chances. It's about queue jumping and getting ahead. It is at odds with any sense of British fair play. It breeds corruption and nepotism. It's about who you know and getting by, and money.
Funnily enough, and quite randomly, the Oxford Tutor who rejected me those many years ago (an Emeritus Prof) is now my a very good friend of mine. A quirky narrative to a literary novel.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
Yes, if we're being told that is the only way such a thing is going to happen I get that point, but it just makes me think that what a really crappy situation we appear to have ended up at.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
No, honestly, I take your point. There would inevitably be some negative consequences. There will be bursaries no longer offered, facilities not shared etc.
Nevertheless, on balance I think it is wrong to offer charitable status and VAT exemptions to organisations that are dedicated to educating the rich and thus ensuring that privilege is passed down the generations.
I appreciate we will not agree. I also acknowledge that there are strong feelings on both sides.
Personally, I would not treat this as a taxation priority but shan't be sorry to if it comes to be implemented.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
Yes, if we're being told that is the only way such a thing is going to happen I get that point, but it just makes me think that what a really crappy situation we appear to have ended up at.
John Harris wrote today about this. Public leisure centres and pools are a bit of a hobby horse of mine.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Those are real charities though, not 'charities' with >95% of their turnover comprising services offered for a fee.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Fair enough. But there are simply no private schools in my area. How do disabled kids get lessons? (My state school has a pool, although it has been out of action all year. We haven't got the funds for the repairs. So we simply have stopped offering it as an option. And we have a disability compliant pool standing idle. It was also widely used by children and adults outwith our school).
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
Yes, if we're being told that is the only way such a thing is going to happen I get that point, but it just makes me think that what a really crappy situation we appear to have ended up at.
Of course, largely this is PR spin created by the private education sector to shore up their claims to charitable status.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Those are real charities though, not 'charities' with >95% of their turnover comprising services offered for a fee.
Quite a few private schools do more charitable work than some quite large charities.
There is no criteria in this country for the amount of actual charity that a charity does. Some do none. Zero. They just lobby for noble cause X.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
If there are private schools. We simply don't have any nearby. So we don't get the advantages the Home Counties do. Levelling up.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Who is to say they wouldn't be doing this socially beneficial stuff anyway? We live in a world in which big banks and law firms do a bunch of showy charitable stuff for good PR, despite not getting a VAT break for doing so. Presumably they might so a bit more if a VAT break was dangled. The same probably applies to every organization. Does that mean VAT and corporation tax shouldn't exist?
Wes had just a perfect response to the private schools/health argument.
Make the public sector better and so good we don't need private anymore. Aspiration. Good.
Ideal answer its true and one I can agree with.....sadly he , the labour party, the tories and lib dems have no idea how to do it.
State schooling fails too many pupils when 20 percent leave school illiterate and innumerate. And frankly speaking its not a failure often of the schools but the parents.
This is why many goto private schools they dont want their kids in a school where 50% of kids have been taught their is no value in either education or discipline
I went to a State Grammar school...we were streamed in the first year into five groups- I was top of my first year class, and then consistently in the top two students of the A stream thereafter and went onto to get 4 A Grade A's at A'Level. I still failed to get into Oxford whilst the same institution was dishing out places for Eton boys on 2 E's at A Level who were primed for a year on it's entrance exam.
The very impressive Graham Brady, a working class (a year older) who I shared my 6th form Latin Class with didn't even try for Oxbridge as far as I remember such were the odds against people from our backgrounds getting there.
Private education isn't about class. It's about stacking the odds in the favour of people with money. It's about buying opportunity and life chances. It's about queue jumping and getting ahead. It is at odds with any sense of British fair play. It breeds corruption and nepotism. It's about who you know and getting by, and money.
Funnily enough, and quite randomly, the Oxford Tutor who rejected me those many years ago (an Emeritus Prof) is now my a very good friend of mine. A quirky narrative to a literary novel.
I think that taxing education is about as stupid as taxing employers for employing people
Who can forget Labour's Selective Employment Tax .
Employment taxes are going to have to be eliminated given the coming automation wave. States are going to have to do everything they possibly can to increase demand and restrict supply of low skill labour.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Those are real charities though, not 'charities' with >95% of their turnover comprising services offered for a fee.
But private schools providing services to the local community at cost or for free is a charitable service that will be lost in all of this. You're essentially putting that investment burden onto the state, not only will that cost more money due to state inefficiency, it will also cut into the supposed revenue that will be raised.
Losing the charitable aspect of private education is going to cause result in a lot more losers than you realise.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Those are real charities though, not 'charities' with >95% of their turnover comprising services offered for a fee.
But private schools providing services to the local community at cost or for free is a charitable service that will be lost in all of this. You're essentially putting that investment burden onto the state, not only will that cost more money due to state inefficiency, it will also cut into the supposed revenue that will be raised.
Losing the charitable aspect of private education is going to cause result in a lot more losers than you realise.
If you think private schools should not be vat exempt do you agree then that neither should university fees?
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
If there are private schools. We simply don't have any nearby.
Then someone is going to have to find money for school facilities.
I want to give full tax raising powers to local councils, incidentally. That and make all the elected councillors personally responsible. So if the council goes broke, they automatically lose their socks. And everything else.
The first few years would be interesting. A few council areas would collapse, of course, and turn into Mad Max style hellscapes. But I would enjoy watching that.
