Peter Harvey Again

As I'm sure you've heard, the trial of Peter Harvey, a teacher at All Saints School, Mansfield; has just begun at Nottingham Crown Court. It would appear that whilst teaching a nightmare class last July, he lost it completely and is accused of trying to kill one of his pupils, Jack Harvey (who cannot be named for legal reasons) with a 3 Kg weight, whilst shouting "Die, Die, Die!" (Whether it was a German lesson and he was merely emphasising the correct form of the definite article, has not been revealed.

Leaving aside the weight, it sounds like one of my average teaching days; so he has my full sympathy. Sadly though, I think it will take more than that to help him. Unfortunately none of our political leaders realise or care that for every teacher who makes the headlines by cracking up in spectacular fashion, a thousand more just wearily turn up day after day to face an endless barrage of appalling behaviour and abuse, in the hope that they might give one or two kids a chance in life.

Earthquakes and Volcanoes

Iranian scientists have finally proven what I've said all along: ie women not dressing modestly are the main cause of earthquakes.

I have emailed Mr Sedighi to ask him whether his seismological research has uncovered any evidence to support my own theory that the current Icelandic eruption was caused by the outfits worn by some fat girls on a hen night in Cleethorpes.

Going up!

If, like me; you have often lain awake at night worried about the layout of Grace Brothers Department Store, then hopefully this page will help put your mind at rest.

I asked a friendly assistant in John Lewis last week whether stationery should have actually been on the First Floor along with telephones, but she simply called the police...

Studies have shown...

Whenever I read the words 'studies have shown', with regard to people's diet, behaviour or reaction to medicines; I always groan because the truth is that they usually haven't shown anything at all. The vast majority of these 'studies' aren't done rigorously enough, or on enough subjects to give any meaningful results at all.

They are of great use to marketing experts however, hence a constant stream of fad diets, brightly coloured gizmos and people dancing around in front of their televisions believing that they will lose weight.

This one may well be the same, but it does agree with something I've gone on about for years both on my blog and in my book; ie that regular exercise for both children and adults is absolutely vital. From my own experience, it improves kids behaviour (even the naughtiest child will behave perfectly after about three days on any school trip involving some prolonged physical effort outdoors) and if it improves their concentration and ability then that's a Brucey Bonus, as the great man would say.

If I had my way, a wide range of energetic sports would be done each day at schools (with a large supply of comical kit for those who have 'forgotten' theirs)

Mount Eyjafjallokul

I'm definitely going to vote for the Icelandic Volcano Party; they've done more to stop immigration in five days than our government's managed in 13 years...

Iceland- what can I say?

First they pinch our money, then they bugger up the skies...

When the Royal Navy returns from picking up tourists stranded in Europe, they should make a detour and pay those puffin eaters a visit. We said very clearly that we wanted them to send us 'cash' not 'ash', or at the very least; free fish fingers for the next 20 years.

From the above tirade, you will not be surprised to learn that I managed to get myself stuck abroad, in the land of the Surrender Monkey. Although I have often slated Crystal Holidays in the past, I have to hand it to them this time; they really got their act together, sorting out accommodation, hiring coaches and booking ferries early enough to get us home before everything became full up, which is more than a lot of other companies managed. Mind you, their Reps still can't speak two words of the local lingo...

The DVLA

If you should ever find yourself completely at peace with the World- calm, happy and relaxed; then just phone up the DVLA and I guarantee that in no time at all, you will be reduced to incoherent rage, incandescent fury or uncontrollable sobbing. Maybe even all three...

Word War 1

All Police leave has been cancelled today amid fears that more planned marches by Scrabble fundamentalists could result in a repeat of the violent scenes from yesterday's protests; where police came under a barrage of tiles as they attempted to prevent demonstrators converging on Trafalgar Square, many carrying placards and banners featuring 'Mattel' spelt with a small 'm' in order to show their opposition to any idealogical shift.

A member of one group, the Scrabble Rabble; known only by his gang name, 'Quixyzy'; claimed that Police had provoked the marchers by shouting out proper nouns and even collections of letter such as 'hig' and 'dutton' which, not being words; are considered offensive to Scrabblers. The Police Complaints Commission has said that it takes such allegations extremely seriously, whilst a spokesman from the breakaway Travel Scrabble Association denied any part in the rioting, adding that 'rioting' would be awarded a 50 point bonus for the use of all seven letters.

Write Your Own Dissertation

Although I risk providing free publicity to this grotty company who spammed me with their offers to write dissertations for the bone idle and hard of thinking; I feel it is wrong to deprive you of the opportunity to have a good laugh at their website.

As they say 'Proper dissertation help ends your anxities'

Who better to write your dissertation than a bunch of people who can't spell or even string a sentence together in English. Mind you, those who buy them probably can't either, so maybe nobody would notice that it wasn't their own work...

Julia Finill

I'm giving March and April's Amazon commission (see the sidebar) to the Children's Trust by sponsoring Julia Finill's first attempt at the London Marathon. You can read all about it at http://www.justgiving.com/julia-finill

Her husband Chris has run every London Marathon and is apparently a bit of a champion in the sport of ultra running (running crazy distances to you and me). I'm a sucker for these kind of stories, so give her some encouragement.

Lambs not to the slaughter etc.

Here is the news:

After a determined campaign by headline writers up and down the country, I'm glad to report that Andrea Charman is back at school, (no doubt planning to boil the school hamster even as we speak).

The 45th strongest teaching union, the ATL have complained about teachers being interviewed and rated by the kids. Whilst I'm just slightly sceptical about the teacher who claims that she didn't get a job because a child said that she wasn't as pretty as the other candidate, it does draw attention to something I moaned about at length in my book; ie 'the tail wagging the dog'. This is the growing practice of consulting the pupils on every decision made in the school, which was enthusiastically supported by naive teachers up and down the land. My own suggestion, for which I couldn't think of a suitable analogy; is that the pupils should sit still and keep quiet whilst the Senior Management makes a decision and then carries it through. (That last bit had to go in italics because it is a revolutionary concept in many schools.)

Another of the 476 teachers unions, the NASUWT; has declared that they are completely opposed to the idea of letting parents or companies set up their own taxpayer funded schools. Conservative Michael Grove has challenged them to run one themselves and show us all how it should be done. They didn't like that idea, which is fair enough I suppose; as they aren't really in the business of running schools; but bearing in mind that Mavis the dinner lady could do a better job than many heads, I don't think that the idea should be simply dismissed.

School Trips

I'm sure we all remember the school trips of our youth- fighting on the coach, shoplifting, watching the teachers sneak off to the pub; all those sort of life building experiences. The occasion was only slightly spoilt by the inevitable dull project to be written up afterwards.

This report claims that not enough school trips take place. I say the reasons for this are as follows:

Organising a trip is a tonne of hassle for which you will be paid not one extra penny. You will receive no reward if it goes well, but if something goes wrong you will face the Spanish Inquisition. There are endless pages of soul destroying risk assessments to be completed, consent forms to be sent out to parents who then have to be chased for a reply, payment to be collected inevitably in dribs and drabs, when you are busy doing something else and don't have any means of recording it, lazy parents to be chased up yet again, records of everything to be kept and filed, before setting work for all the classes that you will miss whilst away. I'm knackered already and we haven't even gone anywhere yet.

Whilst away you can worry yourself stupid that some child will cut their thumb or catch a cold and mummy will be running to the nearest 'no win, no fee' solicitor. Rest assured that on your return you will find that your classroom has been trashed because the person covering your lessons allowed the kids to run riot.

Toshiba

Many thanks to everyone who offered advice about buying a laptop. No doubt you cannot wait to hear what I ended up with. (Please feel free to all write in and tell me that I have just made the greatest mistake of my life etc.)

I went into PC World and Comet, armed with a list of your recommendations and tried out the keyboards and screens of all the different makes. The PC World assistant appeared to be only 14 years old, but talked confidently about 'gigs' and the benefits of an 'Athlon' over a 'Celeron'. He seemed particularly enthusiastic over one machine which had a 'dual core' and stroked it reverentially as he spoke.

