The government has admitted that schools in areas like Wokingham get too little per pupil compared to the average, and too little in absolute terms. They have under pressure given us a modest uplift. Some of this has come from changing the formula to limit the losses of the lowest paid areas. Some has come by way of a general increase for all schools.
More needs to be done. Schools need to be able to recruit and retain enough good teachers , and teachers deserve a professional salary to reflect their training, commitment and responsibilities. I would like to see a bit more cash provided overall, with a further improvement in the formula for the lowest paid areas.
Schools have considerable discretion over their budgets. The state needs to ensure the average and the minimum level of per pupil funding is sufficient for a well run school to do a good job. Some schools are better than others at getting value for the money they spend. Some are better at attracting great teachers who encourage high standards and motivate pupils well. In such a decentralised system there are limits to what the central government can achieve. We look in particular to the teaching profession to set standards, to innovate, and to manage the school budgets well.
I see the Secretary of State is challenging the Treasury on this issue. There is money available without raising tax rates. Cutting some tax rates woukd also bring in more revenue. The government continues to collect more tax than Treasury forecasts.
July 22, 2018
Cutting some tax rates would indeed bring in more revenue. As you say the government continues to collect more tax than Treasury forecasts (though they still spend and waste far more). The state are also expert at largely wasting this on lunacies like green crap energy, HS2, Hinkley C, importing bio fuels and it seems spending 10.5 billion on military planes they do not need. Not their money after all, so what do they care.
Hammond is hugely damaging the future tax base and the economy with his absurdly high tax rates, his over restrictive bank lending rules and lack of competition in banking. Also damaging the economy is lack of vision and confidence due to the appalling socialist and dithering leave in name only agenda of May and Hammond.
July 22, 2018
@Lifelogic; “Cutting some tax rates would indeed bring in more revenue”
How’s the weather on Mars?! Back on Earth though, even the Laffer curve has its optimal sweet point, not just an endless vortex…
July 22, 2018
The sweet point you refer to is I assume the tax rates for “optimum tax take”. Many UK tax rates are already well above this point. The tax system is a complex system and if you increase one tax you decrease tax take in others, people stop working, leave the country or spend more time with tax consultants than in producing.
The optimum sweet point for the economy and the voters is certainly not the laffer point, it is way below this. There is nothing “optimal” or “sweet” in maximising tax revenue. We should look to maximise maximum good for the people in general.
As people tend to spend and invest far, far better than governments this point is way below your laffer sweet point. This is the point at which additional taxation harms people more than the extra government spending helps people. Beyond defence, law and order, property rights and some basic infrastructure most extra taxation does far more harm than good. 20%-25% of GDP is about right. 45-50% is hugely harmful as we saw.
Also do not forget the private sector not only bears this tax burden but has all the usually absurd regulatory. legal, employment law, green crap and admin burdens on top of this.
July 22, 2018
The Laffer curve is nonsense. No government on this planet uses it to set tax rates. It can appear to work due to smart people using the process of “forestalling” tax payments, when governments announce changes in tax rules, several months ahead of a budget; which the Conservatives always do to please their Spiv City mates. Aggregated over three tax years, it has no affect.
July 22, 2018
When income tax top rates were reduced all of you told us revenues would fall.
They went up.
When Capital Gains Tax was increased all of you told us revenues would rise.
They fell.
Yet you now come back to us still saying rates don’t matter and it is all a conspiracy.
July 22, 2018
If you are wedded to Socialism then the Laffer curve shoots down in flames your whole ideology. 97% tax on the rich in the 1960s was a roaring success. The IMF coming in to run the country in 1973 was confirmation of that! Comrades Corbyn & McDonnell can maybe give us a reprise?
July 23, 2018
Would you go to work (costing you in transport and other work related costs) if the tax rate was say 98%? What would you live on?
July 22, 2018
Excellent reply LL
July 23, 2018
Tax take at its highest for forty years, £1 billion each week in interest on debt, public services at their worst , mass immigration at historic high levels and May wants us to sell our homes for her dementia tax!
Crime soaring with murders virtually each day, knife and gun crime at its highest, May stops the police using stop and search and cuts their number by 20,000! No deterrent by prisons, Gauke going to allow a serial rapist out, wanting prisoners to have mobiles in cells, stop sentences lower than a year, and the dismal London Mayor Khan steps in to prevent it!
What policy has your govt succeeded on to the public satisfaction?
July 22, 2018
John Major just now on Marr said he wanted a label on every MP’s desk saying:- PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE.
Perhaps we should have one on his desk reminding him of the thousands of people who lost their jobs, homes, marriages or even killed themselves due to his entirely predictable ERM disaster and the totally incompetent way he dealt with it.
Also how many more there would have been had he got his ways and put us into the EURO too. The EU is hugely against the people, against democracy and for parasitic bureaucrats.
Perhaps now that he is 75 he would finally like to apologise to them all? Albeit rather on the late side. Why do the BBC keep giving this (man ed)air time? Why would anyone sensible take advice from a proven wrong (judgement PM ed)like him?
July 22, 2018
Also apologise to the people who suffered from Blair and Brown’s Labour Governments that followed him. This after he buried the Tories for so very many years. They have still not really emerged properly. Even now the Tories are essentially pro EU, high tax, rather brainless, Libdims (at best that is). With perhaps just one hundred or so on the sensible wing to occasionally control the lefty loons.
July 22, 2018
May’s actions are going to bury the untrustworthy Tory’s at the next election and well beyond. Who will believe them on anything? Fool me once shame on you. Fool me every time on the EU, shame on me!
July 22, 2018
Lifelogic
Yes viewed it:
It was the People, People, People who voted, and they voted to leave !
Amazing how the person who gave us Maastricht now talks about peoples rights, when he has just disowned the decision.
Not a word against the EU remain campaign of course.
July 22, 2018
Exactly. He rammed it through against the will of the people without asking for their consent.
July 22, 2018
But, but, but it was just a tidying up exercise. Nothing to worry about. That nice Mr Ken Clarke said so! He’s so knowledgeable about the EU that he doesn’t need to read any treaties. Maybe he helped to write them?
