Alert readers will recall that Johnson had to reboot his government back in mid summer with a small series of well touted speeches and trips out and about.
I predict we will have another relaunch and he announces he's getting a grip and back on top of things in early September.
I should hope so, that's what normally happens after the summer holidays.
We should also get one next year after this is resolved.
I’m still puzzled about the apparent aversion to “grade inflation” and why Williams demanded that it be avoided. This year’s cohort are the first to have taken the new, more rigorous GCSE specifications - where these more academically demanding qualifications not meant to lead to higher pass rates at A level? If not, why not?
Because there is no such thing as an uncontroversial set of public exam results. Same as before=stagnation, higher passes=grade inflation, lower rates=system failing our children. Anyway it's August and the opportunity to use lots of pictures of pretty girls (this year's crop was very good in parts) celebrating, lamenting and protesting cannot be passed over.
A full scale reorganisation of a large enterprise is disruptive at the best of times. That it’s being led by someone with no background in public health at all, no real health qualifications, and no track record carrying out such a task, beggars belief.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
More than 0% definitely
OK, well they are achieving that comfortably. Next.
I have not seen any report about the chaos in Wales nor the demands for the Education Secretary to resign here in Wales
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
More than 0% definitely
OK, well they are achieving that comfortably. Next.
I have not seen any report about the chaos in Wales nor the demands for the Education Secretary to resign here in Wales
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
Your last paragraph is spot on and let's hope for the future exams are protected and go ahead.
We cannot allow this situation to arise again
My fear is that it might unless we take steps to ensure any disruption in the provision of education is instantly and comprehensively covered by online teaching, which it certainly wasn't in the last term. If a significant number of kids have suffered such disruption the cry of unfair will be heard in respect of exams, of that there is no doubt.
I know private schools are toxic to some on the left but during this crisis my son, who is head of IT at our local private school, has put in place distance teaching and the students have not missed any education throughout the crisis.
He is currently issuing laptops to all the staff and students for the new term in September with online learning and teaching becoming very much the day to day activity for the students. He has of course worked full time and more throughout this crisis putting in these changes
The problem is that the public sector do not seem to be anywhere near this level of development and maybe the question should be why not. Of course it would require billions in investment but the way covid has fundamentally changed everything that investment should be found
Scotland is largely through the process of distributing 25k laptops to kids from disadvantaged areas but I see almost no evidence that this is being followed up with the relevant training and preparation of the staff to provide virtual teaching as required.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
More than 0% definitely
OK, well they are achieving that comfortably. Next.
I have not seen any report about the chaos in Wales nor the demands for the Education Secretary to resign here in Wales
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
Your last paragraph is spot on and let's hope for the future exams are protected and go ahead.
We cannot allow this situation to arise again
My fear is that it might unless we take steps to ensure any disruption in the provision of education is instantly and comprehensively covered by online teaching, which it certainly wasn't in the last term. If a significant number of kids have suffered such disruption the cry of unfair will be heard in respect of exams, of that there is no doubt.
I know private schools are toxic to some on the left but during this crisis my son, who is head of IT at our local private school, has put in place distance teaching and the students have not missed any education throughout the crisis.
He is currently issuing laptops to all the staff and students for the new term in September with online learning and teaching becoming very much the day to day activity for the students. He has of course worked full time and more throughout this crisis putting in these changes
The problem is that the public sector do not seem to be anywhere near this level of development and maybe the question should be why not. Of course it would require billions in investment but the way covid has fundamentally changed everything that investment should be found
In my work I deal with Local Authorities a lot. Their M & E engineers are basically still not back at work. They are on full pay but are doing very little.
To give an example we were sent a tender for new boilers at a school.
The engineer specified boilers that were 6 foot high, oddly the boiler room was only 5 foot high. He had not been to site, and had no idea on the set up at the school. It is not possible to carry out a design for a new boiler system without actually visiting site, but he had not bothered.
We normally do loads of work at schools over the summer but are doing nothing this year. We have jobs to tender for schools but are unable to visit site as the schools are all locked up and the site managers are no where to be seen. It does make me wonder what preparations the schools are putting in for their return.
In terms of Building Sites a huge amount of work has gone on to make them Covid Safe environments. Their are one way systems, hand sanitiser everywhere, massively enhanced cleaning regimes and plastic barriers throughout all welfare areas. They are completely different places to a year ago. I hope schools are putting the same efforts in and not just looking to blame the Government..
Alert readers will recall that Johnson had to reboot his government back in mid summer with a small series of well touted speeches and trips out and about.
I predict we will have another relaunch and he announces he's getting a grip and back on top of things in early September.
Good Lord, so we have to put up with a fresh round of clowning photo ops as BoZo takes personal charge?
I know the Nats make much of Ruth Davidson not holding surgeries but what do they make of this? At least Ruthie D turns up to Holyrood and participates...
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
No, the Chinese have never done anything dodgy with my data, while at the core of government here people have a track record of misusing and mishandling data.
+1. No doubt the Chinese are more dangerous if one has important defence data or the like. But I doubt if Huawei care what I'm doing, while I wouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that the British government makes use of it and quite possibly sells it.
The whole anti-Huawei case is contaminated by the obvious fact that Trump is obsessed with China-bashing, partly for domestic reasons and partly as he thinks it'll lead to a better outcome to trade negotiations. It's possible that they are a genuine proble, but Britain seems to be dragged along with Trump's paranoia which isn't nemcessarily even genuine.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
The latest on the Irish iteration of exam grade algorithm chaos is that students will not receive their teacher-assessed grade until one week after their algorithm grade is published (itself already delayed to September 7th).
If they are forced into a UK-style u-turn this will make the mess even greater, but they must be hoping that the lack of personal downgrade stories in the immediate aftermath will weaken the backlash.
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
Your last paragraph is spot on and let's hope for the future exams are protected and go ahead.
We cannot allow this situation to arise again
My fear is that it might unless we take steps to ensure any disruption in the provision of education is instantly and comprehensively covered by online teaching, which it certainly wasn't in the last term. If a significant number of kids have suffered such disruption the cry of unfair will be heard in respect of exams, of that there is no doubt.
I know private schools are toxic to some on the left but during this crisis my son, who is head of IT at our local private school, has put in place distance teaching and the students have not missed any education throughout the crisis.
He is currently issuing laptops to all the staff and students for the new term in September with online learning and teaching becoming very much the day to day activity for the students. He has of course worked full time and more throughout this crisis putting in these changes
The problem is that the public sector do not seem to be anywhere near this level of development and maybe the question should be why not. Of course it would require billions in investment but the way covid has fundamentally changed everything that investment should be found
Do you think these billions are likely to be found under this government? (QTWTAIN). FWIW my kids' state schools have been pretty good at delivering online learning during this crisis, in any case, but it has been easy for my kids who each have a laptop and their own room with a desk to work at.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
I’m still puzzled about the apparent aversion to “grade inflation” and why Williams demanded that it be avoided. This year’s cohort are the first to have taken the new, more rigorous GCSE specifications - where these more academically demanding qualifications not meant to lead to higher pass rates at A level? If not, why not?
Old uns dont like young uns having better grades than them. Old uns are in charge.
