1 October 2018
On Friday, Head Teachers from around the country marched on Downing Street to demand ministers stop treating them like fools. They delivered a letter to Chancellor Philip Hammond claiming that they are being subject to unsustainable funding cuts.
The letter said that ministers' claims that schools are receiving more money then ever before and that there are more teachers being recruited than ever before is, in reality, incorrect
In reply a Department for Education spokeswoman came out with the standard useless platitude, I apologise if that is tautology, and said: “There is more money going into schools than ever before, rising to a record £43.5 billion by 2020”, thereby proving that they are actually treating all of us as fools.
Such a statement as above is stupid on at least two counts. Firstly there may well be more money going into schools but what is it being used for or on what is it allowed to be spent. Secondly there are more pupils around each year and so in order to just stand still, more money is needed.
To help out any DfE person reading this can I explain that last point, hypothetically. I am given £100 to look after ten children. Great. A year later I am given £150 to look after twenty kids. The giver of funds can claim to be giving more money that I have ever been given but I am now getting £7.50 per child instead of £10 per child. By the way this ridiculous statement about more money than ever also applies to our health budget. We have more older people needing more treatment, more care and more expense than ever before so just claiming we are increasing the health budget to a higher than ever level is meaningless.
The first point is, in my opinion, just as useless. Head teachers will tell you, and let's face it they know more than anyone else, that in order to financially survive they are having to increase class sizes, cancel extra curricular activities, lay off support staff, axe subjects and use the Pupil Premium fund, which is meant for supporting the most vulnerable pupils, to prop up school budgets.
Either this wonderful increase of funding is not enough to allow for more pupils than before, is not directed to the right areas or the government are talking nonsense. Or, all three, but only a fool would think that.
5 October 2018
It would appear that my last blog was slightly inaccurate. The Department for Education were not treating us all as fools. They were demonstrating that they
were fools or possibly a little bit naughty with the truth.
It seems the figure given as the record amount being spent on education includes tuition fees paid by students and public schools fees paid by parents. It would
be like you telling your children the amount of money you spent on their upbringing includes the amount spent by relations on their birthday and Christmas presents and
the amount of their money they paid you for housekeeping once they had a job.
So that this blog is more accurate I wish to state that, in my opinion, the Department of Education are telling lies. I gather the matter will now be investigated by
the UK Statistics Authority, the watchdog which prevents the misleading use of figures.
The department, in defending the figures, claimed that there were other international comparisons showing the UK had high levels of spending on schools. They said,
"The most informative OECD statistic on school funding is that in 2015 among G7 nations, the UK government spent the highest percentage of GDP on institutions
delivering primary and secondary education". Based on their previous (mis)use of statistics we can assume this money was spent on making any gardens look pretty, putting up
banners saying a school was outstanding and sweeping up leaves in autumn, clearing snow in winter and watering any grass in a summer drought. The idea they would spend more
money on children's actual learning opportunities would be as foolish as to believe any statistic they throw at us.
12 October 2018
I decided that, in order to assuage my grumpiness at Brexit and show how pointless it all is, I would just re-post my upload from March 30th 2016.
March 30
Voting for the impossible
I like to think I’m an intelligent chap. I like to think I’m athletic too but on the intelligence matter age has not wearied me.
In just under three month’s time we are all being given the chance to decide to remain in Europe or leave Europe. Our lovely Prime Minister, while telling us we should stay, has nevertheless graciously said we can ignore his advice if we want. Or has he?
If the former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell is to be believed then little David is wasting all our time, a lot of government money and telling porkies. Apparently, according to his Lordship EU rules are such that under the process set out in the Lisbon Treaty, a nation has two years to complete a deal once it formally declares that it will withdraw from the EU.
This, Lord O’Donnell says, is impossible. We can ask for extra time but this is only granted if everyone else agrees. There is, says his Lordship and he should know, a Cabinet Office paper which suggests it could take up to a decade, which, of course, it can’t because the rules say two years.
So, in my simple, though intelligent, mind we are being asked to choose between two possibilities, one of which is impossible. I think this is called democracy or maybe idiocracy.
Simples and I take no pride in writing this so long ago.
22 October 2018
It's my view that school, and education, should prepare young people for their future, their working life. Obviously the acquisition of knowledge is important and in their later school life that knowledge can be more specialised. However they need to learn other skills, social skills, to help them in the world of work and indeed adult life.
