Very interesting discussion this. I will now mostly be shutting up and listening though :)

+1

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rOZZ
Music
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I am so glad that most of my teachers were people who had served in WW2, and had therefore seen some of the best and worst of life, and not been in the education system all their lives.

P.S. I usually find that flying leaps end up as inelegant splats on the wall or heaps on the floor.

Hee hee hee hee there {leap}..........

................................................boing


...............................................................SPLAT

yep... inelegant was the word to use :)

There are some young people out there who do have wiser heads on their shoulders than others - and perhaps a mixture of different levels of life/work/straight to classroom experiences could build up teams of teaching expertise that might reach more groups of youngsters that may otherwise not be reached?

Bobby's point does strike a bit of chord with me - but that may be because I have an autistic son and for a large part of his early schooling he learnt absolutely nothing. He attended a mainstream school every day, he was described as "a pleasure to teach" at every parent's evening and none of his teachers had any idea he wasn't "engaged".

It was his first foreign trained teacher (Australian) on his very first day in her class - who did. She was a straight from school and back into school teacher. Every teacher who taught him after that benefitted from her training and personal skills. And everyone of them would come out beaming at the end of the day and regale me with the rewarding feeling they'd experienced by reaching him. My son will be going to university this September. It may be in part because he was fortunate to be taught by a serendipitous (I grant you) mixture of "experienced" teachers. Blanket rules can suffocate at times.

Very interesting discussion this. I will now mostly be shutting up and listening though :)

Teaching Autistic kids in the regular classroom can be a challenge, it does depend on the level of autism though. I am assuming that he isn't that severely autistic if he was in a regular school? To successfully teach an autistic child takes training. Which is why we want our teachers to be highly educated in the profession of teaching, unfortunately the current UK government is going the other way and actually reducing the amount of training required. This is not going to help students like your son. It might help them with teacher recruitment, but perhaps the government should look at why they are having such problems retaining good teachers rather than just making it easier to become one.

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Reality Internet Personality

So he managed to convince 39 other students to join him on a protest to get more homework?
That kid has some fantastic leadership skills!

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

A bit more to it than that.

Ms Deborah Hannon-Catlow, acting head at Bispham High School, said although she was unable to comment on an individual pupil's disciplinary issues, the school was "proactive" in dealing with complaints from parents and pupils. '. Ms Hannon-Catlow said it was an "undoubtedly challenging time for the school" but it was working with Blackpool Council to try to improve teaching standards, behaviour, attendance and punctuality.

Councillor Ivan Taylor, Blackpool Council cabinet member for children's services, said the school was going through a transitional and challenging period.

Bispham High School, which has more than 800 pupils, is due to close in 2015. The school is merging with Collegiate High School and forming a new academy. In April, the head teacher Margaret Singleton and all 12 governors resigned.

Yep, I wonder why?

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Probably because

In February, Ofsted put the school in special measures after describing it as "inadequate".

Resignations

Nope! From your link....

"It is not yet clear why the head and the 12 governors resigned"

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I would have thought that it was reasonably obvious that when an OFSTED inspection found the school as "inadequate", it was a direct appraisal of the capabilities of the Head and the Governors. Rather than be dismissed they chose to fall on their swords and resign en masse.

Ah if only that was true, what an example for the (insert own words here) in government!

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Oh dear, is this the rod that shafts Nickerless Clegg?

Student Loans face timebomb

"The coalition is facing a student loans repayment "timebomb" which could prove electorally "catastrophic" for the Liberal Democrats"

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See I told you constantly that it would pay you to move back to Wales, just look at all the dosh you would save.

Labour soundbyte or not, who was it that did a turnaround over student fees?

Labour? Nope!
Tories? Nope!
UKIP? Nope!
....???.... Party? Yep!

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All right, own up, who blabbed?

Psst.....over here gov, don't want to be overheard...it was.....

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"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

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The government has said this week about 45% of university graduates would not earn enough to repay loans. Under the new system, students do not pay the fees upfront and only start repaying when they are earning at least £21,000 a year. If the proportion of graduates not doing so reaches 48.6%, experts calculate that the government will lose more money than it gained by increasing fees in England to £9,000 a year.

The average wage in the UK is £26,000. So if it is being said that around half of students with a degree will not even earn the average wage, doesn't that suggest that the degrees being awarded are next to useless to employers? That is the real issue here, not a Labour election soundbite which it actually is.