Re Sweden, after my recent deep dive on Europe and migration, I am now convinced a significant western European country will elect a hard/far right government in the next 5-10 years. And i don’t mean “in coalition” I mean: they will be handed the government, in toto. And they will enact some eye watering polices
My guess is that the first will either be Sweden or France
You could argue Italy has done it already with Meloni, but their system is so fucked and fractious nothing ever happens whoever is elected
The far right parties in both countries seem stuck on around 20%:
In 2010 the Sweden Democrats crossed the 5% threshold. For the first time
Saying they are “stuck” on 20% is a bit like saying to the Wright Brothers ‘guys, you seem to be stuck in the air’
I think stuck is about right. 30-35% seems to be the ceiling of proper alt- or far-right belief including proper racism and sexual conservatism.
FPTP in the US and the runoff process in France and Brazil meant the support for a far right candidate could get above that ceiling but listen to the testimony of the floating voters in all those elections and above a certain threshold it’s all “Hilary’s just as bad”, “Lula is a crooked communist” and “Macron sold out the workers” rather than real far right opinion.
The Nazis only ever managed mid 30s in the mid 30s. The secret for Fascists is not to get a majority but a plurality, and then turn the screw through canny coalition making and more nefarious means.
But this is a mere truism. Any firm political belief or ideology can only command a hardcore of about 30-35%, absolute max, of the population. Human nature decrees it. You see this time and again. The other 65% are the don’t knows, don’t cares, don’t understands, and those actually personally against the ideology for emotional, political, individual reasons
The key for the 30-35% is to persuade another 10-20% to join in, temporarily. Then you can transform society
We're spending much time discussing the, relatively minor in the great scheme of things, VAT status of private schools, noting the potential downsides, unintended consequences etc.
Of much greater importance in my mind is how we can effect two important urgently needed tax shifts:
1. Taxing employment and employment income less and unearned income more, to achieve a level playing field.
2. Taxing wealth more and income less.
Both of these changes would have winners and losers of course. The losers are going to squeal like pigs and probably have much of the media on their side.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Who is to say they wouldn't be doing this socially beneficial stuff anyway? We live in a world in which big banks and law firms do a bunch of showy charitable stuff for good PR, despite not getting a VAT break for doing so. Presumably they might so a bit more if a VAT break was dangled. The same probably applies to every organization. Does that mean VAT and corporation tax shouldn't exist?
Those banks need to win market share from their rivals. Management has taken the view that doing these good PR works will help them do that. Private schools outside of the charitable sector will not need need to gain market share in the same way.
If you really believe that big business does anything for no bottom line gain you're living in a dream world.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
If there are private schools. We simply don't have any nearby.
Then someone is going to have to find money for school facilities.
I want to give full tax raising powers to local councils, incidentally. That and make all the elected councillors personally responsible. So if the council goes broke, they automatically lose their socks. And everything else.
The first few years would be interesting. A few council areas would collapse, of course, and turn into Mad Max style hellscapes. But I would enjoy watching that.
Who is going to stand for councillor if they are personally liable? asking for sane people
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
If there are private schools. We simply don't have any nearby.
Then someone is going to have to find money for school facilities.
I want to give full tax raising powers to local councils, incidentally. That and make all the elected councillors personally responsible. So if the council goes broke, they automatically lose their socks. And everything else.
The first few years would be interesting. A few council areas would collapse, of course, and turn into Mad Max style hellscapes. But I would enjoy watching that.
Trouble with that is that the areas with plenty of private schools would find it easy to keep taxes low. And the deprived areas would have to be high.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Who is to say they wouldn't be doing this socially beneficial stuff anyway? We live in a world in which big banks and law firms do a bunch of showy charitable stuff for good PR, despite not getting a VAT break for doing so. Presumably they might so a bit more if a VAT break was dangled. The same probably applies to every organization. Does that mean VAT and corporation tax shouldn't exist?
There are plenty of tax breaks for doing R&D, charitable work, offering various services etc ,for employers.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
If there are private schools. We simply don't have any nearby.
Then someone is going to have to find money for school facilities.
I want to give full tax raising powers to local councils, incidentally. That and make all the elected councillors personally responsible. So if the council goes broke, they automatically lose their socks. And everything else.
The first few years would be interesting. A few council areas would collapse, of course, and turn into Mad Max style hellscapes. But I would enjoy watching that.
Trouble with that is that the areas with plenty of private schools would find it easy to keep taxes low. And the deprived areas would have to be high.
…And that’s why currency unions require fiscal transfers from rich areas to poor areas, to work.
Also, big thumbs down on Labour's idea for allowing patients to self refer to specialists care. The bottleneck is GPs and bed availablity. Access to specialists is not something people worry about as much.
Is anyone interested in betting on the Turkish presidential election this year? The only odds I can find have Erdogan as a massive favourite but I can't see why. Inflation is rocketing, the opinion polls look bad and according to our resident omni-traveller Leon the cult of Ataturk is back in a big way.
Is anyone interested in betting on the Turkish presidential election this year? The only odds I can find have Erdogan as a massive favourite but I can't see why. Inflation is rocketing, the opinion polls look bad and according to our resident omni-traveller Leon the cult of Ataturk is back in a big way.
is it perhaps because erdogan will ensure any well polling opisition will find themselves fighting jail time?
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Allegedly the Germans are saying they cannot renovate / refit stored Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine in under a year.
A few thoughts: 1) This is bullshit. 2) The war started a year ago. 3) Give them some of the Bundeswehr's current tanks.
Excuses, excuses...
The war is coming to a major climax and the Russians are about to add at least 300,000 more troops. Even badly equipped troops in such numbers can make a difference. It is extremely serious and the total contempt the Russians show for the laws of war and complete indifference to their own casualties could still get them some kind of victory.
