John Cosgrove
@johncosgrove405
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Author, strong believer in inclusion and former headteacher. Blog:
Joined November 2014
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At 3.30 in the morning the youngest came into our bedroom and woke me up to come and deal with "a massive spider". Our youngest is 24. 🤔
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Last night in Exeter Liz Truss was cheered by Tory Party members for "vowing to get rid of solar farms" (says Sky News). So, in an energy crisis a contender for PM promises to wipe out 4% of the UK's electricity production... and is cheered?
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I have seen some very unpleasant posts about Angela Rayner. Let's be absolutely clear, her inspirational back story of triumph over adversity makes her much more representative of the electorate than were the over privileged public school alumni she has helped to replace.
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I nominate Ian Hislop.
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A Management Consultancy is given £19.5m to tell schools how to save money teaching children with SEND. The firm's website boasts 0 experience in Education but the DfE has tasked it with reducing EHCPs by 20%. Just when you think you've seen everything...
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Did everyone hear Nick Gibb trying to claim Labour had done nothing about the school concrete problem? Here's the truth: "Under the £55bn scheme introduced by Labour, every secondary school in England was to be either rebuilt or refurbished." Gove cancelled it. Overnight.
.
@mspjmason
has dug up this excellent article from when Gove cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme.
@justinmadders
@CarolineLucas
- do share with all your colleagues.
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On the BBC news this evening I heard Michael Gove warning that post Brexit disruption at the border will get worse before it gets better. He went on: "We always said there would be disruption." Always? Does anyone remember the leave campaign saying this in 2016? I don't.
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This is beyond awful. I knew Ruth. She did not deserve this. Everyone in education should watch the first item on this news, weep and then determine to sweep away the whole rotten mess of Ofsted. (Warning: it deals with suicide.)
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It's great that left over food from the G7 has been given to charities. But the event lasted 3 days - and there was 58 tons of food left over. 58 tons. Left over!
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It's a cruel day when we take grandchildren to the museum and I realise that the whole of my childhood is now officially "History". ☹️
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I met J from Year 1 in the corridor this afternoon. He beamed at me. "We're making cards for you," he said, "for your retirement. It's a surprise." He thus neatly summed up one of the many reasons I have loved working with children.
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44 years ago today, she said "I do." I'm not sure where the time has gone but I am immensely grateful that we have been able to walk this journey together.
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Empty supermarket shelves, queues for petrol, crops rotting unpicked, staff shortages in care homes and hospitality, no US trade deal, exports to Europe down, NI once again an issue... We had a country that worked and we deliberately broke it. I could weep.
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A company in Penzance with total assets of £340,000 and expertise in making Free School bids has been given the contract for overseeing the country's £70 billion Net Zero programme. Does this seem odd to anyone else?
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From 2nd December all shops will be open. After they have been shut for 4 weeks, expect even bigger pre-Christmas crowds than usual. What can possibly go wrong?
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A bit odd that our Home Secretary apparently doesn't know the law around Keeping Children Safe. This has been a legal duty for years.
The Home Secretary has announced people working with children in England will have a new legal duty to report "signs or suspicions" of child sex abuse
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"Ordinary voter" happily chatting to PM top right is Tory activist in the centre bottom right. How stupid does he think the electorate is?
Out talking to people in Wimbledon earlier today.
It’s clear what the British people want - bold action and a clear plan.
That’s what we will deliver.
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Well, who would have thought? Children who lived near Sure Start Centres before starting school did much better 11 years later at GCSE (especially those from low income families).
They worked and helped the poorest. So naturally the Tories trashed them.
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I know this is very wrong of me but I can't help wondering if these people are alert to the possibility they may disappear one by one?
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Even at the end Michael Gove has let down the teaching profession, destroying the hopes and dreams of so many who were looking forward to seeing him get his come-uppance on July 4th.
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I bought two items in Tesco today and while I don't really mind a chocolate cake being discounted by almost a third for people who have a Clubcard, I'm a bit surprised to see this also for Lemsip. Shouldn't medicines be sold as cheaply as possible to everyone?
