According to the Telegraph the riots are all down to teachers

I was left open mouthed, but not entirely surprised this morning when headlines started coming in that a teacher had been in court for looting. As a teacher myself I tweeted that I hope this person would no longer be able to work with children, and that I hoped they would be properly punished by the courts. It is now known that the person in court is not a teacher, but works with children at a school. This did not, however, stop David Hughes, a man who is apparently the chief leader writer for the Telegraph publishing on his blog an absolute rant against the teaching profession.

This is what he wrote

A teacher is charged with looting – why am I not surprised?

By David Hughes Politics Last updated: August 10th, 2011

57 Comments Comment on this article

One’s capacity for shock has been rather depleted by the events of the past few days but a riot-related item this morning did manage to raise the eyebrows. The BBC is reporting that the first person up at Highbury Magistrates Court on looting charges was a 31-year old school teachernamed Alexis Bailey. She pleaded guilty to being part of the looting of the Richer Sounds store in Croydon. If this is what teachers get up to, is it any wonder that children have been queuing up to ransack shops? It prompts the question of just when was it that schools stopped punishing theft and instead started turning a blind eye to it? You can date this profound shift to the time youngsters started to heave all their books in and out of school each day in gigantic rucksacks because they could not leave them in their desks in case of theft. The difference between right and wrong became blurred. Before the change, theft was severely punished in all schools: teachers would come down like a ton of bricks on any light-fingered pupils. Then for some reason they simply threw in the towel and told children to protect their own stuff because the disciplinary system could not. Such moral ambivalence has helped spawn the rampant criminality that has had us all so transfixed.

One wonders how such an ill educated fool gets to be a chief leader writer for a national newspapers when virtually everything he has written is either rubbish, or if true, largely been done not because teachers have asked for it but because governments have sought to impose it, in and in the main that has been Tory governments.

Note his main argument that 

You can date this profound shift to the time youngsters started to heave all their books in and out of school each day in gigantic rucksacks because they could not leave them in their desks in case of theft. 

So breaking down his argument, this stems back to when children have to take their books around with them (and home) and the end of each day, in case of theft. So we are talking about after school hours, in evenings, at night ? In essence his claim is that the fault is that teachers failed to protect schools after school from thefts and break ins. Is that a teacher's role ? If so, what an utterly ridiculous argument.

Many people on the left have sought to blame the riots on cuts, EMA and tuition fees. They are wrong, as can be clearly seen by the type of people going before the courts.

But equally the right are wrong to turn to their usual targets, which as we've seen since Michael Gove because education secretary, always seems to involve attacking teachers.

Now you can't access the blog any more written by David Hughes, but you can access the cached version HERE.

Next time David Hughes writes about education, remember what he wrote and see what his real agenda is, which is basically to blame teachers for the nation's ills, even riots.

Is Lib Dem education policy simply "Let Michael Gove do what ever he wants" ?

The Lib Dems were for many years seen as having the most sensible and well thought out policies on education. Be this pledges to cut class sizes, a commitment to reform key Stage 2 SATS, a properly thought out policy on higher education funding and, [particularly under the stewardship of the excellent Phil Willis, the brilliant former Lib Dem education spokesman who stood down from parliament in 2010, teachers felt that there was someone who understood the problems in the education system.

So what the hell has happened to this ? Where has the Lib Dem influence of education gone since May 2011 ?

We all know the debacle over tuition fees. and irrespective of whether it is fairer or not, the failure of the party to get the Tories to admit that it could be called a "hybrid graduate tax", which would have got the party of the hook with many voters, showed a total lack of influence over education policy the Lib Dems have.

Of course the party nationally like to raiser the "pupil premium" as a Lib Dem successs, ignoring the fact that this was in the Tories manifesto also, so can hardly be hailed as a policy which the Lib Dems won as a concession from the Tories.

Since May 2010 all we have really seen on education is a succession of rants from Michael Gove, almost always seeming to put down the teacher profession, make threats, and tell us that what we are doing is wrong and can only be solved by creating new academies or free schools. On top of this if you work in Key Stage 2, the government arbitrarily put up the schools targets just weeks before the SATS tests. No reason was given other than that it was to raise standards. If Gove really thinks that raising targets without allocating any new funds will raise standards then he has no idea of the real world.

Yet even today, the teaching profession is being told that if we strike on Thursday, it could "Damage teachers' reputation". No Mr Gove, you've been doing that all by yourself for the last 14 months by constantly criticising the whole profession.

