It’s the silly season and there’s precious little to report. There was a posting on the Reading Reform Foundation from Jim Curran, who flagged up a piece by one of Australia’s leading proponents of phonics, Kerry Hempenstall. In his article ‘The Whole Language-Phonics Controversy: A Historical Perspective’, he outlines, as the title suggests, the history… Continue reading The Reading Wars – again.
Thanks to Microsoft for the pic.
The BBC reports of the last two days highlight in stark terms what a bunch of interfering busybodies government ministers are. If proof were wanted to bear out everything the Policy Exchange report of a few months ago stated, it’s all here.As the BBC news channel reported yesterday morning, far from being blameless for last… Continue reading SATs scores spun, science sidelined.
It was nice to get one in before the Beeb yesterday! They managed to catch up this morning by reporting the ‘Teachers “are scared of numeracy”‘ story.Of course, the report has been rubbished by the DCSF, who spun it by claiming that the degree is a ‘well-respected three year education degree’ and by talking about… Continue reading Auntie gets in on the act!
Here’s one that will shock everyone… I think. It is reported in the Guardian today that primary teachers in England are ‘among the worst qualified in Europe’. Politeia, a right-wing think tank, claims that all primary teachers should have passed A-level maths and English, as a minimum, before being unleashed on eight- to eleven- year-olds.At… Continue reading Standards required to teach.
Here’s a thing from the Indie yesterday. You really couldn’t make it up, could you?
Anyone familiar with the work of David Crystal will already know what a prolific author on all questions to do with the English language he is. If a single year doesn’t bring at least two new publications, I begin to wonder if he is at last beginning to slow down. So, it was with particular… Continue reading David Crystal – a diamond geezer!
A friend of mine and regular Torchwood watcher has emailed about last week’s showing. Apparently, and to cut a longer story short, a bunch of aliens had landed and was demanding 10% of the world’s children. The UK government (who were not portrayed in a very sympathetic light) quickly decided this was reasonable enough, and… Continue reading Torchwood gives boost to government figures.
Every year teachers working in secondary schools screen the new Year 7 intake to see who needs help in reading and spelling. Two years ago, one such secondary school in the north-west told us that 72.6 percent of their Year 7 had scored below their chronological ages on entry!Since then, on trainings, many other practitioners… Continue reading Blowing the whistle on the stats
I veritably LOLed when I opened the latest issue of the Eye (10th July, 2009). ‘Prime Ministerial Decree No 48’ announces the sweeping away of ‘the hated Milburnite-Blairite targetology’ and its replacement with ‘universal human rightism’. The second of the rights is ‘The right of every child to be given a place in the best… Continue reading Private Eye gets in on the act of questioning education policy