主播大秀

What is the 主播大秀's or anyone elses problem with Social Segregation?
How many of you live on a Sink Estate?
how many of you live in an Asian or Afro area?
How many of you live in an Islamic area?
How many of you want to live in any of them?
Despite the fact that Social engineering always leads to disaster for everyone - so come, lets here it for Social engineering.

I'm not sure that "Two Brains" has been using either of them.

1. If (Academic Selection) Grammar Schools can't "transform the life chances of bright poor kids", why are they being permitted to continue - surely they should be closed down and replaced with something that does?

2. Tory Policy, now according to Dave, is "for pupils to choose schools not for schools to choose pupils". If schools aren't allowed to select,
i)How are pupils (or their parents) going to get into an oversubscribed State (free) school?

The private sector must be the ultimate example of choice of school. Imagine, that even if you had that amount of spare taxed income, trying to get your son into Eton! You can choose all you like but your son will find it extremely difficult to get in.

ii) How is a school to maintain discipline if, as now, disruptive pupils can't be expelled because the pupil chooses the school?

Those who have been to one know, that the greatest problems in a comprehensive are a feeling of insecurity and fear of appearing clever, so inviting bullying.

Must Try Harder! 0/10 See Me.

I've got a exam tomorrow titled 'The Conservatives In Crisis', quite apt for what is going on at the moment in terms of the internal party discourse on Grammar schools.

Bea - great ......... as always

Cameron zigged when he should have zagged to quote Peter Hitchins; sums up the Tories present position, lost at sea with no oarsman or navigator.
With Willets 'two brains' charging through Cameron's strange take on grammar schools and then pulling back somewhat, leaving us all confused, paxo seemed confused, so i am in good company then, when trying to figure this Tory grammer school proposal debacle.

I know Peter hitchins has been a harsh critic of the Conservative party for some time, and you can't argue with the fact that the Tories are having difficulty in finding their bearings with sound policies; sadly, Hitchins has been right all along, with the demise of the Tory party, the grammar schools 'zig zag' being a good illustration of Cameron's desperate attempts to modernise his party with confusion for all concerned; what a pity, i really want an alternative to 'new labours' failed 10 years in govt( i do recognise labour introduced some good policies, but the list is way to small) the Tories are only good for kicking labour where it hurts, at election time, policy wise, they are uninspiring; in effect i have, like many, no political party to support.

The intellectual snobbery and habitual need to find fault, like the current story of the missing child with critical comments from some jurnos, just so that they can justify their existence; kelvin clearly has better control than me as i would have been more abusive if i was sat opposite Bea Campbell. Any criticism about the way the parents of this missing child are conducting themselves, working with the media and visiting the Pope ect, should be put on hold, until a time more suitable, and only then should the likes of Beatrix Campbell open their dreary mouths and pen their long winded comments for their haughty readers.

I admit Campbell may have been invited by newsnight to comment, but it was a bad call for this to be aired, tempting that it may have been for the editor/producer of newsnight; thankfully, Kelvin had no difficulty in countering her argument. Well done Kelvin; long may you challenge the oppressive and disorientated fools who taint our lives..

Noble Newsnight has been pressing the buttons of Ambridge recently. Housing, ethical flights, grammar schools, child snatching and by the flood of reasoned debate Ambridge has been responding. If we can't have light we can at least have heat.

Thank you for the exciting invitation to watch Newsnight Review and the diamond encrusted skull [sounds like a harry potter book]. In honour of the studio design theme i shall watch wearing an outfit of polka dots and plonk some smarties into the glass of champagne?

I didn't go to a grammar school so that is probably why I can't understand the "clear" policy of the Conservative party regarding the statement in relation to grammar schools. Perhaps they should build more then folk such as me might be able to understand what they are on about.

Surely there is nothing incomprehensible about the tories' schools dilemma? They are trapped between their need to appeal to all and their need to hang on to their traditional voters. Trapped between the education policies in some of their traditional areas and those of areas that "modernised" years ago and will never return to selection. I guess the point was just to make them squirm on the horns of that dilemma. But aren't there better topics for NN's time?

If the topic had been opened out to education in the whole country then it would have had my interest, because I believe the real problems are ignored - too few good teachers (with most being very poor) and a curriculum and "qualifications" at odds with students and society's inclinations and needs, instead aimed more at "containing" young people, both within the educational buildings and by facing them with a succession of largely senseless hurdles. An expensive way to fail most of our children.

Grammar schools are one way of dealing with some of those issues, some pupils selected for the best available teaching in an environment where they have no time and no encouragement to think about the point of the education. The "unselected" pupils are then largely cast aside.

Where grammar schools are gone there are instead better and worse non-selected schools, with parents paying more for homes in the right catchment areas, if they can. It is at least as unfair on the children.

Last year I went back and looked at what my educational chances would be now in the place I received my schooling. My grammar school became a comprehensive in the '80s, and lost its 6th forms 10 years later. But it is a very well assessed, pleasant "middle school", seemingly much better for being co-ed. However, my then home would now not be in its catchment area. Instead one of the worst "sink" comprehensives is the obligatory school. Very low exam successes and high truancy. Ugly, and vandalised in the midst of a sprawling council estate. Not somewhere I, bullied every day in after school at the local Primary on the high street, would have survived.

The only alternatives (aside from moving home or paying for private education) are two religious schools with city-wide catchment areas, one Anglican, one Catholic. No doubt, brought forward 50 years, my non-believing parents would schmooze with an Anglican church to get me a place, and press me to pretend not to be an atheist. Not an improvement on how they advanced my chances of a grammar school place by paying for tutorials by a retired schoolmistress. Lessons which mostly consisted of increasing my confidence in the all important 11 plus examination, and in schoolwork generally, in the face of incessant bullying. Lessons that were educationally of lasting value.

For my generation of my family grammar schools were hugely valuable. My father one the six surviving children of a widowed washerwoman who all started economically and socially below unionised workers but had all benefitted from the universal, free, basic education introduced in the 1900s. They were lifelong Conservatives. My father served his time to be craftsman and then worked upwards, despite the pre-war depression. The offspring of his brothers and sisters all benefited from the free grammar schools and higher education provided by early and mid-20th century reforms.

But it was (and I fear still is) an intolerably cruel system for others. My only friend at Junior School, quiet and intelligent, and not given the tutorials I had, "failed" the 11 plus and really suffered. In my school bullying was limited to a few teachers, science labs, the toilets and corridors, playgrounds, changing rooms and playing fields.

No one has found a way to improve the "sink" comprehensives. Hence the "new build" academies. But the quality of secondary teachers isn't improving (take a look at for verification) and at best the new academies increase the competition for the good ones. Teaching suffers the same recruitment problem as all the very necessary occupations from which the traditional recruits have been syphoned by the vast increase of university places and new, more glamorous careers. It isn't so much, as current occupiers of those posts would of course advocate, a need to be paying more, but making teaching seem a thoroughly worthwhile career to potential future teachers. My suggestion would be to involve apt pupils, with guidance and support, in the teaching of other, younger pupils.

But who with any sense is going to aspire to careers that will never pay enough to buy a home in our now grossly over-priced housing market?

I go to a grammar school and I think it'd be stupid to take them away. If the clever people go to comprehensive schools they'd get bullied for being a "swat" or a "geek". In grammar schools everybody is around the same IQ level so noone can be bullied for their minds. We get enough trouble just for going to a grammar school, we'd get even more if we were made to go to comprehensive schools.

im realy sorry about maddie everyone at heywood community school is looking out for maddie for her parents and making sure she wuill be found!
yours sinceirly jenny
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