The Education and Skills Bill had its Third Reading last week - and a Lib Dem amendment was accepted by the Government: schools must, "seek and take account of pupils’ views on policies on the delivery of the curriculum, behaviour, the uniform, school food, health and safety, equalities and sustainability " according to Children’s Minister Baroness Morgan.

When 150,000 school children were asked by Ofsted last year how much they felt that their views were taken into account when decisions were made, 34% replied "not much" or "not at all." So, in response, legislation will be submitted for Royal Assent "within the current Parliamentary Session" to ensure that children are consulted.

Meanwhile, senior teaching staff and LEA officials have a perfect right to ride roughshod over the views of the rest of the education professionals in their schools - better still, they are provided with professional training in "overcoming resistance to change" and "managing dissent in the staffroom" as part of the NPQH.

It’s nice to know that the Government values the skills, abilities and opinions of junior teachers so highly.

Several local councils in the UK want to stop people from using Latin idioms (I’m allowed to say ‘idiom’ because it’s Greek) because, and I quote, “some people might not understand it”

Let’s just remind ourselves of the clear English that local councils would prefer us to use:

• Luton Council: “A multi-agency project catering for holistic diversionary provision to young people for positive action linked to the community safety strategy and the pupil referral unit.”
• SW England Regional Development Agency: “Aligning the drivers, values and principles with the objectives is the key to unlocking the strategy. When they are fully aligned, they will illuminate the actions that need to be taken in the region.”
• Rhodri Morgan: “The only thing which isn’t up for grabs is no change and I think it’s fair to say it’s all to play for, except for no change.”

Great Britain has a new enemy - thanks to Gordon Brown’s wise and diplomatic use of legislation labelled as "anti-terrorist" when seizing the assets of failed Icelandic banks. Serious times, he said, call for serious men. He’s right - this is not funny.

So when Reykjavík declares war, how will we fare?

Their armed forces amount to 159,000 - against the UK’s 195,000. However, they aren’t currently engaged in 2 foreign wars already, nor are they actively involved in eight locations around the globe. There’s no doubt that they could bring more people to the party, and won’t be suffering from nasty hangovers (either from battle or binge) when they get there.

So once again, Blighty would have to rely on the chaps with the Polish uniforms to protect us: the RAF. The Icelandic air force is known locally as the "Surveillance and Air Rescue Wing" and it consists of four radar stations. Not much of a match for our 850 aircraft, including Tornados, Harriers, Typhoons and Reaper UAVs. The RAF’s finest hour may have to be repeated if Prime Minister Boredom Frown doesn’t apologise to Mr Haarde PDQ.

Thankfully, the Icelandic Coast Guard is no match for the Royal Navy either. Iceland’s "Bravest Men" may have earned their status in the Cod Wars, but manning a machine gun on a trawler in midwinter doesn’t really cut it when you are up against 12 nuclear submarines, 3 carriers, 8 destroyers, 17 frigates and 3 amphibious support vessels.

So my conclusion: Iceland couldn’t invade us, because they can’t get here past our sea & air power. We can’t invade them, because they would kick our arses in a land battle.

I think it’s time for an apology, Mr Brown.

Much to the BBC’s amusement (and mine, too, I have to admit) it seems to be bothering the Ockers that Team GB is ahead of them on the Olympic Medals Table - as the Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning, “Poms are winning, call an inquiry. ”

I think that they need to learn from Our American Cousins.

Before today’s Gold Rush was quite over, this is how the BBC reported the Medals Table:

Le Figaro:

The Berliner Morgenpost:

However, the Washington Post has invented a new way of counting medals that doesn’t just put the USA on top - it puts Australia ahead of GB, too.

And finally, MSNBC:

They don’t need to actually lie about it - just find a way of telling the truth that suits your prejudices.

If you got your A’ Level results today, congratulations. (I hope that there is no need for commiserations.)

However, let’s try to avoid jumping onto one of the many bandwagons associated with the ever-rising pass rate of the old-fashioned ‘Gold Standard’ of British education.

