To wonder when this government are going to stop destroying education?

[brizzledrizzle]

Dbro's children's school was on the news last night as the head was talking about the funding cuts.
Why are the government doing this? I can't see how this is going to mean kids leave school with the skills needed by the country.

Graphista, love those cartoons, thank you. I might just get them enlarged up to poster size and put them up across our town.

There’s no shortage of people wanting to become primary teachers, working 9 till 3ish, long holidays, family-friendly.....
The problem is with retaining them once the romantic pink mists clear.
Drop-out rates for NQTs and those with less than 5 years service are enormous.

I'm a sucker for a good meme

I've always been interested in politics (working class, union supporting parents)

The first time I remember my parents pointing out to be considerate of the source of a piece of information was when the miners strike was on and there was a LOT of footage of "violent aggressive unreasonable miners" on telly.

Myself or one of my siblings must have made a disparaging comment about the miners (being primary aged and knowing no better) and they both immediately pointed out there was very little footage of the police being shown, plus the footage was edited to show the most dramatic content (also time constraints) and that these were ordinary people just trying to feed & house their families. They pointed out the BBC was a govt controlled medium (despite they're supposed to be unbiased) and that itv was owned and controlled by people who were well off & privileged.

They'd have done it in language we understood at that age, but that was the gist.

My dad even now often quips "if its in the sun it must be true, but it's not the whole truth"

Here in Scotland I've been very impressed at what dd learned in a subject that isn't taught in England & wales (although I'm scots I did high school in England due to dad being in army) called Modern Studies.

It's an excellent subject that's very hard to describe in the context of an English.

It's a sort of mix of history, social history, sociology, politics, current affairs and media studies.

It basically teaches kids to not blindly accept what they're told by ANYONE, to think critically and openly and consider all possible perspectives.

Dd learned about things like how laws are passed (both in Scotland and Westminster), electoral systems & their pros and cons, rights & responsibilities, political bias in the media, how to assess the quality of a source of information...

I think it should be taught uk wide, hell worldwide really! (Tailored to each country of course)

I'd always discussed bias with her from a young age anyway.

I remember a very odd but proud incident when I overheard her telling a friend while still in primary school that she shouldn't believe a toy could do X because it seemed to in an ad. Because all adverts are for are to sell things and sometimes the ads are naughty and lie.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Studies

Modern studies sounds a bit longer less ' Citizenship' in England.

Modern Studies is nothing like citizenship. It's most like politics and government.

Gove's tenure also saw to the scrapping of Comms A Level which also did a similar job of more boradly educating students to be analytical and enquiring. Oh, I wonder why that went!

Piggy yes I'm also highly suspicious why pupils in England & Wales not only don't get an equivalent subject but other subjects that would lead to them learning to think critically have all but gone!

Politicians in England are reluctant to let teachers talk to kids about politics in case they make them into Labour voters.

I actually do not think the tory government is thinking only in the short term wrt cuts/cost savings.

With the seemingly unstoppable march of AI, robotics, powerful software applications, meaning that in the short/medium term future, many many lower/middle/upper middle level jobs will no longer exist, there will no longer be a need for a large educated workforce. There will be unskilled jobs at the bottom, and a few highly skilled jobs at the top for those in control of the tech.

So why bother investing in education for the masses when there will be no need for an educated workforce as we have had until now?

Unemployment will be far higher which is why there are trials taking place of universal benefit ie EVERYONE receives benefits as there simply aren't enough jobs for the population.

The government won't stop. I think they want to destroy the state education system.

If you leave the last two words you'd be spot on. Imo they won't be satisfied until all state operations are down to the bare minimum and everything is run for profit.

Genuine question: was there ever a "Golden Age" of education in England? A time when all students left school with basic literacy and numeracy skills; most students left for places that were appropriate for their talents (university / apprenticeships / straight into work or whatever); teachers were mostly satisfied in their work; heads mostly felt that they had sufficient resources to run the school; and parents were happy about the schooling and overall experience that their children were getting?

I'm a primary teacher 20 years in and I am broke! Not just Christmas overspend but the pencils, glue sticks, paper, card etc I have had to buy for the new term because my school is saving money wherever it can.

Yes there will be strike action and yes it will be for teacher pay as we can't strike over school cuts. Yes I do need good pay because I estimate that some months about ten percent goes on school stuff so my children get the education they need and deserve.

When you add that to the hundreds I give my sister who is struggling on universal credit ..... I am really not on a gold plated salary!

It just varies so much. My daughter was at the same primary for the full seven years and around year five it was very clear that things were changing, for example traditional day trip abroad cancelled; my dd was the last year group to go, the annual year 3&4 show cancelled and not reinstated, subsidised breakfast and after school clubs given a terms notice and no longer run. PTA raising all the money for new whiteboards and tech. It was very noticeable and the ones paying were the younger groups coming up the school, dd had just missed most the unpleasant changes. Then on to get secondary school, which is an academy and there’s new gyms and language labs etc being built there, loads of trips and clubs running. I think we’ve been very lucky and am crossing my fingers it carries on. I saw the sharp end and it wasn’t pretty.

"Politicians in England are reluctant to let teachers talk to kids about politics in case they make them into Labour voters." Yes I was shocked when "1984" I think it was, was removed from reading lists!