July 22, 2018
LL. Spot on with this. Just what I said when I heard his comments about Brexit. The economy was dire when he was in charge. Honestly, why don’t these people look at their achievements or non achievements when they were in government. Who in their right minds would take any advise from him? Oh, I forgot about Hammond!
July 22, 2018
The Tories need to start debating again what it means to be a Conservative. And debate hard for that. We need a vision that has been worked out through hard research, thought and debate.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke
“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”
― Edmund Burke
July 22, 2018
I admit I’m being provocative and crude. Apologies. And I might be completely wrong. And admit I don’t know much about Burke (but have now got Jesse Norman’s book on my booklist). But at least Tories (who don’t know that much about Tory history / philosophy – like me) get to debate a bit and learn a bit more about what it means to be a Conservative and why.
July 22, 2018
‘get to debate a bit and learn a bit more about what it means to be a Conservative and why’
– and the Tory party needs to generate interest in it (recently my brother-in-law went to a Conservative Fundraiser in the Home Counties and told me that he and my sister were the only ones below 65 (and they are in their 40’s). And this is a REALLY Tory part of England.
July 22, 2018
I see Hammond wants to ensure Brussels gets the £39billion even if we don’t get an agreement.
Even though there is no legal basis for it he argues that we would be an unreliable partner if we reneged.
I think we would be more of a laughing stock than we already are.
Why do these people hate Britain so much.
They don’t have a Tory bone in their body.
July 22, 2018
@Ian Wragg
Yes, I’m fed up propping up the rest of the world too. They wouldn’t give us the scraping off their plates or the drops from Junkers champagne glass so let’s give them nothing.
July 22, 2018
Indeed about £1,300 per UK household, why are we paying this bill at all? What about the EU assets we have paid for. When you join and then leave a club you are not usually expect to pick up pension bills for the staff and the likes this is covered by the membership fee while a member. Do these bureaucrats even deserve their gold plated pensions and special low tax arrangements for basically selling the UK down the river without authority from the voters?
July 22, 2018
A lot of costs of running a school are out of control of the head. A lot relates to the building and site design, which you mostly inherit.and have no say over. A lot relates to stuff imposed top down by the government and education authorities.
A lot of money could be freed up for schools by taking the education authorities overhead away. Just give the money to parents to give to schools, via parents not education authorities.
July 22, 2018
Vouchers for parents and freedom to use them and top them up as they wish. Give the power to the parents as real customers with choice. Then schools will actually respond to parental demands and more money will come in to the schools. Bad ones will close also let schools fire bad teachers with easy hire and fire. They almost never do this.
July 22, 2018
Yes this has worked wonders for education in Sweden – more choice and competition.
July 22, 2018
And, the Swedish government spends 50% of the countries GDP.
July 22, 2018
Back in 2016 the average annual funding per pupil was for primary education ; independent day not boarder : £12,200 , state £4,800 . Secondary ; independent day £15,000 , state £6,200 .
Instead of requiring a parental top-up , why not make education vouchers £12,200 primary , £15,000 secondary ?
That would remove the distortion of ability to pay and should help the education market to function much better .
Set limits on the proportion of foreign pupils at independent schools to force them to serve British children and deter fee inflation .
It would ensure state schools are properly funded and take away the state systems excuses for failure .
The children of the elite might actually get to meet poorer kids and develop an empathy towards them too which might restrain their behaviour when they grow up .
July 22, 2018
They are not all rich kids going private. Many parents go without holidays and the latest gadgets in order to give their kids a decent start. Many are on scholarship.
July 22, 2018
Almost everyone wants to do the best for their kids .
I don’t suppose that many people who can afford to give their children a leg up choose the state system over independent .
Even if one settles for a Barratt box house and modest lifestyle , independent schooling is beyond the reach of all but about 10% of families .
It should be a matter of national concern that people are prepared to drop £10-40k p.a. on a service the state provides free .
Beyond being a poor reflection on the state product , what is the attraction – reducing the chances that your kid will fall in love with a pleb and give you half pleb Grandchildren ?
For our country to succeed in the 21st Century it has to leverage the skills of the majority of the population , not just the 7% who are educated independently .
July 22, 2018
Sadly Simon socialists stopped the assisted places scheme.
A good way for children from poorer families to get to top schools.
Then they whined about the lack of opportunities for social mobility.
July 22, 2018
Your figures illustrate the economies of scale.
It surprises me how cheap excellent fee paying schools are and how expensive state education is per pupil.
July 22, 2018
Ian Gill:
You make good points. Education Vouchers as Lifelogic indicates, add value. They may be introduced gradually for better effect. Govt could award some to parents too, according to their own performance as good citizens. Parents selecting the schools via their voucher power & preference may balance with allowing schools selecting the pupils. Parents who choose to buy vouchers reduce the burden on the state.
July 23, 2018
Half of those parents would prefer to take the money and leave the kids at home.
There is plenty or research that shows that school quality is closely related to parent “quality” (a complex of parent attention, parent attitudes re schooling, parent’s own scholastic achievement, etc). Single parent homes, working moms, low literacy in the home environment etc are barriers to education that schools cannot overcome (boarding schools do but that is expensive and has drawbacks too).
In a country where private schools exist (and are relatively plentiful) the answer is simply for parents to make the sacrifice and go for private schooling. The day variety, preferably, but days long enough to allow mothers to work full time.
July 22, 2018
Schools should of course be allowed to pay teacher in the harder to recruit subjects such as Maths and Physics rather more than in say English, music and art. Also there needs to be more regional variation in pay to reflect local living costs. A further problem is a lack of male teachers, particularly at primary school level. The teacher unions also have too much power. Once again the fact that the state schools have no genuine paying customers means they fail to respond to their needs and respond more to political and government targets. These are often/usually more damaging than useful.
Department for Education statistics show that only 26% of teachers in England are male (accounting for 38% of secondary but only 15% of primary school teachers). We know of course that women do tend to like teaching as the hours and holidays fit in well with children and work live balance choices. Though T May (with her idiotic gender pay gap reporting lunacy) still seems not to understand this. Perhaps as she has no children herself. She clearly does not seem to understand statistics, logic, economics, reason, negotiation skills, supply and demand, science or maths. Not indeed communication, vision or leadership.
