The Tories STILL don't give a shit about your kids or their education

[noblegiraffe]

One in a long running series of threads of failures on the part of the government to put any money into schools.

Earlier this year, the government-appointed covid-catch-up tsar resigned in disgust when they refused to take his recommendations on board for a £15 billion programme of recovery for children, including extra sport and extra-curricular activities. They instead pledged about a tenth of that, with the main focus to be on catch-up tutoring.

The DfE then made the inexplicable decision to award the tutoring contract to Randstad, a Dutch HR firm because they were the cheapest by far, and about £40 million below what the DfE had budgeted. (Where did the rest of that money go?)

Randstad's woefully inadequate systems led to catastrophic failure: “They’re doing it on the cheap and the quality of what they’re doing is very poor — completely under-resourced, and shambolic,” the leader said. “I’m absolutely in favour of the profit motive, but this is the worst sort of bargain basement capitalism.” twitter.com/samfr/status/1465239826534440964?s=21

Leading to only 8 percent of the targeted children receiving tutoring since September. www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/covid-catch-tuition-92-adrift-year-end-target

Remember, this is the government's BIG PLAN to help children recover from the educational damage caused by the pandemic. So basically, most kids are getting fuck-all extra support.

The Head of Ofsted said that that majority of catch-up would happen in classrooms in normal lessons with the class teacher. Presumably instead of teaching them new content? Won't that just create gaps that need to be caught up?

And the people in government who should be kicking off about this are instead trying to get a bill to force schools to stay open even if all the staff and most of the kids are off with covid.

How? By asking retired teachers to come back and work for free. Seriously. "Mr Halfon also urged the Government to mobilise an army of volunteers to keep children in the classroom if teachers are off sick. “The Government should set up an army of education volunteers of retired Ofsted inspectors and former teachers who are tasked with going round the country and fill in where teachers are off sick,” he said. “The vision has been there for the NHS with volunteer-run vaccine centres so why can’t it be done for education?” (From the Telegraph)

There were so many outraged threads about school closures and poor education provision. The government is doing nothing to fix those issues.

YABU: The government cares about children and education

YANBU: This is a scandal

They're tories. Why should they care about our plebeian brats 🤷‍♀️

@Sowhatifiam

But their children are in private. So why the fuck would they care?

They’d be a bit stupid to assume their children are OK in private schools. Last time I checked, covid wasn’t stopping at the front door of any high class establishment used by an elite few. As a private school teacher I can assure you that covid has stepped over our threshold and has infected just as many of us as those in other schools. True, we have less of an issue getting supply than some of our neighbouring schools so we will probably limp along a bit longer than some state schools but if we are all sick simultaneously, the plan is very much to close for as long as is necessary.

But during the previous lockdowns those families and teachers generally had access to high quality tech to enable remote provision and therefore far less disruption to education. Totally agree that if all those staff are too unwell they will be affected the same to be clear.

We are at the point where we have 3 classes at a time supervised by one teacher in the hall/canteen because of cover. We have loads of students without devices, without spaces to work, without internet/wifi at home should we go remote again. Some of that we’ve tried to address but we also have students (secondary) who couldn’t come in (despite being eligible) as they needed to stay home to care for younger siblings to enable parents to work etc…. I know my teacher friends in private schools didn’t have it easy, being expected to provide clubs etc on top of following full timetables and with the pressure of all that, but would agree their students are less disadvantaged by school closures.

It makes me so angry, but not surprised, that they continue to do fuck all to make schools safer, in order to keep them open to more students. It also makes me angry that there is so much outrage on here that “schools must stay open” but seemingly little understanding that this requires some kind of thought and mitigation measures.

those yougov surveys

It's a variety of polling organisations, there appears to be a genuine dissatisfaction with the government this week at least.

There is also little to no point in writing to my MP

Some people might not have tried. Some people might have MPs who might respond, or be mindful of their precarious majority. You can also ask your MP to pass your complaint to the Dept of Education for a response.

People on another thread were talking about marching if there were school closures. Why not that appetite for action about the current state of affairs?

@Sowhatifiam

But their children are in private. So why the fuck would they care?

They’d be a bit stupid to assume their children are OK in private schools. Last time I checked, covid wasn’t stopping at the front door of any high class establishment used by an elite few. As a private school teacher I can assure you that covid has stepped over our threshold and has infected just as many of us as those in other schools. True, we have less of an issue getting supply than some of our neighbouring schools so we will probably limp along a bit longer than some state schools but if we are all sick simultaneously, the plan is very much to close for as long as is necessary.

I also work in an independent school; however it's very small and we have to cover all absences in house - they won't pay for supply claiming we don't have the money. It wouldn't take a lot more for us to close and we nearly did in September when covid hit badly.
My dd is in Y11 and is way way behind. I'm furious at the government's couldn't give a shit attitude about education. They hate teachers and clearly they hate families as well, no matter what their backgrounds. Rant over but @noblegiraffe YADNBU!