All this twaddle brought out the worst in me, so I declared that I was no fool and explained the results of my own research. I knew that I could type at a maximum of 30 words per minute ie half a word per second. Let's assume each word averages four letters, so that means I need a machine which can achieve 2 Hertz (cycles per second). Throw in a few more for updating the screen, checking the memory etc and 10 Hertz should be sufficient for my requirements.

This troubled him a bit and he sadly informed me that machines of 10 Hertz hadn't been invented yet, but would probably be available in a few years time (He gazed whistfully into the distance at this point). Feeling slightly guilty at upsetting him, I hurried away.

I only lasted two minutes in Comet, as the assistant was clearly devoid of intelligence and kept trying to sell me an extended warranty 'for my own protection, in case the machine should break down'. I explained that it wouldn't be me who needed protection if the machine decided to stop working and headed to John Lewis; where the intelligent, middle aged salesman convinced me that the Toshiba would do me just fine. (I like John Lewis because the girls who work in perfumes etc are good looking and flirt outrageously whereas the blokes who work in electronic things know their stuff but don't talk in techno-jargon. Everyone however knows where everything is in the store. Try testing them with some obscure item for fun- you can never catch them out.)

Anyway, as no shop would match internet prices and having the meanness gene; I nipped round the corner to a nearby cafe to see how much I could save by buying online, only to discover that it was the same price. So tail between my legs, I returned and handed over my hard earned royalties.

Sub £500 Laptop

If anyone could recommend a laptop for under £500 then I would sing your praises forever...

ps Sorry, as one poster wisely pointed out, it would gave been helpful if I had thought to say what I wanted it for...

Mainly word processing and web browsing, so a decent screen is important, but I don't want to watch DVDs or play games on it. Battery life of 2-3 hours is fine and portability isn't a major factor as I don't carry it around every day.

Easter is a time for giving...

Next Monday, people with no hobbies or outside interests will attend the annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers where they will debate weighty matters such as whether the practice of giving your teacher a present has become too competitive.

Myself and Mrs C regard competition as a thing to be encouraged. She even goes so far as to send parents a list of suitable presents.

I once received a book on Great British Scientists from a pupil who, to put it mildly was not one I would have expected a present from. I was genuinely grateful and mentioned it whenever our paths crossed, until I discovered that it had in fact been stolen from the local library. On another occasion, I was presented with a sturdy wooden book case. As I carried it across the school car park, I heard the footsteps and cries of a small, well behaved child who accosted me, claiming that it was his woodwork project. I expressed my doubts at this claim until he pointed out his name on the back of it.

Boy not Stuck in Tree Shocker!

Well it looks like there's more to yesterday's story than meets the eye. The Head of Manor School has written a couple of letters to parents giving their side of the story (basically, nobody stuck in a tree and a loon on the premises.) Here's their school website

Whereas you might expect nothing less from me, it is a bit shocking that virtually every newspaper, even the ones who don't believe in crystal healing, flying saucers and horoscopes; simply printed the story without doing any checks whatsoever, as did Chris Evans and co. on the radio. Actually I suppose it's not really that surprising- it happens all the time.

Anyway, I apologise in advance for callously deceiving you all if the story turns out to be completely wrong. See how many of the newspapers and DJs do the same.

I hesitate to bring your attention to today's story about a school that faked the shooting of one of their staff to encourage children to take an interest in Forensic Science. With my luck, by tomorrow it will have been revealed that they really did shoot him...

No, don't say "Health and Safetree" please

How can any of us sleep safely in our beds knowing that feckless criminals such as Kim Barrett are roaming the streets, wandering on to school grounds without permission and rescuing small boys from trees. Where will it end?

Thank goodness the quick thinking staff at Manor Primary School in Melksham, Wiltshire were on hand to 'observe the child from a distance', otherwise who knows what might have happened.

Fortunately common sense has prevailed in this instance, with a warning letter being sent from the School and a visit from a Community Support Officer. Hopefully this should put an end to any more of Ms Barrett's good deeds, although frankly, I think she needs to be locked up.

After May

We are all going to get heartily sick of hearing about the General Election by about mid April, so I will get my posts on the subject out of the way now.

Whoever gets in, two things seem certain. Firstly the number of Academies (schools allowed independence from local councils) will increase.

I can't help but think that the Academies programme is a bit like painting over the cracks in your living room wall. It gives a quick and easy improvement, but avoids facing up to the fundamental problems. (Ever rising numbers of kids who won't behave, parents who don't care, Heads who can't lead, qualifications that have been dumbed down and a growing percentage of teachers who don't know much about the subjects they are supposed to be teaching.)

Nobody appears to be interested in tackling those things.

Secondly, there will be state schools run by private companies, charities and parents. Whilst I reckon that John Lewis School would be excellent, I'm not too keen on a job at Poundstretcher Comprehensive.

Feel free to suggest any companies whose schools would have amusing titles or mottos.

Polls Apart

The BBC recently published an article which happily repeated without question, various claims of an online poll (ie one where you have no idea who is answering the questions)

This article claimed that that 80% of boys knew that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and that more children want to win a Nobel Prize for Science than win the 'X Factor'.

They may well be disappointed however if it is true that a third of them thought that Isaac Newton discovered fire...

Anyway, the important point is that Primary school kids seem excited by Science whereas Secondary school pupils are not. The reasons for this are simple.

Science in Primary Schools is new and interesting, whereas in Secondary Schools it has become extremely boring, due to a dull syllabus and over zealous Health and Safety rules which put teachers off attempting the more interesting (ie loud) practicals. Combine this with endless preparation for tests and a serious lack of new teachers with an in depth knowledge of their subject and you have a recipe for disaster.

Langlauf

Sorry I haven't posted for a bit, I've been learning to Cross Country Ski in Seefeld, Austria; the land of Lederhosen. If you have no interest in skiing then look away now.

Like most Brits, I'd never even tried Cross Country; (or 'langlauf' as they call it) always believing the rumours that it was just 'plodding about for old people'.

Now I know differently. It's like your first week of skiing all over again; with all the bruises, falls and sheer fun that this involved. It's like skiing on a clothes prop in a pair of wellington boots.

There's two styles- classic which we tried first, where you shuffle along ready made tracks and skating, which is what you see in the Olympics, where you glide gracefully along outside the tracks, like an ice skater. (Or in my case, you glide along in a stuttering fashion, frantically jabbing both poles into the snow, completely out of sync with your legs until spots start to appear before your eyes). Being British, we obviously didn't even consider taking lessons; with the result that by the first afternoon those who had gone to the Schischule were still walking up and down the beginners field, whereas we were miles away, covered in bruises, upside down with our heads sticking out of a snowdrift.

The two mistakes I made where to assume that the tracks were flat and that controlling the skis would be easy. The reality is very different. The tracks lead you up and up, puffing and panting, before the inevitable descent where you step out of the tracks and try to turn just as if you were on normal skis, before discovering that langlauf skis have no metal edges. As your speed increases, you start frantically snowploughing, which doesn't slow you down that much; then go into full scale panic, stepping about trying to do a Stem Christie turn before accepting the inevitable and desperately hoping to land in a bank of soft snow.

Whilst I admit that it is possible Johann the instructor tells you the secret of how to control the skis in his lessons; as far as I am concerned, you might as well go skiing on two giant sticks of chewing gum.

After a while you do start to get the hang of it though and trekking through the beautiful Alpine scenery on a sunny morning to your planned lunchtime destination is an experience which is hard to beat (You get a map and follow the signs- it's like going out for a walk but with a lot more screaming)

Despite currently walking with a limp as well as being black and blue, I'd heartily recommend it. Oh and try Bratwurst and Germknodel in the Gasthof (but not together)

Election 2010

It looks like there's going to be lots of arguments about Education in the run up to the election and no doubt both the main parties will be asking for my opinion of their proposals.

