Still trying to work out why you had to buy a noo car when the driver wasn't you and the damage was done by another driver.
C@use we skidded @ were on the wrong side of the ro@d so shouldnt h@ve been therez, ended up
@ fifty/fifty so no money w@s p@id out, d@ds c@r w@s borrowed n covered by 3rd p@rty insur@nce
plus to stop him mo@ning we bought him @ new one, well @ che@po 2nd h@nd one.
we h@d smokaed s@lmon
Hippo
Lord Hippo
My school headucayshun was quite good in comparison to you lot. Eye gottid me gcse's un left ferra modern apprenticeship wiv nvq's. Day release ter college included so gottid meself a btec's nc and hnc. Eye always liked watching the open university programs when eye were a nippa and promised meself eye would learn wiv them when eye growd up. And eye did. Remember the old programs where they slide paper and the next part of the calculation appears visible. Eye remember them teaching binary using a vending machine. Wiv or wiv oot jam, 1 or 0. Same for next item 1 or 0. In the end yer could order yer sandwedge in binary 100110 and get wot yer wanted.
It's perfectly possible to educate people in their early teens. I've seen it done successfully, and even contributed myself on occasion, with activities outside the school system. Children are often very appreciative of adult attention and company, and will try really hard at tasks that make them feel like they're doing something grown up. Even the ones that are more challenging in the classroom. In my limited experience you need smaller groups than the typical class size and a degree of flexibility about the activities you do, but it's certainly possible to make such things work. The regime of testing and inspection we've seen in schools since the 1980s has perhaps raised the floor of education but it has also pulled down the ceiling, so everybody's got to stick to the national curriculum and the opportunities for genuinely innovative work with kids are much more limited. The good students are as good as they ever were - indeed, in some ways they are better. They can pack a lot more into a three hour unseen exam than we ever did when I was young. But there seems to have been a lot of 'teaching to the test', so they can answer a limited repertoire of questions very well, but are rather lost when presented with any problems which are more ambiguously framed.
Morning All.
Quite cool out there, but not raining.
Have a good day.
Total reverse tomorrow, warm, wet and a howling wind
As long as my CH stays off, I will be happy. Last weeks energy costs were £92.
I agree with this.
It is of course possible to educate children all the way through from preprimary to pre university entrance. Let's face it, it goes on all the time, but the degree of compliance, and success, within any class or group of individuals varies according to a wide range of factors, including the students' level of interest, the nature of the subject, the syllabus, the class size, the quality of the teaching and the materials being used.
Some kids just hate some subjects and will do anything to get out of the class and will disrupt like mad until something gives. In my case this was particulalrly prevalent in year 9 low ability classes. You could make them laugh you could have fun with them but when it came to SATS and they had to actually achieve something some of them just dug their heels in and had to be moved out.
The big deal was that since the demise of the National curriculum they knew they no longer had to do a MFL or they could do the one of their choice and thanks to sh!t teaching in the middle schools which served us, a large majority dropped French and went on to do Spanish which was taught ab initio at my place by a brilliant group of teachers.
Long ago, (when I was at school) you couldn't get into uni without an O level in a MFL, (nor Oxbridge without an O level in Latin or Greek!) so there was motivation right there for all bright pupils.
When Thatcher came in a lot of this sort of thing stopped. Universities were made to compete for bums on seats so a lot more leeway was created. (Depending on whether the admissions tutor was a "filler" or had the luxury of being a "chooser".)
Smaller class sizes makes a huge difference, and this is possibly the main reason for the success in private schools, but it still depends on the individual teacher. At the school I went to some were brilliant and some were total sh!te and I unfortunately got the latter.
By the time I started teaching this was still true in private schools, my ex did conversation classes in Canford and the kids there told her how success depended entirely on which teachers they had.
Some were totally ante-diluvian, hadn't changed their teaching methods in 40 years, had their own chair in the staff room, (which had a bar off it) and never left the school grounds. All single of course!
When I taught in France I noticed very similar to your last point. If you asked a kid a question they ran it through their memory banks, if they found the answer they trotted it out if not they were lost. They were very bright kids (it was one of the biggest Lycées Techniques in France), and I used to ask them to discuss in groups to solve logic problems in English. They had to think outside the box so they concentrated so much on the problem they used English almost by accident, which of course was the whole point. It was as far from rote learning, teacher-student Q-A as possible.
