How Is It A ‘Superpower’ If It needs This Level Of Encouragement?

Stormzy called reading a “superpower” as he backed an initiative aimed at encouraging people who don’t see themselves as readers to pick up a book.

What sort of people ‘don’t see themselves as readers?’ you might ask, Reader? Is it once again the demographic that dare not speak its name? 

“Reading helped me when I was young and it still does today,” said Stormzy. “Books have the power to carry you through life.” 

Not as much as being a DEI media darling who can do no wrong in the eyes of the MSM…

“I encourage anyone who doesn’t usually read to pick up a Quick Read – because reading really is a superpower,” he added. “Music and books are both about finding your voice. We are all made of stories – they define who we are.”

If it really was a ‘superpower’ would you have to plug it so hard, or water it down to suit the audience you are aiming at, though? 

“Having never read a book until the age of 24, I wish I had come across Quick Reads sooner,” said Owusu. “They’re accessible, affordable and gentle in their approach, allowing new or lapsed readers to find their way into the pleasure and fulfilment of reading fiction and nonfiction. “I’m excited to be part of their legacy and to add my voice to something that helps people feel confident enough to pick up a book and look forward to spending time with it,” he added.

So what sort of literary masterpieces are you creating? 

Owusu is also the author of That Reminds Me, Losing the Plot, Borderline Fiction and the editor of Safe: 20 Ways to be a Black Man in Britain Today.

 Gosh, I’ll leave you to it…

Never Forget, Never Forgive…

Lana Collie-James was 14 years old in the midst of the Covid pandemic when she was offered a stark choice: her education or her mother’s life. “My mum’s clinically vulnerable. She has a compromised immune system, along with a plethora of other illnesses that would make Covid hit very hard,” she says.

“I got given the ultimatum. My mum said: do you want to go to school, do you want to go to secondary school and risk taking this home? So as a 14-year-old I had to make the decision to either get an education and risk my mother dying, or not get an education and try to teach myself the best I could. “That’s a very difficult situation to give to a 14-year-old, but also a situation that, whichever decision I made, whichever outcome I chose, would completely change the trajectory of my life.”

The damage the overreaction to Covid has done is still not entirely understood and indeed, I fear that no matter what the conclusion on this inquiry, there'd be nothing stopping the government from doing it all again at some point in the future. 

Collie-James stayed in virtual isolation for the two years of education that culminate in GCSE exams at age 16 rather than risk her mother’s life.

With her school refusing to continue remote teaching and threatening fines for non-attendance, Collie-James took on the responsibility of teaching herself.

Which probably guaranteed her a better education than she's have got attending the propaganda-factorties we call schools, ironically rnough. 

“I got, like, maybe a couple of tests [from the school], that’s it,” she says. “I don’t know if they marked them at all or if I got any feedback. I’m pretty sure I didn’t. Maybe I got sent a PowerPoint once or twice. “But even so, I then had to essentially teach myself GCSEs, which was a little bit insane, and I didn’t see anyone for two years. I saw two friends, one of them a neighbour, with social distancing, which was nice. But in general it was an extremely isolating and lonely experience because it was just me and my mum.”

After “spending a lot of money buying textbooks”, Collie-James concentrated on core subjects and managed passes in design and English, followed by resitting and passing maths when she started at college the following year.

 Wondering if she'd actually done better than if she'd spent two years in the sausage-factory of modern comprehensive education, Reader? Yes, me too...

Kate Eisenstein, the director of policy, research and legal for the inquiry, says the four weeks of hearings will investigate how the interests of children and young people were taken into account by decision-makers, as well as evidence of the differing impact on children.

I'll save you the time, Kate. They weren't. No-one's were. 

Sounds More Like It's Been Captured By Retards...

The prestigious centre-Right unit found that George Floyd’s death in 2020 led to schools hastily including material about ethnic minorities to appear ‘anti-racist’. Former history teacher and chairman of Campaign for Real Education Chris McGovern said it was ‘clear that the subject has been captured by the Left’.