David Cameron doesn't want teachers with Thirds, but hasn't realised that you can get a 2:1 'Teaching in Primary schools' Degree without being able to add up, spell or string a sentence together. Labour on the other hand want to assess teachers' empathy, understanding and passion' (by asking them questions on a computer)

The Conservatives say that they want to provide more choice for parents when there are nearly 800 000 spare school places already; Labour are building ever bigger schools, where children can simply get lost in the system.

Neither party has so far come up with any simple, clear proposals on how to improve the thousands of sink schools and the quality of the Edutainment on offer in these places.

At least in Australia, the school battlefields are properly organised.

Set up your own School

At the moment you can educate your child at home with only the odd visit from the Council to check up on what you are up to, but you can't get together with a group of like minded people, set up your own school and expect the Government to pay for it.

Lots of groups in little villages and inner cities where there are no decent schools, want to create their own school and over the next few months, I reckon that we will hear a lot more about it.

There are a few questions to be answered though; what happens when a group of nutters want to set up their own school, preaching the joys of Religious Fundamentalism, Crystal Healing or Flat Earthism? How do we decide who is 'suitable' and what happens when the founding group lose interest and don't want to run the school any more?

Mind you; in many areas, whatever is set up could hardly be any worse than what we have already, so maybe it is an idea worth considering.

Maths Test

There is a link to a shortened version of the Maths test given to 155 Primary School Teachers by the Dispatch Programme here The questions are all reasonably straightforward and are similar to old 11+ ones.

Have a go; you can use pen and paper but not a calculator. The 15 minutes allowed is plenty so take your time, read the questions carefully and watch you don't hit the wrong key by mistake like I did.

It's actually just 14 of the 27 questions they were given, but if the following statistics are correct and you have young children, then it's probably time to panic.

Only 20% could convert a temperature in Centigrade to Fahrenheit, despite being given the formula that links them.

Less than 40% could work out what 2.1% of 400 was

One in three could correctly divide 1.4 by 0.1

If it is true that the kids are getting steadily better at Maths each year as the Government claims, then maybe they need to start helping their teachers a bit.

ps A recently qualified Primary school teacher has just emailed me to say that the average score on the test at her school was 226%

Six and Two Fours

Oh I also watched some of the Dispatches programme last week which basically said that your child has no chance of learning to do sums because their teacher probably can't even add up. The latest official Guru (why do these people always look a bit odd?) was on hand to wave his arms around and make learning fun.

What scared me was the attitude of the young Primary school teachers. They all shrugged their shoulders and came out with something along the lines of:

"I struggled with Maths at school because it wasn't taught very well and the teacher wasn't very nice to me etc..." Rather than:

"Yes I really must make an effort to learn how to do basic maths because err... I'm being paid to teach it"

It's always easier to be a victim than sit down with a book. I'm not saying that you need to be Isaac Newton to teach Primary school maths, but the results of the simple test at the end of this article are very worrying. No wonder ever increasing numbers of children start Secondary school without any grounding in the basics. I'd like to see what the results of a similar English test would be.

Still, I always feel that we concentrate too much on the negatives: rather than worrying about the 64% of teachers who can't do sums, let's celebrate the 46% who can.

Half Term

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, Mrs C and I have just come back from the Yorkshire Dales where we spent our days walking the hills and our evenings drinking Black Sheep Bitter plus watching some of the Winter Olympics.

The thing I like about them is that they stick to the basics. Most of the events are truly terrifying and they haven't adopted all the silly ones that plague the Summer Games. (Curling is a notable exception and we should hang our heads in shame for even sending a team)

Congratulations to Amy Williams for her Gold Medal in tray sliding and to Chemmy Alcott for 13th in the Downhill, on a course no sane person would attempt. Finally, here's American Bode Miller demonstrating what to do if your ski falls off

Lamb to the Slaughter

Headmistress Andrea Charman decided to teach her kids where their food comes from. They bought a lamb, the kids helped rear it and then sent it off to be made into chops.

That should have been the end of it, but unfortunately some of the local parents went mad and launched a campaign of hate using the networking site for Social Inadequates, Facebook. This obviously got to the poor woman and now she has resigned.

I still can't quite believe that the whole story isn't some elaborate hoax, but sadly it doesn't appear to be.

Result: Nutters 1 - Perfectly good Head 0

Ali Dizaei

Ali 'Crook in Uniform' Dizaei very clearly demonstrated the effects of a policy that promotes people because their ethnicity ticks the correct box rather than because they are the best person for the job.

A Government spokesman has today confirmed that they have no intention of learning from this episode and intend to repeat it as quickly as possible.

Come on then...

As you can see from this BBC article, we are in desperate need of more violence in schools, preferably carried out by ourselves.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers, one of the 5764 teaching unions, has sensibly called for teachers to be trained in what they can and cannot do to restrain violent pupils. Unfortunately, I've been on one of these courses and it was an utter joke. We were even told not to resist when practising on each other because of the possible risk of injury.

Anyone who has studied judo for more than 5 minutes would realise two things:

Firstly, none of the locks we were shown would have worked with anyone who was not totally compliant. For some reason, violent people usually aren't.

Secondly, it takes an awful lot of practice to get them right without looking a complete idiot or hurting someone. A half day's course consisting mainly of blather about 'diffusing situations' does not turn you into a combination of Bruce Lee and Bill Clinton.

Not to worry though; the National Association of Head Teachers would prefer us to get a good kicking and the Department for Children, Schools and Families say that behaviour is much better now, so there's nothing to worry about.

Paid Links

Keen eyed readers will no doubt have noticed that the ten spaces for paid links on the right side of this blog are now full, so once somebody else comes along with a higher bid, then the site in tenth place will disappear.

On the other hand, maybe one of the current top ten might want to increase their donation in order to keep out of the relegation zone. Remember it's the total amount that counts, so I suppose that even a site which has fallen off the bottom could stage a comeback with a timely gift.

Who knows what will happen? I'm sure I'm not the only one who can barely sleep at night with all the excitement. Mrs C says that it's the most fun she's had since we started betting on the pictures behind the doors in last year's Advent Calender.

Olive

I'm not religious at all, but when I think of some of the utter buffoons that are happily doing Supply teaching up and down the country, it seems a bit mad to throw out poor Olive just because she offered to say a few prayers for a sick child and maybe went on a bit about miracles.


I wouldn't have sacked her even if she was practising voodoo, chanting incantations and throwing bones up into the air whilst dancing starkers around a fire. I'd only get rid of her if she was rubbish at teaching, was always off and couldn't make the kids behave. Oh sorry, that's a daft idea.

Anyway, she's been allowed back now

They say hard work never killed anyone but...

Whenever two or more teachers gather together, the talk invariably revolves around how much work they do, how late into the night they stay up planning things and how they slave away at weekends and during the holidays as well.

This is all very good if you are managing a hedge fund and looking to retire to Barbados by the time you are 29, but not really worth it when your salary is less than £30k.

It won't surprise you to learn that I never did very much work at all, as I had a wide range of interests outside school to devote my evenings, weekends and holidays to. It may surprise you that the exam results my pupils got were around average for my department. This was partly because I knew about my subject, partly because I knew what was important to pass exams and partly because the department was rubbish.

Most of the work that teachers do is a complete waste of time. Ticking boxes, target setting, elaborate schemes to follow the latest fad, whether it is differentiated learning, group mind mapping or whatever. None of it inspires the kids or helps them get a job. Get yourself an interesting hobby instead.

Working too hard and getting stressed simply isn't worth the effects to your health (and it also makes you a thoroughly boring person). Overdoing it and taking two weeks off sick every year is no better for the pupils than my approach of doing very little but turning up every day.

It is an old adage that nobody ever says on their deathbed "I wish I'd spent more time in the office!" Take this to heart, write it on your classroom wall and make it your aim this week to ignore at least one supposedly vital task that has been set by those above you. Use the time saved to do something you enjoy and if you do get pulled up about it, just say that you were too busy doing (insert fashionable phrase or buzzword) and look a bit flustered. Next time, try and persuade a few others to do the same.

