Westministers: May Shares the Cake

[RedToothBrush]

May's Speech Abbreviated:

We still have nfi how we are going to do this. EU this is your fault. You sort it out. We are too lazy, workshy and fighting like high school children to work it out ourselves. Be our whipping boy.

I support democracy as long as I get to do whatever I like
I support human rights as long as I can ignore them when I like.
I support the rule of law except when it doesn't suit my agenda.

Waffle waffle.

"Creative", "Dynamic" PR for my Premiership.

Waffle waffle

We really need policing cooperation, PLEASE keep it with us. I know I threatened to withdraw this, but I'm sorry, I was wrong and a bit of a dick about this.

Gets to the point FINALLY.

"2 year transition period"

(With another time bomb lock which is still too short for IT departments. Nothing to do with the next general election, honest).

RULE BRITANNIA!

Polite Applause.

Indeed...and Liam fox?

Flew back in this morning with a heavy heart and jet lag so only up to lurking but the issue with synthetic phonics is not so much is it good, as is it good for every child? Children, especially those with specific Learning Difficulties have different learning styles and Teachers I know say they want to be able to use different teaching methods to meet those different individual needs. The testing of phonics using non words is a particular bugbear because it disadvantages both the brightest who tend to try and find a real word and those with learning difficulties who need a variety of strategies to decode words, including context. It's common sense really, and very relevant to Brexit since it is another manifestation of the governments preference for dogma over common sense. In a poll of 500 teachers 1 in 5 teachers do not support the test www.google.co.uk/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/dyslexic-pupils-not-helped-by-reading-method-9223729.html%3famp. This is far short of reflecting some of the colourful words used by teachers I know to describe the test.........

According to the OECD, Britain will be one of the weakest economies in the world in 2018, growing at about half the rate of the euro area. May claimed in Florence that the British economy had been and always would be “strong”. She should pay more attention to history. The UK joined the EU in 1973 to arrest a century-long economic decline. That strategy worked.

Does this count as Talking Britain Down? (Otherwise known as Reality).

^AfD leader quits party hours after German election breakthrough
Frauke Petry ‘drops bomb’ on rightwing nationalist party members by announcing she will instead serve as independent MP^
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/25/afd-leader-frauke-petry-quits-party-german-election-breakthrough
laut auflachen
misti and lemonanddills on the money.

Another educational issue highlighting the issues with Brexit, several local primary schools have had to drop a form of entry for this September's entry as a direct result of the number of EU and non EU citizens returning home. This is a middle class suburb, these are doctors, scientists, academics and above all city workers (70%of those commuting from the borough to central London). We (local pressure group challenging the LEA strategy) have since 2011 monitored the insane levels of pressure on school places here largely due to the Council preferring to keep parents hanging and therefore likely to be deterred into the private sector rather than provide the places needed to meet forecast demand. In each year they have in defiance of the Audit commission requirement to have spare capacity in order to give parents a place in their local school ) filled every last place (often by offering parents places that are too far away to access) with several hundred not offered a place at initial allocations and in each year a small number of parents still on waiting lists with no place in September. The forecast for 2017 prior to the referendum was for a slight reduction in the growth in demand so a reduced need for laying on additional bulge classes etc but certainly for demand to exceed the existing number of permanent places. To see popular schools (non faith community schools have had catchments that are usually less than 300m) dropping rather than adding classes suggests a very large drop from that original forecast. I could put a figure on it if the Council still provided the number of places filled at each school in response to FOI requests rather than involving solicitors in their refusal

Welcome back whatwouldrondo
SSP might work for some but it is expensive, unpopular with many and nice warm, open libraries might do just as much good for reading.

@MichaelRosenYes
Today @NickGibbUK will explain why after millions of pounds+hours on intensive phonics, 29% not at expected level in his KS2 Reading test

drop a form of entry for this September's entry as a direct result of the number of EU and non EU citizens returning home.
There will be some sad children whose friends have had to leave too.

I was intrigued that almost seconds after Mays speech, Moody downgraded the UK as an investment risk.

When history is written (so long after we are all dead) I suspect people will comment on how everything seemed to happen at once.

