[satnav]

I understand that the Tories have now introduced an apprenticeship scheme for young people wanting to become nurses. Whilst on one hand I can see how this will appeal to people who want to get into nursing but don't want to go to university on the other hand I can see how it is likely to cause quite a few problems in the long-term.

My daughter is currently studying to be a midwife and she is nearly halfway through her course. She had to work very hard to get her 'A' levels and getting on a university course took a number of interviews etc. Because she has to do a lot of travelling when she is on placement we have bought her a car and paid her insurance. By the time she completes her course she will have over £30,000 of debt. Nurses on the apprenticeship scheme are being paid while they are training and most of them will live at home so will probably end up qualifying with no debt at all. This is clearly going to cause a great deal of resentment in the future.

It is also not very clear when these apprentice nurses will actually become qualified nurses but in the meantime the government could well class them as nurses just to make their figures look good.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Looks like government by talking point. "Nurses don't need fancy qualifications, just need to be caring". How can they possibly get the same in depth knowledge?

[Bones McCoy]

This looks like another aspect of looming privatisation.
A de-skilling of the workforce, and the qualifications necessary to work in the sector.

Graduate Nurses have access to a far greater career structure than their predecessors.
They also manage many tasks that were previously restricted to doctors.

Lose the graduate nurse, ad you'll need to recruit lots more doctors (who don't exist).

[satnav]

They have also done the same with the police force by saying new recruits don't need a degree and it has also been creeping into teaching with schools using cover supervisors to deliver lesson rather than trained teachers and many of the academy chains are pushing ahead with schemes that allow prospective teachers to train on the job rather than doing a degree and a PGCE.
In the short-run it allows the government to boost figures but in the long -run it is likely to lower standards.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It's what the upper middle class Tory bastards think of as prole jobs. No need for qualifications, anyone can do it...

[Bones McCoy]

And to continue, I'v seen the longer term results.

Hire lower-qualified, but cheap staff.
The job gets done - mostly.
And when it doesn't it goes unnoticed for a while - until you get a headline case.

So you hire more PR staff (pen pushers) to calm the public and explain that this is normal.
And you have to cut the frontliners (fewer or cheaper) because of your spend on image management.
But that's OK, because you know the image management people from school - a nice aspirational school.

So then the remaining professional frontliners assess their options, less competent colleagues, and a squeeze on hours and conditions.
People leave, churn begins, backfill with less qualified types and the incidents mount.

There's a risk here of circling the drain unless a major structural reassessment occurs.
(Beware the siren calls for a private sector solution).

[Watchman]

But I thought they were over subscribed due to “boat children”

Primary schools in London ‘may need to merge or close’ as intakes dwindle
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... SApp_Other

[Malcolm Armsteen]

There are 2115 primary schools in London.
The fall in pupils is equal to 243 forms of entry...

This is about the powers of local authorities to regulate entry to Academies amongst other things.

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/prima ... il-numbers

[Yug]

I wonder how many head teachers/school managers are totally unaware of the fact that clothes do not make a person, and non uniform compliant clothes do not affect a child's ability to learn?

Female pupils say they have been left "humiliated" over enforcement of a uniform policy at a Merseyside school.

Girls have been made to enter Rainford High School in St Helens separately to boys and have had their skirt length inspected by male teachers, they claim.

Hundreds of pupils staged a protest against how rules, which have left some pupils in tears, have been imposed.

The school has not commented directly on the inspections but said it has a "clear policy" on uniforms in place.

More than 1,000 people have signed a petition against the policy with some calling it "outdated" and "ridiculous".

Tony, a parent who has complained about the treatment of his daughter, said: "When pupils returned after half term, they lined girls up and examined their skirts and told them, 'Yours is suitable, yours is not'.

"It was humiliating. My daughter was so upset about it."...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... e-64743377

Some people really do need a short sharp lesson on what schools are for and why children go to them.

Hint: it's nothing to do with power-trips for adults.

[Andy McDandy]

Terry Pratchett nailed it.

Sin, young man, is when you treat people as things.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

There are justifications for a dress code in schools, but none for a uniform. It is, as you say, about control.

But parents buy into it, and it would be a brave school that abolished it now.

Many years ago I was a governor at the local boys' grammar (the one that expelled me). In a meeting the head announced that he would change the uniform requirements for the v-neck sweater (!) from 'light blue' to 'blue'.

Instant (Pratchettesque) meltdown by the parent governors - what was 'blue'? Wouldn't some pupils have light blue and others dark blue? How blue is 'blue' - for an hour...

Whilst the staff merely smirked.

