The battle over Downhills takes another turn

Alan Douglas

"Labour's ... best ideas in government."

Ideas ? Name more than one.

Alan Douglas

Frothy

The vast majority of schools that have come out of special measures and gone on to thrive without changing their status far outweighs those that have. The key change is leadership. So if the head and governor are replaced by effective leaders, then the status of the school is of marginal importance.

salieri

And Labour's "best ideas in government" would be, er, what precisely?

Jeremy

Sort of: "We're failing, but please don't try to do anything about it, because we don't like solutions being imposed from above/below/to one side of ourselves. We prefer to just...well...fail, actually. What's wrong with a nice bit of cosy failure, eh? It's easier that way. All this stuff about education...well...that's not what schools are for, is it? And besides, we prefer to watch Eastenders than to read Dickens. It's easier, innit? And it's got celebrities in it, too. We've consulted amongst ourselves, and that's our solution..."

Heartless C.

No matter about the fuss. Results count. Just keep single minded on providing decent education - anything is better than the former charade.

telemachus'

You say the PARENTS and staff need to be brought round
OK schools should not be run for the benefit of staff but the main tenet of Gove has been that parents should choose the direction of their school.
Except of course if they are supported by a left wing MP and council
Then you punish them.
Come on Mr Hoskin who is politically meddling here?

Faceless Bureaucrat

The Downhills Primary School issue will pale into insignificance once the scandal of Copland School in Labour-run Brent, NW London kicks off...

Herbert Thornton

Who cares whether a school is called an "Academy"? The subjects that a school is organised to teach are more important while the integrity and competence of the teachers is most important of all.

My own generation suffered very much from being taught by many incompetent teachers. It was caused by the onset of WW2, when something like half the Teachers were ordered into the armed forces and substitutes often combined incompetence with no aptitude for the work or who took the opportunity to indoctrinate political ideas. I recall one teacher in particular who was entirely competent as a biology teacher but who also often digressed to teach Marxism.

Now there is a similar situation, but it seems nobody dares point out that this results largely from the adamant determination of Teachers' Unions (and those who sympathise with them) to protect the job security of Union members, including incompetent, and militantly leftist ones.

Scotty

Labour may have had some good ideas - academies may be one, Milburn's changes to the NHS may have been anoth - but they run into the traditional labour problem, namely putting ideas into practice against the opposition of their mates the trade unions and vested interests and when their solution to everything - spend spend spend - is not available to them thansk to their mismanagement of our economy........ again.

Joe slug

OFSTED is a political animal in the first place, so putting it into special measures is not a scientific nor mathematical measurement of the schools performance.

David Ossitt

I have just asked my last years diary what it thinks on this subject but I am not quite sure that it understood my question, however there is one thing I am sure of; my last years diary has more intellect and grasp of the subject than the MP for the area Labour's David Lammy.

MilkSnatcher

Has anyone noticed how Lammy has morphed form a quietly-spoken technocrat under Blair to a tub-thumping left-wing populist under Gastricband. Blowing with the wind produced by the Labour party I would say.

Peter

If I was in charge, I'd insist that the way to improve schools was to them to have a huge picture of my face put up on the front. If any school that was failing refused this measure, I'd insist that they are dragging their heels, that the way they are working obviously isn't good enough, and that they need to accept "change". I would not countenance any discussion regarding whether the change I am promoting would actually be helpful.

I would make sure that any school with a huge picture of my face on the front had additional resources made available to it to prove that this modern approach to eduction is the way forward.

And of course I'd bring forward the inspection to ensure that the measures the school is putting in place to try to improve itself are not given time to take effect!

Kennybhoy

Jeremy on February 11th, 2012 12:58pm

Brilliant! lol

Kennybhoy

Herbert Thornton on February 11th, 2012 wrote:

"My own generation suffered very much from being taught by many incompetent teachers. It was caused by the onset of WW2, when something like half the Teachers were ordered into the armed forces and substitutes often combined incompetence with no aptitude for the work or who took the opportunity to indoctrinate political ideas. I recall one teacher in particular who was entirely competent as a biology teacher but who also often digressed to teach Marxism."

Interesting and relevant to someting I just wrote in an ongoing exchange between myself and Fergus Pickering on Liddle's "Snow? What snow?" thread...

DavidDP

To be fair, it's right that it should be something the parents ask for (or not, as the case may be) rather than it being imposed or opposed by MPs of any stripe.

David Ossitt

MilkSnatcher.

"Blowing with the wind produced by the Labour party I would say."

Would that blowing be off?

kinglear

So some of the comments here are basically saying the Labour MP,the council, the teachers unions AND the parents all think it's their right to condemn their children to rubbish education from rubbish teachers
Yes I suppose it is......

Herbert Thornton

Kennybhoy - Thanks for the interesting cross-reference to Rod Liddle's thread "Snow? What snow"? You may be interested to read James Plunkett's thread "Cameron is right to focus on quality apprenticeships" too if you haven't seen it - I commented about British education there too.

But the most interesting thing I've on that topic is what people (including you) have been saying about Ray Honeyford. I'm sorry to say I'd not heard of him (blame my living in Canada since 1966) but he was obviously a very clear-sighted man who was very badly and unjustly treated.

charlie

Herbert Thornton- interesting point. Did your bad teachers have chips on their shoulders about not being called up? Those who volunteered and did not wait for call up, tended to be the fittest and most courageous- look at those for volunteered for the commandos, airborne, etc, etc. When people returned from war, did those teachers who had remained resent those who had extensive combat experience and perhaps earned awards for bravery? How did the pupils, especially the tough and rowdy ones, treat those teachers who had remained and those who returned with extensive combat experience ?

Herbert Thornton

Charlie,

Nothing like that. The substitute teachers were generally too old for military service. Most of them had lost their jobs because of the war, and most of then had no experience of teaching either. I think that there was at least one who was medically unfit for military service. Of the two best, one was my English teacher who had been successful writer & returned to doing that when the war ended as did the other one who taught Physics & Chemistry - he had been an Industrial Chemist.

When the war ended, the temporary ones were replaced, over a few months, with the ones who returned from the war.

As for our interactions with the teachers who returned from the war, we naturally tried to get them to tell us all about it, but they were not easily drawn - they made sure instead that we concentrated on the school curriculum.

As for boys you call 'tough and rowdy ones' - there were a few like that - but it didn't happen in class.