Some questions about the 'knowledge-based curriculum'.

I was educated in a system that was ‘knowledge-based’ (I began informal schooling in 1949 (nurseries) formal schooling in 1951 and finished secondary school in 1964.) It was also a system that streamed us in 1956-1957, selected 25% of us to go to a ‘knowledge-based’ school, where we were setted from the age of 13 for Maths and French, and at 14/15, about a third of us left. At 16 over half our year left school. In fact, the knowledge-based curriculum was a means by which a lot of this selection was enabled. The tests and exams tested the knowledge.

People who were not included in the selection, starting with the streaming in year 6 (‘4th year juniors’) the setting, the early school leaving, the non-progression to the sixth form – all got much less or hardly any knowledge-based learning. That was the point. They had showed themselves, it was said, at each of these stages to be less able to cope with it.

This was a long time ago.

Can you say why and how the system is different? There are – and by all accounts there will be more – forms of selection, grading and failing, starting from an early age. Since 2000, my children have been setted in their primary schools from the age of 5. SATs at 7 and 11 – and predictions on how well they will or won’t do, have also been means by which the children are given different curricula. This has followed on into their secondary schools. They’ve all been (and are still) at comprehensives. As we know, many kinds of overt and covert selection is going on. The recent report on headteacher-types that came out of Harvard suggested that the ‘surgeon-type’ heads were able to dump (ie drop from the roll) as much as 25% of their cohort before they took their GCSEs. No one has denied this.

So, how does the knowledge-based curriculum fit on to this ‘substrate’ ie into this system? Where is the empowerment to the disadvantaged? Is the knowledge-based curriculum being used in order to engineer the selection? What happens to those not selected as they progress through the system?

Brexit Day

A hopeful Brexiteer speaks:

"On the day we leave the EU

all the foreigners are going to have to leave
and no foreigners are going to come in
and this will mean
we're all going to earn more
and we're going to have more schools
more hospitals,
and more food
we're all going to live in big houses
because all the rich people are
going to give their money away.
They'll say, 'We've got too much money,
you have it.'

on the day we leave the EU.

There's going to be no more crime
and no more hooligans
and when it comes to deciding on things like
whether criminals can vote
it's going to be us that decides
because we've got this really good system
where your vote doesn't count if
the person you vote for doesn't get in.
That's what it's going to be like

on the day we leave the EU."

Some Tories' mindset following the vote for Brexit...

Have seen a snippet on twitter of a Tory MP's diary or comment saying that the calculation from some of them was that the Leave vote was intended to be 'close' so that Cameron would have a stronger negotiating hand with the EU. It was never 'intended' that Brexit would win.

If this is true, then there are some quite crazy things going on here in some Tories' mindset:

1. Oh look how clever we are, we can game a referendum.
2. We think we know how people will vote.
3. We think that some of us can swap sides, say things we don't believe in, and it won't matter because we are politicians and no one thinks we're cynical, lying bastards.
4. Because we were so certain of what was going to happen, we have no plans and no ideas about what to do, now it's turned out to be Brexit.
5. We've put three incompetents and chancers in charge of this thing and if it goes wrong we can blame them, and come out shining because shit never sticks to us.
6. We don't know what we're doing but it doesn't matter anyway, because capitalism always wins and it's our job to make sure it does.
7. Vote Tory.
8. Blame Corbyn.
9. Bring back grammar schools.
10. The NHS is safe with us. (snigger).

The new world order rewrites a famous poem

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door." ????

Never! Not now! and not any more!

The Politician Wakes Up

Today I will tell the people
how people are bad for people.
I will them that when they see people
on the move
they should be afraid.
I will tell them to trust me.
I will tell them to trust me
with money.
I know how good it is.
I will tell the people that money
is good.
I will tell them that I know
how to handle people and money.
I will tell them that
people will be stopped at the border.
Money can move how it wants.

I like it to be known that
people with money are good.
I will not talk about money
moving out.
I know that money moving out
is not good.
I know that money moving out
is bad for people.
But I won’t say that.
I will only talk about people moving
and how bad that is.
People will listen to me
and will like me.
I will become powerful.
And people with money
will say I am good.

The Polltergeist - the imaginary being that tells pollsters what to say

Polltergeist - the imaginary being that appears in pollsters' minds about one week before an election who 'tells' the pollsters how the outcome of the election is changing every five seconds due to sudden last minute events like how the leader says 'Alright', or eats a bacon sandwich, or what is in some emails, or what the last poll said. 

The Polltergeist appears to the pollsters at night so that early in the morning the pollsters can appear on major news outlets with something they call 'News'. After the real election, the Polltergeist returns to its home in Bullshittia where it dies of laughing until it is resurrected by the news outlets in time for the next election.

Tory Fudge on Grammar Schools

Tory Fudge: sweet, sticky, rots the body politic.
Grammar Schools
1. Tories say that at present there is selection by post code with schools today. Perhaps there is. Why do they never tell us how much? Just how significant is it? Why do they never share with us the ways in which local authorities have tried to mitigate that?
2. Tories do not tell us that many schools are operating covert selection by exclusion. This was revealed from the research about headteachers who get success (Newsnight 'exclusive). If there is abuse of all-ability comprehensive education, and holding people back, that would be a good place to start.
3.. Tories say that grammar schools are great and every area should have them. Why do they not tell us about the other schools in areas where there are grammars? Are they good for those pupils? Do the pupils in those schools do better than pupils in comprehensives? No.
4. The Tories say that Grammar Schools are popular. Are the non-grammar schools in areas (where there are grammars), popular? Do people in those areas say, that they want those schools rather than schools for all? Do they say, "We love the idea that some kids went off to the grammars but ours didn't"?
5. The Tories say that these new Grammars won't be like the old ones because they will have to show that they are educating poor kids. If these new Grammars have to admit poor kids on other grounds other than the entrance exam, they won't be Grammar Schools. The whole point of Grammar Schools was that they had an entrance exam which decided if you could get in or not. Yes, there were some kids who got in on 'headteacher's recommendation' but that was for kids who the headteacher claimed had scored high on tests throughout the year the children were 10/11 years old, (the old fourth year juniors), and were therefore the Grammar School type. It was nothing to do with poverty. So, if these schools are forced to admit poor kids (in some kind of phoney show of 'fairness', they won't be Grammar Schools!