No words required – the video tells the story. Not one mention of the academic excellence achieved by the pupils required. Michael Gove and John O’Dowd should watch this to realise that they will never get rid of grammar schools – the next generation are already enthused.
Comprehensive supporters “would stick pins in their eyes” sooner than agree with someone like you.
December 20, 2011
A former Labour Education Minister, Lord Adonis, warned against giving ground to Labour critics of the Coalition Government’s “free schools” because they would seize on any concession and “move in for the kill”
Lord Adonis said opponents of the schools such as the journalist Fiona Millar, partner of Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, Alistair Campbell “would stick pins in their eyes” sooner than agree with any aspect of the flagship policy, which switches power from town halls to parents.
When Toby Young asked Andrew Adonis if rather than dealing with his opponents agressively he should enter talks with people such as Fiona Millar, who, like her partner, is a strong supporters of comprehensives. Young reported that Adonis gave him a withering look of contempt and said “they are not interested in constructive dialogue”
“Don’t you get it? If you extend any sort of olive branch they’ll see it a s a sign of weakness and move in for the kill. I dealt with the same people – the Socialist Workers Party, the Anti-Academies Alliance,the NUT – for most of my ministerial career and they would rather stick pins in their eyes than admit they have common ground with someone like you. Their attitude to free schools is the same as to academies: they wont’ rest until every last one has been razed to the ground”
Lord Adonis, former Labour Education Secretary speaking to Toby Young
Do N.I. parents not have the same rights as parents elsewhere in the UK? Second class representation on exams cheating
December 16, 2011
If a better example of how the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly (108 MLAs) have failed to represent the interests of parents and pupils on education matters it would be hard to find. The media have poured torrents of ink and pixels over concerns about cheating by exam boards. This week the UK Parliament Education Committee met in Select Committee to hear evidence on the matter. One group was missing. Yes – you have probably guessed it by now. None other than CCEA, the Northern Ireland Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment. CCEA were the exams body caught up in examination errors and a spending scandal in the summer. It seems they are beyond accountability. Parents and pupils are paying for this and accepting second-class service. Your MLA is doing nothing to represent your interests. Think carefully about what this will mean for your children and their CCEA certificates when they wave them in front of a university or employer.
GL Assessment fail to act in 11-plus cheating scandal
December 12, 2011
Back in May 2011 UTV broadcast a story of parents reporting the leaking of the 2009 GL Assessment 11-plus test in a Catholic Grammar School.
According to the Belfast Telegraph of Tuesday 13th December,2011
“It is understood the school at the centre of the scandal, which has not been named, [why not since the school committed a breach of contract?] photocopied the 2009 GL Assessment English and maths papers, later used as a practice paper to prepare some children for the 2010 transfer test.
Copying the papers was in contravention of the school’s contractual agreement with the English-based GL, which is responsible for the tests’ content.”
Note in the UTV extract the statement from Fintan Murphy of the Catholic Principals Association.
On foot of this story GL Assessment issued a Press Release. Note the claim from GL Assessment that:
If this allegation is substantiated it would constitute a breech of security and copyright by the school involved
Today, after months of delay, Education Minister, John O’Dowd released the findings of his so-called investigation into the matter of those given the test in advance of the 2010 PPTC transfer test. There is no doubt that those who saw the 2009 paper had an advantage. As usual the BBC NI Education Correspondent, Maggie Taggart, entirely missed the fundamentals of this issue and gave the Minister’s nonsense views precedence over the failure to hold to account those responsible for valid and reliable testing. Perhaps parents are failing to appreciate the abject failure of the professionals in education to get to the core of issues involving very serious matters concerning their childrens future. The important message in the BBC report demonstrates the arrogance of the educationalists position.
“A claim that the 2009 test had been leaked could not be investigated because those involved wanted to remain anonymous”
Exam Boards cheating scandal
December 8, 2011
The Daily Telegraph failed to mention CCEA, the Northern Ireland exams body which is also the regulator for Northern Ireland. What confidence can parents, pupils and the public have in this conflict of interest in the provision of qualifications?
Glenys Stacey said the regulator would be
“looking in detail at just these possible conflicts of interests in the provision of qualifications”.
And she outlined a number of sanctions available to Ofqual including pulling “examinations set for January and for next summer with awarding bodies providing substitute scripts”.
Stanley Poots MBE,the anti-selection former headmaster, is arrested in fraud investigation.
November 15, 2011
In February 2009 Stanley Poots was highlighted by PACE for his prominent anti-academic selection views which he made public in an article in the Belfast Telegraph. It may be worthwhile for parents to review the comments below the article since many have expressed increasing concern over the teaching of numeracy and literacy in primary schools. Parents also raise concerns about creeping social selection (parents professional standing and income influencing the teaching professionals re: recommendations on post-primary destination) replacing valid and reliable academic selection.