I'd love to see or hear a Lib Dem MP come out and offer an alternative narrative to the one put out by Mr Gove, but sadly we seem to have no influence whatsoever.

Government moving the goalposts ? Fair ? Liberal ? Principled ?

Primary schools have found out in the last few days that their targets for this year's KS2 SATs tests are to be upped by 5%, just a few weeks before the tests are to actually take place. Anyone with any common sense would accept that waiting until just 8 weeks before the tests is a ridiculously late time to change school targets, but that is not the worst of it.

In know there are some target nuts who think that by raising targets schools will suddenly achieve more, but that assumes that teachers, or anyone for that matter, only respond to targets and actually don't care about doing the very best job they can anyway. Changing my target at school wont make me do more for the simple reason that I am already doing as much as I can. Nobody actually becomes a teacher for an easy life, but the government seem to think we do it to meet targets, not to teach children.

But for many schools, and this is the real kick in the teeth, the government have not only changed this year's targets, they have also backdated the targets, meaning that schools who achieved their target last year are now being written to and being told that they have not achieved their target after all because the government have backdated the new target to last year's results.

Considering the SATs tests last year were carried out the week after the General Election, there will many people in the education sector, and society as a whole, we will be wondering if they can backdate and retrospectively change their vote. I doubt the government would see this as fair, so why is it okay for them to do this to the education sector ? 

The government just doesn't get it - Why are the middle classes ignored or assumed to be rich ?

As a means of winning over wavering Lib Dem MPs, the government is supposedly offering the possibility of students from poorer backgrounds the possibility of having their tuition fees paid for a year or two.

My simple response is, what about the middle classes ?

An 18 year old who has middle class parents earning £22k a year each (above the limit at which the government would have students repaying their loans) are no better off than students from poorer backgrounds. These middle class parents are not rich, they have no large disposable income, and they certainly do not have the money to bankroll children through university. But because these parents are not categorised as "poor" their children will have to pay out more in fees over three years than either of their parents earn in a single year.

The whole debate over tuition fees has seen the Lib Dems stuck in a ridiculous rut constantly arguing how Vince Cable's proposed system is fairer for the very poorest students, but totally ignores how unfair it is on those whose parents are not poor, but not exactly rolling in cash.

The thought of having £27000 of debts would almost certainly have put me off going to university, and it will have that effect too on many other children who are not loaded, but simple make ends meet.

Losing the education vote

A whole plethora of education policies has been foisted upon us this week, and you might expect that at least one of the policies, even one small chunk would garner some support within education circles. Sadly not.

In each and every sphere of education, tried and tested ideas, policy backed by evidential proof, has been axed or scrapped to be replaced by a succession of politically inspired dogmatic policies based on only the evidence of Michael Gove's eyes.

When challenged on the radio about the comments that Ofsted made about the successes and achievements of university based teaching courses, something Mr Gove wants to axed, his response was "I haven't seen that evidence". Instead, he was basing his policies on what he has seen himself.

Again, the Lib Dems like to make out that they have "toned down" the Tories in government, yet I see nothing in Mr Gove's polices that are there because of Lib Dem influence. Instead, I got another email from the Lib Dems banging on about the "pupil premium" again. The Lib Dems are falling in to Labour's trap of re-announcing the same policy over and again, whilst ignoring the fact that the pupil premium was also a Tory policy.

In truth, if the Tories had wanted to reform education they could have reformed Ofsted, turning it back in to a proper inspection system instead of an operation in ticking boxes.

The lack of anything Lib Dem, and the apparent capitulation of the Lib Dem party in allowing the Tories to get total control of education policy (whilst quite ridiculously a Lib Dem MP sits as schools minister), has lost the party many votes from people in education.

Don't let the next generation pay for our mistakes

Yes, that's a phrase used over and over again by coalition MPs to justify their deep and excessive cuts.

So why is it that the next generation are the ones being asked to pay for our mistakes ?

If we weren't making the next generation pay why is funding being cut to High Schools who are PE academies ? Why is funding for School Sports Co-Ordinators (SSCOs) being threatened ? Why is funding for studying at our of school study centres being cut back ? Why are news school building programmes being halted ?

We all accept that some cuts are necessary, but can we please stop all the rubbish about protecting education, and saving the next generation from suffering. Most schools I know about are having severe budget cuts, and the ones who are suffering are the children.

