Apparently there is a public sector strike going on...

[TheFaQQer]

I don't know where you get the idea that the education system in the UK is "pretty damn good"

OECD education report: subject results in full - Telegraph

The Department for Education defines good as being above the average.

UK is above the average in all three of those metrics. Therefore, using the DfE / OFSTED definition, we must be good.

[TheFaQQer]

I think what the CBI wants is basic maths and decent english and high aspirations. If kids have got these they can do anything

So are they using their considerable lobbying power to focus on those areas rather than introduce new curriculum areas which they aren't interested in?

[original PM]

I don't know where you get the idea that the education system in the UK is "pretty damn good"

OECD education report: subject results in full - Telegraph

You not really getting this are you

1) There is a place you can go between the ages of 4-18 which will try and prepare you for the real world
2) If all you want to do whilst there is fook about and not listen you will not get much out of it.

SO how much of that report is to do with poor teaching and how much is to do with the fact that kids cannot be bothered to learn?

The sooner we stop giving people the excuse that is was someone else's fault and start to impress on them the need to take responsibility for their own actions we may get somewhere.

[DodgyAgent]

You not really getting this are you

1) There is a place you can go between the ages of 4-18 which will try and prepare you for the real world
2) If all you want to do whilst there is fook about and not listen you will not get much out of it.

SO how much of that report is to do with poor teaching and how much is to do with the fact that kids cannot be bothered to learn?

The sooner we stop giving people the excuse that is was someone else's fault and start to impress on them the need to take responsibility for their own actions we may get somewhere.

A good teacher with a good school will get kids "bothered" about learning.

[original PM]

A good teacher with a good school will get kids "bothered" about learning.

I would actually say that is what you would expect of an excellent teacher - a good teacher should be able to put together a lesson which will teach kids whatever is required.

And have you met some of the youth of today - it's not like the films where some hot blonde ends up working in the ghetto school and gets all the gangsta's to suddenly take an interest in poetry you know.

When all the kids ever sees from their role models is a distrust/hatred of authority figures you have a long way to go before they are willing to sit and learn.

[DodgyAgent]

I would actually say that is what you would expect of an excellent teacher - a good teacher should be able to put together a lesson which will teach kids whatever is required.

And have you met some of the youth of today - it's not like the films where some hot blonde ends up working in the ghetto school and gets all the gangsta's to suddenly take an interest in poetry you know.

When all the kids ever sees from their role models is a distrust/hatred of authority figures you have a long way to go before they are willing to sit and learn.

What point are you trying to make?

[SpontaneousOrder]

It's simple economics.

Simple OG more likely.

[original PM]

What point are you trying to make?

Stop blaming the teachers for not teaching when it is the kids who are not learning which is the problem.

[Mich the Tester]

Does the CBI believe that teaching synthetic phonics helps literacy, or hinders it? In the eyes of the CBI, does testing whether children at the age of 6 can read phonetically (including made up words) add to or restrict the knowledge and understanding within literacy?

Do they even know what it means?

[TheFaQQer]

Do they even know what it means?

I would hope so - they are the experts on what schools should be teaching, after all.