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Back from church and I present my wife with the coffee she requested.
Mrs C: Oh.
Me: What?
Mrs C: It's in my morning tea mug.
Me: What?
Mrs C: That's coffee. And you've put it in my morning tea mug. It needs to be in a coffee mug.
Twitter friends, is this a normal conversation?
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Ofsted is pausing routine school inspections until it has re-trained inspectors. This is very welcome news.
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Picking up grandchildren from school. "There's x," the 8 yr old points. "He's the 3rd naughtiest in the class."
"So where," I ask, "are you in this league?"
Pause, then: "There are 14 more sensible than me." Another pause. "Mostly girls."
There is so much I could ask.
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Those urging the BBC to sack Gary Lineker might usefully reflect that in attempting to suppress views at variance with Government policy they are reinforcing his point about the direction in which our society is headed. I hope he continues to speak truth to power.
@a_webb
@secrettory12
There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?
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It's depressing but I have already seen headlines and news reports this week of children excluded or placed in isolation for uniform breaches. I really do appeal to school leaders to think about what uniform is for and what they are trying to achieve.
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Lunchtime today. I miss school, the children, the staff and the parents every day but there's no arguing with the fact that retirement has its compensations.
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Radio 4 this morning: former DfE Permanent Secretary says risk to lives was known. He pushed for 100s of schools to be rebuilt, ministers preferred spending money on free schools (in areas with enough places already). Who was responsible? Then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, he said.
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If we really want to transform the learning of Maths adults need to stop saying to children: "I was never any good at Maths." I have heard parents, friends, random other adults, even teachers encouraging and permitting failure with words like these. We need to stop it.
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I loved ever minute of my job... except... I do not miss the early morning stress of staring out the window wondering "Do I close the school?" Messages back and forth to staff, colleagues, site manager... And does anyone remember the code word for notifying local radio?
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Mrs C was changing the duvet cover.
Me: Hang on. I'll help. It's easier with two.
Mrs C, not pausing in what she's doing: Yes, it is easier with two, but it's like when you pick children to do a job at school. It depends on which two.
Me: 😟
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Liz Truss said on the ITV debate that she became a Conservative because the school she went to failed its pupils. She is 46 and was at school from 1979 to 1993 for the whole of which time there was a Tory Government.
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@drlindalouise
You know about the Disability Discrimination Act and 'reasonable adjustments'? You have read the SEND Code of Practice? You are aware that "the same law for the lion and the ox is tyranny"? What you have written in this thread is truly shocking.
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"Our school inspectors are all former school leaders..." Amanda Spielman says, so they understand the pressures on heads. Yet the list of HMI biographies on the DfE website tells us several were never either head or deputy. I wonder was she deliberately trying to mislead?
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Despite numerous studies in this country and across the world there is no evidence that uniform has any effect on behaviour or standards.
Brief list of countries managing perfectly well without school uniforms:
Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the USA...
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Just read the second bullet point and then try and pretend Ofsted is not completely callous and indifferent to the effect it has on good people.
In all my years. Never have I seen such insensitivity.
@Ofstednews
I would welcome a meeting to discuss this.
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@Mouhssin_Ismail
I am hoping this is a spoof. Looks like some kind of dystopian nightmare scenario with cyborgs mechanically marching to hasten humanity's doom. Hideous apparent absence of personality, life, joy...
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Grandson (7) tells me he's looking forward to the coming term and his new teacher. "I'll be able to work just as hard but I won't have to worry about being shouted at." I can't help wondering what this says about his teacher last year.
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@johnredwood
Um, because your Government took responsibility and ownership of schools away from Local Authorities? (Most of them, anyway. Fortunately the plan to force all into MATs hasn't yet happened.)
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Re crumbling concrete... Excellent point made to me privately by a headteacher this morning.
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NEW BLOG: The Cruelties of Ofsted
"... refuse to accept the instruction “Don’t tell anyone about the result.” Talk to your colleagues. Get support. Do not carry that weight alone.”
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Ofsted: We were worried for Ruth Perry and warned Reading LA that she needed support.
Reading: we have no memory and no record of this.