My pet theory: Following on from the news the DxEU civil servants have begun to expend more effort into covering their arses than doing their job - is that the clock has just struck midnight in Brexit land. Up until now, there must have been Herculean efforts behind the scenes from interested parties pulling all the strings and levers they can to persuade the facts men (we used to call them "experts") to mute/suppress/invert any bad news. But now it's coach-> pumpkin, footmen->frogs, horses-> mice time ...

Thing is, with organisations - like Moodys - who (incredibly !) have an international reputation to protect, you can only get away with that for so long before the organisation starts saying "Look, lads, sorry, but we have a reputation to maintain, and if we keep pretending Brexit is anything other than a disaster of epic proportions then we are starting to run the risk of being sued by our clients."

(Worth noting that ratings agencies are already on the naughty step for getting 2007 so wrong. So they are extra sensitive to being called out on Brexit).

I expect a few more institutions who are keeping an eye on their reputations to start changing the mood (or is that Moodys ) music behind Brexit.

To be honest I'm surprised the FT didn't run a story headlined "Mays Moodys Blues". (If they still want to, MNHQ can contact me for the usual rate).

Another "prediction" (which may as well be that it'll be night after today) is that Gorgeous George will be using the Standard to point out that when he was chancellor, and introduced austerity, the whole point was to preserve the UKs credit status.Believe it or not there was a stated goal.

If the UK is losing its precious rating, the AUSTERITY WILL HAVE BEEN FOR NOTHING. And much as I'm ambivalent about Corbyn, if Labour Party HQ want to contact me, they can have that as a slogan. I find it powerfully moving.

I can assure you phonics is pointless for children with dyslexia.

Phonics is no good for children with hearing difficulties as we discovered with dd. We've had a few angry words as dd reads very well, she's naturally picked up the classical remembering words type learning, but she was held back a few times as she wasn't doing it the phonics way .

Ironically now dds hearing issues have largely been resolved we don't get the arguments as she does whatever phonics stuff they ask her, but she's still learning it the old way as that's what she had found suits her.

Listening to Keir Starmer's speech at the Labour Party conference

He talks a good game about what the Labour Party wants post the transition period, that they need to be pragmatic about what is possible* an, yet avoided the elephant in the room - that the EU* will defend the 4 pillars of the Single Market. He didn't mention Freedom of Movement once - although he did mention May's obtain with immigration. **

drop a form of entry for this September's entry as a direct result of the number of EU and non EU citizens returning home.

I pondered before if this will lead to a situation where some schools/classes lose their economies of scale, and have to cut back ? With the almost tediously inevitable predictability that it will be Leave areas hardest hit ....

amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/25/afd-leader-frauke-petry-quits-party-german-election-breakthrough
AfD leader quits party hours after German election breakthrough
Frauke Petry ‘drops bomb’ on rightwing nationalist party members by announcing she will instead serve as independent MP

Petry, on the moderate wing of the party, saw her role as that of uniting the AfD. But she has earned scorn from the rightwing nationalists who have become the stronger force, increasingly sidelining opponents within the party.

Sounds like they are off to a flying start.

Petry isn't their version of farage? Always in and out of leading it?

On the plus side, completely out of the blue, we received - from Sainsburys - a lovely little presentation sampler pack of 3 mini Green and Blacks chocolates. A 70% cocoa, a sea-salt, and a salted-caramel.

I may not be back for a while

Lurking I think the issue is one of being able to plan and budget effectively. Funding follows the pupil, so they can cut costs by dropping a class but only if they can drop a class as opposed to have one half full. This is Reception classes they are dropping but if families are leaving / not coming the older year groups will empty out too and this makes school budgeting especially difficult. It is not really a matter of scale so much as being able to optimise the level of cost in relation to funding. Since we have been monitoring the school place forecasts they have up until now been an accurate predictor of demand and could be planned for. This is an additional challenge when school budgets are being already cut to the bone to the extent of losing teachers. The first area to suffer is bound to be support for those with extra needs......

