Cash-Strapped Local Councils?

Give me a break! They seem to have plenty of money, so long as it's spent on politically correct foolishness:

Children too anxious to attend school are being represented at their desks by £3,500 robots that let them join lessons from home. The AV1 robot has a camera, microphone and speaker enabling a child at home to see, hear and speak to classmates via an app.

So, a robot that's doing the job of a cheap laptop equipped with a webcam, eh? And it seems to only come in white.

There'll be calls for brown and black models before this thing has booted up, mark my words...

More than 2,000 are being used nationwide, many by children with 'emotionally based school avoidance', or EBSA – a chronic refusal to go to school driven by anxiety.

The robot was developed by Norwegian firm No Isolation, initially to keep children in hospital connected to their classrooms.

A noble cause, I wonder how they feel about seeing it put to use not to support genuinly sick children, but to pander to the latest fad diven by social contagion and weak parenting? Probably don't care so long as the money keeps rolling in... 

Last year Devon County Council bought 16 robots for pupils who struggle to attend because of 'worry, anxiety and overwhelm'.

The authority is one of at least 80 to have taken the AV1 since the Department for Education commissioned it in 2019. The robots are used for EBSA pupils in areas including Somerset, Dorset and Haringey and Islington in London, according to council documents seen by The Mail on Sunday.

 All areas with a large proportion of middle class ineffectual parents, I see....

The number of severely absent pupils with additional 'social, emotional and mental health' needs has more than tripled in six years, from 8,453 to 27,442. A record 151,000 pupils missed at least half their schooling last year, from a pre-pandemic low of 60,247.

Well, well, well, another side effect of the Covid insanity, eh?  

You Can Never Close 'The Disadvantage Gap'

The gap between how well pupils from better-off backgrounds perform at school compared with their classmates from lower-income households has widened, according to a new report. Despite some improvements in the years since Covid, the Education Policy Institute (EPI) said the disadvantage gap had widened again in England and was still bigger "at every phase" of school than it was before the pandemic.

Ah, ‘before the pandemic’. Nicely slipped in there, that mad time when all plans were derailed, even socialist ones. 

The Department for Education said it was working to close the disadvantage gap by delivering opportunities for every child, including expanding government-funded childcare and extending eligibility for free school meals.

Working to close the disadvantage gap by funnelling money, taxpayer money at that, towards a hopeless cause. Typical socialist trick.

The EPI said the overall difference in academic achievement between low-income students and their wealthier peers was now 17% greater for children in early years than it was before Covid.

Hardly a crisis that requires government intervention, is it? 

"The size of the gap between the educational outcomes of children from more and less advantaged backgrounds is a scourge on our society," Julie McCulloch, chief executive of the EPI said.

Really? I can think of many things which could truly be considered a scourge on society, but this is not one of then. 

The EPI made a number of recommendations in its report for how to achieve it, including widening access to free funded childcare to all children, and increasing the amount of money schools can receive for the number of children they teach who are eligible for free school meals.

The Local Government Association called for more investment in the SEND workforce, and for a review into which children qualify for funded childcare hours, to make sure "those on lower incomes do not miss out".

The Department for Education said the government would do "whatever it takes" to ensure every child had access to opportunity, regardless of their background.

If some children don't take advantage of the access that already exists what more should be done is up to their parents, not the governement.

Unforseen Consequences

Sir Keir Starmer issued a direct plea to London parents to get their children vaccinated against measles as health chiefs were scrambling to contain a “big outbreak” in the north of the capital. The Prime Minister’s intervention highlighted how worried the Government is about the outbreak in Enfield.

And they are right to be, but it’s a disaster entirely of their own making, no matter what they want you to believe. 

Taking a swipe at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for giving a stage to a doctor who wrongly claimed Covid jabs were linked to cancers affecting the King and Princess of Wales, the PM added: “Public health isn’t a culture war.

 It became one when you acquiesced in the government of the day’s plan to lock down the entire country for a flu variant, and encouraged everyone to get ineffective jabs to ‘combat’ it.

“It’s about keeping our communities safe.

 Which ‘communities’ are these anyway? Remember when the UK only had the one to worry about? 

