I'd be upset but the most common sentiment towards Northern Ireland on the mainland has been indifference for decades, and most Britons have never been there.
Very many moons ago in ‘TIL Death Us Do Part” Alf Garnet had a rant about Northern Ireland which culminated in him proclaiming that “Her Majesty’s Royal Navy should sail into the Irish Sea and shell it until it sinks!”
The visceral roar of approval that went up from the audience was quite something.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
Unfortunately it was teh response of a typical non thinking Little Englander. As long as England as 85% of the Empire's population want it then that is fine for England. Colonies have few options.
I'm not surprised by the findings, Northern Ireland consistently votes in either the DUP who always say no to everything and managed to almost literally burn money with the renewable heating initiative or Sinn Fein who were part and parcel of the IRA for decades blowing up British police and army. They're never happy and relative to its size NI costs a fortune, even though it's the only place in the UK to retain freedom of movement. Let the Irish have them if they want
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves, including VAT. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves, including VAT. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Which is why we can beat them with top quality universal schooling.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Most of Germany's gymnasiums aren't selective in the sense that our grammar schools are. They don't usually have entrance exams; rather, children are recommended, or not, by their teachers for entry.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
It has normalised the idea of a physical and administrative border between GB and NI. It forced UK politicians do make a distinction between GB and NI.
That is quite a difference and will percolate through the populations as time goes on.
I wouldn't judge it by the 2019 general election.
It hasn't even done that now. In case you have been asleep the last few weeks Rishi has effectively removed the Irish Sea border, so there are only checks on goods travelling between GB and the Republic of Ireland, not on goods travelling between GB and Northern Ireland
'Not bothered' or 'apathy' may be misplaced. In the survey most were 'unbothered'; but there was no category for 'I accept NI's right to self determination either way' which means the same. Pejorative options only are not good surveying.
BTW surveys of Tory members are just addressed at a self selecting group of quite weird people. Expect absurd outcomes.
Morning all! Can someone explain to me what Rishi meant by everybody doing some sort of maths until 18? For example, my grandson did four A-levels one of them being physics. Would that count? And his sister is doing three, including psychology, which I gather includes a certain amount of statistics. Would that count?
I would think a sensible option is that this isn’t about everyone understanding pure maths, algebra etc but constantly improving mathematical mindsets in relation to how maths applies to people in day to day life and longer term decision making.
I could see a situation where, and thanks to AI perhaps, you could have a number of programs focussed on keeping people’s numeracy active, dealing with basic economic considerations such as applying maths to tax, mortgages, cost of living etc.
These could all be online like the theory test for driving so that each pupil has access to the system (maybe with facial recognition to avoid getting others to take for you) and each module has a learning pack online followed by online testing that doesn’t require teacher marking.
You could have it so that you cannot move on to next module until you have passed your current one and you cannot be considered to have completed your education until you have passed modules.
Probably completely fantastical but I can see how improving practical maths using current tech would be very beneficial to people as individuals and the country without needing huge amounts of human oversight.
Edit to add, one of my nephews was applying for a job in a financial services company (having chosen not to go to university) and prior to interview he had to complete their online test which was questions which were maths problems which he would encounter at work. He had the learning pack online and a series of test papers and a time limit to complete and submit his actual online test. So if an offshore fin services provider can have something suitable created I would hope a government could manage it.
Younger son worked in the City before he went to university. He had to complete some sort of similar test. Apparently it counted for university entry!
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Selection at 11 is fundamentally wrong. Moreso now than ever before. Back in my day, children took the 11 plus and passed or failed on either luck or merit. There were no Kip McGrath cramming schools then.
I suspect the 2024 to 2032 Conservative Governments will reverse Mrs Thatcher's programme of replacing selective education with universal education.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Selection at 11 is fundamentally wrong.
I suspect the 2024 to 2032 Conservative Governments will reverse Mrs Thatcher's programme of replacing selective education with universal education.
It was Harold Wilson's government which closed most of the grammars and Ted Heath's government which didn't stop Labour councils continuing the process. By the end of the Thatcher and Major years however the number of pupils in grammar schools percentage wise was growing
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
Because there hasn't been an assembly election where SF won...
Unionist parties combined still won more votes than Nationalist parties combined even in the last NI Assembly election post Brexit
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
I don't agree. If he made some paper notes or did a few calculations in the margin you would have no problem. He's probably using a spreadsheet in the same sort of way.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
It has normalised the idea of a physical and administrative border between GB and NI. It forced UK politicians do make a distinction between GB and NI.
That is quite a difference and will percolate through the populations as time goes on.
I wouldn't judge it by the 2019 general election.
It hasn't even done that now. In case you have been asleep the last few weeks Rishi has effectively removed the Irish Sea border, so there are only checks on goods travelling between GB and the Republic of Ireland, not on goods travelling between GB and Northern Ireland
"effectively removed the Irish Sea Border"
Nonsense. NI is legally different now from GB. That's a border. Right in the middle of the Irish Sea. So the NIrish get what we don't.