Meanwhile is seems Dominique Raab has indicated that he is still trying to persuade all members of the cabinet that Theresa May’s Chequers agreement was “the best plan to get the best deal” and to persuade voters and cabinet colleagues that it is the way forward.
Well no Dominique it is a disastrous deal showing complete contempt for voters, democracy. It will be hugely damaging to the economy, freedom and democracy. It will prove to be a huge electoral liability too. Probably giving us Corbyn/SNP which would be another total disaster.
July 22, 2018
Dominic Raab !
July 22, 2018
It appears Raabs ambition has blinded all of his common sense, honesty and integrity. He had a lot to offer. He chose Voldemort instead of Harry Potter! Even kids can work out right from wrong. Barnier saying U.K. Will be subject to ECJ while May in N.Ireland denying it! Shocking dishonesty reported on TV on the same day. If Raab thinks people are that stupid he needs to consider another profession, he certainly will wreck any prospect of being PM or high office in cabinet. He is in a non job if he cares to listen what Davis and Jackson have said since Chequers!
Is Jackanory still on? He might not get a good reception there either.
I hope all these ministers on the summer deception tour is out of their own pockets not ours.
July 22, 2018
It is concerning that Raab is now saying the £39 billion divorce settlement may be not paid if there is no trade deal. I thought it was a settled fact that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ It appears that we have been lied to again.
July 22, 2018
Indeed we should never have even discussed a ‘divorce’ settlement. We should have said what trade deal can you offer and we will tell you what we might offer to pay for the deal.
But T May accepted the cart before the horse it seems!
July 22, 2018
Why should anything at all be paid for ”a deal”? The idea is outrageous.
This is bribery by another name, offering money to foreign officials in the interests of trade.
We should not be offering to hand over money for anything except for that which the EU’s accounts(!) show we owe.
July 22, 2018
Lifelogic
But T May accepted the cart before the horse it seems!
Is that not her normal way of operating?
July 22, 2018
Iain Moore, Any threat by Raab to withhold the £39bn is for domestic consumption only. It is to impress Leave voters with the government’s new-found “resolve” to stand up to the EU. It is of course completely fake. The government dare not admit to the WTO that we are paying the EU for a trade deal.
July 22, 2018
As long as May is in charge I fear there will be deception and prevarication. Brexiter MPs should have learned their lessons by now. The public did long ago and they are not fooled. May and her team will not deliver Brexit. She needs to be replaced with a committed Brexiter, and there should be a leadership challenge immediately, not in October. These Tory politicians look so complacent/unprincipled accepting the deception of the covert operations by May and Robbins. Now they seem to be saying that was all right, May’s plan can go to Brussels, and we will see how things progress after our summer holiday. Time is not on our side. Those MPs need more than a kick up the proverbial.
July 22, 2018
iain Moore..don’t be too concerned..the talks are going nowhere so we’ll soon have that 39 to spend on ourselves..only wondering who will decide.. It is also reported on Sky News that Raab is going to ramp it up..more fake stuff
July 22, 2018
There is a rumour, that Mrs May and her Chequers Deal is deliberately ‘the worst deal’, to be made even more terrible by the EU negotiators, so that the ‘meaningful vote’ vote, in parliament alone or perhaps by national referendum, to (1) remain, or (2) take the deal on offer or (3) leave on WTO only terms, the likely outcome will be a decision to remain.
Dr. Redwood, how does your team plan to counter that?
July 22, 2018
By removing May & hopefully as soon as possible. She is just the sort who would rig a referendum in that three way choice manner (spit the leavers vote in two).
The deal is indeed rather worse than staying in. A pure vassal state.
July 22, 2018
Peter
One of the biggest errors, amongst many, is to let a WTO deal be talked about as a No Deal, or crashing out, or falling off the edge of a cliff.
This sort of emotive language used by Remainers without challenge, suggests absolutely nothing will be in place when we leave, so complete disaster will be visited upon us.
The Leave Team have to get across that a WTO deal would come into place if negotiations fail, and outline/list what Countries actually are signed up to these terms at present, and what WTO terms actually mean.
Far far too many it would seem, including some Mp’s from their arguments, seem to think that no deal means absolutely no trade with any EU Country or anyone else come the end of March 2019.
July 22, 2018
Yes, I agree with your argument. The May Government plans to tell us via the national press, in stages, what a ‘no deal’ will do to us. You can see what that means over the next 6 months or so, given who (Mr. Robbins et al) will be preparing the information to be disseminated, By the time a vote is called for there will be no support for it.
May MUST go.
July 23, 2018
No, no deal is what it says: no preferential UK access to EU markets and no preferential EU access to UK markets. The term WTO is applicable but meaningless. Trade agreements (even the likes of EU) exist within the WTO framework. It would be extremely difficult for the UK to function without EU support in certain areas of course. So it would be irrational for the UK to simply do nothinb (or continue unproductive negotiations) until the final date of the art 50 period and then wake up as a third country without many preferences that many non-EU members enjoy. The minimum a responsible UK government should do is to salvage aviation , nuclear and some twenty other areas. That would mean a sort of christmas tree of bilateral or special purpose agreements like Switzerland has. Given that that takes years to complete and that the EU has indicated that they are not going to have another Switserland (they are free to make that choice, right?) the gallant clean break may not be a very happy outcome.
July 22, 2018
Peter Wood, Given Theresa May’s double White Paper deceit I would not put anything past our establishment now.
July 22, 2018
or (4) leave without WTO terms..if we want to be totally free..that is what we voted for
July 23, 2018
You always have WTO terms, they are not an alternative to trade agreements, they are the framework within which trade agreements function.
July 22, 2018
Teachers should get a premium for working in a sink school in a sink estate. They should be able to do it for say 3 years with a guaranteed job in a school in a leafy suburb at the end.
Too many good teachers get burnt out doing their best in a struggling school.
Far too easy to be a supposedly good teacher in an already great school. Far too hard to take the risk of working in a poor school and trying your best for the kids.
