Westminstenders: How many Dead Cats Do You Get In A Thunderstorm?

[RedToothBrush]

It never rains. It only pours.

What I wouldn't give for a bit of old fashioned drizzle right now.

4 years on and we are facing a torment of calamities. Brexit, serious political instability in the USA ahead of an election that Trump will refuse to lose even if he does, trade deals with the rest of the world put on 6 week deadlines, anger within the commonwealth, a sick weak dependent PM on the back foot and ill briefed, rampant growing corruption in the Tory party, woke nut jobs out of touch with reality, councils on the brink of bankruptcy and the whole covid-19 crisis.

Clav wants UK to go back in time, remember? We are meant to be in the 1950's. Equality not so important and clear definitions between classes must be restored. They've even got the working classes to vote for it! We've had far too much of "libtards" and "equal rights" now, time to go back to the good old days.

State schools are damned if they do anyway at the moment; 3 of the parents who were posting about their kids going back are bemoaning the lack of teaching going on now they are actually in school, with one parent posting on WhatsApp that it is "almost like they are undoing all of the hard work I put in teaching him every day" which misses the beneficial social aspect, of course.

Has it been available to all children in equality or just those with rich parents

As in the equal provision across the state sector during lockdown? Live lessons for some, one email a week for others, qualified teachers home-schooling their own dc...

Even if Labour do eventually integrate private schools into the state sector, who decides which pupils attend the school with the vast playing fields, IT suite and Latin teacher and which pupils attend the run of the mill comprehensive school three miles away? I know which school I would move into catchment for.

Remind us again who sold off the school playing fields?

@JeSuisPoulet

Remind us again who sold off the school playing fields?

Disraeli ?

Personally I consider Private Schools a squirrel issue.

I just hope that Gavin Williamson is asked to give CLEAR answers
to parents
to pupils
to teachers

Not quite so long ago www.theguardian.com/education/2012/aug/06/school-playing-field-sale-gove

There's a lot of Gove's work that needs unpicking if we are after any kind of equality in education. In fact we could work backwards through his career and put a lot of it right again

Remind us again who sold off the school playing fields?

Both parties it would appear; 2008 -

"Labour's 1997 general election manifesto stated: 'We will bring the government's policy of forcing schools to sell off playing fields to an end' and in 2004 it was announced that all sales had to be signed off by the Secretary of State and the revenue reinvested in educational facilities."

"the Department for Children, Schools and Families admitted that Ed Balls, the current education secretary, and his predecessor, Alan Johnson, agreed to 19 sales last year. A further 53 playing fields across England, owned by both schools and local communities, are thought to be under threat."

"Since 1998, the government has approved of at least 187 plans to dispose of playing fields - categorised as land that can be used for grass sports pitches. A much greater loss of land has occurred, with 1,331 parcels of land smaller than 0.4 hectares being sold off since 2001, and without needing ministerial approval."

"Tory schools spokesman Michael Gove said: 'It is ironic that the government is selling off school playing fields on the eve of a campaign to get children to lead more active lives."

www.theguardian.com/education/2008/mar/30/schools.uk

Many other countries have managed online teaching in line with what private schools get. If I were paying for it I would be wondering at that, perhaps?

Ds' old, inner city, state school still has playing fields (both rugby and football even if the rugby pitch is a bit small ), a new sports hall and maths block (as good as the private school along the road ) and a swimming pool . The only thing it lacks is a Latin teacher as they retired in 2011 and it's impossible to get a replacement nowadays (especially in Scotland as in order to teach a subject, you have to have done a degree in it and have done your PGCE in it ).

Oh - and the local private school has even on occasion sent its own pupils along to the school to make up numbers for Advanced Highers as they didn't have enough to make it viable for them.

