Tag: Schools
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Clowning Glory
Looking at the free school meals row, you might feel that this is a classic confrontation between a government and an opposition with diametrically opposed positions on social welfare. It isn’t. It’s actually an artificial squabble for political ground that distracts from a much more damaging affliction: local government incompetence. If local government agencies had…
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Lying Low
The UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson foreshadowed the latest Government debacle with a warning on the danger that school students might be over-promoted into jobs that are beyond their competence. I can only admire his steadfast ability to deadpan that message. That’s weapons-grade irony, right there. This is a man who probably hides a spare…
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Cringe Hell
I remember when the TV series Grange Hill hit UK TV screens in 1978. The series caused controversy for its true-to-life, gritty portrayal of UK comprehensive school life, which differed from the idealised depictions of earlier such programmes. It got a right caning, and people wanted it banned and canned, but it stayed the course…
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Take a Step Back, Please…
Well. After a few days of headless-chicken coppering in the new corona state, constabularies around the country have taken a momentous step. They’re actually going to read the 350-page Coronavirus Act in order to understand exactly what the law says. Or at least their Legal Directors are. It beggars belief that they weren’t all over…
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Keep Calm and Cory On
A brief stroll through the town centre yesterday, and I had to check my watch to make sure it wasn’t 1st April. At first, I thought I’d encountered a cardiologist cycling club charity ride, what with all the people pedalling about with their green surgical masks. You almost don’t know where to begin. The panic…
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Honour Marks, Get Set…
I’ve never been one for awards and medals – I sussed out the scam while a mere lad at school. After penning a superlative account of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s return from exile in France, I was awarded a coveted gold star. Emerging triumphant and euphoric from the headmaster’s office, I encountered the class dunderhead –…
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Slang Ban, Thank You Ma’am!
As if a truckload of horsehit about a 50p piece being bereft of an Oxford comma wasn’t enough, a linguistics expert from some august institution has broached the subject of whether schools should ban the use of street slang such as peng and bruv. Apparently, teachers are correcting students’ use of street argot in classes…
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Saved by the Bell
There’s something about our schooldays – and how we relate to them – that I’ll never truly understand. Particularly comprehensive schools, the like of which I frequented in the 1980s. When you were guests at these august institutions, the whole process felt torturous, and you couldn’t wait to leave. The desperation was palpable. Grey but…
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