Mailwatch(ed) Forum

The future's in good hands.

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2024 3:38 pm Good speech, I wonder if Bridget's a Boardwalk Empire fan?

Just because in one episode Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) makes a similarly styled speech to a temperance society. Goes down a storm.

You think she doesn't mean it?

No, I'm sure she does. I just remarked on the structural and thematic similarities.

More like Cicero and classical Roman rhetoric, I would have thought.

Point, discussion, analysis, repeat.

I thought that it was a gentle, cross-thread piss-take.

Like the one where our correspondent likened an out-of-control, degenerate, radge, and sociopathic group of lunatics who were lawlessly running around their foetid domain to the characters of Trainspotting.

They need to focus a bit on Universities.

I'm lost here.

This week the school I work at gained a gold standard award for its mental health provision. The award is an absolute joke. We paid the awarding body money and sent they shed loads of information and they gave s the award without even visiting the school. To put things into prospective last year 3 members of staff resigned because of stress, at the moment 6 members of staff are off work due to stress, at least three students in Year 11 have not been in school since September because of mental health issues, we also have about half a dozen students in Year 11 who regularly self harm. Most of our mental health provision is provided via are heads of year who are responsible for around 160 pupils at any one time. The only pastoral manager who is trained in helping pupils with mental health issues only works 3 days a week and spends most of her time reacting to issues that have happened when she is not in school.

These awards really are akin to vanity publishing. I really feel sorry any parent who sends their child to a school with a gold award for mental health provision who then discover that the awards are totally meaningless.

Interesting exchanges on this thread. Sam Freedman was a Spad under Gove, but he's pointing out some home truths about academies. (I think curriculum is his thing).

We certainly have lots of visits from Trust Executives and Directors. When we were still under local authority control we had very few visits mainly because the local authority and made most of their advisers redundant. I think Outwood now have 32 schools divided into two regions so in effect each subject director is responsible for around 16 schools so they are able to visit every school at least once a month.

It's that time of year again. Spot what most of these have in common?

It's a long time since I thought about free schools, but I recall this one well. It's closing.

I'm really surprised that Toby Young and Katharine Birbalsingh are not proposing a chain of free schools to provide a safe haven for all the unfortunate pupils who are going to be forced out of their fee paying schools by those nasty socialists.

We were told this week that in normal circumstances we would be looking at redundancies because we are over staffed but the trusts is not making any redundancies until after the election. This seems rather an odd stance given that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have promised to pump lots of extra cash into schools.

Sort of glad to hear Labour talk positively of Universities and not just focused on one area.

It’s been at least 9 years.

satnav wrote: ↑Sun Jun 16, 2024 9:06 pm I'm really surprised that Toby Young and Katharine Birbalsingh are not proposing a chain of free schools to provide a safe haven for all the unfortunate pupils who are going to be forced out of their fee paying schools by those nasty socialists.

We were told this week that in normal circumstances we would be looking at redundancies because we are over staffed but the trusts is not making any redundancies until after the election. This seems rather an odd stance given that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have promised to pump lots of extra cash into schools.

Almost like it was never about the kids, and always about the money, and building up a public profile. "Educator and founder of the FSN", or "Britain's strictest headteacher" are so much better straplines than "Opinionated (and connected) twat".

For those in the business or interested, there has been a survey on Ofsted.


91% of respondents said it wasn't fit for purpose.

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/gener ... confidence

Interesting that Birbalsingh chose, and even seemed to delight in, the description of ‘strictest head’. Because how strict you are says nothing to ability to teach, or manage a school, or inspire, or even personal experience or knowledge. It doesn’t even say whether what rules you have are reasonable and fair, just how harshly and inflexibly you enforce them.

But then, if all you really wanted was for everyone else to shut up I suppose you would see it as an asset rather than a very big red flag.

Not even that. Coming up with stupid rules and enforcing them are two different things. Still, plays well with the "bloody kids" brigade.

>sighs<

Charles Clarke - education secretary from 2002-2004, did nothing*, understood less (I worked for him) - has headed a review of Key Stage 3 by OCR (Oxford and Cambridge and RSA exam board).

It contains the following nuggets of insight and educational expertise:

The balance of exams and assessment at secondary school is “completely wrong” and the curriculum is “too backward-looking”

Speaking at a Westminster Education Forum event today, Mr Clarke also said that the secondary school curriculum needed to be more forward-looking and contemporary in order to engage students.

the key stage 3 years, for students aged 11 to 14, should be “focused more rigorously on building the foundational skills, particularly in maths and English”. This would help students to move forward successfully to future study at KS4

”We feel the curriculum itself has been too backward-looking and it needs to be more forward-looking, first and foremost, to engage the interests of students themselves.”

He suggested that a more forward-looking curriculum would include more content on areas such as digital skills, climate change and sustainability. (spoiler - it already does...)

He said the review has concluded that maths should be described instead as “mathematical and data education”, to better incorporate foundational mathematical skills.

Mr Clarke added that English could similarly be defined more widely to include a “range of language and presentational skills”, and this approach could then be extended out to the humanities and sciences.

In other words a smorgasbord of educational clichés and no genuine proposals on how such skills might be taught and the implications for the national curriculum. More of the same from Clarkey, I'm afraid.


*That's not entirely true. He did manage to overturn the DfES policy on healthy eating and had fried bread reinstated to the Sanctuary Buildings canteen breakfast menu.

Curriculum to be split into "Thinky" and "Presenty", with a compulsory amount of "Sporty" thrown in.