aliceBB

It isn't possible for all schools to be good.

 

Why do you think that? 'Good' is an objective, measurable descriptor based on observable criteria.

 

Not all schools can be 'better' than the rest, or all children 'above average' (a point Michael Gove persistently failed to grasp!) but all schools they can in theory all be as good as the rest.

If all schools were 'good' schools there wouldn't be this problem. It wouldn't matter who went where.

 

It seems to me the priority should be to bring all schools up to scratch. Pure and simple. Instead of looking everywhere else for the answer.

 

Couldn't agree more, but until that is the case, we should stop pandering to parents' prejudices and just make them enrol their little dears in the nearest primary, full stop. If catchments are organised wherever possible to be socially diverse (I realise this is less likely in cities), so much the better.

Ok now for a non PC answer, sex is the reason we are here. Ok granted children shouldn't be turned into porn fans but should be talked about the facts of life.

 

I cannot think any parent would wish their child to remain entirely ignorant of the facts of life, but that is not what this thread is about. Talking to your children about sex and relationships (in an age-appropriate way) is nothing to do with making them addicted to pornography. All that is learnt form porn is that some, more powerful people abuse other, more vulnerable people.

 

Nor is it anything to do with being politically correct. You seem confused.

How long ago was this? London schools have been transformed in the last ten years or so. The London Challenge was implemented by the last Labour Government by the way . You will be hard pressed to find a poor school in the capital these days. So, no need to fight any more.

 

Oh no, it wasn't that the local schools weren't awful at all, it's just that my brother naively assumed his child would be able to go to one of them! There were four schools within two miles of his house; one was a Catholic school, so being unwilling to undergo a miracle conversion, that left three, all of which were 'full' and had waiting lists. His daughter had to go to one seven miles away and there was no school transport to get her there. This was indeed about ten years ago, so I'm glad to hear it has changed.

That's pretty much what happens in Sheffield Primaries anyway. There is priority for certain, vulnerable children, then it is catchment all the way.

 

The allocation criteria are here

 

I'm relieved to hear it. My brother's experience in London (Acton/West Ealing) was enough to drive him out of the capital into the wilds of Wiltshire where his children went to the local village primary and did absolutely fine. He regrets the anxiety and stress of their pre-school years, when all anybody every talked about was which primary they had 'got' their kid 'into', its OFSTEd report, its Key Stage 2 results, how many hours homework the kids were set, how many of them went on to prestigious secondaries, blah, blah, blah.

 

My kids also went to our local village school (just across the road from our house, which made life very simple!). That only had two classes (so three year groups in each class), but they wanted for nothing - it was excellent. I cannot imagine having to 'choose' a primary miles away and having to get them there. Nightmare.

Absolutely agree. We wanted our son in Grenoside Primary so we sold up and moved to the catchment area to make sure that he got in. I would not have let him go to the catchment school where we used to live!

 

That approach is arguably going to result in the creation of some 'sink schools', but given the current OFSTED regime, they wouldn't (presumably) be like that for long. And I do think the advantages of children attending local primaries outweigh the disadvantages. I went to a very socially mixed primary in Pontefract, but it was comprehensive in its intake - any child living locally could attend - and children were not subjected to the stress and pressure of their parents fighting for a place for them.

 

It's bad enough the way it all kicks off when secondary school places are being applied for - primary school children don't need the nonsense.

For once, you can't blame the immigrants, because the Roma parents are happy to send their kids to the local primary school instead!

 

Indeed, one school was recently built on Skinnerthorpe Road and most of the kids enrolled there are of Roma descent!

 

I do not 'blame the immigrants' in any case.

 

The only proviso I'd make would be that children whose first language is not English would need to be taught ESL until they can access the curriculum in English - it's not fair to expect teachers simply to 'cope' with non-English speakers in the same class as children who are fluent in English. It's not fair on anyone, least of all the children.

