LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!

surrey_commuter

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

I hope last night’s actions sharpen the mind somewhat in relation to the political fallout of austerity.

what happened last night?

Stuff in the states.

I can not even see a tenuous link to austerity.

Anyway true austerity will be a 25% cut in all pensions, benefits and public sector wages that will be forced upon us when your house of cards comes crashing down

So I think there is a material risk of continued austerity fuelling extremist, undemocratic political feeling and making it a mainstream position to take.

At that point you can forget all reasonable governance and worrying about the deficit is the least of your problems.

you worry too much

we will bumble along with short term politicians piling up debt with the usual malcontents moaning from the fringes until the day of reckoning when external forces make us live within our means. The usual suspects will dust off their banners and sing songs in Trafalgar Square before going back to their local pub in their provincial market towns to rail against the man

British exceptionalism has gone to your head.

you need to study British history, we do not do insurrection, we look for a toff to doff our cap to and if that does not work some of us go on a march and chant a few pithy lines.

Imagine if Nissan closed it's Sunderland plant tonight, do you think the mackems would rise up and man the burning barricades in violent protest against the ruling classes or do you think they would go down 'Spoons and moan about southern bankers?

Err, what? We literally executed the King.

If you want to argue that the UK is a country predisposed to violent insurrection then don't let me get in the way

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

I hope last night’s actions sharpen the mind somewhat in relation to the political fallout of austerity.

what happened last night?

Stuff in the states.

I can not even see a tenuous link to austerity.

Anyway true austerity will be a 25% cut in all pensions, benefits and public sector wages that will be forced upon us when your house of cards comes crashing down

So I think there is a material risk of continued austerity fuelling extremist, undemocratic political feeling and making it a mainstream position to take.

At that point you can forget all reasonable governance and worrying about the deficit is the least of your problems.

you worry too much

we will bumble along with short term politicians piling up debt with the usual malcontents moaning from the fringes until the day of reckoning when external forces make us live within our means. The usual suspects will dust off their banners and sing songs in Trafalgar Square before going back to their local pub in their provincial market towns to rail against the man

British exceptionalism has gone to your head.

you need to study British history, we do not do insurrection, we look for a toff to doff our cap to and if that does not work some of us go on a march and chant a few pithy lines.

Imagine if Nissan closed it's Sunderland plant tonight, do you think the mackems would rise up and man the burning barricades in violent protest against the ruling classes or do you think they would go down 'Spoons and moan about southern bankers?

Err, what? We literally executed the King.

If you want to argue that the UK is a country predisposed to violent insurrection then don't let me get in the way

It's no more or less predisposed than any other country. You were the one that made the assertion that it wouldn't happen.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

I hope last night’s actions sharpen the mind somewhat in relation to the political fallout of austerity.

what happened last night?

Stuff in the states.

I can not even see a tenuous link to austerity.

Anyway true austerity will be a 25% cut in all pensions, benefits and public sector wages that will be forced upon us when your house of cards comes crashing down

So I think there is a material risk of continued austerity fuelling extremist, undemocratic political feeling and making it a mainstream position to take.

At that point you can forget all reasonable governance and worrying about the deficit is the least of your problems.

you worry too much

we will bumble along with short term politicians piling up debt with the usual malcontents moaning from the fringes until the day of reckoning when external forces make us live within our means. The usual suspects will dust off their banners and sing songs in Trafalgar Square before going back to their local pub in their provincial market towns to rail against the man

British exceptionalism has gone to your head.

you need to study British history, we do not do insurrection, we look for a toff to doff our cap to and if that does not work some of us go on a march and chant a few pithy lines.

Imagine if Nissan closed it's Sunderland plant tonight, do you think the mackems would rise up and man the burning barricades in violent protest against the ruling classes or do you think they would go down 'Spoons and moan about southern bankers?

Err, what? We literally executed the King.

If you want to argue that the UK is a country predisposed to violent insurrection then don't let me get in the way

It's no more or less predisposed than any other country. You were the one that made the assertion that it wouldn't happen.

let's assume that I was talking relative to other countries

if you made a list of the two hundred countries in the world and with the most likely to have an insurrection at number 1 which quartile would you place us in?

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

I hope last night’s actions sharpen the mind somewhat in relation to the political fallout of austerity.

what happened last night?

Stuff in the states.

I can not even see a tenuous link to austerity.

