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Heart of Oak – politicalbetting.com
Heart of Oak – politicalbetting.com
In my previous header, I referred to teacher shortages, and noted they are about to get much worse. This is an explanation of that remark and why I think it’s Phillipson’s fault.
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This isn’t a subject on which I can comment with any knowledge, expertise or information.
*Thinks about yesterday’s thread*
*Gets popcorn*
What I’m increasingly thinking is it probably doesn’t matter much who the SoS is, it’s the system itself that is the issue. That’s where I’d certainly start looking if I wanted genuine reform, rather than faffing around with reviews and payment systems.
The boot is on the other foot now, and Labour get to promote what they think matters in terms of culture and history. Wasn't it the Jesuits who said "give me the boy before the age of 7, and I will give you the man"
It’s the old problem of how do you lift a plank while you’re standing on it?
Let parents, teachers and schools choose what is important, not the central government.
But we’re* not.
So we won’t.
*As a nation.
Is that a lot? i used to do guest lecturing which would have given me numbers like that though occupying just a few days a year. If yours was full time did you have problems holding down your jobs?
Some were part time, most were full time.
Interestingly none of them involved being a manager in my parents’ firm…
FPT: It's a test case for her, as to whether she is a serious politician or not.
Will she double down on oppositionalism, or we she work across party to address questions which she and her fellow ministers, and others from her party before her, failed to address.
Imo it probably *requires* a cross-party response.
If Kemi and the Conservatives are the party of the pensioners, as they seem to think, then she needs to address the issue of social care.
If Kemi wants a more rapid response, then let her put forward her proposals - she already has multiple lots of ideas that he party proposed then ran away from. Imo shit-slinging won't cut it.
Why Musks love in with Tommy Robinson presents a problem for Farage
Has increasing the run length by a factor of 3-5 made it more flabby, or introduced too much padding, in your view?
Not to be prepared for decision and action on coming into government feels like a major fail for Labour.
Labour are in government for another 4+ years and they have kicked it into the long grass
It does need party concensus but in the present climate that is not an option
A minister in Dumfries was preaching on the text of 'love thy neighbour.' 'Who is our neighbour? Our neighbour is the Turk, the Mussulman, the Chinaman, the Frenchman, the American, for the whole world is our neighbour.'
Pauses.
'Aye, even the very Englishman is our neighbour.'
Not sure if Malc would agree?
(That was a joke told by a former Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church.)
incidentally it’s also morphed from a platform with some of the worst human authored prose around to being infested by the worst AI generated prose.
My wife was a primary teacher for a couple of decades, and I was a school governor for about half that time.
What little knowledge I have tends to confirm @ydoethur 's judgments.
It offers a view of generative AI that it will continue to impact some areas of employment, but that we have now hit a period of diminishing returns and it will fail to have the widespread impacts enthusiasts have predicted.
Plus, I'm an expert on education which would rule me out straight away.
“Tommy” appears to have something of an American fan club, his supporters have done an apparently good job of getting his name known over there as someone who stands up for free speech, as opposed to someone who has nearly caused a number of trials to be abandoned and is in prison for disobeying a court order to stop libelling people.
It's currently 1C here at the top of North Notts.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YLLhJ_zD48A
I was in full mountain boots with soles designed for maximum grip, and I still fell once (fortunately without doing any damage).
Doesn't look much better today.
Caring for both vulnerable adults AND children now eats up vast amounts of local Government expenditure but to simply “nationalise” the whole process via a National Care Agency will be hugely problematic for local councils as care isn’t just about the recipients of that care but the places and mechanisms by which that care is delivered, both in terms of accommodation and finances.
When I read your stuff you reminded me of my father who taught too long, fought the good fight too long and late in life discovered new joy and energy outside of teaching, exams etc.
Just a thought. Life’s too short.
That doesn't mean the stupidity and incompetence of what I see left behind me doesn't still exasperate me. What is especially frustrating is that we could have a much better education system if only the centre would stop doing so much damn meddling, which wouldn't even cost us any more money, and we never get it (part 3 is on this).