Students in Wales pay a maximum of £3,685 towards their tuition, regardless of where they study in the UK, with the remainder of the fee covered by a grant funded by the Welsh government and local authorities.

OMG don't tell Sirius he'll need his pills .....

You can tell people till you are blue in the face, that this would happen, but would they listen. No.

In the late 90's they were saying if you get a degree, you will be £400,000 better of over your lifetime, probably true when only 25% of population have degree's. But increase that to 45% then you can see that a lot of them are only average. With some almost certainly below average, when you consider the state of the education standards in schools today.

And therefore the salaries are going to follow that trend.

You can tell people till you are blue in the face, that this would happen, but would they listen. No.

In the late 90's they were saying if you get a degree, you will be £400,000 better of over your lifetime, probably true when only 25% of population have degree's. But increase that to 45% then you can see that a lot of them are only average. With some almost certainly below average, when you consider the state of the education standards in schools today.

And therefore the salaries are going to follow that trend.

What's even worse is said graduates entering the transport industry and using said degree to lord it over others, yet at the same time cost the company £100,000's every year in wasted costs a la mileage and wear & tear on the vehicles.

Also not being able to read maps so end up using computers to list the daily run sheets....

As we all know, computers run on logic, so how would this look to a graduate & how would it look to an experienced driver?

PE1
PE12
PE2
PE23
PE3
PE33

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So we have unemployable 16 year olds with no qualis, and 21 year olds, with unwanted qualis.

There is a third and unfortunate one as well.

Those qualified with degrees in the subjects they wanted and on entering the workplace, get told that they are overqualified.

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Good post WK.

But let's remember also that the employers expectations have gone up whilst the students abilities have gone down. What I mean by that is that you can't get a decent salaried job with prospects these days without a first level Uni degree at minimum of a 2.1 or 2.2 grade. You wouldn't even get through the first paper sift. But Unis have also realised that the pass rates for the serious subjects of Maths, Science, and Engineering are going down, and so are the recruits to sign up for them. So they have had to offer the "soft" options of Media studies and Leisure and Tourism to get bums on seats and also keep the pass rates up.

So we have unemployable 16 year olds with no qualis, and 21 year olds, with unwanted qualis.

Now What?

Answers on a postcard to 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA.

Go back to proper 7 year apprenticeships, with old fashioned C&G's, ONC/D and HNC/D's.
Left school at 15 and was 23 before it was officially recognised I was qualified to make decisions and work unsupervised. Even though I did have my first HND before my 21st.

And even today some "apprenticeships" last longer than that. To do my job you need at least fifteen years "in industry", plus another ten before that "post qualification" just to get through the first door. Then there is another three to five years of mentoring before it is considered you can do the job "fairly well" and work unsupervised most of the time, apart from the annual CPD interview, the annual assessment, the bi-annual written which just keep rolling on and on....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

so how would this look to a graduate & how would it look to an experienced driver?

They would of course be seen by anyone in a vehicle as Peterborough postcodes.

PE Postcodes

Correct, but you missed the point.

PE1 & 2 are literally next door to each other, PE12 is not & a fair distance away.

Load wise that is problematic and have experienced these cock-ups many times. Deliver to PE1, out to PE12 and back to PE2 several hundred yards away from the PE1 drop.

Even had a better one than that. Had to deliver to Colchester. One drop not far from the military prison, next drop out to Mersea Island, next drop 900 feet from the previous drop before hitting the island.

Getting the right people into the right positions and even you as a shopper see the effects as costs will be brought down to an acceptable level.

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...and sometimes it can be easier to drive past the second drop and do it on the way back having done drops three and four because of a bad/illegal turn, traffic island etc....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

...and sometimes it can be easier to drive past the second drop and do it on the way back having done drops three and four because of a bad/illegal turn, traffic island etc....

Not always possible. It all depends on the load. Heavy duty furniture weighing 100 kilos with no access to the next drop until that one is delivered......

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At the end of a 7 year apprenticeship it didn't mean you were any good, it took another 7 years and a two year course to be considered trustworthy. And my final job was one where you were invited to join the company. It wasn't an advertised position and you couldn't apply for it, even if you knew it existed.

16 years then they invite you to join?

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