"Unemployment will be far higher which is why there are trials taking place of universal benefit ie EVERYONE receives benefits as there simply aren't enough jobs for the population."

Controversial idea coming up.

I think nobody should be allowed to work more than 30 hours max BUT paid enough to live on OR there be a universal income.

That way more people will be in work because there'll be more jobs available.

This has benefits BEYOND just economics and not just for individuals:

The economy would be stimulated if people have money AND time in which to spend it (it could even lead to a boost to the leisure industry)

People's health would improve as they wouldn't be as stressed/knackered!

Parents would be able to spend more time with children which is know to improve health and behaviour.

People with elderly/infirm parents/older relatives would have more time to spend with and care for them which would benefit all parties in terms of improved relationships and relieve stress on social care.

People would have time to study if they wished to improve promotion prospects or change career.

People would have time & energy to cook from scratch, exercise, meditate... Generally take better care of themselves which would improve health and relieve stress on nhs.

People being less stressed generally would likely lead to lower levels of low level crime.

Maybe bonkers but I think it could work.

wimple, your question is too complex because of all the variable. But in terms of teaching, general student behaviour, work life balance, pressure and stress on all parties, it would be that period just before league tables were introduced, I'd say.

I have been teaching since 1992 and I would say my most contented years were about 1994 to the millennium and just beyond (2005 ish). That's post league tables, admittedly. Most - but not all- of this does coincide with Labour government, interestingly. It is also roughly when the Teacher's Workload agreement was brought in, and taken seriously.

Do you remember being at school and the fun we had with bunsen burners and science practical experiment lessons? Hmm, our school had to cut back so much that the teachers did the practical and the 30+ kids had to stand and watch it. That was bad enough but now even that has been cut back to showing them a video of the experiment rather than buying the resources needed to do it.

Just stop and think that through, it shows how far back we're having to make cuts, there literally isn't enough money to run the place. Now think about how those kind of decisions affect your child learning.

When our students finish year 11 they all get to write their best memory in the year book - 10 years ago it was full of comments about Ski trips, Geography trips, all sorts of fun days out and activities. These days it is the same 2 or 3 events that are repeatedly mentioned as there is so little in the way of trips, activities or events now.

@OlennasWimple: Good question. I was at secondary school in the 70s and my mother often wrote letters of complaint to the school. Many children in those days left school with few qualifications, but no one much cared because there were plenty of jobs for unskilled workers.

There were no classroom support staff in either my primary or secondary school. There was one adult in every class and at secondary some of the classes had 37/38 children. The only support staff at my small village primary school were a part-time caretaker/cleaner and part-time dinner ladies. If the phone went (unusual), the head, who taught 4/5 days a week, used to leave the class to go and answer it.

@CarolDanvers: when my children were in primary, mainly in the noughties, there were no free trips (we were asked for voluntary contributions for everything, and parents who couldn't afford it were subsidised by a fund provided by the church (it was a CofE primary). There was also no subsidised breakfast or after school club. There were a few after school activities run by teachers eg netball club, but towards the end the school started charging for those.

@Piggywaspushed: the workload agreement was 2003, so most of your most contended years were before that.

fifth : I did say roughly, so yes, it came at the end of that period. But we need it even more now than we did then. For about six years, it made a real difference. Academisation put paid to much of what it stood for.

I dodn't knwo what you mean by contended years. I am just offering my viewpoint as a teacher. I enjoyed attending school in the 80s but wouldn't claim to know enough about schooling from the vantage point of a child.

Or did you mean contented ??

Whoops, sorry. Yes, meant "contented".

Academies never had to comply with the workload agreement, because of course they didn't have to comply with any of the the normal pay and conditions document. I appreciate that at the time academies were the exception rather than the rule.

I often wonder, when I hear about stories about what teaching assistants and cover supervisors are expected to do, I do wonder whether some of what was in the workload agreement did more harm than good. However, I'm not a teacher.

Biggest single transformation for teachers was rarely cover and dedicated PPA time, I would say. Cover supervisors do have a horrible job : a lot of that is to do with poor behaviour/ behaviour management support and training.

I’m sure I saw Becky Allen blame the introduction of PPA for the explosion in teacher workload. Basically, you’ve got PPA, so we can now ask you to do this. And this. And this.

@Piggywaspushed : do teachers in academies tend to get PPA and a expectation that they will rarely cover ?

I ask, because it used to be the case that very few academies exercised their right in respect of pay and conditions (I may be out of date on this). I'd have thought if schools were having trouble attracting teachers, especially in shortage subjects, that they would feel that they had to match those conditions.

I "failed" GCSE getting a D, my school only taught to age 16 then so I went to college (was intending to go anyway for A levels) and retook maths, with an excellent teacher who understood

Now if you didn’t pass that GCSE then you wouldn’t be able to continue with the A levels

Ds has dyslexia and dysgraphia.

He will never pass.

I have similar issues and took O level, CSE English 9 times and never got anything more than a U.

It doesn’t mean that I can’t talk properly, I don’t know how to punctuate or write or spell it just means I can’t pass an exam in English.

Dp hasn’t any qualification in English but has 8 other O Levels. He did his Law degree at night school whilst studying for another equally prestigious qualification.