[Yug]

I have no argument with school uniforms. I wore them without complaint for long enough. My beef is with the tinpot hitlers who make ridiculous rules and enforce them rigidly.

What does it matter if the bottom of the trouser legs are a centimetre too high above the tops of the shoes?* Why should anyone care if the jumper is charcoal instead of the regulation black?

I think we're in agreement on this. It's the pea-brained inadequates on power-trips that's the problem, not the clothes themselves.


I remember posting about the "too-short trouser-legs" before. The story I linked to at the time merely showed that the headmaster in question wasn't fit to be in a position of authority over children. And he isn't the only one.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Schools should concentrate on their main purpose and the wellbeing of kids, not their pants.

[Bones McCoy]

Schools should concentrate on their main purpose and the wellbeing of kids, not their pants.

I understand there's a fair bit of cashflow associated with supplying obscure and liveried uniforms.

Google for stories of Academies requiring straw hats in summer with school approved ribbons.
Or for gym bags bearing the school crest.

[Andy McDandy]

I've written about this issue on here and on the old site a few times. It's a massive scam.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

And toilets. WTAF?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 89018.html

School students across the country are protesting over changes to the pupils’ use of toilet facilities during class time.

Protests are understood to have taken place at schools in Cornwall, Leeds, North Yorkshire, South Essex and Lincolnshire.

Students at Penrice Academy in Cornwall have allegedly been flipping tables in protest at the new changes which mean that pupils can only use the bathroom outside of lesson time and girls must request red card passes when they are on their period.

Why can't these inadequates in charge of academies get the idea that those people sat in the classrooms are just that, people?

[Bones McCoy]

And toilets. WTAF?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 89018.html

School students across the country are protesting over changes to the pupils’ use of toilet facilities during class time.

Protests are understood to have taken place at schools in Cornwall, Leeds, North Yorkshire, South Essex and Lincolnshire.

Students at Penrice Academy in Cornwall have allegedly been flipping tables in protest at the new changes which mean that pupils can only use the bathroom outside of lesson time and girls must request red card passes when they are on their period.

Why can't these inadequates in charge of academies get the idea that those people sat in the classrooms are just that, people?

Cornwall - twinned with Alabama?

[Yug]

And toilets. WTAF?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 89018.html

School students across the country are protesting over changes to the pupils’ use of toilet facilities during class time.

Protests are understood to have taken place at schools in Cornwall, Leeds, North Yorkshire, South Essex and Lincolnshire.

Students at Penrice Academy in Cornwall have allegedly been flipping tables in protest at the new changes which mean that pupils can only use the bathroom outside of lesson time and girls must request red card passes when they are on their period.

Why can't these inadequates in charge of academies get the idea that those people sat in the classrooms are just that, people?

I feel reasonably certain that this is barely scratching the surface of the deep levels of fuckwittery being perpetrated in our schools right now.

@Bones McCoy There are six areas listed in that article. If it's happening in six, it's probably happening in others - they just haven't made national headlines yet. So no. Cornwall =/= Alabama. Just reflecting other parts of England.

[Yug]

Meanwhile, in Hull...

Schoolchildren gathered outside Kingswood Academy this morning, to protest strict uniform rules branded as 'ridiculous'.

Children as young as year seven and eight were seen chanting "we want change" outside the school gates throughout the morning - a move widely supported by parents. Mums and dads were quick to praise the participating children and shared their experiences of them allegedly being punished for wearing a bobble on their wrist or being sent to isolation for having a 'distracting haircut'...

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hu ... 186514.amp

This isn't the first time I've seen mention of children being punished because of their hair. Though it is the first time from Yorkshire.

The government will have to impose a strict vetting process on adults applying for jobs in schools to weed out those who believe "authority" and "power" are the same thing, or the situation we're seeing now is only going to get worse.

[Bones McCoy]

Meanwhile, in Hull...

Schoolchildren gathered outside Kingswood Academy this morning, to protest strict uniform rules branded as 'ridiculous'.

Children as young as year seven and eight were seen chanting "we want change" outside the school gates throughout the morning - a move widely supported by parents. Mums and dads were quick to praise the participating children and shared their experiences of them allegedly being punished for wearing a bobble on their wrist or being sent to isolation for having a 'distracting haircut'...

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hu ... 186514.amp

This isn't the first time I've seen mention of children being punished because of their hair. Though it is the first time from Yorkshire.

The government will have to impose a strict vetting process on adults applying for jobs in schools to weed out those who believe "authority" and "power" are the same thing, or the situation we're seeing now is only going to get worse.

It certainly sounds as though Constable Savage switched career into headmastering.