I may, in a few years, go into a different sector entirely, and I've done some exploring of a couple of options. But the truth is as an intellectual exercise I actually really enjoy teaching and I am very good at it. My results consistently suggest I was among the top 1% of teachers in the country for value added, which tells me I was doing something right.
But at the moment I'm pretty happy with where I am.
And of course, I have complete freedom to snipe from the sidelines now.
(To explain that 'Dymock' is an anglicisation of 'Tŷ Moch' - pig sty.)
Good header.
Most countries have some form of national curriculum. It kinda goes with national exams.
Which countries have the least insane curriculum?
I think many expected a short period of honest and competent government from this one, but it seems they expected too much.
WRT the header, I expect plenty in authority see nothing problematic with paying teenagers for sex.
If it turns in to a "civil war" of kind on the streets of our Towns and Cities and our Properties; Cultures , Emergency Services and actual fabric of our democracy is put under threat, where does she think (I discount Farage as he is 100% a political opportunist that is his sole policy) that is going to leave her in the eyes of the vast majority of Public Opinion.
THE UK at WAR, and this will be a war, have absolutly no doubt has an inbuilt tendency to support the DEMOCRATICALLY elected Government - whether they are popular or NOT....All she will do is to turn the Tory Party in to Reform / Fascist Light!
The moderate One Nation wing of the Tory Party will 100% no doubt split and seek to take her and her zealots down!
The Mail / Telegraph / Express will revert to type and support the Fascists and we are potentially looking at this Country being targetted and attacked as never before from MAGA / MUSK and trojan horses and Traitors within....
Starmer showed real leadership and balls in August and can do so again.
His first move should be to speak to the Germans and French - equally threatened by Musk and to formulate a plan to neuter him!
Why does SYL hold such a thrall over some people? Because (a) there is a kernel of truth in his analysis before he pivoting off into "and the solution is deport the muslims", and (b) his presentation is just slick enough to enthral morons.
Farage knows that offering up kernels of truth and then pivoting off into "lets abolish the NHS" will win a lot of votes. But he also knows that SYL and the other hardcore racists will lose him votes. And yet his boss President Musk just wants to agitate. How do you tell the new boss that he needs to be nuanced, when his movement is about rile up the mob and watch them tear it all down?
Here's the YouGov figures after his riots stupidity. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/50340-elon-musks-favourability-remains-unchanged-after-the-riots-but-xs-reputation-continues-to-decline
Now you might argue his interventions would improve his standing but it seems vanishingly unlikely given the ham-fisted, moronic nature of them. Popular with Robinson and his goons maybe, who themselves are among the most hated people in Britain. I think it unlikely them having a cringeworthy billionaire fanboy going through some kind of mental meltdown and getting dangerously close to going full neo-Nazi is changing these things.
As for 20 Labour councillors defecting, you'd rather they didn't - but isn't it a typical internal Labour row about who gets to stand? Not a happy party, but not the disaster you're making out.
Two thirds of its supporters believe the last parliamentary election (which they unsurprisingly lost badly) was fraudulent, and nearly 80% say his declaration of martial law was legitimate.
https://www.sisajournal.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=320203
But just because we have exams doesn't mean we need a prescriptive national curriculum underpinning them.
To take one (admittedly extreme) example, I taught History using this exam board:
https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/history/gcse/history-8145/specification
There are 140 different combinations there that can lead to a GCSE. I carefully chose ones that represented the best blend of my own knowledge and interests and what would be of interest to the children. Then, with the other teachers, we walked back matching our teaching from Year 3 (this was a private school) to what would build them up to this curriculum while still allowing loads of room for fun stuff along the way.
The result bore not the slightest resemblance to Gove's curriculum (we never even mentioned Magna Carta or the Civil War) but it was fantastically successful. It was varied, it was interesting, and it was a genuinely worldwide curriculum that covered every continent except South America.
And - it was very closely aligned to what the children wanted to know about.