Hurrah… @HYUFD has been drawn into a discussion on grammar schools… in the meantime, we need reassurance that whilst at Goldman Sachs, Sunak didn’t build the spreadsheet used to support Greece’s Euro application form…
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Selection at 11 is fundamentally wrong.
I suspect the 2024 to 2032 Conservative Governments will reverse Mrs Thatcher's programme of replacing selective education with universal education.
It was Harold Wilson's government which closed most of the grammars and Ted Heath's government which didn't stop Labour councils continuing the process. By the end of the Thatcher and Major years however the number of pupils in grammar schools percentage wise was growing
You know that I know the history so please don't patronise me.
We were in Worcestershire, and later Hereford and Worcester when the grammar schools closed. Not exactly Labour strongholds.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
Because there hasn't been an assembly election where SF won...
Unionist parties combined still won more votes than Nationalist parties combined even in the last NI Assembly election post Brexit
That's only because of your carefully assuming the Alliance as the same sort of Unionist as the DUP and chums. The Alliance could well go for reunion with Ireland, as they have said in the past.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
Because there hasn't been an assembly election where SF won...
Unionist parties combined still won more votes than Nationalist parties combined even in the last NI Assembly election post Brexit
Delighted to hear that you are now an advocate for proportional representation.
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
I think the whole idea is idiotic.
If it's a matter of basic numeracy, it should be possible to teach that well before the old school leaving age, and making it compulsory until 18 and devising new qualifications are just political gimmicks springing from a fundamental lack of understanding. And quite frankly I think some people do have a kind of mental block where maths and even arithmetic are concerned, and saying that shouldn't be socially acceptable is no help at all.
If it's a matter of attracting more people to study proper maths at a higher level, then I haven't seen anything in the proposals being floated that would help with that. But I'm not really convinced we need a lot more professional mathematicians, so much as more people just to listen to the ones we have where their work is relevant to other activities.
Interestingly continued study of some Maths beyond 16 is a feature of post 16 education in most European countries I believe. The IB is increasingly popular here - my old school has been doing it since the 1990s with huge success. It's rather sad to see so many on here poopooing the idea with so little reflection.
Granddaughter Two is doing IB and her course includes ‘Mathematics Analysis and Approaches’. There appear, from her report, to be two levels. H and S
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
What a fucking tosser. This is what happens when somebody is insufficiently bullied at their prep school. His classmates need to have a long, hard look at themselves.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
Because there hasn't been an assembly election where SF won...
Unionist parties combined still won more votes than Nationalist parties combined even in the last NI Assembly election post Brexit
Delighted to hear that you are now an advocate for proportional representation.
Under FPTP the DUP still are ahead of SF, as they were in the 2019 general election.
They only aren't under PR as lots of DUP voters now vote TUV at Stormont
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
I don't agree. If he made some paper notes or did a few calculations in the margin you would have no problem. He's probably using a spreadsheet in the same sort of way.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
I don't agree. If he made some paper notes or did a few calculations in the margin you would have no problem. He's probably using a spreadsheet in the same sort of way.
Exactly - it shows he’s thinking about problems and analysing them - a step up on his two immediate predecessors. Whether he’s coming to the right conclusions the voters will ultimately decide.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
I don't agree. If he made some paper notes or did a few calculations in the margin you would have no problem. He's probably using a spreadsheet in the same sort of way.
The late Alec Douglas-Home, of course, when P.M., used matchsticks for economic calculations.
Mr. Pioneers, you are categorically wrong on a factual basis.
"In simple reality though, it IS England not Britain or UK. NornIron and Scotland both voted to remain but get overruled by England. Even now, we have a settlement in Northern Ireland which the people there support, and the English politicians are still trying to overturn it... "
Every vote counted equally in the referendum. No constituent part (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) voted as a bloc. There was no electoral college, and this was known about and not contested prior to the vote being held.
Your outrage at the 'overruling' of a minority by a majority in a referendum is absurd, and contrary to democracy and numeracy.
I apologise if that sounds harsh and I am trying to be polite, but while wailing and gnashing of teeth that the electorate voted one way is one thing, claiming somehow it was unfair for a majority vote in a referendum to count is just silly.
This is debate - don't worry about sounding harsh, you do not.
I take your point - this was a UK-wide referendum. And that is fine as long as you have the consent of the minority to do as the majority direct them.
The problem is that the minority did not give that consent. And we continue to suffer the political difficulties that arise from a minority having their strongly expressed opinion overruled.
I express no outrage. Merely analysis. Remember that I voted for Brexit, so I am not objecting against a result I voted for. I am highlighting a perception - backed up by an awful lot of evidence including the polls in the OP - that so many people in the majority - England - either do not care about the other home nations or would fling them off to save "Britain"/"the UK" even as they destroy it.