Oh! Give us some examples, then: 

Children are being taught that Stonehenge was built by black people and the Roman Emperor Nero married a trans woman as woke narratives increasingly infiltrate schools, according to an education think-tank.

🤣😂🤣 

They are also being told – in pro-transgender resources – that genital mutilation of slaves was a form of ‘gender transition’.

Why on earth are ‘pro transgender resources’ ever necessary in schools? 

It comes as the Government conducts its curriculum review to ‘reflect the issues and diversities of our society’ – which the report says may be unnecessary as schools already do it. Backed by former education secretaries Lord Blunkett and Nadhim Zahawi, it also calls for pupils to be impartially given a better overview of British history.

Forget it - we know full well whatever is delivered is not going to be impartial, the teaching unions will see to that!  

It’s OK Gaby, The Ones Smart Enough To Not Believe This Are Doing Just Fine…

Young people in line for good degrees from good Russell Group universities, who have for years obediently jumped through every hoop provided, are working in bars, going travelling, or despondently applying to companies that they know use AI not only to sift their CVs, but sometimes to conduct first interviews.Meanwhile LinkedIn – and yes, students have all been on LinkedIn for years – only feeds the gnawing fear that other people seemingly have their futures much more sorted, just as Instagram used to feed their teenage anxieties about who was going to all the parties.

Oh, weep! Weep for the students!  

Last year’s Institute of Student Employers recruitment survey recorded a ratio of 140 applications for every graduate job. Part of the reason for that deluge of applicants is perhaps because kids who suspect their forms won’t be read by humans anyway are using ChatGPT to fill in and fire them off en masse, to the point where AI is in effect talking to AI.

Well, the way things are going that’s a good grounding for the future work they will be taking up! 

It’s the betrayal that hurts. We drilled it into them that if they worked hard at school and made it into university then the world could be their oyster, but our stagnant economy just hasn’t generated enough graduate-level jobs to match – especially outside London, where we have simultaneously managed to ensure most of them can’t actually afford to live.

Well, the ones that saw this coming and took up a trade instead of a useless degree in grievance studies are earning a good living now. They were smart enough not to believe the hype.  

We can’t keep doing this to young people and then be surprised when they’re angry. If we keep whipping them through the education system on the promise their efforts will be rewarded, and then fail to deliver, sooner or later, the consequences will boomerang back on us.

What consequences will those be? More overqualified baristas in Starbucks?

Instead Of Questioning What Went Wrong With The Finances, Why Not Question What’s Going Wrong With Biology?

The financial threat hanging over English councils, as a result of the last government’s decision to mask special needs overspending with an accounting ruse, is made plain in a Guardian investigation that used freedom of information requests to dig into their accounts. How ministers plan to deal with the £5.2bn debt that will reappear on balance sheets in a year – having been temporarily hidden by the Conservatives – is unknown. But doing nothing is not an option.

Clearly, trying to find out the cause of this increased spending is also not an option. Since no-one appears to be asking the question.  

The alarming mismatch between the steeply rising need for special education and the budgets allocated to pay for it is one of the biggest challenges facing the government – with at least 18 councils at risk of insolvency.

They've known the bill will come due for seven years. Maybe if they'd cut back on DEI nonsense and activist pandering, they'd have a few more pennies in the kitty to pay for it? 

There is no short answer to the question of what went wrong.

As this is the 'Guardian', I'm sure the blame can be laid at the feet of the previous government, can't it? 

But reforms brought in under David Cameron are responsible for pitting families against councils in the struggle for additional support – while central government sits on the sidelines.

Thought so!  

Between 2015-16 and 2024-25, high‑needs funding in England rose by 59% or £4bn to nearly £11bn.

Why? For the love of god, doesn't anyone ask WHY?! 