In 1973 the standard grades offered for entry to top universities in popular subjects was around BBC. The course for which I got that offer now asks A*AA, and they take 6 times more people than in those far off days. So I think us older ones have got used to it by now. Naturally young people are much cleverer than we were.
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
@DavidL - That doesn't sound like much fun for anyone.
He's delighted to be back and see all his pals again but I think that the teachers are finding it pretty tough. They are doing large blocks of time with the same class so that movement through the school is limited. Yesterday my son had 3 hours of statistics, I mean, jeez.
What is clear is that getting kids back into secondary schools safely requires an immense amount of effort and planning affecting every aspect of school life including break times, timetables, meals, work distribution, etc etc. This is not something, if it is to be done right, that schools can start thinking about in September.
The schools I know have been thinking about it since March.
At my school the signs for one way systems have been put in place already and we have an extra training day at the beginning of term to go through which of several scenarios that the senior team have come up with will be the one we use.
Tory MP: "There's the elections next May, where I fear there's a huge pressure building up at the bottom of the volcano, and that could be an enormous wake up call to the Conservative party."
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
During the cold war Western conservatives accepted social democracy because they wanted unity against a common enemy. If we are in the same situation again then they should start doing more to foster a sense of solidarity instead of using every opportunity to enrich themselves and their wealthy cronies. The fact that they're not tells me that either they don't see the CCP as the same kind of threat or perhaps they are just so corrupt now that they don't even care about winning. Either way, I will fight for our western way of life when it becomes more worthy of the effort.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
It has been pointed out, for example, that the main news programmes are UK-wide and stories about subjects such as education and health are largely irrelevant outside England.
Maybe I've been unlucky, but on the three projects I've worked with McKinsey on, they've been a disaster. Their PPT slides are a work of art admittedly, but the quality of their analysis was garbage dressed up to make clients overconfident.
Alert readers will recall that Johnson had to reboot his government back in mid summer with a small series of well touted speeches and trips out and about.
I predict we will have another relaunch and he announces he's getting a grip and back on top of things in early September.
Good Lord, so we have to put up with a fresh round of clowning photo ops as BoZo takes personal charge?
Afraid so. "Boris says it's Back to School, as he orders Cabinet to three day away day to thrash out their response to the next stage of our world beating response to Covid"
I’m still puzzled about the apparent aversion to “grade inflation” and why Williams demanded that it be avoided. This year’s cohort are the first to have taken the new, more rigorous GCSE specifications - where these more academically demanding qualifications not meant to lead to higher pass rates at A level? If not, why not?
Old uns dont like young uns having better grades than them. Old uns are in charge.
In 1973 the standard grades offered for entry to top universities in popular subjects was around BBC. The course for which I got that offer now asks A*AA, and they take 6 times more people than in those far off days. So I think us older ones have got used to it by now. Naturally young people are much cleverer than we were.
I did A-levels in the 80s. Off feel the average pupil now probably does 2-3x the amount of homework and revision compared to the average pupil in my day. They take it more seriously, have better teachers, access to a wider variety of teaching media to find what suits them best so they should get better grades without being significantly cleverer than we were.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
Your last paragraph is spot on and let's hope for the future exams are protected and go ahead.
We cannot allow this situation to arise again
My fear is that it might unless we take steps to ensure any disruption in the provision of education is instantly and comprehensively covered by online teaching, which it certainly wasn't in the last term. If a significant number of kids have suffered such disruption the cry of unfair will be heard in respect of exams, of that there is no doubt.
I know private schools are toxic to some on the left but during this crisis my son, who is head of IT at our local private school, has put in place distance teaching and the students have not missed any education throughout the crisis.
He is currently issuing laptops to all the staff and students for the new term in September with online learning and teaching becoming very much the day to day activity for the students. He has of course worked full time and more throughout this crisis putting in these changes
The problem is that the public sector do not seem to be anywhere near this level of development and maybe the question should be why not. Of course it would require billions in investment but the way covid has fundamentally changed everything that investment should be found
Do you think these billions are likely to be found under this government? (QTWTAIN). FWIW my kids' state schools have been pretty good at delivering online learning during this crisis, in any case, but it has been easy for my kids who each have a laptop and their own room with a desk to work at.
They have to be.
Online education is the only way forward including universities and FE though more difficult for those that require a lot of laboratory or practical work environments
@DavidL - That doesn't sound like much fun for anyone.
He's delighted to be back and see all his pals again but I think that the teachers are finding it pretty tough. They are doing large blocks of time with the same class so that movement through the school is limited. Yesterday my son had 3 hours of statistics, I mean, jeez.
What is clear is that getting kids back into secondary schools safely requires an immense amount of effort and planning affecting every aspect of school life including break times, timetables, meals, work distribution, etc etc. This is not something, if it is to be done right, that schools can start thinking about in September.
The schools I know have been thinking about it since March.
At my school the signs for one way systems have been put in place already and we have an extra training day at the beginning of term to go through which of several scenarios that the senior team have come up with will be the one we use.
I hope your school does not expect children to sit still for three hours at a time.
That is shocking, completely unnecessary from the publics point of view. That data is very valuable, if we are going to give it to the private sector (we shouldnt, but if), lets at least sell it and get some decent cash for it.
Either corruption or extreme incompetence.
Not only that but why even employ McKinseys. Having been at a multinational where they bought these guys in I have to say given what they were suggesting all the staff could see how it was going to go tits up and said so. Naturally senior management went with it all and everything that they were told would go wrong did.
They are typical of their type. Highly intelligent without any common sense or ability to predict the consequence of their so clever idea's.
@DavidL - That doesn't sound like much fun for anyone.
He's delighted to be back and see all his pals again but I think that the teachers are finding it pretty tough. They are doing large blocks of time with the same class so that movement through the school is limited. Yesterday my son had 3 hours of statistics, I mean, jeez.
What is clear is that getting kids back into secondary schools safely requires an immense amount of effort and planning affecting every aspect of school life including break times, timetables, meals, work distribution, etc etc. This is not something, if it is to be done right, that schools can start thinking about in September.
The schools I know have been thinking about it since March.
At my school the signs for one way systems have been put in place already and we have an extra training day at the beginning of term to go through which of several scenarios that the senior team have come up with will be the one we use.
That's good to hear but I don't think that a day is going to do it. I can imagine, for example, that teaching the same class for 2-3 hours continuously will bring its own challenges for any teacher and require a considerable reordering of their work materials and lesson plans.
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
CPC = evil and competent. tories = evil and incompetent.
I'm not sure which is worse but I'd much rather socialise with Xi Jinping than Johnson.
Xi Jinping shoots dissidents, executes rivals, silences critics, oppresses and bullies his neighbouring countries, threatens others (including us), arrests those who speak against him ( and worse) and is committing crimes against humanity against the Uighur Muslims.
Johnson does none of those things.
If you're not sure who is worse then you're not thinking straight or you don't want to.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
You think Welsh independence is inevitable?
I honestly don't know for Wales.
For Scotland and Northern Ireland yes, I think it is a case of when not if. I did not think that pre-2014. For Wales I'm honestly not sure. In isolation I don't think they would have even considered it but once Scotland and Northern Ireland go then I suspect there'll be suddenly a lot more demand for Welsh independence too. Ironically though its probably less likely since we've left the EU.
