Monday, December 05, 2022



Why British Labour’s schools plan is damaging – and full of hypocrisy

The Labour Party’s education policy is damaging to the nation and highly hypocritical. It is one of several good reasons for discontented Tories to reject any suggestion that they might lend their votes to Sir Keir Starmer as a protest against their own party’s recent failures.

Let us start with the hypocrisy. Labour’s high command likes to please the party’s class-war Left by making rude noises about private schools. It is a cheap and easy way of keeping the Corbynites quiet. Yet despite having been in power, often with large majorities, for much of the post-war period, it has never significantly curbed private education.

Far from it. Labour’s biggest single education policy, the abolition of state grammar schools, was a huge shot in the arm for fee-paying schools. These had been failing quite badly by comparison with state grammars.

But as the grammars disappeared from most of the country, Britain’s independent schools welcomed thousands of new customers. These were parents so discontented with low standards at the new comprehensives that they were prepared to pay through the nose to do better.

Now Sir Keir is threatening to impose VAT on independent schools, a ferocious use of the tax system. This would not punish the rich. They can shrug it off. But it would hurt those who have sacrificed pleasures and luxuries because they think education is more important.

The plan is crowd-pleasing and dogmatic. By forcing families to send their children to hard-pressed state schools, it is likely to damage the state system.

And now comes more hypocrisy. Labour has – in practice – always admitted that private education has important good qualities. Several of its most notable figures – Clement Attlee, Hugh Gaitskell, Tony Blair – attended such schools. Several Labour politicians of the 1960s era sent their children to private schools. Even now it happens. The maverick Left-winger Diane Abbott sent her son to a private school.

Sir Keir himself, thanks to the system of direct grant schools which his party abolished, attended what was in effect a private school (and has now fully become one), though his parents never needed to pay fees. And now we learn that Sir Keir has been playing the elaborate Game of Homes, by which socialists publicly opposed to privileged private schools wangle their children into exceptional state schools.

This is privilege too. For in this way they can retain their Left-wing purity, but without suffering the low-quality education which many users of the more normal parts of the state system still endure. In this case, the primary school attended by the Labour leader’s children at one stage had a catchment area extending just 182 yards from the school itself.

It has been described locally as a ‘state-run prep school for the middle class’. Their secondary school, similarly, is in an area of North London much favoured by Left-wing grandees. It has seen its catchment area shrink in recent years, inevitably making it more socially exclusive.

This sort of behaviour is not at all unusual among senior Labour figures who somehow manage to live in the often very expensive catchment areas of unusually good London state primary and secondary schools.

Others – such as the Blairs – use religious affiliation to achieve the same result. When Labour’s elite are content to send their children to ordinary state schools without such manoeuvres, we will know that they truly believe in their own education policies.

Until then, Labour should not punish the strivers who, like the socialist upper deck, seek to escape what Labour’s own spin doctor Alastair Campbell once called the bog standard comprehensives of Britain.

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California teacher who outraged parents with BDSM materials claims it helped kids' identity development

A California teacher who boasted about a "queer library" which contained sexually explicit content, including information on BDSM/kink and orgies, said the books helped students "figur[e] out who they are."

The English teacher at San Juan Hills High, previously identified on the school's website as Danielle Serio, is known as "Flint." Fox News Digital found that Flint posted repeatedly on TikTok about sexually explicit books, which the district was later forced to respond to amid parents' outrage.

The school district previously claimed in an email to parents that the content was only available to a specific club – but that did not appear to be the case. The library was positioned in Flint's classroom, and it was available to all students, according to Flint's own commentary before Fox News Digital's story.

In a video posted on November 21, Flint discussed the outrage surrounding the "queer classroom library."

"People get really mad about my queer library. I have like 200 titles that are specific to the LGBT community that I've been curating for over eight years. Don't get me wrong, my students love that library. It has been very helpful for many students figuring out who they are, how to relate to their peers," she said.

"Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Being Trans…" discussed BDSM, fetishes and a kink social media networking site.

"I find the BDSM/kink community to be extremely open-minded and welcoming in every way; it's a place of sexual liberation," the book stated. "There is often more blanket level of acceptance of transgender people within the kink/BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) scenes and sites such as FetLife."

FetLife is a social media networking site for the "kink community."

Another book called "This Book is Gay" discusses the casual hookup site "Grindr" and includes detailed information on how to have anal and "girl on girl" sex.

"We all want to have sex with loads of people," the book states. "[T]he prostate gland… feels amazing when massaged. Lots of men, gay or straight, like how this feels."

"Let's talk about dildos: I think a lot of people assume that where there is no penis, a desperate sexual void is created, out of which something [bleep] shaped must ultimately slot in order to satisfy," the book continued. "I've only every slept with two women who enjoyed using dildos. I hate wearing a strap-on. I've only every done it once and NEVER AGAIN!"

It also included information on sex parties and orgies.

"Saunas, or 'bath houses,' are dotted all over the country, and they are perfectly legal. People (many saunas run lesbian nights) pay some money to enter and then have a bit of a sauna and some random sex. Again, this is fine as long as you're safe."

Another book, "The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality," also discusses kink and fetishes as well as "tucking" – the process of hiding one's penis and "whorephobia" – stigma against prostitutes.