A few elderly Challenger IIs will not be enough to stem the tide.
If Russia wins, then the war will spread further West, and if the GOP gets back in Washington then NATO could still fall. Its what Putin is counting on. People need to understand the scale of evil in Moscow and the complete corruption of anyone who is influenced by these monsters.
The Russian army is contemptible, but it is also lethal. This emergency is getting worse, not better and the northern tier NATO states are deeply concerned about the continuing failure to get Turkish approval for the NATO expansion. The Ukrainian army has probably lost a third of the casualties of the Russian, but the death toll of Russians is horrendous: maybe over 7,000 in the past two weeks and 120,000 since the war began. Ukraine is also bleeding, and the civilian casualties are growing at a horrendous rate.
We are getting close to the hour of doom, and the Russians must not win, or the peace of the whole world will fall.
Its that serious.
Ukraine has the manpower & the willingness to fight. What they need is artillery, tanks & IFVs.
I’m not sure what’s stopping the US from just sending a 1000 or so Bradleys, they have something mad like 7000 of the things in storage. Are they (not unreasonably) expecting Europe to step up in proportion?
Stoltz et al in Germany look like Putinist collaborators from the outside.
"A former MP who quit after admitting watching pornography in the Commons said he was thinking of standing again at the next general election."
I am against self righteous Why don't you condemn this other thing? type nonsense, but this is the same day as a former Chancellor has settled a multi million quid tax bill he had inexplicably forgotten about. Sense of proportion needed.
It is a little frustrating that every time we discuss education on here it becomes about grammar schools and private schools. Grammars aren't coming back. And the vast majority can't afford private. So how will we improve the education of 80%?
What makes you think Labour's actually interested in that?
Seriously, what makes you think they are not? Do you think there is some secret cynical plan to keep education down?
I am sure they really are interested in improving education for the 80%, as to be fair, are the Tories. The issue is that neither have much idea how to effect the improvement.
Sadly, debating education on here is almost as pointless as debating Brexit.
I posted a summary of the entirely reasonable and interesting TEC report on education here the other week (one endorsed by several previous PMs, lauded by both parties, and cheered by all previous education secretaries).
I got a lot of ranting and ad-hominem for my trouble.
I think education pushes some visceral class buttons for the British, and makes them hysterical.
It was neither interesting nor reasonable. I provided a very large number of factual criticisms to demonstrate that, which may have been vigorously expressed but not one of which you have been able to debunk.
Indeed, all you have done is say I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm angry about their rudeness, which is in itself an ad hominem.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
If there are private schools. We simply don't have any nearby.
Then someone is going to have to find money for school facilities.
I want to give full tax raising powers to local councils, incidentally. That and make all the elected councillors personally responsible. So if the council goes broke, they automatically lose their socks. And everything else.
The first few years would be interesting. A few council areas would collapse, of course, and turn into Mad Max style hellscapes. But I would enjoy watching that.
Trouble with that is that the areas with plenty of private schools would find it easy to keep taxes low. And the deprived areas would have to be high.
…And that’s why currency unions require fiscal transfers from rich areas to poor areas, to work.
Yep. Precisely. Levelling up won the last election. The sad part is that Boris identified the problem, campaigned on it, and, I think, believed in it. But was too feckless and lazy to do the work. The majority of the rest of his Party were only interested in the votes it could win. There was never any serious thought about the tradeoffs and hard choices necessary to make it work. In particular the huge transfers needed meaning Tory MP's' constituencies taking a haircut.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
when did the school day become that short when I went to school it was 9am to 4,45pm so you are adding an hour each end not doubling the school day
Is anyone interested in betting on the Turkish presidential election this year? The only odds I can find have Erdogan as a massive favourite but I can't see why. Inflation is rocketing, the opinion polls look bad and according to our resident omni-traveller Leon the cult of Ataturk is back in a big way.
To the untrained eye, jailing all his opponents may give him something of an advantage.
dixiedean said: "However. We are having severe difficulty staffing from 8:30 to 4:30."
Any ideas why?
In the US, one of the reasons for teacher shortages is that so many other professions are now open to intelligent women. And education, below high school, was almost entirely run by women. Most of the elementary school principals, for example, were women.
(And here's a stray thought: Many beginning teachers in the US give up after a year or two. I have been thinking that we might reduce that by changing the way public school teachers here are educated. Instead of having them take four or five years of classes, and then step into running a class, I think it would be better to have them take one year, then work for a half year as a teaching assistant, then back to college, and so on.
That would give them a chance to learn, early on, if they really want to do this kind of work for the rest of their lives.)
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
I agree with this to an extent. But that isn't an education policy. That's a childcare policy. Teachers are already fleeing because of burn out. So add more hours. That'll make it right. Btw. Have you eaten a school meal lately? Adding breakfast and tea is probably against the Geneva Convention.
So you think what happens in private schools before 9am and after 3pm isn't education?
Usually it isn't, no. Games, extracurricular, music, drama are all frequent occurrences and take up 2-3 afternoons a week.
But - even if it was, the average private school has classes about half the size of their state school equivalents. Much less marking. Much less tiring to teach. Allowing more contact time.
If you want state schools to follow the same model forget 30%. Try a 300% increase in funding.
Is anyone interested in betting on the Turkish presidential election this year? The only odds I can find have Erdogan as a massive favourite but I can't see why. Inflation is rocketing, the opinion polls look bad and according to our resident omni-traveller Leon the cult of Ataturk is back in a big way.