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
There's an interesting cross-party debate lurking here. One of the reasons that lefties never really felt that postwar nationalisation had quite worked out as they hoped (apart from the NHS) is that all the national organisations functioned at arm's length, often behaving rather like private companies - the mines being the obvious example.
There's a reason for that - you don't want Ministers constantly interfering with operational decisions for political reasons. But a quango with no effective democratic control except the nuclear option to sack the management seems unsatisfactory too, not least as it gives the Minister cover. I'd like to see Ministers effectively operating like the chair of the Board of a private company, setting general direction AND taking ultimate responsibility, though not getting involved in day-to-day business.
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
CPC = evil and competent. tories = evil and incompetent.
I'm not sure which is worse but I'd much rather socialise with Xi Jinping than Johnson.
Xi Jinping shoots dissidents, executes rivals, silences critics, oppresses and bullies his neighbouring countries, threatens others (including us), arrests those who speak against him ( and worse) and is committing crimes against humanity against the Uighur Muslims.
Johnson does none of those things.
If you're not sure who is worse then you're not thinking straight or you don't want to.
Yeah, but Boris said several things that taken out of context might be regarded as racist. I mean, come on.
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
No, the Chinese have never done anything dodgy with my data, while at the core of government here people have a track record of misusing and mishandling data.
+1. No doubt the Chinese are more dangerous if one has important defence data or the like. But I doubt if Huawei care what I'm doing, while I wouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that the British government makes use of it and quite possibly sells it.
The whole anti-Huawei case is contaminated by the obvious fact that Trump is obsessed with China-bashing, partly for domestic reasons and partly as he thinks it'll lead to a better outcome to trade negotiations. It's possible that they are a genuine proble, but Britain seems to be dragged along with Trump's paranoia which isn't nemcessarily even genuine.
Ladies & Gentlemen: the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the modern British Left.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
I would have liked to see more coverage about what other countries were doing about Covid, eg our near neighbours other side of the Channel. Scotland could have taken its turn. But instead of reporting factual information new channels prefer talking heads and mindless speculation.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
You think Welsh independence is inevitable?
I honestly don't know for Wales.
For Scotland and Northern Ireland yes, I think it is a case of when not if. I did not think that pre-2014. For Wales I'm honestly not sure. In isolation I don't think they would have even considered it but once Scotland and Northern Ireland go then I suspect there'll be suddenly a lot more demand for Welsh independence too. Ironically though its probably less likely since we've left the EU.
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
CPC = evil and competent. tories = evil and incompetent.
I'm not sure which is worse but I'd much rather socialise with Xi Jinping than Johnson.
Xi Jinping shoots dissidents, executes rivals, silences critics, oppresses and bullies his neighbouring countries, threatens others (including us), arrests those who speak against him ( and worse) and is committing crimes against humanity against the Uighur Muslims.
Johnson does none of those things.
If you're not sure who is worse then you're not thinking straight or you don't want to.
Yeah, but Boris said several things that taken out of context might be regarded as racist. I mean, come on.
Also what's millions of "disappeared" Muslims versus a funny hair cut?
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
Your last paragraph is spot on and let's hope for the future exams are protected and go ahead.
We cannot allow this situation to arise again
My fear is that it might unless we take steps to ensure any disruption in the provision of education is instantly and comprehensively covered by online teaching, which it certainly wasn't in the last term. If a significant number of kids have suffered such disruption the cry of unfair will be heard in respect of exams, of that there is no doubt.
I know private schools are toxic to some on the left but during this crisis my son, who is head of IT at our local private school, has put in place distance teaching and the students have not missed any education throughout the crisis.
He is currently issuing laptops to all the staff and students for the new term in September with online learning and teaching becoming very much the day to day activity for the students. He has of course worked full time and more throughout this crisis putting in these changes
The problem is that the public sector do not seem to be anywhere near this level of development and maybe the question should be why not. Of course it would require billions in investment but the way covid has fundamentally changed everything that investment should be found
Do you think these billions are likely to be found under this government? (QTWTAIN). FWIW my kids' state schools have been pretty good at delivering online learning during this crisis, in any case, but it has been easy for my kids who each have a laptop and their own room with a desk to work at.
They have to be.
Online education is the only way forward including universities and FE though more difficult for those that require a lot of laboratory or practical work environments
As long as the kids of the rich and well connected all go private the government will give zero fucks.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
You think Welsh independence is inevitable?
I honestly don't know for Wales.
For Scotland and Northern Ireland yes, I think it is a case of when not if. I did not think that pre-2014. For Wales I'm honestly not sure. In isolation I don't think they would have even considered it but once Scotland and Northern Ireland go then I suspect there'll be suddenly a lot more demand for Welsh independence too. Ironically though its probably less likely since we've left the EU.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
It doesn't get a higher share of the coverage, that's just not true.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
By the way, I wonder how many Ministers have children of school age? As someone who doesn't, I'd admit that the exams crisis feels more abstract than it must do for parents whose kids' whole future is at risk, and perhaps it's seemed less immediate to many Ministers too?
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
It has been pointed out, for example, that the main news programmes are UK-wide and stories about subjects such as education and health are largely irrelevant outside England.
And Nicola Sturgeoun's 20-30 minute daily briefings on BBC1 were not relevant to 95% of the audience. Its give and take.
I’m still puzzled about the apparent aversion to “grade inflation” and why Williams demanded that it be avoided. This year’s cohort are the first to have taken the new, more rigorous GCSE specifications - where these more academically demanding qualifications not meant to lead to higher pass rates at A level? If not, why not?
Old uns dont like young uns having better grades than them. Old uns are in charge.
In 1973 the standard grades offered for entry to top universities in popular subjects was around BBC. The course for which I got that offer now asks A*AA, and they take 6 times more people than in those far off days. So I think us older ones have got used to it by now. Naturally young people are much cleverer than we were.
I am sure there are many youngsters cleverer than I was at their age. There are two other factors. One is grade inflation and dumbing down.
The third of the two factors is that teachers are teaching and preparing students better. There is more teaching to the test; extensive use of past papers; and application of psychological research on the importance of active recall, spaced repetition and all that malarkey.
And did I mention rampant grade inflation? For some reason lots of people think that was invented by Gavin Williamson just a couple of days ago.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
You think Welsh independence is inevitable?
I honestly don't know for Wales.
For Scotland and Northern Ireland yes, I think it is a case of when not if. I did not think that pre-2014. For Wales I'm honestly not sure. In isolation I don't think they would have even considered it but once Scotland and Northern Ireland go then I suspect there'll be suddenly a lot more demand for Welsh independence too. Ironically though its probably less likely since we've left the EU.
It is not going to happen in Wales
Even after Scotland goes?
Well Scotland has not gone and it is not a done deal by some distance
But if Scotland did leave, I would expect Wales to tighten the bond with England
Alert readers will recall that Johnson had to reboot his government back in mid summer with a small series of well touted speeches and trips out and about.
I predict we will have another relaunch and he announces he's getting a grip and back on top of things in early September.
And October.
Two in November.
