Awesome Teachers and Excessive Britishness

           AWESOME TEACHERS AND EXCESSIVE  BRITISHNESS

One of the most trusted professions being told what to do by one of the least trusted.

The author, John Connolly, has me pondering my place in his four   stages of adulthood: confusion, anger, complacency and grumpiness Unsure where to stick, I have come across a general election. Although an act of parliament stated that we can't have one for another 3 years and the incumbent prime minister repeatedly said that there wouldn't be one, here we jolly well go.

I intend to write in praise and awe of the teachers I meet every day in my state comprehensive school in Ware. I am hopeful that they are typical of the wonders teachers do around the country, although, perhaps,  my lot are particularly talented, committed and worthy.

Whatever successive, careerist secretaries of state throw at us, many, many teachers will combat government indifference to helping children be safe, happy and successful. The teachers will continue to inspire excitement in learning, inquisitiveness and a love of books and music, engender friendships that will last a lifetime, help plant ambition and nurture greatness. Our teachers will be remembered long after hedge fund managers, lawyers and newspaper editors.

I have no need to re-tread the funding crisis in schools, the perilous state of teacher recruitment, the mad impulsive curriculum, 10 year olds with exam stress or any other educational issues. No-one mentions these in May 2017.

Most football clubs now have a chant that, at Spurs goes, “We’ve got Ali, Dele Alli. I just don’t think you understand…” Well, as a nation, we’ve got Teresa May and I could make it scan if there weren’t more important considerations.

It’s Tuesday evening. I'm not sure but I think our PM just declared war. In Churchillian tones, she broadcast to the nation. Foreign politicians are out to destroy the livelihoods of ordinary British working families. If we don't vote for her in the general election the foreign governments will act as if there are 27 of them and one of us. If we do vote for her then her strong and stable leadership will force the 27 into some sort of cowardly retreat and we will be safe. I wonder if she hummed The Damnbusters theme when the microphone turned off.

Its only right than in times of attack by foreign powers that we stop objecting to the £3billion of cuts in state education over the next 5 years and the parliamentary, Cross Party Education Committee should rescind its statement that government thinking on school finances is “delusional.” Now is the time for increased hate attacks and excessive britishness.

Parliament has been suspended so that we can vote for strong and stable leadership, also giving us the opportunity to address  the teacher shortage.

Gideon Oliver Osborne, heir to his family's Baronetry of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon, better known as Former Chancellor George Osborne is to be paid £650,000 a year to advise the US fund manager, Blackrock. In the Commons register of interests, he disclosed that he would work 48 days a year, whilst being an elected MP.

He has already earned close to £800,000 for speeches made to banks and other firms since leaving office in July, but still serving as an MP

He has now taken on the job as part time editor of the London Evening Standard on a secret salary “up to £400,000” according to The Daily Mail on 6^th May, still taking his MP’s £70,000.

Can he fit in a bit of teaching?

As our government acts on “The British people have spoken!” and possibly, “Two world wars and one World Cup!” it fell to a Finnish  Finance Minister to speak britishness and sense. Alec Stubb quoted Millwall FC supporters, “Everyone hates us and we don’t care,” as a poor opening salvo for Theresa May to use in EU exit negotiations.

Conservative estimates are that the UK will pay a divorce settlement of at least  £50 billion.  However Boris and Nigel promised we will be saving £350 million a week when we leave. I know this is all on its way to the NHS because I saw Boris standing alongside the sloganized bus. When George gets his job teaching Maths to 12 year olds he can do the real life sums. We could use the weekly saving to pay off the settlement by Thursday afternoon of the 142^nd week.

Forget the NHS for a bit longer.

Back to admiring teaches with an attack of the memories, courtesy of ASCL General Secretary, Geoff Barton and his former school.

                                                King Edward VI School

Rules for staff in 1550

• They shall abstain from dicing, gaming and tippling. They must not keep their family on the premises. Women like deadly plagues shall be kept at a distance. The masters shall not be excessively harsh or severe or weakly prone to indulgence.
• They shall teach a little at a time, with plenty of examples. They shall never advance to fresh subjects ... until the earlier ones are thoroughly understood.
• The teachers shall appoint two boys called censors to note offences. The teachers shall secretly appoint a third boy to watch the other two and report to the master any offences overlooked or not noticed.

