GCSE exam results day.  First off, to all those getting their results today, I hope you get great results.  Achieving great grades is the result of hard work and dedication and no-one can take away from your awesome achievement.  So congratulations.  BUT….that does not mean that we cannot question a system that sees year on year ever improving pass rates and provides for some…..false hope?

Before we look at GCSE results, let’s remember A’Level successes just a couple of weeks back.  A’Level results announced showed again another improvement in pass rates….the 27th year in a row.  Yes 27 years in a row.  The pass rate of 97.5 per cent was 0.3 per cent higher than last year’s.  Are we saying that education has improved so much that children studying today, as a whole, are more intelligent, year on year, 27 years running?  We have a right to question that as slightly suspicious?  Are exam results politicised…is grade inflation the norm?  Within 9 years, anyone taking an A’Level will pass it….zero failures!  Again, within the next 9 years, the number of ‘A’ grades will rise to more than a third of all entries (it is already over a quarter).  Is that a good thing or papering over the cracks?

Are exams dumbed down?  A controversial question.  So, over the past 20 years, the proportion of A grades has risen from nine per cent to 2009′s 26.7 per cent; a study by Durham University last year concluded that an ‘A’ grade today is the equivalent of a C grade in the 1980s.

Perhaps more interesting is that Universities are now starting to introduce their own entrance tests as they don’t trust the validity of A’Levels, to sort the wheat from the chaff.  Cambridge University have publicly stated a third of A-grade mathematics students failed their entrance exam.  ‘A’ grades in maths have soared faster than any other subject – rising by more than 50 per cent in the last decade.  Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said the standard of A-level maths was too low.  “The fact is that the content was adjusted in light of a dramatic fall in entries and, as a result, we have a much higher proportion of ‘A’ grades being awarded,” he said. “This is why we see people being offered Cambridge places on the basis of projected As who do not turn out to be good enough. An ‘A’ grade is not telling the universities what it would have told them in the past.”

The danger as well of ever increasing A’Level grades is the false hope it provides students.  Naturally, students achieiving great A’Level results want to go on to University.  But reports scream that 50,000 A-level students will miss out on a place at university.  This year 52,000 more people applied to University but only 13,000 extra places were made available.  It would be little short of a tragedy if all the hard work by this year’s students is rewarded by no place in higher education or no job. It seems particularly cruel of the Government to raise expectations and then dash them by failing to provide enough places in higher education for UK students seeking them.

For those who can’t get places at University they could be another statistic added to the NEET.  The number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) has leapt by more than 100,000 in the past year.  Government statistics show there are now almost 960,000 16- to 24-year-old Neets in England, more than 230,000 of whom are aged between 16 and 18.

Turning to today’s GCSE’s.  Two thirds of exam papers were awarded an A* to C grade and the number ranked A or A* increased by 0.9 percentage points to 21.6%. But slightly fewer pupils scored a C or above in English, from 62.9% to 62.%, and the number taking modern languages continues to fall. The proportion of maths results scoring A*-C rose by 0.9% to 57.2%, with boys outperforming girls in this subject for the first time in a decade. Around 750,000 16-year-olds are collecting more than 5.46m GCSE exams results today. Overall, the A*-G pass rate increased slightly to 98.6%, up 0.2% on last year.

Let’s not take away from today’s results but we cannot allow for year – on -year grade inflation to continue.  Some years children, collectively, won’t achieve the best results.  That is a fact of life.  Other year’s, students will knock the results out of the park.  So, let’s just set the benchmark and throw the dice each year and see how the dice land.  When the Conservatives seek to introduce an honest and fair system, the first year that results dip, you can picture Mandolsen and the new Labour Leader Purnell, criticising the fall in education under the Tories!  Honesty is the best policy…throw them dice DC.

Ed Balls…is told exam results have risen again.  Shock horror eh Ed!

The private sector isn’t working….the public sector is….!

As the private sector faces thousands of job losses each week, the public sector continues merrily recruiting away….especially roles with high salaries.  This is fast becoming a national scandal….that needs the oxygen of publicity….to show how we are wasting tax payers money recruiting so many BUREAUCRATIC red tape, pen pushing roles in areas like education and the NHS….if this doesn’t make your blood boil….!!!