First, let’s look at the difference between modern A’ Levels and the ones that far grumpier people than me took in the “good old days.’

In the “good old days,” A’ Levels were marked on a bell curve every year and within each board, so only the top 10% of people taking a paper would get the top grade regardless of how many questions everyone answered correctly . This meant that there was no way of knowing if Joe Bloggs, who took UCLES A’ Level English Literature and got an A, had done as well as Bert Philpott, who took JMB English Lit and got the same grade. In effect, they weren’t the same grade and there was no way of measuring them against each other. The exams weren’t even looking for the same skills.

Worse still, if Joe & Bert’s little sisters took the same exams a year later, their grades couldn’t even be compared within the same boards because, as any fule kno, the bell curve changes with every cohort.

So in the middle of the 1980s (and just in time for me to take A’ Levels) the Uniform Mark Scheme was introduced. This meant that the mark boundaries between exam grades became fixed.

Fixed? Well, according to the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre at Durham University, not precisely fixed - because while a 50% mark in one of my A Level papers would have got me a grade C when I took my A’ Levels in 1987, in 2006 it would have got me an A.

But crucially, that doesn’t mean that it’s easier to get a grade A in the 21st Century - because a valid interpretation of the data we have seen so far could be that it is proportionally harder to get 50%.

So we are still left with the question, has so-called “grade inflation” actually happened?

Here’s a few factors to consider when making that judgement:

1. Modern A’ Levels require a consistently high level of effort throughout the two years of study, as students have to complete exams at the end of the first year, at Christmas and again the end of the second year, and coursework throughout both years. Compare this with my own course in which all I needed was to collect a full set of notes for all my subjects, memorise them in time for the exams, and then sit nine three-hour papers in five days. In effect, I attended lessons and completed homework (an estimated 24 hours per week ) for 20 months, revised like fury for 4 weeks, and collected my certificates. As a measure of employable skills, my A’ Levels are useless - whereas modern A’ Levels are much, much more relevant because they measure how students perform under steady pressure over two years, meeting continual deadlines.
2. The curriculum and syllabus for modern exams are far more specific than they were in the “good old days.” My favourite anecdote is to point out that in the 1980s, I explained how nuclear power stations work for a Physics exam. My answer explained how fissile material heated water, which turned a turbine, which was used to generate electricity. I even explained how Fleming’s right hand rule dictated the assembly of a generator. Meanwhile, a couple of years ago the same level physics exam asked students about the ethics of nuclear power. But this is a glib comparison: I had a choice of topics to answer, and a variety of ways to answer them, so I didn’t actually need to know anything about nuclear power stations - I could have concentrated on another topic and made the choice in the exam. Modern students do not have that choice. And anyway, just because the ethics of carbon capture versus nuclear waste isn’t as precise a Fleming’s right hand rule, it doesn’t follow that it is easier to learn, less relevant, or easier to answer questions about.
3. Teaching standards. Yes, I had to comment on them sooner or later. While it is absolutely true that there are no demonstrable or even implied links between the standards that the government demands that teachers meet and pupil performance in exams , there is no doubt that teaching standards have improved over the last two decades. However, Ofsted doesn’t deserve the credit for this. Neither does the ridiculous testing regime imposed by national & local government as well as individual schools (I once counted up the amount of time that a secondary school I taught in spent assessing 14-18-year-old children - it was 25% of their time in school.) The reason for the improvement in standards is the unintended consequence of all the scrutiny that teachers have been under: teachers are now teaching to the test.

It doesn’t matter how complex a problem appears to be, the correct answer is quite often the simplest.

For all the pressure on the education system, for all the debate about skills, standards and professionalism, the truth is that education in this country is delivered by about half a million teachers, all of whom have been told that their job security and their next pay rise depends upon how well their students perform in their next examinations.

This is a brilliant idea.

According to Professor Ken Smith at Bucks New University (where?) “teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.”

So instead of there being a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way of spelling, there are only ‘variants.’ Or perhaps that should say, “they’re our only variants.” Except it shouldn’t because that second version has a significantly different meaning.