They would have done better to just bulk buy CGP books & hand them out to everyone.

Not that I am suggesting that a workbook or twenty can replace an actual teacher.

But I guess CGP don't have a mate who works in govt, or a relatives spouse or whatever old boys club system was used to waste all that money when awarding the contract.

@LetterBug

But their children are in private. So why the fuck would they care?

Sums it up nicely I think.

It’s not just education this government don’t care about governing in any sphere. They are only interested in themselves and accumulating more money and power for themselves. The whole business of governing a country is an unwelcome distraction. I completely despair .

@fournonblondes what are you bleating on about? No they don't. Wealthy people sending their kids to state are celebrated for broadening social diversity!
In fact I remember David Cameron being lorded over for sending his daughter to (quite possibly) the world's poshest state school.

To be fair , Hancock, Gove, Williamson all state educate(d) their children...

Not sure Boris cares about his own kids or their education tbh. Not a great track record there.

The tories don’t give a shit about anything to do with the ordinary man on the street. All they care about is lining their own pockets and those of their cronies.

I'm not voting because I don't believe it is just a Tory thing though. I think Labour would be just as bad.

there appears to be a genuine dissatisfaction with the government this week at least.

There is always a dissatisfaction with the government and yet nothing stops people voting for them.

If there was, something like Brexit which divided the nation should not have given them such a massive majority.

I get everything you are saying, but education affects a smaller number of people than you might think, despite it being such a massivly important thing, older people with or without kids not in education, dont give a shit, young people without kids (unless they have gone into teaching) dont give a shit, people who can afford private education dont give a shit. While a generalisation, people only give a shit about things that affect them.

Covid affected everyone, the government mishandled it and yet they were still leading in every single poll, the tories have a few parties and mock the British Public, while Christmas cancelled, affected people and yet they have only dropped 1 fucking percent, which the labour party have not made up.

Johnson, could snort cocaine outside of Buckingham Palace, while punching the Queen in the face, yelling I dont give a fuck and people are still going to vote for him, because he is a bit of a laugh.

People don't care

yet they have only dropped 1 fucking percent, which the labour party have not made up.

Not according to latest polls.

I commented on this on another thread. Education, sadly, is not as high a priority as teachers, and parents of school age children, think it is in terms of voting and polling.

I totally agree. My A level students have huge gaps in their knowledge from GCSE that we simply have not got time to fill if we are still to get through the A level content. On top of the actual education side of things is the horrific levels of mental health problems we are seeing. I have huge numbers of my classes missing lessons each day for mental health reasons. It feels like fighting individual fires whilst the entire place is burning down.

@SeasonFinale

I'm not voting because I don't believe it is just a Tory thing though. I think Labour would be just as bad.

How? Latest budget states that schools cash to be restored to 2010 levels after 10 years of cuts, remind us how long the Tories have been in government.

I voted yabu purely on the basis you wrote still in your thread title...like you expected anything else

But my YABU was 'the government cares about children and education'

@Lycopodium8

I totally agree. My A level students have huge gaps in their knowledge from GCSE that we simply have not got time to fill if we are still to get through the A level content. On top of the actual education side of things is the horrific levels of mental health problems we are seeing. I have huge numbers of my classes missing lessons each day for mental health reasons. It feels like fighting individual fires whilst the entire place is burning down.

Yes, the cuts to funding for CAMHS meant the service was collapsing before the pandemic. Now demands on services are far higher, it needs an urgent injection of cash.

CAMHS is in an absolutely dire state. And no wonder when it was in a mess pre-pandemic and now is receiving record numbers of referrals. I posted on another thread this morning, but it's something like 90k more than in 2019. CAMHS needs funding urgently. The tories won't though, they don't give a shit. I feel so sorry for teachers in schools trying to manage really quite poorly children, with presumably very little training and no resource to do it. It's an absolute scandal, but people just don't care. Your child is mentally ill and you are on your own.

Schools are a shitshow at the moment but woe betide anyone who says so because you just get asked if you like seeing kids not receive an education (if you mention Covid is rife again) or you get asked if you think Jeremy Corbyn could have done a better job* (if you blame this government for anything).

• to paraphrase Malcom Tucker, I think that Jeremy Corbyn’s left bollock with a smiley face drawn on it could have done a better job, but what do I know.

Yanbu op.

Our school has basically encourage a lot of struggling year 11s to drop a GCSE and do extra English and maths lessons- run by support staff. A kid I work with got told to drop Business and said they’ve been watching Netflix with an LSA ever since…!

And when they are in state they get criticised for taking a place for a poor child. So come on

When has this happened?

The only version of this I've ever seen is when those in favour of private education get all virtuous that they are taking the strain off the state system.

Yeah, right.