Break for Christmas, before the REALLY BIG RELAUNCH in January as the Brexit hammer falls.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
It doesn't get a higher share of the coverage, that's just not true.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
I have listened to and watched about 2 hours of news so far this week. 15 minutes was with the Welsh Childrens Commissioner (who sounded engaged and doing a good job if anyone is interested in more Welsh news).
‘Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the education select committee, said the prime minister must personally lead the back-to-school campaign in order to ensure confidence.’
Er - no. Nothing would be more likely to see the government forfeit what little confidence is left on this issue than having imbeciles like Johnson and Cummings in direct charge of this. Not even Williamson, improbable though that may seem.
Halfon is usually very good on education but he’s slipped up there.
He would - and I mean this seriously - have been better calling for the ESC to take charge of it themselves. They’re quite good.
The key to having schools re-open is having protocols that work, and are not chaotic and contradictory. If parents and teachers have confidence then there won't be an issue.
I wish it were so simple. The virus does not obey the rules of politics. The matter will be judged neither on protocols or advance confidence. By mid October we will have an idea whether 9 million school children, 2 million undergraduates and a million+ staff all working together in enclosed spaces indirectly kills large numbers of people and/or brings the country to a halt. I seriously doubt whether anyone has, or could have, any idea where we will be by October. Who is in titular charge of the virus and education will make no difference.
Actually, there ought to be nothing to stop any university with a bio lab to set up their own testing regime. They could do pooled tests of every department or college on a weekly, or even daily basis. The costs would be pretty low, and the results quick enough to go back and test every individual in a department if infection showed up.
...SalivaDirect does not require any special type of swab or collection device; a saliva sample can be collected in any sterile container. This test is also unique because it does not require a separate nucleic acid extraction step. This is significant because the extraction kits used for this step in other tests have been prone to shortages in the past. Being able to perform a test without these kits enhances the capacity for increased testing, while reducing the strain on available resources. Additionally, the SalivaDirect methodology has been validated and authorized for use with different combinations of commonly used reagents and instruments, meaning the test could be used broadly in most high-complexity labs.
Yale intends to provide the SalivaDirect protocol to interested laboratories as an “open source” protocol, meaning that designated laboratories could follow the protocol to obtain the required components and perform the test in their lab according to Yale’s instructions for use. Because this test does not rely on any proprietary equipment from Yale and can use a variety of commercially available testing components, it can be assembled and used in high-complexity labs throughout the country, provided they comply with the conditions of authorization in the EUA....
By the way, I wonder how many Ministers have children of school age? As someone who doesn't, I'd admit that the exams crisis feels more abstract than it must do for parents whose kids' whole future is at risk, and perhaps it's seemed less immediate to many Ministers too?
That would also explain its limited impact on polling. For most voters it is just yet another cock-up rather than something personally felt.
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
Your last paragraph is spot on and let's hope for the future exams are protected and go ahead.
We cannot allow this situation to arise again
My fear is that it might unless we take steps to ensure any disruption in the provision of education is instantly and comprehensively covered by online teaching, which it certainly wasn't in the last term. If a significant number of kids have suffered such disruption the cry of unfair will be heard in respect of exams, of that there is no doubt.
I know private schools are toxic to some on the left but during this crisis my son, who is head of IT at our local private school, has put in place distance teaching and the students have not missed any education throughout the crisis.
He is currently issuing laptops to all the staff and students for the new term in September with online learning and teaching becoming very much the day to day activity for the students. He has of course worked full time and more throughout this crisis putting in these changes
The problem is that the public sector do not seem to be anywhere near this level of development and maybe the question should be why not. Of course it would require billions in investment but the way covid has fundamentally changed everything that investment should be found
Do you think these billions are likely to be found under this government? (QTWTAIN). FWIW my kids' state schools have been pretty good at delivering online learning during this crisis, in any case, but it has been easy for my kids who each have a laptop and their own room with a desk to work at.
They have to be.
Online education is the only way forward including universities and FE though more difficult for those that require a lot of laboratory or practical work environments
As long as the kids of the rich and well connected all go private the government will give zero fucks.
You have a sad outlook
The only way to help the disadvantaged is to invest in the future and follow the private schools.
It is upto everyone involved in state education to step up to the plate
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
No, the Chinese have never done anything dodgy with my data
Tory MP: "There's the elections next May, where I fear there's a huge pressure building up at the bottom of the volcano, and that could be an enormous wake up call to the Conservative party."
(Telegraph)
We've anticipated this problem in Surrey - the elections are simply being cancelled next year for the second year running. Avoids any unseemly squabbles about postal voting and suchlike.
By the way, I wonder how many Ministers have children of school age? As someone who doesn't, I'd admit that the exams crisis feels more abstract than it must do for parents whose kids' whole future is at risk, and perhaps it's seemed less immediate to many Ministers too?
I’m sure some do but they will probably not be affected that much being at private schools and part of the old boys network.
Reading the article it seems that the headline is more dramatic than the actual story. Seems little reason agreement can't be reached on this issue, the Irish in particular will be keen that it is.
Alert readers will recall that Johnson had to reboot his government back in mid summer with a small series of well touted speeches and trips out and about.
I predict we will have another relaunch and he announces he's getting a grip and back on top of things in early September.
And October.
Two in November.
Break for Christmas, before the REALLY BIG RELAUNCH in January as the Brexit hammer falls.
Ah yes, Brexit and January. Perhaps Boris will be on yet another of his conveniently-timed holidays for the first few days of the new arrangements.
I’m still puzzled about the apparent aversion to “grade inflation” and why Williams demanded that it be avoided. This year’s cohort are the first to have taken the new, more rigorous GCSE specifications - where these more academically demanding qualifications not meant to lead to higher pass rates at A level? If not, why not?
Old uns dont like young uns having better grades than them. Old uns are in charge.
In 1973 the standard grades offered for entry to top universities in popular subjects was around BBC. The course for which I got that offer now asks A*AA, and they take 6 times more people than in those far off days. So I think us older ones have got used to it by now. Naturally young people are much cleverer than we were.
I did A-levels in the 80s. Off feel the average pupil now probably does 2-3x the amount of homework and revision compared to the average pupil in my day. They take it more seriously, have better teachers, access to a wider variety of teaching media to find what suits them best so they should get better grades without being significantly cleverer than we were.
I had a friend about twenty years ago who was adamant that it was pure grade inflation and waxed lyrical about it. Then his sister became a teacher.
He looked into it in a lot more depth and ended up with a far more nuanced outlook. According to him, the grade inflation seemed comprised of multiple things:
- Changed teaching methods. The teachers now spent a lot longer on structuring their lessons to optimise different learning techniques and ensure coverage. The work done by teachers outside of lessons is staggering. - Significantly increased homework and coursework. The pupils genuinely do more work than we did. - More targeted learning. The Department of Education and Ofqual all set things up so that any time you spent that isn't teaching directly to the test is wasteful and discouraged. - Improved facilities and teaching media. This feeds into the different learning techniques. - (At the time): retakes. He was originally extremely skeptical about the value of retakes ("Just keep going until you get the result you want"), but he did a 180 on these ("Any test where luck has enough of a part that you can just try repeatedly until you roll sixes isn't a test that's worth the name"). The retakes reduced the random aspect of sitting tests (One bad day in two years, emotional damage, minor fuckup that ends up changing your life, etc). - Plus a small element of genuine grade inflation, which was different in different subjects. That, however, was all most people focused on, because it was the easiest to grasp.
