Typical brits! We get sun practically every day, our football team have made us proud, and best of all, the dry weather has kept the slugs at bay this year - and all you guys can do is find stuff to moan about. Well, I’m off to start a thread called ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’. I refuse to take part in this moan fest!!! Ya boo to all you grumpy types.
There is already a thread called " Reasons to be cheerful", I started it a few weeks ago. I'm also a fully paid up Curmudgeon. It's not either/or, lots of us can do both.
It's very sad that education is now seen only as a means of preparing children for the labour market, and therefore any subjects which merely add to the joy of life, but not to the child's "commercial value", are dropped. I'm thinking particularly of music and art. Education is supposed to "draw out" what's within the child, not cram in only what the government of the day thinks is important. And there's more to life than earning as much money as you possibly can...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Unfortunately, that was the original purpose of compulsory education. Soldiers also needed a level of literacy If you educate the masses too much, they start to think and even have expectations.
Maybe I was lucky to go to school at a time when more value was put on music (my particular interest) - there was enough money in education for free instrumental tuition, for instance.
I can see why education stresses PE, athletics etc because obviously it's important for the health of the "masses", but sometimes there just isn't the right balance when celebrating children's successes. For instance, my daughter - also a musician - got into the National Youth Choir aged 14. The school newsletter never mentioned her success, yet waxed lyrical with photos and text about the kids who played hockey or ran for the county.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
In my primary school, we had a much broader curriculum than they have now. We had music, singing,French, science, dancing in addition to the usual suspects. There was time for this because we didn't spend our time preparing for sats and constant assessments
I thank the heavens for my kids' school every day. It drives me mad sometimes but it's the irritation of a loved one (if you see what I mean). Sport is fantastic, art is fantastic, music is fantastic and academically they seem to do pretty well too - they regularly have the top performing GCSE OR A level student in either London or the country on their roll. Certainly one has moved on further in maths than I thought possible, and the other has found a love of science that she would never have expected when at primary school. I prioritised the art work when we went to open evenings, not because my kids were arty (though one is) but because I wanted to see if it was downgraded / sidelined in the current climate. I reasoned that a school which bothers to nurture excellent art, even though it can get away with sidelining it, would bother to nurture other subjects too. So far I have not been disappointed.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
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Just for you HH.
If you educate the masses too much, they start to think and even have expectations.
I can see why education stresses PE, athletics etc because obviously it's important for the health of the "masses", but sometimes there just isn't the right balance when celebrating children's successes. For instance, my daughter - also a musician - got into the National Youth Choir aged 14. The school newsletter never mentioned her success, yet waxed lyrical with photos and text about the kids who played hockey or ran for the county.
There was time for this because we didn't spend our time preparing for sats and constant assessments