Hashi Phonics does have a place in teaching reading to dyslexics. I have known several who have benefitted from it. It was in fact being used by Dyslexia tutors in the days when look see (which also can be a disaster for dyslexics) prevailed in the classroom. I have even known a dyslexic who thrived on look see (photographic memory compensating for poor working memory and processing) The point is that everyone's problems are different and so a variety of teaching methods (and lovely welcoming warm libraries) are needed to suit individuals. This by the way is true if teaching across year groups and dusciplines. Research shows that when teachers use a variety of teaching methods to cater to different learning styles that the majority of pupils benefit not just the 1 in 10 with learning difficulties across the ability range. It is the fads for particular teaching styles to the exclusion of others whether it is phonics or look see, test based or learning by research that do the damage.

Ron I have no clue wrt dyslexia thankfully, I mentioned hearing difficulties from our own experience. You're right though that it requires more than a one fits all approach, sadly an awful lot of parents who have a child that doesnt fit aren't seeing anything more than a one fits all approach. I don't really blame the teachers themselves for this, it's a system and money issue. The only thing I can do is back my DC up if they don't fit.

I've just made 12 pokemon cupcakes
may only be 11 left now

whatwouldrondo

Thanks for that. DS is well out of education now, and lacking any nieces or nephews, the Lurking household is weirdly disconnected from academia (which is a shock ...).

The whole thing is a vicious cycle. EU nationals (and their children) leaving could lead to less diverse and more homogeneous classes. Recreating the pre 1960s vibe beloved of UKIP where the one dark skinned pupil can be called "the black spot" by the teacher with no sense that it might be wrong.

It is the fads for particular teaching styles to the exclusion of others whether it is phonics or look see, test based or learning by research that do the damage.

I have some retired teacher friends in their seventies, who have a lot to say about fads in teaching styles, and having taught for 35-40 years have seen one fad replaced by another which in turn has been replaced by the original fad.

But back to Brexit.

According to the OECD, Britain will be one of the weakest economies in the world in 2018, growing at about half the rate of the euro area. May claimed in Florence that the British economy had been and always would be “strong”. She should pay more attention to history. The UK joined the EU in 1973 to arrest a century-long economic decline. That strategy worked.

But these are experts - what do they know??
The British economy will always be STRONG because that's what everyone wants to believe. Because that's what most people deeply believe. That no other country can measure up to the strength of the great country that Britain is.

I wasn't reading the T&C of Barclays yesterday which stated VERY CLEARLY that if they think someone shouldn't be in the uk, they can block your bank account. But not just your bank account, it's also your mortgage, joint accounts etc etc.

I mentioned to DH that he needed to open a current account at his name only just in case. He didn't understand why I'm so worried. 'But you are here legally!!'
Yep but how do I prove that??

Gove is VERY quiet. Just quietly backing Johnson. In order to distance himself. But the CAP will get him in the end. He'll have to come clean at some point if May doesn't go.

If you are an EU citizen here legally, but don't have a British bank account, I'd get one now. I think it will be more difficult in the future to do so, and whilst banks can close you down, they won't want to unless they have reason to.

I'd view it as a 'getting your foot in the door' type exercise.

Ironically British citizens who lack means to prove who they are, are going to have tougher time too. And probably will fall foul of same thing as the criteria for opening an account gets more strict. No ID, no vote, no benefits, no bank. No bank, no money, no benefits, no ID , no vote. Etc etc. Like a vicious beaucratic snake eating itself.

Funding follows the pupil, so they can cut costs by dropping a class but only if they can drop a class as opposed to have one half full.

What does this mean in practice for the much-vaunted idea that Brexit would lead to more school places becoming available? I had assumed (perhaps naively) that if, say, 15 EU children leave a class, that simply means 15 places are freed up; surely a school can't just remove that class of 15 remaining pupils?

Just thinking about my nearest primary school which is single-form entry, they're obviously not going to just poof disappear an entire year group even if some large proportion of pupils leave (this area is full of international, professional or academic families).

Elements, yes the school can be closed. There was article in evening standard that a number of schools were likely to be closed in certain areas due to Brexit as EU nationals left the country.

So instead of there being more availability of school places as EU cits aren't 'taking them all up', there will be the same availability and less choice of schools which may be further away. So much for Brexit promises.

We also have a situation locally where one of the local 6th forms is under review and is likely to be closed. This is despite the fact planning is in for 2000 homes within the catchment area of the school and is likely to be approved soon. The sixth form can't stay open as they can't subsidise it from the rest of the school, yet in a few years, there will be a demand for places that will no longer be there. And this is known.

It's bonkers.