By the way, I wonder how many Ministers have children of school age? As someone who doesn't, I'd admit that the exams crisis feels more abstract than it must do for parents whose kids' whole future is at risk, and perhaps it's seemed less immediate to many Ministers too?
Their whole future is not at risk, whilst we should drive kids to do well in exams and make them seem important, their importance has become overstated at the expense of far greater stress and worse mental health for our young people.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
It doesn't get a higher share of the coverage, that's just not true.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
I have listened to and watched about 2 hours of news so far this week. 15 minutes was with the Welsh Childrens Commissioner (who sounded engaged and doing a good job if anyone is interested in more Welsh news).
I've watched hours of coverage and it has almost all been about Williamson. Even when the Welsh reversed it was discussed in concert with what does this mean for England - before it was later revealed the Welsh only reversed because the English did.
Without Googling it can you even name Williamson's Welsh counterpart? The idea that there has been a comparable level of coverage is for the birds.
Gavin Williamson will be saved imo, and more power removed from Ofqual and the Department for Education to Number 10 as part of the ongoing Boris/Cummings power grab. The Telegraph reports that both Ofqual's Chair and Chief Executive are under threat. My guess is Williamson will remain to shield Boris from blame when the September reopening of schools goes pear-shaped, and Brexit at the end of the year.
More interesting is that MPs are starting to question the wisdom of the last couple of decades which is to hive off responsibility to executive agencies like Ofqual in order to shield the government from poor outcomes and bad decisions.
Simon Hoare, a senior Tory MP, said: "Number 10 needs to think about how all of these executive agencies, quangos and arms-length organisations work. They are taking, on a daily basis, political decisions over which ministers have no control, no right of question, no right of direction and no right of overrule.
Didn’t we have a bonfire of the quangos once before? One that created more problems than it solved.
Ofqual is a Non-Ministerial Department (the same as Ofsted). Although it will be treated as one of the "education group" of quangos for administrative purposes, it actually reports direct to Parliament. The reason it was set up in this way was to give it a semblance of independence to counter the accusation that grades were being dumbed down for political gain.
Certainly the advice they gave to Ministers that exam results could be fixed by means of an algorithm was seriously screwed, and you have to question their professional competence or indeed whether they had their own agenda.
It does not matter what you delegate; ministers are ultimately responsible. Williamson can't absolve himself by saying he has received assurances from whoever or whatever Quango. Quangos are all created by parliament and are under the direction of government. The minister leads a gigantic staff whose job is to drill down and check stuff, and his job is to take the blame.
The obvious truth, the elephant in the room, is that with no schools since March and no exams there is insufficient information to assess students accurately because vast amounts of relevant data are missing. The only thing you can be sure of it that you cannot know to whom to mistakes have been made, either under the original scheme or the hasty upgrade revision.
What should have happened (IMHO and imperfect) is that Years 11 and 13 should have been told that they will face exams, even if they are delayed a few weeks, so crack on with working.
As I pointed out, Ofqual is not a standard quango (Non-DepartmentL Public Body used to be the term) but an NMD and therefore designed to operate at arm's length from Government. Also, ministers are not supposed to be experts. So the quality of the advice they receive is vital.
This has of course been an unmitigated cock-up. Back in the febrile early days of the pandemic people were clamouring for certainty and irrational, knee-jerk decisions were made. People would have been better off being told to put up with uncertainty for a few weeks while better decisions were made.
But yes, the DfE should have advised Williamson that the Ofqual plan was a pile of poo. If exam integrity was the problem, then in my view grade inflation should have been assumed and maybe different grades issued (eg, W, V, X, Y, Z) to make the point they are different from normal. How Universities would have coped with making offers is a moot point, but they have bright people running them and they would arguably have been in no different position to now, only with more time.
It would have been nice if a few options could have been offered and consulted on, but the UK Government isn't allowed to work like that. We like to pretend that our political masters are omniscient and can magically present us with the one perfect answer.
Maybe I've been unlucky, but on the three projects I've worked with McKinsey on, they've been a disaster. Their PPT slides are a work of art admittedly, but the quality of their analysis was garbage dressed up to make clients overconfident.
Maybe I've been unlucky, but on the three projects I've worked with McKinsey on, they've been a disaster. Their PPT slides are a work of art admittedly, but the quality of their analysis was garbage dressed up to make clients overconfident.
My own experience reflected the joke about management consultants borrowing your watch to tell you th time and then keeping your watch.
Ladies & Gentlemen: the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the modern British Left.
Atlee and Bevin must be turning in their graves.
You misunderstand, no doubt inadvertently, the points being made here. Nobody I know on the left has much sympathy for the dictatorial state capitalism practiced in China - you get all the problems of the free market with arbitrary oppression and serious corruption thrown in. But the case is weakened, not strengthened, by being championed by an unscrupulous thug like Trump.
I’m still puzzled about the apparent aversion to “grade inflation” and why Williams demanded that it be avoided. This year’s cohort are the first to have taken the new, more rigorous GCSE specifications - where these more academically demanding qualifications not meant to lead to higher pass rates at A level? If not, why not?
Old uns dont like young uns having better grades than them. Old uns are in charge.
In 1973 the standard grades offered for entry to top universities in popular subjects was around BBC. The course for which I got that offer now asks A*AA, and they take 6 times more people than in those far off days. So I think us older ones have got used to it by now. Naturally young people are much cleverer than we were.
I did A-levels in the 80s. Off feel the average pupil now probably does 2-3x the amount of homework and revision compared to the average pupil in my day. They take it more seriously, have better teachers, access to a wider variety of teaching media to find what suits them best so they should get better grades without being significantly cleverer than we were.
I had a friend about twenty years ago who was adamant that it was pure grade inflation and waxed lyrical about it. Then his sister became a teacher.
He looked into it in a lot more depth and ended up with a far more nuanced outlook. According to him, the grade inflation seemed comprised of multiple things:
- Changed teaching methods. The teachers now spent a lot longer on structuring their lessons to optimise different learning techniques and ensure coverage. The work done by teachers outside of lessons is staggering. - Significantly increased homework and coursework. The pupils genuinely do more work than we did. - More targeted learning. The Department of Education and Ofqual all set things up so that any time you spent that isn't teaching directly to the test is wasteful and discouraged. - Improved facilities and teaching media. This feeds into the different learning techniques. - (At the time): retakes. He was originally extremely skeptical about the value of retakes ("Just keep going until you get the result you want"), but he did a 180 on these ("Any test where luck has enough of a part that you can just try repeatedly until you roll sixes isn't a test that's worth the name"). The retakes reduced the random aspect of sitting tests (One bad day in two years, emotional damage, minor fuckup that ends up changing your life, etc). - Plus a small element of genuine grade inflation, which was different in different subjects. That, however, was all most people focused on, because it was the easiest to grasp.
There's normally a small amount of grade inflation from year to year, but the overall effect is limited because people are competing for uni places etc against their cohort, not people who graduated twenty years ago. This year and next year are a bit different - there simply must be a significant amount of grade deflation next year as the overall inflation this year was absolubtely whopping.
