How long do you give Andy Burnham as PM?

[AndyBurnham2L]

Build ‘em up.
Knock ‘em down.

Short honeymoon and then the grumbling will start. It will all be over for him by Christmas.

So, who’s next?

Unfortunately apprenticeships in particular level 3 and T levels require Maths and English. You should not be able to leave education without them and that it should a priority to rectify this issue in a schools and last resort in college. F E colleges don't perform very well in Maths and English in resits....so school is the best option.

As for trades for kids that failed school then its not simple as you think. The awarding bodies nearly always require Maths and English as a prerequisite and this applies to joinery, plumbing, electrics, gas engineering , bricklaying and air conditioning. City & Guilds, BPEC all have yearly exams which need to be passed....fail a year and the employer has to fund the resit. So an employer wants an apprentice who is bright, hard working and able to get through college because otherwise they will never qualify.

Lots of apprentices never make it to the end, either they don't have the attitude, can't pass the exam or simply lose their job.....

So my advice to all young people....if you are finding school hard ...put all your effort into English and Maths because that will open more doors than you think.

They need to be taught how to behave first. You can't learn anything if you can't behave.

I hope you are right.
I’m right of center, on MN probably considered right wing or even far right.
But I don’t care who is in government as long as things improve and the managed decline (eg: the shocking state of the roads, the NHS, the levels of immigration (Islamist librarians FFS) the benefits bill etc) needs to be turned into real growth.
If that requires higher taxes then so be it.
Is Andy the man for the moment? Time will tell, and he hasn’t had any time.

A PP upthread that a third of children don’t pass English and Maths first time - which I take to be GCSE. I find that fucking shocking. They’re not tested to a high pass level.

This makes me think that we should sort out primary and secondary education as the urgent priority. Gove did his best, but it seems that we’re fighting a losing battle against illiteracy and the triumph of pride in stupidity.

Where has reverence for learning gone? It used to be universal, across all groups in society.

Bridget phillipson has introduced reading tests in year 8. She hasn't actually said why.
But if a child is poor at reading in year 8, they are not prepared for gcse. Bridget hasn't said what intervention will take place. In my opinion one year of intervention will achieve nothing.
Maybe the reading tests should take place in year 6. Year 7 could prepare the kids for secondary. But further intervention would still be needed at secondary.
Better still, maybe some parents could just help with reading homework!
I used to volunteer at a primary, listening to reading. It was obvious which parents cba and expected someone else to pick up the pieces

No he has diverted training money. He has stopped employers from investing in their own staff over a certain age, i think 22, and is taking their apprenticeship levy to spend elsewhere.
The original idea was mooted by Bridget phillipson. She hadn't said how the money would be spent. Its basically just another tax on employers.

Gove was terrible in education... probably one of the worst.

It's not always the education system, UK teachers are some of the best but the problems often start at home.

Parents have to accept some responsibility for their children, poor attendance, not monitoring homework and not telling them that school is probably the most important thing that will set them up for the rest of their lives.

This is the point I'm trying to make, for years apprenticeships were for kids who flunked school. Those attitudes still exist amongst parents...it's ok lad go to college and do a trade only to find out hundreds of children have the same idea and most have English and Maths.

I'll give you an example, car mechanic. It's now a highly technical job and it's going to be get a lot more. Yet people turn up to college open days thinking they can get in because they like repairing their moped but have no qualifications.

We need to train 50,000 young people into the motor trade or face huge shortages in the next decade.

So I tell all young people, if you come out with English and Maths then most options are available.

Yes.
And as we can all testify, it costs a fortune to have boilers installed or repaired. No offence.
Therefore, it's probably a better career choice than other routes.

I certainly agree that parents are the biggest problem. That’s why I questioned where society’s belief in and commitment to learning has gone.

But what did Gove do that’s so reflexively reviled by some on MN? Have a view that children should be taught a proper curriculum?

No doubt there are vested interests among academics and other activists to condemn the methodology, but my understanding was that Gove pushed English school education up the international achievement tables.

If kids are not toilet trained by the time they go to school, what hope is there to develop their maths and English?

This is about useless lazy parents; pumped full of benefits, for no productive outcome. Take their bennies if the kids can’t use a toilet, or perform basic numerical and verbal/written communication.