The Piper Always Has To Be Paid Eventually…

The staggering cost of England’s special educational needs and disability (Send) crisis shows no sign of easing. A Guardian investigation has revealed councils will overspend on Send services by nearly £2bn over the next year, pushing their accumulated deficits to at least £5.2bn by 31 March 2026. The date is crucial because that is when the £5.2bn debt, hidden away off local authority books using an accounting fix for seven years, is due to come back on to the balance sheets, threatening to instantly bankrupt scores of town halls.

They've had seven years of knowing this axe was going to fall, and what have they done, except spend like drunken sailors on DEI nonsense and pandering to every crazy activist in the area? 

The government faces a massive headache: not just what to do about the rapidly increasing billions of historic Send debt, but how to keep a lid on future Send spending, which shows no sign of abating.

And is anyone asking why this is? Why are a growing number of children requiring SEND assistance? Wouldn't that be a sensible thing to do?  

City of York council, the only authority surveyed by the Guardian that is projecting its accumulated Send budget deficit to move into surplus next year, was sceptical about keeping its head above water in future. “Unless the system is changed, we will go back into deficit quite quickly,” said Bob Webb, York council’s executive member for children, young people and education.

Bob doesn't seem too surprised or even concerned at anything about this, except the bottom line for his funding. He's not the only one. 

Mike Cox, the deputy leader of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, whose forecast deficit will hit £168m by 31 March 2026, up £60m in a year, predicts: “[Government] is going to keep kicking the can down the road. The only thing that will change is that the can will get bigger and harder to kick.”

Maybe you should be shouting about where the can came from in the first place instead? 

Well, I Can’t See This Going Wrong…

Half a million students studied GCSE or A-level history in the UK last year, but just 2,000 of them tackled the origins of the conflict raging in the Middle East. Why? According to one history teacher, Meredith Cann, schools often fear criticism from parents if they tackle sensitive topics.

Mainly because they do it wrong.  

Children are hungry for the chance to study contested and topical periods of history, says Cann, the programme manager at Parallel Histories, an education charity.

Are they? Is there any evidence of that? 

It’s not just Israel and Palestine; other contested subjects often avoided by schools include the impact of the British empire, and the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Really? I thought modern history in schools was 100% 'the British Empire is the root of all evil'..? 

Most schools, she says, restrict their history curriculum to periods that are distant in time or geography.

Well, it IS in the title, after all... 

Parallel Histories promotes new ways to study and understand conflict, helping teachers confidently explore the roots of contemporary wars from Ukraine to Gaza with students, and assess the legacy of leaders such as Winston Churchill. It seeks to reach across community divides and provide an antidote to populism and extremism.

Oooh, I bet it doesn't. I bet perpetuating conflict is its main goal. It is, after all, a fakecharity that gets most of its money from grants, almost certainly from government and other quangos...

“It’s really easy for children to think of history as a list of dead people and what they did. But history is the version of the stories which have shaped and are shaping so much of the modern world,” Cann says. “It’s about how things have been interpreted, and how people have used this history. And that’s where we link to current affairs without treading that line into politicising.”

Good luck trying to walk that line! But let's see an example of the stuff they want to churn out to the kiddies, shall we? 

Parallel Histories works with prominent historians and spends months sifting through sources to draw up the ebooks that are the basis of debates on each topic. For example: was Winston Churchill a racist warmonger who used inhumane forms of warfare? Or was he a visionary leader who saw the threat posed by nazism from the start and led Britain to help defeat Adolf Hitler?

I can pretty much guess the answer. 

The materials on Churchill include a chilling account from his memoir of a military campaign in Afghanistan. Acts that today would probably be considered war crimes are described in his own words. “We destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation,” Churchill wrote.

See? 

And Yet, No One Is Concerned About The Cause Of This Rising Need…

More than £100m was spent last year by local authorities and the government on failed efforts to block support for children and young people with special educational needs in England, according to analysis by the Guardian. The enormous cost in legal fees and staff resources came after councils won just 136 out of more than 10,000 tribunals in 2022-23, a success rate of 1.2%, as record numbers of families took to the courts to challenge councils over agreements known as education, health and care plans (EHCPs).

