For God's Sake Stop Bloody Tinkering!

[Snoopy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7418899.stm
                                                                   
School holidays are no longer than when we were all achieving O and A levels, sitting examinations that were far harder, under much more strict conditions. Shortening the holidays and creating more terms ('cos the teachers will still want the same amount of time off) is not the answer to poor results. Tighten up on discipline, bring back more male teachers, scrap coeducational secondary schools, bring back the 11 plus and Grammar Schools, stop "scaffolding" the exams and get down to teaching a subject properly instead of showing pupils how to get a "pass" in a multi choice questionnaire and you just might get somewhere.

[Darwins Selection]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7418899.stm
                                                                   
School holidays are no longer than when we were all achieving O and A levels, sitting examinations that were far harder, under much more strict conditions. Shortening the holidays and creating more terms ('cos the teachers will still want the same amount of time off) is not the answer to poor results. Tighten up on discipline, bring back more male teachers, scrap coeducational secondary schools, bring back the 11 plus and Grammar Schools, stop "scaffolding" the exams and get down to teaching a subject properly instead of showing pupils how to get a "pass" in a multi choice questionnaire and you just might get somewhere.

Spot on Snoopy.

Back to the good old days where the Working Class knew their place and showed respect for their betters, pick out a few of their brighter offspring to be educated in Grammar schools to do the more complicated menial tasks and maintain a solid, even-handed overall control by public school educated aristocrats and landowners. 

[Snoopy]

I have a theory.
The only way to get a decent education these days is to attend one of a handful of schools (mostly very expensive fee paying ones) and thence to University (again only a very expensive one will do it ~ forget all these ex-polytechnics). The only people who can afford this for their children, under the conditions created over the last eleven years, are the offspring of the ruling elite (Look at Blair and Co's children to see what I mean).
Having just about bankrupted the old aristocracy who led the country naturally and scrapped the House of Lords by filling it with miners, lawyers and the like, the "Career Politicians" (and all parties have colluded in this) are now creating a new elite. Themselves and their children.
Look at the Blairs, expensive education for their children, "Town" houses, Country houses (Mansions more like) They are so aspirational it is almost a parody of everyting that Labour used to stand against.
Mark my words "They" have created the new "Aristocracy" and just to make sure their heirs can hang onto it they have killed any chances that the majority of children will ever have by ensuring a piss poor education is the norm ~ what is most galling is that we have let them.

[Uncle Mort]

Was it not ever so Snoopy. The ruling class, whoever they be, ensure the right education for their offspring, the right university and the right connections.

There are some very poor state schools especially in inner city areas but many are good, some excellent. The school my children attend is very good, much better than the Secondary Modern I went to and I confidently expect them both to do well.

They will not however become part of the ruling class.

[Snoopy]

Was it not ever so Snoopy. The ruling class, whoever they be, ensure the right education for their offspring, the right university and the right connections.

There are some very poor state schools especially in inner city areas but many are good, some excellent. The school my children attend is very good, much better than the Secondary Modern I went to and I confidently expect them both to do well.

They will not however become part of the ruling class.

You could be right Uncle ~ one of the reasons we moved here was that education standards were so much better. Unfortunately that has changed beyond all recognition in the past 7 years. I have recently looked out the replies we received from local schools and the education authorities in response to our pre move enquiries. Obviously they referred to past events, which we accepted, as no information of that sort is ever going to be any newer than the previous year's results. So the details of 8 or 9 years ago are available to me and I have compared them to last year's published results. Talk about a nose dive!
The only consolations are that the results from the schools in the area we moved from (Mid Beds/North Herts) have not improved in that time and that the daughter seems, as we recently told her school, to be succeeding despite them.

[Uncle Mort]

We got our children into a south Herts school as the Essex comps are not so good. Fortunately their mother lives across the border so we used her address to be in the catchment area. It only takes me 10-15 mins to do the school run and they can walk to their mum's after school.

[Snoopy]

Right! Well done you.   

We lived in Stondon (Junction 10 on the A1M and turn left) which put us about 300 yards inside Mid Beds and their schools policies are bloody awful. We fought for Herts but then this place came up and we went for it (for a number of reasons).

Denbighshire is now officially graded as the only "Failing County Council" in Wales ~ whether this is connected with our arrival here in May 2001 I cannot say. The Director of Life Long Learning (WTF is that when it's at home?) was sacked, some three years ago, after writing a damning report of the direction that education in the county was going. She had been in post less than two years. Last year Estyn (the Welsh version of Offsted) reported that education standards in the county are at an all time low and confirmed all her predictions. She is, needless to say, persuing her case through the courts. Tells you all you need to know really.

Lovely place to live but educationally probably a bad decision on my part ~ although it did achieve other objectives. We are now actively considering home education for the two boys. Neither wants to go down that route as they believe that they will "have no friends" and "have to work harder at 'Mummy' school" but it may come to it unless dramatic changes occur in the next year or so.