Health minister Stephen Kinnock stressed that the Government was “very concerned” about the big outbreak in north London.“Our country expects its leaders to stand firmly behind science to protect our children, not to give oxygen to conspiracy theories.”

Dismissing discredited claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, he stressed that the jab was “completely safe in terms of the science”.

Yeah, science, from the people that believe women can have penises and men can, if they take hormones, grow a cervix! It is to laugh!

What's Another Barmy Idea From The World Of Education, After All?

Pupils should not automatically be sent home if they are suspended from school in England and could instead remain on site, the government has said. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said being sent home could mean children "retreating to social media". She said on-site suspensions should be used for pupils who had not been violent.

Starmer is getting pretty deseperate to avoid pupils reading that he's a wanker on Twitter and Snapchat I guess. Everyone already knows, Kwier... 

And why is there such a desperate need to suspend pupils anyway?

The number and rate of suspensions had been increasing before Covid, but the rise has accelerated ever since.

Ah, Covid panic - the gift that really does go on giving. 

Oh, Posters, They Make Everything Work Better, Right?

From Monday, GP practices across the country will use posters to promote Jess’s rule, a new system aimed at preventing serious illnesses from being missed and needless deaths. It is named after Jessica Brady, a 27-year-old who contacted her surgery 20 times before dying of cancer in 2020. Jess’s rule urges family doctors to consider a second opinion, conduct a face-to-face physical examination or order more tests if a patient has had three appointments for their symptoms but no diagnosis.

Another piece of legislation named after a victim, and we all know how useful they often turn out to be, don't we, Reader?  

Posters advertising Jess’s rule have been sent to all 6,170 GP practices in England. The system was launched in September but the new posters will boost patient safety by reminding GPs to rethink initial assumptions, ministers said.

Will they? There are posters up in every single place of work, and public areas like train stations, and after the first day, how much notice is taken of them? 

The posters were co-designed by Brady’s parents, Andrea and Simon Brady, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. GP surgeries will also receive a letter from Streeting and NHS England’s national medical director, Dr Claire Fuller, stressing the importance of Jess’s rule.

Which will go straight in the bin, because if something isn't backed up by consequences for failure, it's not worth the paper you'e printing these posters on. 

But it seems the case that brought about this entire policy is yet another 'gift' from the Covid hysteria:

Jessica, an engineer for Airbus, contacted her GP surgery about 20 times in six months before her death in 2020, reporting symptoms including abdominal pain, coughing, vomiting and weight loss. Owing to restrictions during the pandemic, she was offered virtual appointments and prescribed medications including antibiotics and steroids. She was also told she may have long Covid. She was finally diagnosed with cancer that had spread throughout her body, but only after her mother paid for her to see a doctor privately.

You gave the NHS the chance to slack off and not treat patients while still getting paid using a bad bout of the flu as an excuse, and this happened. You're not fixing this with posters. 

You're Partly The Reason We Have Gated Communities And Video Doorbells...

The head of the UK's statistics body has blamed video doorbells and gated communities for adding to problems with jobs figures. Sir Ian Diamond said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) needs more funding to overcome the issues - which have been causing major problems for the government and Bank of England.

Of course, though it's hard to see how, since they merely forwarn us of visitors we might want to not talk to... 

Economists have been increasingly reluctant to put weight on the Labour Force Survey since the pandemic, with response rates plunging.The employment, wages and inactivity data are used by Threadneedle Street to help set interest rates, as well as by government. Last year the Resolution Foundation think-tank claimed nearly one million workers in Britain's jobs market have been 'lost', suggesting the rate of UK unemployment and inactivity could be overstated.

Now, I'm an ex-training team lead, and I know the value of feedback - I always rate attractions and establishments I’ve visited on GoogleMaps or other apps and recently, when I was up in Edinburgh for my birthday, I made one depressed-looking research chap’s morning in the St James Quarter shopping mall, when he tentatively approched (no doubt expecting to be told where to go) and asked if I’d answer a few questions. 

As I was just killing time I said I’d be happpy to, and the poor chap nearly dropped his clipboard in surprise!  

But these people? No. If they come knocking, they will get short shrift. 

Giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, Sir Ian said it was taking twice the level of effort to get interviews compared with pre-pandemic. He said that the ONS switched to phone interviewing during Covid, and since then it has found people have not returned to being 'happy about coming into their houses to spend 45 minutes interviewing them'.

