to think that Toby Young is a complete arse?

[Rosebud05]

And why do you think what Toby Young is proposing is going to be better for your child swc? Sorry if you've explained that already (my nephew has ASD so I'm interested).

Dd2's nursery have had their SEN specialist's hours cut by half. This is in a nursery with a significant number of children with SEN and behavioural problems.

Lucky for Toby he's got his free school, althoughi should imagine it will struggle with it's budget the same as other state schools. The City might have to have a whip round, eh.

Oh I see, apologies. I will look at the links you posted down the thread :)

Just an aside here. I love Moondog I agree with her on loads of stuff and she's far more articulate than I can be bothered to be this evening.

The single most important factors in determining outcome is parents education level and income.

Testing IQ is fraught with problems.

I stongly suspect that what is going to happen is that private companies will gobble up all of the opportunities that this diversity of provision creates and line their pockets with whatever profits they can extract.

They've been circling like pirahannas around the UK state education system for years.

Yes PFI has worked so well let's see what happens with education.

Don't test IQ at 4..test it at 11 or 13.

So - like grammar schools then? I live in a county where we have grammar schools, don't have an issue with them

Many existing academy sponsors are private companies masquerading as charitable trusts. Their future goal is to ultimately make economies of scale by running big school chains.

Bang goes any plurality of provision as they standardise their schools in order to maximise profits.

And to clarify, in practise their is no real difference between an academy and a free school. Loads of academy sponsors are trying to set up 'free schools', many without a single local parent group in sight.

Major Dan is 100% right.

2cats, with regard to stuff like this
'funding for early intervention work, Youth and Connexions funding, Social care training, Youth offending service', I can tell you categorically most of it is a complete waste of time.

My advice to anyone who starts to get sucked into the maze of state intervention of any sort is to get out fast and run as fast as you can in the other direction.

The prime purpose of people who work in these sorts of jobs isn't you it's creating a case fro their work and creating a case for thier work means that things have to stay as bad if not worse as they always have been

The issue of solving 'social issues' suits noone of these people.

And the sickening Polly Toynbee, tossing off on her own sense of self righteousness and smuggery, whilst her husband raked it in as head of the Audit Commission (wouldn't reveal his or her salary) and she moved into her £1500 000 home. Daine Abbott-she's another one.
One of the people eh? Ah yes, but her boy doesn't darken the doorstep of the local comprehensive, Heavens, ni. She said (on MN) that for once she made a decision that was about him.
Fuck everyone else eh?

Social engineering all o it-designed to keep everyone hald educated, blinded and dependant on a complex web of what is no more than money laundering.

Wake up and smell the coffee. Then read some Theodore Dalrymple who is the most brilliant social commentator of our times. Prepare to be chilled to the marrow.

The prevailing viwe is that it is better to all be shit together than, God forbid! let those who can, shine.

The lefty views expressed by otherwiseintelligent people these days are a travesty of original socialist bvalues.

Wake up! It's 2011 not 1933.

Quite so SWC.
I find it fucking terrifying myself.

SWC and Moondog- I hope you've noticed that I haven't resorted to calling you a rabid right winger in order to get my point across and have instead just stuck to facts and opinions.

Are those left/right distinctions that useful when discussion stuff like this? I don't think so which is why I haven't accused you of being a Tory idiot or a lier (to yourself or anyone else) in order to try and win the day.

Moondog- I use Surestart services where I use and those cuts matter very much to me.

SWC- you're just plain wrong on the private company stuff as time will tell.

Off to bed now, it's way past my bedtime. I'll catch up on the next round of insults in the morning. Ta ta.

I haven't called you anything 2cats.
I don't consider it to be about you and your individual opinion. It's about us all.

The lazy assumption that I'm a Conservative is amusing though.

As SWC says however

'Politics does come into it,becasue it is the left that is trying (and failing, I'm very glad to say) to thwart diversity of provision in education - and it invites us to believe that it does so because it has childrens' best interests at heart. it does not and it is important to expose the bullshit.'

Speaking as someone at the coalface I can tell you from the inside that this is true (with some honourable exceptions, many of whom are people I work with.)

I learnt a long time ago that it's never about who is right or wrong. It's about who has the strength to keep on fighting to the bitter end.

I have myself as a parent been in a situation where I realise the whole parity of educational for all is absolute bollocks.

As for private companies 'circling'. If they are, then great! Let 'em in. They can't fuck things up any more than they already are and by definition have to work very very hard to prove themselves in the face of such remorseless hostility masquerading as social conscience.

"the trouble is, Norman, the SN provision your DD's nursery has will be shite. They'd be better off tearing up tenners and flushing them down the bog."

I'm sorry that your son has been failed by the state system, swc, but I don't think gross generalisations like the above.

The SEN provision at my kids' nursery is excellent (according to the parents and Ofsted). It's a children's centre, and parents with children with a variety of special education needs and disabilities choose to send their children there.