(Remember, the Martyr Ethos that is so prevalent in teaching nowadays just helps you die earlier)

Hey Pesto!

Does anybody else think that there could be a market for shorter spaghetti?

Kudos, a small planet far, far away...

I've had a few emails recently asking why teaching doesn't have the kudos that other professions such as Accounting, Medicine or Law do.

At first I was puzzled, thinking that Kudos was the name of that new planet astronomers discovered a couple of years ago, but after a quick check in the dictionary I am now ready to try and answer.

Firstly it's because everyone knows how easy teaching is to get into. A couple of scraped A Level passes can get you onto a teaching degree and within 4 years you can be teaching a subject you know nothing about. Or if you did a degree and scraped a third, then no problem; just enroll on a one year PGCE course. (David Cameron permitting)

Many people go into teaching because they can't get into anything else, which obviously annoys those who had lots of options, but chose it above all the other possible careers.

The other reasons are; it's a job for life with virtually no chance of being sacked no matter how bad you are at it. Also, you aren't paid by how good you are at teaching, only by the number of years you have done it. (The only performance incentives are two salary threshold levels which are virtually automatic passes). It is therefore viewed as a career for those who are not particularly competitive. The poor conditions that many teachers work under, ie having to accept near constant levels of appalling behaviour and abuse from pupils also tend to work against us, encouraging the outsiders view of "Who on Earth would put up with that, unless they were desperate?"

Status is often judged by salary and teachers pay is lower than many other graduate professions (although the state contribution to our pensions make them worth far more than a private sector one and we shouldn't forget the 13 weeks holidays as opposed to 4). There is also the perception that teachers work far less hours and are always either off sick or taking time off for reasons which a business would clamp down on. Finally, you can dress like a scruff if you want to.

That's about it really. Frankly I couldn't care less about kudos- I just always made the most of the holidays and sent plenty of postcards to my accountant friends.

The Third Way

So David Cameron has announced that he doesn't want duffers with a third class degree going on to be teachers. Carol Vorderman (who headed their Maths Task Force) might have something to say about that, but then there is a world of difference between a third in Engineering from Cambridge thirty years ago and a third awarded this year in Cultural Drama Studies from Happy Valley ex Poly. (I didn't think they even gave out Thirds nowadays, I assumed that everybody was given a First in case they got upset)

Teaching of course is very socialisty, so there will be queues forming up to declare that degree grade is no indication of teaching ability. Now they may well have a point- think back to your own schooldays and remember the bearded teacher wearing a battered brown jacket with leather elbow patches, who no doubt mumbled lots of very clever things; but nobody heard them because he couldn't control the class. On the other hand, there is a real problem now at many schools especially in Science; with teachers who don't know much about the subject that they are supposed to be teaching.

Snow and Guns

Good to see Clive Hale, Head of Polegate School in East Sussex turning the 'Why do they always close the school when there's an inch of snow?' argument around by rightly knocking the parents who don't bother to send their kids in even when school does stay open.

On an unrelated topic; just a quick reminder to all those of you who regularly carry automatic weapons, not to post the photographs on the school website. (Or if you do, at least hold your stomach in and don't slouch.)

Panic, panic, panic

URGENT!

Drop whatever you are doing, rush out and buy 5 loaves of bread immediately.

Run for your lives

As mass panic sets in across Britain, the traditional debates have begun in earnest:

Do Heads just close their schools for a laugh?

Are teachers just lazy shysters who should be flogged in the street because they can't be bothered to go to work?

Why can't prisoners in chain gangs be made to clear the roads of snow with their bare hands whilst wearing a vest and shorts?

(Ok that last one was just my own idea)

Anyway this is a short post as I have to nip out to buy an axe.

Newsflash

I have sent Global Warming an ultimatum today. It has one more week to get its act together or it's out.

It is so cold that I have climbed into my oven to write this.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to one and all! As I write these words, I can see one of those new Government posters warning me of the dangers of Global Warming...

Those of you who started back on Monday with an Inset day will no doubt have tales of new initiatives breathlessly described by one of the more naive members of the 'Management Team' (now renamed the 'Leadership Team' to avoid having 'Man' in it.) The award for the first new 3 letter acronym of 2010 goes to 'JulieM' with 'T.E.D.' although she was unable to remember what it stood for.

As it is snowing in many parts of the country, it's also traditional for the lazy staff to turn up late, as this is much easier than getting up earlier and of course carries no penalty.

The last minute winner of my award for 'Maddest Act of 2009' is Highlands Council, Scotland who decided to ban an outdoor activities trip because one of the children is disabled. This will achieve the twin aims of making her the most unpopular child in the school, as well as getting everybody fed up with disabled people. In short, mindless form fillers triumph again.

Anyway, why are there so many disabled parking spaces right at the front of B+Q car parks?

Christmas Hols

Whenever I take a photo, I usually seem to miss the intended subject or cut off their head. If I do manage to capture them in the shot then you can be sure that my thumb will also feature prominently. On rare occasions when all goes well with the composition, you can generally guarantee that the picture will be somehow washed out or blurred despite the miracles of modern autofocus and lighting. (I never even dare touch any of the buttons described as 'options' for fear that the camera will simply explode.)

Looking at this terrific picture from yesterday, you will immediately realise that I did not take it. (The other giveaway is that I am the runner on the right in the hideous yellow top with the legs of a spider) I can also confirm that it was exceedingly cold but stunningly beautiful.

I'd like to thank all readers of this blog for, well; reading this blog and taking the time and effort to comment on it. (The comments are usually wittier and wiser than the posts and after four years I still haven't had to remove a single one, which must say something about my readership)

Merry Christmas to all of you and very best wishes for the New Year.

Frank Chalk

Munir Hussain

Imagine if you returned home one night to find three masked men in your home, who then proceeded to tie up your wife and children, threaten them with a knife and beat you in front of them.

Tell me in all honesty that if the opportunity arose, you wouldn't kill them all without a second thought. I'm not a violent man by any stretch of the imagination, but I can say with absolute certainty that unlike Munir Hussain, I would not have shown any restraint whatsoever.

Why on Earth has this man received a two and a half year jail sentence, whilst so many real criminals are routinely let off? I don't care what the liberal elite might say, I'd have bought him a gun.

ps there is a Facebook group here which supports his release and their Government petition will appear on Thursday Dec 17th.

Winston Smith

If any of you would like to know what the wretches I taught get up to outside school, then have a read of Winston Smith's excellent blog. He works in a home for lazy bastards- sorry disadvantaged young adults and his bosses are as cretinous as mine were.

What should we do with these kids? Lots of people would say "Stick 'em in the Army!" except that the Armed Forces don't want to touch them with a barge pole. What they need is some role models- strong adults they can look up to, not run rings around. These adults need the power to enforce rules and show their charges exactly what they need to do to make themselves useful members of society and then make them do it. It's not rocket science.

What they get instead is... well read his blog.

Craig Hodges

All too often nowadays, we hear of people simply crossing the road and walking by when they witness a crime, so thank goodness one brave member of the public stood up and did the right thing, phoning Torbay Council to report lollipop wielding do-gooder Craig Hodges who, untrained, unsupervised and without even having attended a Diversity Course; had been blatantly assisting children to cross a busy main road opposite their school in Paignton, Devon. For goodness sake, if we don't nip this sort of Social Behaviour in the bud, then where will it end? Before we know it, young people will be picking up discarded cans and crisp packets and throwing them in litter bins without a second thought for the consequences.

Like all true heroes, the mystery caller did not wish to talk about his bravery and brushed aside any suggestion of a reward:

"I didn't have time to think of the danger to myself, the training took over and I just did what any of my colleagues would have done in that situation. I could tell straight away that he was up to no good; he had a friendly, pleasant manner and a yellow fluorescent jacket, which was later found to contain a CRB Check. He has shown no remorse for his actions whatsoever and the sooner he is put behind bars, the safer the people of Paignton will be"

The Council have denied that they are planning to take Mr Hodges' children away from him.

