The 11+ was a eugenics test to weed out genetically "inferior" children, created by a classicist who falsified his research

@FancyBiscuitsLevel There are always historical and financial reasons behind every atrocity and injustice. If we had let that stop us, we would have never progressed. Maybe we shouldn't have abolished slavery, because what about the property rights of those poor slave owners, it wouldn't have been fair to expropriate their assets, right?

The fact remains that we have a state-funded crucial service like education that discriminates based on faith.
That there are historical and financial reasons behind it doesn't make it right.

@Araminta1003 Well if you would like to STALK me across different threads, I already did all of that.

Remembering what someone said to me a few days ago is not stalking. It's not like I looked you up to dig something you had written 20 years ago.

@RingoJuice Most will have to learn the basics before creative thinking can happen. And that requires rote learning.

Up to a point

This was an issue in the US with phonics vs whole word. Basically a whole generation of kids were given suboptimal reading skills because teachers in high positions (who really should have known better) didn’t like rote learning, didn’t respect its necessity, believed it killed love of learning

This example is irrelevant, because the country is full of schools which teach via rote learning what needs to be learnt that way (like irregular French verbs) but don't use that approach for everything.

An example of the kind of rote learning I am criticising was described here

@Araminta1003 The OP probably dislikes the fact that Birbalsingh has compulsory RS at GCSE. They have it in for anything religion related.

As often happens, you are wrong. I actually think it's important for students to learn about the various worldviews, as long as there is no indoctrination

I do not think ParentOfOne has grasped the significance of cancelling the IB funding with just a few days notice to heads before Sixth Form open evenings.

You may have missed that I didn't say much about the IB because I don't know much. I don't know what's happened. If Labour has cancelled something at the very last minute, causing disruption, that's obviously terrible. I was not defending that. I was simply questioning your logic whereby I shouldn't criticise a system whereby 1/3 of state-funded schools are faith schools, are funded by everyone's taxes, yet most of those can discriminate based on faith, but we should all get as worked up as you on something which affects 1-2% of the student population.

I was simply pointing out the inconsistency and the double standards.

But yeah, who cares about this “minority”.

Yet another textbook strawman. I didn't say no one should care about minorities, I was questioning your double standards. See above.

First they came for independent schools
Then they went for academies

Yes, it's all a big conspiracy, isn't it?
Who is doing what to the academies? Claiming "they went for the academies" when ca. 3/4 of secondary schools are academies is quite ridiculous. All I have heard is to increase accountability. Given what happened at Holland Par School, Mossbourne and I can only say: "finally!". But let's remember it's all vague and up in the air

@Araminta1003 On Latin: yet another bad faith strawman.
I have never said that no one should do music and languages.
I have said that defunding Latin is not a hill to die on, but a peak out of touch mumsnet moment.
Had you said it's wrong to defund music and languages to force everyone to do maths I would have agreed with you, but that's not what you had said.

**

@Araminta1003 And further classic gaslighting from the OP on a female (aka Birbalsingh) - “But she quickly lost the plot.”

An intellectually honest person may disagree with me on my criticism of these extremely strict schools, but will recognise that I have criticised all of them, for example in my long thread on Mossbourne. Eg I have criticised the male headteacher of Ashcroft, the school which bans bicycles, and the leadership team of Mossbourne for their press releases, without even knowing their genders, because it's irrelevant.

An intellectually dishonest person ignores all of this and plays the gender card, as if no legitimate criticism were possible.

Thank you for confirming which of the two you are.

@twistyizzy
Yes "yap" is an extremely misogynistic word

If it's true I apologise, but could I please ask you to elaborate?

I have double checked on the Oxford Dictionary, the Collins Dictionary, the Merriam Webster, the online etymology dictionary and other sources, and I have not managed to find any reference that would suggest it is a misogynistic word.

By contrast, I was accused of being "hysterical", which is a patently misogynistic word, without anyone batting an eyelid. Talk about double standards.

@twistyizzy Thank you for confirming all my points.

I have a problem with unsubstantiated bs, and with the tendency of the bs advocates to deflect.

I criticised the concept of faith schools, because ca 1/3 of all state schools in England are faith schools, and are allowed to discriminate based on faith, despite being funded by everyone's taxes. I was criticised because that was not a priority, by the same person who then yapped on about IB and Latin, which probably affect 2iish % of the population.

An "articulate" person would have explained why it's wrong to criticise something which affects 1/3 of the school but perfectly fine to criticise something which affects 2%.

A non-articulate person is unable to do that, so resort to playing the gender card. Yawn...

See the difference between me and you?
Me: facts
You: the gender card

By the way, my wife, sister and ex-partner would have all said the very same things. Let me guess - maybe you'd have accused all of them of internalising male aggression?

Also, how would you react if a man told you "you'll get there eventually", like she told me?
Would you consider it a perfectly legitimate and acceptable way to express disagreement?
Would you consider it an unacceptable entitled aggressive arrogant way to imply that your opinion is not legitimate?
Would you have considered that whoever told you that was "articulate"?

Can you answer? Will you do that with facts, or by playing the gender card?

@Araminta1003 , First you crucify me because I dare have an opinion on things which are not the priorities, then you yap on about.... the IB (which probably affects... what? 1.5% of the students' population) and... Latin, which is probably taken by even fewer people. Did you miss school the day they explained the concept of consistency?

I mean, you could have talked about defunding special needs provisions, about all the parents who had to take their councils to court for that, about the struggle to hire and retain teachers, about how hard it is to find people who will mark GCSE and A level exams and why, about the **show that the marking of English Language GCSE is, with marks all over the place, about what a tragedy it is that from 1/4 to 1/3 of the kids fail to reach the expected level (from Y6 SATs all the way to GCSE), about how the system fails white working class kids, etc.

But no, you chose to talk about... IB and Latin.
A peak out of touch mumsnet moment.

but what you cannot do is judge Birbalsingh

Ah, no? I cannot have an opinion about a headteacher and her methods? Is that one of your rules? Could you please kindly enlighten me on what I am and not allowed to have an opinion on? Thank you!

I never criticised her for the narrow choice of subjects.

Crucially, I agreed with many of her starting points (lack of ambition, a culture of expecting too little from certain pupils and giving up on them, a culture of excuses, etc) and, before she founded Michaela school, I was actually hopeful. But she quickly lost the plot.

I criticise her for the same reason I criticise Mossbourne Academy in my long-running thread : because petty draconian capricious rules are unnecessary and counterproductive, they can create huge mental health problems even in compliant kids (think of all the Mossbourne kids who had anxiety attacks or went to therapy), because they do not develop critical thinking but, on the contrary, they force you to switch off your brain without questioning why, because some of those rules (like standing up with your arms crossed) are so stupid you have to unlearn them the moment you leave school. And because her method is very much focused on passive, switch-off-your-brain rote learning. Which is the exact opposite of what society needs.

You will get there eventually.

Your arrogance and entitlement are unbelievable. Had a man told you those same words, he would have been crucified for being arrogant patronising male entitlement intersectional oppression yadda yadda ya

But when a woman does the same... al is fine. Because this is mumsnet. Where men are always wrong and women are always right. Pathetic.