Bradford's schools aren't good enough - so why the complacency?

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The future of Bradford schools is "in good hands" screams the headline - great we think, someone's in charge (when he isn't trying to get elected as an MP).

In charge of what? Are Bradford's schools so good:

Councillors on the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee were told that four partnerships were working together with a “passion” to improve educational standards across the district now and in the future.

Representatives of Bradford Partnership, Bradford Primary Improvement Partnership (BPIP), the District Achievement Partnership (DAP) and the Nursery Schools Partnership told of their hard work...

Hard work that has meant:

Bradford’s primary schools came third-bottom of a 150-strong table for SATs results...

But, our schools leaders say this is all fine because:

They are recognised for things like progress, leadership and management, and health and safety – not just attainment.

Wow! All that progress, leadership and management has led to no improvement in performance. Perhaps that's the problem? Perhaps rather than all this mumbo-jumbo, we should try some teaching? A bit of focus on results rather than ticking boxes?

However, we're told to 'trust them':

“We are putting in place structures that will allow progress over time. We are trying to work out what our strengths are and how we progress. It will not happen overnight.

“Trust us, these are good models.” 

Trust you? On the basis of these results? No chance.

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If England's schools are some of the developed world's worst, where does that put Bradford's?

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We are again reminded that the simple premise of throwing money at public service problems doesn't work. We've already seen with the NHS that despite record amounts of cash pouring into the service, we still got the scandal of Mid-Staffs and similar failings in care across the land.

Today what was true for health is shown to be true for education:

Young adults in England have scored among the lowest results in the industrialised world in international literacy and numeracy tests. A major study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows how England's 16 to 24-year-olds are falling behind their Asian and European counterparts. England is 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy out of 24 countries.

And that spending:

Between 1997 and 2010 education spending nearly doubled yet our performance, the actual achievements of schools didn't. And there really isn't any excuse for this - and this point makes the scale of our education system's inadequacy still clearer:

England was the only country in the developed world in which adults aged 55-to-65 performed better in literacy and numeracy than those aged 16-to-24 after taking account of other factors such as the economic background of those taking the test. 

What is most striking about these reports is that there are no comments from the teachers unions, from the leaders of local education authorities or from the succession of Labour ministers that presided over this failure. The same bunch of self-serving people who rail against any attempt to reform the system by adding rigour, competition and choice.

When we search about for a comment from a teacher trade union we find one that shifts the blame and fails even to accept that maybe a little bit of the problem rests with teaching and leadership in schools. But the NASUWT's solution to the literacy and numeracy problem is truly a joke:

We need to radically revamp the current arrangements for work placements and careers guidance, ensure employers invest in high-quality learning opportunities for young people and take steps to ensure that all young people can afford to continue their learning beyond 16. - See more at: http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/Whatsnew/NASUWTNews/PressReleases/OECDSkillsForLifeReport#sthash.vDcds6dO.dpuf

We need to radically revamp the current arrangements for work placements and careers guidance, ensure employers invest in high-quality learning opportunities for young people and take steps to ensure that all young people can afford to continue their learning beyond 16. 

Got that folks? The problem with illiterate teenagers is down to work placements, careers guidance, employers and post-16 learning - nothing to do with what NASUWT's members do in the classroom!

Here in Bradford, where the man in charge is more interested in trying to become an MP than in the performance of schools, we really are in bother. Not only is England at the bottom of that international league table but Bradford is at the bottom end of England's performance league table:

Bradford’s primary schools have recorded the third worst results in England in tests sat by ten and 11-year-olds earlier this year, new figures show.

A shocking one in three (32 per cent) of children are failing to achieve the standards expected of them in the Three Rs by the end of their primary education.