If people are unionists (and I am not) then care and maintenance of the union has to be a priority. We can't just impose the will of England over the others HUYFD-style. Not when part of the Union is now voting more for nationalist parties and has a legal right to a border poll in the peace treaty which binds it...
It certainly looks like Brexit has done more for Irish unification than years of IRA violence. The Brexit positions of Sinn Féin and the DUP are somewhat ironic.
Has it? In the 2015 general election in Northern Ireland before the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
In the 2019 general election after Leave won the EU referendum the DUP and UUP combined got 41% and SF and the SDLP combined got 38%.
So it has actually made sod all difference
Because there hasn't been an assembly election where SF won...
Unionist parties combined still won more votes than Nationalist parties combined even in the last NI Assembly election post Brexit
That's only because of your carefully assuming the Alliance as the same sort of Unionist as the DUP and chums. The Alliance could well go for reunion with Ireland, as they have said in the past.
The Alliance officially oppose a border poll and half their voters are soft Unionists. They just also want an open border with Ireland too
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Selection at 11 is fundamentally wrong.
I suspect the 2024 to 2032 Conservative Governments will reverse Mrs Thatcher's programme of replacing selective education with universal education.
It was Harold Wilson's government which closed most of the grammars and Ted Heath's government which didn't stop Labour councils continuing the process. By the end of the Thatcher and Major years however the number of pupils in grammar schools percentage wise was growing
You know that I know the history so please don't patronise me.
We were in Worcestershire, and later Hereford and Worcester when the grammar schools closed. Not exactly Labour strongholds.
It is not patronising to argue with your ideological anti grammar agenda.
Almost all the remaining grammars are in Tory council areas
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
No this is not true. As a parent living in NRW I probably know a hell of a lot more about this than you do (which seems to be precisely nothing). Admission to gymnasiums in NRW and some other German states is entirely up to the parents.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
I don't agree. If he made some paper notes or did a few calculations in the margin you would have no problem. He's probably using a spreadsheet in the same sort of way.
The late Alec Douglas-Home, of course, when P.M., used matchsticks for economic calculations.
All is not lost. We still have Bryant and May in the Commons.
SNP’s Ian Blackford saying on Radio 4 it’s normal and good practice to occasionally change auditors
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
This Maths initiative is not serious so long as to retrain as Maths teacher you get £27-29k, of which you have to fork out £9k of that in student fees.
This Maths initiative is not serious so long as to retrain as Maths teacher you get £27-29k, of which you have to fork out £9k of that in student fees.
You don't need a Maths GCSE to know that 110% of the governments initiatives are not serious, underfunded and will not deliver.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
I think the whole idea is idiotic.
If it's a matter of basic numeracy, it should be possible to teach that well before the old school leaving age, and making it compulsory until 18 and devising new qualifications are just political gimmicks springing from a fundamental lack of understanding. And quite frankly I think some people do have a kind of mental block where maths and even arithmetic are concerned, and saying that shouldn't be socially acceptable is no help at all.
If it's a matter of attracting more people to study proper maths at a higher level, then I haven't seen anything in the proposals being floated that would help with that. But I'm not really convinced we need a lot more professional mathematicians, so much as more people just to listen to the ones we have where their work is relevant to other activities.
Interestingly continued study of some Maths beyond 16 is a feature of post 16 education in most European countries I believe. The IB is increasingly popular here - my old school has been doing it since the 1990s with huge success. It's rather sad to see so many on here poopooing the idea with so little reflection.
Granddaughter Two is doing IB and her course includes ‘Mathematics Analysis and Approaches’. There appear, from her report, to be two levels. H and S
Correct. The course is superior by some distance in both breadth and depth to Alevels. I wish her well.
SNP’s Ian Blackford saying on Radio 4 it’s normal and good practice to occasionally change auditors
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
This Maths initiative is not serious so long as to retrain as Maths teacher you get £27-29k, of which you have to fork out £9k of that in student fees.
I think the only people I have ever met who have retrained to become teachers in later life are women returning from a career break.
And they often start out as Teaching Assistants only to discover they are doing virtually the same job as the teacher but for less than half the pay.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
I don't agree. If he made some paper notes or did a few calculations in the margin you would have no problem. He's probably using a spreadsheet in the same sort of way.
I think checking the workings of the civil service is a very good use of time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
What a fucking tosser. This is what happens when somebody is insufficiently bullied at their prep school. His classmates need to have a long, hard look at themselves.
This seems a surprising thing to be that furious about. Are you angry about Sunak writung spreadsheets - which seems as unremarkable a comment for someone in a white collar job as 'has some pens in hus pocket' and really says more about the journalist who wrote it? Or about him suggesting Britain would do better if people were more numerate - which again, seems hard to argue with - or at least to argue with that level of rage.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
I think the whole idea is idiotic.