He is a desperate man with control of the media, courts and state. He has previous in election meddling and seems to be losing any subtlety in removing opposing politicians.
Why would the coming election be anything but as expected?
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
when did the school day become that short when I went to school it was 9am to 4,45pm so you are adding an hour each end not doubling the school day
9.00 till 3.50 for me. Longish lunch break. We had 8 lesson slots, often consequetive (e.g. three in a row in the afternoon).
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
when did the school day become that short when I went to school it was 9am to 4,45pm so you are adding an hour each end not doubling the school day
9.00 till 3.50 for me. Longish lunch break. We had 8 lesson slots, often consequetive (e.g. three in a row in the afternoon).
so even then 8 till 6 is not doubling the school day
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
when did the school day become that short when I went to school it was 9am to 4,45pm so you are adding an hour each end not doubling the school day
Usually it's around 8.45 to 3/3.30 at secondary level. So I suppose it's not quite a doubling, more like a 60% increase.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Is anyone interested in betting on the Turkish presidential election this year? The only odds I can find have Erdogan as a massive favourite but I can't see why. Inflation is rocketing, the opinion polls look bad and according to our resident omni-traveller Leon the cult of Ataturk is back in a big way.
I fear Erdogan will hang on. Nurse, something worse, etc
He’s a strongman in troubled times
What I do believe is that fundamentalist Islam is in reverse in Turkey (and elsewhere - eg iran). Hence the Ataturk stuff. Jihadism’s revolutionary peak is behind us. Praise be to Akkad*
*that was meant to be Allah but it’s my fave autocorrect so I’m keeping it
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
when did the school day become that short when I went to school it was 9am to 4,45pm so you are adding an hour each end not doubling the school day
4:45? I'm not aware of anywhere that went on that long? I thought I was hard done to with 3:55.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So Starmer starts unveiling policies and we perhaps get a glimpse into why it’s taken so long. There are no easy solutions, and it’s easier to let grateful voters project their hopes and dreams than scrutinise the slightly dodgy policies. I have no idea what Starmer was referring to about internal bleeding. There must have been a better idea he could have chosen.
I think this is why, popular as oppositions can be between elections, as the vote nears, the polls close. Just as Brexit voters all thought they were voting for ‘their’ version of Brexit, so voters now are using the policy vacuum to project their version of what Starmers government will do/will be.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Allegedly the Germans are saying they cannot renovate / refit stored Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine in under a year.
A few thoughts: 1) This is bullshit. 2) The war started a year ago. 3) Give them some of the Bundeswehr's current tanks.
Excuses, excuses...
The war is coming to a major climax and the Russians are about to add at least 300,000 more troops. Even badly equipped troops in such numbers can make a difference. It is extremely serious and the total contempt the Russians show for the laws of war and complete indifference to their own casualties could still get them some kind of victory.
A few elderly Challenger IIs will not be enough to stem the tide.
If Russia wins, then the war will spread further West, and if the GOP gets back in Washington then NATO could still fall. Its what Putin is counting on. People need to understand the scale of evil in Moscow and the complete corruption of anyone who is influenced by these monsters.
The Russian army is contemptible, but it is also lethal. This emergency is getting worse, not better and the northern tier NATO states are deeply concerned about the continuing failure to get Turkish approval for the NATO expansion. The Ukrainian army has probably lost a third of the casualties of the Russian, but the death toll of Russians is horrendous: maybe over 7,000 in the past two weeks and 120,000 since the war began. Ukraine is also bleeding, and the civilian casualties are growing at a horrendous rate.
We are getting close to the hour of doom, and the Russians must not win, or the peace of the whole world will fall.
Its that serious.
How bleak. This is the most worried you have appeared on here in a very long time.
Another gloomy take:
Putin's Spring 2023 offensive will likely come from all directions - North, East, and South, a repeat of Feb 2022 invasion but with lessons learned & hundreds of thousands more troops. It will be bloody. Time is running out for the West to act decisively. Too little too late.
While @Cicero's commentary is excellent, I'm going to take a different stance and give some counter-points,
1. 300,000 men sounds great on paper but you need NCOs and junior officers to lead. Russia already has a shortage of these without such a huge draft. It also already has logistical / weapon supply issues with the 200,000 troops it mobilised. \ 2. Leading on from that, the Russian army is rotten at its core. The only clear example where such a dysfunctional army has defeated a better trained and more motivated opponent fighting defensively is the Russo-Finnish war and bear in mind (1) Finland's mobilised force was much smaller (2) Finland was not getting supplies from its neighbours (3) Russia was not having problems with supplying weapons to the front as it is now and (4) Russia was not facing severe disruption to supplies needed to continue fighting.
3. There are clear signs of tensions in the Russian leadership. Gerasimov taking the reins plus the promotion of Lapin is a clear sign the military faction has fought back. Kadyrov and Proghazin know that, if the former faction bring about victory, their heads are on the block, especially given both are ethnically seen as second class by the Russian elite (Chechen / Jewish). There has to be a clear question as to how much Putin really is in control at the moment.
Here is my bet - the West (with the exception of Germany) has finally decided the outcome they want is victory for Ukraine rather than the avoidance of defeat. The supply of weapons will increase and Germany will be forced to accept the Leopard 2s going across. At some point in the next 3-4 months, expect the generals to oust Putin as they realise that a continued war will see the destruction of a high percentage Russian military capabilities and the inability to defend itself against China turning hostile.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
dixiedean said: "However. We are having severe difficulty staffing from 8:30 to 4:30."
Any ideas why?