I worked in this LA; I have previous experience of Ofsted lying. I know who I believe.
OFSTED using off the record briefings against a dead headteacher to protect themselves is really not a good look.
#TomorrowsPapersToday
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Wow! A leader in today's Times is still claiming that Ruth's death has been "used" to attack Ofsted. Despicable. I have been paying to read the Times: I should have cancelled my subscription after Finkelstein's dreadful article about Ruth in the summer. Today I will.
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On Monday, newspapers report, 50 pupils at an English school were put in isolation for uniform infringements. Some for wearing the wrong type of black socks. The head says it's not about socks but defiance (see below). Can people PLEASE stop doing this sort of stuff and grow up?
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Katharine Birbalsingh says Jess Phillips is racist. So let's remember that 4 years ago this same KB told parents never to believe children who claimed teachers were racist: "99% of the time the child is telling fibs."
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This is such a damning indictment of UK Government policies in recent years.
“The poorest fifth of the population are now much poorer [in the UK] than most of the poorest countries in central and eastern Europe,” says
@MyStephanomics
. “They would be better off in quite poor countries in the European Union.”
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Martyn Oliver told MPs his OGAT schools excluded fewer children than other schools. Turns out their exclusion rate is double the national average. Let's not expect an outbreak of honesty and integrity at Ofsted anytime soon.
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This is bizarre. I ran an after school chess club. It was very popular and (I think) very beneficial for the children. We even arranged matches against other schools. It didn't cost £2,000 or anything close and there are a million better uses for this sort of funding.
♟️ Primary schools will be handed grants of up to £2,000 to buy chess sets and access training and teaching materials for the game, the government has announced
But less than 1 per cent of settings will benefit...
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This weekend 40 years ago she said "I do." We had no hotel; no catering. It was straight from church to a reception in her mum's council house. In the excitement I forgot where I had booked for the honeymoon. (Yes, really!) But she's still here… so I call that success.
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In this deeply offensive interview our former HMCI reminds us how unsuited she was for her role. Like an arrogant, ineffectual Bourbon monarch it seems she "has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing".
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The School House, West Looe, came with my father's job as head. I was born here and yesterday a very kind, patient couple showed my sisters and me around their home. There must have been something about living in a school house: 4 of us became teachers.
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Jeremy Hunt has just said 25% of pupils leave primary school unable to read. This is a lie.
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If we want to emulate private schools, says Michael Rosen, why start with Latin? Why not go first for sports and music facilities or a commitment to educate the whole child? Yes, Michael Rosen.
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The decision not to give Ruth's family legal aid for her inquest is just so wrong. And taking this decision now, when the inquest starts next week, makes it even worse. Can social media fix this - quickly?
Fund family’s legal costs for Ruth Perry inquest
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The protest in Newbury tomorrow has been cancelled. Thank you to the very brave
@FloraSCooper
for taking a stand and we will all be thinking of her and hoping her inspection goes well.
If future actions are collective no-one is left exposed. The unions should have a role here.
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A few days ago my sister sent me a cheque. (I know. A cheque?! But she is even older than me.) The nearest branch of my bank is 20 miles away and... PANDEMIC! Then I discovered I can pay it in using my mobile phone. 😱😱 😱 This World is getting far too clever for its own good.
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14 year old former pupil came into our playground after school to show me two praise postcards his mum had been sent by the secondary school. He was very proud. Little things can be really important and effective - even with great big awkward adolescents who don't always show it.
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Unable to join Channel 4's debate because he's not "the leader", Michael Gove says he is "a leader" and the difference is only a "preposition". This is the man who insisted that every 11 year needs to know what parts of speech "the" and "a" are. (Hint: neither are prepositions.)
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40 years ago Mrs C and I made an offer for our first house. It cost £16,000. My salary was just over £6,000: not the bottom of the scale, but nearly. The same house today is £161,000. If teacher pay had gone up like house prices ECTs would be on £60,000+.
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A teenager with 2 guns yesterday killed 2 adults and 19 children aged 7 to 10 in a school in Texas. Last year in the US there were 26 school shootings. Being shot is now the leading cause of death for school age children in the US.
