The Tories’ apparent commitment to a Pupil Premium is totally meaningless unless extra money is put in. Without this money, many schools will see their budgets cut.
This will be even more devastating at a time when public spending will be squeezed, especially as the Tories are already targeting the Education budget for cuts.
It is nonsense to give "freedoms" to some schools, but deny them to others. The Tories' plans to simply rely on the market, without any accountability or local oversight will fail and will have little impact in the vast majority of schools.
Worse still, both the Labour and Tory obsession with academies will mean an eventual end to state education as we know it and a fragmentation that will lead to chaos.
We must enure every child gets an excellent education, not just a lucky few.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Monday, 11 January 2010
Jennie Lee would be spinning in her grave
One of my many complaints about this Labour government and their dozen years in government has been their paucity of imagination, and general timidity in opposing vested interests.
One area in which that is most glaringly obvious is Tony Blair's oft-quoted maxim "education, education, and education". Whether it is in the primary, secondary, or tertiary sector.
Despite record spending, one-in-three schools are failing to provide pupils with a good education. Almost one-in-three 11-year-olds fail to reach basic standards in English and maths. More than half of all pupils fail to achieve 5 A*-C grades (inc. maths and English), and one-in-seven leaves school without a single C grade.
To quote our schools spokesperson David Laws who last year said, "These shocking figures reveal the true extent of Labour's failure in education... It is these young people, let down by Labour, who are now likely to be bearing the brunt of the recession".
In the tertiary sector, the introduction and maintenance of "top-up" fees despite the 2001 Labour manifesto promise of, "no plans to introduce University top-up fees", is counterproductive and not only saddles students with massive debts but disproportionately discriminates against those from poorer socio-economic classes.
All of which is ironic on the anniversary of the awards of the first degrees by the Open University in 1973.
The OU was (and remains) a truly remarkable organisation based on radical principles of bringing education to "the masses" following on in a direct line from the Mechanics Institutes, to the WEA, and night schools.
The OU was founded in 1969, inspired by the vision of Michael Young, under the aegis Jennie Lee, with the full co-operation of the BBC.
When the Tories were elected in 1970 they cut its budget having earlier called the whole idea "blithering nonsense".
Hmmm, sound familiar?
We Lib Dems are the only party that believes university education should be free and everyone who has the ability should be able to go there and not be put off by the cost.
One area in which that is most glaringly obvious is Tony Blair's oft-quoted maxim "education, education, and education". Whether it is in the primary, secondary, or tertiary sector.
Despite record spending, one-in-three schools are failing to provide pupils with a good education. Almost one-in-three 11-year-olds fail to reach basic standards in English and maths. More than half of all pupils fail to achieve 5 A*-C grades (inc. maths and English), and one-in-seven leaves school without a single C grade.
To quote our schools spokesperson David Laws who last year said, "These shocking figures reveal the true extent of Labour's failure in education... It is these young people, let down by Labour, who are now likely to be bearing the brunt of the recession".
In the tertiary sector, the introduction and maintenance of "top-up" fees despite the 2001 Labour manifesto promise of, "no plans to introduce University top-up fees", is counterproductive and not only saddles students with massive debts but disproportionately discriminates against those from poorer socio-economic classes.
All of which is ironic on the anniversary of the awards of the first degrees by the Open University in 1973.
The OU was (and remains) a truly remarkable organisation based on radical principles of bringing education to "the masses" following on in a direct line from the Mechanics Institutes, to the WEA, and night schools.
The OU was founded in 1969, inspired by the vision of Michael Young, under the aegis Jennie Lee, with the full co-operation of the BBC.
When the Tories were elected in 1970 they cut its budget having earlier called the whole idea "blithering nonsense".
Hmmm, sound familiar?
We Lib Dems are the only party that believes university education should be free and everyone who has the ability should be able to go there and not be put off by the cost.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Start formal schooling at six
Just read the pre-pub for the Cambridge Primary Review, looking at primary education in England, thus far fascinating and something that I concur with whole-heartedly.
The report sets out an analysis of the problems and recommends:
* Delaying formal lessons until after a child turns six, to allow them to focus on play-based learning. The government currently plans to bring forward the school starting age from five to four.
* Scrapping Sats and league tables and replacing them with teacher assessments in a wider range of subjects than just the 3Rs, to encourage primaries to focus on the broader curriculum.
* Reviewing the system of general primary teachers to introduce more specialist teachers in history, music, and languages.
Funding should be increased to match that spent in secondaries on extra staffing.
Teachers should have two years post-graduate training, instead of one.
As a parent and school governor I think it's barmy that our children start school so young.
When I was working on mainland Europe children did not start formal learning until they were six, and not only did they not seem to visibly suffer in the overwhelming number of cases they flourished.
