Interesting News Snippets

I try not to copy when I can work it out for myself. Blame that on my ‘educationalists’ (we called then teachers).

I also prefer primary sources to secondary ones. Blame that on my tertiary education.

As for whiteboards, what does it tell you, apart from it being the 21st Century and wipe-clean boards and marker pens being more practical than chalk? Or do you detect a left-wing conspiracy?

Visit OECD – it’s not that difficult. http://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/PISA-2012-low-performers-United-Kingdom-ENG.pdf

PISA doesn’t explain the source for its statistics.

Beermat,

No reference quoted for the OECD report. E-mail Allison Pearson at the D.Tel. She referred to it as a recent report.

Whiteboards ? That tells me a lot !

“…suspicions held by the public…..”

That was then. This is now.

When, to use your description, I’m parotting the Telegraph, I do so in the knowledge that I’m repeating bucketloads of commonsense and logic. Something that you should think about copying.

Got to admit I didn’t read it…

Do I detect a whiff of irony, given the subject matter at hand? :applause:

Whiteboards, John. That and touchscreens. Got to admit I didn’t read it, but I will if you point me at the one you mean. Do you mean this one (the most recent I could find a reference to)? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32608772

“I deliberately kept it neutral”..

“..suspicions held by the public and others, in connection with the interference by left wing educationalists in various syllabi”

Very neutral. Or did you stop unquestioningly parroting the Telegraph between those quotes?

The Trotskyites are alive and well. Always rubbish the opposition. Don’t duck; you were mocking bankruptcy especially Allison Pearson’s part in it. With a little misfortune, it can happen to anyone. Don’t mock that ye be not mocked.

I’m still waiting for you, Beermat or anyone, to rubbish the OECD report and declare that the Sun reflects brightly off the classroom blackboards of British State education.

Anytime in the next five years will do.

I deliberately left it neutral.

Now, what about the comments of the OECD regarding the condition of British education ?

I think that – not for the first time – you’re seeing what you want to see rather than what is actually there ! At no point did I or, Allison Pearson or, the OECD mention a political leaning either to the ‘left’ or ‘right’.

John, unless you were meaning a leaning to the front or the back, what did the term ‘politically inspired educational theorists’ refer to, then?

“It is interesting tho’ unsurprising, that your imagination should lead you in this way”
I suggest a mirror may be of use John

Is that the same Allison Pearson who was declared bankrupt in November 2015.

Hardly the best person to be commenting on numeracy standards of any sort I would think. Perhaps she should have got her mother to do her sums for her? But then, of course, she went to a comprehensive! It must have held her back! Oh, she got into Cambridge, perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.

Edit: I should say at this point that I am not mocking bankruptcy per se, this is a dreadful thing to happen to any one.
But if it is indeed because she didn’t sort out her tax, it is rather indicative of trying to buck the system.

From the Indy

A bankrupt opinion-maker

Allison Pearson, an eminent newspaper columnist, makes no bones about whose side she is on. “Those of us who voted for this Government need no convincing that our morbidly obese welfare budget requires drastic slimming,” she wrote in The Daily Telegraph in October.

A slimmed-down welfare budget would, of course, reduce the tax burden borne by high earners who do not qualify for welfare.

Ms Pearson was born in 1960 and lives in a village in South Cambridgeshire. I have before me a bankruptcy order agreed by the High Court last month. The petition was lodged by HM Revenue and Customs, which implies that it involves unpaid tax. The person declared bankrupt is identified as Allison Pearson, born in 1960, living in a Cambridgeshire village, whose occupation is “freelance journalist”.

So come on George Osborne: get the welfare bill down, cut the tax rate for the highest earners, and give Ms Pearson a chance to sort out her affairs.

Also her suggestion in the article that “if only children private schools had been tested the result would have been near the top” is quite out of date and funny especially in the light of the recent report by the Good school Guide
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35511564

Are you aware of when the OECD survey was conducted?