We need to radically revamp the current arrangements for work placements and careers guidance, ensure employers invest in high-quality learning opportunities for young people and take steps to ensure that all young people can afford to continue their learning beyond 16. - See more at: http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/Whatsnew/NASUWTNews/PressReleases/OECDSkillsForLifeReport#sthash.vDcds6dO.dpuf

And this is Cllr "I-so-want-to-be-an-MP" Berry's response to this awful picture:

“After making recent progress at Key Stage Two in Bradford primary schools, there are disappointing elements to this year’s provisional results.” 

How complacent do you want? "Disappointing elements"! The situation is in a mess and Cllr Berry's solution is more meetings, another partnership:

...the local authority would work with a schools body called the Primary Improvement Partnership to review the results and agree on the next steps. 

Sense the urgency. Look at the concerns. Heads will roll? What a complete joke.

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Should we scrap Ofsted?

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Seriously. All it seems to do is pass questionable judgements of schools while creating stress, mayhem and dysfunction. I was struck by this comment from a teacher at a private school (who'd a load of experience in state schools):

But really the biggest change is lack of Ofsted. After seven years in the state sector I became very weary of the cloud that hung over state schools. I worked with amazing colleagues in wonderful schools but it felt like everything we did, every initiative we undertook was to appease Ofsted. We worked in fear of Ofsted, and I was fed up of it.

It feels so different here. Independent schools are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. I've had no experience of them yet and I rarely hear them mentioned. We don't base our teaching on forthcoming inspections. All the initiatives we put in place here are for the benefit of our students, not to appease Ofsted.

Sounds like a plan. Off you go Mr Gove.

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Welcome to Midwich - New Puritans, schools and the brainwashing of children

The New Puritan agenda is at its most insistent in schools:

Mr Ayers also spoke out after his son had a fun-size pack of Maltesers confiscated by teachers after it was spotted in his lunch box.

My Ayers said: 'I put the Maltesers in as a weekly treat, but the school confiscated them for some reason.

'The school should be concentrating on other things rather than banning children playing games and taking their chocolate away.'

It is for the children, we're told. Not only is 'obesity' a worry but play must be purposeful - directed to the agenda of creating supine, dependent and content children. Any hint of assertiveness, any exploration of violence, and the authorities step in - only they have the power (but it is exercised oh so benignly):

Headteacher Karen Jaeggi defended the policy this week, saying: 'We actively discourage children from playing violent games or games involving imaginary weapons in the playground by explaining to them what it represents.

'Some children can be easily frightened by violent play which is often influenced by computer games and we feel that such games can have a harmful effect on young minds.'

You see what's happening here? Children are being told that only certain type of play are acceptable - making a gun with your fingers and say "pyoinng, pyoingg...you're dead" isn't approved.

The most worrying thing about this is the absolute certainty of the head teacher. She is sure in her belief, her faith in the new puritan message. Parents putting a pack of fun sized Maltesers in a lunch box is the root cause of obesity - leave aside that the contents of a child's lunchbox is nothing at all to do with the school. And gangs, murder and general badness comes as a result of kids playing cops and robbers - egged on by the manipulative and shady exploiters of the computer games business.

What we don't see - these extreme events give us a glimpse behind the curtain - is the every day brain washing of children in the New Puritan agenda. Whether it's misinforming them about recycling, promoting the distortion of 'fair trade' or implicit criticism of parents for drinking, smoking or eating foods that aren't approved. And all of this is wrapped up in pseudo-science and an unquestioning acceptance of whatever the New Puritan priests tell the teachers.

Welcome to Midwich.


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Adrian Naylor & a bad case of logic fail!

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My erstwhile colleague, Adrian Naylor, is very keen to talk about planning. Sometimes he seems to hate it (because it wants to build more houses in Silsden) while at other times he seems to love it (because it can stop more houses being built in Silsden).

And his latest piece of illogicality is this:

Coun Naylor does not believe relaxing planning rules will provide much-needed schools for the district.

