Er.....I'm well aware of where Faslane is, I didn't say it wasn't in the UK, if you read my post. My concern is with what the effect of that decision will be on Plymouth and the surrounding areas, as with the decision to move the surface vessels to Portsmouth, as it will have a huge impact on local businesses and the local economy. But then, much of Devon is Tory and Cornwall is Lib Dem, so Labour will carry on ignoring the far South West as they have for the last 12 years.
Why should you have guessed I'm an Armed Forces wife? I'm also an Armed Forces daughter, daughter in law and sister. I'm a teacher as well and a mum. Why does my husband's job affect who I am? Why are you categorising me and making assumptions about me from my dh's occupation?
I am confused as to why you keep referring to me as Atlantis. My nickname is Scaryteacher - I think you have us confused. Maybe there was a different thread where you were discussing foxhunting with Atlantis?
The marginilisation of rural communities needs to stop. The countryside is something that needs to be cared for by being worked and lived in. It is not a theme park for townies on a day out. If you don't have farmers you don't have food, and we all pay more as we then have to rely on imports with all the costs added to the food. Farmers should be paid more for what they produce; it's interesting to see that the Tories are looking at changing the contracts to supply HM Forces with UK produced food.
Miss M - I don't have any respect for politicians who tell me to educate my child in the state system but send theirs privately, so we're probably about equal. If you would have no problem with my educating my ds privately if I worked elsewhere, then why does it matter that I earned that money by teaching? It doesn't alter my commitment to the students I taught; for me the system was flawed and I could buy out of it. There are two of us in our marriage and it was a joint decision (also informed by the fact ds could board there if we got sent to somewhere that we didn't want to take him; or without adequate international secondary provision).
My mil as I said is a governor of a large comp on a sink estate in Hampshire. She tells me that year on year the secondary school has to do outreach and go into the feeder primaries in order to teach literacy to get the students up to the standard they need to be at secondary. That is not the job of the secondary teachers, so the system is failing somewhere. The problem at secondary is that you are not allowed to get on and teach. There are constant directives coming in, some in contradiction of the ones the previous month, and it goes around in circles and is so frustrating. Teach this way, no, do it that way; parents have to fight to get help for their kids if they have SN; teachers are constantly paying out for resources because the school doesn't have enough in the budget to pay for things. The class sizes are too big (I once played sardines trying to get 35 large year 11s into a room with chairs and tables for 32), and the whole culture is exam driven. It doesn't matter what you achieve with the KS3 students, or the value added you put in, or what you achieved pastorally; you are judged (or were at the comp I taught at) solely by your residual (what your students got for their GCSE grade as opposed to their predictions). As you couldn't make them turn up to sit the exam, and couldn't make them write on the paper once you'd got them into the exam room, you were bound to get a couple of low results (especially when they had their leavers bash the night before the exam).
It is the inequality of the funding in education that makes me mad. Children in Devon and Cornwall get far less spent on them than children in other authorities; and when you look at the breakdown of where those authorities are, the Labour ones get more than others. Devon has just made 100 teachers redundant, so that will be an increase in class sizes and a lack of continuity in their education for those children. Play political games if you must, but not with education funding.