Anyway true austerity will be a 25% cut in all pensions, benefits and public sector wages that will be forced upon us when your house of cards comes crashing down

So I think there is a material risk of continued austerity fuelling extremist, undemocratic political feeling and making it a mainstream position to take.

At that point you can forget all reasonable governance and worrying about the deficit is the least of your problems.

you worry too much

we will bumble along with short term politicians piling up debt with the usual malcontents moaning from the fringes until the day of reckoning when external forces make us live within our means. The usual suspects will dust off their banners and sing songs in Trafalgar Square before going back to their local pub in their provincial market towns to rail against the man

British exceptionalism has gone to your head.

you need to study British history, we do not do insurrection, we look for a toff to doff our cap to and if that does not work some of us go on a march and chant a few pithy lines.

Imagine if Nissan closed it's Sunderland plant tonight, do you think the mackems would rise up and man the burning barricades in violent protest against the ruling classes or do you think they would go down 'Spoons and moan about southern bankers?

Err, what? We literally executed the King.

If you want to argue that the UK is a country predisposed to violent insurrection then don't let me get in the way

It's no more or less predisposed than any other country. You were the one that made the assertion that it wouldn't happen.

let's assume that I was talking relative to other countries

if you made a list of the two hundred countries in the world and with the most likely to have an insurrection at number 1 which quartile would you place us in?

I think people are much the same the world over, so if it can happen in the US it can definitely happen here.

elbowloh

The 1926 general strike?

rjsterry

Oh look.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-activists-trump-wellingborough-fake-news-b1774341.html

Monkey see, monkey do.

kingstongraham

I missed this the other day, where Gavin Williamson mistakenly said "I will not let schools be open for a moment longer than they..." when he meant to say closed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o53lna93AUY

pinkbikini

“And if the teaching’s not brilliant, contact Ofqual, not me”

john80

pinkbikini said:

“And if the teaching’s not brilliant, contact Ofqual, not me”

That is the body that is responsible for teaching standards. Do you disagree with this being the correct body.

pinkbikini

Williamson has put so, so much additional burden on the profession over the past 10 months. He’s trying to deflect criticism from his truly appalling decision-making.

Imagine if every disgruntled parent moaning about a lack of Zoom teaching time contacted Ofqual? Did you do that the other day when you complained about teaching standards, only to then find out that there was a perfectly decent plan in place?

Multiply that possibility by hundreds of thousands - Ofqual would have to dedicate so much additional resource to answering these questions that they wouldn’t be able to conduct other critical services during a pandemic.

Pross

john80 said:

pinkbikini said:

“And if the teaching’s not brilliant, contact Ofqual, not me”

That is the body that is responsible for teaching standards. Do you disagree with this being the correct body.

He's the Education Minister, the buck stops with him. If they aren't performing he should take action.

surrey_commuter

Pross said:

john80 said:

pinkbikini said:

“And if the teaching’s not brilliant, contact Ofqual, not me”

That is the body that is responsible for teaching standards. Do you disagree with this being the correct body.

He's the Education Minister, the buck stops with him. If they aren't performing he should take action.

I think the teaching unions attitude towards online learning is a disgrace but in practical terms what do you think Gavin should do about it?

Nine months into a global pandemic that will cost 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds we still don't collect data at the weekend and don't feel it necessary to deliver vaccines on a Sunday. Nobody likes change and with the job security of working in the public sector you can not enforce it.

TheBigBean

I'm intrigued by the idea that anyone who works from home can look after primary school kids at the same time. For example, a logistics expert planning vaccine deployment from home should do it at the same time as looking after three children. What could go wrong?

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

I'm intrigued by the idea that anyone who works from home can look after primary school kids at the same time. For example, a logistics expert planning vaccine deployment from home should do it at the same time as looking after three children. What could go wrong?

Sure, it's problematic, but a lesser evil than the alternative of having every child of anyone mildly inconvenienced by home schooling back at school and the infection rates staying far too high.

john80

pinkbikini said:

Williamson has put so, so much additional burden on the profession over the past 10 months. He’s trying to deflect criticism from his truly appalling decision-making.

Imagine if every disgruntled parent moaning about a lack of Zoom teaching time contacted Ofqual? Did you do that the other day when you complained about teaching standards, only to then find out that there was a perfectly decent plan in place?

Multiply that possibility by hundreds of thousands - Ofqual would have to dedicate so much additional resource to answering these questions that they wouldn’t be able to conduct other critical services during a pandemic.