Parents Evening

The main problem I always found with parents evening was that the parents you really wanted to see never turned up. If pressed, they would always have some excuse which was usually incomprehensible "Sally weren't right and the bus didn't stop on the way back an' 'ow am I supposed to know... blah"

Another problem was that many teachers tried desperately to be positive about the pupil "Kaylee would work really well if we could just get her to stop texting the layabouts who hang around the school gates..." and only told the parent good things; so when they got to me, they were unprepared for the truth and simply wrote it off as the rantings of a madman.

Some schools even give the kids a day off and have 'Parents Day' for no obvious reason, other to presumably make it harder for parents with jobs to attend. Amazingly, at other schools; parents don't even get to see their child's teachers, they just listen to a report read to them by the form teacher; which is an utter waste of time. Surprisingly few parents complain- I'd hit the roof.

Most parents never really had much of a clue about what they wanted or why they were there, as this report suggests. The ones that were clued up always took me by surprise. Best of all is when you mix up a child with another one who has a similar name and tell the parents how well they are doing before realising they were expelled last month.

Mad, mad, mad

What has gone so wrong with our society that we allow this wretched woman, who stole £41 000; to get away scott free, just because she has blown the lot?

Under any sensible justice system, she would be working hard for the rest of her life to pay it back; first to her poor uncle and then after he croaks, towards the cost of a jail to stick her in.

Apparently 'scott' comes from 'scoet' which was Olde English for a tax

It's Your Time You're Wasting

As a special Christmas treat for any reader who, despite my constant advertising; hasn't got round to buying a copy of "It's Your Time You're Wasting", I have posted this link on the sidebar so that you can read a little bit of it and then hopefully buy the whole thing from Monday Books for £7.99 (free postage).

"It would make an ideal Christmas present either for yourself or for someone dear to you." Mrs. Chalk

Global Warming

After staggering back from the Newsagents yesterday, carrying the vast bulk of the Sunday Times under my arm and idly wondering whether anybody had ever managed to read a whole one; an article caught my eye about global warming. (I thought it was now called 'climate change'- why are things always being renamed? Did it offend someone?)

As I read the text and looked at the pictures, it dawned on me that maybe the reason many people are a bit sceptical about this topic is that those who write about it often don't make their case very clear. (I'm no expert myself)

For example the article claimed that rising levels of atmospheric Carbon dioxide causes global warming. There was no discussion of the possibility that it could be the other way round. (Maybe it can't be, but it would be worth knowing). Also, why did the accompanying temperature graph show drops from 1900 to 1910 and from 1940 to 1950, but the CO2 graph next to it showed rises during those periods? I'm not saying that there aren't simple explanation for these things, but if the Times can't be bothered to tell us what they are, then you can hardly blame readers for being a bit doubtful.

We are told that half a trillion tonnes of CO2 have been added to the atmosphere which sounds like an awful lot, until you realise that we haven't been told how much the atmosphere weighs. We then learn that temperatures have actually gone down between 1998 and 2007- and then that they haven't. I'm sure this must be important, but then there is no mention either of how the average temperature of the Earth is actually measured or how accurate it is (I haven't a clue)

I can't help but think that if I'm asking question like this whilst stuffing my face with toast and regretting my previous nights intake of real ale, then lots of other people must be asking more probing ones. Surely if we are faced with the possibility of mass human extinction then we deserve science articles in our papers that actually make sense.

Michael Barile

The case of former Dundee Maths Teacher Michael Barile has been dragging on for a couple of years. Reading between the lines, he appears to have manhandled a couple of highly unpleasant kids in his classroom and threatened them. There is no suggestion that he actually struck any of them.

He was sacked by the school, charged with assault and found guilty. His life has been completely ruined, his home has been attacked and his car vandalised. Now the judge has said that he shouldn't have been charged in the first place.

There are only two options for teachers nowadays:

1) You are a strict teacher who insists on good behaviour at all times in your classroom and demands that those pupils who refuse to behave are punished. In a good school this isn't too difficult. However if you adopt this approach in a bad school, you will eventually crack. (How many times can you cope with being told to "F*** Off!" by an obnoxious pupil who has got away with it time and time again because they know perfectly well that nobody higher up will want to get involved).

You then either lose it and whack the little wretch, get stressed and take it out on your family, or you give up and take the second option which is:

2) You are a nice teacher who turns a blind eye to what goes on in your classroom and always thinks the best of your pupils; blaming appalling behaviour on their 'difficult backgrounds' and 'challenges that they face' (or some other twaddle). This is a much easier path which is openly encouraged in many schools and on Teacher Training. It will not result in your appearance in court, but you will have to try not to think of the thousands of children who would have loved to learn something in your lessons but couldn't.

Sheffield Student Houses in Crookes

Well it's that time of year again, when students across the land start looking for houses for the next academic year. It seems to get earlier and earlier each year (I remember we didn't start looking until about Easter).

If you happen to be lucky enough to be studying at Sheffield University and would like to live in a nice house in Crookes, then contact this guy who comes highly recommended from a friend

Oxfam

My new sofa arrived yesterday, so Mrs C helped me load the old one onto Chalk Enterprises' van and I drove down to Oxfam, feeling a warm glow at the thought of doing my bit for those less fortunate than myself.

It took quite a while to work my way through the procession of gigantic 4*4 buses returning from the half mile school run and by the time I arrived, I had pretty much convinced myself that I would be greeted by a loud trumpet blast, before being escorted up a red carpet by a man in livery, with a dancing girl throwing rose petals down in front of me. All the staff would be lined up either side cheering, like I was Jordan.

It wasn't quite like this, but nevertheless I proudly marched up to the front desk and announced to the vaguely odd looking bloke that I had a nice sofa to donate which was clean, tasteful and compliant with all fire regulations. Could he possibly just help me carry it the ten feet from my van to the shop? I waited for him to embrace me with joy and invite passers by to come in and meet me, but instead he muttered into his feet:

"Sorry there's nobody here that can help you"
"Eh??"
"Staff can't carry things for customers"
"But it's there, ten feet away! I only need you to hold one end of a sofa. It's not heavy. I'm sure he could carry it" (pointing at a little African boy in a large poster on the wall)

A short, plump woman in a suit with a badge that said 'Manager' then arrived. I explained again that I just wanted to donate my sofa to the little boy in the poster and indicated my van parked outside. So near and yet so far.

Unimpressed with my attempt to end global povery, she proudly announced that: "Staff aren't insured for carrying things! What if they slipped and had an accident?"

An elderly customer then offered to help; gave the manager his walking stick and before she could tell him that staff couldn't look after customer's belongings, the sofa was in the shop. All feelings of satisfaction however, had unfortunately long departed, to be replaced by a deep frustration at the direction we seem to be going in.

It might just have been my imagination, but I could swear that as I drove off, the same little boy in the huge poster covering the whole shop window seemed to be sticking two fingers up at me.

Bede Academy

In Bede Academy they want to chuck out the hell raisers who allow their mothers to park incorrectly, whereas everywhere I've taught, you pretty much had to murder the headmaster before being asked to leave. (Then you appealed to the School Governors and were let back in with another final warning)

I reckon they would struggle over the legality of this punitive parking policy, but it's good publicity for them without a doubt. See if you can get your school to announce something similarly draconian; maybe a detention if your father is late submitting his tax return or an essay if granddad is seen watering his shallots during a hosepipe ban? Next time there is a parents evening, go out into the car park with a torch and check everybody's tax disc.

(I've cut down on the amount of capital letters I use in this blog after a couple of recent complaints. I you'd prefer some more, just say. I only want to please.)

Scotland's For Me!

According to a recent survey of Scottish teachers, everything I have said over the last four years about behaviour in schools is completely wrong. Scotland is obviously the land of milk and honey compared with England, so let's all get up there straight away. (Maybe)

School Phobia

A boy played truant from school. Following Government guidelines, the county council took his parents to court. They ended up being told to write a letter of apology to the family because the boy is apparently 'school phobic.'