If it's a matter of basic numeracy, it should be possible to teach that well before the old school leaving age, and making it compulsory until 18 and devising new qualifications are just political gimmicks springing from a fundamental lack of understanding. And quite frankly I think some people do have a kind of mental block where maths and even arithmetic are concerned, and saying that shouldn't be socially acceptable is no help at all.
If it's a matter of attracting more people to study proper maths at a higher level, then I haven't seen anything in the proposals being floated that would help with that. But I'm not really convinced we need a lot more professional mathematicians, so much as more people just to listen to the ones we have where their work is relevant to other activities.
Interestingly continued study of some Maths beyond 16 is a feature of post 16 education in most European countries I believe. The IB is increasingly popular here - my old school has been doing it since the 1990s with huge success. It's rather sad to see so many on here poopooing the idea with so little reflection.
Granddaughter Two is doing IB and her course includes ‘Mathematics Analysis and Approaches’. There appear, from her report, to be two levels. H and S
Correct. The course is superior by some distance in both breadth and depth to Alevels. I wish her well.
Thanks. She’s in Thailand. The school appears to have an excellent record at getting students in universities, and she’s looking worldwide.
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
Disagree. There's a lot of distillation of thought and contemplation when building a spreadsheet-based model. I'd be very happy to know that every PM did so. I can't see BoJo, and for sure Liz Truss, knowing where the "sum" function is.
I support Sunak on this, and commend his efforts, but the most likely reaction is that he's accused of being a nerd and a geek- together with some abuse on top - and people compete to wear with pride how crap they were at maths at school.
We are remarkably prejudiced against maths, engineering and science in this country.
We sneer at most intellectual, educational, or artistic achievement.
"Too clever by half" is one of the most damning putdowns an Englishman can use about another.
SNP’s Ian Blackford saying on Radio 4 it’s normal and good practice to occasionally change auditors
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
I think the whole idea is idiotic.
If it's a matter of basic numeracy, it should be possible to teach that well before the old school leaving age, and making it compulsory until 18 and devising new qualifications are just political gimmicks springing from a fundamental lack of understanding. And quite frankly I think some people do have a kind of mental block where maths and even arithmetic are concerned, and saying that shouldn't be socially acceptable is no help at all.
If it's a matter of attracting more people to study proper maths at a higher level, then I haven't seen anything in the proposals being floated that would help with that. But I'm not really convinced we need a lot more professional mathematicians, so much as more people just to listen to the ones we have where their work is relevant to other activities.
Interestingly continued study of some Maths beyond 16 is a feature of post 16 education in most European countries I believe. The IB is increasingly popular here - my old school has been doing it since the 1990s with huge success. It's rather sad to see so many on here poopooing the idea with so little reflection.
Granddaughter Two is doing IB and her course includes ‘Mathematics Analysis and Approaches’. There appear, from her report, to be two levels. H and S
Correct. The course is superior by some distance in both breadth and depth to Alevels. I wish her well.
Thanks. She’s in Thailand. The school appears to have an excellent record at getting students in universities, and she’s looking worldwide.
That is it's greatest strength. Pretty well universally recognized and revered. I have many former students working all over the globe
SNP’s Ian Blackford saying on Radio 4 it’s normal and good practice to occasionally change auditors
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
I agree with that — apart from maybe taking issue with the quality of the product which has improved a lot since Microsoft undertook a multi-year refactoring of Office — but even with the issues that exist with Excel it will still be a zillionty times better than simply winging it.
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
Besides, the real art of any spreadsheeting is what assumptions you make, what you include and what you ignore. Checking that sort of stuff isn't something a smatterer can do, and would be a complete waste of a PM's time. It's the basic reason we have SPADs.
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
Besides, the real art of any spreadsheeting is what assumptions you make, what you include and what you ignore. Checking that sort of stuff isn't something a smatterer can do, and would be a complete waste of a PM's time. It's the basic reason we have SPADs.
But the SPADs are all innumerate PPE grads. Again, the buck stops with the PM, he should be checking their working to make sure the civil service aren't chatting shit.
Back on topic, here's an idea for Northern Ireland, if we must keep it.
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
No this is not true. As a parent living in NRW I probably know a hell of a lot more about this than you do (which seems to be precisely nothing). Admission to gymnasiums in NRW and some other German states is entirely up to the parents.
Education in North Rhine Westphalia is NOT comprehensive. There are either academic gymnasiums or vocational schools
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
Besides, the real art of any spreadsheeting is what assumptions you make, what you include and what you ignore. Checking that sort of stuff isn't something a smatterer can do, and would be a complete waste of a PM's time. It's the basic reason we have SPADs.
But the SPADs are all innumerate PPE grads. Again, the buck stops with the PM, he should be checking their working to make sure the civil service aren't chatting shit.
Innumerate and lacking knowledge of the 'real world'.
I've spotted spreadsheet errors by knowing what they're saying doesn't correlate with the real world.
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
Yep. I write MEGA spreadsheets of such complexity that I lovingly refer to the various iterations as "The Monster Spreadsheet of Death". Colleagues / managers over the years have been wowed only because their own Excel skills are piss poor. I'm not good, its just that they are worse.