Up to one in six UK children won't be going to their parents' first choice of primary in September:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32162021

 

What's the situation like in Sheffield?

 

I cannot help thinking that the solution is to go back to catchment areas and make children go to their nearest local primary. If parents can't bear the thought of their local school, they will have to move.

 

Stop all the nonsense with parents pretending to be devout until they secure the faith school place...only to abandon their religion instantly and even move out of area...knowing their other children will be able to get in automatically (although that may change).

 

Make walking the main method of getting to school and end the current mayhem, congestion and pollution of the school run.

 

Make a school place dependent on residence, full stop. So if parents move out of area, the child/ren will have to move schools, too. Children will live near their schoolfriends and will grow up with more sense of community than if they were shipped out to schools miles from where they live.

 

It worked just fine before parents were brainwashed into thinking they had to behave like consumers in every aspect of life...it would work now.

I think the group hug at the end by the Greens, the Welsh nationalists and the Scottish Nationalists, gave away their feelings towards each other. It was a debate at the end of the day, not a solo question and answer session.

 

The fact that three of the participants were not at loggerheads with each other (as Farage was with everyone else), does not mean the programme was 'biased'. It just means it was a debate in which some people agreed with each other some of the time. That's allowed in debates, is it not?

I thought that last nights programme was biased against Farage .

 

What?! Please explain how the programme could have been biased against any of the participants, when they were all asked the same questions, they were all given equal amounts of time to respond and the audience was not allowed to cross examine them.

 

I have been continually comparing with other properties and in the end it all comes down to the fact that our house is a fairly new house but the rooms are a lot bigger than new builds in the area, bigger garden etc

 

 

Really? Two of your three bedrooms are less than 9 ft x 9 ft. That is not large.

You mean apart from the promise that he made? IF he'd written it down would that be more acceptable? or does it need to be writ in blood or cast on a tablet of stone first?

 

But the'promise', as it stands, and as I have demonstrated, is meaningless. Unless he has guaranteed the things which you assumed (somewhat optimistically) the 'promise' meant?

 

The only people being demeaned are those that wrote them, and I carefully ensured that it wasn't possible to identify them to save their blushes.

No, you bring yourself down to their level by repeating their foul language.

 

Do you think it's reasonable for people to use such comments Alice?

It's alice, not Alice, if that's alright with you.

 

And no, I find that people who use language which needs to be substituted by asterisks are generally inarticulate and devoid of imagination.

 

I think you are wrong.

Jolly good. It reassures me enormously that we have nothing in common!

 

However do you think such comments like those are acceptable?

No, but then I'm not the one taking them personally and getting my knickers twisted about them.

Whoa, horsies!

 

We seem to have strayed a long way from the subject of this thread (Cameron's meaningless promise to 'take minimum wage earners out of income tax').

 

Does anyone actually have any documented evidence that Tories intend minimum wage earners will be exempt from paying income tax for the next five years, regardless of what happens to the wage itself or the tax threshold, or not?

 

If not, then I think we can conclude that Cameron was talking out of an orifice which was not his mouth.

 

In my observations, and I have no allegiance to either party, the Tories on here are much quicker and prolific users of verbal abuse to Labour or non-Tory supporters, than the other way round.

 

I would endorse that; Obelix demeans himself by reproducing comments which should have been reported and deleted...flinging them around for effect is the act of a desperate man!

Lesson learnt ... don't offer a different opinion... or if you do it would seem bad manners are encouraged.

 

Got outta bed the right side this morning and concluding that this forum is becoming pants unless youre prepared to agree with everything and worship the god called google

 

No need to sulk!

 

And, again with the greatest of respect, telling someone to get over themselves is hardly the depths of rudeness or bad manners. It's just a mild reproof when someone has demonstrated an irritating kind of unnecessary preciousness about something.

 

And if you don't want to google things, fine. Other search engines are available! Or you could go to the library and order a book on it. Or ask your GP. Onward in the democratisation of knowledge!

