Here is a little known fact.
According to UK government statistics, the average waiting time for a patient to receive treatment in an NHS hospital is calculated by adding up the total number of days already waited on the day of the survey, and then dividing it by the number of people surveyed. The calculation does not take into account the number of days that those patients need to wait until they are treated.
So if all patients have to wait ten weeks until they are treated, the average figure will be calculated by adding up the number of days already waited – 1 to 69 – and dividing it by the number of patients.
If your grasp of maths is as bad as mine, then you will need a pencil to work out that this means that a ten week waiting list will produce a statistical average waiting time of five weeks.
Do you still trust New Labour?
On the way home with Little Nutter this evening, we stopped at a shop for some milk.As we were walking back to the car, he bounced on his feet and said, “That was so much fun!” As anyone who knows what his communication was like even as recently as last year will agree, it is a miracle. Then, when I got home, Tiny Flirt sat on my knee and read his reading book to me…
When I started this blog (more than five years ago) I had a rule: no serious entries. I didn’t want to be one of those bloggers who take themselves seriously.
Well, I have broken that rule several times in recent months – but I don’t want any accidental readers to take me seriously as a result.
But the thing is, this sort of comment is taken seriously: Sir Cyril Taylor says that “bad teachers should be sacked.” Instead schools should “recruit fantastic teachers.”
Who is this fucking moron, and what planet has he come from?
Thanks to the mindless policies of governments since the 1996 Education Act, education personnel has been haemorrhaging. One in three teachers are actively looking for alternative employment; 50% are suffering from the symptoms of severe depression and stress. The average life expectancy of a teacher who retires at the age of 65 is nine months.
The problem with our education system has fuck all to do with the quality of the professionals in the classroom. It doesn’t matter whether you undermine Albert Einstein or Forrest Gump – the result is the same.The problem is not “bad teachers.” The problem is bad politicians.
I have been through six inspections in twelve years of teaching, and the one thing I have never been evaluated or inspected on is my own ability as a teacher. All I have ever been evaluated on is my ability to deliver political initiatives. Can I sing to the tune of the paymasters? Can I deliver a new initiative, no matter how moronic and stupid it is? If I can, then who gives a fuck about my ability as a teacher?
If you want to know how good teachers are, then two things are necessary:
- Stop moving the goalposts. A new initiative every three months is only good if you are a politician. It makes teachers look bad, and it does real damage to children’s prospects. Personally, I would make this a treasonable offense and hang the bastards for it, but then I am in a grumpy mood.
- Stop treating education as a political football. If a politician starts drumming for votes by talking about education, then vote against him because you can bet your shirt that he doesn’t give a flying fuck about the kids. He wants a quick fix to help him win the next election – and education takes longer than a term of office. An education policy cannot be judged until the children subjected to it have progressed from reception to employment: a minimum of 12 years.