In the US, one of the reasons for teacher shortages is that so many other professions are now open to intelligent women. And education, below high school, was almost entirely run by women. Most of the elementary school principals, for example, were women.
(And here's a stray thought: Many beginning teachers in the US give up after a year or two. I have been thinking that we might reduce that by changing the way public school teachers here are educated. Instead of having them take four or five years of classes, and then step into running a class, I think it would be better to have them take one year, then work for a half year as a teaching assistant, then back to college, and so on.
That would give them a chance to learn, early on, if they really want to do this kind of work for the rest of their lives.)
The pay is uncompetitive. The workload is uncompetitive. And that's with most other graduate jobs. Let alone ones that need another year of study on top. The system is quite different over here, mind in a number of significant ways. It hasn't been so female dominated for one.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
If we really wanted to combat childhood obesity, an hour of education about junk food and soft drinks would be much more effective, especially as those kids would eventually become parents themselves.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
It is a little frustrating that every time we discuss education on here it becomes about grammar schools and private schools. Grammars aren't coming back. And the vast majority can't afford private. So how will we improve the education of 80%?
What makes you think Labour's actually interested in that?
Seriously, what makes you think they are not? Do you think there is some secret cynical plan to keep education down?
I am sure they really are interested in improving education for the 80%, as to be fair, are the Tories. The issue is that neither have much idea how to effect the improvement.
Sadly, debating education on here is almost as pointless as debating Brexit.
I posted a summary of the entirely reasonable and interesting TEC report on education here the other week (one endorsed by several previous PMs, lauded by both parties, and cheered by all previous education secretaries).
I got a lot of ranting and ad-hominem for my trouble.
I think education pushes some visceral class buttons for the British, and makes them hysterical.
It's sort of ironic that you do the fallacy of the Appeal to Authority in para 2 and then complain about ad hominem in para 3, because they are really two cheeks of the same arse.
The test of how shit a document is, is to see how shit it is, not what minor celebs with irrelevant qualifications have endorsed it. That one was epically shit; its suggestion that teachers should be trained to identify children with special needs was like suggesting that Britain's bus drivers should be trained to drive on the left.
I am going to venture into a forgotten field: optimism
China’s brutal but sensible policy of letting Covid rip seems to be *working*. Tens of thousands are dying but this is China. It’s a statistical blip. The memories of fucked up hospitals will fade. The Chinese want to be free
When the Chinese economy is unshackled, with all its pent up consumer power (eg travel) watch and marvel. Could be a serious boost to global GDP and it might finally persuade the Thais to take off their damn masks
Honestly, mask wearing here is crazy. 95% everywhere at all times. Outdoors (beyond the tourist areas). Let China lead the East Asians back to freedom
Is anyone interested in betting on the Turkish presidential election this year? The only odds I can find have Erdogan as a massive favourite but I can't see why. Inflation is rocketing, the opinion polls look bad and according to our resident omni-traveller Leon the cult of Ataturk is back in a big way.
I think Turkey this June is going to be a hell of a ride.
So Starmer starts unveiling policies and we perhaps get a glimpse into why it’s taken so long. There are no easy solutions, and it’s easier to let grateful voters project their hopes and dreams than scrutinise the slightly dodgy policies. I have no idea what Starmer was referring to about internal bleeding. There must have been a better idea he could have chosen.
I think this is why, popular as oppositions can be between elections, as the vote nears, the polls close. Just as Brexit voters all thought they were voting for ‘their’ version of Brexit, so voters now are using the policy vacuum to project their version of what Starmers government will do/will be.
I am pretty sure labour will form the next governement, I am also pretty sure things will deteriorate during that government and not becauses it labour purely I think there is nothing a centrist part can do whether tory, lib dem or labour. The worry is if labour gets in but things continue to get worse they also get only one term then voters do the "brexit option" and pick radical parties for the next election
dixiedean said: "However. We are having severe difficulty staffing from 8:30 to 4:30."
Any ideas why?
In the US, one of the reasons for teacher shortages is that so many other professions are now open to intelligent women. And education, below high school, was almost entirely run by women. Most of the elementary school principals, for example, were women.
(And here's a stray thought: Many beginning teachers in the US give up after a year or two. I have been thinking that we might reduce that by changing the way public school teachers here are educated. Instead of having them take four or five years of classes, and then step into running a class, I think it would be better to have them take one year, then work for a half year as a teaching assistant, then back to college, and so on.
That would give them a chance to learn, early on, if they really want to do this kind of work for the rest of their lives.)
The pay is uncompetitive. The workload is uncompetitive. And that's with most other graduate jobs. Let alone ones that need another year of study on top. The system is quite different over here, mind in a number of significant ways. It hasn't been so female dominated for one.
It was striking to think yesterday that in one four hour one-on-one tutoring session I earn as much as a TA on minimum wage would earn in two days.
Ironically, that would be tutoring someone who was withdrawn from school because no TA was provided to cope with complex needs...
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Well, tell the Health and Safety Executive that then. And school insurers. They're the ones who insist on it.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
Cheers for that. There looks to have been a new vineyard created on the slopes near Bath (lots of terracing on a south facing slope). I’d guess this is on limestone (it’s by the Uni, where there is a lot of limestone). Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Well, tell the Health and Safety Executive that then. And school insurers. They're the ones who insist on it.
It must be a recent change because I'm pretty sure our head of biology would double up at PE when the PE teacher was unavailable. Once again it's one of those boxes that's been created and I'm sure an army of box ticker positions have been created to ensure compliance. A complete waste of resources.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Probably want first aid up to date, mind.