New government, same old bull.

Ofsted seeking to please the government and offer cuts on a plate

Ofsted did their usual today, producing another report which seeks to slam the teaching profession rather than point out all the good work that is being done. As a teacher I know that getting a child with genuine Special Education Needs to be registered as SEN and get a statement is like trying to jump through flaming hoops, it requires much work and effort, and is not the easy option. However, Ofsted instead chose to simply blame teachers and claim a quarter (a gross distortion) or pupils are registered as SEN incorrectly.

There are those that will jump on this straight away and use it as another stick to beat the teaching profession, but those people nearly all reside within the ranks of the Tory Party, and thus the whole Ofsted strategy is laid bare.

The fact is that when the government are asking for suggestions about where cuts can be made, the massively under performing Ofsted are prime candidates for a budget cut. With their tick box approach to grading schools criticised, an obsession with grading lunch boxes over learning, their lack of judgement in giving Haringey Council a clean bill of health just months before the Baby Peter scandal, backing poor teachers and numerous other examples, it is clear Ofsted is an organisation in need of reform. So a return to the Chris Woodhead style of Ofsted, attacking the teaching profession, blaming teachers, pandering to the right wing, is just the deal that might save them, and provide the ammunition the government are looking for.

Today's Ofsted report is just the sort of news the Tories want (forget what the Lib Dems want, those in government will toe the Tory line). It now gives the Conservatives an excuse to make it harder for children to be registered as SEN. It gives them a chance to impose cuts with Ofsted as their justification. In short, Ofsted has offered up SEN children as the sacrificial lambs to save their own necks.

Note - My own personal experience of Ofsted has been positive, but I am graded a "good" teacher, and  my school is progressive and moving forward. I do, however, tire of Ofsted's "press release" culture, where they lecture the teaching profession through the pages of the Daily Mail instead rather than abandoning their tick lists and engaging with those who work in education.

Tory County Council to increase adult education costs by 20%

The EDP reports that Adult Education fees are set to rise by 20% next year, with a resulting possible fall in uptake of these courses by 2000 people next year. For me, this is a really easy target for the Tories to attack, but also the wrong target given the current economic climate.

In difficult economic times, people ought to be encouraged to retrain, get better qualified, and be better equipped for the upturn. Sadly, cost is a very important factor in whether people will take up adult education classes, and this will inevitably put people off.

I myself did my A levels at evening class, so I know the value of being able to do evening classes. Whilst the report talks about the sort of activities which are less academic being hit, this is the thin end of the wedge.

We shouldn't be surprised though that the Tories are cutting classes like this rather than the very generous expenses system at County Hall. After all, it was the Tories who only a few years ago put the entertainment budget for the council up by about £100,000 a year ! How many classes would that pay for ?

Norfolk Tories make swinging cuts to funding for schools in deprived areas

The EDP writes today

Norfolk's neediest youngsters could miss out on lifeline support because of a £1.9m cut in funding to more than one-third of the county's schools, many in the most deprived areas.

The county council is set to slice the sum out of the grants it makes to schools to help them boost results among vulnerable children.

In all 167 schools will get less money than they were promised - with cuts ranging from a few hundred pounds to almost £93,000 for the biggest loser, Great Yarmouth High.

Interesting to note that despite Cameron's pledge to defend eduction and the NHS, when it comes to what Tories are doing, on the ground, cuts to education are one of the first things they do.

No doubt Norfolk County Council will be asking the schools they are cutting significant funding to why their results are not as good as they hoped. Appalling.

A sign that any media source is not to be trusted is if they get excited about the release of school league tables

BBC East tonight almost wet themselves with excitement talking about the "incredible" High School league tables produced today.

Anyone who knows anything about education knows that league tables show only what is recordable, not what is important. The fact that BBC East, not noted for their fantastic journalism locally, reported this with such gusto and excitement rather underlines why I don't watch the BBC local news.

"Bash the teachers" - The Tories new policy

The idea that standards can be improved by sacking teachers, bringing in people who have received no teacher training and handing schools over to those organisations that have already proved cannot be trusted to run schools seems a daft idea. But not if you are a Tory education spokesman.

Read more HERE.

Would we sack privates in the army if a military operation failed ? Would we sack police officers if crime went up ? Would we sack firemen if a fire cannot be put out quickly ?

Then if all these daft things were done, would we replace these people with untrained people ?