Take a look at the Sunday Times Appointment section today and also delve online to www.timesonline.co.uk/jobs, here’s a selection of the roles being recruited….yes, only a selection—that’s the scary thing, the public sector and all those Government Quangos are busily burning OUR money:

East of England Ambulance service NHS Trust 

All these roles are stated to have:  Attractive Salaries + Pension + Relocation

Chief Operating Officer

Director of Strategy & Business Development

Director of Finance & Deputy Chief Executive

Director of Business Transformation

Director of Clinical Quality (part Time)

Clinical Director (Part time)

NHS Devon

Chief Executive c £140,000 plus more for an exceptional candidate

Kent County Council

Service Director Learning / Service Director Vulnerable Children – £104,000 plus excellent bens

Association of Police Authorities

Chief Executive Association of Police Authorities £115k – £130k

Department for Transport

Non-Executive Director Civil Aviation authority c £44,000 for 2 days a week)

NHS Borders

Executive Director of Finance - up to £87,366, plus on-call payment, benefits and relocation

Executive Director of Nursing & midwifery – up to £87,366, plus on-call payment, benefits & relocation

South London Healthcare NHS Trust

Director of Financial Operations (band 9 £80-£100,000)

Associate Director of Financial services * 4  (YES * 4)  (band 8d £68-£83,000)

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

CIO – £90,000 plus benefits

Department for Children, Schools & Families

Head, National Safeguarding Delivery Unit – c £100,000

DfT Shared Services – Head of Business Change £57,300 – £75,000

Department for Children, Schools and Families  &  Department of Health

Communications Champion   Attractive Salary  (Will no doubt be £90k & above)

Hillingdon (London’s second largest Borough)

Deputy Director: Children and Family services £92,000 – £125,000

Deputy Director: Learning Effectiveness & major Transformation – £92,000 – £125,000

Environment Agency

Head of Planning & Performance – £75,000 plus bonus + bens

Isle of Wight Council

Project Director for Schools Capital Programme – up to £100,000

Yes, the gravy train is merrily continuing on.  MP’s Expenses have been exposed….now it’s time to turn the spotlight on our Public services and how they are ripping us off.  This is a recession, we have a cancerous spiralling national debt and yet, we can carry on recruiting in the Public sector, for what seen as non essential roles…or in some cases roles that can be merged into each other to save costs.

If this was the private sector………well it would never happen and at least if it did it is not with OUR money.

I hope you agree this is a national scandal?

Andy Burnham & Ed Balls oversee two of the biggest spending Departments in Whitehall…with lot’s of exciting new jobs being advertsed….no wonder they have the time to have fun playing on a swing!!!

Reading today’s interview with Alastair Darling in the Daily Telegraph, (http://tiny.cc/7CBpf), things become even clearer about recent events and it is now clear that Purnell, unintentionally saved the careers of Alastair Darling, David Miliband and ……. even helped Gordon Brown survive and continue as PM!

As we know Brown offered Darling the role of Foreign Secretary or Home Secretary the week before the reshuffle.  He was desperate for Ed Balls to be his Chancellor in the final hours in the bunker pre his expulsion at the next election.  Brown had been touting via the no.10 spin machine that this was going to be a radical reshuffle, a fresh start.  But all best plans…..go to waste!  Brown was at the mercy of events out of his control…..first off, Brown was hammered in the local and European elections, then pummelled to the ground by a series of Ministerial resignations, including that of James Purnell, just as polls had closed, (the day before the reshuffle).  Purnell’s was devastating but as events proved….his timing was off!  Brown was now on the back foot…all talk of a radical reshuffle was off the agenda…this was preservation and damage limitation time for Brown.  Hence the tepid and timid reshuffle….none of us are under any illusion that Brown wanted shot of darling and was prepared to see Miliband moved from the Foreign Office as we learn today.

What the shame of this whole episode is we will never know what Brown would have done in his recent reshuffle had James Purnell not resigned pre the reshuffle.  Purnell saved the jobs of both Darling and Miliband.  Purnell made it impossible to move any heavyweights as had Brown faced any more Cabinet resignations he was a goner!.  Miliband & Darling owe Purnell a lot.  I am sure that privately Purnell regrets his resignation timing.  If he had waited just a day or two, Brown would have displaced Darling and / or Miliband and they would have been prime for resignation.  Then Purnell could have acted to devastating effect and brought Darling and / or Miliband with him, to which Brown would never have survived.  That is clear.