July 22, 2018
There really ought to be a limit to how much people are taxed. Instead of looking for ways to increase taxes, why don’t government ministers look at ways to cut spending, including shutting down entire government departments: just switching the lights off, locking the doors and selling the buildings. They should probably also need to make redundant at least every third person in the public sector, who could be much more gainfully employed in the private sector instead of interfering and disrupting production and services
July 22, 2018
Paying teachers by results would improve pupil performance cost-efficiently.
July 22, 2018
“In such a decentralised system there are limits to what the central government can achieve.”
Well whose fault is that, statutory education has been the responsibility of the state for at least 100 years!
But in any case many suggest the main problem is the highly centralised national curriculum and the ‘measurable’ results bureaucrats and politicos now demand that has resulted in an ever more dumbed down curriculum (and extra-curricula activities), teaching methods [1] and exams that have either put an end to some subjects and restricted others.
The UK, we are told, is a nation short of people with building, engineering and other craft based skills but how many secondary schools offer these highly practical skill-set subjects, the current (C)D&T curriculum very appears restrictive to those of us who took ‘old school’ traditional craft subject to exam level.
[1] not helped by endless political correctness and H&S gone mad
July 22, 2018
But teaching is another profession infiltrated by Blair-ites PC brigade, and the conservatives will not be returned to power at the next election. So how a future education system develops in this country is anyone’s guess.
Personally I’d like to see the schools promote national identity, history, and patriotism.
As is done in the US, and as used to be done here before the left got it’s hands on the education system.
July 22, 2018
Steve, Schools fail to teach even a semblance of who we are and where we’ve come from (UK history), and patriotism is routinely sneered at. Unless it is patriotism towards the EU of course. So the brains of the young get addled.
July 22, 2018
We have a fundamental problem. The Tory party’s turned left and is now on full virtue signalling mode. It’s all very sad and dispiriting.
More public sector spending is simply providing more financing for Labour’s client state apparatus. Yes, the Tories by spending more on the public sector is in effect strengthening the hand of Labour and their client state. You couldn’t invent this level of Tory ignorance
The way forward is simple. You take apart Labour’s client state. You do not pander to it. You do not feed it. The Tories are simply storing up problems for the future
Reform, massive reform is what is required not more spending. Of course reform means conflict with state vested interests and we have a PM who is utterly spineless on all fronts
These are side issues compared to May’s contempt for our country and its democratic values. If this PM thinks that this Parliamentary summer holiday will assuage our anger at her treachery then she is wrong, very wrong.
July 22, 2018
When my local MP, a member of the No Turning Back group was replaced by someone who is a hard core Remainer, I realised then that the Tory Party is not a ‘broad church’ but a deceit.
July 22, 2018
That is what it seems to be, forthurst. However, there are still Tory Brexiter MPs who continue to give Theresa May the benefit of the doubt.
July 22, 2018
DUNCAN
Reform, massive reform is what is required not more spending. Of course reform means conflict with state vested interests and we have a PM who is utterly spineless on all fronts.
Totally correct. Not only massive reform in education but also for the Conservative party.
July 22, 2018
Simon Heffer is surely largely right today. Much of the blame for these huge increases in crime rates lies with Theresa May’s long period as Home Secretary and the police having just given up completely on most crime. Over legalising drugs or cracking down harder on them I can never quite decide myself. It is rather finely balanced but I am probably on the Milton Freedman side. We cannot, after all, even keep them out of prisons. So what chance have the authorities got in keeping them out of society? They are just too small, profitable and easily smuggled.
Only a draconian stance can solve the crime crisis. As murder and robbery rates soar, Conservatives’ claim to be the party of law and order is comical Simon Heffer. As of course so is their claim to be the party of:- low taxation, Brexit means Brexit, sound economic management, cutting red tape, smaller government, sound finances and freedom of the individual. Dreadful socialists dopes they are (under the dire May and Hammond) but slightly better than a Corbyn/SNP disaster is perhaps the best they can claim. No change no chance just as with the dire John Major perhaps ever worse this time.
July 22, 2018
Pardon my ignorance but if we decided to justify paying this £39 bn to Juncker and Co. for their ‘co-operation’, it would need to be borrowed on the financial markets. This is not an amount that we have down the back of the sofa. It’s rather shocking how far Socialism has dragged down the mindset in this country!
July 22, 2018
No , that is what Cameron would have had you believe but it’s not true .
HM Govt has monopoly powers to issue currency or license others to do it (via granting banking licenses) .
That is why household finances are a poor analogy when discussing national finances .
Also why a country which only borrows money and builds up liabilities denominated in it’s own currency cannot go bankrupt .
Generally , it is better that new currency is spent into existence on Govt funded infrastructure projects manned by British subjects (we are subjects , not citizens) and public services so that it circulates in the economy rather than into black holes like bank bailouts and giving in to EU blackmail .
July 22, 2018
The magic money tree theory of economics.
Countries have gone bust.
Recent examples are Zimbabwe and Venezuela
July 23, 2018
You are being disingenuous .
Both Zimbabwe and Venezuela went bust specifically because they took out loans denominated in a currency they could not issue themselves .
Countries have not and cannot go bust by issuing their own currency .
The UK has done it on a major scale before by issuing the Bradbury Pound to save the banks in a former crisis and more recently QE .
July 23, 2018
They end up bust.
No one will lend to them
They can’t pay bills for imports like fuel and food.
The currency becomes regarded as worthless.
Inflation becomes hyper.
People return to bartering or use gold or silver.
The UK has loans.
Currently lenders accept sterling in payment.
Due to the confidence they have in the way the Treasury handles the economy.
July 22, 2018
Strangely, the government found about £2,000 billion “down the back of the sofa” to bail-out the banks during the 2008 crash. How do you think they managed that then? It never turned up as government borrowing; or, as an addition to the “national debt” PSND.
July 22, 2018
They printed it.
It was a very bad decision.
July 23, 2018
Wrong, try again.
July 23, 2018
Acorn, You fantastically exaggerate the bank bail out by Labour in 2008. The figures from the NAO are £1029bn as guarantees (ie not money actually paid out), and £133bn cash outlay. Try again.
July 23, 2018
I realise we didn’t actually print the QE money.
But effectively it is just the same.
July 24, 2018
Nick C. It actually peaked at £2,300 bn in 2010/11. 1,300 bn for the Banks and 1,000 bn for the non-bank economy. Sorry I didn’t make it clear.
