our Education system and how it was failing hundreds of thousands of children.
Wait. We didn’t.
What we had was a minor story about a government plan to make all 285,000 students who
failed to achieve a C grade in Math and English in their GCSE exams remain in school and keep
retaking the exams. No mention of the thousands or tens of thousands leaving school at 16
without the Reading, Writing or Math skills expected of an 11 year old.
This story was tucked away behind Politics, Celebrity scandals, gossip or other such important
items.
I covered this situation in more detail a few days ago; you should have read my comments then.
Anyway the news yesterday was that a London school district is now faced with so many pupils
and so little class space that they are going to move the children to three days a week and run
two sets of classes.
Children would attend school between 08:00 and 20:00 Monday to Wednesday OR Thursday to
Saturday.
This follows on from schools with temporary classrooms in Porta Cabins that have been set up
on playgrounds or sports fields, stories of leaking roofs, crumbling walls, faulty electronics and
a lot more.
The rise in student numbers is blamed on higher birth rates and on Immigration in unexpected
numbers along with a fall in the number of people able to afford private education.
So that would be mass immigration then.
People pouring into the South East looking for nonexistent jobs or all to existent handouts and
either bringing their children with them or having far more than the British norm of 2 children
per couple.
The NHS is collapsing under the strain, now the Education system is going the same way.
But at the same time in the midlands and north of England there are schools sitting half empty
or closing down because they have too few pupils.
Most of the London Boroughs are reporting problems and are predicting huge shortfalls in
available school places by 2015/6. Surrounding areas are also report problems currently or
in the near future.
So we have a solution. Part time schooling. Three days a week.
I wonder did anyone ask the teachers about this. After all this is ten hours of teaching a day plus
a few hours of marking and preparation for the next days classes. 12 to 14 hours a day.
Are these London schools going to hire twice as many teachers or are they expecting their
existing teachers to continue for both sets of classes. 12 hours a day for 6 day weeks.
Well Junior doctors manage and it’s not as if thousands of people are dying in the care of the NHS.
I wonder if anyone asked the parents. All those working parents who would need to reschedule
around classes being eight to six. How about the poor parents whose children are on the Thursday
to Saturday shift. That’s three days of childcare now need Monday to Wednesday.
How about the students themselves. Anyone with children will be aware of how hard it is to keep
them focused on a task. Ten hours a day of schooling, will the schools be employing Group 4 to
stop the children escaping when they get bored after eight hours? Will the schools be employing
psychologists to keep the students motivated? Will teachers be issued with cattle prods to wake
up the students who fall asleep at the back?
We are producing millions of young adults who have no hope, no aspirations and no real
opportunity to better themselves via a job or self education.
The Tories blame the last Government while ignoring that Labour lost over three years ago.
Labour continue to deny they did anything wrong while blaming the Tories for not repeating
the same mistakes.
An entire generation being condemned to the trash heap and our Politicians blame each other
rather than take a hard look at the problem and come up with solutions.