Don't all teachers do that? It was mandatory training when I worked in the disabled kids daycare centre. If you didn't do it you didn't get shifts until you did it.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
To be honest, you're right, but don't put it that way to anyone round those parts other than @Mexicanpete and me. Just for your own safety. I mean, imagine telling Leon that Newent is part of his home county...then double it.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
Cheers for that. There looks to have been a new vineyard created on the slopes near Bath (lots of terracing on a south facing slope). I’d guess this is on limestone (it’s by the Uni, where there is a lot of limestone). Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
There are good vineyards in lots of counties right up to Yorkshire. They tend to opt for hybrids like Solaris and Rondo or regent and German crosses like Bacchus or Siegerrebe.
Give it a few decades and the oolitic ridge from Somerset up to Lincs is going to be pretty decent for wine. Then the gravel ridges of the midlands on the shores of the old glacial lakes.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Probably want first aid up to date, mind.
Don't all teachers do that? It was mandatory training when I worked in the disabled kids daycare centre. If you didn't do it you didn't get shifts until you did it.
I did it, because I actually taught first aid(!) as part of my Head of Year duties, but I don't recall it being mandatory.
It was mandatory to a high level for PE and Science teachers. As in, they were out of school for three days.
It's different for nurseries and for specialist disabled centres.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
I agree with this to an extent. But that isn't an education policy. That's a childcare policy. Teachers are already fleeing because of burn out. So add more hours. That'll make it right. Btw. Have you eaten a school meal lately? Adding breakfast and tea is probably against the Geneva Convention.
If you look at the data from breakfast clubs it’s one of the most impactful ways of improving educational outcomes. Kids with good nutrition concentrate better and learn more
The deal has to be that the parents go out to work tho. Here, in my part of Scotland, we have non-working parents on benefits, who simply park their kids in the free nursery and head to the nearest caff for a bacon roll. Meanwhile other parents working shifts outside the 9-4 span have a nightmare trying to find childcare provision.
It is arguable, of course, that the kids benefit from being away from their parents for a while.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
The school I was talking about uses the pool for 3 other state schools. They also provide time from their sports coaches for teaching swimming.
Apparently the kids find the bottom of he floor of the pool moving awesome and love seeing it in action.
I’m surprised elfin safety regulations permit that
There is a glassed in viewing area with seating for an audience for races etc. The kids wait there until the pool is ready, if they are moving the bottom.
I live in Hampshire and we have a Muscat vine in the garden. The grapes ripen. ( if the birds don't get them first) but we have never attempted to make wine from them.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
To be honest, you're right, but don't put it that way to anyone round those parts other than @Mexicanpete and me. Just for your own safety. I mean, imagine telling Leon that Newent is part of his home county...then double it.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
Yo Tim.
I have a vinicultural question. Just how and why is “19 Crimes” wine so good?!
Here in Thailand all wine is horrifically taxed. So to get a halfway good bottle you normally need to spend £20. Ugh
You can buy 19 Crimes for £12. And I do. Every day. Because it is just as good as the £20 bottles.
It is nothing exceptional. But it is highly drinkable and I bet 99% of us - including me - might fail to distinguish it in a blind tasting from bottles thrice the price - in the UK or Thailand or anywhere
It feels to me like the Aussies have produced another Jacobs Creek. A world beater. What are they doing?!
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Well, tell the Health and Safety Executive that then. And school insurers. They're the ones who insist on it.
It must be a recent change because I'm pretty sure our head of biology would double up at PE when the PE teacher was unavailable. Once again it's one of those boxes that's been created and I'm sure an army of box ticker positions have been created to ensure compliance. A complete waste of resources.
Yes. Although creating the space to do all this is trickier. I suppose they could run round the car park, across the dual carriageway, round the new estate building site, through the current estate and back across the dual carriageway through the other gate. It's a box tickers nightmare. Health and Safety gone mad!
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
To be honest, you're right, but don't put it that way to anyone round those parts other than @Mexicanpete and me. Just for your own safety. I mean, imagine telling Leon that Newent is part of his home county...then double it.
Mum’s the word.
(by the way. You also forgot the Forest of Dean. DO NOT tell a Forester that Glos consists solely of Newent, the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds as you value your life)
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
In an inner city comp?
Good point. They'll just have to be sent twice round the school golf course and once round the cricket field before finishing at the equestrian centre then.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
In an inner city comp?
It was a cornish comp and was a shithole where doing something silly like answering questions in class or doing well it a test earned you a beating in the playground
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
We used to have that. All stopped under the new bridge and hung out for a while on Bishop’s meadow. Then shortcut to near the end and slapped our cheeks and legs so as to look suitably tired as we arrived at the finish.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Well, tell the Health and Safety Executive that then. And school insurers. They're the ones who insist on it.
Plus there's the question of space. Plenty of urban schools, especially 21st century newbuilds, have pretty minimal space, certainly not enough to give the whole school another hour a day running around.
Look, it might well be worth doing, but don't kid yourself that it's easy or cheap to do.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Well, tell the Health and Safety Executive that then. And school insurers. They're the ones who insist on it.
It must be a recent change because I'm pretty sure our head of biology would double up at PE when the PE teacher was unavailable. Once again it's one of those boxes that's been created and I'm sure an army of box ticker positions have been created to ensure compliance. A complete waste of resources.
Yes. Although creating the space to do all this is trickier. I suppose they could run round the car park, across the dual carriageway, round the new estate building site, through the estate and back through the other
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
We used to have that. All stopped under the new bridge and hung out for a while on Bishop’s meadow. Then shortcut to near the end and slapped our cheeks and legs so as to look suitably tired as we arrived at the finish.