There's every reason to say certain subjects need to be taught. No quarrel with saying there needs to be Maths, English, PE, RSE, sport etc. But to have prescriptive topics within that subject is a bad idea. It's stifling and damaging.
And that's what (as @Foxy rightly notes) Thatcher intended, Blair made worse and Labour seem to intend again.
To his credit, Gove understood that this wasn't a good idea, but the cynical and partial way he went about trying to remove it has, ultimately, proved self-defeating.
Comps focus on the percentage getting 5 A to Cs (or whatever it is now). And then we complain when the top jobs are dominated by the privately educated.
It’s one thing to be ‘none of the above’, but very different to be hanging around with a bunch of mostly very racist thugs.
There are a few issues:
1) There's a lazy belief (including among too many teachers, incidentally) that the top end don't need as much teaching as the lower end. Actually, my experience is the ablest need more, because they go much faster than everyone else. What they don't need is quite so much personal attention, which isn't the same thing at all.
2) There is a lot of focus on the bottom end - which again is not illogical, as they need additional support - but a lot of it (and here I think is where your point comes in) is about getting them past exams rather than actual helping them become good at something.
That is a function of our system and the way it's set up to pass exams and be defined by various league tables, which comes with major drawbacks.
If I could think of an easy way of introducing a better system I would put it forward. But unfortunately there's no such thing as a perfect system. While our exams are poor (and reforms were horrendously botched) now they've bedded in a bit they are at least a consistent measure of what's happening.
I far more involved in the social care system than I would like to be, to say the least.
This will be an exercise in spending three or four years gathering evidence of what everyone already knows i.e. social care is on its knees, and then any attempt at finding a way to fund it going forward will be conveniently kicked until past the 2029 GE when it will now likely be Farage's problem.
For me, my comp and sixth form college turned me into an exam killing machine (shouldn’t complain about that!) but failed me badly in terms of what to do with that after 18.
Until the mid 90s it was usual as an academic to walk into a job and stay there.
That is no longer the case. The pace is hotter, the rewards are less, and permanent contracts are handed out rather reluctantly. Also, following Gove's reform to Russell Group many permanent contracts have turned out to be very impermanent. So most of my former colleagues have taught in several more than that - I can think of one who's on his fourth university and another who's on his fifth.
In teaching, it isn't seen as great for career progression to stay on one school. You are generally expected, to advance to SLT, to have taught in at least two and most of them quite like three. This is based on the belief that it widens your perspective and allows you to be more innovative (which may be true). The old days of starting as a rookie and advancing to Head all within the same school have largely disappeared.
If course it doesn't support some media to reflect that fact
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389668
Investigators at the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) called off their attempt to detain President Yoon Suk Yeol, Friday, after hours of confrontation with security service staff and thousands of his supporters, who tried to block their efforts.
Citing safety concerns amid rising tensions, the CIO called off its plan to enforce a court warrant to detain Yoon for his brief imposition of martial law last month.
"We halted the enforcement of the arrest warrant at around 1:30 p.m. due to safety concerns, as it seemed impossible to carry it out amid the confrontation," the CIO stated in a release shortly after retreating. "Follow-up plans will be decided after review. We express serious regret over the suspect's refusal to comply with legally established procedures."
The deadline for the warrant is Monday, putting the CIO in a difficult position as it must decide whether to make another attempt, amid the risk of violent clashes with the defiant president and his supporters...
The situation is extremely volatile.
Six of the (now) eight constitutional court members need to confirm his impeachment, or it fails.
At which point another coup attempt is far from impossible.
There's a lazy belief (including among too many teachers, incidentally) that the top end don't need as much teaching as the lower end.
This.
I sent my youngest to a primary where the head’s philosophy was precisely against this.
Because my eldest daughter had got bored in lessons - finish the work early, nothing to do…
It would be nice if governments left education alone, let a thousand flowers grow and then let parents choose an education and school that works for them but, sadly, the ideology in the sector is beaten only by that in health.
From all I hear, it's not quite the same now (although I only really hear rumours) but it's what would work if we had a centre willing to let go.
