• I’ve just been reading an article in the Times by Sir Bob Balchin, pro-Chancellor of Brunel University, pointing out the futility of the Queen’s Speech guarantee of a right to a “good” education. Isn’t this what the Government promised us in 97 and have spent billions on in the meantime. One paragraph made me gasp.

    Of this country’s 75,000 pupils on free school meals who took A levels last year, only 79 boys earned three A grades and thus a chance to get into of one of the best university courses; by the most stark of contrasts, 175 boys at Eton College gained the same marks.

    How can this be so after twelve years of a government that has micro managed education with such anal precision? The system is broken and needs fixing.

    It looks like SATS may finally disappear – the argument against them is well won. Now it is only time and the need to save political face before they go. I hope that the teacher assessments that replace them are of more use to the education of the individual than the bean-counting mania of politicians.

    Reading and writing skills have deteriorated in the last twelve years. How can this possibly be, with the emphasis we have seen put on Literacy?

    Literacy in primary years should be about reading and writing. But these two skills are hard to neatly tick-box, so grammar and comprehension became the focus of literacy because they are easy to test and rate.

    When did you, I’m assuming you are an adult, last write something – a wedding speech, a letter to the tax man, an office report? Did you conceive, plan, write and edit it in forty-five minutes? Of course not. You took days, thinking, planning, writing, re-writing and editing.

    Why on earth should we test our children’s writing skills on what they can knock out in forty-five minutes? The test only proves that one teacher has managed to train a bunch of monkeys to hit the right buttons on a particular day. It does not test real writing skills. Now they are even talking of essays being marked by computers. Well! Writing is a craft that improves with practice, it is not a trick for churning out appropriate text during an exam.

    Literacy is about being able to read as well. This is achieved by providing great stories and brilliant non-fiction material, by storytelling and inspiring the children to research for themselves – not by analysing abridged texts. Reading is a skill that improves with practice. Who wants to practice with deadly dull texts which may not even have the beginning or the end attached!

    At the moment Britain is educating its children for a sweatshop future. Our children will be the worker monkeys of the world. To stay ahead in a rapidly changing, technological world, we need children to grow up with vision and imagination. Our slide down the international scales of literacy and numeracy is a national scandal.

    It’s time that Education was focused on the education of our children and not the self-engrandisement of here-today and gone-tomorrow politicians. We either need a central body like the Bank of England, divorced from political interference to bring some stability to a system that is giddy from years of turbulence or power and self-determination should be ceded down to those who do the job best – the schools.

  • Dyson vs Mitubishi
    I’m probably turning into a nerd, but I’m a big fan of the Dyson Airblade hand dryer. I first came across one at the Louvre Museum and thought it was brilliant, although I’ve often seen people trying to rub their hands in the air stream when they don’t understand how they work.

    We went to Cardiff today, Christmas shopping. The new shopping centre is wonderful and the new pedestrian route through from the station almost makes it a pleasure to visit. It really was the pits at that end of town before.

    The new John Lewis, their biggest store outside of London, is rather fabulous and they have Dyson Airblades in the toilets – Hooray! the only problem is the yellow gasket, arrowed in red. They are net being cleaned properly and look a bit grubby already even though the store is only eight weeks old.

    However, Marks and Spencers have Mitsubishi Air Towel hand dryers. A little research reveals that the Mitsubishi predates the Dyson by quite a few years.

    But the Dyson wins hands down in this simple comparison. The Mitsubishi isn’t as powerful and doesn’t really scrape the water off. Worse, it blows down the drain and blows back and evil smell of drains. maybe it isn’t installed properly, but I’m with the Dyson.

  • I spent the morning with my year five class at Whitchurch School, yesterday (notice that “my” class!). We tried to get this blog up on the whiteboard, but wordpress.com is blocked at county level – so is YouTube. Beth, the year five teacher, told me they can’t even access BBC wildlife videos.

    We all know that there is a lot of unsavoury stuff out there on the internet, but at least the teachers should be trusted to choose appropriate sites to put up on the whiteboard. Block the sites, but at least give a password key for teachers to access the complete network.

    Man’s ingenuity has created the greatest educational resource in the whole of history – so what does the educational establishment do? It bans access to it!

    I know that children should be kept safe on the internet but to ban them from the source of knowledge… when you think about it, it is really quite scandalous.