Failure label for up to 2000 more schools.

[sailaboattvgal]

I cried when I heard this news. :(

NOT only that but the government are going to force schools to prioritize traditional subjects. This country needs young people with superb IT, design and practical skills.

Yes we need more scientists, engineers and nurses, but why make children study subjects that put them off education and are totally mind numbing? We also need more plumbers, electricians, and creative artists who will champion a future for Britain. Labelled schools and people as a failure is IMO extraordinarily backward thinking ?.. and at the same time we will be asked how happy we are!

[longfingernails]

It means that a culture has grown up where people expect the State, in one form or another, to do everything for them. There are people who expect the State to give them a job, to find them a house, to pay for their children, to give them free this, that and the other, to be responsible for imparting basic social norms, etc.

Teachers are at the coalface of this Labour social engineering - and I do feel sorry for them.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

yep, contentless party political spin.

anything in to say in response to the people who have taken the time to give measured, well thought and informed responses to your comments on choice?

[longfingernails]

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan Yes - too much oversupply doesn't happen in the real world, because demand and supply have to be reconciled.

The market is quite good at doing it.

That means, yes, bad schools will shut down or get taken over and reconfigured. Heartbreaking for the particular pupils at that bad school who will go through a tough time.

There is a real problem of lack of choice in some areas - I accept that. I have already said that allowing free schools to make profits would make it more viable to set up new schools to compete with existing ones.

Of course, these solutions may be completely inappropriate for very rural areas - but that is no reason not to push full steam ahead in urban areas.

[longfingernails]

Oops I didn't finish one crucial sentence.

Heartbreaking for the particular pupils at that bad school who will go through a tough time. But far better for the vast majority pupils, who will have a better education system because of the competition.

[KangarooCaught]

Lfn "That means, yes, bad schools will shut down or get taken over and reconfigured" - same pupils, same parents, quite a lot of same staff = same problems if the head not strong enough to make transformative changes.

[UnquietDad]

You can replace the word "choice" with the word "money" in most right-wing arguments about education.

When people talk about over-reliance on the State and how we should all take more "responsibility", what they usually mean is that they don't like poor people very much.

[longfingernails]

A rather ridiculous cheap shot, there, UnquietDad.

The Thatcher Tories bought the Sun, bought their council houses, and weren't rich by any means.

I think they are amongst the harshest critics of over-reliance on the State. For them it isn't an intellectual argument - it is the difference between their lifestyle, where they try to do the best for their family by working hard, and that of their next door neighbour.

[UnquietDad]

Plenty of people "work hard" and try to do the best for their family. It doesn't always transform into having material wealth, which is what the Daily Mail usually means by "hard-working families."

[longfingernails]

Did you see Ed Miliband's conversation with the Tesco workers in Dudley on the BBC News at Ten yesterday?

They were far more vocal about benefit scroungers than any "Tory toff". That's because they get to see them, up close and personal, every day.

They probably don't care how schools are funded by the government, or the precise role of the LEA - but they want to be able to send their kids to good schools, and get angry when they can't. The solution isn't just to pour bucketloads of money into schools. Labour tried that, and it doesn't seem to work. Why not give choice a chance?

[longfingernails]

Incidentally, Tony Blair seemed to believe in almost exactly the policies Michael Gove is now pursuing.

It is well worth reading what he wrote.

www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6490993/time-for-a-history-lesson.thtml

Labour supporters might want to disown their most electorally successful Prime Minister ever - remember, he never lost a general election - but I advise against it.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

how do you make this thread about education into a party politics point scoring twatishness lfn.

this is the problem with politics.

no substance, lots of spin and point scoring.

[nooka]

LFN the market is full of oversupply. There are far more restaurants, supermarkets, clothes shops etc etc than anyone needs, and way more products than are actually required. Markets are in practice very inefficient. Plus of course the cost of all the failures, which of course we shouldn't forget is about real children, who might even potentially be our children (I am assuming that LFN feels that her children would of course have the choice only to go to the best schools, with children that she really couldn't care less about attending the failures).

[EnnisDelMar]

Well Santa I thought it was about a labelling problem. I was going to recommend Able Labels actually, for something on this scale

Anything that can be turned into a facile attack on labour will be, at the moment.

Take no notice.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

empty spin talk is actually one of the problems education policy has faced for a long time (regardless of which particular colour loons were in power at the time). policies that are actually an attempt to be seen to be doing something about some nonsense rhetoric spun by politicians and the media but have no grounding in reality or true substance behind them that will have any lasting value in the real lives of students and teachers in the real system and constraints they work in.

i think possibly the most pressing thing to be addressed in education at this time is a facing of the reality of the limits of 'inclusion'. we have been following this model for a while now, long enough to know exactly what the problems with it are, what would be needed to do it effectively, whether we can actually afford to make those changes, whether it's realistic for every individual to be that specialised and meeting so many needs at once etc

i believe we've come up against the limits and we are failing at those limits, not just a few cases but most children because the whole system is straining. we need to face the limits and accept how inclusive we can be and what we can't deal with in mainstream classes/schools etc and look at how we can provide for those limits.

