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Awful. Words cannot begin to describe it. The three politicos? My only problem was to decide who was worst. A total irrelevance. (Though the fact that one of the three of them will be in charge from this summer on is a little...spooky?) The panel? Five members: 4m 1F The parent. She wants to set up and run her own private state school. Nuff said. Small business man. Nuff said. Superstar headteacher from Phoenix School. To his credit he sat patiently through all the political shenanigans, only gave an opinion when asked, formulated his replies in full sentences. Might be a decent enough bloke for all I know, thought the first 2 words in the job description at the start of this para beg to tell a different tale, I do know. The teacher. Martin Gilbert(?) writes sometimes for the torygraph? I don´t warm to him in general. He was out to rubbish the Tory politico. Now whilst I would rather die than cast my vote in favour of TheConservative&UnionistParty that did strike me as a bit cheap. But then, I don´t ... The Guru (educational) Didn´t catch his name.Didn´t make any impact on me; well not enough to remember a single thing he said less than 24 hours later, though I think he was wearing a reddish sort of shirt.[Please note important addendum at the end.] Earlier on, somebody (else; a filmed interview) said that the big problem wasn´t that we weren´t getting better but rather that we weren´t getting better as quickly as other countries. As someone else on here (different thread I think) has already remarked, the gaping chasm at the heart of the political argument and subsequent non-discussion was the complete absence of any reference whatsoever to classroom chaos. Yes, behaviour got a few glancing mentions early on and the teacher did sheepishly say that it was at times pretty tough and that broadly speaking behaviour was now less good than when he started 20 years ago, but that was almost all. Except that about 30 seconds before the show ended, the head(?) yes, I now remember, it was the head was asked whether "schools are being asked to do more than is reasonable and more than is their job to do" and he replied with some degree of animation to the effect "too bl@@y true" though given his racial and cultural background there were no expletives recquiring deletion. Which does bring me back to the one thing the Guru said which I do now remember. English schools start too early, he said. Children should stay at home till they are 7 "so that they can be nurtured in the bosom of the family" Old age and decrepitude has never seemed so inviting.
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