Too Many Cuts...come join the #Frothers and have your say

[AnyFuckerForAMincePie]

This is the 3rd thread in a series.

It is for people who are horrified, frustrated and downright sad at the erosion of human rights with respect to how this country is being run, just now and in the recent past

it is apolitical in nature, but of course due to many recent initiatives by the recent govt, there will be rants against our current "leaders"

please join in

I shall post the link to the old threads, our "Too Many Cuts #Frothers" blog that is attracting a lot of widespread attention and a little bit of what we are about in a moment

OK, published it - let's ride the wave on this one.

shit Kate.

Great work Shirl. Brilliant article and very relevant.

It's not too bad. My main stuff is backed up online but it's just a pita. At one point I just had a black screen so this is better

Just got retweeted by the wife of Osita - which is fab.

The post might want checking for spelling or glaring grammatical errors - I was bashing away frothily.

Bloody technology - total PITA

I managed to comment, Shirl

Head teachers will no longer need any educational qualifications at all.

Must be lots of budding Free School and Academy managers rubbing their hands at that. Now the accountant, or creationist founder, can be headteacher too. All paid for by public funds.

Closely matches the de-professionalism the police. I don't know if it got through into the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act, but Theresa May wanted senior policing positions to be open to people with no policing experience.

Business again. Run schools like a business. The police like a business. Britain PLC.

Shirl you are on fire! Completely relevant, given the cuts and massive changes are allegedly about saving public money.

Typos
§5: critisised criticised
and if one's being picky you've got enquiry in §1 and inquiry in §9.

Shit! OK, will edit.

essense should be essence at the end although essense feels more frothy

Done - and it's just been announced that Hartnett will retire - probably on a lovely fat pension.

Retire? Not prosecuted then

Yep.

Why am I not surprised?

Do you think the background on the blog is ok? There's a facebook post about it. Could you all pop over and have a look please?

If it is shite I won't mind. I'm not techy or a designer

Whilst digging around for info on Academies and Free schools, I came across this little gem of a quotation from earlier this year:

Nick Clegg: ?improving social mobility is the principal goal of the coalition government?s social policy?.

That's going well then!

I think it looks good, kate.

Knotty - did you read educ guardian on academies on Tues? Frightening the speed of conversion.

reactivated my twitter account, so that I may froth! :)

Thanks Hully. I'll leave it be then but do please say if it starts giving you migraines.

Hully, I'm reading bleeding everything I can get my hands on. Conversion astonishing. There's also some stuff around about how Gove is considering 'Studio' academies. Bloody segregation everywhere:

schools for Catholics
schools for Prods
schools for academic elite
schools for rich
schools for techies
schools for middle-classes
etc etc etc

Big Society, my arse. Split em all up. Weaken their powers.

OK, Dave Hartnett has announced his intention to retirement for summer 2012.

So he's still currently employed by HMRC - and therefore presumably still sackable for gross misconduct, etc.

knotty - yy. It's all going backwards. Bye bye national education system with national curriculum. Hello you-get-what-you-pay-for.

Hully, it's some bizarre social experiment. I'm getting deja vu...

Studio schools are the 'new' secondary moderns.

Now, Gove has at least recognised that an academic route isn't for everyone although I suspect he was hoping the Wolf report would say vocational education was all shite. Wolf found that there is a strong case and place for it, with some revision of current courses, apprenticeship schemes, etc.

So he'll stick em all in a 'Studio' school away from the brainy ones

I know I said something half-reasonable about Gove there. No, can't believe it either.

i've never heard of studio schools.

Gove has a History degree.

Therefore he followed an academic pathway.

He considers academic intelligence superior to all others.

What did he learn about history?
Surely we study history to learn about the past developments, lives and how they have shaped our own.
We learn about History so that mistakes aren't repeated. Like Secondary Moderns.

So, is Gove's academic intelligence better or worse than my mother's intelligence? She is a product of the SM education and had always considered herself thick because of it, because she failed to get into a better, academic school. Yet, she has probably has more emotional intelligence that Gove has, more interpersonal intelligence than he has. But she hasn't got a certificate or letters after her name. So she isn't then

Sorry, rant over

How do we get to a place where academic isn't considered better than "vocational?" I think there are many kids for whom school is utterly pointless beyond about 14 but we don't know what to do about it, or how to even have the debate.