My big win would have been Buttigieg but I also had a few quid with Biden (I never bought the argument that he was too old to actually win the nomination).
I know the Nats make much of Ruth Davidson not holding surgeries but what do they make of this? At least Ruthie D turns up to Holyrood and participates...
That is shocking, completely unnecessary from the publics point of view. That data is very valuable, if we are going to give it to the private sector (we shouldnt, but if), lets at least sell it and get some decent cash for it.
Either corruption or extreme incompetence.
Not only that but why even employ McKinseys. Having been at a multinational where they bought these guys in I have to say given what they were suggesting all the staff could see how it was going to go tits up and said so. Naturally senior management went with it all and everything that they were told would go wrong did.
They are typical of their type. Highly intelligent without any common sense or ability to predict the consequence of their so clever idea's.
Was once taken on to set up a programme to deliver a new business for one of the insurers. McKinsey team had persuaded management that they must get “first mover advantage” and not to worry that it was an unproven proposition anywhere in the world - lead consultant went on to be a big name at Standard Chartered. Took one look at it and suggested it was high risk and would cost at least twice as much to develop... much shuffling of feet and admission that estimates were based on an utterly inappropriate analog later, programme stopped and consultants shown the door.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
It doesn't get a higher share of the coverage, that's just not true.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
I have listened to and watched about 2 hours of news so far this week. 15 minutes was with the Welsh Childrens Commissioner (who sounded engaged and doing a good job if anyone is interested in more Welsh news).
I've watched hours of coverage and it has almost all been about Williamson. Even when the Welsh reversed it was discussed in concert with what does this mean for England - before it was later revealed the Welsh only reversed because the English did.
Without Googling it can you even name Williamson's Welsh counterpart? The idea that there has been a comparable level of coverage is for the birds.
I am not saying there is a comparable level of coverage on national channels, of course there isnt because England is much much bigger! There shouldnt be equal coverage.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
It doesn't get a higher share of the coverage, that's just not true.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
I have listened to and watched about 2 hours of news so far this week. 15 minutes was with the Welsh Childrens Commissioner (who sounded engaged and doing a good job if anyone is interested in more Welsh news).
I've watched hours of coverage and it has almost all been about Williamson. Even when the Welsh reversed it was discussed in concert with what does this mean for England - before it was later revealed the Welsh only reversed because the English did.
Without Googling it can you even name Williamson's Welsh counterpart? The idea that there has been a comparable level of coverage is for the birds.
I am not saying there is a comparable level of coverage on national channels, of course there isnt because England is much much bigger! There shouldnt be equal coverage.
Who said equal? Your line was 1/18th.
Sky and the BBC are giving more than 18x as much coverage to Williamson etc than they are to the Welsh counterpart. I couldn't even name his Welsh counterpart without Googling it the coverage has been so absent.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
It has been pointed out, for example, that the main news programmes are UK-wide and stories about subjects such as education and health are largely irrelevant outside England.
And Nicola Sturgeoun's 20-30 minute daily briefings on BBC1 were not relevant to 95% of the audience. Its give and take.
It seems obvious to me that the BBC should offer different major news programmes in different jurisdictions. The fact they don't implies to me they have been leaned on by Government. Maybe someone didn't like the idea of an "England" news.
Of course, on the BBC News Channel there is plenty of time to broadcast the leaders from all three nations (England doesn't have leaders of course), as an alternative to just repeating the same old shit every hour. I was more talking about short programmes such as the lunchtime, evening and 6 o'clock news
That's pretty stupid. There will be people who refuse to give their data because they don't want some American consultancy firm playing with it - fuck it, I might be one of them. Still, all that data will be useful when McKinsey want to pitch for work with the US health firms that will be invited to run the NHS when the US trade deal goes through.
Frankly I would trust Huawei more than McKinsey and Dido with my data.
No you wouldn't.
You're just saying that to make a political point.
I would certainly trust Huawei more - and I am literally typing this on a Huawei phone so I am not just making a point!
No you wouldn't.
If you do you're either ignorant or naive.
The CCP are obviously an even bigger bunch of gangsters and crooks than the Tory party, but the latter have a far greater ability to fuck up my life, owing to proximity.
Well, that's something. I think it supports what I was saying earlier about the huge introspection and circle jerk the West has about itself, which ironically is a sign of arrogance and self obsession - even on the Left - as it doesn't realise it's increasingly irrelevant and being eclipsed.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
CPC = evil and competent. tories = evil and incompetent.
I'm not sure which is worse but I'd much rather socialise with Xi Jinping than Johnson.
Xi Jinping shoots dissidents, executes rivals, silences critics, oppresses and bullies his neighbouring countries, threatens others (including us), arrests those who speak against him ( and worse) and is committing crimes against humanity against the Uighur Muslims.
Johnson does none of those things.
If you're not sure who is worse then you're not thinking straight or you don't want to.
Yeah, but Boris said several things that taken out of context might be regarded as racist. I mean, come on.
Also what's millions of "disappeared" Muslims versus a funny hair cut?
True, but what about the allegedly dodgy article about a Porsche? Surely that is more serious.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
It has been pointed out, for example, that the main news programmes are UK-wide and stories about subjects such as education and health are largely irrelevant outside England.
And Nicola Sturgeoun's 20-30 minute daily briefings on BBC1 were not relevant to 95% of the audience. Its give and take.
It seems obvious to me that the BBC should offer different major news programmes in different jurisdictions. The fact they don't implies to me they have been leaned on by Government. Maybe someone didn't like the idea of an "England" news.
Of course, on the BBC News Channel there is plenty of time to broadcast the leaders from all three nations (England doesn't have leaders of course), as an alternative to just repeating the same old shit every hour. I was more talking about short programmes such as the lunchtime, evening and 6 o'clock news
One thing the BBC has improved is being specific in their reporting. They used to just talk about "the NHS", but now they specify which NHS (e.g. "the NHS in England").
After the Six Counties and the Democratic People's Republic of Scotland have gone the Welsh might well think: fuck it, why not?
It would be like Gaza with terrible weather but they would have TAKEN BACK CONTROL.
If Labour lost Wales as well as Scotland prepare for the 1000 year Tory Reich in England with just the occasional Blairite in between.
Though Wales voted Leave just like England and was united with England for centuries before Scotland and Ireland joined the Union even if Scotland voted for independence and Northern Ireland for a United Ireland
Re China spies. The CIA has been rounding up many Chinese spies (another was announced yesterday) but either we are not worth bothering with or MI5 and its European equivalents are asleep on the job, which is odd if MI6 is still run by the KGB. Of course, the CIA got a big clue something was afoot when China arrested dozens of American spies a few years ago.
Now I really shouldn't be surprised that you believed the headline and ignored the detail but even so.
I did not say anything of the kind
The political decisions by all four nations may have been the right thing to do but the problems if has caused are huge and it personally worries me for my granddaughters university placing when she takes her A levels next year
I think we should all accept that the quangos and politicians across the land have failed comprehensively and I really do worry about the long term damage to education due to the debasing of the whole system
You said Sky had reported that the funding restrictions had been resolved - as I said they hadn't been...
If Sky said that then I was quoting Sky
But the whole thing is a mess and condemnation should be across the UK to the quangos and politicians.
