The BBC is inviting comments on this topic.
To my surprise and disappointment, nobody has made the obvious point that six would be far too bloody early in the morning, starting at 8.30 seems about right to me.
Two Birds, One Stone!
40 minutes ago
9 comments:
Yeah, and the government would have to put the clocks so far back in the autumn to stop the little darlings walking to school in the dark, that it would be dusk at lunchtime.
Seriously, I can't see the starting age for school raised any time soon, as the primary purpose of school, AFAICS, is not education, but a state-sponsored creche. The lessons are just to keep the brats occupied.
My idea for sorting out the mess that is Education is to drop the school leaving age to 11. After that, if parents want to continue to enjoy the benefits of a free creche, they will have to make sure their offspring behave and the children who really do want to learn something will be relieved of the presence of those who really don't. /rant
*Applause* for the gag .. .. funnier than anything I've heard Jo Brand say this week.
Mrsff works in a school. Some of the kids are not used to the discipline that is needed for lessons to happen. Some have no idea what self control is at all. Starting at 4/5 rather than 5/6 gives the school an extra year to instil some idea of personal boundaries in the little *********s.
What captainff says. As schools now seem to have to toilet train kids, teach them to use a knife* and fork and, in some cases, speak English, earlier rather that later would be better. It also gives their parent an opportunity to join the wonderful world of work a year earlier.
*or plastic spatula.
bayard, I agree, but the whole idea of compulsory schooling is so that we don't have gangs of young teenagers wandering the street. Eleven is a bit young to conscript them, but I suppose the navy is always an option. Do they still have cabin boys?
What was wrong with the schooling system of thirty or forty years ago? Seemed to work for me.
Why do they keep trying to re-invent the wheel?
Rab
The problem is it did work for you. You were enabled to read, write, do sums etc and, more important, to be able to think for yourself, follow an argument ans spot bullshit at a thousand yards. The question, as always, as cui bono?: in whose interest is it that the education system turns out, generally speaking, ill-educated benefit fodder? Well one piece of evidence: the political class seem happy since all the major parties effectively want more of the same.
@Roue le Jour: Do they still have cabin boys?
Bearing in mind the original main function of cabin boys I'd suspect that reinstating the job would fall foul of certain other legislation. :-)
B, you see it as 'State sponsored creche', but I see no harm in kids being with other kids and learning something while Mum & Dad go to work. Let's start by reducing leaving age to 15 and take it from there.
CFF, RLJ, agreed.
RCN, see what Umbongo says.
Pogo, we can just reduce the age of consent in line with school leaving age (see above), job done.
In Russia, they begin at 7 and haven't struck too many problems as yet.
@ RLJ "bayard, I agree, but the whole idea of compulsory schooling is so that we don't have gangs of young teenagers wandering the street."
I'm tempted to ask why our educational establishments should be used for the incarceration of otherwise wandering gangs of teenagers, but if what Umbongo says is true, the purpose of keeping the gangs of teenagers in school is to prevent the non-wanderers from learning too much.
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