So ultimately Purnell can even be credited for saving the Premiership of Gordon Brown!  How bizarre is that? 

No wonder Gordon Brown is laughing……..

This morning I attended my daughters school sports day….wow what an eye opener into the type of society we have become.  Scary.

First up, all the parents walked into the school and were faced with the stark message.  No cameras please.  We were told because of rules, regulations, privacy and data protection laws we were not allowed to take photos of the sports day.  Forgive me for saying so, but I go to sports day to share in my daughters joy in taking part in a fun sporting day.  I want to capture that memory on film and share with friends and relatives.  I don’t go to take photos of other children…they may creep into shot but these are my daughters friends and she wants pictures of her with her friends but the main purpose is capturing my daughters joy on film.

How crazy we live in a world that we are made to feel guilty of wanting to take photos to share memories.  There are only a small proportion of people who object to such draconian rules.  The nanny state is ruling us with an iron rod.

Interestingly the school hired an official photographer for the day, who was charging parents for taking photos, (which yes included other children in the background).  That was ok…and the school made money from this.  And the school is happy to charge for group class photos.  So the rule is therefore that it is alright to have photos from school days BUT only if you buy them from the official photographer.  What a bizarre ruling that official photos are ok, parents photos are not.  Surely privacy and data protection is the same whether official photo or parents photo…………?

Next eye opener was the structure of the sports day.  It was important there was no competition to the day.  Competition results in winners and losers.  Losing is something bad that schoolchildren should not face as it can be distressing.  The message is all about taking part.   Now I have nothing against ensuring all feel included but the spirit of competition is an important element that children have to learn and cope with.  Competition will come into whatever they do….be it school results, be it in their careers in seeking promotion, be it competition in the boardroom.  Competition is how entrepreneurs are born. 

So schools are breeding kids, who are socially inclusive but non competitive.  Then, us adults, pass them conflicting messages about winning.  The UK is all behind Andy Murray….we all want him to win Wimbledon…it’s not the taking part we are interested in…it’s the winning.  At the Olympics, it’s the medal table that matters….especially the number of Golds.  And of course, the World Cup next year….we will all be cheering for our home team.  None of these examples do people say…it’s the taking part that counts!!!

We are really becoming the ‘cotton wool’ society—nicely wrapped up and protected by the nanny state…..is this the UK we really want?  Come on Ed Balls….let’s ditch the political correctness…….and prepare kids for real life.

So, today was the big relaunch of the Prime Minister and his beleaguered Government.  This was the launchpad to win the next election.  The announcements that would have Cameron and all Tories quaking in their boots!………so what were there earth shattering, confidence inspiring announcements? 

The ‘Building Britain’s Future’ report, effectively a manifesto for the general election, was launched this afternoon via a Brown fanfare…….

Before reading more, please it down.  This may knock you off your feet!  Gordon announced…..new “entitlements” for users of public services, a boost for housebuilding and extra training opportunities for young people.  He also stunned the Commons by announcing….again….Constitutional reform to the House of Lords by removing the final hereditary peers.  Wow, that’s a hefty agenda, no wonder Post Office legislation was ‘jostled’ off the Order Paper!  But let’s delve deeper……

Key legislation post Summer holidays includes:  an Energy Bill to support up to four carbon capture and storage power plants; a Digital Economy Bill will pave the way for universal broadband access by 2012;  a Policing, Crime and Private Security Bill to give officers more time on the beat…….what else?

‘Building Britain’s Future’ also included a commitment to offer anyone under 25 a guaranteed job, work experience or training, with an “obligation” for the individual to accept the offer. Should they reject the offer, their benefits would be cut. 

It also featured promises of more education reforms, with the “best headteachers” working in more than one school as trusts, academies and federations are expanded.  Interstingly, Ed Balls concedes that state schools are failing too many of their pupils by announcing plans to recruit 100,000 “personal tutors” at £25 an hour to give one-to-one tuition to children falling behind in English and mathematics. With four pupils in every 10 arriving in secondary school without a decent grasp of the three Rs, drastic remedial action is clearly necessary.  Maybe Ed has been too busy looking after the Number 10 smear team and taken his eye off the education brief he commands?

