Some thoughts

Today's must-read article:  Ghost children: the pupils who never came back after lockdown 'Lockdowns proved a disaster for young people at every stage of their development. With all the attention on the elderly, the young were left to cope on their own. It was assumed they’d be resilient. Far from it.' Working in schools I've seen this firsthand, teenage girls especially seem to be very fragile (though how much is due to other factors such as the encouragement of victimhood and lack of resilience is hard to tell) What is even more depressing is polling out from Unherd today showing the majority still don't think it was a mistake, as further examined here:  Why doesn't Britain regret lockdown? Very depressing

 While at work today I can across this piece of Research on the DfE website:  The impact of COVID-19 on 2020 to 2021 assessment arrangements . This paragraph stood out: 'however good the remote provision, it did not measure up to face-to-face learning. Students missed the interactions with their teachers and the ability to ask for clarification about topics in real time. They also missed interactions with their peers, citing group work, debates and projects as features that could not be captured as well online – even when the lessons were live – as in the classroom.'  Indeed. My experience working in an online school was that while better than nothing it is not a good substitute for being in a school. The socialization role of schooling is of equal importance to the skills and knowledge acquired. It is becoming more and more apparent that the lockdowns had a hugely damaging effect on children, (who the data is clear were not at risk of covid), and were a massive overreact...

 Reviving this series in a timely manner, following of from today's announcement on making maths compulsory until 18. Working in schools I've thought about this topic a lot. I have to agree with this assessment in the speccie: 'What is the point of making these students sit through two more frustrating, futile years, especially when there is such a huge gap between our current curriculum and its applications for most people? It would be one thing to request students to undertake some sort of qualification in financial literacy or the basics of economics and business. But why submit students who are far more suited to a vocational education to polynomials and logarithms?' Part of the problem with the current system is that it was designed for when the school leaving age was 16, now it's 18 (I do find it amusing that it is often those who argue for keeping youngsters in full-time education until 18 are also the same who argue for lowering the voting age to 16, but I ...

A good takedown on some of the myths of progressive education, especially with regard to Finnish education:  An educational dystopia . As a teacher this passage particularly struck me: The reality is that it, and any school reforms which seek to remove the central importance of the teacher and the primacy of knowledge from the taught curriculum, denies children a fundamental human right that will have lifelong consequences. RTWT

 Will Lloyd suggests the unthinkable (to most)-  Why it’s time to abolish schools . I'm reminded of mentions made to education in Peter F Hamilton's Night Dawn trilogy, where education has been made irrelevant by implanted memory technologies so instead of school kids go to 'day clubs' while their parents work. It is true for many this is what all schools function as.  Having worked in secondary education on and off for over 6 years my view is that extending compulsory education was a cruel mistake. IThe Japanese have the right idea in that compulsory education end at 15 (middle school), and I would advocate for a similar system in the UK, perhaps combined with a new CSE type exam for school leavers to take at 15. before they can get a job.  UPDATED 24/02- Today I saw (via Guido) this report by the IEA on post-Covid reforms. One suggestion that interested me is changing the primary to secondary transition age, I remember hearing during my OGCE of research that sugge...