11 July 2005
Brave new system will make league tables even more meaningless
In a brave bid to make school league tables even more meaningless than they are now, the Government has brought in a system of assessing children that involves making a complete record of everything a child does after entering the school system.
In the process, a swathe of personal data is created that makes identity cards look wishy-washy and liberal in comparison. The aim may be to improve children’s education, but even without the big-brother element, there are huge flaws.
The better a child does when he or she is tested for the first time, the worse it is for the school, because all comparisons in future will be made against that. Any “falling back” will be disastrous, even if it is still to a level above average. But even more ridiculous, simply maintaining the high level will be regarded as less than satisfactory.
The obvious effect will be to make head teachers mark down their pupils at the earliest stages, so that they look as if they are improving. Anyone pushing children towards excellence at an early age will be penalised later by misleadingly low places in the league tables.
In the interests of statistics and paperwork, genuine teaching and aspirations will go out of the window.
Not that there is much chance of excellent teaching with the paperwork now demanded of schools.
The new Ofsted system may involve fewer and shorter visits, but the binfuls of paper already demanded are due to increase. Schools will have to have written policies on everything from fox-hunting to paving stones, and it will all have to be cross-indexed so that it can be located at a moment’s notice. This is clearly regarded by the Government as more important than actually teaching, and therefore more important than children.
Not surprising, really. Children, who tend to learn at different speeds at different times and in different ways, cannot be manipulated half as easily as numbers and ticks in boxes. And manipulation is what politicians need to do.
Perfect spot found for speed cameras
Interesting quote from the Norfolk scamera spokesman the other day: “People realise speed cameras work and they want them.”
Partly true: I would like all of them, because I have somewhere I could put them. It is extremely deep. It is called the North Sea.
He continued blithely: “They are generating more and more support.” Easy mistake to make. What he meant to say, of course, was that they are “generating more and more cash”.
Not surprisingly, when your livelihood depends on speed cameras, you can get a little blinkered. A Metropolitan Police chief superintendent writing to a national newspaper sees more clearly: “The police service is being driven down a policy route that does too little to catch dangerous drivers, fails to target persistent offenders and is unduly influenced by speed.”
He concludes: “What is needed is fewer speed cameras, more traffic police and a proper recognition of the skill and importance of their work.”
No chance of that happening, of course. It doesn’t generate cash.
Computer models predict increase in global warming reports
The fact that an area north-east of Thetford is hit more often by lightning than anywhere else in the UK was blamed on global warming last night.
“A computer model showed that by 2050 lightning will be hitting Thetford several times an hour,” said Professor Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam of the UEA’s School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing. “Of course this may not be a bad thing, unless it’s under water too.”
He revealed that reports attributing widespread disaster to global warming were also likely to increase, according to satellite observations. “It’s important that people do what they can to prevent these reports happening,” he said. “They have been increasing hugely in the last 20 years and are clearly anthropogenerated. They can be very damaging at critical points, and take people’s minds off things we can actually do something about, like tackling HIV/Aids, abolishing poverty, controlling malaria and getting clean water to everyone on the planet.”
Prof Aufmerksam was last night blamed on global warming.
Poohsticks Olympic campaign water under bridge
A bid to bring the Poohsticks Olympics to Norfolk failed when they were awarded to a small village in the South of France yesterday.
“We are extremely disappointed,” said Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 106. “We took a VIP delegation to somewhere in the Far East and made a first-class presentation, though I say so as shouldn’t.
“We had Prof V A R Scheinlich, the Hingham expert; Mrs Hicks, the mayor of Little London, near Corpusty; the Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick, the progressive cleric; and even Len “Kissme” Hardy, from Hindolveston, who won a gold medal in the 1960s, he tells me. They are all expert Poohsticks players.”
Plans to build a Poohsticks Stadium to revitalise an area south of Reepham will now fall by the wayside.
“I can’t help feeling that we got the backlash from Paris failing to win the other Olympics,” said Mr Houseago last night.
La Federation Poohstix d’Europe was unavailable for comment.
Spare beds sign of healthy society
When my mother-in-law was dying in Cromer Hospital, there was a bed free in the next room. My wife was able to make use of this to stay with her over the critical three nights.
In the sort of society some accountants would like, this would not happen. They do not like to see any beds going spare, because it means wasted money.
It’s not actually wasted money, of course – just wasted in the spurious way that they calculate such things – the sort of process that ends up with £1,312,260 as the cost of each death on Norfolk’s roads, and other equally meaningless and offensive figures.
Happily, the staff in Cromer Hospital are not accountants. In my limited experience, they are an exceptionally caring group of people.
A healthy and caring society is one that is happy to see excess beds in small hospitals, because you never know when they will be just what is required. And if they do have a cost attached, just hand us a list of costs attached to the NHS. I am sure we could all quickly find savings we would much sooner make. Extra managers, for instance. They are almost never needed.