So while doing cross country you hung out with a bunch of slappers?
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
We used to have that. All stopped under the new bridge and hung out for a while on Bishop’s meadow. Then shortcut to near the end and slapped our cheeks and legs so as to look suitably tired as we arrived at the finish.
So while doing cross country you hung out with a bunch of slappers?
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
You are naively assuming schools have a football pitch, let alone a running track. This is the public sector you're talking about. We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses. Good luck with that risk assessment.
When I was at school in pe we were sent out on a cross country run that generally lasted more than an hour one member of staff at the start and endpoint...one at the checkpoint. Pretty sure most schools could do that
We used to have that. All stopped under the new bridge and hung out for a while on Bishop’s meadow. Then shortcut to near the end and slapped our cheeks and legs so as to look suitably tired as we arrived at the finish.
So while doing cross country you hung out with a bunch of slappers?
Very educational...
I obviously went to the wrong school :-(
We didn't hang out with slappers at my school. Well, not when doing cross country, anyway.
Mind you, some of my classmates took a worrying interest in the sheep we saw on the main route...
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
At the local, outstanding, primary, one of the mothers started an after school club. Basically childcare until 6pm, using a building just off the playground.
Seemed very popular among those parents who were struggling with affording child minding until they got back from work.
If we turned up for rugby practice three lunchtimes a week, it was traditional for the Sixth Form Rugby players to pick us up in their cars 100 m from the start and drop us off 100m from the finish of cross country. This was paying it forward.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
Comments
The very impressive Graham Brady, a working class (a year older) who I shared my 6th form Latin Class with didn't even try for Oxbridge as far as I remember such were the odds against people from our backgrounds getting there.
Private education isn't about class. It's about stacking the odds in the favour of people with money. It's about buying opportunity and life chances. It's about queue jumping and getting ahead. It is at odds with any sense of British fair play. It breeds corruption and nepotism. It's about who you know and getting by, and money.
Funnily enough, and quite randomly, the Oxford Tutor who rejected me those many years ago (an Emeritus Prof) is now my a very good friend of mine. A quirky narrative to a literary novel.
Nevertheless, on balance I think it is wrong to offer charitable status and VAT exemptions to organisations that are dedicated to educating the rich and thus ensuring that privilege is passed down the generations.
I appreciate we will not agree. I also acknowledge that there are strong feelings on both sides.
Personally, I would not treat this as a taxation priority but shan't be sorry to if it comes to be implemented.
Public leisure centres and pools are a bit of a hobby horse of mine.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/britain-pools-leisure-centres-nhs-public-health
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
But there are simply no private schools in my area.
How do disabled kids get lessons?
(My state school has a pool, although it has been out of action all year. We haven't got the funds for the repairs. So we simply have stopped offering it as an option. And we have a disability compliant pool standing idle. It was also widely used by children and adults outwith our school).
There is no criteria in this country for the amount of actual charity that a charity does. Some do none. Zero. They just lobby for noble cause X.
We simply don't have any nearby.
So we don't get the advantages the Home Counties do. Levelling up.
State schooling fails too many pupils when 20 percent leave school illiterate and innumerate. And frankly speaking its not a failure often of the schools but the parents.
This is why many goto private schools they dont want their kids in a school where 50% of kids have been taught their is no value in either education or discipline
Do you ever ask your friend about that rejection?
https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/650808-nepal-plane-crash.html
Losing the charitable aspect of private education is going to cause result in a lot more losers than you realise.
I want to give full tax raising powers to local councils, incidentally. That and make all the elected councillors personally responsible. So if the council goes broke, they automatically lose their socks. And everything else.
The first few years would be interesting. A few council areas would collapse, of course, and turn into Mad Max style hellscapes. But I would enjoy watching that.
The key for the 30-35% is to persuade another 10-20% to join in, temporarily. Then you can transform society
Of much greater importance in my mind is how we can effect two important urgently needed tax shifts:
1. Taxing employment and employment income less and unearned income more, to achieve a level playing field.
2. Taxing wealth more and income less.
Both of these changes would have winners and losers of course. The losers are going to squeal like pigs and probably have much of the media on their side.
How best to achieve such changes?
If you really believe that big business does anything for no bottom line gain you're living in a dream world.
And the deprived areas would have to be high.
Not as many as in the US, true. But they exist.
I’m not sure what’s stopping the US from just sending a 1000 or so Bradleys, they have something mad like 7000 of the things in storage. Are they (not unreasonably) expecting Europe to step up in proportion?
Stoltz et al in Germany look like Putinist collaborators from the outside.
Indeed, all you have done is say I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm angry about their rudeness, which is in itself an ad hominem.
Levelling up won the last election. The sad part is that Boris identified the problem, campaigned on it, and, I think, believed in it. But was too feckless and lazy to do the work.
The majority of the rest of his Party were only interested in the votes it could win.
There was never any serious thought about the tradeoffs and hard choices necessary to make it work.
In particular the huge transfers needed meaning Tory MP's' constituencies taking a haircut.
Any ideas why?
In the US, one of the reasons for teacher shortages is that so many other professions are now open to intelligent women. And education, below high school, was almost entirely run by women. Most of the elementary school principals, for example, were women.
(And here's a stray thought: Many beginning teachers in the US give up after a year or two. I have been thinking that we might reduce that by changing the way public school teachers here are educated. Instead of having them take four or five years of classes, and then step into running a class, I think it would be better to have them take one year, then work for a half year as a teaching assistant, then back to college, and so on.
