With the Spending Review about to be unleashed upon the British public and with Lord Browne’s joke review still on the minds of universities and middle-class parents, we wanted to draw attention to what we see as the most insiduous message that this Coalescent Government is sending. The cuts that are being undertaken are there [...]
It has come to our attention that the outdated and counterproductive managerialism found in schools shows no sign of crawling back under the rock that it came from. This dogmatic and wholly unedifying way to treat fellow human beings is at the heart of the peculiarly sickening manner in which ‘efficiencies’ are made in education. [...]
In “Ten education issues the new government should address“, former director of the Institute of Education (doesn’t say which one) Peter Mortimore tells us his wishlist for the next government. We also have a wishlist for the new party of the moment: 1. Entrust control of Education to an independent body accountable only to the [...]
EducationState have little time for education inspectors. And why would we? They create unnecessary amounts of stress and bureaucracy. They waste time, money and other resources. And they are used an instrument of fear and control by Government. It has dawned on us, moreover, that they bear many similarities to some rather unpleasant characters who [...]
Most of our readers will no doubt remember Saddam Hussein’s press officer during the 2nd Gulf War, Comical Ali aka Baghdad Bob. He became known for his outrageous and simply ridiculous attempts to pretend to the world’s press corp that Saddam’s Iraq was far from imploding but actually resisting the Allied Forces (even while Baghdad [...]
WE would like to offer our sympathies to all those hard-working teachers who have recently had to endure an observation grilling. As a result WE have put together a list of reasons why observations, at least in their current form, make little sense: 1. They lack objectivity because objectivity is unattainable. The mere selection of [...]
Recent lighter-touch inspection regimes have been welcomed by some but we believe such a welcome would have been less warm if the true impact had been known. For it appears that Ofsted inspections have been replaced with institution-led inspections. Whereas in the past we may have expected observations to be in-house and free of inspection [...]
Great response to a BBC News article about what makes a good teacher. The following response is indicative of the rest: “I would have thought that it was quite obvious what makes a good teacher in this day and age. The ability to cope with enormous amounts of administrative paper-work including individual lesson plans for [...]
There is much talk today of what are known as “Generic Teaching Strategies.” These strategies are said to be applicable to all classrooms, lessons and contexts. At EducationState we, predictably, reject this belief on the grounds that any teaching must be adapted to the localised conditions of that moment in time and space. Unlike what [...]
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