Now we know that one of the barriers to free schools - and other schools for that matter - is that land simply isn't designated (under our absurd planning system) for this purpose. So those wishing to develop schools - especially secondary schools - have to do battle with the planning authority. If Adrian had bothered to look at the planning difficulties faced by all Bradford's free schools, he wouldn't be saying that relaxing planning regulations was a bad idea.

I can only assume that - in Adrian's world - these schools will float on little clouds so they don't interfere with his little myth-bound wonderland.

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"Prohibition always leads to supply and demand..." Jake Phillips, 15

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As this little unintended social experiment shows:

Acland Burghley School in Camden, North London, recently decided to implement a "water only" policy in a bid to improve health, pupils' concentration and, as a result, their grades.

However, some entrepreneurial kids have resorted to sneaking in the banned substances and selling them on to fellow pupils at "speakeasies", just like under Prohibition in the US, which ran from around 1920-1933. However, instead of alcohol, the desired goods are cola, lemonade, orangeade and energy drinks.

And the enterprising youngster explain why, too:

"...there is business potential now there's a gap in the market. Gangsters sold alcohol in America when that was banned. Prohibition always leads to supply and demand. That means anyone who sneaks it in can make a lot of money."

It's a shame that their teachers weren't so bright as to realise that this would be the exact result of their ban!

Even where it's pointed out the school's boss buries his head still further in the sand:

“Schools are responsible for showing young people that their own behaviour impacts on their health. We are extremely proud to be Camden’s first water-only school."

Seems nannying fussbuckets never learn!

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We need to talk about poverty...

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There is no poverty. Really there isn’t - or at least that is what the numbers should tell us.  But take a moment to glimpse at reality and you will see poverty. Not just the “relative poverty” that characterises the ‘living wage’ debate but real poverty - people who genuinely don’t know how they’ll afford to put food on the table tomorrow, people who really don’t have anywhere to live.

Two days ago an old cinema in Shipley caught fire – it’s now being demolished as an unsafe building. One tweet I saw suggested that it might have started from a tramp lighting a fire to keep warm on a cold, snowy night. It may turn out that there was some other cause but, sadly, this suggestion could very well be true. For whatever reason there are people sleeping rough on even the coldest night – and this is poverty.

Too many of us look at this and throw up our hands in despair. After all we’ve had a welfare system for over 100 years and a welfare state for nearly 70 – and still there are people who end up unable to heat their home, wondering whether they can feed their children and lacking in any hope or aspiration. So when I see people “defending” the welfare state, I want to scream and point to the terrible injustice of poverty. 

Understand that this welfare system of ours does not work if there are food banks. The welfare system does not work if charities have to pay for kids to get breakfast. And does not work if disabled people have to – almost literally – jump through hoops to get the support they need to play a full part in our society.

This is not the welfare system created by the current government – for sure, the Coalition has tinkered a bit round the edges - but the substance of the system is an accumulation from decades of responding to poverty. A tweak here, an adjustment there, a new benefit for some ‘problem’ group – single mums, old people, young people: whoever has the loudest voices shouting their case.

And it doesn’t work. If it worked there wouldn’t be any poverty.

But there is poverty. And something should be done about it.

Not just ameliorating its effects when they manifest themselves but answering the question “why?” Why, when we are richer than we’ve ever been, do so many people seem to miss out? And why is that failure – that poverty – persisting down the generations?

The debate is sterile – on one side we have the advocates of welfarism telling us that we should simply spend more money. That benefits should be higher. That more people should get benefits. And that we should take more money off other people to make this possible. This is a depressing argument – we’re spending over £200 billion on welfare, half of which can be seen as seeking to alleviate poverty. Yet we still have poor people – if that isn’t an indicator of a failed system, I don’t know what is.

Set against this “just spend more” approach is the contention that the poor are undeserving and that, if you just took away the drip-feed of benefits, they’d all go off and get jobs. And there is a grain of truth there – welfare benefits do act as a disincentive to work for some people. But the substance of the argument is not just uncaring but unjust and irresponsible too.