We had the ridiculous situation here in Wales that Drakeford only followed England after their announcement admitting they were really not for the change
Watching Sky and BBC they are increasingly becoming the English broadcasting corporation virtually ignoring Wales
The population ration between England and Wales is about 18:1, what do you expect? What would be a fair proportion of time dedicated to Welsh issues on Sky, a commercial TV station broadcasting to both, amongst others?
They have always been the English Broadcasting Corporation
I really dont get this view. What do you expect? The BBC have dedicated Scottish and Welsh channels, local radio, Wales has s4c, it isnt hard at all to get local news coverage.
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
And this is why independence is inevitable. Because even you don't think of us as one country.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
That isnt true. I would think of myself as more British than English, I would prefer it to stay as the UK, but accept if anyone votes to leave they should be able to. Whilst we are still the UK we are one country.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If you considered yourself British not English then you should want and demand British and not English news. But instead you consider England all that matters and think that Welsh news should be on a different channel. That's not very British.
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Eh? Im happy with the status quo, with British news, where Scottish, Welsh and NI news gets a higher share of the coverage than a per head basis would demand, but doesnt get equal coverage with England. Because England is much much bigger.
It doesn't get a higher share of the coverage, that's just not true.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
I have listened to and watched about 2 hours of news so far this week. 15 minutes was with the Welsh Childrens Commissioner (who sounded engaged and doing a good job if anyone is interested in more Welsh news).
I've watched hours of coverage and it has almost all been about Williamson. Even when the Welsh reversed it was discussed in concert with what does this mean for England - before it was later revealed the Welsh only reversed because the English did.
Without Googling it can you even name Williamson's Welsh counterpart? The idea that there has been a comparable level of coverage is for the birds.
I am not saying there is a comparable level of coverage on national channels, of course there isnt because England is much much bigger! There shouldnt be equal coverage.
Who said equal? Your line was 1/18th.
Sky and the BBC are giving more than 18x as much coverage to Williamson etc than they are to the Welsh counterpart. I couldn't even name his Welsh counterpart without Googling it the coverage has been so absent.
Despite disagreeing with you more often than not, you sometimes make some great points, have admirable tenacity and a willingness to (occassionally) move well away from the party line but arguing with you can be tiring. You used the word comparable. That implies equal.
Look at the BBC annual report and you will see the lengths they go to to try and get balanced coverage between the different nations and regions of the UK, and the metrics they use to track this. It is broadly right and balanced.
After the Six Counties and the Democratic People's Republic of Scotland have gone the Welsh might well think: fuck it, why not?
It would be like Gaza with terrible weather but they would have TAKEN BACK CONTROL.
If Labour lost Wales as well as Scotland prepare for the 1000 year Tory Reich in England with just the occasional Blairite in between.
Though Wales voted Leave just like England and was united with England for centuries before Scotland and Ireland joined the Union even if Scotland voted for independence and Northern Ireland for a United Ireland
Feel no fret. It's probably best to concentrate on hanging on to the Isle of Wight at this point.
@NickPalmer Trump is an unscrupulous thug? Then what is Xi Jinping (see my post upthread) just "misguided"?
I've said before that the one saving grace of Trump's foreign policy has been his standing up to the Chinese Communist Party, their exploitation of the global trading system, intellectual property theft, cutting out of cyberspace, mass interstate espionage and their wolf-warrior attitude to diplomacy (in other words: aggression and intimidation) right across the world. We're having conversations about China now that we'd never have done 5 years ago.
It really does speak volumes that you typecast them as state capitalists and then pivot to a critique of free markets (no doubt you can't bring yourself to mention the fact they're actually a communist regime) because you're far more comfortable criticising Western right wing parties than a nasty authoritarian regime that still worships Marx and Lenin and risks using its economic and military dominance to crush freedoms and human rights worldwide.
I am so grateful Corbyn and his acolytes are no longer in charge in the Labour Party. I just hope that Sir Kier Starmer takes a different and more objective view of the world to you now he's in charge and people that think like you are not.
Comments
We should also get one next year after this is resolved.
There is zero coverage
I have no strong views on whether Scotland and/or Wales should be independent, have more or less devolution and think its primarily a view for them to decide, but sour grapes about TV stations focusing mainly on its much bigger audience sections is quite bizarre.
I also heard the Welsh Childrens Commissioner do a long interview about the different situation in Wales on Monday morning on 5Live.
If news is happening in Leicester that is national newsworthy then it gets reported. But if it's in Cardiff much less so.
The CCP want to watch and control everything you do with your data. They don't have to be resident here to do it. If they control cyberspace and the global economic levers they will achieve dominance and compliance without a shot ever being fired:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/552203/
https://www.justsecurity.org/62187/weapons-mass-consumerism-china-personal-information/
To give an example we were sent a tender for new boilers at a school.
The engineer specified boilers that were 6 foot high, oddly the boiler room was only 5 foot high. He had not been to site, and had no idea on the set up at the school. It is not possible to carry out a design for a new boiler system without actually visiting site, but he had not bothered.
We normally do loads of work at schools over the summer but are doing nothing this year. We have jobs to tender for schools but are unable to visit site as the schools are all locked up and the site managers are no where to be seen. It does make me wonder what preparations the schools are putting in for their return.
In terms of Building Sites a huge amount of work has gone on to make them Covid Safe environments. Their are one way systems, hand sanitiser everywhere, massively enhanced cleaning regimes and plastic barriers throughout all welfare areas. They are completely different places to a year ago. I hope schools are putting the same efforts in and not just looking to blame the Government..
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1295995643530563584
The whole anti-Huawei case is contaminated by the obvious fact that Trump is obsessed with China-bashing, partly for domestic reasons and partly as he thinks it'll lead to a better outcome to trade negotiations. It's possible that they are a genuine proble, but Britain seems to be dragged along with Trump's paranoia which isn't nemcessarily even genuine.
Cardiff would get the same coverage as Leicester. We had Nicola Sturgeon on for 20-30 mins a day on BBC1 for several months during lockdown, a completely disproportionate amount of time if doing it per head of population. Interviewees from the rest of the country, and indeed worldwide would be cut short so we could hear her live. If anything there is more coverage of Scotland and Wales than a per head basis would suggest, but of course England dominates because it is much much bigger.
Its a separate point, but I was very pleased Sturgeon was live so often during the spring and early summer because it showed what a good leader could have done, if we didnt have such incompetents in charge at Westminster.
If they are forced into a UK-style u-turn this will make the mess even greater, but they must be hoping that the lack of personal downgrade stories in the immediate aftermath will weaken the backlash.
FWIW my kids' state schools have been pretty good at delivering online learning during this crisis, in any case, but it has been easy for my kids who each have a laptop and their own room with a desk to work at.
I'm not sure which is worse but I'd much rather socialise with Xi Jinping than Johnson.
At my school the signs for one way systems have been put in place already and we have an extra training day at the beginning of term to go through which of several scenarios that the senior team have come up with will be the one we use.
(Telegraph)
The news is all Williamson, Williamson, Williamson at the minute - I wonder how many who have been watching the news can even name the Welsh Education Secretary? Let alone whether they should resign or not?