We will soon find out! "I can build a spreadsheet to manage this" is on offer to a client instead of them paying £lots for software...
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
How will it make it worse? The money raised by putting VAT on private school fees will be used to increase funding for the schools that 93% of kids go to. Since those schools are starved of resources I would assume that each £1 spent there would have more incremental benefit on the overall quality of educational outcomes. At state schools the money would be spent on more teachers or new books, at private schools it would just be a new lighting system at the school theatre, more manicuring of the school's eighth rugby pitch or an extra school cricket trip to the Caribbean.
Because it won't raise any more money, and will indeed cost the taxpayer, as the children transfer to be educated at the State's expense and, indeed, some private schools actually close.
It's a remarkably stupid policy, driven by prejudice.
SNP’s Ian Blackford saying on Radio 4 it’s normal and good practice to occasionally change auditors
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
Back on topic, here's an idea for Northern Ireland, if we must keep it.
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
Why shouldn't Northern Ireland have MPs? It is part of the UK not a colony.
Bribing Northern Ireland is no different to bribing Scotland via the SNP or Wales via Welsh Labour MPs if it is a hung parliament
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves, including VAT. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
I agree with increasing funding into education provision.
Back on topic, here's an idea for Northern Ireland, if we must keep it.
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
And how many of the Northern Irish actually want that scenario? AIUI neither the nationalists nor unionists would have any interest.
The best thing we can do in Northern Ireland is ban segregation in schools. Two generations later it will be fine with continual improvement along the road.
Back on topic, here's an idea for Northern Ireland, if we must keep it.
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
You really are hankering after the 1950s, aren't you ?
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Attitudes to education in this country, particularly in England, are solely driven by class, and it costs us dearly.
SNP’s Ian Blackford saying on Radio 4 it’s normal and good practice to occasionally change auditors
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
Back on topic, here's an idea for Northern Ireland, if we must keep it.
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
The United Kingdom in its current form does not work. We are going to need to find a replacement for the half-arsed constitutional "settlement" or else chunks will break off.
France has overseas departments. We have the Crown Dependencies. So I take your point about tying them in a bit more, but to do that to NornIron we would need their consent.
Given a choice of continuity NO, or a border poll to join the Republic, or become a "Crown Colony", I can't see that latter option having many advocates...
Back on topic, here's an idea for Northern Ireland, if we must keep it.
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
The United Kingdom in its current form does not work. We are going to need to find a replacement for the half-arsed constitutional "settlement" or else chunks will break off.
France has overseas departments. We have the Crown Dependencies. So I take your point about tying them in a bit more, but to do that to NornIron we would need their consent.
Given a choice of continuity NO, or a border poll to join the Republic, or become a "Crown Colony", I can't see that latter option having many advocates...
The French overseas departments also vote for the French President and elect members of the French Parliament anyway
But the SPADs are all innumerate PPE grads. Again, the buck stops with the PM, he should be checking their working to make sure the civil service aren't chatting shit.
SPADs are innumerate PPE grads only because their employers' culture tolerates innumeracy. PPE, by its very title, demands, at undergraduate level, the numeracy that's essential to survive any decent economics course.
Bizarrely: in a recent Oxford Classics alumni day I attended, just about every alumnus was inherently highly numerate (because unless you're an idle, entitled wastrel like B Johnson, learning Greek and Latin stimulates the bits of brains that nurture numeracy, and being sufficiently interested in the subject to attend alumnus days several decades later indicates those synapses have stayed alive). Most, though, remembered their PPE peers as once-numerate undergraduates whose numeracy had atrophied into vacuous waffle as arteries had hardened.
(Also, to what extent is not understanding spreadsheets a maths issue and to what extent an IT issue? Finally, who still uses Excel for major databases?)
LOTS of people use Excel as a database, even though they should not, but don't be dismissive of Excel, it is an exceptionally useful and powerful piece of software in the right hands.
I use it all the time professionally. It took over from Lotus 1-2-3, which was a far superior piece of software at the time, because of Microsoft's market power in operating systems. Despite being more than 20 years old, it still has lots of bugs (particularly in some of the more advanced commands like VLOOKUP). And because of Microsoft's market power, they don't need to correct them.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
Besides, the real art of any spreadsheeting is what assumptions you make, what you include and what you ignore. Checking that sort of stuff isn't something a smatterer can do, and would be a complete waste of a PM's time. It's the basic reason we have SPADs.
But the SPADs are all innumerate PPE grads. Again, the buck stops with the PM, he should be checking their working to make sure the civil service aren't chatting shit.
Remind me... What did Sunak study at Oxford?
And SPADs are whoever the PM wants advising them, any system that has to admit D Cummings won't be able to stop Sunak having a harmless spoddy SPAD to advise him on quantitative matters.