It seems to me that, as Conservatives, we need to stop responding to the welfarists’ cries of pain with a sort of “tough love” – payment cards, bans, controls, mandation: ordering the poor about because we can. Instead we should develop our own narrative of poverty – recognising that it exists, appreciating both its scale but also the extent to which each story represents a little human tragedy.

However, we need first to get across – to repeat until we’re blue in the face – that one person being rich doesn’t make another person poor. Indeed, that man’s success is more likely to get people out from poverty than to push people into that state.

Secondly we need to explain – on the give a man a fishing rod principle – that we must give priority to stopping tomorrow’s poverty rather than simply dealing with today’s poverty. This means facing down the education mafia who think it’s OK that the children of poor people get a worse education – or rather claim that the education they’re given isn’t worse despite all the evidence to the contrary. And it means that schools must see it as part of their role to get children into work.

I recall an English teacher from what some would call a “sink school” describing how teaching the bottom set of fifth-formers was soul-destroying until he decided to try and get them jobs rather than push them through an exam most of them would fail. And he did that until the head teacher stopped him – getting the exam results up, rising through the league table was more important than seeing to it that the children leaving at 16 did so with a bit of a start in life.

The third thing we need to say is that too many people get benefits they don’t really need. This isn’t to say that child benefit, for example, isn’t very useful, a real blessing for many families but it is to say that those families wouldn’t be tipped into poverty – unable to feed the kids – if that benefit was lost to them. And the same goes for a lot of the “in-work” benefits, for winter fuel payments and free TV licenses.

And then we need to say that we will focus on poverty – on people who, for whatever reason, really are poor. Not just giving them money but sitting down with them, talking about what they want to do, how they got into the pickle they’re in and how they might find a way out. Right now our approach – and this has been true for years – is dominated by nannying, hectoring and finger-wagging. Rather than understand the problem we tell them off for drinking, for smoking and for getting fat.

This isn’t to say that these lifestyles are good but to suggest that condemning them without offering a route out is wrong. That single mum in a council flat probably hates her life more than the nannies can know – she doesn’t want to be overweight, she knows she drinks too much and the smoking has given her a cough. But just telling her off for these bad decisions doesn’t help – in probably makes it worse. And her life is still crap.

I don’t know the solutions – for some it may be too late. But I do know that the debate we’re having – whether it’s endless burble about “the cuts” or the language of “strivers” and “scroungers” – misses the point entirely. There are lots of people out there – some working for bits of the government, some for private businesses and many for charities – who are doing creative, thoughtful and productive things to help alleviate poverty. Perhaps we should work a little more with these people – find out what they’re doing, spread the good word and the great work.

Our current system has failed. You don’t need to go to Easterhouse to find this out – just take a look around your town. But the poverty that failure allows will not be resolved by throwing more cash in to the welfare system – not least because we can’t afford to do that. We need to refocus welfare so most of it goes to the genuinely needy rather than to people for whom it nice but not essential. And we need to give the children of those poor people the tools for them not to be poor when they grow up.

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For the children...

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This is beyond stupid. It is deeply wrong and insulting to parents:

"It is with regret that from now on we will be unable to accommodate parents wishing to spectate at our sports fixtures unless they are in possession of an up-to-date Swindon Council CRB check.

"At Isambard we take safeguarding very seriously and because of this we are unable to leave gates open for access to sporting venues at anytime during the school day.

"The current access arrangements are frustrating for both Isambard staff and parents and have recently resulted in reception staff and PE staff being on the receiving end of verbal abuse from parents who have become frustrated trying to get into or out of the school." 

There is absolutely no need at all for this policy. None whatsoever. But we can expect more and more of this as headteachers and governors get ever more panicked over safeguarding issues.