Following outrage from parents in the district, an email was sent out, which was obtained by Fox News Digital, that claimed the books were only part of an extracurricular club. The district also asked for "civility."

"We are aware of a news article questioning the appropriateness of books that were in a student club library," the district said. "The books referenced were available through a high school extra-curricular club and are not instructional materials. However, we have initiated a review of these books, which are currently not available to students."

Fox News Digital asked about the status of the review but did not immediately receive a response.

"There shouldn't be porn allowed in classrooms," David Averell, a parent in the district, told Fox News Digital. "What was in the classroom pretty much made me sick."

It wasn't the first time Flint responded to criticism following the controversy. On another occasion, Flint questioned whether "waves of criticism" against the teacher were legitimate.

"So as a trans teacher with a pretty public platform, there will often be waves of criticism that I know better than to internalize. Every once in a while there will be that little voice that says something like, ‘What if they are right? What if all my efforts on this Earth are all for naught.’ In those moments, it is helpful to step back, take myself way out of it," Flint said.

On another occasion, Flint said, "I want people who follow me to know that I believe very much in what I'm doing, and I think my history as a teacher speaks for itself."

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Australia: ‘We changed everything’: How 56 schools transformed their teaching and boosted results

In Rebecca Brady’s kindergarten classroom students answer a string of rapid-fire questions about nouns and verbs as they hop between coloured hula-hoops splayed on the floor.

The energetic exchange means easily distracted six-year-olds barely have time to look away before Brady pulls their attention to the next exercise. They are captivated.

“It’s playful and fun, but the teacher is in control and leading the lesson,” she explains.

For the past two years, her school, St Bernard’s primary just south of Batemans Bay, has been in the midst of a classroom revolution.

“We’ve changed our whole approach to teaching. We use a lot of repetition, fast-paced learning and intense explicit instruction; behaviour is improving, and the children are so engaged. It’s been a huge turnaround. Kids don’t have time to disengage.”

Brady is one of hundreds of teachers across 56 Catholic schools in NSW and the ACT that have embraced “high-impact” explicit instruction, an approach partly embedded in old-school teaching methods. It shuns student-led and inquiry-based learning in favour of a direct, traditional instruction style.

Behind the teaching overhaul is Ross Fox, the head of Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, who fours years ago decided stagnating academic results across his stable of schools required urgent attention. He called on Lorraine Hammond, an influential explicit teaching advocate from Edith Cowan University, who has implemented “high-impact instruction programs” at more than 50 schools in Western Australia and the Kimberley region.

“Any school that takes up a teacher-led approach to instruction will achieve outstanding results because learning to read, write and spell are not naturally occurring processes,” says Hammond.

Teachers and principals from the Canberra Goulburn archdiocese visited Western Australia to see how explicit teaching, regular assessment and phonics-based reading programs were being rolled out at a handful of schools there.

“I felt a huge moral imperative to turn things around. We had to think deeply about why what we were doing in the past wasn’t translating into improved results, particularly in reading,” Fox says.

“If you want students to know something, you tell them. We know there is a way the brain learns, a science behind it, and effective classroom instruction involves breaking down information into small chunks and then building on that, rather than letting the student lead their learning.

“This approach is one way we can try and close the equity gap in student outcomes,” he says.

The 56 schools are at the end of their second year adopting the explicit, evidence-based teaching approach, known as the Catalyst program, and internal analysis of NAPLAN results shows promising signs.

“Our primary schools are showing statistically significant improvement in NAPLAN reading between 2019 and 2022 for year 3 and year 5. And results have improved relative to NSW averages, particularly for reading,” Fox says.

At St Bernard’s, where a quarter of students are from a disadvantaged background, this year’s NAPLAN results are even more pronounced: 94 per cent of year 5 students achieved the top four bands for reading. In 2017, this was just 69 per cent.

Almost 90 per cent of students achieved in the top four bands for year 5 numeracy, compared to 73 per cent in 2017.

“Before we changed everything we were throwing too much information at the kids at once. Children can only process new information when broken down in pieces and then building on that. It’s how knowledge is moved to long-term memory,” Brady, who has been a teacher for a decade, says.

Fox believes one of the key changes has been improved co-operation across the schools, largely due to the common approach and schools and teachers are now learning from each other.

“Previously we had half of school cohorts in tutoring and intervention programs. Dramatically improving results was the only option,” he says.

All the classrooms across the system are simple: desks generally face the front of the room – rather than in huddled groups – and the teacher instructs from the front of the room.

“Quite a few of our schools have had to buy new furniture because a lot of it was designed to have pupils facing each other,” Fox says.

“Teachers need to keep control of students’ attention. You don’t want children looking and talking to their friends unnecessarily as part of the lesson. Desks are now lined in rows, student face the front, and they frequently use small whiteboards to answer teacher questions to demonstrate they’ve understood a concept.”

The changes adopted at Fox’s schools are aligned with the phonics-based approach taken in NSW primary schools, which is embedded in its new kindergarten to year 2 curriculum, after internal Department of Education research found balanced literacy to be less effective.

NSW students improved in primary school reading in the latest NAPLAN results, and are ranked in the top three jurisdictions by mean scores in all domains.

“At St Bernard’s there is a sense of order and rigour in their teaching. It has it transformed the academic lives of the students but changed the culture of the school too,” says Hammond

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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