Criminal checks for everyone

The latest initiative by the government to ensure that everyone who has anything to do with children, including those parents who give lifts to and from clubs is an astonishing amount of overkill and symbolic of this government's willingness to ignore common sense at all costs.

Whilst we can all appreciate that criminal record checks (CRB checks) are important and necessary for those employed to work with children and those who run childrens' activities, it seems ludicrous to apply this to a further 11 million people.

Clubs and voluntary groups find it hard enough to find volunteers and this move will make that even harder. The government seem to believe that these checks will eliminate all dangers to children but ignore the fact that all offenders have, at some point, been first time offenders. These checks will not stop people with clean records but bad intent having contact with children, so risk will not be eliminated.

The other aspect is the fact that CRB checks are a very good income stream for the government. My old school had to get me CRB checked when I qualified as a teacher. I then got CRB checked again 3 years later when I became a councillor. There was then a change in the status of my school and all staff (including me) had to have further CRB checks. Then I changed school, and my old CRB check (only one year old) was deemed invalid so I was checked again. Two years later my school changed to a Primary school from a Middle school, thus changing it's name, which apparently invalidated the CRB check so all staff were checked again. So by my reckoning in a little over 10 years I have been CRB checked five times, at a cost of £32 each time, costing more than £150. Why a CRB check and a certificate cannot be transferred, take with you from establishment to establishment for a period of five years, only requiring your new employer to phone your previous school or employer to check you have not got any recent convictions, I do not know.

What is the silliest part though was the fact that all 40 plus staff at my school had to be redone just because our school name changed. That's £1300 on checks that were not needed. And now we are being told that school budgets will be squeezed in the recession !

Common sense on education ?

What a complete and genuine surprise from the government today. An announcement on schools which should be greeted by teachers, parents and learners alike.

The government, it seems, have woken up to the fact that school league tables really are no proper measure of how good a school is. It is clear to anyone who has any knowledge of the education system that league tables record only what is measurable and not what is important.

Instead of simple tables recording SATs results, the government wants schools to be graded in a similar way to that used in New York with grades given judging the "added value" that schools gives to children's results, the schools record on discipline, school attendance and a whole host of other measures.

Don't whisper it too loud but Ed Balls, the education minister, might not be as dim as he seems !

Teaching in 6 months ? Idiocy from Labour

The government's latest bright idea is to say that the way to improve standards in education is to bring in a load of people with no educational experience, no previous inclination to want to teach, and get the trained in six months. What a joke.

I did a PGCE to qualify to teach, a one year course, and I would argue that even that is not really quite adequate to teach, but just about covers everything briefly. However, I cannot see how bringing in so called "high flyers" and offering them a shortcut to teaching is going to actually raise standards in education.

It seem that teaching is constantly treated as a second thought by ministers in government. We wouldn't offer doctors a 50% length course to qualify. They wouldn't offer RAF pilots a half length course in order to fly RAF Typhoons. I doubt that the government would consider allowing Royal Navy officers a shortened course in order to steer ships and submarines. However a teacher, who in effect controls the standard of education a child gets in one year of their life, they believe, can get a shortcut through the system.

What I fail to understand is why high flyers, with no experience of classroom management, rules, laws, teaching standards, school ICT, or lesson planning and structures can't go through a full one year PGCE like everyone else. If the government believe that making them do an extra few months will put them off, then what does it say about these people and their commitment to young people and education.

More to the point, what does it say about this government that they think this is a good idea.

A plea on behalf of education

A report today comes up with the rather sensationalist conclusion that Children in England are getting a "deficient" primary education. In many ways I agree, but don't let the headlines or government excuses allow you to believe for one minute that this is because of what is actually going on in schools. The problems for this lie with government and their addiction to recording what is measurable but not what is important.

The truth of the matter is, as the report suggests, schools are focusing too much on maths, English and testing. And why is this happening ? The simple answer is a system is in place which is obsessed only with SATs in primary schools and league tables, with this further emphasised by Ofsted inspections which largely ignore the great bulk of what goes on in a school and instead places the focus on test results in Literacy and Numeracy.

I think we all know that being numerate and literate are important, but this government has an obsession with tinkering with education, literacy schemes, numeracy frameworks and national curriculum objectives which mean that teachers are constantly having to change the way something is taught before we know if the way we had been doing it is actually going to be the best or most successful methods.