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For one time only...I agree with the NUT - payment by results for teachers is a daft idea

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...on teachers' performance pay. The proposals "from MPs" should the sort of appreciation of reward structures that gave us over-paid useless bankers:

Schools minister Nick Gibb said the government has asked the school teachers' review body – which considers matters relating to teachers' pay, duties and working time – to make recommendations on introducing "greater freedoms and flexibilities" in teachers' pay, including how to link it more closely to performance.

And the chosen measure is something called "added value" - which is a pretty discredited metric and was designed anyway to assess whole school performance over several years not individual teacher performance over one year. And in the USA where teacher 'ratings' are widely used, there's precious little evidence that these act to raise overall educational outcomes (which is, I guess, the whole point of the exercise).

The relatively simple 'appraisal bar' approach that already exists in the pay scales should be adequate and, more to the point, the decisions as to reward should fall to school management teams not be set by some bunch of bureaucrats down in Whitehall. And certainly not in response to a report from a bunch of MPs.

There's no doubt that schools find getting rid of underperforming teachers quite difficult but not giving them a pay rise isn't going to make them either leave or perform better. Do we really think that the teacher stood in front of a class is thinking; "I'll be extra good here and I'll get a pay rise or a bonus"? Of course they aren't and if they were, we would be a little worried about their vocation for the job.

School heads know who are the good and bad teachers - we just need to give them the "freedoms and flexibilities" to manage. And more complicated and often misleading performance measurement will just cost money without raising standards.

And in the end Christine Blowers (for once) is right:

Payment by results is total nonsense. Children are not tins of beans and schools are not factory production lines. Successful schools rely on a collegiate approach and team working.

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Company offers to sponsor state school scandal!

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The newspaper that employed Jon Hari clearly maintains its standards with this headline:

News Corp offered Gove £2m to build 'free school'

Terrible! Corruption! Set the dogs on him!

Except that this is a gross misrepresentation of the meeting and what was offered:

Rupert Murdoch's News International offered £2m to sponsor an academy in east London close to the company's headquarters at Wapping, it emerged yesterday at the Leveson Inquiry.

So it wasn't a "free school". It was an academy - set up under the legislation that Mr Murdoch's old buddy Tony Blair introduced where businesses were encouraged to 'sponsor' new and existing schools that switched to being academies. Under Blair's rules sponsors were expected to make a financial contribution of at least £2 million (this has now changed and there is no absolute financial requirement). 


So the money wasn't offered to Michael Gove - it was offered to the Department for Education and/or Newham Council. It wasn't for a "free school". And it wasn't done in any underhand or misleading way - just part of the process of recruiting partners to help improve education in England.


People may not like or agree with the policy but it has been around for a while under Labour and Coalition governments. And News International were doing nothing wrong in pursuing the idea of sponsoring an academy.


All-in-all a pretty dreadful piece of reporting!


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School dinners - why don't children eat them?

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I'm told* (and it can be checked so is probably true) that Bradford is in the "top quartile" for performance on free school meal take up.

For the record 88.5% of eligible primary and 85.4% of secondary pupils received their free dinners. This is better than the national and regional average and seems pretty good until you say that about 1 in 9 of entitled primary kids and 3 in 20 of similar secondary children aren't getting - claiming - their free dinner.

One wonders why? Is it peer pressure? Parental incompetence? Impenetrable bureaucracy?

More to the point why don't more parents insist on their children getting school meals? Here in Bradford the cost is very reasonable - £1.50 per meal in primary and £2.15 per meal secondary. That's a main meal for five days in school time for less than £11 and a mere £7.50 if the child's under eleven.

Yet less that 60% of primary and less that 40% of secondary children in Bradford don't take school dinners!

They can't be that awful can they?

*Note: the figures here come from a briefing on the school meal service that I received recently

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Freedom is the radical choice for capitalism's reform - lessons (and hope) from a schools debate

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I had a really enjoyable afternoon today at Beckfoot School in Bingley. I went along as a judge in the "Futures" debate - a debate involving five local schools (and something I'd been a little sniffy about).