Remember when Blair was asked his top 3 priorities?  he said, ‘Education, Education & Education’!.  Hence, with Balls hiring private Tutors, what a humiliation this is for a governing party that has always claimed education to be its number 1 priority.

Despite having NO MONEY, Brown carried on spending and announced extra investment in housing will be trebled by funding reallocation, (not defined of course as money taken from somewhere else is a cut), resulting in an increase from £600 million to £2.1 billion investment.  That would lead to 110,000 new homes to rent or buy.  This is obviously designed to help him reclaim some of the Labour voters lost to the BNP in the recent elections!

So, what is interesting in ‘Building Britain’s Future’, is that however, for it amounts to a tacit admission that in the two key areas of public policy, health and education, the past 12 years have been, in large part, a failure.  That’s the only way to paint it.  The Government are relaunching in areas where they have had 12 years to make an impact.

But this is not all bad.  Some Conservative ideas are being plagiarised……Centrally-imposed targets, the mainspring of Labour’s health policy, are, in effect, being abandoned, to be replaced by patients’ rights – in the first instance, the right of someone suspected of having cancer to see a specialist within a fortnight. This may seem a target by another name but it could actually mean the end of the NHS’s monopoly as supplier of state healthcare. For if the NHS is unable to meet this two-week target, the patient will be able to go to a private hospital, with the state meeting the bill, (unannounced where the funds would come from!).  What’s exciting is that, for the first time, the concept of patient choice within the NHS may actually come about and actually benefit health care!  But that is too free market to propose isn’t it for the NHS?

This Government are dying, the life support machine keeps them barely alive and will be turned off in less than 12 months.  Much of ‘Building Britain’s Future’, won’t see the light of day pre this election.  The promises today, form the bedrock of Labour’s next election manifesto, seeking to convince voters to allow them the mandate for a 4th term.  Many reading this will ask….where’s the big idea and what hav you been doing for the past 12 years when you need private tutors in schools because of education standards collapsing and of course, in the health service, Labour’s passionate core issue in previous elections, people will ask again, why drop your core proposals and targets and what have you being doing for 12 years…….

Fair question….what has Labour achieved in 12 years?   hhhhhmmmm prevented Iraq using it’s weapons of mass destruction maybe?

The Government’s position is akin to a Burning Oil Rig.  The Rig stands but everything around it burns….collapse is inevitable

Where is Alastair Darling our Chancellor of the Exchequer?…..he is missing.  Should we notify Scotland Yard?

Have you noticed he has gone missing?  Have you seen him give any political interviews on the tv or in the press?  Why is he so quiet?  You would have thought he would be tramping the airwaves supporting his boss.  Yes, he was heading for the sack/demotion and only James Purnell’s resignation helped prevent that.  Last week at PMQ’s when Cameron was ridiculing him for being the unwanted Chancellor his face was pained and thunderous.

Even more mystifying when the debate is raging on spending cuts he is noweher to be seen.  Intriguingly, Ed Balls, (the expected next Chancellor), has been all over the media attacking George Osborne and Conservatives plans.

Why are you so quiet Alastair?  Are you having a quiet hissy-fit?  Or are you considering a damaging resignation?

Move over Darling!!!!!!

Earlier this week, we predicted on this blog site that, master of the dark arts, (the new Voldemort), Ed Balls, could be being lined up as the next Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Few in the press were predicting this…until today……

The excellent Sunday Telegraph reports that Gordon Brown is working on a ‘nuclear option’, which would see Alastair Darling leave his post as Chancellor, and replace Jacqui Smith as Home Secretary.  If Alastair does leave the Treasury, then they predict that the new Chancellor will most likely be either Ed Balls, David Miliband or Alan Johnson.

Again, as blogged earlier this week, Brown, in his final hours, will want the most loyal to him closest in the No.10 bunker. 

It must be oh so tempting for Gordon to make Ed the Chancellor.  At least it will be easier for Ed to run the No.10 Smears Unit from No.11.

Grassroots guesses that Ed must be trying to bring himself up to speed and studying for a GCSE in economics in readiness for his next role.  Let’s hope that he hasn’t been ordering the wrong text books from Amazon and is getting…..home economics.  But judging from Alastair Darling’s handling of the economy maybe home economics is a pre-requisite for a Chancellor……..for cooking the books!!!