Westminstenders: Where are we now?

[RedToothBrush]

Twenty thousand people
Cross Bösebrücke
Fingers are crossed
Just in case
Walking the dead

Where are we now, where are we now?
The moment you know, you know, you know

Just that.

Don't really want to reflect more than that right now.

I wonder if there will even be requirement of DBS ...

Eric Pickles had his armchair auditors
David Cameron had his big society
Gavin Williamson thinks that looking after kids is like feeding his pet tarantula

They're so shabby.

Gavin Williamson: a prime specimen of Johnson's Cabinet of shifty, incompetent mediocrities, incompetents and zealots. Sacked by May for leaking details of closed meetings.

Can you imagine a Top Trumps of this lot?

Integrity: 0
Intellectual power: 0
Capacity to fuck things up even more: 10

I just don't know that I can stand another 4 1/2 years of this. ☹️

So extra “catch up” support to school children is bad now is it?

Louise
So extra “catch up” support to school children is bad now is it?
When its delivered by random volunteers with no pedagological training
YES

Louise of course it isn't. But it should be done properly. This is yet another back of a fag packet non-solution. If you want kids to catch up, pay trained people to do that in a thorough, planned, funded way. That isn't what this is.

Oh, Louise.

Are you this gullible with everyone, or is it just Johnson you make the exception for?

1:1 catch-up, with tutors who have some understanding of learning and/or child development, is a great idea - and what unions have been calling for.

However ... we all know this isn't what will happen.

It never is.

This government promises you a pony, in front of all the other parents. Everyone claps them. And then you get a cardboard box with a feather duster taped to it - if you're lucky.

Honestly, I'm so tired of it all.

It's the excruciating, contempt-soaked repetition of it that really kills.

Has anyone seen this? Outsourcing to a private firm again rather than giving advice and funding to schools when it was needed www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/17/government-to-fund-private-tutors-for-english-schools but sadly much needed.

From the Guardian, not a noted friend of private provision in Education

“Under the plans, schools will be funded to hire private tutors from approved agencies to deliver one-to-one and small group lessons to pupils who have fallen behind with their studies after months out of school.”

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/17/government-to-fund-private-tutors-for-english-schools

John Crace has BJ bang to rights:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/17/boris-johnson-repeatedly-yells-schools-to-evade-scrutiny-in-dismal-pmqs

Lying isn’t just second nature to Boris, it’s first nature.
It’s what he does.
It’s how he navigates his way through the world.
....
On the whole - give or take a few failed relationships and the odd sacking - it’s a coping mechanism that has served him well.
With a bit of bluster, backed up by a shed load of untruths, he’s managed to fulfil his ambition of becoming PM
< which says a lot about the country which enables this >

Argh, my refresh didn't work, sorry for double post!

Read the Schoolsweek article I linked to, Poulet.

It's going to be a pilot scheme, using students and volunteers, run through 4 foundations (including Sutton Trust).

LouiseCollins
THe scheme is being run through the Tutor Trust
www.thetutortrust.org/Pages/FAQs/Category/application-faqs
Self employed, unqualified, two hours of "training"
Unsupervised, Uninsured
£12 an hour contact time, £5 per hour non contact time is that even legal
DOES NOT REPLACE PROPER VALUED TEACHERS

When a bloke keeps lying to you and breaking promises, you're a mug if you don't show him the door
Even if he has messy blond hair and Latin quotes

Yes, I read The Guardian article.

My guess is that the Schools Week article is more on the money, especially around the fact it will be a pilot.

How did you find that out, Listening?

Same template where those 50,000 nurses and 20,000 police officers came from - or rather didn't ?

For goodness sake I’ve said it enough times, I don’t even like Johnson! I am prepared however, to credit his government with doing some good things, some of the time.

Paying schools to source the provision does sound to me like it will be planned and funded.

Just for context, a short period of “catch up” support I received outside school, while still at school was (in hindsight) absolutely vital to my life chances and career prospects years ago and that’s partly why I react strongly to people who might casually dismss such initiatives.

thecat
THe Graun article mentioned the Tutor TRust - I just followed the links
www.thetutortrust.org/Pages/FAQs/Category/covid-19-tutor-faqs

It's Cummings playbook stuff. A headline to capture the do something brigade, with no real chance of substantive good outcomes. It's mind numbing that they keep on coming up with this stuff. They'll be waiving import controls to reassure the masses on Brexit next........

Listening Sounds like the govt have been reading those posts on MN calling for anyone with a degree to be called in to teach in September, sans training ....

2 hours training is a figleaf made of transparent clingfilm
and the non-contact time pay rates show how much the govt value those "tutors"

is he removing a plane from RAF duty?
He most definitely is - the grey is camouflage - these things fly high and slow - red white and blue stripes or whatever make the thing unusable on ops. (the grey paint also has some militarily useful properties.)

[once upon a time camouflage was blue underneath and zigzag brown/green on top - then on ops it was noticed that a turning aircraft effectively semaphored its presence. Early trials of grey color schemes actually led to the loss of an aircraft as the crews didn't see each other :}]

I was looking for the strings... Also they are assuming again there will be room for all of these extra teachers to teach differing amounts of pupils at various stages in each school. At some unidentified time in the future...

It's the hope that kills you, though, Louise.

In principle, it's great - but Johnson's government has form for deliberately over-promising and under-delivering.

Look at track and trace.

And look ... and look ... and wait ... and wait.

Forgive me my cynicism but ... man, I'd have learned nothing if I wasn't cynical by now.