But let’s not allow a piffling little detail like that get in our way! Let’s do what the Government always does with these ideas and roll it out into other areas. We can have “Variant Economics” - there is no recession! Our economy is booming!

Variant education: SATS administration this year was unbelievably smooth, marking was accurate, grade inflation is a myth and our students are doing better than ever in spite of crap teaching, all because Government policy is so wonderful.

Variant data protection: HM Revenue & Customs are the best people to look after our personal financial data.

Variant politics: Boredom Frown is the best man for the job of leading our country through these difficult times.

Oh, hang on. New Labour PR does this already…

A local news broadcast announced that the President of Armenia had won 100,000 rubles in the national lottery, and cut to a reporter in the Presidential Palace.

“Mr President, congratulations on winning the lottery last Saturday. ”
“Thank you very much. I just need to make my self clear about a couple of details. It wasn’t Saturday, but Monday. And it wasn’t 100,000 rubles, but 100 rubles. And it wasn’t the lottery, but a game of backgammon. And I didn’t win - I lost.

But thank you, it feels good to be a winner. “

First, enlightenment is defined thus:

“if you have ice-cream, I will give it to you; if you do not have ice-cream, I will take it away.”

Anyway, enough of the Zen crap. Ofsted announced today that “schools narrow the curriculum by “teaching to the test”.”

Well, no shit, Sherlock.

I don’t want to be smug and say I-told-you-so (well, I do, actually) but back in October 2004 I wrote this:

A little investigation of the history of education in England brings us to the 1862 Revised Code of Practice, which introduced these very same principles into British schools.

Matthew Arnold (poet and school inspector of the 1890s) said that the system of school inspection was, “a game of mechanical contrivance in which the teachers will and must more and more learn to beat us.” Wade Nelson (professor of educational leadership at Winona State University) said more recently that, “Identifying specific teaching processes as the causal component of student success by any credible measure is so difficult that it’s practically impossible.” Prof. Nelson has one advantage over the UK Government: he has bothered to read history, and discovered the lessons learned in this country by 1897 when the system was abolished (last time.)

It was in place for 35 years last time. For history to repeat itself, we should be heading back towards sanity by 2023. And I plan to retire in 2025.

Meanwhile, the BBC has reported that “Schools Secretary Ed Balls said teaching to the test was wrong.”

Is there room on the naughty step for all of England’s teachers? I mean, how naif can you get? It’s wrong to speed, but the last time I did 70mph on the motorway I was the slowest moving vehicle between Leeds and Perth.

It is a matter of common sense: politicians can talk about ideals and principles and professionalism until the cows come home - but salaries and school budgets depend upon exam results.

And it doesn’t matter how clever the politicians, inspectors and LEA officials think they are. They will always be one step behind the teachers.

One aspect of adult life that has (thankfully) passed me by is office hierarchy. I got a taste of it this morning when I went out to buy a new chair for my desk.

Office chairs are ranked according to seniority and comfort. Apparently you aren’t allowed to have one without the other.

So a junior typist gets a glorified stool with a backrest so low that any attempt to lean on it will cause irreperable damage to the coccyx.  Work hard at your keyboard for a decade or so, and you can be promoted to a full-size typist’s chair with manual lift.

All typists dream to be operators, though. I don’t know what an operator does - but they get ergonomic seats with plastic armrests.

As I was buying a chair for my home office, I decided to promote myself to "Entry Level Management." For this I get swivel and tilt, height adjustment, and real leather trim. But if I work hard and achieve all my targets, I should be entitled to an executive chair at some point in the future. This will have headrests, leather arms, a footrest and real wood trim.

The education system encourages schools to deny the problems that they are facing, rather than deal with them.

Of course, these headteachers aren’t going to accept that they should have listened to the rest of us fifteen years ago when we said that this would happen. Not after they spent those fifteen years hitching a ride to the top of the pay scale…

But now the workload is starting to make them suffer, they want something to be done about it.

Funny, that.