To give a different example in England, one exam board for History has all of its GCSE historic sites and therefore trip opportunities in London. Why? Because all the people writing the course lived in London...
We went with AQA instead, which picked sites all over the country and sent us a list of similar alternatives we could visit if we wished. Which, being north of Birmingham, was fantastic.
So someone starting out now, looking at a career from 25 to 75, is looking at 10-15 jobs.
My only concern is how solid is Starmer. As you say he was excellent against the fascist riots-his biggest achievement- but whether he has a vision of the wider picture I'm not sure. The next few months will tell.
Ironically, if you don't get numbers into Oxbridge it hurts you in the international market.
He's latching on the extreme Right Political and non political Groups across Europe.
He can therefore as a cult be made to go away.
Simple economic sanctioning of all of his businesses and social media
Banning him from EU and UK
If he continues to be a threat then add him to the sort of list Bin Laden was on.
I'd argue he increasingly poses a greater threat to Western Democracy than Bin Laden
He is a like a rampant cancer, western democracy is the body and have no doubt he can ravage it.
Don't define him by nationality, religion, political extremity. Classify him by what he is... A one man global threat poisoning minds
Of course, this isn't true, and actually risks a backlash that could set liberalism backwards, but they're either too far gone to see that or don't care because this is really about ingratiating themselves with their peers.
It was indeed put as an argument against their selection; I argued we should be appointing the best candidate.
Your comment on the Telegraph is particularly inept, in view of their headline warning to Farage this morning of not associating with Tommy Robinson as previously referred to
Kemi has already taken on Farage and will distance herself from the hard right
I learned that success was purely academic, and based on passing exams, only to learn- to my horror- it was actually about people skills, which nobody ever taught me.
And they still don't.
Now PB Tories are a rump of what they once were, but as a grouping most of them now mirror the Corbynites - their hatred of Labour is so blind, so total, that they deserve to be on Prevent's Brownshirt watch - not active neo-Nazis or anything like today but, come the brownshirt revolution, quite susceptible to falling into line.
So, perhaps with these analytics, Musk is right and Farage is wrong -the basic rump right are already so far down the rabbit hole that his message will hit home.
Terrible though Muslim bombers and this generation of care home abusers are, the Momentum of Labour haters led by Republican expulsionists is the clearest, most present danger to ripping asunder the fabric of British society and to my own and my family's life because they seek to become once more the establishment. They seek damage in a way that no dodgy Labour tax rise can hope to replicate.
Yes, the greatest threat to British society now is not Muslim suicide bombers but PB Tories.
I try not to be a Tory hater, I have little trick with the Fatchtarati, and I am massively saddened to come to the point where I'm concluding this.
One of the basic problems when discussing education is that everyone has been to school and therefore everyone has a view. That might not be so bad, but it's exacerbated by the fact that 'everyone', apart of course from teachers, has only one experience of education, their own, and this colours their view of both others, and their children's education.
It's similar when discussing social care, for a different reason. Very few, especially of the great and good, opinion formers and so on, have any experience of social care, especially the lower end of the spectrum.
The result in both cases is that there's a great deal of ill-informed comment on both subjects.
Let's persuade Labour to buy 13 year old Planes Ships, Missiles, scanners, nedecines, tarmac, concrete etc shall we.
I mean it's only 13 years old it must be spot on up to date valid
Fact is Labour are additionally funding minor parts of it and other on the shelf reports but completely understandably need to understand the bigger picture now not from 2011.
Another fact Oppositions cannot fund or resource this kind of research in opposition so pureile comments about preparation are just that... Pathetic
When ‘diversity’ moves from ‘treat everyone equally’, to ‘no white men allowed’ and ‘there are 45 genders our drag queens want to talk about with your toddler’, it’s not really surprising.
Sometimes the two are conflated, but it's not true. Farage is a pub bore but not a fascist - he's terribly indisciplined, ranty, prickly, and disorganised - but he's not a fascist.
It should be noted he doesn't agree with zero asylum claims or no immigration whatsoever, and he's ejected EDL and BNP people before.