Only after fitting five out of six of these on the staircase…

…does Darling Wifey tell me that she thinks she doesn’t like them.

Fancy going to bed at twenty past eight on a Friday night.

Still, look at what I made today.

Little Madam finally got her own iPod today.

“How do you get it to rewind?” (It gets worse.)
“Press the ‘back’ button,” I answered. She turned it over.
“There isn’t a button on the back!“

The special school I work in shares a campus with a local mainstream school of about 1500 pupils.

Every morning, about half a mile from the school, I drive past a bus stop at which a mother is sitting in her Lexus with her two children, waiting to get on the bus to travel the last half mile to school.

Listening to the Chancellor yesterday prompted me to look up a few things, just to see if New Labour’s promise to improve our education system has been delivered.

It hasn’t.

First, thanks to the New Labour changes to the education system, schools are getting away with selection by the most invidious, unfair and unreasonable methods including requests for cash donations prior to awarding places. Even my own children’s fee-paying public school doesn’t do that!

This is not because New Labour has introduced any policies that permitted these illegal practices, but because they have removed all of the checks and balances from LEA and school administration – all in the name of reform.

Second, according to OFSTED, 49% of schools are inadequate. For that to be the case after ten years of New Labour education ministers claiming triumph after triumph kind of makes a mockery of their announcements, doesn’t it? Just to put this into perspective, in the 1995 Annual Report OFSTED said that 10% of secondary schools were inadequate.

Finally, and most damning of all for a “Labour” government, according to a recent report from the LSE social mobility is moving backwards, too. Not only are pupils from poorer families less likely to get out of the poverty trap than they were when New Labour came to power, they are less likely than they were when we had grammar schools. Less likely than at any time since just after World War II.

That’s right: the grammar school system gave Britain’s poor people a better chance of escaping poverty than our education system does today.

Overall, I can only give New Labour an “F.” Their performance has been unacceptably poor, made worse by their repeated insistence that things have been getting constantly better.

A prominent New York brothel owner has refused to resign after it was revealed that he has close links with Hilary Clinton.

The respected high class pimp, whose girls charge up to £2,750 an hour for their services, was forced to admit his association with the Clinton campaign to the press. He told a press conference yesterday, “I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my, or any sense, of right or wrong. I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.“

In response to a request by a teaching union for a Royal Commission to investigate why some children are not happy in school, a spokesman for the Department of Children, Families and Schools said today:

“Research shows that for most children, 2008 is a great time to be a child. Most children are happy, most are achieving to a higher level than ever before, enjoying better health, more opportunities to travel, to engage in sport or cultural activities than was the case for any previous generation.”

So that’s alright, then. So glad the government is in charge.

Ever since I stopped biting my fingernails I have noticed an increase in nosebleeds.

I’ve just been reading through the application pack for a job in a school not a million miles from here.

It runs to 24 pages of small-font printouts. The job description is over seventy numbered paragraphs.

Most telling, though, is the fact that while “a thorough knowledge of the subject curriculum, 14-19” is only listed as “desirable,” “passionate belief” and “vision” are listed as “essential.”

It sums up education under New Labour: if you don’t know what you are doing, it’s OK – just believe in yourself and you’ll be fine.

Edited to add: there was an extra attachment with the email, bringing the grand total up to 27 pages of essential information. Good to know that they are thorough…

Two thumbs up to Dan Piraro for the outstanding cartoon.