I am slightly disturbed that Ninestiles School in Acocks Green, Birmingham has decided that from Monday 5th November “students will move around the building in silence during change over times,” according to a letter sent to parents. This will mean (haha) “students arrive calmly and ready to learn and staff can give out any information they need to swiftly and easily.”
In a break with normal detention camp procedure, pupils will be able to speak to each other in designated areas at break and lunch times. Any pupil breaking the silence rule will receive a 20 minute detention and their punishment will escalate for further offences although the school has not specified the rate of escalation.
I assume that detention will be in solitary confinement so any loquacious, or normal, pupil could soon be spending the whole day in silent, solitary exclusion.
Ninestiles is rated outstanding by Ofsted, which tells you something about Ofsted too. If, as I stated at the start, we are preparing the young for adult life then this policy by this school proves, in my mind, that they are not in any way outstanding but are a total failure. Is this normal behaviour in a workplace? Surely showing young people how to know when to talk and when to listen is far better for their learning than imposing prison-like rules on them.
As most young people love to chat to friends then this policy will only build resentment and far from students arriving to lessons ready to learn they will arrive fed up with the place where they should be able to have some fun while learning.
Maybe if all pupils put on clown noses, funny hats and spiked plastic ears when walking between lessons an interesting situation could occur. When asked “why are you dressed like that” they will be unable to answer without breaking school rules. Furthermore, should any student spot a fire or similar danger while walking between lessons, schools will not permit them to tell anyone.
Apparently the school is run by two acting co-headteachers. Should have stuck to acting.
25 October 2018
A new Brexit thought. Luckily the channel tunnel was not built using EU money otherwise we might have to fill it in if we leave with no deal. Having spent the last three or so years listening to our leaders, most of them, and those who think they lead, all of them, spouting on and on about the whole process I am sure we would have more than enough garbage to fill in our half.
29 October 2018
What a delight it was yesterday to listen to that live edition of New Faces, broadcast from the floor of the House of Commons. That new stand-up guy, Phil Hammond, would do better if he didn't surround all his comedy material with mind-boggling figures. Although, on reflection, there were more laughs in his spouting of the figures than in his pathetic attempt at humour.
As an oldie I find it hard to think of budget day without remembering Gerald Nabarro but very few reading this will have any idea of what I mean so let's gloss over that. In those days the budget was held in March as the Chancellor had no need to put in Halloween Jokes.
It turns out today that all the money the Chancellor attempted to pretend he was giving away has actually gone to the NHS, who desperately needed it, and other departments will get no more and some may even have their budget cut. I did find it a little bit of a finger down the throat feeling while this Conservative Chancellor referred to “our” National Health Service and emphasised that by stating, quite correctly, that the NHS had been under Conservative stewardship most of its life. For those who may be unaware the NHS was devised and set up under a Labour government. Since the stewardship of the NHS has left it unable to cope, vastly underfunded, totally unprepared for the modern world, I would have shut up about who had been running it. If, like spreadsheet Phil, you like these things, the NHS, which was 70 years old this year, has operated under a Tory government for 38 years, a Labour government for 27 years and a coalition government for 5 years.
Of course, anybody who has studied statistics (I did) will know that most politicians use them as a type of enhancement to the fairy tale they are telling you. It's a bit like saying that a deal is 95% done. You can be 95% on the way to a deal but a deal is not done until all is agreed. Our own trusty PM has stated that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” so there is no way that a deal can be 95% done although our trusty PM said that too.
Hidden away among all the waffle dear little Phil included the fact that he was writing a cheque for each English school to help them buy the little extra they need. This would amount, he said, to £10,000 for each primary school and £50,000 for each secondary school. What a generous little soul he is. However, from my experience, you only buy the little extras when you have got all the main ingredients. It's no good putting fancy wheel trims on your car that has no engine.
Still I do believe that if you ask him nicely young Phil has a contact who will sell you some watches so, in the case of primary schools, five members of staff can have a lovely new watch as their leaving present when they finally give up trying to help kids learn in an environment that politicians seek to destroy with lack of funding, realms of bureaucracy and general apathy. I'd love to hear Tony Hatch comment on Hammond's performance. Thank goodness he wasn't allowed to bring along his organ. Anyhow, due to PM leaks, I think she had already orchestrated his speech, if not him..........yet.
