BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

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Giles Coren is Alan's final, posthumous joke.

I will obviously never meet the chap, but I have a sneaking suspicion he is not quite the insufferable idiot he portrays. I think you have to take 99% of what he says and writes as a joke. Having seen him give a couple of in depth interviews, I get the impression he is massively insecure and kind of lives in the shadow (in his own mind) of his parents and siblings. I suspect the boorishness is a bit of an act to try and cover this. He has the air of a child who is constantly trying to get everyone to like them.
 

icowden

Squire
I believe that you have completely misunderstood the left wing attitude towards private schools. It is rooted in the belief that everyone should start off equal and progress on merit rather than get a head start in life based on where they went to school and who they met.
Which is laudable but flawed because of their lack of understanding of the education system they have. Choice of school is often poor.

As an example, my own children are girls. It has been proven without doubt that girls do better in single sex schools. They are more likely to study Stem subjects and grades are always higher.

There are no state girls schools anywhere near me, with the exception of Tiffin Girls which is selective based on academic excellence. Both of my children also need schools with small classes and good pastoral care for various medical reasons. Again - nothing is available.

Labour have this view that private or public schools are basically Eaton. The majority aren't. You find that probably around 60% to 70% of children at private school come from wealthy families. The remainder rely on bursaries, scholarships, remortgaging etc. A significant proportion of those children have additional needs such as autism, mental health issues such as anxiety or anorexia, ADD etc, or combinations of all of those. It's also common to get intake in Year 8 or at summer term of Year 7 after those children have been failed by the state schools.

I attended public school via an assisted place because I was both bright and because I could not cope with the state primary I was in. These days I would probably have an EHCP for Autism. In those days I was just refusing to go to school because it was incredibly boring and pointless. I could read fluently and do times tables when I started school. When I moved to Prep, the approach was completely different. The classes were smaller and I wasn't significantly ahead of my peers.

Until the state can provide smaller schools with smaller class sizes, the thing that removing assisted places, adding VAT etc does is to disenfranchise those children that are not wealthy. If your family is lucky to be in the millionaire category then price increases don't really mean anything. Thus Labour punishes the less well off and not the wealthy.

A more sensible approach would be to look to Finland. Increase the Education budget, reduce class sizes. Build more small schools and make it more appealing for small secondary schools to be viable. Actually learn from the private sector. If 30 pupils to a class worked well, all private schools would have 30 children to a class.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
Which is laudable but flawed because of their lack of understanding of the education system they have. Choice of school is often poor.

As an example, my own children are girls. It has been proven without doubt that girls do better in single sex schools. They are more likely to study Stem subjects and grades are always higher.

There are no state girls schools anywhere near me, with the exception of Tiffin Girls which is selective based on academic excellence. Both of my children also need schools with small classes and good pastoral care for various medical reasons. Again - nothing is available.

Labour have this view that private or public schools are basically Eaton. The majority aren't. You find that probably around 60% to 70% of children at private school come from wealthy families. The remainder rely on bursaries, scholarships, remortgaging etc. A significant proportion of those children have additional needs such as autism, mental health issues such as anxiety or anorexia, ADD etc, or combinations of all of those. It's also common to get intake in Year 8 or at summer term of Year 7 after those children have been failed by the state schools.

I attended public school via an assisted place because I was both bright and because I could not cope with the state primary I was in. These days I would probably have an EHCP for Autism. In those days I was just refusing to go to school because it was incredibly boring and pointless. I could read fluently and do times tables when I started school. When I moved to Prep, the approach was completely different. The classes were smaller and I wasn't significantly ahead of my peers.

Until the state can provide smaller schools with smaller class sizes, the thing that removing assisted places, adding VAT etc does is to disenfranchise those children that are not wealthy. If your family is lucky to be in the millionaire category then price increases don't really mean anything. Thus Labour punishes the less well off and not the wealthy.

A more sensible approach would be to look to Finland. Increase the Education budget, reduce class sizes. Build more small schools and make it more appealing for small secondary schools to be viable. Actually learn from the private sector. If 30 pupils to a class worked well, all private schools would have 30 children to a class.

The same can be said for removing any "elitist" facility. I am old enough to have been educated in the era of 11plus and Grammar Schools (yes, I know some places still have them, my brother was a teacher in one of them, until retirement). Being born when and where I was, if I had not passed the 11plus, I would have become a Coal Miner, or Shipyard Worker (like the other boys in my junior school class of 45 pupils). I get the case for equality of opportunity but:

- only if the equality is raising the standards, not lowering them

- it is necessary to recognise that a degree of inequality will always exist (even with SureStart or equivalent), not every child has parents with vision, or, lives in a house with books other than the Rent Book. We can try to mitigate these issues, but, I don't believe we can remove them universally.
 
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I would have much preferred that Labour finally abolished grammar schools and didn't bother taxing education. That said, the birth rate has collapsed, so in the future state schools probably need all the private school refugees to stay open. They also need to do what they can about the birth rate.
 

icowden

Squire
I would have much preferred that Labour finally abolished grammar schools and didn't bother taxing education. That said, the birth rate has collapsed, so in the future state schools probably need all the private school refugees to stay open. They also need to do what they can about the birth rate.

Perfect opportunity to reduce class sizes then.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
But, but, but, efficiency and productivity? A teacher with 15 students is only half as productive as one with 30 students.

For clarity, I am using jest to justify a vague point. 😉

I get that it is Jest, but, it is not necessarily true if the "output" is doubled. But, then, we would have to define "output", and, possibly some "equivalences" 😂
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
The loose definition of what is “best” to suit people’s agendas was my vague point. 😉

Understood 😊

But, I do like a "loose definition", "rich", "wealthy", Working class", "middle class", "ordinary people" are particular favourites of mine. 😂
 
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Perfect opportunity to reduce class sizes then.

Yes.

One of my kid's has a very small class size which is good for now, but I doubt it is sustainable, so soon schools will close. Of course, the funding per pupil could be increased to make it possible (as you are suggesting), but I think the temptation to let it naturally reduce the overall budget will be too much for the government.
 
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