Education, Education, Education???

Having been inspired by "Wife in the North" I felt it was time to sit down and start composing a blog. Let me first of all introduce myself. I am an early retired head teacher, who got out of education whilst I was still sane. I worked for one of the Education Authorities which after being Ofsteded was found to require outside help (had it been a school it would have been classed as failing) - which says much for the capabilities of the powers that were! Prior to them being inspected I used to say that the vast majority of the inspectors couldn't run a bun fight in a tea shop, and that I wouldn't pay the bulk of them with brass washers. I think the findings of the inspection confirmed what my own feelings were about the Education Authority!

Having been out of education for nearly fifteen years I sometimes wonder what happened to all those good, old fashioned teachers, who gave their all to provide a good all round education for their charges. You, like me, will probably remember the teachers who were "characters". Sadly these people are no longer allowed to be part of the education system. It appears to me that all teachers have to conform to a set "pattern" and become clones of the Teacher Model. It is a sad fact of life that over the past fifteen years many first class teachers have left the profession due to the pressures imposed on them by central government dictats. I see good teachers being hounded by a central government that is more concerned with box ticking than education of the children. Once the thrust and emphasis of education became judged by likening education to business the whole system became a shadow of what it should be. Where judgements are based on cost, value added, and other such phrases, the true meaning of education flies out of the door.



From the previous paragraph you may well have got the impression that I am a very disgruntled and dis-satisfied ex teacher! Far from it. I now go into local schools to accompany the children, who would not get any regular music and singing lessons. Many primary schools lack a suitably qualified music teacher - you see the thing is, it is hard to quantify the "value added" which music gives in terms of a business plan!



Once the powers that be start running the education business, the arts immediately begin to suffer. Ask yourself, how much emphasis does your local school/education authority place on the arts? How many better educated children have we got as a direct result of SAT's and school league tables? How much money is wasted with all the unecesary testing, which could be better spent on the childrens educational needs? How many Ofsted Inspectors are swanning up and down the length and breadth of the country, claiming their expenses (rather like our wonderful members of the Houses of Commons and Lords?) I wonder how many of these inspectors have ever been gainfully employed as a class room teacher, and how many are full of hot air and theories? Isn't it time we demanded that our so called government got their fingers out of the trough and for once tried a common sense approach to education?