School rules for the boys in 1550

• Those who cannot read and write shall be excluded. They must learn elsewhere the arts of reading and writing.
• No boy shall come to school with unkempt hair, unwashed hands or dirty shoes or boots, torn or untidy clothes. Any boy misbehaving himself either in Church or any other public place shall be flogged.
• They shall speak Latin in school. Truants, idlers and dullards shall be expelled by the High Master after a year's trial. Every boy shall have at hand, ink, paper, knife (used to sharpen a quill pen), pens and books. When they have need to write the boys shall use their knees as a table.
• The whole of the scholars (100) shall be assembled in the morning at 6 o'clock and at 1 o'clock. They shall go home to dinner at eleven and to supper at five. There shall be five classes, under two masters in two rooms, the older boys looking after classes when the masters were not teaching them. School shall finish at 3pm on Saturdays and half holydays.

Some walk among us who would celebrate such a forward to the past scenario.

An OECD annual report has revealed that teachers in England and Scotland typically work longer hours teaching more pupils than teachers in most other developed countries and have experienced an above-average decline in pay since 2005.

The report also revealed that teachers' pay in England has experienced an above average decline since 2005 while teachers in other OECD countries who also witnessed a recession (Poland, Germany, the United States and Australia) saw their pay increase.

Teachers' unions have complained that an excessive workload is deterring people from staying in teaching – while uncompetitive salaries make recruitment to the profession a challenge.

A spokesman for the DfE commented: "Great teachers are at the heart of this government's commitment to delivering educational excellence everywhere.

"This is why we are not only tackling excessive teacher workload but have also given head teachers the freedom to pay good teachers more, meaning the best teachers can access greater rewards earlier in their careers."

It’s my fault, then.y don't worry about impartiality when reporting on Nationalist's demo's twnright hostile to patriots and the true Brit's.
Except when the awful Katy Hopkins is provoking outrage, I quite like LBC. Whenever teacher pay is mentioned someone always phones to claim that they are self- employed, work 18 hour days, 7 days a week, have no holidays and no pension…..

And seem to suggest that teachers should aspire to such conditions.

Teachers either do badly or well in pay comparisons depending on your admiration of crane drivers.

42. Rail construction and maintenance operatives - £35,781

43. Business, research and administrative professionals - £35,545

44. Crane drivers - £35,458

45. Journalists, newspaper and periodical editors - £34,639

46. Engineering technicians - £34,355

47. Chartered architectural technologists - £33,651

48. Business sales executives- £33,432

49. Secondary education teaching professionals - £32,524

(Cosmopolitan 16^th March 2017)

Teachers do have a contributory pension scheme. Their contributions have been increased, benefits reduced.

The Retail Price Index is the measure of cost-of-living and I hope the table shows that it has risen by 9.6% between 2011 and 2016

Year	Annual %	Index
2016	2.5	260.6
2014	1.6	257.5
2013	2.7	253.5
2012	3.1	246.8
2011	4.8	239.4

 

JC has been a Head of Department for 15 years.  Here are her pay details.

	August 2011	August 2016
Gross pay	£3392.50	£3507.50
Deductions
NI	£288.54	£340.26
Tax	£510.40	£446.40
Pension	£217.12	£357.76
Deductions        1016.06	£1016.06	£1144.42
Net Pay	£2376.44	£2363.08

 

Whilst the rpi shows a 9.6% increase in prices JC’s take home pay has gone down.

So, to be sorrowful, anguished  or agonised as we stumble into a politically backward, anglocentric isolationism of excessive britishness?  Searching for the soul of our peoples, I look at our teachers and their work with our future and I am comforted and inspired.

Thanks

Dennis O’Sullivan

6^th May 2017

 

To parliamentarians on the occasion of Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday: A Pox on Both your houses.

