Ken Clarke

Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke wants to send fewer people to prison and give more criminals community service instead, claiming that people are more likely to re offend if they go to jail.

Well nobody has ever robbed my house whilst they have been safely behind bars. Also nobody ever actually does community service, you simply turn up on day one, muck about a bit then go to your doctor and get signed off with a bad back. Alternatively you can simply threaten your supervisor to mark you present.

If community service meant pink overalls, chain gangs and hard graft, supervised by people who weren't actually terrified of you, then it would get my full support.

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Andrew Lansley

Although Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has said a few good things in the past (ie "people who see fat people around them are likely to get fat themselves"), he is wrong to knock Jamie Oliver's desperate attempt to improve school dinners.

Most people had absolutely no idea how far canteens had fallen since they were kids. In the thirty years since I was eating in them, they changed from places where cooks made fairly nutritious meals with vegetables (admittedly often boiled to death) to places where clueless people heated up pre packaged horrors consisting of reconstituted animal bits and chips.

Oliver simply tried to do what Heads should have done years previously but lacked the courage to attempt.

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NASUWT

Whilst the England football team performed with all the drive, enthusiasm and vigour of a bunch of council workers looking for something to do; teachers up and down the land can at least celebrate NASUWT leader Chris Keates' 7% pay rise to £135 000 and head of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, Mary Bousted's 3.4% pay increase to £148 000.

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Coursework Cheating

One of the things I boasted that I would not have at Chalk High, is any any course that involved teacher marked assessment.

Does it strike you as a good idea to judge teachers by the exam results their pupils achieve, then give them a piece of work weeks in advance that their pupils must carry out under 'exam conditions', then tell them to mark the papers? Should we be surprised that these coursework marks are often very high? It's a bit like telling driving instructors that they will only be paid if everyone passes.

Coursework used to be given to the kids to take home and obviously those with tutors or nice bright parents would gets tonnes of help. Now it is generally done in school so that we can make sure that all the results are fiddled equally. Cheating is absolutely endemic for the obvious reason that it isn't in anybody's interest not to. Dubious practices range from writing the answers on the board to 'just happening to teach something very similar the day before.' The temptation to read meaning into some vague answer and mark it correct is very strong indeed when you know that Mrs Wade down the corridor is doing the same and you might well be compared with her.

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England

Told you we'd win- come on England!

So which strategy did your school adopt?

a) Turn a blind eye to the hundreds of forged notes to go to the dentist

b) Close at 2:30

c) Keep calm and carry on

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Even More

If a member of staff were ever physically assaulted by a pupil at Chalk High School, then as Head it would be my duty to call the Police and expel the pupil immediately (as per the school contract).

The pupil's name and details of the assault would be published on the school website and circulated to any regional forums in order to cause maximum shame. The local press would be contacted with the story and to hell with any concerns about the school's image. (I know full well that some wretches might regard this as a 'badge of honour', but possible future employers won't). No future member of the family would be accepted into the school.

If the criminal prosecution proved to be unsuccessful then the school would immediately instigate civil proceedings.

The only reason all schools don't do these things already is that the Heads aren't up to it.

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Out of Africa

Every school seems to have its own plan about what to do at 3pm on Wednesday, the more inventive are demanding money to let the kids watch the match in the school hall!

Is it bad form to refer to the forthcoming debacle as "Out of Africa"?

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