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A response produced on the day of the coroner's verdict was never going to be satisfactory. No thought went into this. No understanding is shown. There is no response. Let's remember...
A statement from His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, on the conclusion of the Coroner's inquest into the death of headteacher Ruth Perry:
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Mrs C has broken her wrist so I must now do all the cooking. She however is still in charge of placing the Tesco order. I am pleased at the evidence of her faith in my abilities which was delivered this evening.
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Delighted to read that the DfE is to solve the crisis in SEND provision by building 33 new special schools. Will these be sited near the 40 new hospitals and serve people living in the 300,000 new houses a year, both promised in the 2019 Tory manifesto? 🙄
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There are currently no ministers in the DfE. I have no idea how long this will last but I am trusting all school staff to do their duty and run amok.
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So the final fledgling has left uni and started her career... Not waiting till September but started already in a school - a specialist school for children with autism. No idea where she got the idea she might find fulfilment in this field, but could not be more proud. 😁
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I strongly suspect that over the next six weeks we will hear, more than once, the line that "there is more money going into schools than ever before, in real terms." Just so everyone knows: it's not true. It's gaslighting.
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This is quite extraordinary. A minister asking for a school to be inspected based on false reports published in the right wing press. Presumably her ministry comes with staff and someone could have spent 5 minutes checking the facts?
Letter from
@KemiBadenoch
to
@amanda_spielman
Unfortunately there are many more schools allowing children to self-identify as the opposite sex and/or animals and teaching gender ideology as fact. We urgently need the Government to take action and sanction heads who allow it
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Why is it so difficult to capture the full glory of the bluebells?
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This is astonishingly tone deaf. Forget that Grammar schools disproportionately gain high Ofsted grades, I have also run a school which had never previously been rated good: when it was, twice running, I did not tweet or put up banners, I congratulated staff and we moved on.
What an achievement for
@TrinityAcademyG
! Joined
@trinity_mat
as an inadequate schools with a huge deficit and - more remarkably - over the last two decades (and multiple inspections) has never been rated as good! It is now, with generous sprinklings of outstanding! 👏👏👏
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A report on the local television news about the shortage of staff in hospitality. "It's not that we're not getting the right applicants," one employer said. "We're not getting any applicants." No-one at all pointed out that workers no longer come from Eastern or Southern Europe.
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The fundraiser to pay for legal costs for Ruth Perry's family at her inquest has reached £50,000 in a day. What this says about how we view Ruth, and the tragic circumstances of her death, is amazing. No-one can now doubt this feeling is widespread and genuine.
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Translated: it was ok for me, now an education minister, to make a rude gesture. "I responded and stood up for myself." There isn't a school in the land which would accept this.
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I see the school in Rye has now categorically stated that none of its pupils identify as a cat or any other animal. What are the chances of an apology from Telegraph, Mail, GBNews or Snuffy the Attention Seeker?
Yes, I thought so too. ☹️
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Pausing inspections when staff are distressed and resuming when they recover will add to toxic stress not reduce it. The aim must be a system which doesn't cause distress in the first place. 1/2
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To all my kind, caring, witty, wise, intelligent, fun and generally lovely friends who are Muslims, please know that I am deeply ashamed of the awful scenes of hatred played out on our streets in recent days... continues...
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Dear
@elonmusk
please could you explain why everything I post nowadays seems to attract at least 1 "reply" like this, or "like" from an account of this nature and what you are doing to stop it?
Asking for a lot of friends.
Thank you.
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Thank you Edmund for this detailed, shocking and so, so sad, summary of the first day of Ruth Perry's inquest. I hope everyone involved in education in any way reads this. Poor, poor Ruth, a good headteacher helpless against a dreadful, cruel inspectorate.
Ruth Perry Inquest Day One
The first day of witness evidence has produced some devastating testimony. I will do my best to give you a sense of the day. Apologies for the length of this thread. There is a lot to get through and honestly, too much for this platform…
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Very proud of the littlest one who received her degree yesterday from the hands of no less a person than the great Dawn French. Illnesses, operations, pandemic all vanquished by determination, resilience and the help of Falmouth Uni. Thank you.
