UK General Election 2017

[Harrowby Hall]

The highlight for me  so far is that the Tories expect every 11 year old to know their times table off by heart.

They may know their multiplication tables by heart - that is just rote learning - do they know what they mean, and can they apply them?

[Nearly Sane]

They may know their multiplication tables by heart - that is just rote learning - do they know what they mean, and can they apply them?

Indeed, that and the phrasing that it would be 'expected' is odd.

[Nearly Sane]

And control the internet really tightly

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html

[jeremyp]

if a party is merely there to be led, it has no point.

Well nobody has claimed that. So that was a waste of electrons from you.

[jeremyp]

And control the internet really tightly

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html

Yet again a politician proves that they do not know how the Internet works.

[jeremyp]

Indeed, that and the phrasing that it would be 'expected' is odd.

I would expect that an eleven year old would know their times tables (up to ten, at least). What's odd about that?

The real question is how do you ensure that expectations are met and what do you do to help people that fail.

[Sebastian Toe]

I am hopeless at maths but I knew all mine by the time I was 7/8, it was expected in those days.

7/8 of what?! 

[Udayana]

I think this election is done.

May will get in on a landslide with a book of brain dead policies. We will cast off from Europe in a ship full of holes and slowly sink under the waves.

[Harrowby Hall]

I think this election is done.

May will get in on a landslide with a book of brain dead policies. We will cast off from Europe in a ship full of holes and slowly sink under the waves.

So you are quite positive, then?

Seriously, I can't make up my mind as to whether May is being extremely clever or extremely stupid. I do fear though that the United Kingdom - or whatever is left of it - risks becoming the Venezuela of Europe.

[jakswan]

I usually read the bits that for whatever reason I am most concerned about but I have to see they often are unreadable. It's often death by acronym and it's very hard to link much of the philosophic rhetoric to the details.

The highlight for me  so far is that the Tories expect every 11 year old to know their times table off by heart.

Maybe she should not ask Nicola how handle education though.

[Ricky Spanish]

BTW Swannie...  You keep popping up in my fb friends thingie..

Can we be friends?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Reports of anti labour/pro tory bias at GE. Wondering whether to restart keeping Bias watch on the BBC news website. Unless the BBC start wiping records it's all their for future research.

[Sebastian Toe]

Reports of anti labour/pro tory bias at GE. Wondering whether to restart keeping Bias watch on the BBC news website. Unless the BBC start wiping records it's all their for future research.

Apparently the conspiracy wore off before it got to the theory.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

They may know their multiplication tables by heart - that is just rote learning - do they know what they mean, and can they apply them?

Yep. When I was at school, the whole class had learned them by rote by what is now Year 4. Today I would have thought learning decimals is of more importance, we did not learn milli centi deci metre deca hecto kilo until early in Year 7.

[Ricky Spanish]

Stolen from another thread:

NS. If I were you, I would return "Arithmetic Made Simple" by Diane Abbott to the library.

Have you read the Tory Manifesto? Did you not see the major gaff by that idiot chancellor, not thousands out but billions out?


This might come as a surprise to you: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2017/05/two-completely-different-visions-one.html

[jakswan]

Stolen from another thread:
Have you read the Tory Manifesto? Did you not see the major gaff by that idiot chancellor, not thousands out but billions out?

This might come as a surprise to you: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2017/05/two-completely-different-visions-one.html

I don't why I bother but I do try to debate some of the issues.

The most attention grabbing policy is their Dementia Tax policy of asset stripping elderly people for the "crime" of getting ill in their old age. Screw the fact these people worked hard and paid their National Insurance and Council Tax for decades in order to fund the NHS and social care. Their houses are low-hanging fruit for the Tories to harvest in order to fund their agenda of handing even more tax cuts to the corporations and the super-rich

As opposed to the current status quo where people are asset stripped to £27k, which Labour don't have a policy to revoke this must assume they support the current system.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't why I bother but I do try to debate some of the issues.

As opposed to the current status quo where people are asset stripped to £27k, which Labour don't have a policy to revoke this must assume they support the current system.

I hear sphincters are twitching over at Tory HQ.

[jakswan]

I hear sphincters are twitching over at Tory HQ.

An anal themed reply, what a shock.

[ProfessorDavey]

As opposed to the current status quo where people are asset stripped to £27k, which Labour don't have a policy to revoke this must assume they support the current system.

Die in debt - Vote Tory.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Die in debt - Vote Tory.

I can see an increase in paupers funerals and no I am not joking.

[jakswan]

Die in debt - Vote Tory.

Not even wrong.

[Nearly Sane]

Maybe she should not ask Nicola how handle education though.

Why? How is that relevant to a specific oddity in the Tory manifesto?

The idea that learning the times table by rote teaches you about numbers is false but the strangeness off what reads like an ejaculation from a dozing brainstormer is that it has no context. That it is 'expected' is not a commitment, not even a vague aspiration but the vague waffle of a somnolent Gradgrindian asked 'What should children know?' Just after the port has passed for the third time.

[Rhiannon]

'Expected' is educationspeak. Every parent has come across it at parents' evening or whatever. . So it gets stuck in manifestoes - not just Tory ones - because it sounds educationish.

[Nearly Sane]

'Expected' is educationspeak. Every parent has come across it at parents' evening or whatever. . So it gets stuck in manifestoes - not just Tory ones - because it sounds educationish.

But the subject matter, a politics of nostalgia meme, sucks the educationishness of it away. It isn't in a list, it is stuck in the middle of a discursive paragraph but pops out like an unruly pubic hair. Knowing one's time tables by heart has nothing to do with numeracy but is a dog whistle to the good old days when these things happened.

On the excrescence that was the 'leaders' debate in Scotland last night, the UKIP representative eulogised of his time at school when children spoke Latin and Greek, an incorrect memory used to hint at a golden age that in turn is based on a fetishisation of a golden age.

[Rhiannon]

Yes but it isn't new. My eldest started her education in 2006 and it was 'expected' then. It's designed to show parents that Something Is Being Done and it's easily measured - the worst part of Tory policy on this is the plan for 'national' (actually only in England) testing in year 6 when all SATs testing should be abolished.