[Malcolm Armsteen]

1. I used to do it all the time. Flexible learning in KS3. It's not really hard. Also Philosophy for Kids and Communities of Enquiry.
2. GCSE coursework was good place to display thinking skills, but Cummings/Gove got rid of it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hard man Tom Bennett apparently on his way out of the DfE.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Excellent.

Now get rid of Burble.

[Watchman]

Copyright a BLT contributor in the Guardian

"Shocked to see on the BBC Surrey news section that Woking Borough council leant 13 million pounds to a private school. That’s the Tory council which went bankrupt and the new council now needs to find ways to raise funds. The school has said it is not in a position to repay at the moment. The justification for lending the money was that it would take the pressure of local state schools!!!"

[Killer Whale]

Do they no longer teach school students that overuse of exclamation marks makes you look like a thick mentalist?

[Andy McDandy]

Is a BLT commentator one that's as limp as a lettuce, red faced as a tomato, and thick as a slab of pig meat?

[Watchman]

Is a BLT commentator one that's as limp as a lettuce, red faced as a tomato, and thick as a slab of pig meat?

Whoops!

[satnav]

There does seem to be a lot of bull shit in the right wing media about the fact that there are 100,000 pupils at private schools who have special needs and if the government starts charging VAT all these pupils will end up back in local authority schools. This argument appears to be utter bullshit because very few of these pupils seem to have had formal assessments of their special needs.

The private schools seem to be arguing that these pupils benefit from being in smaller classes, but smaller classes are not the answer in all cases. If students have special needs they need proper assessments and plans put in place to address their needs. In state schools this often involves having support from teaching assistants and interventions to help boost literacy and numeracy skills. A lot of teachers in private schools either don't have teaching qualifications or don't have specific training in dealing with pupils with SEN.

My niece is severely dyslexic she went to a private school for a number of years because her rich granny was happy to pay the fees but when he got to Year 10 when she was about to start her GCSE's the school made it fairly clearly that they no longer wanted her at the school because they were worried that she might affect their 100% pass rate so she ended up swapping schools.

[mattomac]

Of course even if it was true hundreds of thousands of kids don’t get the luck of the lottery, I got University before mine was picked up, I sort of feel proud I got there with Dyslexia but also a bit annoyed of the fact I could have done more with the support.

[Killer Whale]

Most of these SEN kids will be the children of middle class liberals who would dearly love to send them to the local comp, but unfortunately they're "soooooo sensitive". In other words, the only special need in the equation is that of their parents to keep poor little Jeremy away from the kids from the local estate.

[Andy McDandy]

Thankfully we have General Youngo and Kath Wurbleflump to fill that gap.

[Yug]

It's not every day an old friend from primary school outs himself as a bit of a cunt.

A school's policy of giving detentions to top set pupils who score below 90% on maths homework has been described as "overtly cruel" by a parent.

Joseph's son is in Year 7 at Stewards Academy in Harlow, Essex, and scored 13 out of 16 for his maths homework, which is 81%.

"I thought [the detention] was unjustified: I've worked with children and I find trying to foster aptitude through negative reinforcement doesn't really work," he said.

Head teacher Stephen Drew – who appeared on the TV series Educating Essex, external – said the school offered homework support and "the work is set at a level that reflects exactly what they've been taught in the previous week"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75zg47gzp3o

(my bold)

Arbitrary targets like this with punishment for not quite getting there are an excellent way to give kids anxiety about their homework.

When I last saw him nearly 40 years ago Steve was one of the good people. I wonder what went wrong?

[Crabcakes]

Fucking hell. What a terrible idea for a policy.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

That report is bollocks. Written by TWO 'content creators' it obfuscates several key points by using the testimony of 'Joseph' with no critical analysis of what he is saying, or apparently asking any questions of the head - who seems to be a decent sort.

'Joseph' is allowed to completely ignore the fact that Maths classes are setted by ability/performance and work and 'pass marks' are set accordingly. He is allowed to state that it was the low mark alone which led to the detention, when the school said that the homework was not satisfactorily completed. He is allowed to ignore the school's arrangements to help pupils who find the work difficult (homework clubs every day and available teacher support).

The word 'detention' is used freely (on 'Joseph's say-so) but what sort of detention is not defined. It is not uncommon to have mandatory remedial sessions in some subjects, often STEM, and if that is the case here it would put a rather different complexion on things.

There's another way of putting this:

"We will teach you, and then we will give you a number of opportunities to consolidate or build your understanding. f you don't get it, ask, and if you don't understand the homework come to the homework club where a teacher or possibly a librarian will be available to help you. Then we will mark your homework according to criteria that are suitable for your ability range. If you don't meet the criteria we will keep you behind to try to make up the standard or change your behaviour so that you work more effectively."

(And don't leave your homework to the night before so that you have to rely on your Mum - who doesn't know what you are doing - to help. Your dad appears to have fucked off.)

Josephsson's homework was sub-par, and the fact his mother struggled with it is really neither here nor there, he didn't complete it to the required standard. Most schools give some sort of sanction for that...