If a doctor gave out different pills each week to a patient, how does the doctor know which pill s are the ones that cure the patient or which makes them worse ? The same is true of education. We need time to bed things down, see what works and make adjustments accordingly.

I heard David Cameron on Radio Five Live a few days ago going on about education and "his plans", and my heart sank. Not because I am bitterly opposed to the way the Conservatives have treated education in the past with real terms cuts in funding in the 1990s whilst favoured "opted out" schools creamed of money from LEA schools and selected pupils, but because want I want, and what just about every teacher wants to hear is that any new government will have a moratorium on education which means we will have at least 2 years (and preferably longer) with absolutely no change at all.

No change might seem like a cop out, but in the primary sector we need time to see what is working and what is not. We need to given the new literacy and numeracy frameworks, which have only been in place for a few months, time to work. David Cameron and the Tories certainly ought to be planning for what might need to happen, but how about listening to people in education and stop pandering to those who fail to understand there is more to education than changing the curriculum.

If David Cameron want to win over thousands of teachers in a single swoop and make a real difference, he could take on board one of the main thrusts of today's report and seek to deal with the over testing of primary school children by scrapping the key stage two SATs tests and accepting that ongoing informal assessment by teachers (which is allowed at KS1 and KS3) should be the way forward.

A mixed message from Leicestershire County Council ?

On Thursday night I listened to Radio Five on the way home from work. On the show they were interviewing the Tory leader of Leicestershire County Council who, in what seemed to me an attempt to win populist support, had said teachers who cannot make it to school because of the bad snow should go unpaid for those days unless they have made a "reasonable attempt" to get to school. This typical "teacher bashing" comment might win votes from people angry that their local school is closed because of bad weather, but the Council leader's statement failed to properly quantify what a "reasonable attempt" was.

Given the leader of the council was making such a strong statement about teachers, one might imagine that Leicestershire County Council was itself making a "reasonable attempt" to keep all its roads open. However, a Leicestershire County Councillor was on the radio yesterday morning complaining that Leicestershire County Council was itself asking for efficiency savings from its road gritting department which would mean cuts in its budget for gritting next year.

So on one hadn the leader of the council is telling teachers their pay will be docked for missing school and on the other the council are looking at reducing its own ability to keep roads open . Very odd indeed.

Forget the weather !

The police advice is ... don't travel unless absolutely necessary.

The schools across Norfolk are shutting by the dozen.

Norwich Airport is closed.

I am supposed to be on a literacy course at a training centre in Norwich and ... Norfolk County Council have insisted the course is going ahead and when I phoned asking do they really expect me to attend given the weather, they just made plain that the course was still running and that would be my decision.

Impressed ??? No !!!

Update : Having now returned I can confirm (despite comments from one idiot) that the ring road is now deteriorating badly and a number of less well gritted outer roads are now becoming very difficult too.

The problem was never going to be getting in to Norwich, but as anyone with access to a weather forecast knew, the weather would turn bad. Schools across Norfolk were well aware that staff were going to have to get home again and that is why many decided to close early. At least my course did finish earlier than planned.

Norfolk School Closures - Is your school closed because of the snow ?

If, like me, you are desperately trying to find out if your local school is closed in Norfolk because of the snow but cannot find it because Norfolk County Council's Schools website is so appalling and the "School Closures" section is no longer displayed on the home page of the website and is now hidden, click on the link below.

http://www.schoolclosures.norfolk.gov.uk/

Is someone who left University with a Third Class degree the person to go to for Maths advice

David Cameron, it seems, is slightly obsessed with female TV personalities. Not content with Kirsty Allsop (from Location, Location, Location) being involved of a Tory taskforce on housing, David Cameron has now put Carol Vorderman (is there anyone who grates more on my nerves than her ?) in charge of investigation maths teaching. Let's not forget, Carol Vorderman left university with a third class degree. Yes, it is a pass, but for a number of employers this is not actually good enough to get a job.

From what I have heard from David Cameron on GMTV this morning, what he is demanding that schools do is exactly what is already part of the new Numeracy Framework. It is a shame David Cameron seemingly hadn't bothered to read this document like all schools have !

So who will be next to head up a task force for the Tories ? Can you think of a female TV presenter who wants a job ?

Political correctness gone mad in Sheffield

As a teacher, can I make plain that I think the headteacher in this case is daft !

I guess local road signs will also need to be changed to "Place of Learning" too ?