There is not doubt that Williamson is a lemon however he is dealing with an entrenched profession that seems to think it is filled with professionals that can't do basic things. In the first lockdown my kids school delivered zero online lessons and only organised a ten minute zoom meeting as a sop to make sure they were not criticised should some kids come to harm at the hands of their parents. Within a couple of days if not before most engineering companies had sent staff home with IT equipment and set up teams to organise their work. Teaching unions were still discouraging teachers from running online lessons throughout.

I appreciate this is not all schools and all teachers but I cannot accept the claim that all teachers are super heroes and professionals when they could not do basic things that other professions found easy. The kids school has upped their game this time round with a daily 20 minute online lesson where the teacher explains the topic then the kids do some work and up load it so that that there is some feedback. It's. Its not rocket science but it did take the teaching profession that I see a number of months to get their act in gear. Only yesterday I had teachers on my Facebook feed arguing they were only given a day's notice of school closures when the risk of future school closures was known from day one. Talk about lack of forward thinking. The difference between a worker and a professional is the amount of free thinking and self management they are expected to do. Act like a shelf stackers then you should expect to be treated like one and paid accordingly.

pangolin

John they are being asked to deal with increasing numbers of "critical" workers children in normal classes whilst also delivering online lessons to everyone else. I'd have thought you'd have a lot of sympathy for this, having told us how hard it is to do two jobs at once.

john80

pangolin said:

John they are being asked to deal with increasing numbers of "critical" workers children in normal classes whilst also delivering online lessons to everyone else. I'd have thought you'd have a lot of sympathy for this, having told us how hard it is to do two jobs at once.

They are delivering the same content to some in a room for the twenty minutes and over the internet. It is the same job. I would get laughed at if I went to my boss and claimed that a meeting with a couple in a room and others over the internet was increased work load. Outside of the twenty minutes they have less kids in there class and should be able to deal with the online aspects. The number of kids in the UK has not increased.

pangolin

john80 said:

pangolin said:

John they are being asked to deal with increasing numbers of "critical" workers children in normal classes whilst also delivering online lessons to everyone else. I'd have thought you'd have a lot of sympathy for this, having told us how hard it is to do two jobs at once.

They are delivering the same content to some in a room for the twenty minutes and over the internet. It is the same job. I would get laughed at if I went to my boss and claimed that a meeting with a couple in a room and others over the internet was increased work load. Outside of the twenty minutes they have less kids in there class and should be able to deal with the online aspects. The number of kids in the UK has not increased.

Suggest you use your imagination a bit more about how the delivery method will differ for those two groups. School children are not white collar professionals, they cannot be expected to sit quietly around a conference table watching a presentation.

You have some valid points but your continued dismissal of the whole profession undermines the lot.

TheBigBean

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

I'm intrigued by the idea that anyone who works from home can look after primary school kids at the same time. For example, a logistics expert planning vaccine deployment from home should do it at the same time as looking after three children. What could go wrong?

Sure, it's problematic, but a lesser evil than the alternative of having every child of anyone mildly inconvenienced by home schooling back at school and the infection rates staying far too high.

Yes, I get that for workers who are not essential (like me), but I don't understand the idea that the school can refuse an essential workers' children on the basis that the work can be done from home. I gave the example of someone planning vaccine logistics. Their kids should be at school. There is no more important job going on at the moment, and it needs to be done well.

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

I'm intrigued by the idea that anyone who works from home can look after primary school kids at the same time. For example, a logistics expert planning vaccine deployment from home should do it at the same time as looking after three children. What could go wrong?

Sure, it's problematic, but a lesser evil than the alternative of having every child of anyone mildly inconvenienced by home schooling back at school and the infection rates staying far too high.

Yes, I get that for workers who are not essential (like me), but I don't understand the idea that the school can refuse an essential workers' children on the basis that the work can be done from home. I gave the example of someone planning vaccine logistics. Their kids should be at school. There is no more important job going on at the moment, and it needs to be done well.

They should, but the key worker categories seem to have been drawn very broadly and I think some are taking advantage, which in turn leads to schools taking a harder line. They have also probably got better things to do than get into arguments with parents about whether they are or aren't key workers.

morstar

john80 said:

pinkbikini said:

Williamson has put so, so much additional burden on the profession over the past 10 months. He’s trying to deflect criticism from his truly appalling decision-making.

Imagine if every disgruntled parent moaning about a lack of Zoom teaching time contacted Ofqual? Did you do that the other day when you complained about teaching standards, only to then find out that there was a perfectly decent plan in place?

