ThunderDragon Blog

Every year GCSE and A-level results suggest continual approvements, with more than a quarter of all grades being As - and growing each year. However, all of those grades are going the same children.

Only 47.2% of children are getting five “good” GCSEs (A*-C), if English and Maths are excluded, meaning that 52.8% of children aren’t getting these grades. That’s more than half!

If English and Maths are not required, this percentage riss to 64.6%, which still means that 35.4% of children are completely failing to get five good GCSEs!

Our education system is thus obviously not working. What shocks me most is the huge number who aren’t getting decent grades in English or Maths, which are core subjects and essential.

Unions. What rubbish they spout:

Teachers should not be prosecuted for having affairs with their sixth formers, a union chief has said.

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said it was an “anomaly” that a teacher who had sex with a pupil aged over 16 could go on the sex offenders register… because a teacher could legally enter a relationship with a sixth former at another school. (BBC)

Teachers who have such relationships should be prosecuted, found guilty, and punished appropriately if they have a sexual relationship with any pupil at their school. Whether they are 11 or 18.

It isn’t because 18 year-olds shouldn’t have relationships with older people even if they still are at school, but because of the position of authority which that teacher inhabits. Whether that child is of the age of consent or not, it is wholly inappropriate for their to be any form sexual relationship between them.

Teachers are undeniably in a position of authrotiy and responsibility over every young person in their school, whether or not they teach them directly. The law must remain clear that any sexual relationship between them are regarded as a sex offence.

One could even say that this should be extended to include an period after either have left that school as well, since that authoruty still exists - if I came across one of my old school teachers, I’d be hard pushed to not automatically refer to them as “sir” or “miss”, and I left school five years ago.

What the NASUWT’s revision would do is open every sixth former to the possibility of seduction by an older teacher.

Andrew Adonis has been moved from his position as Schools Minister to the Department of Transport. This has been to the condemnation of both the Conservatives and Lib Dems, who both fear the imminent demise of the academy schools programme, of which Adonis was known to be a champion.

It seems that even depsite bringing Peter Mandelson back, Brown certainly isn’t willing to fully embrace a Blairite agenda - just a spun Brown one [about as bad as each other].

All well and good.

However, there is just one thing that made me stop and think about this story. Contrasting his name - Adonis, throwing up images of musclar Greek gods - and his image.

Adonis by name, not adonis by nature.

One third of graduates basically waste three years of their life and thousands of pounds. Now, about 30% of graduates end up in nongraduate jobs five years after leaving university, up from about 20% in 1992. This is due, quite obviously, to the [stupidly] massive increase in the numbers of students going to university.

The rise in the number of graduates seeking employment isn’t matched by an equal rise in the number of graduate jobs available. But the rise in students numbers has also meant that a large number of less academically able people have gone.

This would be a good thing, were the point of a university education simply to improve the education of the populace. But it’s not. The sheer cost of going to university - with student debt topping £3 billion - makes it more about an opportunity to improve job prospects. And for those at low-ranking universities who study arts degrees, it doesn’t do much for them.

This is why the attempt by Labour to get 50% of 18 year-olds to go to university won’t - and could never - work. There simply aren’t enough graduate jobs, as has now been proven.

A-levels get a F. You know that there is a problem when 26% of A-level grades are an A. It is utterly ridiculous that more than a quarter of all A-level results are the highest grade.

The other statistic, however, is a good thing - namely that 97.2% passed. This means that only a very tiny minority wasted two years of their time to get bugger all.

Labour’s solution to this? Creating an A* grade because the number of As “meant universities could no longer spot the brightest students”. This isn’t going to fix that. The only way to allow universities to select the best is to give them the actual marks/percentages, rather than grades. With the way that A-levels are graded now, the grades themselves mean little.

But one thing must be made clear - all of the students that have received As and the other grades have worked hard to earn them. It is not the fault of the students that their grades don’t mean what they should, but the fault of this government who has failed miserably with the education system.

Excessive testing hurts children. You don’t say.

A report on assessment by the all-party children, schools and families committee will condemn the way the results of national exams are used both as political capital and to compare how good schools are without taking account of their intake.

Because so much rides on them, tests are distorting education, with schools forced to narrow the curriculum and spend months cramming pupils. (The Telegraph)

Surely this is just common sense? Excessive testing, such as is currently carried out in our schools, massively limits the educational opportunities on offer. Way too much time is spent focusing on the tests - both their specific curriculum and “how to take a test” - which restricts the amount of time that can be spent actually on real education and expanding the minds of the students - ie. stopping teachers doing their jobs.

Of course, tests cannot be totally removed from education. But they can and must be restricted to their proper place, or we’ll have a generation of people who know nothing beyond how to take tests. Grade As and A*s across the board - but no knwoledge to back it up.

The harmful tyranny of tests must end. Or we’ll all suffer.

It appears that being a teacher really is no guarantee that you’re not a fucking moron, as demonstrated by the National Union Teachers. They want to ban the Ministry of Defence from giving talks to students on a potential career in the military, because they use “misleading propaganda”.

Apparently they don’t give a true enough picture of life in the armed forces. Bollocks. Besides, any half-intelligent person would, y’know, check up on the details before they took a job.

And they really did come out with some complete bollocks:

Any one who can say this with a straight face really is too stupid to be a teacher. Even a PE teacher.

It isn’t up to teachers to decide what careers their students should consider. It is their duty as educators to provide all the information to their students to enable them to make their own informed and intelligent choices - not just the ones their teachers would prefer them to make.

Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach go to NUT conferences and pass idiotic Leftist motions like this.

UPDATE: Two teachers object to the NUT’s statements.

A government-backed report had just declared that:

Maybe it would create a “fairer” system. But it would also create a system that was made to fail. And fail miserably.

The comprehensive - aka no selection - educational system is the reason that “[a]lmost half of leading companies failed to find suitable graduates to fill vacancies last year despite record numbers of students leaving university” and that “[l]eading universities complained this month they have to give new students crash courses in literacy and numeracy - and even extend degree courses by a year - because many leave school lacking basic skills.”

No selection - externally or internally - means that children don’t get the education they need, as different children have different intelligence levels and speed of learning, and as such need to be grouped together in order to raise the effectiveness of their teaching and learning. This sort of system wouldn’t do anything to help the children themselves, but in fact ruin their education. This is unfair on them.

Thus, ending selection in education may be “fairer”, but it certainly isn’t fair. On anyone.