Two important things came out of this for me - firstly, my faith in tomorrow was restored by the sight of thirty or so young people debating big and grand issues. It wasn't simply an exercise in student political debate about capitalism (although this was broadly the topic) but was surprisingly well-informed. Yes there were the familiar quotes from Marx, Trotsky and such but we also got references to minarchism, Nozick, Schumpeter and William Morris. And mostly these were in context and relevant.

The second important thing for me was that the final session - "Reformed Capitalism vs the Alternative" - featured a bunch of students eager to make the case for capitalism's reform being about a libertarian response. Arguments were made for free trade, free markets and a government charged with administering the rules of freedom rather than seeking to "know better". I witnessed young people who grasped that wanting free enterprise, free markets and free trade is a genuinely radical choice because, for sure, we have precious little of those things today.

All in all a far more inspiring day than I expected. There is some hope for the future.

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Indoctrination (also known as Citizenship Education)

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From tonight's e-mail - what they're teaching our children:

With so much talk about economic crisis and reforming capitalism this is the topic chosen for a series of debates on:

- whether Karl Marx was right about the demise of capitalism
- whether economic management should be left to experts, minimising the role of politicians (as in Italy and Greece recently)
- whether communism should be ditched forever as an alternative because it can't be democratic

The competitors (aged from Year 10 to 13) will have already submitted an outline of their argument. You will respond to their arguments on the day and help prepare them for a final debate (Reformed Capitalism or A Radical Alternative?) as the culmination of the afternoon.

I guess I'll have to go - make sure they get some perspective and perhaps a little sense!

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A further comment about Bradford and free schools (and Katherine Birbalsingh)

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This evening Bradford Council debated free schools. Or rather a motion the Conservative Group submitted on school places. We firmly believe that the opportunities presented by Michael Gove’s liberalisation provide a solution – a blessed breath of fresh air – to the challenge facing Bradford’s education.

On one level the debate was polite, considered and informed – statistics about Bradford’s need for new school places were set before the Council and options for responding to the challenge were examined. But underlying all this was an unspoken disagreement. One captured by Ralph Berry, Labour’s Education Portfolio Holder repeatedly saying, as if to convince himself:

“I am not an ideologue. I am NOT an ideologue...”

In our motion we had innocently suggested that, rather than dealing merely with what turned up as a result of the free schools idea, Bradford Council might actively seek to promote new schools, might seek out the very best managers and leaders in education. For Cllr Berry this was too much and he started burbling about “Birbalsingh” and the “IT Free School”. I think he believes we all read the Guardian like he does!

Now Cllr Berry isn’t a teacher, he’s never led a school. He’s a social worker come Labour Councillor who too often blurs the ground between these two roles to the extent that we are unsure whether he is making a political point or expressing a professional opinion. Ralph knows his stuff! He can wax lyrical in fluent educationalist jargon and the gist of this is that he believes people like Katherine Birbalsingh to be tantamount to devils.

The only route to educational salvation is through the goodly direction of a local education authority. Without the Council, what would happen? Who would decide who goes to which school and how the buses run!

So back to what Cllr Berry called “Birbalsingh’s IT Free school”. I was curious since I’d seen reports on Ms Birbalsingh’s intention to set up a free school but knew little of her intentions. So here’s what she says;

The Michaela Community School combines tradition and innovation. It attempts to give inner-city youth a taste of the private sector, where knowledge is taught, benchmarking is common, and high expectations of behaviour and dress are the norm. But the Michaela Community School also recognises it is in the inner city. So there will be an extended day where children will be required to complete their homework, where there will be classes analysing media culture, something that is extremely destructive to our inner-city youth.

Not a mention of IT! But the truth about what Ralph doesn’t like is in that phrase “a taste of the private sector”. For the Cllr Berrys of this world the private sector in education – the world’s best schools – is simply not to be considered as a model for children’s education. And those schools focus on what we might call “traditional” subjects – you know, the one’s you and I learned when we were at school. English, Maths, Sciences, Geography, History and modern language or two. The essence of a ‘liberal arts’ education.

