FlyTheNest

A second senior law officer - the director general of the attorney general's office - has resigned today. The government claim it was part of a planned restructuring.

So Labour have pulled polling back to where it was in Spring 2019. Although saying that is a bit like mentioning the 2017 election result, it's strictly not allowed.

And the country's "strictest headteacher" has completely lost it over the masks issue... Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy · 56m They will be pulling at each other’s masks, repositioning their own masks constantly, bullying each other over choice of mask etc. Add that to rise in chatter ...

On BTECs - the thing that doesn't really make sense to me about these - or does make sense and is just another sign of gross ignorance and incompetence on the part of the government - is that you have to do an awful lot of admin before you are cleared to even teach a BTEC course, producing a very ve...

In other news... Richard Adams @RichardA Wow - Ofqual has just REMOVED its new appeals policy and put out this statement: “Earlier today we published information about mock exam results in appeals. This policy is being reviewed by the Ofqual Board and further information will be published in due co...

Interestingly (that's 'interestingly' on the usual terms that you wouldn't be here reading it if it wasn't) our post 16 BTEC students have done well out of this - the courses changed a few years ago to make them much more focussed on exams, with required passes and access to top grades requiring goo...

I was being a bit flippant about further maths but only a bit - I may be wrong but my recollection is that it has a higher highest grade pass rate than any other subject. One of my PGCE tutors said that when the GCSE English system was briefly 100% coursework, and one of the pieces was a piece of cr...

Phil Bird @PhilBird19 Pupils taking A level maths and further maths illustrate the flaws perfectly. Predicted maths grades were automatically marked down, but their predicted further maths grades stood, because less students took further maths, and there wasn’t enough of a cohort for standardisatio...

Do the maths: why England's A-level grading system is unfair Long quote to make sense of it. TLDR? The system forced marks down but not up. It wouldn’t be out of place in a maths A-level: suppose a class of 27 pupils is predicted to achieve 2.3% A* grades and 2.3% U grades; how many pupils should b...

Not sure where we are in the appeals and alternate plans, denials, re-plans and so on but there are some interesting things that the government chose to ignore completely when they suggested that students could formally be entitled to use their mock mark as an alternative grade.. There's no such thi...

Was looking back to try to find our first mention of all of these goings-on - I might have missed a link out to a story but so far as I can see... January 31st, on leaving the EU... What happened on 31st January? It was the day of the obvious end point of dangerous contagion, with consequences we st...

There's definitely something to be said for making sure, if teachers have been over generous, that all pupils are marked down equally. The discrepancy does seem unfair. What happens next is more important, though. The onus is now on colleges to be flexible about grades for studying chosen courses s...

https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/what-will-return-school-during-covid-19-pandemic-look?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=coronavirus&fbclid=IwAR1HbUg-66jfNoAXj7lsz0Rp8wbn-LdDTl21NYQpr_5LmpaE6ec0abHJqcU ‘What will a return to school during the COVID-19 pandemic look l...

snip Instead schools are due to fully re-open with no preventative measures at all - no social distancing, no face masks and only theoretical hygiene in the absence of budgets for more soap and sinks. All we have are "bubbles" of 100+ pupils which will be sent home once coronavirus has al...

Good piece by Andy Becket which will resonate here, I know, especially in 'the library' (or 'the other library') Why Boris Johnson's Tories fell for a tiny sect of libertarian provocateurs So much seems unusual about this Conservative government: its constant disruptiveness; its preference for rheto...

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I was once in a band that Alison Goldfrapp had been in before I was in it.

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Been up visiting the parents and camping in the Scottish borders. This was last night... https://i.postimg.cc/K88rHcrx/IMG-20200728-213005.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/bNJZXZMC/IMG-20200728-214044.jpg A place called Hermitage Castle which was first founded by William de Soulis who was alleged to be a d...

RogerOThornhill wrote:I did wonder why Thursday was higher up the list than Friday - I blame the mods...

Ha! I clearly wasn't paying attention.

Just to lower the tone towards the unnecessary and irrelevant here is my latest high score on the US election simulation thing. (Yes yes, this isn't a game. Honest.)

: Screenshot 2020-07-23 at 21.36.43.png (346.48 KiB) Viewed 6244 times

What Russia report?

I know it's just coincidence but still...

Morning all. Bet School Business Leaders are loving this one... EDSK @EDSKthinktank Teachers are to receive a 3.1% pay rise following their “vital contribution” during the coronavirus outbreak. However the funding for the pay rise is expected to have to come from within schools’ existing budgets. (...

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In the US, the federal government are sending unmarked, unnatributable, armed units into American cities, against the protests of mayors and governors, to arrest people without warrant or explanation and take them away. Am I missing something here? Where are the militia? Where are the states' rights...

