[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.