 

Or you could just opt to believe everything the Daily Mail tells you. (That comment instantly retracted if you denounce the DM).

Apart from anything else, why would you want two storeys of artificially lit and ventilated 'living space' in the bowels of the earth beneath your house? It would be like being buried.

I don't have any tokens to offer you, but I do have some free full stops. Help yourself.

 

........................

Evening all

....

 

Love you

Sol

 

 

I would be interested to know exactly what Solomon means when he tells us that he loves us.

 

Sol?

Probably by increasing VAT again

 

Well they mysteriously produced an extra £8bn out of their backsides yesterday 'for the NHS', so they must have a big stash somewhere they haven't told us about yet!

For a second I thought you were dearly upset for the sake of the neighbours, but then I realised it was because these are rich people, surely their neighbours are rich as well? Who cares whether they dig out their caves? Seriously...

 

Well...I did feel slightly sorry for the old couple who had lived peacefully and quietly in the street for 25 years and now had to run the gauntlet of builders' trucks, JCBs and skips of earth every time they set foot outside...not to mention the pneumatic 'dentist's drill' noise 8 hours a day - it was horrible. And the people whose houses are endangered by all their neighbours' 2 and 3 storey deep excavating.

 

You could say, Why don't they just move, but tbh I can't see anyone wanting to buy in those streets until all the excavations are complete - which could be decades. Not at the market rate, anyway.

 

Actually, the thing which provoked the most outrage in me was the conviction manifested by some of the property owners that they needed to provide another two floors of living space in already commodious townhouses, or life would be 'unbearable'.

 

Just plain greedy!

 

---------- Post added 15-04-2015 at 22:54 ----------

 

I'm wondering if any of them have dug into the Tube yet. Theres all manner of unexpected things under London from forgotten rivers to undocumented bits of the rail networks.

 

Perhaps that explains the hole the loaded skip collapsed into, in one of the streets featured in the programme...

 

And I'm sure if it had been Labour making the same statement, you would have grabbed that analysis above and praised Milliband for all he's worth.

 

Which just shows how little you know about anything, including me:)

It was the sneaky way he slipped in the 'up to 30 hours' proviso which was so cheap and dishonest. On the face of it, 'Minimum wage earners won't pay any tax under Tories' sounds very promising...but as I say, it's meaningless, when you factor in the 30 hours proviso.

It's not for everyone, but there are schemes where you swap homes with someone in another part of the country (or even another country) - which means effectively that your accommodation (the most expensive bit of the holiday usually) is free.

 

We have done it a few times when the children were younger. We had a brilliant week in London doing all the usual stuff there, but saving a fortune by cooking our own meals. Lovely house in Greenwich and nice family (still in touch with them), a fortnight in Scotland and a week in Cornwall. They treated our house very well, there were no problems with the exchanges at all.

 

The National Housewives Register used to organise such exchanges, but there are others.

I read that as pledging that if the minimum wage increases then the tax free allowance will also be increased by at least that much.

 

And your evidence for thinking that is...?

 

Surely someone with your phenomenal intellect must realise that when politicians make statements, they must be taken literally, not 'read' as/interpreted as something else. (It's usually more than we can hope for that they'll implement what they promise, let alone what you read into the promises!)

 

But I would be delighted to be proved wrong on this one. Where has he promised that the lower rate tax threshold would be linked to any rise in the NMW?

Anything less likely [than that video clip] to help you cope with a panic attack is difficult to imagine.

Present the average person with a block of text and many if not most get turned off and don't tell me you didn't know that.

 

This is after all a forum not a place to submit academic essays.

.

.

 

I agree that a solid block of text is equally offputting...nor am I asking for an academic essay.

 

But coherent paragraphs (each one dealing with its own point) would be good. 'Tabloid' paragraphs (such as you use in #1) are an insult to the intelligent reader! Your disjointed 20 paragraph post could be reduced to six (much more meaningful) paragraphs.

 

Just saying.