The report produced by Sir Jim Rose today has all the hallmarks of a real dog's dinner that could, if implemented, once again plunge primary teaching into a morass of modernist ideas that somehow fail to take account of the need for a systematic, knowledge based foundation to children's learning. The reason that we are failing to meet primary education targets may not be because the curriculum isn't wacky enough; it may be because the foundations of it require more rigorous teaching. That said, Sir Jim is anyway barking up the wrong tree. So all encompassing is the nanny state that even quite intelligent people apparently need step by step guidance on key issues of living. In my own school - a selective secondary for boys who have demonstrated some reasonable level of intellect - notices have been appearing in all the toilets with a 6-step guide to how to wash your hands properly. Thank goodness. I was wondering when this key issue would be properly addressed.
Soon to come - 7 steps to breathing unaided; putting one foot in front of the other and repeating - we call it walking; and an 8 page guidance note on sitting in plastic moulded chairs. All courtesy of the Health Protection Agency.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The retreat of liberalism goes on
As communism seemingly disappeared from view at the end of the 1980s, in a sudden and unexpected blow-out, there was plenty of triumphal...
-
As communism seemingly disappeared from view at the end of the 1980s, in a sudden and unexpected blow-out, there was plenty of triumphal... -
Hubris, it seems, comes to everyone in time, even apparently invulnerable and all conquering media magnates. Or so it must seem to anyone o...
-
#200218907-001 / gettyimages.com George Osborne doesn’t strike me as a particularly emotive or soft-headed politician, but ev...
4 comments:
Incredible.
If photoshopped piss take notices are not up in the school toilets by now i think i may have to disown my association with it.
I can recall an incident in which a somewhat angry teacher at the very same school spent about 15 minutes lecturing his class of sixth formers on how to sit in plastic moulded chairs. Apparently his key concern was that people swinging on said chairs often resulted in them breaking, risking injury to both the school's budget and, perhaps less importantly, the student.
Any idea who said teacher might have been, Giles? (Hint: the 15 minutes spent on the lecture shaved 15 minutes of the lesson, saving 15 minutes of further embarrassment resulting from said teacher having a grasp of the Chinese Cultural Revolution which could be described as shaky, at best.)
No idea what you're talking about.....
It was Mr Johnson, wasn't it?
There was a programme following the H&S people around the other night. Quite interesting. I'm sure it's still up on iplayer or 4OD
Post a Comment