100% OT; school holidays

Simon Brooke writes:

The overcrowding is a matter of the island having about 900% more people
on it than it can reasonably support, and lifestyle doesn't make the
least little bit of difference to that!

I vaguely remember reading that even the Netherlands would be able to
support its entire population by more economic use of resources. It did
however involve everybody becoming vegetarian...

Roos

Tony Raven wrote:
: Arthur Clune wrote:
:
: Even more OT, but house price rises are down solely to a speculative bubble
: now.
:

: ITYM house price rises are _up_ ;-)

I ment what I said. Ah, the joys of english grammar



--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

PK wrote:

Richard Goodman wrote:
The school's responsibility is
simply to deliver the scheduled lessons.

You seem to have a very narrow view of what schools are all about!

And that response is why so many parents now have a poor view of our
education system.

John B

Paul Rudin wrote:

: ... and there I was thinking that historically low interest rates had
: something to do with it, silly me

That's what has caused a bubble, yes.

--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

PK wrote:

JohnB wrote:
And we lost top spot in the league tables one year because two
children were removed without permission during SATs for family
holidays - children thus removed score zero on the SAT and bring
the average for the entire school down (so much for league tables!).


We remove our children from school for the duration of the SATs.
SATs have become a pernicious exam pressure on the kids. They were
introduced to test the teaching and ensure the teachers were doing
an adequate job of teaching the curriculum. That has been
successfully palmed off into testing of the children with all the
unnecessary pressure on them to do well in the SATs. We have told
the school we will be quite happy for the children to take part once
it reverts to being treated as a test of the teaching and not the
children.

I couldn't agree more.

but of course when your children have a problem at school you will expect
the school to pull out all stops to help....????

That depends what type of 'problem' you are referring to and whether
fell within the school's responsibility.
Perhaps you could clarify.
I send my children to school to receive education not for the purposes
of creating figures for teachers, governors and government to use for
their own political ends.

John B

In article , PK wrote:
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

(otherwise it would have made
vastly more sense to start with KS1 tests and follow the cohort up,
to provide value-added measures).

That WAS always the intention! But you need a run of data to form a
basleline and trend to measure added value against.

That would explain those secondary schools who test on entry to
provide a baseline because "the SATS are useless for that", no doubt.

JohnB wrote:
PK wrote:

Richard Goodman wrote:
The school's responsibility is
simply to deliver the scheduled lessons.

You seem to have a very narrow view of what schools are all about!

And that response is why so many parents now have a poor view of our
education system.

John B

Why?

the Education system is not about delivering lessons - sit them infront of
pc's with cd roms if that is the case.

It is about delivering education. it is about partneship between schools,
teachers, parents and pupils each repecting each other and the rules of the
school. Part of those rules are : holidays in holday time, school in school
time.

pk

Paul Rudin wrote in
:

: The overcrowding is largely due to a change in lifestyle, i.e. more
: people living alone (this is also a large factor in house price
: rises).

Even more OT, but house price rises are down solely to a speculative
bubble now.

... and there I was thinking that historically low interest rates had
something to do with it, silly me


Let's just say that the causes are many, and to pick on any single factor
can give an overly simplistic picture. But then again, complex issues let
anyone pick their own favourite factor to back up an argument :-)


Graeme

Simon Brooke wrote in news:v0dbq1-t11.ln1
@gododdin.internal.jasmine.org.uk:

I am _not_ going to spend ten years
sitting in a 'home' gazing increasingly vacantly at a television.

You'll bloody well do as the nurse tells you!

:-)


Graeme

Simon Brooke wrote in news:v0dbq1-t11.ln1
@gododdin.internal.jasmine.org.uk:

The overcrowding is a matter of the island having about 900% more people
on it than it can reasonably support, and lifestyle doesn't make the
least little bit of difference to that!


I'd be interested to see where the 900% figure comes from. However, the one
aspect of lifestyle I mentioned, i.e. more people living on their own,
separated families etc. means more houses are required so that does
contribute to over-crowding. I wasn't referring to lifestyle as in whether
you like going to the pub etc.

The effect may not be large, but it is significant enough for it to be
fairly regularly [1] quoted as a reason for increased housing needs on such
bastions of truth as Radio 4 ;-)

Graeme

[1] about once every two or three months - roughly the frequency at which I
used to force myself to endure "You and Yours"