Tuesday 11 December 2012

Comprehensive Education: A Failure

Fifteen schools in Nottingham are to provide their own training for new teachers...
These are primary schools. So it's in...what? Fingerpainting? How to sit on those teeny-tiny chairs?
...to help deal with the problem of disruptive pupils.
Good lord! Can't they cope with a few tantrums and a bit of boisterousness without resorting to training?
And teachers in Nottingham have welcomed the move, after facing growing problems in recent years. They say they have encountered:
Pupils jumping out of ground floor windows during lessons
Being threatened, sworn at and spat at
Having bags thrown at them.
One city teacher, who did not want to be named, said: "It's sad. In some classes there are three or four pupils trying to get on with their work and all around them there is mayhem, shouting and missiles being thrown."
Ah. I see. We're doomed, aren't we?

14 comments:

John Pickworth said...

Clicked the link to the article and saw the photo... then read: "Other schools in St Ann's will be involved, along with some in Lenton, Hyson Green, Dunkirk, Radford, Sneinton, Mapperley and The Meadows."

Gulp!

I don't want to appear racist but there is a SERIOUS mismatched between those locations and the photo!

Weekend Yachtsman said...

"...three or four pupils trying to get on with their work..."

Out of a class of what, thirty or so?

You're right, we are doomed.

Rob said...

The Progressive State finally having to shovel up the shit they have what out over the past 40 years. Suck it up, every last drop.

Snowman said...

Yep, my thoughts exackerly, Rob. Progressive pigeons coming home to roost.

A hearty golf clap for every single useful idiot who has aided the progress of a once-civilised country into a larger version of Lord of the Flies. Thanks a lot, cunts. (Apologies, Julia).

Fahrenheit211 said...

Rob, you may have a point there. We've had 40 years of 'educationalists' promoting child centred education schemes and each one has either not worked or has had negative unforeseen circumstances.

I went to one of those schools were the pupils were supposed to absorb stuff like grammar by osmosis but not have it taught to them. I don't ever recall being taught grammar but I wish I had had been. I feel that a progressive education has put me and my contemporaries at a disadvantage. Mind you since I left school things have got a lot worse.

Woman on a Raft said...

Welcome this: at least they are facing the fact that something has gone wrong.

For the past twenty years to my certain observation (and long before) in the class room, head teachers have been reluctant to accept that the behavior of some children systematically damages the chances of the others by effectively denying them an education.

If you had an adult standing in the doorway, banging a frying pan with a hammer, doing this at random every single school day with the express purpose of making sure that nobody managed to learn to read, write or do sums, even the thickest head might eventually call the cops and have the nutter removed for everyone's rights and sanity, including that of the pan-banger who is not doing themselves any favours.

But if instead of an adult you have a child who does that in the class room, somehow a teacher is supposed to cope with this.

There is no coping with it. It will take a while, but they will realize that the only thing to do is to remove the child and put it in a closely-supervised unit and stop it with this Baroness Warnock rubbish which has cost hundreds of thousands of children their educations.

What ever Nottingham are doing, I wish them well because at least they are trying.

blueknight said...

Streaming?

blueknight said...

Streaming?

Fahrenheit211 said...

WOAR, Well said, I agree with you that to a certain extent the tide is turning. I wonder by how much too long some of the child centred educational experiments went on because of the existence of Local Education Authorities?

Anonymous said...

@WoaR,

Your post is spot on in all regards.

Paul

JuliaM said...

"I don't want to appear racist but there is a SERIOUS mismatched between those locations and the photo!"

It's that elephant in the room, isn't it?

"Out of a class of what, thirty or so?"

It's as if they don't even realise what they are saying, isn't it?

"Progressive pigeons coming home to roost."

If it wasn't so potentially serious, I'd get the popcorn.

"We've had 40 years of 'educationalists' promoting child centred education schemes and each one has either not worked or has had negative unforeseen circumstances."

And yet, the answer is always 'It's not working, so we must have more of it. This time, it'll work!'.

JuliaM said...

"Welcome this: at least they are facing the fact that something has gone wrong. "

Oh, yes.

But small comfort, when the answer they always come up with is to double-down on the permissiveness and entitlement...

"Streaming?"

Yes!

Tatty said...

"If you had an adult standing in the doorway....even the thickest head might eventually call the cops and have the nutter removed...

Yep. It constantly amazes me the shit some adults will put up with from a "child" when they wouldn't hesitate put another adult on their arse.

Anonymous said...

Awesome post Woman on a Raft.