I think that – not for the first time – you’re seeing what you want to see rather than what is actually there ! At no point did I or, Allison Pearson or, the OECD mention a political leaning either to the ‘left’ or ‘right’.

It is interesting tho’ unsurprising, that your imagination should lead you in this way.

May we all have the benefit of your sage words on the content of the OECD report ?

It seems to me that he didn’t make a comment on the standard of education.
Beermats comment was on your interpretation that any ills must be the result of a political leaning unpalatable to yourself.
Perhaps you could benefit from a reading comprehension revision test?

So, is it your opinion, contrary to the findings of the OECD, that all is well with education in this country and, as with previous years, we lead the world ? Or, could there be another version ?

Once again I’m interested in how child-centring, whether right or wrong, is politically-inspired. As per my earlier thread starter, what has child-led learning to do with the means of production (or the price of fish)?

As an observation, the standard of literacy on this forum seems evenly distributed across all shades of political thought. Surely if the psychobabblers had a political agenda in applying theories under which children’s education suffered the young indoctrinated lefties wat rite would not never us propa grama or spelin

More dismal news from the OECD concerning the performance or, rather lack of it on the part of British State schools.

Allison Pearson in her excellent column in the D.Tel. (3rd Feb.) reports on a ‘shocking new report from the OECD, which found that young people in England are the most educationally backward in the developed world’.

Many aged 16 to 19 have only a basic grasp of English and maths. English teenagers were the worst of 23 developed nations in literacy and 22nd of 23 in numeracy.

Even more shocking is that one in five university students struggles with anything harder than basic reading, writing and arithmetic. In practical terms, this means that they can do little more than ‘ read the instructions on a bottle of aspirin, or understand a petrol guage’.

The article proceeds to underline the difference between the lack of academic achievement of these young people and that of their properly taught – albeit with different teaching methods – grand parents and indeed most pensioners who did not have to suffer the pyschobabblers indoctrination of teachers with child centered learning theories.

We are paying the price for giving free rein for decades to the useless, politically inspired educational theorists, and in the State sector, we’ll go on paying.

We should all pay very close attention to the OECD findings.

It is reported that the Governor of the Bank of England, has commented that if Britain leaves the EU, interest rates will rise.

What else do we expect ? Let the scare mongering commence ! I wonder if Mr. Carney was a member of that elite group of soothsaying financial literati who forecast the extinction of Britain if we failed to join the Euro.

The referendum opening shots are being fired.

Now, the proof that the great and the good are similarly affected ! I, from time to time, like many others up and down the country, when trying to place an order by e-mail or telephone to the likes of John Lewis or Curry’s or, other High St. stores, wonder why elementary instructions, and simple requests for information are so frequently ignored or, fail to be passed to the next department for action.

A TV program shown last night (Thurs.) about the fairly recent development and construction of an extremely large aircraft by at least four nations and involving huge development costs, reached a boggling hiatus with the discovery that the electrical wiring looms for each aircraft running to many linear miles were not long enough !!

The wiring of each enormous machine was the province of Germany and France and the fault was occasioned by the failure of two parallel computer programs to inter relate.

Because production time was now compromised in remedying the matter, the freight or cargo version of this a/c could not be built. The enormity of this error and the costs of putting matters right have had there effect. When next I order something and the order experiences ‘difficulties’, I’ll know to make allowances !

D.Tel. report, to-day. Four months of Russian air strikes and about one year of primarily American air strikes has resulted in the conquest by ISIL of the large city of Deir Ezzor.

So, it’s all going along nicely. While the rest of the world said that air strikes wouldn’t succeed, I said they would.

I think I’ve got that right !

So because of almost certainly unfounded and ill informed suspicions encouraged by such rags that makes it OK for them to write inaccurate and inflammatory pieces?

Any school that was unhappy with the OCR specification could simply change to Edexcel to name but one. No one is being forced to work through a particular specification

The matter probably was raised, because of the deep suspicions held by the public and others, in connection with the interference by left wing educationalists in various syllabi.