English universities must prove 'commitment' to free speech for bailouts Universities in England needing bailouts to survive the impact of Covid-19 will have to “demonstrate their commitment” to free speech as well as closing courses with low graduate pay, Gavin Williamson has announced. I look for...

Instagram link rather than YouTube postable video - Grace Petrie covering Dire Straits' 'Romeo and Juliet'

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We also have the prospect of schools going back in September without face masks or social distancing. Extreme caution for some, very little for others. Some say any measures we take are worthwhile, but that's not much comfort to teachers & parents who are being asked to take more risks. Did I s...

I am not making that argument but the data on asymptomatic people is even weaker than those for symptomatic i a playing devil's advocate here just to be clear and I have no problems wearing a mask but I think we need to be also very open with the fact that the 'science' is not at all conclusive, th...

Well tbf one argument in favour of masks is that their widespread use might make some concerned people more willing to go out of their homes. what if it also increases symptomatic people to leave their houses because it is safe to do so if you are wearing a mask? The problem with this argument is t...

The report actually seems to exhort better preparation and maintenance of good behaviours as well as better data collection and testing regimes. None of which could really be argued with. And none of which will happen here. I'm aware of about a dozen deaths from Covid connected with school. I stron...

Also *fanfare* my older daughter has got a First in Music - she got her lowest mark for the whole course on her final piece,done at home away from the normality of university work,and missed a starred first by a few marks.

We saw a friend yesterday who said yes, her daughter (same age as our oldest) is now moving between home and her boyfriend's house and is going out with friends in the evening, and her older boy is out with friends every night, 50-100 16-18 year olds meeting up together. There are lots of apparently...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/09/chris-grayling-expected-chair-isc-intelligence-security-committee https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1281570356919185409" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Johnson's attempt to appoint Grayling "has been disrupted by m...

Liz Truss warns Boris Johnson over Brexit border plans An extraordinary cabinet row has erupted over Brexit with Liz Truss warning that Boris Johnson’s border plans risk smuggling, damage to the UK’s international reputation and could face a legal challenge from the World Trade Organization. If onl...

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From yesterday Avoiding unnecessary expenditure requires vigilance. It means investigating a very small leak in the roof and taking the necessary steps to fix or replace it straight away. Financial prudence is not watching and waiting until the small leak is a torrent and the roof is close to immine...

Meanwhile In all honesty, I’d like the Gov’s new shock and awe Brexit business readiness campaign to start in the following way: “To all businesses, big and small, As of 1 Jan 2021, you will bear the full responsibility for your goods moving across the new border the UK erected with its main trading...

Yes, yes...he really does say what you think he said at the start. https://twitter.com/gamray/status/1278641323780833281" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I would ask anyone to make sure they've watched that video before they consider this comment, but it's nice to know that ...

270towin have their 2020 electoral college simulator up and running already. I am treating this as a meaningless game - really - and have no expectations at all about November, and won't have any until January, but still this was fun, first time I ran the simulation. Screen Shot 2020-07-01 at 12.54...

In other news I see that Policy Exchange have weighed in on the "removing statues is erasing history" line by setting up a commission. I follow a great number of historians on that Twitter and there was a good deal of mirth and chortling going on yesterday. This is good. https://twitter.c...

GCSE and A-level exams in all subjects to be available in autumn GCSE and A-level pupils in England who are unhappy with their predicted grades this summer will be able to sit exams in all subjects in the autumn to try to improve their mark, the exams regulator has confirmed. How? Y11 and Y13 stude...

Exclusive: What Schools Will Be Told To Do In September So All Pupils Can Return This is causing quite a bit of chatter on social media today. Vast majority negative. This particular bit prompted a very caustic response from one poster: A new focus on tackling “persistently disruptive” pupils becau...

We're not likely to see anything critical from the media either. Just like their reporting of the £1bn over 10 years for schools, it's just reported in the govt's words with no context, as if it was a lot of money. I was actually taken aback by the distance between the rhetoric and the facts. I cou...

I don't know about anyone else but I have a bad feeling about all this. I wore a face covering in Tesco today because I thought it was going to be mayhem and when I got in any notion of social distancing was gone completely. At least you can mutter and swear at idiots with plausible deniability if ...

On the mesmerising power of big numbers - Johnson announces investmentin education with £1billion over ten years to build and rebuild schools. My brother's CofE school is still waiting for Gove's bibles. Which Gove made a big deal over, even though the Everyman Library had given every school in the...

On the mesmerising power of big numbers - Johnson announces investmentin education with £1billion over ten years to build and rebuild schools.

Labour's Building Schools for the Future programme invested about £47billion over about fifteen yeas.

If you have the flu you'd have a temperature, even if you don't always have a temperature with coronavirus. What I'm basically saying is that someone sneezing and coughing with a temperature should be isolating at home anyway, regardless what they're ill with, so hopefully it's a moot (though certa...

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