Because of the heavy focus on passing GCSE's rather than coursework and written assessments and the demise of art and technical subjects

What is a 'proper curriculum' anyway?

Austerity and the loss of sure start has a lot to do with that.

We’ll never agree on the (very limited) place for coursework in children’s education or on what ‘proper’ means in the context of a curriculum. So I’ll leave it at saying that I dispute absolutely that Gove was a bad Ed Sec. In fact I think he gave school education in England a new chance.

Phillipson and Powell are stifling it again. But there you go.

FE colleges do a bloody brilliant job of trying to do in 8 months what schools have failed to do! If students don’t have E&M colleges have from mid September to April to get them to a grade 4. It’s bloody hard work.
The issue is you are trying to persuade lads who want to be plumbers that understanding metaphor and figurative language is important. Girls who want to work as nail stylists that quadratic equations matter. We used to have a functional skills qualification which tested practical - functional - maths and English but Gove removed funding for this qual.
A proper curriculum that contains identifying similes is not a proper curriculum when it is standing in the way of someone getting on a level 2 motor vehicle apprenticeship.

If you can't/won't explain what a proper curriculum is then there is nothing to agree or disagree with.

Students who struggle with maths and English and/or are more practical are not helped by the narrow curriculum

the problem is NOT a lack of benefits, it is a lack of parenting.

I didn't even mention benefits

Austerity ended the Sure Start schem which benefitted a lot of people who are now falling between the cracks. It benefitted the parents you mention and more importantly the children.

Where has reverence for learning gone? It used to be universal, across all groups in society

There have always been children whose parents don't put any value on learning and who aren't helped at all by the school system. It isn't a new thing.

Some children left as soon as they hit 16 when I went to school. They didn't even bother with exams. Their parents didn't care. Neither did a lot of the teachers. The way those children were treated at school was appalling. They were written off before they even walked through the door because of where they came from. Some of them managed to do well though, despite not taking a single exam.

There is a plethora of online free parenting information, perhaps these feckless parents could spend some of their screen time to engage with them?

Rubbish. Parents are either decent or useless. The useless ones just don't make the effort.
Nothing makes me cringe more than a toddler on an ipad whist it's mum is on her phone. They don't interact with their kids except to put them on Instagram posts.
People who were educated before ww2 had beautiful handwriting, could read, and could do maths. They weren't rolling in money.
They were also respectful to teachers or other adults.

Rubbish, with help more people can be decent.

Proper help, not 'google it'

Sure Start provided that support.

The curriculum before gove was shit. Gcses entailed a lot of coursework. Whisper this! It was a pathway to cheating!

The parents who want to bring back coursework just want to bring back cheating. Maybe they got good marks themselves due to coursework. One girl once told me that she passed the coursework part of her gcse because her teacher wrote her essay. She didn't even know that was wrong.

Kids were getting brilliant gcses on the back of coursework. Sometimes completed at home with family input. Things improved when coursework had to be written under exam conditions at school or college, but teachers could advise how to rewrite and get a better mark.

It was not unusual for kids to get 10 A* and then flunk their A levels.

Gove brought back academic standards he improved our educational attainment. He stretched kids. The only thing he didnt do was to recognise that not all kids are suited to loads of academic exams. He failed to provide an alternative for those kids.

Don't worry. Within the next 12 months Lucy wotshername will be announcing the introduction of coursework in order to increase attainment. (Improving performance by cheating).

Coursework is a nightmare for teachers to administer due to absenteeism etc. No wonder some resort to writing it themselves.

3 x Maths Papers, 2 x English Literature and 2 x English Language papers is fairly hard for less able students to gain a pass.

Functional Skills are still available to do in high school, but aren’t measured in performance tables now.
Surely if they were and aim to get students to Level 3 where employers recognise it by age 18 would be a better use of teaching time for both high school and FE colleges

If you are correct and some parents are just rubbish then Sure Start was even more important. If they didn’t make the effort then the children might be supported by others. If the parents are feckless it’s not the fault of the children and they can be looked after and saved so the behaviour doesn’t repeat through the generations.

Many people before ww2 could read and write beautifully and some left school at 14. Don’t idealise the past, poverty, being beaten at school and then leaving at 14 is not something to look back on with longing.

Most GCSE Subjects still have coursework (and it’s not cheating as it’s all moderated )