I can't be the only one who finds myself increasingly divorced from modern society. Why are we going down this path which can only end when everybody has a medical condition of some kind to excuse their behaviour?

There are loads and loads of useful phobias. If a child doesn't want to get up in the morning, then they should claim to be Eosophobic. If they don't fancy sitting exams then a diagnosis of Testaphobia will do the trick. Don't want to come in during the Winter? Just be Cryophobic. (No need to be Chionophobic any more as every school seems to close as soon as the sky turns grey.) Hyelophobics can escape chemistry practicals and Papyrophobics must be provided with a Laptop Computer.

What on Earth is this lad going to do when he starts work? No doubt his employers will not be permitted to ask about his condition and will only discover it when he doesn't turn up.

Mind you, I can feel a bad case of Soceraphobia coming on over the festive season...

Science and Engineering

Science and Engineering have long suffered from the problem of being unfashionable and fairly difficult. They require some serious brain power rather than the ability to make a poster, take part in a non judgemental group workshop or just talk rubbish all day. Fewer and fewer bright students are taking these real subjects, so each year we drop further and further behind other countries. (Although we do have lots of Politics and Psychology graduates. Maybe they could design some offshore wind farms, space elevators or efficient solar panels for us?)

The Institute of Engineering and Technology are holding a series of competitions to try and get pupils to consider careers in Science and Engineering. Good luck to them as I don't think the Government are particularly interested. Have a look here

Queen's Speech

My advice to all teachers with half a brain is to get out now and retrain as a lawyer. The latest Government 'guarantees' announced in the Queen's Speech will surely open the floodgates for disgruntled parents to complain and sue their children's schools. (And let's be honest, many of them will have a good case) I reckon we also need about 4 million personal tutors immediately, if all the pupils who have 'fallen behind' are to be given one-to-one help; so there's another career choice for you. I can't help wondering if there will be enough teachers left?

But it's all very well promising lots of good things on the teachers' behalf, but what about the other side of this contract? Where is the guarantee that parents will be held responsible for their children? Will they be guaranteed to discipline their children and support the school when it does the same? Where is the guarantee that teachers will be able to teach without endless new initiatives and mindless tick boxing. When will we be able to stop endlessly dumbing down, giving out prizes for nothing and most important of all- when will we be able to get rid of violent nightmare pupils to secure units, preferably deep underground?

Feel free to add a few wills? and whens? of your own

Hsu-Shian Ming

Every age produces a genius who stands above their contemporaries. For example Newton, Einstein and Hsu-Shian Ming

TV

Watched the telly last night for a bit. Whoever said that the adverts are the best bit was clearly barking. I really am sick to death of Christmas; thank God its nearly over.

If moving sedately from side to side whilst waving some sort of game controller at the tv is our main weapon against the rise in obesity, then we really are stuffed.

Here's a puzzle someone told me over the weekend:

There are eight identical looking balls on the table in front of you along with a set of balance scales. (One of the balls is actually a bit heavier than all othe others) You don't get to touch any of them, you just tell me which balls to put on the scales. I will do two weighings and then you must tell me which is the heavier ball. (Each side of the balance scales is big enough to fit as many balls on it as you like)

Crime Scene

Note to all Heads. Next time a teacher comes into your office and says something along the lines of:

"I know, why don't we pretend to have been beaten up by robbers one morning next week to frighten the kids. I've got some fake blood from the joke shop and there's loads of bandages left in the first aid kit. Jim's got a mate who's a copper and they can come round, put up some of that stripey tape they use on the telly and pretend to investigate... it'll be a great laugh and we can call it 'Didactic Learning' or something daft! Go on, can we?"

It's probably best to say "No!"

Shoplifting

There is a pub in one of the more wretched areas of Downtown, where you will inevitably be approached and asked if "you would like anything?" What they really mean is: "Would you like anything that is on sale at the Co op round the corner?" They then send a young scrote out to steal to order and you pay half the retail price. Whether this includes 3 for 2 offers and suchlike, I have no idea. It's like hiring a personalised shopper only slightly cheaper.

Anyway, apparently the recession is fuelling shoplifting. I can't help but think that a society where nobody dares tells children that stealing is wrong; combined with a legal system that prevents any real punishment if you are caught, is probably fuelling it a bit more. That's just my view however and no doubt the Honourable Society of Shoplifters will be getting ready to sue me.

A Boy Named Sue

As someone who knows very little about libel law, I was a bit worried by this article a couple of weeks ago in the Times about bloggers being sued for libel. Apparently our laws give us much less right to free speech than, for example in America; so suing for libel here is becoming increasingly popular for those able to afford it. Apparently it costs a fortune to defend yourself against such a claim. Why they can't be dealt with by a magistrate in half an hour is beyond me.

The author Simon Singh is being sued by the British Chiropractic Association, who claim to be able to treat children for various ailments such as asthma and colic by manipulating their spines. He wrote in the Guardian that there is no evidence for this claim and they decided to try and silence him.

Other examples include the website Bad Psychics who apparently received a legal threat from some disgruntled psychic and took down their offending article. (If a psychic threatens to take you to court then no doubt they know what the outcome will be, so it's probably best to back down.)

The Society of Homeopaths took exception to Andy Lewis' Quackometer website which investigates dubious medical practices and threatened him with a libel suit, which seems to have had more effect than their medicines.

If everyone I have written unfavourably about decides to sue me, then the courts will grind to a halt and I will have to flee the country and live where the idea of free speech is more valued. I could perhaps set myself up as a magnet therapist, but I'd probably attract the wrong sort of people...

Eddy Nugent and The Map of Africa

If you enjoyed "Picking Up The Brass" by Eddy Nugent as much as I did (reviewed here), then you will love his sequel "The Map of Africa" where young Eddy is sent to cause chaos and mayhem, as he is posted first to the jungles of Belize and then Germany, to face the might of the Soviet Union with a few battered old Land Rovers. Unlike most sequels he doesn't run out of material halfway through and it's every bit as entertaining as his first book.

I'm not giving much away by confirming that there are no gruelling descriptions of SAS Selection or steely eyed killers moving silently through the darkness and Eddy is certainly not sent on any secret missions behind (or indeed anywhere near) enemy lines. He is to be found instead shirking, drinking and generally getting into trouble with his friends.

Basically you'll laugh a lot if you buy it. So do so this minute.

Creationism and Evolution

Whilst we're on the subject of Evolution, 60% of Brits apparently think that Creationism should be taught alongside Darwinian Evolution in Science Lessons.

From this we should conclude that 60% of the population are pretty dim. Creationism should certainly be discussed in lessons as it has excellent comedy value; but as for actually teaching it as a serious theory, I'd rather do Homeopathy, Crystal Healing and Fortune Telling.

Science is a strictly evidence based subject, not an opportunity to rote learn ancient myths.

They Don't Do They?

The Government appears to have finally discovered three years after I wrote about it in my book and about a decade after it became common knowledge; that believe it or not, some parents are actually prepared to tell lies in order to get their child into a decent school rather than just give in and send their child to an awful one. I'd love to know how much Dr Craig was paid to tell them something that many teachers and parents could have done for the cost of a second class stamp. Even better, he doesn't think that it should be made a crime, instead he wants to encourage councils to take parents to the civil courts. (Great advice when the only council that has attempted this had their case thrown out!)

My advice for what it's worth, remains to do whatever it takes to get your child into a good school.

It's simply a form of Darwinian evolution- parents who give a damn about their children take the trouble to do the research in order to find out how to fool the school if necessary. Those that don't, er... don't.

Eve Ritchie-Fallon

Headteacher Eve Ritchie-Fallon has become the latest person to be hung out to dry by the CPS following their policy of: "Believe any accusation made against someone in authority, no matter how ridiculous"

For a whole year this highly regarded woman; credited with turning around a failing institution, has been suspended from her job awaiting trial not for burglary, fraud or murder; but because a pupil alleged that she slapped him when he wouldn't stop smoking!

