Are we mad or are they?
Children in England are getting a "deficient" primary education because schools are focusing too much on ....
Without following the link above, can you guess which three of the following six are reported as having too much emphasis, and which three 'should' be given more emphasis?
1. Maths
2. English
3. Testing
4. The needs and capacities of the individual: wellbeing; engagement; empowerment; autonomy
5. The individual in relation to others and the wider world: encouraging respect and reciprocity; promoting interdependence and sustainability; empowering local, national and global citizenship; celebrating culture and community
6. Learning, knowing and doing: knowing, understanding, exploring and making sense; fostering skill; exciting the imagination; enacting dialogue.
A grim document
8 hours ago
7 comments:
"Are we mad or are they?"
"They" certainly are. Anyone trying to employ the illiterate and innumerate dross graduating from our so-called education system sees the damage caused by two generations (at least) of the type of crap recommended by Professor Alexander and his friends.
That "we" put up with both the educationalists who have sought - and succeeded - in ruining state education in the UK and the political class which goes along with it is not a symptom of madness - it's a symptom of impotence. I note that your quoted item reports that the "government described the claims as "insulting" to children and teachers." How typical: the response is not that the report and its recommendations are probably manifest shite, only that someone has been "insulted" and therefore someone is "offended".
Forget about the children, the teachers deserve to be insulted (and repeatedly) since they have been complicit in the UK education debacle as evidenced by another quote from the news item that the "acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Christine Blower, said it was a matter of "concern" that the government was keeping the Cambridge Primary Review "at arms length"."
"Anyone trying to employ the illiterate and innumerate dross graduating from our so-called education system"
I'm an employer. I read and review lots of CVs. On average, the CVs and covering letters of people who've entered work in the last 10 years are *immeasurably* better-written than those of people who entered the workplace earlier on. Based on that, I'm calling you out as an ignorant blowhard.
Yes, Professor Alexander is an eejit, but the changes made to the education system since the 1980s, towards standardisation and a focus on core subjects, have genuinely improved school leavers' and graduates' core skills.
JB, all that means is that people have got better at writing CVs.
Everybody's experience on this is different, but I tend rather towards U's view on this.
I'm an employer. I read and review lots of CVs. On average, the CVs and covering letters of people who've entered work in the last 10 years are *immeasurably* better-written than those of people who entered the workplace earlier on.
So do I, and I reckon most of them are written by someone else on behalf of the applicant. Covering letters and emails invariably give the game away.
Trouble is, because the schools don't care you can get great candidates with dreadful English. Makes selection very difficult.
MW "all that means is that people have got better at writing CVs." Exactly.
As usual, John B stoops to his usual pathetic personal abuse which, to say the least, is not a convincing argument. Anyone who sincerely believes that our education system produces more literate and more numerate pupils than those of 20 years ago, let alone 40, is either seriously deluded or has been failed by that very system.
It's not an "education system", it's a subsidised holding pen to allow parents to work so that the state gets more tax.
If any Chinese or Indian (or even European) industrialists read this blog, they'll be delighted.
"No need to worry about them, they still don't realise what they've done" would about sum it up.
But despair is a sin.
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