hard to be more specific because there is so much to it but for one thing there is behaviour that we can't deal with in a mainstream school class where we need to be focussing on the education of all children who are getting their one shot. we need to have realistic solutions for managing that behaviour. no you can't just exclude all the kids but no you can't expect teachers to keep putting up with the same behaviour forever or the children in their classes having their education disrupted continuously. so you do need something that takes those children out of the classroom and gets on and does something about the behaviour intensively and if that doesn't fail you need an alternative way of educating those children long term. we may not like it, but it's the reality on the ground regardless of fashion or ideas of we must include. there are times when inclusion fails everyone.

likewise their are limits on how many levels of ability one teacher can address in one class. if you're planning for 30 different groups a week you simply cannot cater well to all of their needs. you can most, inclusion really does work up to it's limits but again the limits are there. if a child is years behind in basic literacy but is just being pushed on through the system doing the same lessons as everybody else with 29 other kids in every class they have and a minimum of ten different teachers their needs just cannot be met. there has to be a point where you give them a seperate provision, maybe a month in the SEN suite (most schools don't have SEN or behaviour suites but i have seen one that did and it did sterling work) doing an intensive course in literacy.

the idea that we could just stick everyone in the same school doing the same curriculum and expect every individual teacher to be able to teach to all of their needs at the same time was just unrealistic. it doesn't have to be streaming or special schools for those capable of being in mainstream but it can mean seperate areas in schools and periods where children are withdrawn from the mainstream curriculum to address their specific needs.

sorry this is epic and i still have more to say but think i better shut up.

[longfingernails]

nooka Well, most of those restaurants must be profitable (or at least, the cashflow must be OK), otherwise they would be going bust. Of course I want the very best for my DC - so does every parent. At the moment, poor parents and even most middle income parents are denied that. I believe that choice will help solve the problem, improve quality and make the underlying systems more efficient - as it does very effectively in the private sector.

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan I don't think it is possible to separate out the politics - but I would point out that it wasn't me who first did it in this thread!

Actually I agree very much with your last post. If you could see just one step further. You accept the need for children to attend different classes within the same school. Why not different children attending different classes at different schools. Some (especially boys who are put off academic studies) may be better in technical schools, where they learn a trade. Others may be better in academic hothouses. Let parents choose.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

because the basic concept of inclusion and comprehensive schools is good. it has it's limits and they need to be addressed but segregation and elitism is not the way forward.

note you said, "even" middle income parents are denied the best education for their kids. how much your parents earn doesn't make you more or less deserving of a good education and earning more than the poor doesn't entitle you to more choice unless you are paying for it.

there are private schools you know. i'm afraid only a hefty bill can meet such a sense of entitlement.

[longfingernails]

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan That is my point! At the moment the rich have a choice of schools. The poor and poorer middle do not.

Why not give the poor more of the opportunities available to the rich - after all, education is the key to social mobility!

[LaurieFairyonthetreeEatsCake]

DH works for the 'best school in the country' according to the Times.

It's about to become a 'failing' school because the Tories are mind-bogglingly thick and narrow minded.

It's the best for 'value added' and what that means is that loads of children who can't speak English or read and write join and then when they leave can do all those things and can be full partakers of society.

They won't however get 5 GCse's at A-C. They will do amazingly and get 3 or 4 - and what an achievement that is from speaking only Polish/Punjabi at 12.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

how?

it's already been showed how utterly floored your concept if you can call it that is

how about we focus on improving all schools seeing as all parents want good ones and all kids need to go to good ones?

why do the pointless shuffling of kids around competitively that just creates more problems in one school and an easier ride for another and people caught up in the mess who can't get the children into a school they can physically get them to.

if everyone goes to their local school and applies their efforts to improving that school then all schools will improve. the option of some parents getting to all send their kids to one school that is seen as 'good' whilst another school is left with everything they haven't cherry picked from the pile just creates problems and inequalities.

[Alouiseg]

If everyone goes to their local school the poor buggers who live in crime ridden estates don't ever get to escape!

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

in reality in most small towns and outskirts there is a good mix in a school's immediate area. estates are close to more expensive housing etc.

however if what you said was the case then those schools would know the challenges they have to meet, have the funding for it and employ the right specialists and facilities to meet them.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

in the 'choice' market how many schools would choose kids from those estates when faced with oversubscription and the ability to cherry pick who they want?

currently many schools do end up full of one demographic because people choose to send their children to other schools than their local one so that school gets only their communities more disadvantaged children plus those of other communities who have extra spare.

[nooka]

If all schools were private then the market analogy would make sense. But they aren't. So long as the tax payer is paying then they want efficiency and value for money as well as quality. Running lots of schools with spare capacity would be very expensive, as the costs for staff, buildings, utilities etc at each school would be the same. So say you set up technical schools, grammar schools, art schools, science schools etc etc and offered choice to each family then you'd need to have an accessible place available at each of those schools, so a lot of wasted capacity.

In a market situation the price would take that into account, or the provider would go bust. Prices in the market are set at what people will pay, not at the cost of the value of the good.

What most parents want is for their local school to provide a good quality education in a setting where their child is happy. A large school should be capable of providing a varied curriculum with a range of options, including for children who are gifted and for those who are struggling (including those who are gifted in some areas and struggling in others). Plenty of countries seem to be able to offer that, I'm not sure why the UK is struggling to quite the extent that t is.