'We're finding very, very, very high levels of flat refusal,' he said. Sir Ian said people were simply 'busy' in many places, before identifying other reasons. 'Our interviewers are finding it harder in some of the more advantaged areas where there are increasing gated communities, where you can't get in,' he said. 'Some of the flat refusals come because of Ring doorbells which enable people to say… these are things that are happening to us day by day.'

The doorbells are just an excuse - the truth is people no longer want to talk to you. Why should they? They get nothing for their time. Not even the satisfaction that they've been listened to.  

The public body also needs better data sharing between Government departments to support its work, he said, adding that fewer people now have landlines and that a directory of people's emails would help it reach more respondents.

So they want to harvest emails given to other government departments for other reasons, all so they can go straight into the 'spam email' folder? 

The New 'Oooh, Me Back!' Has Been Discovered...

One in five patients registered to a pair of GP surgeries in the north of England have long Covid, according to a report that lays bare stark regional inequalities. The north-west of England had higher than average numbers of people reporting long Covid symptoms, with just over one in 20 people (5.5%), followed by the north-east and Yorkshire (5.1%).

The report also found the prevalence of long Covid among the most deprived areas of England was 6.3%, almost double the rate in the least deprived areas.

What a shocker, eh, Reader?  

Dr Stephanie Scott, the lead author of the report and senior lecturer in public health at Newcastle University, said: “Long Covid is a complex condition that goes beyond physical and mental symptoms, affecting other parts of people’s lives including their sense of self and professional identity. This can then lead to experiences of social isolation.

“Currently, there is little evidence-based treatment for long Covid and the health system focuses on symptom management. This needs to change. Our research has offered a glimpse into the reality of what it is like to live with this often-debilitating condition and the knock-on effects it has on people’s personal and professional lives.

“I hope that the evidence presented in this report cuts through to policymakers and gets the attention it deserves so more research into long Covid is funded, and so measures can be put into place which enables employers to better support their workforce with long Covid.”

Sounds a lot like 'Gissa job!' to me, Stephanie... 

A Fascinating Story...

Archaeologists have made hundreds of new finds on the wreck of HMS Erebus, the ship commanded by Sir John Franklin on his doomed Arctic trip 180 years ago. The team’s discoveries include pistols, sealed bottles of ­medicines, seamen’s chests and navigation equipment. These are now being studied for clues to explain the loss of the Erebus and its sister ship Terror, and the deaths of the 129 men who sailed on them.

I've read a lot about this expedition (both non-fiction and Dan Simmons' amazing horror novel based on the facts), and visited the Naval College at Greenwich to see the memorial to the lost men. It's a truly fascinating story.

The work is considered to be particularly urgent because the wreck of the Erebus – discovered 10 years ago in shallow water in Wilmot and Crampton Bay in Arctic Canada – is now being battered by increasingly severe storms as climate change takes its grip on the region.

Does climate change have to be shoehorned into everything in the 'Guardian'? Well, at least it's not covi... 

Investigators’ efforts were made even more pressing by Covid-19, which halted all exploration in 2020 and 2021...

/facepalm 

Virtually all this work has focused on the threatened Erebus. By contrast, Terror – which sank in deeper water about 45 miles away from the wreck of Erebus – is less at the mercy of the elements and was only visited briefly last year.

Time to explore that one too, then. 

Oh, Hi, Chickens!

...can I offer you a roost?

Referral units for children who have been excluded from mainstream schools are warning that they are full to bursting because of unprecedented levels of disruptive behaviour across the country.

Is the 'C' word getting a mention here, perchance? Well, Reader, only obliquely...

Providers that take children excluded from mainstream schools say that after a lull during the pandemic, the situation has deteriorated, and they have seen permanent exclusions rising across the country in the past year.

So the pandemic was a good thing...? And not in any way a potential cause of this increase..? 

Dave McPartlin, head of Flakefleet primary school in Lancashire, said: “The additional need we are seeing in schools is absolutely unprecedented and everyone is seeing more behaviour problems.”

He said complex needs were emerging much earlier too, with children in nursery and reception exhibiting emotional, social and communication issues.

Hmmm... 

I wonder what other treats we have in store from three years of covid shenanigans?