April 26th 2014

I have to give you bad news today and it is an unsweetened pill.  You will know that Mr Gove (an early blog appearance as usual)is very, very opposed to students taking their exam qualifications before the age of 16. He is likewise against what he calls “gaming” when schools enter children more than once for an exam or resit to get a better mark. Ofqual admit to “several thousand” mark changes on appeal but we are to be stopped appealing.  So he has announced that schools will be barred and penalized for such wrongdoings. Bravo, Brave Gove, to stand up and tell off the private schools, who have been gaming forever, with such unequivocal bluntness is worthy of admiration, adulation and a new job. Or can it be that these new rules are going to apply only to the public sector, can it? That would be obscenely beneath the “all in it together” mantra our prime Minister declares. When aliens took the life form of Michael Gove, the 21^st century bogeyman getting away scott free with destroying our schools they avoided both glamour and shame.
The identikit Tory-Labour parties have ignored the electorate, effectively promoting the nauseating, dangerously divisive UKIP offering answers to voters real concerns – wrong answers, ill thought out and contradictory answers but nonetheless populist nasty stuff which appeals to people losing hope as their standards of living continue to decline.

I was recently asked to write something for a magazine and they are publishing the blog-type ranting leaving me to find an alternative to the quiet piece which ended quite hopefully:

“..the terrible beauty of learning, the textures and belief in teaching, the joy and delight in achievement… transcending baffled incredulity and wounded self-belief. Lotta continua, Mickey, that struggle continues.”

I explained last month how Gove became Mickey and I also mentioned Ukrainian blog readers. Well, Mickey hasn’t bothered replying but 30 Ukranians read my stuff one day last week. Worryingly for Farage they mainly hit upon “How to choose a secondary school,” so maybe they have plans to visit. If I really want to wind up the bucolic UKIP –there’s been 83 blogs read in Poland, 219 in Germany and, please explode Nigel, 139 in France. What if all these literate discerning adults descended on us with their fancy skills and bilingualism?

Our symbol of democracy, The House of Commons united in eloquent opposition to the abuse of one of its members. Apparently, Christian Torres (Chelsea South) had not claimed expenses for the bus ride to his constituency party's fete. The ever so thorough MPs’ committee for looking into MPs’ expenses regretted that his claim was two years out of date. “It was an innocent mistake,” he chimed, “and now I am being victimised. That I overlooked the rules should not penalise me… I forgot to claim the £2.20… I was only on the dammed bus as part of a publicity stunt… and even though my mum paid the fare I want the money… and I don't get paid enough…. and bigger boys made me do it, one of whom may have been my partner but I was afraid to mention that, so I want to claim his fare too. Anyway, when did we start having to submit genuine, timely expenses claims?”

Fancifully creative writing, of course.That didn’t really happen; the next lot did.

Culture Secretary, Maria Miller with a trifling expenses difficulty, was ordered to repay £45,000 by the Commons Watchdog. The MPs own committee reduced her repayment to £5,800. Having obstructed the investigation she was ordered to apologise and did so with a teenage petulant 32 seconds of the tiniest, most begrudging,“ I’ve been told to apologise.” Her fellow MPs hurried to her side whilst she spoke. Yes, they said, “Were certainly in this together!”

Prime Minister Cameron has gone all religious (vote for him wont you) and declared us a Christian country as he spouted beliefs and values based on god stuff, admitting he is a somewhat occasional Christian. Every man needs a creed at election time.

There’s something fishy going on in Birmingham. It may be a big fat hoax of a letter left lying around in an editor’s intray or a real attempt by some Muslims to take over the management, curriculum and pastoral care in some schools.

There are at least three enquiries being done in Birmingham today and Gove (really having a laugh) has set his own underway, naturally led by a supremely unqualified guy, Peter Clarke, fresh from running the counter terrorism unit at Scotland Yard. Google the investigation and The Telegraph have it under “terrorism.” May I offer a “for God’s sake!” here as Gove equates Muslims with terrorism.

I was a victim in  catholic schools where we went to benediction  and mass in  school time; we mimed hymns in assembly, were taught that we would go to hell if we attended another faith’s ceremonies, whilst priests and nuns beat us with equanimity. It’s dead easy to be a Catholic school headteacher as the talent pool is restricted to those who can produce a priest’s certificate of attendance. Herabouts you also have to take pledges like “veritas” and “caring for all children” with a pinch of salt.

 Sikhs, Jews and Hindus have their own schools proposing their own way out of reality and Church of England schools contain more kids than churchgoers. Isn’t it all right for religious groupings to run their own schools, with divisive admissions policies, prayers and interesting curriculum bias financed by the state? If Muslims are doing so is it really any of Gove’s business?