Look, I'm all for numeracy, quantitatively-informed government and spreadsheets. I teach science, I train science and maths teachers, when they can be found. But constructing and checking spreadsheets is not how Rishi should be spending his time, unless it's a relaxing hobby. In which case, good on him.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
No this is not true. As a parent living in NRW I probably know a hell of a lot more about this than you do (which seems to be precisely nothing). Admission to gymnasiums in NRW and some other German states is entirely up to the parents.
Education in North Rhine Westphalia is NOT comprehensive. There are either academic gymnasiums or vocational schools
Look, this is typical of you. First you wrote "Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country."
I pointed out this is untrue. You doubled down and said "Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination"
This is also false. As a parent of child about to go into the secondary school system in NRW I can assure you there is nothing you can tell me about how the secondary school system works here, especially as you have already proven that you don't know anything.
Parents/guardians here have a right to send their child to a gymnasium, obviously something you weren't aware of. You could just thank me for telling you something that you might find interesting given your obsession with the subject instead of trying to move the goalposts in a silly attempt to try and pretend you didn't get something wrong.
They pulled this crap with Snowdonia recently too.
Almost all Welsh will continue to call it the Brecon Beacons, as well as the tourists.
The story tells you how to pronounce it. And it's hardly trendy, as the name long predates "Brecon Beacons".
As for your latter point: ...Resmi Satheesan, a holidaymaker who is originally from India and is currently based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, visits the park often with her family. "I think it will take us a while to get used to the name, but I wouldn't mind the change," she said. "More than the name, it's the place [people] are coming for. It's like Mumbai and Bombay - there are still people who say Bombay, but we still know what they are talking about. "I have spoken multiple languages and travelled a lot, and what's not to love about trying something new or learning something about the locals?" Laura Howell, from the Gower, Swansea, added: "People will probably keep calling it the Brecon Beacons I imagine, but for those who are Welsh speakers it's a bit of pride and I think it's great that it will be referred to the Welsh way of saying it. "I think it's a step forward. We live in Wales, so it should be the case."..
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
Disagree. There's a lot of distillation of thought and contemplation when building a spreadsheet-based model. I'd be very happy to know that every PM did so. I can't see BoJo, and for sure Liz Truss, knowing where the "sum" function is.
I support Sunak on this, and commend his efforts, but the most likely reaction is that he's accused of being a nerd and a geek- together with some abuse on top - and people compete to wear with pride how crap they were at maths at school.
We are remarkably prejudiced against maths, engineering and science in this country.
We sneer at most intellectual, educational, or artistic achievement.
"Too clever by half" is one of the most damning putdowns an Englishman can use about another.
The French have always been keener on intellectuals than the English, the Germans and East Asians better at manufacturing and Maths. Our strengths are in finance and law. However we still have plenty of creative industry around London and intellectuals in our great universities and plenty of hi tech around Cambridge in particular
You almost seem embarrassed that the industrial revolution happened in this country.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
Promoting those of underwhelming academic gift through to the highest positions in society because their parents could afford astronomical school fees or cramming for the 11 plus tuition to get their offspring into grammar school is at the core of the issue. It's nothing to do with "vindictiveness towards private education".
As far as I am concerned you can keep your private schools, just force them to provide a decent percentage of bursaries to the genuinely gifted but genuinely poor. Grammar schools on the other hand, be rid. I don't want my tax pounds paying for social climbers. If parents want what they consider to be an elite education they can pay for it themselves. I don't want to pay for them.
Fund world beating education provision for all, and we'd leave Germany standing.
Speculate to accumulate.
Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country. We don't even allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, only to shut existing ones
Not true.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination
No this is not true. As a parent living in NRW I probably know a hell of a lot more about this than you do (which seems to be precisely nothing). Admission to gymnasiums in NRW and some other German states is entirely up to the parents.
Education in North Rhine Westphalia is NOT comprehensive. There are either academic gymnasiums or vocational schools
Look, this is typical of you. First you wrote "Germany of course has grammar schools, selective gymnasiums, across the country."
I pointed out this is untrue. You doubled down and said "Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination"
This is also false. As a parent of child about to go into the secondary school system in NRW I can assure you there is nothing you can tell me about how the secondary school system works here, especially as you have already proven that you don't know anything.
Parents/guardians here have a right to send their child to a gymnasium, obviously something you weren't aware of. You could just thank me for telling you something that you might find interesting given your obsession with the subject instead of trying to move the goalposts in a silly attempt to try and pretend you didn't get something wrong.
Wrong. Germany has selection from the age of 11 so pupils either go to academic gymnasiums or vocational schools. NRW does not have comprehensives therefore. If it did have UK style comprehensives then all pupils would be at the same school from 11 to 16.
You also have not proved teachers have no say in whether pupils are recommended for gymnasiums or vocational schools
They pulled this crap with Snowdonia recently too.
Almost all Welsh will continue to call it the Brecon Beacons, as well as the tourists.