I hope that Kate Green will do a good job of holding Gavin Williamson to account
as he has lost the trust of

• pupils
• parents
• teachers
• employers of parents

Clav, Gove said that and then carried on doing the same thing

Being nutty and feeding them today. Not much sleep and some household oddities need resolving. Not on topic but just one example: today I discovered a starling somehow lodged itself and died in a hole in the mortar. Managed to dangle out of a window to try to hook it out...let's just say the body is stuck fast but the head flew off like a projectile. If anyone has any suggestions on dislodging a sparrow body from a hole the size of a £2 coin between the ground floor and first floor of a property, please let me know .

Sorry starling body - I need more sleep!

Hoover?

It might have to be a Henry rescue! I'll work on that tomorrow I think (try to get the hoover bag as full as I can before I try it out so it can go straight in the bin!). Thanks!

Poulet you might just leave it to nature, if the process won't prove too distressing for you! It shouldn't take too long. It reminds me of the time I found maggots in my bin after it had been emptied, first I panicked, then thought just leave the lid open overnight, and by the morning they had either morphed into flies and flown away or the robin/blackbirds must have thought Christmas had come early...

There's been a hole like you describe just under the bathroom window of a house adjacent to mine and for years the bluetits have been using it for nesting purposes - safe from predators and with trees nearby for the provision of insect fodder. Perfect! The hole was one left unfilled after cavity wall insulation was put in many years ago... I'm sorry yours hasn't been put to the same use

v v v late PMK

(goes back to read thread)

Another topic, but shocked me:

India has long had a problem with widespread police beatings & torture, but I hadn't realised how high the death rate there is:

news.yahoo.com/indias-george-floyds-father-son-095017989.html

Nearly 15 cases of custodial violence and torture were reported every day on average,
with 9 people dying in judicial or police custody every 24 hours,

according to the latest annual report by India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the year 2017/18.

There is a wide variation between schools in the state sector,
but on average during lockdown, private schools have continued to provide far more education for their pupils than the state sector

Private schools receive a lot more money per pupil,
can keep out those they don't want
and nearly all pupils have functioning wifi and tablets / laptops

Hardly a level playing field

Well since Clav does want to go back to the 1950s I can tell you that Secondary Moderns were not popular with middle class parents, or certainly not when their children failed the 11 +, sorry, were selected for the Sec Mod. Hence Thatcher getting rid of more than Labour did.

And yes, I did pass the 11+ so it's not sour grapes on my behalf. As it happened, the town had a very good girls Sec Mod which in many ways was better regarded that the grammar school. Sec Mods were a mixed bag - some were pretty good, some absolutely diabolical.

Labour doesn't have a particularly good record in this respect; they lacked the vision they had for the health service. The Tories lacked vision too, but understood vote winning measures.

Bottom line : kids don't vote.
Parents who can afford it purchase a better education for their children so for those adults education just isn't a vote winner/loser.
Todays year 10/11/12/13s won't forget this but by the time they can vote the damage will have been done.

There is a wide variation between schools in the state sector, but on average during lockdown, private schools have continued to provide far more education for their pupils than the state sector

Brilliant for Johnson hey? Not letting a good crisis go to waste, but take the chance to destroy education for the majority.

One question I keep asking though and no one seems to answer - isn't year 6 all about SATS and is it really a loss to have lost a term grinding through SATS preparation?

It's funny...what this has shown - clearly - is that sats and exams at 16 aren't neccessary or a good idea.

Even Kenneth Baker (remember him!??) Now says gcses aren't for for purpose

My own dcs schools have been pretty bad wrt remote learning provision.

Ds1 only had online lessons for the last 4 weeks. Geography in particular has been woeful.

Ds2 had twinkl worksheets and links to oak academy sent each day for english and maths. I used bbc bitesize too. No marking done at all.

And of course no clue what's happening in September....

My kids are both at Uni
£9250 pa tuition fees
plus maintenance loans largely spent on unusable accommodation
school parents do not know how lucky they are

• no lectures
• no tutorials
• no exam prep
• exams based on the above
• and rent payable on digs even though the kids are at home

and these ones VOTE many of them did in 2016
politicians are screwing them over
the temperature is rising