Why is the cost rising? Well, believe it or not, the cause isn't the litigation, that's just a symptom... 

Experts said the surging numbers of appeals and mounting costs were evidence that special education provision was becoming an adversarial battle between cash-strapped councils and desperate families...

And are we having more of these cases? Reader, we are. 

The number of children applying for and being granted EHCPs has shot up in recent years as school and council budgets have dwindled, leaving EHCPs as the only way for families to get extra funding and support for a child and their place of education.

In fact, the number has risen to almost unbelievable levels: 

Department for Education (DfE) figures show that nearly one in 19 children aged between five and 15 in England now have an EHCP...

Why is no-one looking into this? Why is the legal battles it causes the focus instead?  

What A Snowflake Generation Means In Reality

Young people must "earn or learn" or face having their benefits cut, under government plans to get them back into work and grow the economy.

I recall the backlash when the last government annouced this. Yet there's been little outrage from the usual suspects this time around. Isn't that strange? 

Official figures suggest nearly a million young people were out of education, employment or training between July and September. Job centres and mental health support will get more funding to help people into work, the government has said.

However, business leaders have said rises in employer National Insurance contributions and minimum wages will leave them less money to create new jobs. The BBC has spoken to young people yet to enter the workforce, as well as those with different reasons for leaving it.

Which was quite brave of them, but I don't think they realised what they were going to say... 

Hassan, 20, from Birmingham, finished his A levels in 2022 and has been out of work ever since. “This year has been kind of a constant struggle. I want to get a job but how do I get a job? And how do I write the right CV? And how do I apply for things?” He is receiving help with these struggles from the King's Trust.

This is a product of our education system? 

Hassan missed out on sitting his GCSE exams because of the Covid pandemic and said sitting formal exams for the first time at 18 was "overwhelming". “I realised what I had been calling 'stress' for many years was actually anxiety. I had been carrying it with me for so long," he said. “There’s a lot of talk these days about mental health. But a lot of people think it’s overrepresented… that makes you feel uncertain about trying to identify these problems you deal with in your daily life.”

Those are just the normal vicissitudes of life. No-one's going to hand you anything on a platter, and if they told you they would, that's yet another failure of the educational system. 

Amy Wilkes, 23, from Coventry has a degree in criminology, policing and investigation but said she gets no responses when she applies for jobs. “It’s really frustrating, soul-destroying and gutting," said Amy, who has been volunteering with the witness service for over a year. “It is very hard to find a job, let alone a career,” she said.

She told the BBC her morale can get low sometimes, and that she occasionally struggles emotionally, especially as “applying for loads of jobs is draining”.

Another one who believed that if she gained a degree, plum jobs would land in her lap without any effort on her part. The fact that 'life is hard' seems not to have been imparted very well. 

But if you've got a 'disability' to fall back on... 

Kiarna, 18, from Birmingham said her struggle to find a job began at sixth form where she felt misunderstood because of her learning difficulties and mental health struggles. “I went to college... but I felt like they didn’t understand me, they would moan at me, have a go at me. They didn’t understand that for someone with learning difficulties it’s really hard to learn stuff. It takes longer to make it click in your head," she said. Kiarna said the lack of support and structure after she finished formal education had also been a barrier in finding work. She is now receiving help from the Kings Trust.

And yet, the Royals get no thanks or even recognition for providing a service to mop up the results of our educational system from the Left. 

You’ve Sacked The Wrong One!

A school has lodged a complaint against a coach company after footage emerged of a driver’s expletive-filled rant to schoolchildren.

And why was he abusing the cerubic little passengers?  

In the video seen by the BBC, a man believed to be the coach driver is heard accusing children of not wearing a seatbelt and smoking on the bus.

Heh! Surely not? Well, when they are out of their teacher's sight...

Oh, wait!  