Gove recently allocated funds for five free schools, obviously free from terrorist associations. They are Jewish free schools: Etz Chaim (Mill Hill) Eden (Muswell Hill) Rimon (Golders Green) South London Jewish(Wimbledon) and Alma (Finchley)all recently generously state-funded.

“Faith schools make a fantastic contribution to our education system and none more so than Jewish faith school,” Education secretary Michael Gove said in December 2010.

I’m going to believe in pixies and leprechauns, rainbows and pots of gold supplied by Mr Gove to those he chooses.

 I am so liberal that I have nothing religious against Jewish schools and accept that there is probably a Jewish flavour to the ethos, where Jewish governors are possibly a majority and they espouse a Jewish way of life. Nothing against Jewish schools at all. I’m just against all religion inspired schools and in favour of a “we’re all in it together” secular education system.

So Muslims up to no good in schools? Must be a terrorist issue or is it just a good old fashioned anti-foreigner alternative to UKIP in next month’s election?
To sink so low name-checking Christianity. Can we have blokes on horses crusading in the name of St George. George by the way, ironically, never set foot in England, good Turkish lad that he was.

When the deputy speaker gets cleared of serious sexual charges politicians united to bleat about "high profile people” being protected from such prosecutions, giving anonymity in trials to "people like him." All 3 parties moved to bully the CPS, protecting each other from the deserving consequences of their own venal stupidity, dishonesty and complicity. Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans’ confessed drunken bloke’s groping behaviour is apparently common in the House.

40% of House of Commons employees claim they have been sexually harassed at work. Imagine the fuss if it was a teacher drunkenly groping the people around them at work?

 UKIP leader Nigel Farage proclaims his politics as a break from the corruption of British politics. But here’s an oddity. Mr Farage is incessantly against foreign workers coming to the UK to take jobs that can be done by britishers. He employs a German as his secretary, OK, he says, because she’s his wife and just one of the “26 million European workers” coming to Britain in UKIP publicity.
Farage is against the EU parliament wasting money on expenses. The £60,000 he can't account for was not expenses it was an allowance and how dare we ask how he spent it. That’s almost like the rabidly anti EU and virtually everything else, Dail Mail editor Paul Dacre taking EU grants of 300,408 euros for his Scottish estate.

You may think that I am creating a stereotype, partying in urban myths. Stereotypes are sometimes thick ugly plaster over a framework of truth and our leaders really are a dodgy bunch of opportunists.

This week David Laws announced that its time to stop changing everything in education, lets settle down. If you vote us back in we will stop meddling. Could Lib Dem Laws be trusted, after all he is in the government, he is working with Gove in the DfE. Listen Honest David, I'm not the only one who's been taking notes: remember you got kicked out for a £50,000 illegal expenses claim.

Let’s trust our betters and breed a generation of the silently insulted. There is some perverted poetry that it is Mrs Fox who is leading Gove’s unrelenting hunting down of accessible qualifications. so that most students fail. And when our kids realise that the point is to stifle their ambition and aspirations I am sure they will sit quietly in rows. The rule changes on vocational courses are backdated to affect kids who started the courses 9 months ago, cos really, who cares? Not the disgracefully clueless silent Labour Party that’s for sure.

Just now I read that Gove has cancelled his speech at a headteachers’ union’s conference. He’s too busy. My own union leader asks me to believe that the government is listening. I admire your perseverance, Brian, but  you’re wrong.

Gove, Laws, Truss, Hunt and all you parliamentary abusers you don't know what you're doing. The exam-practising stress on our kids is growing – 9 two hour science exams in 2016 will be more than for a final university degree.  And just how much bloody Maths do you want them to do? What’s wrong with childhood and childish things, of a bit of creativity?  Don’t they have the right to be a 16 year old average ability kid working hard, doing well and getting recognition for that?

And the adults in education, if they’re  Maths or English teachers or headteachers in non selective schools will pack it in or get shafted. Gove has declared a 9 point scale for his new tougher GCSEs;. Well, Mickey, my anger at your machinations goes up to 11.

So my homework is for schools, its teachers, parents and leaders who know our students and families and understand our own communities to set the education agenda. 1.3 million school employees plus just under 10 million parents should swing any election, so

Seize the time.

Shout at politicians.

Shout loudly.

Dennis O'Sullivan