Multiply that possibility by hundreds of thousands - Ofqual would have to dedicate so much additional resource to answering these questions that they wouldn’t be able to conduct other critical services during a pandemic.

There is not doubt that Williamson is a lemon however he is dealing with an entrenched profession that seems to think it is filled with professionals that can't do basic things. In the first lockdown my kids school delivered zero online lessons and only organised a ten minute zoom meeting as a sop to make sure they were not criticised should some kids come to harm at the hands of their parents. Within a couple of days if not before most engineering companies had sent staff home with IT equipment and set up teams to organise their work. Teaching unions were still discouraging teachers from running online lessons throughout.

I appreciate this is not all schools and all teachers but I cannot accept the claim that all teachers are super heroes and professionals when they could not do basic things that other professions found easy. The kids school has upped their game this time round with a daily 20 minute online lesson where the teacher explains the topic then the kids do some work and up load it so that that there is some feedback. It's. Its not rocket science but it did take the teaching profession that I see a number of months to get their act in gear. Only yesterday I had teachers on my Facebook feed arguing they were only given a day's notice of school closures when the risk of future school closures was known from day one. Talk about lack of forward thinking. The difference between a worker and a professional is the amount of free thinking and self management they are expected to do. Act like a shelf stackers then you should expect to be treated like one and paid accordingly.

And during the Christmas period and that one day, they were also working on the expectation to turn their schools into testing centres. That was already a totally new burden.
One minute you’re planning a new term with all the extra faff of segregation now compounded with creating a test centre.
The next day, you need to flip to online teaching.
I think all public services suffer from entrenched beliefs but you have to accept that teachers had a tonne of shit thrown at them in the last month with rapidly moving goalposts.

Your engineering company made one major adjustment once. The expectation for schools is changing continuously. Not to mention, they are not organisations that are geared up to rapid change. Schools need employees with teaching skills with a small team of admin staff. The requirements of the last few months have flipped admin massively to the forefront. Of course there’s challenges. You must know some brilliant engineers who have massive skill shortages in some areas that aren’t key to their role. Teachers are no different.

john80

morstar said:

john80 said:

pinkbikini said:

Williamson has put so, so much additional burden on the profession over the past 10 months. He’s trying to deflect criticism from his truly appalling decision-making.

Imagine if every disgruntled parent moaning about a lack of Zoom teaching time contacted Ofqual? Did you do that the other day when you complained about teaching standards, only to then find out that there was a perfectly decent plan in place?

Multiply that possibility by hundreds of thousands - Ofqual would have to dedicate so much additional resource to answering these questions that they wouldn’t be able to conduct other critical services during a pandemic.

There is not doubt that Williamson is a lemon however he is dealing with an entrenched profession that seems to think it is filled with professionals that can't do basic things. In the first lockdown my kids school delivered zero online lessons and only organised a ten minute zoom meeting as a sop to make sure they were not criticised should some kids come to harm at the hands of their parents. Within a couple of days if not before most engineering companies had sent staff home with IT equipment and set up teams to organise their work. Teaching unions were still discouraging teachers from running online lessons throughout.

I appreciate this is not all schools and all teachers but I cannot accept the claim that all teachers are super heroes and professionals when they could not do basic things that other professions found easy. The kids school has upped their game this time round with a daily 20 minute online lesson where the teacher explains the topic then the kids do some work and up load it so that that there is some feedback. It's. Its not rocket science but it did take the teaching profession that I see a number of months to get their act in gear. Only yesterday I had teachers on my Facebook feed arguing they were only given a day's notice of school closures when the risk of future school closures was known from day one. Talk about lack of forward thinking. The difference between a worker and a professional is the amount of free thinking and self management they are expected to do. Act like a shelf stackers then you should expect to be treated like one and paid accordingly.

And during the Christmas period and that one day, they were also working on the expectation to turn their schools into testing centres. That was already a totally new burden.
One minute you’re planning a new term with all the extra faff of segregation now compounded with creating a test centre.
The next day, you need to flip to online teaching.
I think all public services suffer from entrenched beliefs but you have to accept that teachers had a tonne of censored thrown at them in the last month with rapidly moving goalposts.

Your engineering company made one major adjustment once. The expectation for schools is changing continuously. Not to mention, they are not organisations that are geared up to rapid change. Schools need employees with teaching skills with a small team of admin staff. The requirements of the last few months have flipped admin massively to the forefront. Of course there’s challenges. You must know some brilliant engineers who have massive skill shortages in some areas that aren’t key to their role. Teachers are no different.