Gill Lane, whose child was onboard the coach on 11 July, said there were seven teachers on the coach at the time of the incident, which happened halfway through a four-hour journey. “The teachers' job is to keep our children safe and to manage them on the coach,” she said. "And on this occasion, they failed our children.

“I don’t know if I can keep my children at the school because I don’t know if I can trust them to keep them safe.”

Well, I'd say the answer is no, you can't. Especially if they did nothing to ensure they put their seatbelts on and didn't smoke.  

Wise Coaches, based in Hailsham, said the pupils had been “disruptive”, but the driver no longer worked for the company as of the day after the incident.

Why sack him? Just because he tried to instil some discipline that the teachers couldn't? 

The school said staff on the trip had attempted to reason with the coach driver and asked him to moderate his language and behaviour.

But did nothing about the behavior of their pupils? Sounds to me like there should be more sackings. At the school!  

A Recipe For Disaster…

Ofsted is to urge schools to “pause” inspections that appear to be damaging the mental health of their staff, as part of its formal response to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry.

One mentally-unstable woman kills herself over a trivial matter, and suddenly the whole world stands still? 

But Perry’s family and school leaders said they were disappointed that neither the Department for Education’s nor Ofsted’s responses addressed the use of single-phrase judgments such as “inadequate” to grade schools, which they said was an impediment to real reform.

You can't appease these people, and you shouldn't even try... 

“As the new chief inspector, I am determined to do everything in my power to prevent such tragedies in the futures,” said Oliver, who took over as head of Ofsted in the new year. He added: “We must carry out our role in a way that is sensitive to the pressures faced by leaders and staff, without losing our focus on children and learners.”

You've made yourself a hostage to fortune, because you can now be delayed by claims that you cannot disprove, because even asking for medical evidence of any 'stress' will be seen as exacerbating it.  

Both the National Association of Head Teachers and the Association of School and College Leaders said Ofsted’s proposals were positive steps but did not fully address their concerns.

“This must be the beginning of a process for Ofsted and the government to improve the way in which schools and colleges are inspected – one that makes the system fairer, less punitive and more supportive,” said Geoff Barton, ASCL’s general secretary.

In any grading system, someone has to come last. I suppose it was inevitable the 'all must have prizes!' ethos would be used for the teachers as well as the pupils. 

"And Now We Go Over To Lord Of The Flies High For A Report..."

Striking teachers who walked out of a Kent academy in a row with authorities over pupil behaviour have been slammed by some locals who say they're 'bowing down' to the anti-social children they're supposed to be teaching.

I'm not normally in favour of strikes, but it must feel to these teachers as if they genuinely have no other recourse... 

The troubled school was rated inadequate by Ofsted in August 2022 due to concerns over 'bullying, racism, homophobia, vandalism and pupils' understanding of sexual consent'.

Around 20 staff formed a picket line between 7.30am and 10am today holding up placards including some saying: 'I Come to work to teach not to be abused'and 'NOT ready, not respectful not safe.'

The school, which is one of only two on the Isle, has denied repeated calls for 10-day suspensions to be handed out to students if they abuse teachers.

Then they can't really be surprised when their workers take matters into their own hands, can they? 

Deb, a nurse who moved to the Isle two years ago, ... disagreed with the strikes and says that teachers should get back to work.

'The discipline is down to the law as far as I am concerned. Just as we have to bow down to our patients, they have to bow down to their pupils.'

Anyone aware of the NHS 'bowing down' to anybody? Anyone? Bueller? 

'I'm really old fashioned. It doesn't matter what school a child is in - if they want to learn they will learn.'

'There's always been issues with pupils. And unfortunately, the issue starts with a lot of the teachers are frightened of the parents because they can be very challenging.'

If the parents are 'challenging', you can imagine how the children behave... 

The trainee, who has been there for 18 months, said: 'Students verbally abuse teachers – arguments about phones are constant as well as the use of the iPads which we loan them. 'I've seen a chair thrown at a teacher. I've seen a gang of four students chase a teacher into the staff room.

