Start praying for good grades

One in five children leaves primary education without a proper grasp of the three Rs, the chief inspector of schools has warned.

Christine Gilbert unveiled a crackdown on under-performing schools as she delivered a stark warning that academic standards are "stalling".

She admitted her assessment clashed with ministers' who have boasted of steadily rising performance in schools.

She said it was "unacceptable" that 20 per cent of 11-year-olds lacked a basic mastery of English or maths - a failure toll that had barely improved during her tenure as chief inspector.

Standards are only going to get worse if the government go ahead with new proposals to fail schools if too many pupils are obese or bored with lessons.

Schools are already affected by red tape. Giving schools more targets to achieve will just mean that education will suffer and that is the last thing that should happen. Sometimes it seems politicians don’t have a brain but then again they probably don’t so it’s probably a good idea to get pupils to pray so they get good results. Only god can help them with this government.

Universities to offer basic grammar lessons

Universities should offer remedial lessons in grammar for students who cannot write properly, according to a leading academic.

Rick Trainor, the president of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said that universities should do more to ensure graduates are properly prepared for the world of work.

Employers have already criticised the standards of basic skills among teenagers, saying too many are leaving school with a poor grasp of the three Rs.

If we had a half decent education system to begin with universities wouldn’t need to do anything like this. Universities should be there for intelligent people and not people who can’t put a simple sentence together.

School made to apologise after disciplining boy

A school has been forced to write a letter of apology to an 11-year-old boy who was punished for being disruptive.

The boy was dropped from the football team, banned from going to a Royal Albert Hall concert and lost his lunchtime breaks.

His family complained that he was suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and teachers should have taken that into account.

If the parents are so concerned why didn’t they take him to a special school so they could deal with pupils with ADHD? If there isn’t a special school to deal with those pupils one should be made because I don’t see why the education of other students should suffer just because the teachers are spending all their time dealing with this particular child.

Failing pupils to spend extra year at school

Children who fail maths and reading tests will be forced to spend an extra year at primary school under new Tory plans to be unveiled this week.

The reforms are designed to make sure no pupil starts secondary school without a basic grasp of the "Three Rs".

The Conservatives hope the move will improve school discipline by targeting children who cause the most classroom disruption.

I agree with this and I wouldn’t just include Maths and English. I would also include other subjects like Science. The government should set out minimum standards for children. If they fail to achieve these standards then they should be kept back a year. I would include teenagers with this too. If they fail to achieve minimum standards in their GCSEs they should be kept back for another year.

Conservatives and Swedish education?

It looks like the Conservatives are thinking of moving towards a type Swedish education system as they are considering letting parents set their own schools up. Local authorities will be allowed to block all moves towards independent schools in their area unless there is a lot of failing schools in the area.

I would rather they allow anyone to set up a school regardless of how other schools were doing in the area. The competition would only boost standards in all schools as the parents would send their children to the best schools and the worst schools would rapidly run out of pupils and would be forced to close.

40% of children can't do basics

Four out of 10 children left primary school this summer without mastering the basics of reading, writing and maths, figures showed today.

Ministers hailed the latest national curriculum test results as the "best ever", after a one percentage point rise across English, maths and science.

But results in reading were no better than two years ago, while the proportion of children making the grade in writing showed no improvement since last year.

This is disgraceful especially when schools are cancelling subjects like PE, art, history and geography to concentrate on getting their pupils to pass. If they can’t get them to pass we should stop employing people as teachers who barely passed their own exams and stop giving teachers so much red tape.

Children failing because of bad teaching

Hundreds of teachers who barely passed their degrees are taking crucial school subjects, figures show.

Staff with the worst qualifications are most likely to teach traditional disciplines such as maths, science and modern languages.

Just 41.6 per cent of trainee maths teachers achieved a first or 2.1 in their university degrees, 43 per cent of language trainees and 48 per cent science.

This is obviously having a negative effect on the education of British children. This is shown by the fact that a fifth of primary school children are unable read, write or add up properly.

If we want an educated population we should be trying to get the best teachers for British children and not people that have almost failed at the very subjects that they are going to teach.

Education that isn't compulsory

I have just heard that my old secondary school called Gillbrook has just failed an inspection. They didn't just fail. They did much worse. They did so bad that all the teachers have been fired and they have to reapply for their job. I can't find the article that was in the paper but here is the inspectors report.

The main thing that was wrong was the discipline. Not surprised really. Teachers weren't in charge. the pupils used to throw books, lock teachers in cupboards and sometimes assault them.
Its a pity. I heard it started to go down hill when the new head teacher started (1 year before I started the school).
I hope my old tutor keeps his job. he was a good teacher. he was the one that got locked in the cupboard.

I hope they fire some of the insane teachers like the religious education teacher who thought she had seen a faery and that there are angels with us all the time both good and bad fighting over us.

There is a simple solution to all of this. All you have to do is uncompulsorise secondary school education. At the moment school is a prison. There is no doubt about that. Uncompulsorise school and the troublemakers will leave allowing the good ones to stay and try to learn. Why should we be made to go to school? If we don't want to learn why should we be made to?

Education should be free but not compulsory. It should be up to the person who is getting the education if he or she wants it.

Think about it. Without compulsory education school would be better. The children there would actually try and learn because they have a choice to either leave or learn and behave. I don't see how this could be bad however to stop children coming to school for one lesson and leaving when there is another they should be made to sign up for the year. If they sign up then sign out of school they will not be able to sign up again until the start of the month. If they keep signing in and out they will be stopped from messing the school about and be made to sign one thing. If they choose not to sign up then they will have to wait 1 year before they can start again.

There may still be disruptive pupils but if they are too disruptive they will just lose their right to free education for the rest of the year. Children that want to learn shouldn't be disrupted from doing so.

I don't see a problem with this. Does anyone see a problem with this?

Political Correctness Gone Mad

The word "fail" should be banned from use in classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralising pupils, a group of teachers has proposed

Who else thinks this is ridiculous? I am sick and tired of this politically correct world that we live in. If children fail they should be told that they failed. What will these children be like when they grow up? When they fail they won't be used to failing. We are bringing up a nation of pansies which must be stopped.