Online education is the only way forward including universities and FE though more difficult for those that require a lot of laboratory or practical work environments
They are typical of their type. Highly intelligent without any common sense or ability to predict the consequence of their so clever idea's.
Johnson does none of those things.
If you're not sure who is worse then you're not thinking straight or you don't want to.
For Scotland and Northern Ireland yes, I think it is a case of when not if. I did not think that pre-2014. For Wales I'm honestly not sure. In isolation I don't think they would have even considered it but once Scotland and Northern Ireland go then I suspect there'll be suddenly a lot more demand for Welsh independence too. Ironically though its probably less likely since we've left the EU.
There's a reason for that - you don't want Ministers constantly interfering with operational decisions for political reasons. But a quango with no effective democratic control except the nuclear option to sack the management seems unsatisfactory too, not least as it gives the Minister cover. I'd like to see Ministers effectively operating like the chair of the Board of a private company, setting general direction AND taking ultimate responsibility, though not getting involved in day-to-day business.
Atlee and Bevin must be turning in their graves.
Do you think 1/18th of the time spent on Williamson has been spent on his Welsh counterpart?
https://twitter.com/Jocar6562/status/1295824674769731586?s=20
The third of the two factors is that teachers are teaching and preparing students better. There is more teaching to the test; extensive use of past papers; and application of psychological research on the importance of active recall, spaced repetition and all that malarkey.
And did I mention rampant grade inflation? For some reason lots of people think that was invented by Gavin Williamson just a couple of days ago.
But if Scotland did leave, I would expect Wales to tighten the bond with England
Two in November.
Break for Christmas, before the REALLY BIG RELAUNCH in January as the Brexit hammer falls.
They could do pooled tests of every department or college on a weekly, or even daily basis. The costs would be pretty low, and the results quick enough to go back and test every individual in a department if infection showed up.
...SalivaDirect does not require any special type of swab or collection device; a saliva sample can be collected in any sterile container. This test is also unique because it does not require a separate nucleic acid extraction step. This is significant because the extraction kits used for this step in other tests have been prone to shortages in the past. Being able to perform a test without these kits enhances the capacity for increased testing, while reducing the strain on available resources. Additionally, the SalivaDirect methodology has been validated and authorized for use with different combinations of commonly used reagents and instruments, meaning the test could be used broadly in most high-complexity labs.
Yale intends to provide the SalivaDirect protocol to interested laboratories as an “open source” protocol, meaning that designated laboratories could follow the protocol to obtain the required components and perform the test in their lab according to Yale’s instructions for use. Because this test does not rely on any proprietary equipment from Yale and can use a variety of commercially available testing components, it can be assembled and used in high-complexity labs throughout the country, provided they comply with the conditions of authorization in the EUA....
The only way to help the disadvantaged is to invest in the future and follow the private schools.
It is upto everyone involved in state education to step up to the plate
New ComRes.
5 pointer.
Oh, wait, she's as useless as the rest of them. My mistake.
https://www.ft.com/content/a28f2708-0db9-4e82-8ed5-45c8b22df4f4
He looked into it in a lot more depth and ended up with a far more nuanced outlook.
According to him, the grade inflation seemed comprised of multiple things:
- Changed teaching methods. The teachers now spent a lot longer on structuring their lessons to optimise different learning techniques and ensure coverage. The work done by teachers outside of lessons is staggering.
- Significantly increased homework and coursework. The pupils genuinely do more work than we did.
- More targeted learning. The Department of Education and Ofqual all set things up so that any time you spent that isn't teaching directly to the test is wasteful and discouraged.
- Improved facilities and teaching media. This feeds into the different learning techniques.
- (At the time): retakes. He was originally extremely skeptical about the value of retakes ("Just keep going until you get the result you want"), but he did a 180 on these ("Any test where luck has enough of a part that you can just try repeatedly until you roll sixes isn't a test that's worth the name"). The retakes reduced the random aspect of sitting tests (One bad day in two years, emotional damage, minor fuckup that ends up changing your life, etc).
- Plus a small element of genuine grade inflation, which was different in different subjects. That, however, was all most people focused on, because it was the easiest to grasp.
Without Googling it can you even name Williamson's Welsh counterpart? The idea that there has been a comparable level of coverage is for the birds.
This has of course been an unmitigated cock-up. Back in the febrile early days of the pandemic people were clamouring for certainty and irrational, knee-jerk decisions were made. People would have been better off being told to put up with uncertainty for a few weeks while better decisions were made.
But yes, the DfE should have advised Williamson that the Ofqual plan was a pile of poo. If exam integrity was the problem, then in my view grade inflation should have been assumed and maybe different grades issued (eg, W, V, X, Y, Z) to make the point they are different from normal. How Universities would have coped with making offers is a moot point, but they have bright people running them and they would arguably have been in no different position to now, only with more time.
It would have been nice if a few options could have been offered and consulted on, but the UK Government isn't allowed to work like that. We like to pretend that our political masters are omniscient and can magically present us with the one perfect answer.
By this point of the 2010-2015 Parliament Labour was already polling seven point leads.
This year and next year are a bit different - there simply must be a significant amount of grade deflation next year as the overall inflation this year was absolubtely whopping.
My big win would have been Buttigieg but I also had a few quid with Biden (I never bought the argument that he was too old to actually win the nomination).
It would be like Gaza with terrible weather but they would have TAKEN BACK CONTROL.
Sky and the BBC are giving more than 18x as much coverage to Williamson etc than they are to the Welsh counterpart. I couldn't even name his Welsh counterpart without Googling it the coverage has been so absent.
Of course, on the BBC News Channel there is plenty of time to broadcast the leaders from all three nations (England doesn't have leaders of course), as an alternative to just repeating the same old shit every hour. I was more talking about short programmes such as the lunchtime, evening and 6 o'clock news
Though Wales voted Leave just like England and was united with England for centuries before Scotland and Ireland joined the Union even if Scotland voted for independence and Northern Ireland for a United Ireland
Look at the BBC annual report and you will see the lengths they go to to try and get balanced coverage between the different nations and regions of the UK, and the metrics they use to track this. It is broadly right and balanced.
(SeanT finding her MILFy doesn't count.)
I've said before that the one saving grace of Trump's foreign policy has been his standing up to the Chinese Communist Party, their exploitation of the global trading system, intellectual property theft, cutting out of cyberspace, mass interstate espionage and their wolf-warrior attitude to diplomacy (in other words: aggression and intimidation) right across the world. We're having conversations about China now that we'd never have done 5 years ago.
It really does speak volumes that you typecast them as state capitalists and then pivot to a critique of free markets (no doubt you can't bring yourself to mention the fact they're actually a communist regime) because you're far more comfortable criticising Western right wing parties than a nasty authoritarian regime that still worships Marx and Lenin and risks using its economic and military dominance to crush freedoms and human rights worldwide.
I am so grateful Corbyn and his acolytes are no longer in charge in the Labour Party. I just hope that Sir Kier Starmer takes a different and more objective view of the world to you now he's in charge and people that think like you are not.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=42&LAB=37&LIB=7&Brexit=2&Green=2&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVBrexit=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=21&SCOTLAB=19&SCOTLIB=6&SCOTBrexit=0&SCOTGreen=0&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=53&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019