'Those who criticise us striking are wrong – regardless of what the children have said or what they've done we still go back every day and give them a clean slate.

'But if we have an incident in class and we need a student removed and we send a call out, no one comes. That's 20 minutes of learning time lost in a 50 minute session'.

Those children who are, like Deb insists, 'there to learn' are being let down. Why does no-one consider that? 

Ms Kahan and her family live in a large detached house on the same road as the Minster-on-Sea site – and have had to deal with students kicking down their fences four times since she has lived there. The multi-generational family have been left to shell out hundreds of pounds to replace the panels which stands next to a busy bus stop.

She said: 'Me and my husband have come out to speak to them so many times. These things are expensive, we've had to fix it four or five times.

'But they just give it back to us. They 100 per cent need to be disciplined more'.

Yes, they certainly do, but it appears no-one wants to, so nothing will change. 

Sauce For The Goose, Craig...

“It’s impossible for a teacher to know what’s in the minds of parents when she starts her lesson,” Goodmark said. “For parents to be able, with a political agenda, to come in from outside the classroom and have a teacher fired is completely unfair. It’s not right. It’s terrible for Georgia’s education system.”

Some might say it's similarly unfair that teachers have been doing this themselves, and parents have had no say in it up until now...

She had been a teacher for 10 years when she got into trouble in March at Due West elementary school for reading the picture book My Shadow Is Purple by Scott Stuart, after which some parents complained.

Elementary school. That means ages 5-10. Shouldn't they be reading about Pokemon or dinosaurs instead of transgender and identity fluid issues at that age?

Rinderle declined comment after the vote but released a statement through the Southern Poverty Law Center, which helped represent her. “The district is sending a harmful message that not all students are worthy of affirmation in being their unapologetic and authentic selves,” Rinderle said in the statement. “This decision, based on intentionally vague policies, will result in more teachers self-censoring in fear of not knowing where the invisible line will be drawn.”

Or maybe it will result in teachers sticking to teaching what pupils of ages 5 to 10 should be learning about? And not sending harmful messages about adult subjects in defiance of what the parents wish?

None of the board members discussed the decision, but the school district lawyer Sherry Culves said at the hearing that discussing gender identity and gender fluidity was inappropriate. “The Cobb county school district is very serious about the classroom being a neutral place for students to learn,” Culves said at the hearing. “One-sided instruction on political, religious or social beliefs does not belong in our classrooms.”

Who can really argue with that? 

"Some Of It's Even From The Students..."

In the past couple of years, the insecurity in people’s lives has been getting worse and worse – and it’s affecting their behaviour. You see learners breaking down in tears because they are so overwhelmed, or they are venting their anger and frustration.

Since we came back on-site post-lockdown, behaviour is worse than it has ever been. Every staff member that I have spoken to agrees. There has been spitting, foul language, littering, disregard for shared spaces and teachers’ authority – it’s shocking.

What could possibly have given these students a lack of respect for, well, everything? 

It must be a hangover from covid restrictions, right? It couldn't be anything else...

For £20,000 A Year, You'd Expect Discipline...

But you'd expect it to apply to the pupils first...

Bosses at the £20,000-a-year school told the woman to deliver the mea culpa after her class complained that she had said 'good afternoon, girls' at the start of a lesson, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

After being told by the pupils that 'not everyone here identifies as female', she arrived in class the following day to find they had pointedly written their names and pronouns on the board, including one who used they/them.

And did appeasing these little cherubs work? Reader, it did not, you'll no doubt be surprised to hear...  

They also held a lunchtime protest after she refused to acknowledge their demands.

Hopefully she's now learned her lesson and is looking for a better school? 

Last night, a spokesman for the trust declined to comment.

That's OK, others - including the Education Secretary - are commenting. And pointing. And laughing.  

Gosh, How Primitive And Sexist They Were In The Old Days...

...and what funny ideas they had about women's ability to cope with adversity! 

