Thanks Twiggy but NO thanks

Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary sets out his BIG idea today. He believes that pupils need to be acclimatized to a

‘work-like timetable’.

 He also states that 21st century schools are

‘still organised like factories’.

(I’ll bet Twiggy has NEVER worked in a factory in his entire life!)

Whilst this speech will go down like a lead balloon in the staff rooms of England, this idea may not be quite the turkey it first appears.

However it does come with a major caveat.

It must not be compulsory and the experiences for pupils must be of the highest quality.

After school activities are often the best experiences on offer and can be transformational to the life chances of many pupils. In fact sport is totally reliant upon teachers giving up their own time and expertise to organise and coach youngsters.

If he made it an aim to get most youngsters involved once or twice a week in a challenging after school activity then I couldn't see too many teachers objecting to this aspiration.

But this speech has too many unanswered questions. It would certainly have to be funded and teachers would have to agree to it.

 

Wake up and FIGHT

January takes its name from the Roman god Janus, who is often depicted as a two-faced god since he looks both to the future and the past. It was in this tradition that the Guardian asked an eclectic group of educational stakeholders to offer up their own ‘edu-wishlist’ for 2012.

It through up some interesting viewpoints as you might expect from such a diverse range of individuals. First we had AC Grayling advocating the abolition of school examinations, (yeah, like that is about to happen sometime soon) to the frankly bizarre. The [nutty] Professor Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education, who stridently believes that ALL teachers' contracts ought to be changed at their annual appraisal. He suggests that teachers would have to show that they'd improved in order to keep their jobs! Where else in professional life does this exist?

Do doctors, lawyers and police officers have to demonstrate improvement? Of course not. (and it is completely flawed in terms of employment law).

However, it was the piece penned by the perfume prancer, Toby Young, that caused me the greatest offence. In his haste to ingratiate himself to the puppet master, he claimed that Gove had ‘restored discipline to the classroom’. When challenged to produce some real and meaningful evidence, Toby sent me this link from the Daily Mail

This statement typifies the misleading premise that right wing cheerleaders, such as Toby Young, always make. They start off by setting up a false assumption - that our schools are in state of constant chaos. (Hmmm, no they’re not Toby...any REAL evidence?).

Of course it’s complete and utter nonsense and plain old scaremongering to suggest that state schools are out of control and thanks to Gove it’s all now being sorted out.

People like Toby Young will continue to denigrate teachers and pupils in state comprehensives because it suits their agenda. It’s only Free Schools and Academies that can be talked up because that’s Toby Young’s politically motivated policy.

And in this one sentence, Toby Young surrenders any educational objectivity he may claim to have.

So here is MY new year resolution. To wake up and fight against these false accusations.

The Toby Young‘s of this world must not be allowed to make such sweeping statements that do so much harm to the teaching profession and pupils alike without being challenged.

If Toby wants to be such a ‘suck-up’ to Michael Gove then fine, just don’t spread such malicious lies about the state of our schools.