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Just made my wife a cup of coffee and got sent back to the kitchen to "put it in a nice mug"! ☹️
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"Hundreds of maths, science and language teachers will be brought in from countries such as India and Nigeria..." Meanwhile the Government misses targets for teacher recruitment, refuses existing staff a proper pay rise and claims immigration is too high.
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Well done Martin Hanbury for stepping down as an inspector. And also in this story Michael low-morale-among teachers-is-good Wilshaw suggests Ofsted may be "getting some things wrong"! Tectonic plates are moving. Now if we all jump at the same time...
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OFSTED: Hidden Agendas and No Way to Complain
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What a despicable, contemptible comment Amanda Spielman made on Woman's Hour yesterday. Ruth Perry's death, she said, was "used as a pivot". With HMCI voicing such a nasty, cynical thought it's no wonder Ofsted is universally execrated. 1/2
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To be clear,
@Ofstednews
, the MINIMUM right now is: 1) scrap gradings 2) set up proper, fair independent appeals process, 3) remove Safeguarding from inspections, 4) stop demanding silence from school leaders. And this is why:
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One fact to sum up the enormity of what happened yesterday: Labour has 4 seats in Cornwall; the Tories have none.
Labour last won a Cornish seat in 2001 and has never before held 2. Until yesterday every Cornish MP was Tory.
The implications of this earthquake are staggering.
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Yes. Let's put the blame where it belongs - Gove and his successors have done immense harm to our schools and our children.
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"...primary class sizes are now the highest in Europe, secondary class sizes are the highest since records began almost 50 years ago..."
Is this the appropriate time for that "thank you for doing a ******* good job" Gillian felt she deserved?
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After months of online shopping and contactless I opened my wallet today to look for a phone number and found this. Any ideas what it might be?
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This is upsetting. These screenings can never be entirely accurate; most parents of children with DS do not know before birth, and what does this judgement say about how we value people with disabilities? A child with DS is a child not a disaster.
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This virus is forcing a re-calibration of attitudes and priorities. "Shelf stacker at Tesco" we now know is a heroic key worker willing to risk his or her own health for the benefit of us all. Let's hope we never again hear this used as a sneer.
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Every study I have ever seen on this subject says the same: there is no evidence that uniforms raise standards and little evidence of any positive benefit. So why do so many schools insist on Draconian sanctions for uniform infringements?
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Michael Gove standing down puts the spotlight on the Tories' record on Education. So here's a reminder that when you hear Gillian Keegan (or anyone else) say there is more money going into schools than ever before in real terms, it's untrue. This is why...
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Mrs C is organising our family memorabilia and has found that the worst school report any of ours ever received was written about no. 3 son who had a poor attitude, and didn't pay attention or do enough work. This was Y4, and frankly I blame the teacher - who was Mrs C.
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I really hope this is incorrectly reported. The idea of a British Government forcing people to break the law is chilling.
🚨 NEW: Civil servants have been told they must ignore any European court ruling that would block the Rwanda scheme
[
@thetimes
]
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Sorry to go on again about my foot, but I did like this. I have 3 toes missing, 1 bandaged and painful and 1 still unaffected.
Granddaughter, 6, looks for a long time then points: "This little piggy went to market. This little piggy is unwell. This little piggy got chopped off."
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What's happening here - in all the Government's rhetoric about school absences - is an attempt to blame parents if children don't succeed at school. Nothing to do with ministers, poverty or 13 years of disastrous education policy. The achievement gap is down to soft parenting.
We are living in a society focused on targets, blind to declining
#health
&
#wellbeing
.
@NickGibbUK
please don’t demand children go to school when they are ill.
We must invest in
#CleanAir
, make
#education
inclusive &
#accessible
for all inc
@cv_cev
#LongCovidKids
#back2school
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Support by Ofsted, the Government has encouraged schools to create a "hostile environment" for pupils with SEND; thousands have been pushed out of school altogether. The DfE and Ofsted don't need to look into it; they need to stop rewarding it.
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