The story tells you how to pronounce it. And it's hardly trendy, as the name long predates "Brecon Beacons".
As for your latter point: ...Resmi Satheesan, a holidaymaker who is originally from India and is currently based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, visits the park often with her family. "I think it will take us a while to get used to the name, but I wouldn't mind the change," she said. "More than the name, it's the place [people] are coming for. It's like Mumbai and Bombay - there are still people who say Bombay, but we still know what they are talking about. "I have spoken multiple languages and travelled a lot, and what's not to love about trying something new or learning something about the locals?" Laura Howell, from the Gower, Swansea, added: "People will probably keep calling it the Brecon Beacons I imagine, but for those who are Welsh speakers it's a bit of pride and I think it's great that it will be referred to the Welsh way of saying it. "I think it's a step forward. We live in Wales, so it should be the case."..
The usual question with vox pops applies: how many people did they have to ask to get the one who said what they want to report?
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
Disagree. There's a lot of distillation of thought and contemplation when building a spreadsheet-based model. I'd be very happy to know that every PM did so. I can't see BoJo, and for sure Liz Truss, knowing where the "sum" function is.
I support Sunak on this, and commend his efforts, but the most likely reaction is that he's accused of being a nerd and a geek- together with some abuse on top - and people compete to wear with pride how crap they were at maths at school.
We are remarkably prejudiced against maths, engineering and science in this country.
We sneer at most intellectual, educational, or artistic achievement.
"Too clever by half" is one of the most damning putdowns an Englishman can use about another.
The French have always been keener on intellectuals than the English, the Germans and East Asians better at manufacturing and Maths. Our strengths are in finance and law. However we still have plenty of creative industry around London and intellectuals in our great universities and plenty of hi tech around Cambridge in particular
You almost seem embarrassed that the industrial revolution happened in this country.
Audrey fforbes-Hamilton vs Richard DeVere.
I'm sure I'm onto something here about the British mindset.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
Disagree. There's a lot of distillation of thought and contemplation when building a spreadsheet-based model. I'd be very happy to know that every PM did so. I can't see BoJo, and for sure Liz Truss, knowing where the "sum" function is.
I support Sunak on this, and commend his efforts, but the most likely reaction is that he's accused of being a nerd and a geek- together with some abuse on top - and people compete to wear with pride how crap they were at maths at school.
We are remarkably prejudiced against maths, engineering and science in this country.
We sneer at most intellectual, educational, or artistic achievement.
"Too clever by half" is one of the most damning putdowns an Englishman can use about another.
The French have always been keener on intellectuals than the English, the Germans and East Asians better at manufacturing and Maths. Our strengths are in finance and law. However we still have plenty of creative industry around London and intellectuals in our great universities and plenty of hi tech around Cambridge in particular
You almost seem embarrassed that the industrial revolution happened in this country.
Even by the end of the 19th century manufacturing was stronger in Germany than the UK.
We have always had individual great industrialists like Brunel and Stevenson but our elite is more made up of lawyers and bankers, in Germany engineers have been on the same level however
Comments
The visceral roar of approval that went up from the audience was quite something.
They're never happy and relative to its size NI costs a fortune, even though it's the only place in the UK to retain freedom of movement.
Let the Irish have them if they want
Stupid, yes. Anti-democratic, no
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
BTW surveys of Tory members are just addressed at a self selecting group of quite weird people. Expect absurd outcomes.
Apparently it counted for university entry!
I suspect the 2024 to 2032 Conservative Governments will reverse Mrs Thatcher's programme of replacing selective education with universal education.
Nonsense. NI is legally different now from GB. That's a border. Right in the middle of the Irish Sea. So the NIrish get what we don't.
The EU doing this with referendums was a contributor - and not the smallest one - to the Leave vote.
We were in Worcestershire, and later Hereford and Worcester when the grammar schools closed. Not exactly Labour strongholds.
Gymnasiums in NRW (the biggest German state by population), for example, are not allowed to select pupils by academic ability at the start of secondary school. Parents choose the type of school for their children.
There appear, from her report, to be two levels. H and S
They only aren't under PR as lots of DUP voters now vote TUV at Stormont
Almost all the remaining grammars are in Tory council areas
We still have Bryant and May in the Commons.
ftaod: it is neither normal nor good practice not to have auditors in place for a 7 mth period spanning year end and for that to still be the case 3 mths before filing deadline
https://twitter.com/kevverage/status/1647871481743921153?s=20
Yes I am aware of the irony.
And they often start out as Teaching Assistants only to discover they are doing virtually the same job as the teacher but for less than half the pay.
And also as you correctly note there are still checks between NI and GB. Within a sovereign country.
Plus the idea that they could be different is now established in peoples' minds.
But you know all this - you voted Remain; I don't need to spell out to you the futility and destructiveness of Brexit.
