1245 days ago
The tide is turning against a radical Black Lives Matter Agenda as I demonstrated here yesterday. But there are last redoubts manned by members of the liberal elites who are determined to push this agenda. Academia is one such redoubt and there are moves to make history GCSE more BLM friendly. I discuss two of the changes proposed from Tudor England and Nazi Germany and deal with actual facts and try to put them into context. I also explain why this patronising nonsense is divisive, insulting to folks such as the Jews and the Roma and also fails to tell our kids of all colours who they are which is surely what history is all about. Of course the Government can stop it. If only we had a Conservative Government.
1268 days ago
Notwithstanding the fact that we had the same conversation a year ago, I asked the Mrs this morning to name the year of the Gunpowder Plot. She ummed a bit so I said “how about to the nearest 10 years”. She countered with “how about to the nearest hundred?” Okay said I and she answered 1776.
2436 days ago
My daughter Olaf remains in the doghouse for showing a lack of respect for her old dad when , for the second year on the trot, she messed me around with summer holiday plans. The upshot is that I have not seen her since Joshua's Christening in late June and until she can learn that one should do what you say I am not particularly minded to change that. Notwithstanding all of that I was naturally keen to hear how she had fared in her GCSE's.
2551 days ago
My godless, almost 16 year old, daughter Olaf calls me as her GCSE's start next week. Her school reports are glowing, she has already won a scholarship to the 6th form and I wish her luck but am confident that it will be A*s all round. We have agreed not to discuss grade inflation, I'm very proud of her anyway. Conversation then turns to the General Election where she says she is backing the Tories. Again I am proud of her. Her real anger is directed, however, not at her fellow Islington resident Comrade Corbyn, but at Tim Farron and the Lib Dems. She is furious at poor Mr Farron for his less than unequivocal support for LGBT rights. In Islington that is the sort of issue that really matters above all else.
2588 days ago
As I wander back from my local doctors I look at the noticeboard of the Wick Academy and see that it boasts of having an Executive HeadTeacher. What the hell is that all about?
2790 days ago
After the summer holidays the army of obese and semi literate feral horrors who make up the nation's school age population should be heading back to classes today. But they reckoned without the overpaid bunch of idlers who are the teaching profession for across the land many kids face an INSET day.
An INSET day is when the kids stay at home, forcing parents to arrange costly and inconvenient one -off child care, but the teachers wander in for training on how to ensure that the A* rate in GCSE basket weaving goes from 101% to 103%. There are five INSET days a year which must explain why, in an Orwellian sense, standards are rising
The teachers have, of course, just finished a six or seven week summer holiday.
2802 days ago
My father berates me angrily for pointing out what greedy. lazy overpaid bastards the teachers are as we celebrate another bumper results day for the mickey mouse tests that are GCSE's. It will get worse when my Guardian reading sisters (Doctor & Social worker) arrive. Away from that I look at Molins (MLIN), African Potash (FRAUD), Strat Aero (JOKE), Ariana Resources (AAU) a good company and Arian Silver (AGQ) a dog with fleas.
2951 days ago
The Easter holiday teacher union conferences are always good for a laugh as the idle bastards compete to see who can make the most preposterous claim. It is always a tough contest as, even when compared to the greedy junior doctors, this is a profession where almost everyone seems to be completely deluded.
An early entrant for the mad prize came with a suggestion that teachers should mark pupil's work in pink rather than red as it set out a more sympathetic message to those students who were less able. Frankly why bother marking course work at all just give all the little darlings straight A*s at GCSE and as long as they have learned that Hitler was the most evil man ever who cares?
Having spent useful time discussing what colour crayons the profession should use the teachers moved on to the main issue: How over-worked and stressed they all are.
The starting salary
4063 days ago
The grades achieved in GCSE’s have been rising steadily ever since these Mickey Mouse exams were introduced. If anyone says that is because they have got easier they are attacked by the usual bunch of deluded lefties for being brutal and unfair to hard working teachers and students alike. On the grounds that most teachers are probably ardent cyclists here goes – today comes evidence that your exams are a total joke and do not stack up as academic yardsticks of anything.
The pass rate for GCSE maths is c60%. It is one of the, ahem, harder GCSEs to pass.
A survey conducted for Bae today showed that 35% of our fellow citizens need to use a calculator when doing a piece of basic addition where the answer is more than 100. The survey found that 19% of adults could not complete the eleven times table. One despairs.
The really interesting statistic was that of the over 55s (most of whom will not have passed even CSE maths) only one in ten struggled with these rather basic questions. Guess which age group did the worst? Yup it is the 18-35s, the GCSE generation whose hard work and talented teachers has led them to all get such cracking grades.
Now a bit of maths from me. 35% of all respondents cannot, for instance, tell you that 61 + 72 = 133. But in the over 55s (a bigger age group than that 18-35s) that number falls to 10%. Yet only 40% of the 18-35s have failed GSCE Maths (for 1 in 3 of the UK population I reach that number by subtracting 60 from 100). And that means that it is perfectly possible to pass GCSE Maths without being able to add 84 to 27 (111). Words almost fail me.
The war criminal Blair blathered on about education, education, education. The amount spent on teaching our kids has soared in real terms, teachers are paid ever more and the result is this. Something does not add up.