Never mind the fact that he was already at a special centre for nightmare children; had a history of bad behaviour, or that he had ADHD and would say the first thing that came into his head.

Mother was no doubt advised by her no win no fee solicitor that there was a good chance of some taxpayers money coming her way, and also that her dear son could do whatever he liked at the centre, as nobody would dare punish him whilst this complaint was being investigated.

I wouldn't have wanted the Head put on trial if she had run down the street waving the boys ear muffs (what sort of boy wears ear muffs?) whilst shouting "That'll learn him!". However despite being found innocent of all charges by the court, Hampshire Council are still suspending her whilst they carry out their own independant investigation! I wonder whether local Council Tax payers think this is a sensible way to spend their money?

Halloween

Sorry about the lack of posts, I've been away for the last week and have just returned in time for the annual festival of Licensed Begging, otherwise known as Halloween.

I have just been reprimanded on my doorstep by an anxious parent, because my ill behaved dog escaped my clutches, chased their child and apparently "frightened 'im! " I thought the whole idea of Halloween was to be frightened, but maybe I'm behind the times. Mrs C apologised for my grumpiness and gave them some sweets.

I had to laugh at one little boy, who had clearly misunderstood the nature of the event and had come dressed as Guy Fawkes. I gave him a carrot; kids eat too many sweets nowadays.

Cambridge Primary Review

Now in my early 40s, I started primary school in September at the age of 4, shortly before my 5th birthday. Those with birthdays after Christmas started four months later in January. I can only remember vague details; a large train set, playing with building blocks, lining up outside the classroom and sitting quietly whilst listening to our teacher.

I don't remember anybody being traumatised by this, or 'not being ready for formal teaching'. I do remember that we all learnt to read, write and do simple sums. I can remember landmarks such as learning my five times table a couple of years later and doing hundreds of addition and subtraction sums from a large textbook. I think that we learnt most processes like this; hardwiring methods into our brains by repetition, which is probably why I can pick up a pen and do a long division sum without thinking today, despite not having done so for decades.

My parents probably gave me a head start as did many others. I don't recall ever seeing any of the examples frequently quoted by experts of children who cannot line up, sit still, or learn to hold a pencil without throwing it on the floor. We all learnt to do these things simply because the teacher told us to, and any mucking about was discouraged by a slap on the legs.

There is much debate at the moment about the Cambridge Primary Review, whose 600 page report calls for a raising of the age that children start school and a delaying of what they call 'formal learning' (and I would just call 'teaching') along with the abolition of SATS (to avoid 'teaching just to pass the test') and a broadening of the curriculum. (There is a constant battle between those who want to concentrate on the '3 Rs' and those who want to teach more broadly) The report claims that in other countries, children start later but apparently overtake us by age 11. Maybe other countries still slap them on the legs if they don't sit still.

You can read more learned opinions about it here or here.

BMy Charity

I'm always getting emails from people raising money for charity, usually with a link to JustGiving, which enables you to give money online very easily.

Being the nasty cynical type, I always wonder where the money actually goes; so I wasn't too surprised to see that JustGiving takes 5% of your donation which helped pay their Chief Executive Zarine Kharas £170 000 last year.

A bit of searching about turned up BMyCharity who do exactly the same thing, but don't charge any commission; instead they appear to make their money through sponsorship and advertising (And I don't know what their boss earns either)

I don't have any connection to either of these two sites, so comments from anyone who has would be interesting.

Terry Leahy

Terry Leahy has 280 000 employees and whatever we might think of Tesco, he certainly isn't daft. He's not alone in his condemnation of State Education either; the CBI found that over half of the employers they surveyed, said that the basic literacy and numeracy of school leavers was unsatisfactory.

Mind you, we know it can't be true; their GCSE results are better than ever...

Law and Order

Here's two examples of recent incidents which say a lot about the state of Law and Order in this Country.

In the first, two men take the Law into their own hands with the result that a couple of yobs receive a well deserved beating. (I love the way the man in the black dress carefully retrieves his handbag after delivering such a great punch). In the second, a family is driven up the wall after they do the correct thing and call the Police after their car is vandalised.

The motto: I'll leave it to you to decide...

MP's Expenses Fiddles

As the row about MPs Expenses starts up again, I do wonder if I'm the only one who doesn't understand the following:

If I were to 'accidentally' claim the full cost of a Buy to Let Mortgage on my Tax Return and then get found out, I wouldn't just be able to say to the Inland Revenue; "Oh sorry about that, I made a mistake because I didn't understand the rules; I'll pay it back"

No, they would say; "OK Mr Chalk and by the way we are fining you the same amount again as it is your responsibility to know the rules."

If I were an officer in the Armed Forces and was discovered to be claiming for something that I was not entitled to, I would be lucky to keep my position. Excuses involving the phrase; "I didn't realise" would simply not be accepted. Once again, it is considered the claimants responsibility to check what they allowed to claim for and if there is any doubt; not to do so.

Why are MPs considered to be above such sanctions? They didn't admit to wrongdoing, they were caught and then confessed to 'errors' and 'mistakes' without any real fear of punishment. Incredibly, some even tried to make a virtue of paying their stolen money back. Since when has paying back what you have dishonestly taken, been considered a punishment? Imagine a judge who said "OK Mr Scrote, just pay back the £50 you nicked from Mrs Miggins and we'll say no more about it."

The first leader to announce that they will unconditionally sack every one of their MPs found to have been wrongly claiming expenses, can have my vote next year. (ie I'll probably save myself a trip to the nearest Primary School)

Xmas Time

I have just seen my first advert for something to do with Christmas. It has caused me much distress.

Sticks and Stones

Jock, Polack, Wop, Yank, Cockney, Limey, Paki, Mick, Spic, Zipper Head, Eskimo, Geordie, Honky, Taff, Chink, Frog, Gypo, Aye Tye, Nigger, Scouser, Kraut, Sand Wog etc etc.

All of these are slang names for people from different parts of the World. I'm sure there are hundreds of others. The only difference between them is that some earn you more compensation than others.

I just wish I'd thought about the possibilities for financial enrichment before I became Self Employed.

Barnsley Chop

Spare a thought for the poor parents of Barnsley, who aren't even allowed a quiet drink to calm their nerves in preparation for the return of their dreadful offspring.

Another Gem of an Idea

I can remember being told on Teacher Training over 20 years ago about the amazing idea of sitting bright pupils next to dim ones so that the clever ones could help the unclever ones. (I think they were probably described as 'less highly achieving children' or whatever the fashionable term was back then.)

I can also remember foolishly suggesting that we could take it one stage further; pair off the pupils into bright and thick, then just go home and leave them to it.

Although my comment raised a few hastily smothered giggles, the bearded blatherer delivering the lecture was not amused. We must embrace new techniques and look to more modern methods blah...

I eventually nodded off, as I did in virtually every PGCE lecture and thought no more about it until last week when a friend told me that he had been in a 'Best Practice Session' (Note: Chalk's 9th Law states that the importance of something is always inversely proportional to how important its title makes it sound). He had been forced to sit for half an hour listening to some imbecile expound the virtues of this exact same idea.

Can you imagine how delighted you would be as a parent; to find out that your child was doing their teacher's job rather than pushing ahead and learning more for themselves? I would go absolutely mad and immediately storm into school ranting, raving and waving my arms about like a loon.

This is a classic case of an idea which appeals to those who believe that as long as every child gets a 'C' then that's ok. It also conveniently lets the teacher off the difficult task of stretching the bright kids.

Lock 'em Up

I cheerfully plead guilty to locking at least half a dozen pupils in cupboards for being a damned nuisance on various occasions during my time as a teacher. It was a quick and effective way of dealing with them and enabled me to get on with teaching those who wished to learn something.

Spare a thought for this chap, then

Once I even forgot about one of them, left the room at the end of the lesson and had to hastily return fifteen minutes later to let him out of my stock cupboard. (To the horror of the teacher who was teaching French in my classroom)

Gran Torino

Saw Gran Torino last night- what a great film. The next time a 78 year old tells me to get off his lawn, I shall do exactly that.