July 22, 2018
In our local Comprehensive school there are 23 Senior Mangers some of them on Principal’s pay. The Principal gets L12 – £100,000 p.a. plus. Let me repeat twenty three senior managers.
Then there are the 17 Heads of Year whose pay is commensurate with their grave responsibilities both pastorally and in a managerial capacity. Let me repeat: seventeen.
On top of that there are no less than five Heads of Department.
On the school’s website, the mere teachers are not listed or even mentioned. Which is why they are mostly (I know people who go there) supply and temporary. And a lot of people for whom English is a second language. (“I can’t understand what he is saying” said one boy about his Maths teacher.)
I hope you will agree that the whole thing is simply upside down. The pupils, naturally, are beneath contempt. I know this again from what they tell me.
July 22, 2018
Sounds about par for the course.
July 22, 2018
Lifelogic.
Sounds about par for the course.
Even worse in dictatorship Scotland.
July 22, 2018
Too right Turbo. At a recent community council meeting attended by some councillors, it was revealed that when someone is incapable of going their job and get asked to leave they are still kept on in some capacity, presumably a made up post and then someone else is employed for their original job. No wonder our council tax bills are increasing!
July 23, 2018
You amaze me. Can these numbers really be correct? What is the number of pupils?
I am always told that teachers are underpaid, but this seems to be quite the reverse.
July 22, 2018
I understood the schools budget was growing, just not growing at the rate of demand coming from a children bulge , which I gather is another benefit from Government’s mass immigration policy. With all the costs mounting up from mass immigration, exactly where are the benefits?
July 22, 2018
With respect John, I do wish you and all politicians would specify when talking about schools and hospitals as you did yesterday, that you are only talking about English schools and English hospitals, England being the only part of the UK still under direct rule from Westminster. Scotland, Wales & NI make their own decisions on health and education with no interference from the UK Parliament, bizarrely not even those MPs they send to Westminster who have no say whatsoever on these matters for those who send them there but have 100% say on what happens in English health and English education.
When Socialist May was kicking the can down the road on tuition fees after admitting our kids (she meant English kids of course) pay the second highest in the world, she made her speech behind a ‘Better Future for Britain’ sign and said the word Britain many times, not England.
Are all politicians brainwashed into not saying the word England believing we English are too stupid to notice the difference and not realise that their austerity measures only apply to our kids, our sick and our elderly?
As someone who purports to speak for England John, could you please start saying the word England more.? A start would be to insist the Departments for Health and Education are re-branded the departments for Health and Education in England because 650 self serving UK Politicians are fooling no-one.
July 22, 2018
I agree 100%.
July 22, 2018
@Mark B. So do I.
July 22, 2018
Funny how the ConHome site (for example) can exist debating much the same issues, with much the same level of views expressed in user comments, and do so without being pre-moderated in the way this site claims to need. Almost all forums, and many user contributed websites exist happily within the letter of both UK and non UK laws with simple retro-moderation and the ability to self-edit should something have been posted during a bought of red mist before the eyes.
So it is a final Good-Bye, to much censorship, not moderation, is occurring on this website….
No doubt this will not get published, so should I return one day only our host will be surprised!
July 22, 2018
Jerry, the ConsHome site is a completely different kettle of fish to this blog: it takes ads, it takes contributions from many sources, it employs moderators.
It’s John’s set-up, it’s unique (to my knowledge), he makes the rules and if you don’t like them, you ain’t forced to visit.
July 22, 2018
@SM
Amen to that.
The fact that JR allowed the post shows Jerry is wrong.
Jerry – I don’t know of any other politician who provides a portal like this one and at expense of his own resource. Respecting the fact that it’s JR’s site, it’s only fair it’s his rules also.
I don’t have a problem with that, even though not all of my posts get through.
This community does sometimes get very expressive views but moderation is always conducted in a fair and gentlemanly manner and there are no fights.
Our host is also someone who advocates free speech, an enshrined right of everyone including yourself.
I personally think other politicians should also run sites like this, I suspect they’d get a rude awakening, and no longer be able to hide behind the excuse of being out of touch with the people.
The fact that at least one MP is prepared to take on board public opinion using his own time does give hope.
Not many would devote their time to all and sundry after coming home from work and on a weekend.
July 22, 2018
Your post litter this site almost every day with your personal and often contradictory views to the majority.
You have left several times with similar emotional posts and then returned to continue your posting.
Censorship you claim.
Why not start your own blog then you could censor all those you disagree with.
July 22, 2018
Jerry, In the face of Leave voters telling you what we voted Leave for – full Leave – you persist in imagining we really, really, deep down, wanted a half-in/half-out bodge, or Mrs May’s Remain by another name. The fact you may not like our desired Leave outcome, does not excuse your self-delusion. Good bye, I doubt you’ll be missed.
July 22, 2018
About 2 years ago the Cons Home website banned a large swathe of regular Cons grassroots commenters who were not supportive of liberal left Conservatism. The comments on that site are therefore not representative of Conservative grassroots, and should not be taken as such.
July 22, 2018
It’s your choice. I often have posts not published but I do not whine about it. Yours are often full of untruths or potentially libelous content. A bit of self censorship might be your solution?
July 23, 2018
I am confident that you will return one day because you clearly cannot stand not having the last word.
July 22, 2018
Brexit secretary Raab says that with no deal we will save 39 billion, so that and with other savings by not paying into the EU will go a long way to funding schools and hospitals-
July 22, 2018
LaurelH, How can Raab justify paying the EU a £39bn fee merely to trade with them? I cannot suppose that the EU will pay us for a trade deal. Nor do I believe the WTO will allow it. No, it is an idle threat to cod Leave voters into thinking the government is getting tough, and to hold together the disintegrating Tory party.
July 22, 2018
Raab also says that he believes that a deal will be done by October..more Gove speak..including the use of terms like being pragmatic and sensible and then it’s in their intetest..ladedah..believe it when I see it..
July 22, 2018
The average per pupil (AWPU) is topped up by various allowances for factors such as English as an additional language, deprivation and performance.
Immigrants skew these number by not speaking the language and generally earning low wages. This is why Tower Hamlets gets double per pupil than Wokingham.
