According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:
Education is the most powerful means by which individuals can be given the freedom to shape their future – and our schools reform plan is driven by the need to increase opportunity for all.
We will undertake a long-term programme to close the educational gap between the fortunate and the forgotten, with policies including:
* Building hundreds of good new schools within the state system
* Shifting the balance of power away from the government and towards parents
* Removing the obstacles which prevent new schools being established
* Encouraging smaller and more varied schools to respond to parents’ demands
In addition, we will take a number of immediate steps to improve standards in all our schools:
* Improve discipline and behaviour in schools by shifting the balance of power in the classroom back to the teacher
* Ensure more teaching by ability to stretch the strongest and nurture the weakest
* Look at reforming the testing regime in primary schools to reduce bureaucracy and focus on every pupil’s real needs
By doing all this, a Conservative Government will stop the decline in standards and create the excellent schools our children deserve.
Conservative Party Schools Policy :http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Schools.aspx
I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Conservative’s Schools policies in the comments below?
David Cameron opposed the abolition of homophobic Section 28, along with every other Tory MP but one who was expelled from the Conservative Party for his disobedience.
Our children need to be taught about difficult subjects including homosexuality so they do not become homophobic. David Cameron described gay rights as a “fringe agenda” and said “Blair has moved heaven and earth to allow the promotion of homosexuality in schools”.
Vote No To Conservative Homophobic Ignorance in Schools
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I am a teacher and I do wonder whether it is possible to shift power back to the teacher when so many parents and children are just not interested in actually working.
The ‘entertainment in education’ agenda is very well established in the teaching profession now. If you look at the assessment criteria for Ofsted etc they actually require teachers to plan ‘interesting and engaging lessons’ – the inspectors are fascinated by the idea of lessons not being ‘boring’. Look at the criteria they apply to judge this – it’s rather interesting.
Children do need to work hard to master techniques and sometimes it isn’t the most exciting thing they could be doing. Sometimes, for some children who find them harder, subjects require practice and repetition to master them (look at the success of Kumon in both English and Maths) but our current standards actually require children to learn something new at every lesson (How can children practise and master skills if this is the case?)
Finally there are the SATs which really don’t tell you much about a child (and don’t even require children to write in full sentences or present their maths in a coherent way). You said you would abolish them. Will you – starting with this year’s?
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You make some excellent points on schools and the way they educate our children.
Because of the way school failed me** (under a Conservative government) when I was younger we decided to home educate our children, to provide them with a better education. There were other reasons to home educate, but good education was the primary reason.
** Despite the failures on the part of the schools and the education system, as an adult I went back into education and eventually went to University to study genetics. Therefore I was capable of achieving University level, but the school system failed me.
We home educated our eldest son from birth to 16, currently (18 years old) at University studying computer sciences. Second eldest son, currently at school (started age 15) and we consider what he’d achieved before going to school as a failure on our part. And our youngest son (13) still home educated and doing very well (should do at least as well as his eldest brother).
A two out of three success rate based on the level of education WE expect our children to achieve as home educated children isn’t too bad (we had one difficult child when it came to education).
Our second eldest son (who isn’t very interested in education, hence school at 15) is at a local comprehensive school (not a very good one) and the way they have talked about him you’d think he was a bloody genius!
They are teaching kids at GCSE level things I was learning at 12 years old in a normal comprehensive school and remember I failed at school (pre 16 years old).
The education system is not even close to what I’d consider fit for purpose. Watched a recent program on mathematics in schools (Channel 4 I think) and was shocked that 10 year old kids couldn’t add
1/2 + 1/4
Even a poorly educated child should know that’s 3/4s even without understanding the maths involved. If you have kids ask them the above question and please post the results and your kids age.
What was worse, the teachers were given the same test and they were generally not fit to teach maths to anyone!
What chance do children have in school if the teachers don’t understand basic maths? The 1/2 + 1/4 question stumped many teachers!!!
I could not agree more with you on the point new concepts need to be practiced. As home educators we’ve struggled for years trying to find educational resources that provide lots of practice questions. You’d think maths would be the easiest one to find such material, but the vast majority of school type books are no more than revision aids with a few example questions.
For the brain to learn new things the pathways in the brain need to be reinforced with lots of practice. The old saying practice makes perfect is true. You can teach a child a new maths concept every day, but if they don’t practice the concepts there’s no reinforcement of those new pathways and the learnt concept can be easily lost.
I was good at maths at school up until things went wrong (I was 14 when things went wrong). Third year exams I had the highest maths exam results in the school, 2 years later (at another school after missing over a year and spending 2 months in a young offenders institute) I only managed a CSE grade 2 in Maths (barely went to school after 14). Interestingly at 15 in a detention centre I knew more maths than the teacher in the kids prison!
When I went to school I remember getting reams of practice questions to do in maths (I enjoyed it as well). The maths teacher (I had a really good one when I was 13-14) would give loads of practice questions.
Does anyone else around 40 years old remember the practice booklets we used to get? They were large A4 booklets (must have been 30+ pages each) filled with loads of question on all sorts of stuff, I remember them from when I was under 10 years old. Do kids today still get that sort of practice booklets?
Now as you say the emphasis is on cramming in as much as possible, not making sure the kids actually understand and retain the skills covered. From my perspective a young child is better off understanding how to do basic arithmetic (+, -, x and /) extremely well than covering lots of maths concepts, but never practicing them so never fully understanding them and not being good at basic arithmetic.
Also looking at the current maths syllabus I’ve noticed a tendency to use jargon to describe maths concepts instead of what we called them when I was young. A simple one would be asking for the product or sum of a number instead of asking the student to add or multiply the numbers. Might sound good when a school says the children have learnt to sum integers today to a parent, but it’s got to be more confusing to the kids using this type of jargon.
I’m good at maths and when I look through maths books today I’m constantly asking what’s that word mean again to my 13 year old son!
David
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As a teacher of thirteen years’ experience and a Head of Department in an independent school, I shall again be voting Conservative. I am sick to vloody death of listening to Liberals and left-wingers bang on about how marvellously progressive British education is. It is NOT. It is edutainment packaged as Socialist Citizenship Skills. If you care about education, vote Conservative.
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To bring back the original nursery rhymes!!!
We need an education system that creates a strong foundation of basic skills in our children. We need to give power back to the teachers. We also need philosophically and academically brilliant teachers. We want our children to learn the meaning of the words perseverance, hard work, determination, commitment & honesty. Perhaps we need to research the approach used by other countries like China or India for example. India’s economy is booming, they must be doing something right!
Which government would make the best effort in delivering this?
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