Oh.

I Wonder What A Venn Diagram Would Show...

...if it featured 'people who agreed schools must close to 'save lives' during the pandemic no matter the cost to pupils' and 'teachers insisting OFSTED should no longer carry out inspections'..? 

I bet it'd be a perfect circle:

Ofsted has been urged to halt all school visits after a headteacher killed herself over a critical inspection, prompting an education union chief to warn her tragic death must act as a 'watershed moment'.

Now, someone who kills herself over what anyone else would regard as a concerning but ultimately trivial work matter has a lot of other issues (anyone think top cops will be reaching for the pills today? No. Me neither..), but will the 'if it saves one life!' crowd even listen to reason?

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, is now urging all policymakers to listen to the 'important' message from Mrs Perry's family regarding their determination that 'something like this should never happen again'.

Maybe instability and impulsive behaviour runs in her family? 

It comes after Mrs Perry's sister Professor Julia Walters called for schools to 'boycott Ofsted' and revealed that her sister had experienced the 'worst day of her life' during the Ofsted inspection.

Ah. Clearly, because no-one would call for such a thing if they were in their right m...

Similarly, Flora Cooper, executive headteacher of the John Rankin Schools in nearby Newbury, Berkshire, yesterday said she will refuse to let Ofsted in the building during a planned visit today and called on other schools to do the same.

Blimey, it's spreading! Sack her. And anyone else who threatens this, before this hysteria spreads any further. You know it makes sense. 

Education Is Really Going Down The Pan...

...quite literally:

Nor is it just the latest 'identity' fad, either:

Who knew life as a teacher was so lavatorial?

Oh, What A Nuisance!

On Friday, AQA said sorry to A-level law students for the "confusion and stress" after questions on nuisance were included in their paper, despite there being no advance warning that the subject would be included in the exam.

Oh no! Poor little snowflakes! Mummy will go to the papers for you about this terrible injustice! 

Coralie Foster, from Bolton, said her daughter was "more angry than upset" at the surprise question in the A-Level law paper on Monday.

She added: "Nowadays these university offers are so high - so the pressure on these kids to get the top grades is immense.

"Advance information was meant to help focus that work, but it's all been completely undermined."

Does she imagine she'll never be faced with the unexpected when she's in court, then? 

H/T: i.r.jackson via email

No, Bei, It's Working For The Children It's Intended To Work For...

Bei had come to London alone at the age of 16, leaving her Somali-born mother at home in Italy. She went to college, studied for a BTec, got herself into university, then did a PGCE and started teaching.

The job was demanding, the hours were long and Bei was also raising a young son...

 No mention of the father, then..? Wow, what a catch, Britain, eh? Italy's gain is surely our loss here.

Schools in England have increasingly adopted so-called zero-tolerance policies, where breaches of the school’s behavioural code can result in children being taken out of class and put in a separate area where they work alone, in silence, away from their peers. Critics say isolation can be damaging, not only for a child’s education but also their emotional wellbeing.

And of course, Bei lapped up the advice of these 'experts', and began to focus on them, and not on those poor little souls in her classroom just trying to learn... 

...for Bei her school was starting to seem more like a corporation, rather than the community one she’d joined. “You just feel like, well, this is not what I signed up for. And I remember that I gave in my notice overnight, without another job to go to.”

Decision making isn't a skill she has a lot of, is it? 

She joined a Pupil Referral Unit so she could coddle the troublemakers even more, though not for long: 

There was a restructuring at the PRU and Bei left to study for a master’s in social justice and education at the Institute of Education at University College London. She has been fighting racism and social injustice in education ever since.

Well, I suppose we can't expect Border Force to stop criminals coming into the country, so it'd be a stretch to expect them to halt potential fifth columnists at the border. 

“What we have got at the moment is not working. Can we at least agree it does not work?”

Oh, it's working, Bei. Just not for the children you want it to work for. It's certainly working for the children who can now learn without violence and disruption....