That would give them a chance to learn, early on, if they really want to do this kind of work for the rest of their lives.)
But - even if it was, the average private school has classes about half the size of their state school equivalents. Much less marking. Much less tiring to teach. Allowing more contact time.
If you want state schools to follow the same model forget 30%. Try a 300% increase in funding.
Why would the coming election be anything but as expected?
It's been like that certainly since the 1980s.
He’s a strongman in troubled times
What I do believe is that fundamentalist Islam is in reverse in Turkey (and elsewhere - eg iran). Hence the Ataturk stuff. Jihadism’s revolutionary peak is behind us. Praise be to Akkad*
*that was meant to be Allah but it’s my fave autocorrect so I’m keeping it
I'm not aware of anywhere that went on that long? I thought I was hard done to with 3:55.
I have no idea what Starmer was referring to about internal bleeding. There must have been a better idea he could have chosen.
I think this is why, popular as oppositions can be between elections, as the vote nears, the polls close. Just as Brexit voters all thought they were voting for ‘their’ version of Brexit, so voters now are using the policy vacuum to project their version of what Starmers government will do/will be.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
1. 300,000 men sounds great on paper but you need NCOs and junior officers to lead. Russia already has a shortage of these without such a huge draft. It also already has logistical / weapon supply issues with the 200,000 troops it mobilised.
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2. Leading on from that, the Russian army is rotten at its core. The only clear example where such a dysfunctional army has defeated a better trained and more motivated opponent fighting defensively is the Russo-Finnish war and bear in mind (1) Finland's mobilised force was much smaller (2) Finland was not getting supplies from its neighbours (3) Russia was not having problems with supplying weapons to the front as it is now and (4) Russia was not facing severe disruption to supplies needed to continue fighting.
3. There are clear signs of tensions in the Russian leadership. Gerasimov taking the reins plus the promotion of Lapin is a clear sign the military faction has fought back. Kadyrov and Proghazin know that, if the former faction bring about victory, their heads are on the block, especially given both are ethnically seen as second class by the Russian elite (Chechen / Jewish). There has to be a clear question as to how much Putin really is in control at the moment.
Here is my bet - the West (with the exception of Germany) has finally decided the outcome they want is victory for Ukraine rather than the avoidance of defeat. The supply of weapons will increase and Germany will be forced to accept the Leopard 2s going across. At some point in the next 3-4 months, expect the generals to oust Putin as they realise that a continued war will see the destruction of a high percentage Russian military capabilities and the inability to defend itself against China turning hostile.
And that's with most other graduate jobs. Let alone ones that need another year of study on top.
The system is quite different over here, mind in a number of significant ways. It hasn't been so female dominated for one.
The test of how shit a document is, is to see how shit it is, not what minor celebs with irrelevant qualifications have endorsed it. That one was epically shit; its suggestion that teachers should be trained to identify children with special needs was like suggesting that Britain's bus drivers should be trained to drive on the left.
China’s brutal but sensible policy of letting Covid rip seems to be *working*. Tens of thousands are dying but this is China. It’s a statistical blip. The memories of fucked up hospitals will fade. The Chinese want to be free
When the Chinese economy is unshackled, with all its pent up consumer power (eg travel) watch and marvel. Could be a serious boost to global GDP and it might finally persuade the Thais to take off their damn masks
Honestly, mask wearing here is crazy. 95% everywhere at all times. Outdoors (beyond the tourist areas). Let China lead the East Asians back to freedom
Ironically, that would be tutoring someone who was withdrawn from school because no TA was provided to cope with complex needs...
This is the public sector you're talking about.
We're lucky to have a car park shared with three private businesses.
Good luck with that risk assessment.
German crosses like Bacchus or Siegerrebe.
Give it a few decades and the oolitic ridge from Somerset up to Lincs is going to be pretty decent for wine. Then the gravel ridges of the midlands on the shores of the old glacial lakes.
It was mandatory to a high level for PE and Science teachers. As in, they were out of school for three days.
It's different for nurseries and for specialist disabled centres.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1614660055797727234?s=20&t=dHy5MFlGg5RZymXfAgIroQ
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
I have a vinicultural question. Just how and why is “19 Crimes” wine so good?!
Here in Thailand all wine is horrifically taxed. So to get a halfway good bottle you normally need to
spend £20. Ugh
You can buy 19 Crimes for £12. And I do. Every day. Because it is just as good as the £20 bottles.
It is nothing exceptional. But it is highly drinkable and I bet 99% of us - including me - might fail to distinguish it in a blind tasting from bottles thrice the price - in the UK or Thailand or anywhere
It feels to me like the Aussies have produced another Jacobs Creek. A world beater. What are they doing?!
Although creating the space to do all this is trickier.
I suppose they could run round the car park, across the dual carriageway, round the new estate building site, through the current estate and back across the dual carriageway through the other gate.
It's a box tickers nightmare. Health and Safety gone mad!
Surely a few tips here for Suella?
Look, it might well be worth doing, but don't kid yourself that it's easy or cheap to do.
Although creating the space to do all this is trickier.
I suppose they could run round the car park, across the dual carriageway, round the new estate building site, through the estate and back through the other They could indeed. See later post.
Very educational...
Mind you, some of my classmates took a worrying interest in the sheep we saw on the main route...
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Seemed very popular among those parents who were struggling with affording child minding until they got back from work.
This was paying it forward.
For added comedy, the expansion of the coal mine has been signed off by the Greens in he national government.
So the police are wacking Greens for opposing the policies of the Greens in government…