I hope that the government start to take the recommendations seriously and start a national debate on primary schooling.
Download the briefing document at http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Downloads/Finalreport/CWE-briefing.pdf to read it yourself.
The report sets out an analysis of the problems and recommends:
* Delaying formal lessons until after a child turns six, to allow them to focus on play-based learning. The government currently plans to bring forward the school starting age from five to four.
* Scrapping Sats and league tables and replacing them with teacher assessments in a wider range of subjects than just the 3Rs, to encourage primaries to focus on the broader curriculum.
* Reviewing the system of general primary teachers to introduce more specialist teachers in history, music, and languages.
Funding should be increased to match that spent in secondaries on extra staffing.
Teachers should have two years post-graduate training, instead of one.
As a parent and school governor I think it's barmy that our children start school so young.
When I was working on mainland Europe children did not start formal learning until they were six, and not only did they not seem to visibly suffer in the overwhelming number of cases they flourished.
I hope that the government start to take the recommendations seriously and start a national debate on primary schooling.
Download the briefing document at http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Downloads/Finalreport/CWE-briefing.pdf to read it yourself.
Monday, 27 July 2009
Curriculum tsar vows to make school more 'business friendly'
Those words in today's Independent sent a chill down my spine. Education is not supposed to provide foot-soldiers for business.
I believe that the job of schools and education in general, is best expounded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in "Emile", namely that all children are perfectly designed organisms, ready to learn from their surroundings so as to grow into virtuous adults.
I really can't take the words of Andrew Hall, the new head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency that seriously, given that he apparently rejected a teaching career for accountancy.
What you need is MORE people in education who love, respect, and cherish children rather than be worried about double entry book-keeping.
Maybe I should send him a copy of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed?
I believe that the job of schools and education in general, is best expounded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in "Emile", namely that all children are perfectly designed organisms, ready to learn from their surroundings so as to grow into virtuous adults.
I really can't take the words of Andrew Hall, the new head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency that seriously, given that he apparently rejected a teaching career for accountancy.
What you need is MORE people in education who love, respect, and cherish children rather than be worried about double entry book-keeping.
Maybe I should send him a copy of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed?
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Chris Woodhead: A modern Mr Gradgrind
Just read an article about Chris Woodhead, former head of Ofsted, and his forthcoming book.
Sorry to hear that he is suffering from motor neurone disease, one of my schoolfriends' mother had it and it was incredibly sad.
However, reading the interview with him in the Guardian, brought back horrible memories of what he and Labour have done to education in this country.
I remember Carry-On-Teacher stories about the time he frolicked with teenage girls in his underpants. How in the spring of 1976 he supposedly confessed to having an affair with one of his sixth formers in Portishead. It's ten years back that he actually said that teacher-pupil relationships could be "experiential and educative".
On top of that, are his antediluvian and regressive opinions on education in general. He asks "Why do we think that we can make [children] brighter than God made [them]?", utter tosh!
Surely that is the whole point of education, to get the best out of each child, to excite, to amaze, to inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity, to teach individuals how to think and how to question what they see and hear.
He also says that "the genes are likely to be better if your parents are teachers, academics, lawyers", this sort of eugenicist nonsense would be laughable if it were not out of the mouth of someone who has been so influential on Labour and Tory educational policy.
Poignantly he says that, "Life isn't fair. We're never going to make it fair".
No, you're wrong Mr Woodhead, our duty is to make the world a much fairer place, rather than entrenchning and worsening that inequality by making money out of private education and endorsing the educational apartheid of grammar schools.
Sorry to hear that he is suffering from motor neurone disease, one of my schoolfriends' mother had it and it was incredibly sad.
However, reading the interview with him in the Guardian, brought back horrible memories of what he and Labour have done to education in this country.
I remember Carry-On-Teacher stories about the time he frolicked with teenage girls in his underpants. How in the spring of 1976 he supposedly confessed to having an affair with one of his sixth formers in Portishead. It's ten years back that he actually said that teacher-pupil relationships could be "experiential and educative".
On top of that, are his antediluvian and regressive opinions on education in general. He asks "Why do we think that we can make [children] brighter than God made [them]?", utter tosh!
Surely that is the whole point of education, to get the best out of each child, to excite, to amaze, to inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity, to teach individuals how to think and how to question what they see and hear.
He also says that "the genes are likely to be better if your parents are teachers, academics, lawyers", this sort of eugenicist nonsense would be laughable if it were not out of the mouth of someone who has been so influential on Labour and Tory educational policy.
Poignantly he says that, "Life isn't fair. We're never going to make it fair".
No, you're wrong Mr Woodhead, our duty is to make the world a much fairer place, rather than entrenchning and worsening that inequality by making money out of private education and endorsing the educational apartheid of grammar schools.
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