Education Minister John O’Dowd’s inability to listen to parents and pupils on voluntary 11-plus
November 11, 2011
BBC Radio Ulster Evening Extra Listen from 37mins
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b016vkxy
BBC Radio Ulster Talkback Listen from 32 mins
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b016vkmd
BBC Radio Good Morning Ulster Listen from 1 hour 8 mins
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016vk76/Good_Morning_Ulster_11_11_2011/
Education Minister John O’Dowd launched a cynically-timed attack on Northern Ireland’s grammar schools running 11-plus selection tests on the eve of this years first examination. It comes on the back of his recent speech on teacher assessment replacing testing. Unfortunately for Mr O’Dowd PACE have already demonstrated the innacuracies associated with teacher assessment at Key Stage 3. http://paceni.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/northern-ireland%E2%80%99s-key-stage-3-literacy-levels-crash/
When will John O’Dowd learn that the battle to end academic selection has been lost? Since his DENI withdrew the regulated 11-plus without a replacement in place the vacuum was filled by parents teachers and pupils willing to continue a long tradition of providing an academic education to match pupil needs.
Fred Naylor 1919 – 2011 Co-Founder of The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education
November 11, 2011
1919 - 2011
Fred Naylor, the co-founder of the Parental Alliance for Choice in Education has died, aged 92. Fred , who was in charge of the Bath Technical School, which later became Culverhay School, was actively involved in local and national education even after his retirement.
He was born in St Helen’s in Lancashire and after leaving school, went to study chemistry at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
It was while he was there that he met his future wife Marjorie, also a teacher, who died just a month before him, in September at the age of 86.
Fred Naylor taught at a number of schools around the country, including ones in Leeds and in Scotland, before joining the Bath Technical School in 1963.
While he was there he was seconded to work in London, on an educational think tank. It was during this time that the school system in Bath was reformed and went comprehensive, a change Mr Naylor was opposed to, so when his job was re-advertised he did not apply.
Instead, he went to work at Newton Park College, which later became Bath Spa University, and was involved with teacher training.
Mr Naylor and his family lived in Kingsdown, near Box, and throughout his retirement he continued to be interested in the local education system.
He set up the Parental Alliance for Choice in Education (PACE), which campaigned for parents to have more say over schooling, and was also active in the National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA).
His work with these organisations led him to meet many influential politicians, including Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron.
One of Fred Naylor’s many publications had a particular emphasis on the Northern Ireland education system. Education for the 21st Century: Report by the Post Primary Review Body was published in October 2001 at the behest of Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s education minister. Known colloquially as the Burns Report, it advocates abolishing Northern Ireland’s grammar and secondary (modern) schools and setting up a new ‘collegial system’ of comprehensive schools without any concern for standards.
The pamphlet, Comprehensive Ideology: Burns and the Betrayal of Two Communities was written in response, though it is also relevant to the rest of the UK.
The authors of the Burns Report have failed to grasp that comprehensivisation has reduced educational opportunities on the mainland. Ever since 1972, when research by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) showed that comprehensivisation was a handicap to raising standards, the destruction of selective schools has been pursued for ideological, not educational, reasons.
The Burns Report is riddled with incoherences and omissions, not least the remarkable achievements of secondary (modern) schools. Fred Naylor uses quotations from supporters of comprehensivisation to show how illiberal they are and how they are undermining the Human Rights of parents. His analysis demonstrates that the ‘comprehensive principle’ is designed, not to protect and preserve different cultures, but to destroy them.
It is timely that the warnings provided by Fred Naylor and PACE are available to counter the cynical efforts of Sinn Fein Education Ministers determined to remove parental rights in education.
Comprehensive Ideology costs £4.00 including postage from 18 Westlands Grove, York YO31 1EF.
Read the full story here: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-2011647/Britain-MUST-bring-grammar-schools-risk-generation-fails-life.html
Meanwhile in Northern Ireland the Education Minister, John O’Dowd, ploughs ahead with the Sinn Fein agenda to remove grammar school choice from parents and pupils. This campaign is carried out in the name of equality; equality of outcome or results, not equality of opportunity. Mr O’Dowd is currently presiding over a Department of Education riven with expensive failures but suggests that his strategy has the welfare of all children in mind. Nonsense.
CCEA: The “basket case” in the “last chance saloon”
June 30, 2011
Gavin Boyd has described his current CCEA role as “voluntary”. He just happens to be paid £150,000 per annum for his altruism. In testimony to the Northern Ireland Education Committee he claimed to have been brought in to the organisation “to raise standards in the organisation” and “drive up efficiencies”. Consider the following and decide if Mr Boyd’s affinity for self-assessment and an extensive proclivity for profligacy could be behind his frequent lapses in judgement.
