The past month has the seen the Government’s SATS exam system implode in the bureaucratic equivalent of an ageing star collapsing into a black hole. There were delays to the SATS results and claims that the delays were just to make sure that the release was orderly and complete. Then the release this week was… [Read More]
If anyone were seemingly less well-suited to be in charge of the country’s education system, it is surely the current Secretary of State for Schools, Ed Balls. For anyone to be qualified for that job surely demands that he or she should have some modicum of feeling for what the purpose of education of is.… [Read More]
Brussels’ ever tightening grip on EU member states has seen supranational powers creep into the daily lives of ordinary Europeans. This loss of local power has eroded regional identities. However, some of Europe’s citizens are taking a stand against the surge of Brussels’ influence; battling the tide of EU domination in small, but hugely significant,… [Read More]
‘Until last month’, writes Jenni Russell in The Guardian, ‘it had been years since I’d been inside [A&E]. In the intervening time I assumed that the money poured into the NHS would have made a visible difference to A&E too.’ In her view, it hasn’t; ‘barbaric’, ‘no-one to help’, ‘inhuman’ are powerful words. Yet sadly,… [Read More]
Following Wales’ request last year, the EU is close to recognising Scottish, Gaelic and Welsh alongside the current 23 languages officially used by the EU institutions. Welsh is already used in the country’s own Assembly and spoken by one in five members of the Welsh population, but under the new proposal, Scottish and Welsh citizens… [Read More]
… you still have plenty to fear, especially if your name is a popular one in Britain. The state has rewarded one Amanda Hodgson’s willingness to volunteer to help at a local school by branding her an alcoholic thug and heroin addict. Rather than receiving an apology for the obvious errors, she has been told… [Read More]
Newly published guidance for play leaders and nursery teachers instructs them to be on the look-out for and to reprimand racist attitudes evinced by toddlers. “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action”, they are reportedly instructed. Among potentially racist… [Read More]
It was a theme that ran throughout Lord Darzi’s final report, published earlier this week. ‘High quality care cannot be mandated from the centre – it requires the unlocking of the talents of frontline staff….where change is led by clinicians and based on evidence of improved quality of care, staff who work in the NHS… [Read More]
For those sufficiently fortunate never to have needed to know, WDWTWA stands for ‘Who Do We Think We Are Week?’ For those still none the wiser, according to the proud boast of the Department of Children Schools and Families, ‘WDWTWA is a new, DCSF-funded education project, designed to engage primary and secondary school teachers in… [Read More]
Lord Darzi today publishes his eagerly awaited Next Stage Review of NHS policy. Ostensibly it heralds the end of the top-down era; a shift away from central targets to more self-sustaining means of driving performance, based on user-empowerment, information, choice and competition – but the system will work against it.