They loved it and in the end they came to the conclusion that their teachers did exactly what you said, just gave them answers to learn as the exams never asked them to work anything through from first principals. They were taught to remember rather than think, which at the time was not quite the same in the UK.
One such problem, for those who are interested.
"A man walks into a building, he sees the lift doors open and says, "My wife is dead".
Discuss!
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It's actooly sunny and dry here.
W is in bed as she was up all night (therefore me too) with bad guts and we have the dog trimming lady coming in 2 minutes.
So all go here!
It was nice sitting eating my brekfus listening to radio 2 on the radio wot I builded!!
Have a nice day folks!
W is in bed as she was up all night (therefore me too) with bad guts and we have the dog trimming lady coming in 2 minutes.
So all go here!
It was nice sitting eating my brekfus listening to radio 2 on the radio wot I builded!!
Have a nice day folks!
... That today (after much prodding and goading from the boss) I attempted to replace the door latch barrel on the door of the downstairs loo.
It has only lasted 32 years and now no longer retracts far enough to release the prisoner held within when the handle is operated.
2 minutes into the job I realise I am in trouble.
The old barrel is at least an inch longer than this replacement one so the actuating part where the square bar goes through will be hidden inside the door and the handles would have to be moved., etc. etc. etc.
OK, plan-B then pull the barrel out and reprofile the protruding bolt/catch on my grinding wheel so it is marginally shorter in overall length.
Job done.
It has only lasted 32 years and now no longer retracts far enough to release the prisoner held within when the handle is operated.
2 minutes into the job I realise I am in trouble.
The old barrel is at least an inch longer than this replacement one so the actuating part where the square bar goes through will be hidden inside the door and the handles would have to be moved., etc. etc. etc.
OK, plan-B then pull the barrel out and reprofile the protruding bolt/catch on my grinding wheel so it is marginally shorter in overall length.
Job done.
... I'm a bit miffed.
1 hour before school kicking out time the wife texts the son to ask what's happening with the kids today?
20 minutes later a text. Can you pick them up M-Thurs this week please?
I had suggested to her to leave it alone and wait for him to ask as it is his responsibility.
I am angry that he thinks its ok to just assume we have no lives of our own and can do all the running around on his behalf and he doesn't even have the courtesy to ask well in advance.
1 hour before school kicking out time the wife texts the son to ask what's happening with the kids today?
20 minutes later a text. Can you pick them up M-Thurs this week please?
I had suggested to her to leave it alone and wait for him to ask as it is his responsibility.
I am angry that he thinks its ok to just assume we have no lives of our own and can do all the running around on his behalf and he doesn't even have the courtesy to ask well in advance.
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I fully understand your feelings but isn't that the way he has learned to run his life - and yours? You have always been there and done everything for him as soon as he asked so he has never had to think of anyone other than himself and his wants and desires.... I'm a bit miffed.
1 hour before school kicking put time the wife texts the son to ask what's happening with the kids today?
20 minutes later a text. Can you pick them up M-Thurs this week please?
I had suggested to her to leave it alone and wait for him to ask as it is his responsibility.
I am angry that he thinks its ok to just assume we have no lives of our own and can do all the running around on his behalf and he doesn't even have the courtesy to ask well in advance.
Quite so! I am of the "your life, your problem, you sort it" persuasion, but his Mummy loves him and he just makes end-runs around me to her.
It causes no end of discord and herself always sides with her baby which makes me somewhat resentful I suppose.
I get the "what else is he supposed to do?" response to which I say "Get a life and grow the heck up." But this is apparently inflammatory and I am an uncaring person (which I am not) but us being used all the time gets right up my nose.
Nice one!!... That today (after much prodding and goading from the boss) I attempted to replace the door latch barrel on the door of the downstairs loo.
It has only lasted 32 years and now no longer retracts far enough to release the prisoner held within when the handle is operated.
2 minutes into the job I realise I am in trouble.
The old barrel is at least an inch longer than this replacement one so the actuating part where the square bar goes through will be hidden inside the door and the handles would have to be moved., etc. etc. etc.
OK, plan-B then pull the barrel out and reprofile the protruding bolt/catch on my grinding wheel so it is marginally shorter in overall length.
Job done.
