tgi friday
Who out there can recall the pure, simple pleasure of finishing the school week and anticipating the hedonistic fun that both the evening and weekend ahead promised? Well, as it turns out that particular school day is getting shorter and shorter.
Last month schools across the country announced plans to pull down the shutters and close early on Fridays. Some, like Neyland Community School in Wales explained they’d be shutting at 12.25pm rather than 3.20pm as “pupils often suffer from a greater lack of attention and closing early would further raise standards and improve outcomes for learners”. Exactly how this possibly could be achieved Neyland’s spokesperson declined to comment. The lunatics truly are running both schools and asylums these days. Thankfully, others have been more honest about why this is taking place. Penarth Secondary warned in a direct letter to parents that there wasn’t enough cash in the kitty and that the cuts in budget were “compromising their children’s education” and making early-Fridays the norm.
Beyond the early closures, tales of teachers having to buy books, pens and teaching aids, of doubling-up as canteen staff, and helping clean the schools to make them usable are becoming legion. Westminster will claim that more money is being spent on education than ever before, and they’ll be absolutely correct about this, but not in REAL terms they won’t. In reality, education is now well below 2015 levels and the active decline can be traced back to the austerity tax cuts and subsequent budget freezes of ten years ago. B- in the mathematics department I’m afraid, Master Hinds, see me after class.
At the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken-record there’s money clearly available (£4bn spent drawing-up plans for a No-Deal Brexit and tens of millions covering-up Failing Grayling’s disastrous c*ck-ups in both Transport (ferry services) and Justice (probation outsourcing)) but it’s clearly an issue of prioritisation. That said, perhaps there is something of a case to be made for a wholesale review of the current school week as it has remained pretty much unchanged since the days of Victorian workhouses, but if we’re going to do so let’s make it serious and universal, not piecemeal and ad-hoc. From a non-partisan perspective, let’s analyse and understand how exactly a world-class, fit-for-future-purpose education for all, from pre-school to post-graduate, could be structured and implemented. And, if objective, realistic and financially prudent cross-party talks do ever prevail couldn’t we apply them to the even bigger issues of our NHS, social care and environmental policies?