I see a simple solution to the problem about AWPU rated don’t you?
There is plenty in the pot but it is targetted incorrectly.
July 22, 2018
Teacher pensions through increased NI payments from schools and pension contributions to their funds from schools has continued massively to the shortage of funds schools are experiencing.
Stop safeguarding these public sector pensions and put the money into educating children rather than enriching teachers. (Six weeks’ holiday just started).
July 22, 2018
@ narrow shoulders:
ain’t that the truth!
July 22, 2018
John Major’s been getting a lot of airtime.
He caused the Tory party to be out of office for 14 years never to return fully.
David Davies is right. Pragmatic Remainers want to leave the EU too now. A second referendum would deliver 60/40 Leave but let’s not go there because it is a) wrong b) changes the negotiating dynamic.
The increase in the desire for Leave is because of the behaviour of the EU Commission in response to our negotiating team’s reasonableness and because of the Stop-Brexit Remainers themselves and their condescending and insulting conduct – of which Newmania and Andy have provided plenty of evidence on this site (thenkyouverrrymuch.)
July 22, 2018
The problem in schools ? Oh. That’s down to pensioners clogging up classrooms. They’re responsible for the rest of the crises in this country too: stabbing people whilst trying to corner drugs markets, the obesity epidemic, the std crisis, the roads crisis, the water crisis … you name it.
*sarcasm*
July 22, 2018
@ ‘anonymous’
Not all pensioners.
Just those who didn’t plan for future generations, you know, the kind who bought their homes for 200 quid – paid for in a couple of years, but continually whinge about how hard it was for them to pay a 25 year mortgage (which they never had) then effectively left us with a pension crisis.
Oh my heart bleeds.
July 22, 2018
No-one paid off their houses in two years.
July 22, 2018
I was pretty disgusted to see John Major resurfacing, for he has some nerve considering the damage he did to our country. The damage he did to ‘ordinary people’ with his ERM debacle , and the of course the damage he did by driving through Maastricht, the treaty that brought the EU into being, as well as free movement, and the damage he did to our politics with his coarsening of it by name calling people who differed with is views as ‘bastards’, which opened the gates for other EU supporters to add to the name calling.
John Major likes to think of himself as some moderating sage, but he was at the heart of much of the divisive politics we have, and even now , when you listen to what he says, he’s in there creating divisions, and still failing to understand that people don’t want his EU project.
July 22, 2018
2017-18 UK deficit £40bn
of which
£14bn = Scotland
£14bn = Wales
£10bn = N Ireland
£2bn = England
No need for tax rises in England!
July 22, 2018
Stamp duty which under Hammond can be up to 15%, IHT and the 45% income tax rates fall very largely on SE England residents. Mainly in Tory areas. They should rise up and evict Hammond.
July 22, 2018
I fear that with what is coming down the tracks funding schools will be the least of our worries😂
July 23, 2018
We take the impact and keep buggering on.
If it is as bad as you say then the whole EU is sunk, probably the ROW too. If they were worried about the PIIGS going bust how about Britain/London for size ?
July 22, 2018
How much of their budget is used on “assistants” helping the children who arrive not knowing a word of English? Why is there ALWAYS money available to help new arrivals, but nothing but cuts in Council Services etc for the taxpayer – an ever diminishing %age of the ever-increasing population? So much for “Charity begins at home” – the govt is making us pay for the rest of the world to come here and have free lives, to the detriment of our own.
July 22, 2018
Then vote them out !
July 22, 2018
Thank you for trying to do your bit to increase the Funds to Wokingham Schools, which historically seem to have some of the lowest funding in the Country, as indeed has our local Authority.
If the funding formula for both of the above is so out of sync throughout the Country, why has nothing been done in the past to correct it.
I am aware it is under review, but it has been now for some considerable time, why does it always seem to take years, and years, and years to get a result, that very often is worse than the original.
Why is the formula always so complicated and why does it involve so many Departments and the Local Authority to administer it.
July 22, 2018
Pass the sick bucket – that old traitor “Sir” John Major has been allowed onto BBC TV to talk about “anti-Europeans” and “irreconcilables”.
And does the BBC presenter put it to him that it was his betrayal at Maastricht which nearly destroyed his own party, and more importantly nearly got us directly caught up with the economic and political catastrophe of the euro?
Of course not, instead this person who obstinately refused to hold a referendum on that EU amending treaty, and would not have held any referendum on joining the euro either, is encouraged to renege on what he expressly said before the EU referendum:
“There will not be another referendum on Europe. This is it. The decision we take on June 23 will shape our country, our people and our livelihoods for generations to come.”
and support a repeat referendum on EU membership, which he duly does.
July 24, 2018
John Major is unsuited to decisions greater than shifting peas around his plate & should keep his head down.
July 22, 2018
For how much longer is the huge OTT Overseas Aid budget going to stifle our ability to spend on OUR needy people?
Given that we are continually running a Current Account deficit, means that we are borrowing around £12 Billions per year to hand over, in many cases, to dubious projects across the globe. It makes no sense to continue with this very unpopular, some may say, ‘vanity’ project.
July 22, 2018
You must be new as everyone on here has always said it. It’s the Government that’s tone deaf, being led by the weak and wobbly Maybot!
July 22, 2018
We need massive spending increases and massive payroll tax cuts. Get the budget deficit up to at least 10% of GDP, ideally higher, and then let the subsequently booming economy take care of the rest. The United States has implemented the Trump tax cuts which are adding to their GDP growth rate, it might just be what prevents them going into another recession, but don’t quote me on that – I still think the Trump tax cuts are far too small (and inefficient, likely pro-inequality / Gini-busting).
Higher interest rates are also going to *increase* inflation unnecessarily, the fed funds rate should have been (and should still be) 0% forever, as lower rates actually do the opposite of what the mainstream believes. Simply put, a central bank interest rate of 10% implies an annual inflation rate of 10%, ceteris paribus.
JR have you taken any time to consider MMT and especially Warren Mosler’s book “The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” (free online)? It explains how the current monetary system works and how to optimise policy for full employment, price stability, and maximum GDP growth.
July 22, 2018
Don’t believe every economist you read on line.