The sort of education that people are prepared to pay thousands of pounds each year to buy – delivered free to ordinary children from an inner city community. What could be a problem with that? Indeed, in Bradford, the idea of free schools has been grasped. Here’s the list (there may be more):

Dixons City Free Primary

Dixons City Free Secondary

One in a Million Free School

Kings Science Academy

Rainbow Primary

Bradford Girl’s Grammar School

Bradford Christian School

Netherleigh & Rossefield School

Bradford District Free School

The Council should wake up and take note of these innovations – this is the future of education in the City, these are the challenges to years of underperformance by the existing schools. And this is a faster, more assured and more effective way of meeting the future needs of the City than the bureaucratic, hand-wringing, jargon-loaded system Cllr Berry (and the Council’s professional leadership) promote.

We should note that, despite panels, boards, meetings, strategies, press briefings and hours of expensive officer time, these creative and innovative schools are the only ones addressing Bradford’s need for new school places – places in good schools.

So to answer Cllr Berry’s ignorant assertion – yes, I’d be delighted if a successful, effective and exciting educational leader like Katherine Birbalsingh came to Bradford to set up a school.

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School dinners....

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Something of a funk going on in Bradford about school dinners:

A probe is underway to find out how many children in the district are attending school without food or money to pay for school dinners after several headteachers raised concerns that pupils are going hungry.

OK so some parents are sending their children to school without the wherewithal to purchase those nutritious school dinners. And, of course, the culprit here is ‘poverty’ – but we should note that school dinners are pretty cheap. Here are Bradford’s figures:

In primary schools the current pupil price for a two course school meal, including a main course item with sides and a dessert is £1.50.

In secondary schools, students can pay for items individually, or take advantage of the set meals & meal deals. The standard price for these meal packages is £2.15, and for this you will typically get a main course item with sides and a dessert or drink

So for two children at primary a full lunch every day costs just £13, hardly a vast expense even for those on low incomes. Even at secondary school the cost in no more than £30 per week for those two children. That is for the main meal of the day.

I can only assume that these children are turning up to school without their dinner money because their parents have other spending priorities, forgot entirely or else really don’t give a fig.

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Bah, humbug!

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The teachers union, NAS/UWT are having a Christmas 'go slow':

Members of NASUWT are to be ordered not to put up festive decorations or help produce Nativity plays and carol concerts in a dispute which could go on for months.

Frankly, how pathetic can you get. Also those children looking forward to the festive season, excited at the prospect of giving and receiving and Miss says:

"Sorry, Children. No tinsel, no nativity play, no party on the last day. I'm not allowed to help with these becasue all the teachers are cross with a man down in London."

Dreadful. Almost unforgivable.

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You mustn't scrutinise budgets...

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Bradford's Children's Services Scrutiny Committee took an item on the 2011/12 budget for the service and made a resolution:

Resolved –

(1) That the Strategic Director, Children’s Services be requested to progress the resolution of Council with regard to monitoring how the Pupil Premium was spent and report back to this Committee at the meeting on 29 November 2011.
(2) That a report on the budget savings 2011-12 made to date; the risks in achieving the remainder of those savings and details of specific pressures on the service be presented at the meeting on 29 November 2011.
(3) That a detailed breakdown of efficiency savings be provided at the meeting on 29 November 2011.

ACTION: Strategic Director, Children’s Services

Now you'll agree that this all seems perfectly reasonable - the Committee has asked some sensible questions about an important matter. However, the Council's leadership think otherwise and the Chairman is now told that such a resolution is outside the remit of the Committee since it might stray into the discussion of a budget for 2012/13.

What utter nonsense. On stilts. What is the point of scrutiny if it can't scrutinise?

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