Primary Education

Firstly - apologies if it's a bit quiet over the next few days. Yesterday saw the delivery of the latest papers for the Cheshire East meeting this coming Tuesday, of which there's about 700 pages. It's going to take up a bit of my time over the next few days...

The news is dominated this morning by stories that we're killing the chances of kids getting a good, broad, education because schools are focusing too much on Maths, English and testing. The BBC has it here.

I suppose my first comment should be an apology - as I think this report is a load of tripe.

We *should* set a central measure of what we expect our schools to deliver and this *must* be centered around basic English and basic Maths. It's not beyond anybody, and you can't do without it - it's a pre-requisite for life. This also needs to be tested, as the public need to be assured that schools are delivering what they should at this basic level.

Beyond that there already *is* plenty of room for flexibility. What differentiates between a good school and an excellent school isn't the core teaching - this will be the same. It'll be in the fact that the school wraps a broad range of things around this, both taught in the classroom and as outside clubs and groups that often seek to involve the wider community as well.

Some schools are good at this, and some are bad. And that brings us back to the postcode lottery - which is something that we should embrace and accept as a by product of having individuality and less central control.

But what really strikes me is that we think it's up to schools to provide variety and wellbeing in a child's life. In my view less than half of a child's education takes place at school. The rest is down to the parents and the community at large.

Someone told me that other night that he thought it was terrible that his son didn't know how to fix a puncture on his bike, and that something should be done about the school which hadn't taught him this. I seem to remember it was my Dad who taught me, and not the school.