There are hundreds out there with some very odd theories.
July 22, 2018
What kind of reply is that? Of course I don’t believe random economists, most of them have no idea how the monetary system works. I do my research first, just like everyone else should.
MMT has it right about the monetary system, you can just look at BoE monetary operations, national accounts data, sectoral balances, etc.
July 22, 2018
It is the kind of answer you get from someone who has studied economics when someone else puts forward someone who has a book which is free on the internet.
Which basically says there is a magic money tree.
July 22, 2018
Was it George Bernard Shaw who said ‘Those that can – do , those that can’t Teach’ !!
Not totally true I am sure but said a long time ago indicating that education was in a poor state even then. In todays world ” responsibility” seems to be ignored and not down to “ME”
Teachers must be responsible for our children’s education but Children must be responsible
for themselves – to make the real effort to learn – and Parents must accept that they have a real responsibility too. Support and encourage their children but support the School and the Teachers also.
A lot of politicians should be more aware of their responsibility to this Country !!
July 22, 2018
A teacher friend of mine despairs because children with suicidal tendencies now need to wait 1 month before the state will provide a psychologist to see them .
This intervention is too late .
That is the spiteful reality of Phillip Hammond’s cuts and they are being paid for in young persons lives .
The previous Education Secretary , Nicky Morgan , refused to send her children to a state school .
It is all to obvious that the chinless Conservative govt has no vested interest in State Education and that May and Hammond consider it low priority .
It is as if they actually want to lower the standard of state education to widen the gap between the masses and their own offspring who go to independent schools .
July 22, 2018
Have they no teachers family friends nor GPS to help and advise them.
Perhaps they are driven to despair by the useless state education system.
July 22, 2018
Thanks for your callous reply .
These children are desperate and typically have parents who can barely look after themselves never mind get it together enough to take their offspring to the doctor .
They need more than advice from teachers . They need specialist help .
When their teacher asks for it on their behalf policy is now that the child will not be seen for 1 month whereas only a few years ago they would get help urgently .
Having long waiting periods for adults to deter them going to the doctors is bad enough but making a suicidal child wait is shameful .
Stick your head in the sand on issues like this and the result will be a Corbyn govt .
July 22, 2018
Thank you for your bleeding heart reply.
We live in a nation which has one of the very best health services in the world.
Using a random claim of delay in seeing a mental health professional is unimpressive.
No amount of state spending would satisfy your demands as you and Corbyn may one day find out.
The state can only do so much.
My point is peer group help is probably the better solution.
July 23, 2018
We live in a nation which has one of the very best health services in the world.
==========
Nope. Since when did 12-20,000 avoidable deaths each year make it one of the best?
July 23, 2018
Avoidable…..how is that defined.
I would still prefer to be ill here in the UK rather than nearly all the other nations on the planet.
July 22, 2018
Ban children from social media – comparison with others being the source of childhood depression.
July 22, 2018
For years eurofederalists like Mr “7%” Nick Clegg pretended that “anti-Europeans” had a greatly exaggerated idea of the extent to which the EU was affecting what happened in our country; but now we have the word of another eurofederalist, the Tory Dominic Grieve QC, that we have become so ensnared with the EU that if we leave it without any deal we will be plunged into a state of emergency.
There is one point here, of which Mr Grieve as an eminent lawyer is no doubt well aware: if it can be foreseen that serious disruption could arise as a consequence of the imminent termination of an existing agreement then there are potentially plenty of legal devices available to make sure things running as normal in practice, without having to finalise a comprehensive deal with the EU.
Provided of course that all the parties concerned want to avoid any disruption of their normal arrangements; so if he really thinks there would be serious disruption that can only mean that he thinks his beloved EU would want to see serious disruption.
July 22, 2018
Denis Cooper..it would not be so bad if we could rewind the clock back to 1960 say for all EU countries when all countries in europe and the world traded with each other by loading unloding general cargo in and out of ships holds and warehouses by dockers and labourers, where carpenters were needed to tom off crates in cargo holds and officers signed off bills of lading etc before sailing…it was a time long before containterisation and computers..problem for us now is that the european model has moved along and evolved to the present sophisticated free flow movement of goods services people and capital by way of various well tried and tested treaties to get to this point.
When we leave..we leave ourselves outside of all of this progress and nobody knows how we we are going to be able to fit back in again..or where we are going to be allowed fit in? We cannot be wholly outside of this EU bloc as it has evolved with all of its rules, practices, benefits and yet trade with them as we want..not even by WTO rules will this happen..it’ll be like we were before 1960..everything will be slow..cumbersome and under acute customs inspections at every turn..and it will be our own customs officials who will give us most grief..that is the nature of where we are heading and we should make plans for this now because most of us now firmly believe that is where we are headed..no point in calling it ‘crash’ or any of the other emotive terms..barnier and Raab will just continue talking along minding to be polite all the while but knowing that on 29 march 2019 at 2300hrs Uk time it will be the end..if there is a problem then with air travel..then we can always take the boat like our fathers did years ago ..for a while at least until new treaties are drawn up.
All of this must be..must be.. because the EU too has run out of patience and they know now that whatever could be agreed in such a short space of a few months will never placate a certain cohort of leaver extremists..that these difficult people will need some time out, perhaps for a generation or two, to reflect..that’s a given and who can really blame them
July 22, 2018
Noname, We can be outside the “EU bloc” just like all the other countries in the world are outside the EU. Is New Zealand “extremist”? You adopt emotive language which has no foundation. There are no Leave “extremists” – Leave is simply a fact of life for 165 nations, and we will (hopefully) be the 166th.
July 22, 2018
New zealand is outside of the EU so it is not leaving the EU nor is it trying to do a special deal with them. Leave is not a fact of life for the other 165 nations either because they were never members in the first place nor are they trying to join. What we are at is trying to disentangle ourselves from the EU and then rejoin in some other way to suit our own specific circumstances, a totally different thing, and a long long way from New Zealand
July 23, 2018
Noname, We voted to Leave the EU exactly to put us in the same position (legally, obviously not geographically) as New Zealand. Our Remain establishment is trying to re-join the EU. But that is not in my name. Nor in the name of any Leave voter I know. We voted to Leave the EU – precisely so that we will be outside the EU like New Zealand is. Try again.
