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Anorak News | A Class Act

A Class Act

by | 10th, December 2003

”’WERE teachers better in your day?” asks the Times beneath a story about how half of all primary school lessons are sub-standard.

”Hmmm. Which end do I use?”

You can send your answer via email to the Times, who will then, we suppose, forward your comments to Number 10 and thus fuel Tony Blair’s Big Conversation.

To get the talking shop rolling, Ofsted, which knows about these sorts of things, says that poor teaching is robbing children of their right to a good education.

In other words, teaching today is, at best, no better than it was.

To deal with the apparent facts first: one in eight lessons in English and maths is ”unsatisfactory”; ” a lack of knowledge in the teachers ”is a consistent factor in unsatisfactory teaching”; head teachers are just as likely to be as unsuitable for the job as their staff.

By way of an example into what a teacher who can’t teach is doing, Ofsted shows the Telegraph a Year 6 (for 11-year-olds) geography class.

For the lesson, the pupils were given foods to taste, had their faces painted and were encouraged to drum.

The subject of the lesson… well, see if you can guess. Was it: a) the rain forest, b) Nigeria or c) plate tectonics?

The answer is that we asked the teacher and he didn’t have the foggiest idea – although a passing professor did commend us on our work with ABC and offered us a job…’



Posted: 10th, December 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink