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"Concerns about the administration of this year's school tests in England have prompted a call for payment to be withheld from the test contractor, ETS. " BBC News The Lib Dem education spokesman David Laws has called the situation a "shambles". Schools Secretary Ed Balls has said that action has been taken "to get things back on track". But markers and schools report ongoing problems with the test process and there are complaints that pupils' scripts have not been collected from some schools. Some of those who have been trained and are waiting to start marking say the scripts have not been delivered to their homes. ETS Europe, the company that has taken over this year from Edexcel has said it is addressing the issues and has promised that the results will be back with schools as scheduled by 8 July. (In 2004 in America, ETS had given 4,000 graduate teachers the wrong marks for their teaching exams and had to pay millions in compensation. Mr Bal...

There has been a variety of instinct reactions since the recent local elections, where 2 BNP councillors gained seats from long standing Labour councillors in the Rotherham Borough. John Gamble has taken the Brinsworth and Catcliffe seat from the Mayor of Rotherham and William Blair, here in Maltby, from long standing Labour councillor Glyn Robinson. Headlines in local and national newspapers have ranged from “Labour Disaster”, “Damning Indictment”, “Shock Results” Outcry at BNP” to even “Pride and Prejudice –The Fear Factor” in The Independent. Obviously these headlines, as well as the results, have a resounding effect on people’s feelings and concerns for the implications. The BNP (British Nationalist Party) has long been associated with, and reported as, the “politics of hatred” particularly referring to the importance of race and keeping Britain as a place predominantly, for Britons. The mission statement of the BNP states that it exists to “secure a future for the indigenous peopl...

Concerns are continuing to grow today that the blocking of vital international aid to Burma by the military junta could lead to even greater catastrophic loss of life. There are as many as 200,000 already dead or dying with many still missing.The figure could rise to half a million through disease and hunger if the nation’sarmy rulers continued to block aid to the devastated Irrawaddy Delta area. Condoleezza Rice and the UN has called for Burma's ruling regime to accept aid in the face of the worsening humanitarian crisis. So what are we as individuals to do in the mean time? I had my debit card at the ready last night after the advert from the Disaster's Emergency Fund on tv, asking for donations. But then I thought, if aid is not getting there is it a well timed contribution? Of course all donations are necessary all of the time, and some aid is gettigng through but I am wondering whether to donate more than I regularly do to 2 of the charities within the DEF. Am I just bein...

An Iraqi teenage girl has been brutally murdered by her father in an "honour killing" after she fell in love with a British soldier in Basra. She had fallen for the soldier that she knew only as Paul, when she met him at a charity where she worked as a volunteer. Her father was arrested, but Iraqi police took no action. His wife has since left him and is in hiding. The MOD have suggested that the case raises questions about the training given to British forces in understanding cultural values in a city where 47 women died in "honour killings" last year. Of course, we are appalled and disgusted - but does this also raise the question (again) of what are Britain and the USA achieving in Iraq? Where is the honour in death and maiming due to war - be it soldiers, civilians, or in this case due to a family matter (possibly the western intervention a factor) I woke up with this in my head this morning , so am sharing it here: Sixteen Seasons Seventeen Springtimes you have...

This book, by Michael Sazhauer, has caused a bit of controversy this week. It apparently deals with the issues encountered by children who have parents (mostly women) who have had cosmetic surgery to supposedly enhance their looks. The author is a plastic surgeon himself, with a thriving cosmetic surgery business of his own - no doubt this book will enhance his business, if not the customers/patients who he operates on. I have not read the book, only the reviews and comments, but it appears that the publishing industry can at least be defended against accusations of promoting immoral values and such like. The book won’t be available in bookshops, because it is only being published by a "vanity press"It won't be on Amazon or other online booksellers and it hasn't even been assigned an ISBN to make it easily findable. It has been said, however, by the Newsweek journalist who reported about it, that the author has produced a better piece of marketing than many trade publ...

Well, Ed Balls, the Minister for Schools, has said that most teachers do not want to strike. Of course they don't! Same as the other like professions - nurses, doctors, fire brigade, ambulance service, police - none of these want to hurt the people they are working with, but sometimes there is no other way to get through to this damn government. Having myself taught across the whole age range, from primary to secondary to further education (though primary is my speciality) Though the job is VERY important and brings immense satisfaction (usually !) I would NOT recommend teaching as a vocation to my children, (and it pains me to say that) I know the anguish that it can cause and I know the tremendous amount of out of hours work that is involved - mainly due to our education system of testing, testing and yet more testing. Add in a ridiculous amount of target setting and the sorry discipline situation and it sometimes seems like there is little incentive to become a teacher at all. W...

"A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose. " ~ Samuel McChord Crothers How do we decide whether a piece of writing is poetry or prose? I tend to agree with Crothers (above quote) but there has to be more to it than that. Dictionary definitions are usually not helpful I find. A short piece of imaginative writing, of a personal nature laid out in lines is often the answer. An art form which represents something of the world, expresses and evokes emotion, is pleasing to read and can be something self-defining perhaps. A piece of writing that shows the cohesion between humans and their lives, even. I am sure poetry is all these things and more - as an English teacher of mine once said "the best possible words in the best possible order". But what of prose then? Ordinary writing as distinguished from verse without metrical structure? Not all that is classed as poe...