Are you angry about Sunak writung spreadsheets - which seems as unremarkable a comment for someone in a white collar job as 'has some pens in hus pocket' and really says more about the journalist who wrote it? Or about him suggesting Britain would do better if people were more numerate - which again, seems hard to argue with - or at least to argue with that level of rage.
And another thing to bear in mind is that 90-95% of business spreadsheets have serious errors in them, because they are not properly written or tested, according to best practice. Sunak, I imagine, is not a specialist modeller - rather a classic MBA smatterer who doesn't really know what he is doing. So I'd look on any spreadsheets he writes very cautiously.
Something that should be read out at about 90% of these hearings.
And it would have the added benefit of putting hundreds of lawyers and personnel staff out of a job.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65274952
Instead of being integrated into the UK, it should be a Crown colony, like Bermuda is, or Hong Kong was in the old days, with its own assembly (which it has at the moment), a Governor, and no seats at Westminster. This is so that its sectarian and completely separate politics do not influence Westminster. It would avoid the situation that, whenever they have a close vote, Prime Ministers have to ask themselves how much they have to bribe the Northern Irish to win it.
https://broschuerenservice.nrw.de/files/download/pdf/150126-flyer-schulsystem-210x358-englisch-internet-pdf_von_eng-das-schulsystem-in-nordrhein-westfalen-einfach-und-schnell-erklaert_vom_staatskanzlei_1826.pdf
I've spotted spreadsheet errors by knowing what they're saying doesn't correlate with the real world.
We will soon find out! "I can build a spreadsheet to manage this" is on offer to a client instead of them paying £lots for software...
It's a remarkably stupid policy, driven by prejudice.
Bribing Northern Ireland is no different to bribing Scotland via the SNP or Wales via Welsh Labour MPs if it is a hung parliament
However, the rest of your post is just prejudice.
The best thing we can do in Northern Ireland is ban segregation in schools. Two generations later it will be fine with continual improvement along the road.
https://twitter.com/SykesCharlie/status/1647625378788265984
No other country in the world has these hang-ups.
France has overseas departments. We have the Crown Dependencies. So I take your point about tying them in a bit more, but to do that to NornIron we would need their consent.
Given a choice of continuity NO, or a border poll to join the Republic, or become a "Crown Colony", I can't see that latter option having many advocates...
They pulled this crap with Snowdonia recently too.
Almost all Welsh will continue to call it the Brecon Beacons, as well as the tourists.
Is anyone else receiving adverts offering medical jobs in Melbourne on their YouTube adverts ?
If so then some combo of a big medical shortage in Australia and a wasteful recruitment campaign.
Bizarrely: in a recent Oxford Classics alumni day I attended, just about every alumnus was inherently highly numerate (because unless you're an idle, entitled wastrel like B Johnson, learning Greek and Latin stimulates the bits of brains that nurture numeracy, and being sufficiently interested in the subject to attend alumnus days several decades later indicates those synapses have stayed alive). Most, though, remembered their PPE peers as once-numerate undergraduates whose numeracy had atrophied into vacuous waffle as arteries had hardened.
And SPADs are whoever the PM wants advising them, any system that has to admit D Cummings won't be able to stop Sunak having a harmless spoddy SPAD to advise him on quantitative matters.
Look, I'm all for numeracy, quantitatively-informed government and spreadsheets.
I teach science, I train science and maths teachers, when they can be found. But constructing and checking spreadsheets is not how Rishi should be spending his time, unless it's a relaxing hobby. In which case, good on him.
I pointed out this is untrue. You doubled down and said "Admission to gymnasiums is only by primary teacher recommendation if they are academic enough or by written examination"
This is also false. As a parent of child about to go into the secondary school system in NRW I can assure you there is nothing you can tell me about how the secondary school system works here, especially as you have already proven that you don't know anything.
Parents/guardians here have a right to send their child to a gymnasium, obviously something you weren't aware of. You could just thank me for telling you something that you might find interesting given your obsession with the subject instead of trying to move the goalposts in a silly attempt to try and pretend you didn't get something wrong.
As for your latter point:
...Resmi Satheesan, a holidaymaker who is originally from India and is currently based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, visits the park often with her family.
"I think it will take us a while to get used to the name, but I wouldn't mind the change," she said.
"More than the name, it's the place [people] are coming for. It's like Mumbai and Bombay - there are still people who say Bombay, but we still know what they are talking about.
"I have spoken multiple languages and travelled a lot, and what's not to love about trying something new or learning something about the locals?"
Laura Howell, from the Gower, Swansea, added: "People will probably keep calling it the Brecon Beacons I imagine, but for those who are Welsh speakers it's a bit of pride and I think it's great that it will be referred to the Welsh way of saying it.
"I think it's a step forward. We live in Wales, so it should be the case."..
You also have not proved teachers have no say in whether pupils are recommended for gymnasiums or vocational schools
I'm sure I'm onto something here about the British mindset.
We have always had individual great industrialists like Brunel and Stevenson but our elite is more made up of lawyers and bankers, in Germany engineers have been on the same level however