Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
On the news today was Chatham, who are now needng to build a new primary school due the baby boom, in the past few years primary schools were closed
is this a scandal or what, this firm fact was known at the time.
Here in Dover we saw melbourne and st radigunds primary schools closed in the same way and the same is predicted to happen here.
Afterone of the worst piece of consultation carried out by KCC we are likely soon to hear the same announcement, so what realy was the saving all about?
how much is it going to cost to build a new primary school?
And whilst on about the KCC whats this i'm hearing the KCC leader is about to swan off on an 8 week (yes 8!!!) holiday
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Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
To the best of my knowledge, Keith, the Government has scrapped the building of many new schools that had been planned under Labour, last year, after the General Election, although some planned schools were fence-ringed.
Personally I agree with Gov. on this one. A State gone bankrupt can't just go on building schools for everyone.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
This is the shortcomings of State planning and control.
The free schools policy frees the sector from that. Building schools for State education is no longer just a matter of government decision making.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
I hate this term of 'free schools' as it is intentionally ambiguous. Here we have another term contorted to what the government want it to mean. I do however find some of the concepts quite interesting. Education needn't be limited to old fashioned classrooms and other buildings could provide facilities.
As for the general concept of free schools, it is just another idea that will promote inequality.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
The point being though, before all these school closures across Kent, it was warned of the baby boom, and yes chatham is to build a NEW SCHOOL and probably soon around Dover we will get a similar story
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Barry
the only thing that free schools have to do with strategic educational thinking or policy is that they are a means of splitting up the existing educational structures. They will be the province of the wealthy, the connected and the vocal and do nothing to improve 'educational standards' (whatever they are) for the majority.
DT1,
I read an excellent book by Neil Postman who argues that those in power should state their rationale for education; is it about making a life or making a living? On the face of it these may seem to be very similar but the selection of one outcome would produce very different experiences than the other. The current system is designed to meet the demands of the economy even though we do not really know what sort of jobs today's 7 year olds will be going into in 11 years time. As such it meets the demands of a Victorian economic model. Those who promote the system are usually those who have done well by it and therefore see no reason to change it. In reality the majority of pupils leave school knowing what they are bad at rather than what they are good at and as such it is a divisive and, for many, demoralising, experience.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Darren you are often talking about equality/inequality with regard to education. Do you mean equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes? I fear the former is difficult to achieve in a mixed economy while the latter is impossible.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
I mean equality of opportunity, which agreed is difficult but not impossible.
Amusingly it is Michael Gove that would like to see equality of outcomes and uses this impossibility to turn schools into academies (privatise them) and push his 'free schools' agenda.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Sorry Mark for not responding, ran out of time. You are absolutely right, education has become a political football. We are more interested in exam results rather than education as the outcome. This is because of the need to measure everything to prove that a government has 'done more' than the last.
By giving everyone the same opportunity at the start of their life we would start to address the thick self servers at the top and the 'look how hard i've had it' at the bottom. Only then can these sanctimonious toffs have a case for kicking the rest of us.
Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
It worries me having a vested interest in the education system,in the guise of my to daughters,that there is no clearly delinated strategy in an area that is of the up most national importance.As for the political will for academies, it is more an ideological agenda than one that will have any lasting educational benefit for the future.It it is ill concieved,ill designed and with little real educational merit.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Darren, we should perhaps examine the factors that have reduced equality of opportunity....
The getting rid of selection in many parts of the country. Grammars were a massive boon to the less well off now sadly absent in many parts of the country and now in Dover undermined by 'double selection'.
The dropping of streaming by ability - thankfully sense has crept back and streaming (or the watered down version 'setting') is coming back.
The anti- competition ethos that crept into education. I am not talking just about sport but in academics also. At school I was always aware of how I was doing relative to the rest in my class and worked hard to stay in the top half.
Then, of course, we have the dumbing down of exams.
All of the above were promoted by the left-wing educational establishment and failing to take them on was one of Mrs T's failures.
Thankfully Gove is now going some way to break the grip of the educational establishment with free schools. Equality of opportunity will arise from more choice and parental power.
Not without a culture change it won't! Education is about more than opening books and passing exams, and neither left nor right has absorbed that yet. Howeverm on every other point in your post I agree Barry!!
Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
Of concern though is that ' threat' of academy status is now being used as a blunt instrument of coercion.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Darren, the pursuit of equality invariably leads to killing off the elite. Without an elite there are no standards to which to aspire other than those imposed by the dead hand of government. Your own children are privileged because they have loving, educated, articulate and involved parents and are therefore potential members of that elite. Would you rather your kids had the same opportunity as kids in inner-city sink schools, with single drug-addicted mothers, no books in the house and a neighbourhood gang culture which denigrates any sort of academic achievement?
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
PETER;
I think you need to turn your view on it's head,
and why shouldn't the kids in a drug den(probaby through no fault of there own, as an example) get as much help as the elite, in fact they need more help then just pushing the elite, who will probably walk over everyone to reach there goal anyway
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Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Keith you are confusing opportunity with outcome.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
We will just have to disagree PETER
What a wonderful forum, so many viewpoints, well done paulb
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i must admit to be fearful for the future of children from the wrong side of the tracks, i can see the new "free" schools being set up in affluent areas where the parents have the education to play the system to their advantage.
what chance do the offspring of under educated parents have to get a good start in life?
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Peter
who populates the elite and by whose judgement? David Cameron and many of his chums would apparently be in the elite in that they went to Eton and Oxford but I would despair if my children grew up with their values.
Does attendance of certain institutions make one 'elite'? Does the acquisition of a bucket load of qualifications make one 'elite'? Does wealth make one 'elite'?
I am intrigued.
Being elite but without class or style is a bit pointless...........a bit like carrying poop around in Waterford Crystal.
