Frank Chalk Boris Johnson asked last week why we can’t manage to create an internet business like Facebook. He suggested that young people lacked the necessary single-minded ambition and also blamed our society’s reluctance to praise success. So why not? 1) He is correct in blaming lack of ambition in many young people. State education does not allow failure and teachers  [ Read More ]

Frank Chalk Once again Ofsted plumbs new depths of lunacy, announcing today that the word ‘satisfactory‘ will no longer be allowed as a grade. It’s always worrying when organisations ban words- I can still remember the Professional Association of Teachers debating whether to forbid use of the word ‘failure’ and replace it with ‘deferred success’.  [ Read More ]

Frank Chalk The Government has just announced that vocational qualifications are no longer going to be counted in the League Tables. This is terrible news. Without Hair and Beauty, Travel and Tourism and Generally mucking About, how on Earth are schools like mine going to fool decent, honest parents into believing that we are just  [ Read More ]

Martin Ansong Dispute over the outcome of Thursday’s strike overshadows the underlying issue at hand (i.e. pensions). Rather than focusing on the reasons behind Thursday’s strike the Tory Government chooses to argue with Unions as to the effectiveness of the strike. Official reports indicate that total of 11,114 schools were affected by the industrial action:  [ Read More ]