July 22, 2018
Utter tosh. If it were so disasterous why did Cameron forbid planning for it? Mwhyndidn, t Grieve speak up to warn Camden what he ought to do, it would be his patriotic duty to do so would it not? Secondly, the U.K. Can replicate whatever systems it likes, it works for other countries around the world, and guess what? There are more countries outside the EU than in it. There is no such thing as Leave extremists, this is the sort of name calling by liberal elite types, a democratic vote won the right for the country to leave the EU any other name or narrative created by people wanting to smear, scare and intimidate people to change their minds, like Grieve today with his hysterical claims. People like this undermine democracy, electoral democracy and act like petty little bullies. They should be resisted at all costs. Add the veiled threat of collapsing a govt and you realise how despicable these people are, they Renee on their threats to the govt, per S Hammond email.
July 22, 2018
Felixstowe is one of the biggest ports.
Most containers are from the rest of the world
Going in and out of the UK
Average checking time is under 10 seconds 24/7 365
Your lack of knowledge about how modern trade takes place is very obvious.
July 22, 2018
I am sorry but what you have written is ridiculous, international trade is based on English law, it had nothing to do with the EU, same as contasinerisation, for I was shipping commodities from the Far East to the USA on the basis of INCO terms, and you know what, no EU involved anywhere in it.
July 22, 2018
When you use language like that one instantly knows which side of the fence you sit.
There is nothing extreme in wanting to be a self governing country. And 17.4 million people would agree with me.
July 22, 2018
What a load of rubbish!
July 23, 2018
The EU negotiators are more optimistic than some member governments. Some of these governments do no believe this government/parliament can make credible promises and other merely doubt the UK government’s credibility. Without a radical change in the politics of UK government, there will be no agreement on withdrawal and certainly no agreement on the future relationship, because these governments will have to agree and they will not on the basis of current internal UK discourse. But a new government may if it so wishes, reapply of course.
July 22, 2018
Exactly who would want to remain in a club whose officials just want to cause you serious disruption? They can do it even better if you remain under their rules and laws.
July 22, 2018
What will be the money per pupil ratio when migrants return from their summer hols in Euroland and elsewhere? Of course the government does not know. It has already counted them as left the UK.
Nor how many of their friends, relations and children will accompany them because “It’s good over there”.
The government does not have control, and is incapable of allocating funds properly nationally regionally and school by school.
The Brexit negotiating team should negotiate with the EU to bring forward our exit date to before Christmas at the latest irrespective of any deal. It is afraid to go to Election now, later it will be petrified.
July 22, 2018
Mrs May votes with her brain and not her heart
That there’s some corner of certainly a foreign field
That will be for ever Mayland
July 22, 2018
I’m just on a little jolly to the Alps. You’ll no doubt all be delighted to know that I’ve just experienced quite a lot of friction at the Brexiteers favourite frictionless border between France / Switzerland. If this is the model to which you all aspire – oh dear. It is worse than what we have in every way.
When I return to the UK I guess I should start stockpiling food and drugs – as your Brexit utopia would seems to be likely to cause shortages of both.
How many of you actually voted for trade barriers and stockpiling? Coz that’s what it turns out you’re getting.
July 22, 2018
Do you remember any shortages re Operation Stack ? I don’t.
July 22, 2018
Why even bother coming back, unless it is to wind up your affairs and make the final preparations for your escape while there is yet time?
July 22, 2018
You can be randomly stopped by customs officers in every airport in the world.
They have that right.
EU or no EU
The biggest delays I have experienced have been returning to the UK
It is a lack of staff nothing to do with Brexit
July 22, 2018
@Andy
Listen; starving this country into subservience has been tried before.
July 22, 2018
Maybe they were trying to keep out undesirables? Could explain the delay!
July 22, 2018
Andy, have a lovely holiday and extend it for as long as you like. In fact don’t bother to come back especially if the borders are so taxing. I think you’ll find that we pensioners manage fine. Do you think you’re the only person in the UK that can afford a holiday? That’s what it sounds like the way you are bragging. etc ec
July 22, 2018
How remiss of France and Switzerland not to have designed their border arrangements to suit the convenience of people from the U.K. on “jollys.”
July 23, 2018
Ditto on the German/Austrian border.
Wonder why?
July 22, 2018
Can’t you just play safe and not come back?
July 22, 2018
We look in particular to the teaching profession to set standards, to innovate, and to manage the school budgets well.,/I>
Good luck with that!
Teaching, and teacher training, was taken over totally by the far left in the 1960s and 1970s.
Schools now practice brainwashing not education.
We need a new institution with authority to ensure than teacher training addresses critical thinking. All eduction is political, but it can be even-handed. Today it isn’t.
Start with a rigorous survey of the political beliefs of teachers and university lecturers.
July 22, 2018
I’m setting up a business on Margate beach selling blow-up dingies to Remoaners fleeing poverty…including a free biro.
July 23, 2018
Same amount per capita, across the UK.
Then its down to making best use of the money, not complaining about needing more.
Plus its equality.
July 23, 2018
That won’t work.
The disparity in wealth between areas in the UK means that spending per person has to be different in different areas.
Health and life expectancy is poorer in poorer areas.
July 23, 2018
Schools should be privately-run and the state should stop grooming children (i.e. sticking its nose in the education and well-being of kids).
For most people (and I do mean most), any formal education beyond the rudiments of maths and reading is not helpful, and may even be harmful. What would help them more is a job, preferably an apprenticeship or other structured training, starting at age 14 or 15, for which they can be paid while learning an appreciated skill.
Please, can be STOP this silly worship of edu-cayshun and credentials. Our schools have become paper mills in which brainwashing and credential-chasing is disguised as learning.
Most people don’t need qualifications. What they need is a place in the world, in which they are appreciated and valued. That could be as a rocket scientist or a dustman – it doesn’t matter which, as long as they have that place, and can be happy and independent and content in themselves. They gain this by learning skills of some sort along with self-confidence. That, if anything, is what education should be for.
Academic achievement and university are for a specialist minority, but perspicacity comes in different forms.
When are we going to get back to common sense..??