If you force the public to listen to lectures about how highly skilled you are you are whilst not managing a change particularly well then it does not bode well. A primary head teacher will be on over 50k a year so yes I expect that person to have the foresight to consider that there was once a pandemic requiring schools to shut down and that this was a likely risk to reoccur. It reoccurred recently. For your argument to hold water you would have to say there was no chance of a second or third lockdown that might force schools to close and therefore there was no requirement to consider this argument. We now have the risk realised. It comes back to if we are going to be critical of the government for not having their stuff sorted at the beginning of the pandemic then why would we not be critical of professionals managing schools. A multi academy trust head is on more money than Gavin Williamson.

john80

pangolin said:

john80 said:

pangolin said:

John they are being asked to deal with increasing numbers of "critical" workers children in normal classes whilst also delivering online lessons to everyone else. I'd have thought you'd have a lot of sympathy for this, having told us how hard it is to do two jobs at once.

They are delivering the same content to some in a room for the twenty minutes and over the internet. It is the same job. I would get laughed at if I went to my boss and claimed that a meeting with a couple in a room and others over the internet was increased work load. Outside of the twenty minutes they have less kids in there class and should be able to deal with the online aspects. The number of kids in the UK has not increased.

Suggest you use your imagination a bit more about how the delivery method will differ for those two groups. School children are not white collar professionals, they cannot be expected to sit quietly around a conference table watching a presentation.

You have some valid points but your continued dismissal of the whole profession undermines the lot.

Five kids in a primary class can be expected to listen to a teacher giving a presentation both to them in the class and the kids at home at the same time for twenty minutes. They are not being asked to sit in a all day meeting. The original claim was that this was extra work. It patently is not and weak claims like this is what makes the teaching profession look bad by association. This is what the national teachers union have been demonstrating for months. If I was a teacher I would be asking questions as to how my profession is being portrayed.

morstar

Monday, you’re creating a test centre to run alongside your core business of classroom teaching that the government has been insisting every single day for the last two weeks of holidays will happen.

Tuesday, your test centre is on hold and you’re pivoting the entire business to online. With the exception of a growing cohort of key worker children.

I’d be bloody well moaning.

john80

morstar said:

Monday, you’re creating a test centre to run alongside your core business of classroom teaching that the government has been insisting every single day for the last two weeks of holidays will happen.

Tuesday, your test centre is on hold and you’re pivoting the entire business to online. With the exception of a growing cohort of key worker children.

I’d be bloody well moaning.

Moan away but at least my local primary learned something and had a plan to pivot to online learning should a second school shutdown happened. The head earned here wage by exercising a plan the teachers could roll out which if they had to. They were garbage in the first lockdown and presumably some of that parent criticism sunk in.

pangolin

Hold on you're now saying they did well. Great! Will you apply this anecdote to all teachers?

john80

pangolin said:

Hold on you're now saying they did well. Great! Will you apply this anecdote to all teachers?

It is twenty minutes a day. Let's hold the clapping hands and giving them a 20% uplift for their efforts.

pinkbikini

If you’re really unhappy with the education provided, you have 2 choices. Life is short, childhood passes quickly (more rapidly than the time taken to reform an education system).

1. Move to a catchment area for a better school
2. Go private

There are so many who contribute to the funding of education (via taxes) who get zero benefit - no children, children in private schools, etc.

You’re quite lucky really, in the grand scheme of things.

Dorset_Boy

Schools should have been planning in Setember through to December for a possible closure. The pivot from preparing to test to sorting out online teaching should have taken no more than 48 hours if the forward planning had been done.

A little like before Lockdown#1. Well managed schools realised in mid January that they might have to close at some point and started to prepare. Meanwhile the Teachers' Unions seemed exteremely surprised when the schools closures were announced in March, and again seem surprised about these closures happening.

The unions have done a huge diservice to the majority of teachers.

pangolin

Dorset_Boy said:

Schools should have been planning in Setember through to December for a possible closure. The pivot from preparing to test to sorting out online teaching should have taken no more than 48 hours if the forward planning had been done.

A little like before Lockdown#1. Well managed schools realised in mid January that they might have to close at some point and started to prepare. Meanwhile the Teachers' Unions seemed exteremely surprised when the schools closures were announced in March, and again seem surprised about these closures happening.

The unions have done a huge diservice to the majority of teachers.