Labour. Our next Government.

Well, here are the L party's 6 stated "Starting points"

"The plan is as follows

Step 1: Deliver economic stability with tough spending rules, so we can grow our economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.

Step 2: Cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments each week, during evenings and weekends, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.

Step 3: Launch a new Border Security Command with hundreds of new specialist investigators and use counter-terror powers to smash the criminal boat gangs.

Step 4: Set up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company, to cut bills for good and boost energy security, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants.

Step 5: Crack down on antisocial behaviour, with more neighbourhood police paid for by ending wasteful contracts, tough new penalties for offenders, and a new network of youth hubs.

Step 6: Recruit 6,500 new teachers in key subjects to set children up for life, work and the future, paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools.

These missions are ambitious. And ambitions start with first steps."

Just read that Labour want to make gender change easier and simpler by having just one doctor to decide instead of the usual panel of experts.
Have they learned nothing from the SNP debacle? True, it’s not exactly the same as the Scottish idea was to allow self ID, but having just one person to decide the case isn’t great and is open to all kinds of mistakes and mis-use.
I’m worried that Labour won’t be able to change much for a long time in the general way so will tinker at the edges with woke stuff.

Oh yes, the class system was alive and well at my grammar school too. I was very aware that some came from privileged backgrounds with fathers who had a profession. Nothing like that in my little village primary school.

I also went from state primary to state grammar. No private tuition (a laughable concept for my parents), however, throughout my final year at primary school we used to do regular exam practice so fully prepped, by the school, when the 11+ came round. I didn’t / don’t consider myself ‘bright’ because I passed. My grammar school was high pressure. Academic success was valued to the exclusion of any pastoral care. I experienced significant trauma during my teenage years and the school absolutely didn’t know what to do with me - no support at all. I’m not suggesting current grammar schools are this bad, but I would still assert they are still high pressure environments - they have to maintain high results.

Germanshepherdsmum

I passed my 11 plus and went from state primary school to state grammar school. There was no prepping and grammar school wasn’t a high pressure environment. No hot housing and no private tuition.

That was my experience GSM

Unfortunately there were a group of mean girls who had it in for me from day one, they were aware my home environment was totally different to theirs and boy did they show it.

(My parents were publicans, and we were relatively well off compared to the mean girls )

I passed my 11 plus and went from state primary school to state grammar school. There was no prepping and grammar school wasn’t a high pressure environment. No hot housing and no private tuition.

Oops there not their🙈

Exactly Zakouma, which is why many children do not ‘fit well’ into Grammar school. They have been prepped to pas the test and may struggle with the high pressure environment when they actually get in. In fact lots still continue to have private tuition throughout their time their. Not an environment I wanted my DD to go into - she went to the local comprehensive; enjoyed her teenage years and went on to university. No ‘hot housing’ necessary.

The tutor isn't sitting next to them at Grammar school.

“zakouma66
Iam64
There was not always the ‘opportunity for kids to transfer to grammar school at 13 plus when staff recognised they were very bright’.
There’s nothing wrong with teenagers making fantastic food. What’s very wrong is giving a small number of children a good education and leaving the majority to sink or swim.

You didn’t attend a secondary modern. You’ve no idea how grim many of them were.
I don’t have a ‘chip on my shoulder’. I take a very different view than you do.
Great post. What's 'bright' anyway?”

Totally agree! Children who passed (and still pass) the 11+ exam are not necessarily any ‘brighter’ than anyone else (if there is such a concept anyway). They are simply better at passing a specific test, for which they have likely been training for a year. In my area there are still some grammar schools; I have retired teacher friends who do private tutoring for the 11+. They are usually tutoring children from Y5. It’s not about ‘brightness’ - it’s about having parents who can pay for private training. And I don’t have a chip on my shoulder - I went to a grammar school.

I moved from my all girls Grammar to the local secondary modern/comprehensive (not 100% sure on its description) due to bullying.

It was the best thing I could have done (despite moving in the June of fourth year, I managed to get good O level results)

I taught French in a boy's Secondary Modern School in the sixties. It was a lovely much sought after school, with an inspiring head and was chosen in preference to the Grammar school by many parents.
There was opportunity to do O levels in addition to C.S.Es
together with practical courses.

Iam64

There was not always the ‘opportunity for kids to transfer to grammar school at 13 plus when staff recognised they were very bright’.
There’s nothing wrong with teenagers making fantastic food. What’s very wrong is giving a small number of children a good education and leaving the majority to sink or swim.

You didn’t attend a secondary modern. You’ve no idea how grim many of them were.
I don’t have a ‘chip on my shoulder’. I take a very different view than you do.

Great post. What's 'bright' anyway?

They don’t even offer wellness checks in Wales. In England you can have a routine check for Diabetes/blood pressure/cholestorol/heart health etc between the ages of 40 and 74.

We have to pay privately for ours.

So you go to the hospital that you are referred to by your GP?

Can you ask your GP to refer you to the hospital with the minimum wait in that particular procedure?

Can they refer you to an English hospital?

Poppyred

Callistemon21

Poppyred

There’s a 2 year wait here in Wales for a knee replacement….how long is in England/Scotland?