Bitter's Back, Emin's Off

Mind you it's not all bad news: my 'Back to Bitter' campaign appears to be working at last and Tracey Emin's off to France!

Hide and Sikh

Just in case there is anybody out there who doesn't think that our Country has gone stark raving mad, have a read of this story where Gurmeal earns a quick £10 000 for not wanting to wear a helmet during riot training.

Martin Henderson

Future Archaeologists will no doubt be astounded when they find the remains of Martin Henderson, Head of Westmorland Primary School in Greater Manchester. Unique amongst the Headmaster species, he appears to have a spine.

He has had enough of wretched parents swearing at their offspring and each other on the school premises. He has declared that from now on, anyone doing so will be told to leave.

Now whether he does actually do this; or whether some Human Rights organisation decides to stand up for the rights of the Underclass to express themselves freely, remains to be seen.

For now however, he deserves to be our hero of the day.

Gadget in the Telegraph

Have a read of Inspector Gadget's article in the Telegraph about the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington. As usual he hits the nail squarely on the head with regard to where the problems really lie.

Coursework

I've written about Coursework before- how it used to be a complete farce when the pupils did it at home. (Those with good parents got them to help, or pay me to do it; whilst those whose parents wore gold chains and football shirts simply lost it)

No doubt entirely due to my rantings, the system was changed so that Coursework is now done in school under something like exam style conditions. This has been a big improvement and generally results in work being handed in that has mainly been done by the kids themselves.

So far, so good. Now their teacher marks it.

Hang on a minute, I hear you say. Their own teacher actually marks their exam work? Oh yes.

My friend Ernie is a strict marker. If it's wrong then it gets marked wrong. Unfortunately this results in his groups getting lower Coursework marks than the others, which reflects badly on him. His protests that the other teachers mark far too softly have fallen on deaf ears, as the marking guidelines are open to a huge range of interpretation because the questions themselves are often vague. Last week he showed me half a dozen examples of answers where the pupil clearly had no idea what is going on, but they had been given almost full marks by others in his department. It was very sad to see.

"There's only one thing for it!" he declared sagely. "I need to sort myself out and start marking these wrong answers right. That's the way forward"

Ebay

Over a year ago, I abandoned the useless monolith that is BT and bought a Dongle from Orange so that I could continue to waste my time on the Internet. It works extremely well.

Yesterday however, I got my comeuppance. In a last ditch bid to join the Modern World, I attempted to sell my first item on Ebay. After spending an hour working my way through the advert, taking a photo and uploading it; I was informed that I wouldn't be able to go any further because I did not have a landline.

I have a bank account, a credit card, mortgage, driving licence, and passport (What a rip off they are now- seventy odd quid and half the people I saw last month at Luton airport smugly joining the special queue couldn't even get them to scan.) However because I lack a plug in telephone, the tired old rustbucket that once carried us proudly around the country must remain gently decaying on my drive.

Very Impressive

In a world of ever increasing regulation and "can't do that" culture in schools, it's good to see two kids showing a huge amount of ingenuity, resourcefulness and just $150 to take photographs of the Earth from a height of 17 miles (about three times higher than a commercial airliner flies at)

Here's the link to the newspaper article and here is their own website

For God's Sake Even I Can Do This

Try this little test:

Imagine that you are blindfolded and there is a bag in front of you containing a large number of five different types of sweet. How many must you take out of the bag to be certain of having chosen three of the same type?

Think about it for a few minutes, it's not that hard.

Now if you got the right answer, phone up your local Primary School and offer to teach the staff.

(The answer's in this article)

Apparently only one in five new British Primary School Teachers can solve this problem, which according to their spokesperson; means that 75% can't.

Names

Last week's news (what else would you expect from me?) included a survey claiming that teachers often looked at their class lists for the new year and made judgements on what the pupils would be like, purely on the basis of their first name.

The article was clearly inspired by my award winning game Top Set, Bottom Set. What really shocks me though, is that only 49% admitted to judging by name, indicating a worrying decline in the IQ of new teachers.

University

Up and down the Country, tens of thousands of students will be hugely excited at the prospect of starting University next week. For many it will be nothing less than the start of a new life.

But for an ever increasing number who are not particularly academic, it will be the worst decision they ever make.

They will either leave after three years with a £25 000 overdraft and a Mickey Mouse Degree, which offers little more than a job in a call centre; or drop out after finding that the course they were recommended is actually way beyond their ability. These young people will quite rightly feel a great anger towards their schools and former teachers for never explaining these possibilities to them. Instead they were constantly praised and given A and B grades in exams which they could not have even passed 25 years ago.

I've said it a dozen times on this blog and in my book; University should have remained for the top few percent of the academic spectrum. That way we could have avoided the dumbing down and consequent reduction in value of so many degrees along with the introduction of all the comical ones, which bring further ridicule to a once highly regarded qualification. (I don't even need to list them anymore-just make up a few names that sound much too ridiculous to be genuine, add the word "Studies" then use Google to find half a dozen places that proudly offer them)

With far less students, we could easily afford to pay for Course Fees and give them a decent grant to live on. Latest Monday Books Author, trumpeter of all things positive about Britain and Apprentice Rachman; Steve Pope might not approve, but even he cheerfully admits that his tenants are getting dimmer than the new energy efficient lightbulbs he has to change for them.

Maths Ability Compared with The 70s

"According to a recent survey" which is a phrase I usually assume means "This may or may not be true"; standards in Maths are no better than they were in 1976 despite the fact that 55% pass GCSE compared with 23% who passed the O Level then.

My own completely non-scientific opinion based simply on my experience as both a pupil and teacher, is that ability in basic Maths has declined considerably.

The Raleigh Chopper was also a lot cooler than the bikes you see youngsters riding today.

Cheer Up!

If you're feeling down about the new school term after being bombarded by new initiatives filled with phrases that sound like gibberish; then cheer up, because at least you aren't a teacher in South Africa. Last time I was there, the Asian taxi driver who was taking me to the Airport pointed out two Bars opposite each other on a street in Johannesburg and commented:

"10 years ago under Apartheid, I couldn't go into the one on the left because it was Whites Only"

"Now I can't go into either, because I'd get beaten up by the Black gangs that run them both."

Leadville

If you are at all into mountainbiking, have a look at this video of Lance's recent win in the Leadville 100 in Colorado just a few weeks after the Tour de France.

Now tell me that you don't want to do it next year...

Girls, Boys and Bullying

Girls currently get better GCSE results than boys, which is undoubtedly down to the fact that they are more likely to be drunk. (As is anyone who thinks that GCSE's haven't been dumbed down to become a joke qualification nowadays)

The table halfway down this article also shows the clear link between enjoying yourself at School (Turkey) and bullying (Turkey again)

Raining Training

Mrs C went back to school yesterday for the celebration of nonsense otherwise known as Training Day. A deluge of new ideas, strategies and plans was breathlessly announced by the Senior Leadership Team (go on-try and say those three words with a straight face) which varied from the merely unworkable (kids with ADHD go straight to the front of the canteen queue) to the downright bizarre. (Wearing a different coloured hat, depending on something or other)

One that didn't make the list was:

"Make the kids sit quietly in neat rows and teach them something useful"

Slovenia

Am now back in the UK after a couple of weeks cycling round Slovenia (I wasn't quite sure where it was either until the plane landed) and very nice it was too, thank you for asking.

The Northern bit where we went is full of hills, forests and rivers- just like Austria but half the price. The natives are friendly and the language pretty incomprehensible: "Dwa Lashko Prosim! " usually causes a couple of beers to arrive and the rest is an amusing excercise in sign language. It's been a long time since I've stared at a restaurant menu and not understood a single word, with the result that two of us ordered the cover charge with an extra set of cutlery.

Anyway, the weather was lovely (in stark contrast with this morning's view from my bedroom window which looks like the end of the World) and my bike survived another plane journey, much to my astonishment.