Two years??

I've been waiting longer than that. It's apparently 4-5 years in Cardiff and Swansea (according to Orthopaedic Consultant).

In North Wales they are doing them as day cases now. Consultant told DH it would be. 2 years from the date he was first referred.

🤞

Callistemon21

Poppyred

There’s a 2 year wait here in Wales for a knee replacement….how long is in England/Scotland?

Two years??

I've been waiting longer than that. It's apparently 4-5 years in Cardiff and Swansea (according to Orthopaedic Consultant).

In North Wales they are doing them as day cases now. Consultant told DH it would be. 2 years from the date he was first referred.

Whitewavemark2

Poppyred

There’s a 2 year wait here in Wales for a knee replacement….how long is in England/Scotland?

I thought that you had the choice of hospital including Welsh/English hospitals - so the wait is as long as the shortest time isn’t it? That is if you are willing to travel - which I would be.

Not any more.

Choice? 😂😂😂

The decade may help, 50’s can’t compare with 60’s in many areas

Poppyred

There’s a 2 year wait here in Wales for a knee replacement….how long is in England/Scotland?

Two years??

I've been waiting longer than that. It's apparently 4-5 years in Cardiff and Swansea (according to Orthopaedic Consultant).

Iam64

There was not always the ‘opportunity for kids to transfer to grammar school at 13 plus when staff recognised they were very bright’.
There’s nothing wrong with teenagers making fantastic food. What’s very wrong is giving a small number of children a good education and leaving the majority to sink or swim.

You didn’t attend a secondary modern. You’ve no idea how grim many of them were.
I don’t have a ‘chip on my shoulder’. I take a very different view than you do.

That’s where you are very wrong. I went to grammar school but chose not to do A levels at that time. The secondary modern up the road was offering a one year secretarial course so I did that in lower 6th form. So I have experience of both!

The Sec Mod was far from “grim”. It was a lighter, brighter, more modern place than my school and the Domestic Science (as was then) rooms were fantastic with a purpose built flat. Their sewing rooms were far better equipped than ours too.

Our school regularly took in kids at 13 or 14+ so you are incorrect there too.

There was not always the ‘opportunity for kids to transfer to grammar school at 13 plus when staff recognised they were very bright’.
There’s nothing wrong with teenagers making fantastic food. What’s very wrong is giving a small number of children a good education and leaving the majority to sink or swim.

You didn’t attend a secondary modern. You’ve no idea how grim many of them were.
I don’t have a ‘chip on my shoulder’. I take a very different view than you do.

Iam64

Primrose53

MayBee70

There shouldn’t be a need for private education if the country gave every child the best education possible.

The best time in education was before Labour got rid of most of the grammar schools!

If you were quite bright and passed the 11+ you could go to grammar school. If not you went to Secondary Modern. Both tailored their curriculum to suit their pupils. Most people who went to grammar schools will say they had the best education and the best teachers bearing in mind some of the very brightest kids came from quite poor families, often lived in council housing with parents on low wages. Grammar school changed their lives for the better and offered them a great education.

Secondary Moderns offered less academic kids more practical lessons and many of today’s businesses are run by ex Sec Mod pupils. plumbers, electricians, mechanics, chefs, nurses, secretaries etc. At the Sec Mod up the road from my grammar school the girls planned and prepared fantastic meals and cold buffets for local bigwigs and parents events and for 15 year old girls the standard was as high or even higher than 2nd or third year college students now. The boys did fabulous metalwork, woodwork and technical drawing.

Labour didn’t like this idea so lumped everybody into comprehensive schools including kids with what we now call Special Needs. This was never going to work and most kids who needed extra help much preferred going to schools with kids like themselves as in mainstream they were left colouring in worksheets or bullied by other kids.

The way the majority of children were sent into largely dreadful sec mods, already labelled failures at 11 was disgraceful.
Many 11 plus failures were equally as bright as those at the grammar schools. A lot depended on how many places were available.
This snobbery dismissing if sec mod girls as only capable of making meals for ‘local bug wigs and parents’ is simply appalling.
Many ‘failures’ were perfectly capable of academic work, they didn’t need to be treated as though a bit of cooking for their betters was as high as they could go
Good comprehensives are good.
‘Lumping everyone together, including Special Needs - is this really the best analysis you can find- it’s light years away from the truth. Critical thinking?/

Firstly, there was always the opportunity for kids to transfer to grammar schools at 13+ when staff recognised they were very bright.

Secondary Moderns were not “dreadful”. They really suited kids who preferred a more practical approach which is what many countries have been doing for years.

Anyway, what’s wrong with teenagers being able to make fantastic food? You really seem to have a chip on your shoulder about this.

Only yesterday they were complaining on TV that schools no longer teach cookery/domestic science/food technology whatever you last called it. Many chefs and cooks have made their millions from cooking.

My dad joined Lancashire constabulary in 1949 when I was born. He was very ambitious, very successful. Each promotion equalled a move of area. When mum objected ‘what about the children’, he said he couldn’t turn it down or they’d move us somewhere ‘rough’.

I expect our experiences broadened our thinking, influenced our social views and politics Cossy. So all was not lost