Tuesday 4 February 2014

Good morning Mr Gove? Enjoying the 4am start, are we?

fuck Austerity, Welcome to Exhausting Britain:

"So a future Conservative Government would help state schools - just like independent schools - to offer a school day 9 or 10 hours long - allowing time for structured homework sessions, prep, which will be particularly helpful for those children who come from homes where it's difficult to secure the peace and quiet necessary for hard study."
                                                -Michael Gove

So Gove, I assume you've done the maths and you're aware that a 9 or 10 hour long school day does not mean a 9 or 10 hour long DAY. 
It actually means we get up 2 hours before school starts and will still go to bed, no matter how much 'prep' you force down our throats, at least 6 hours after it ends.
No, classic tory error. completely understandable: It's actually not because we like to stay up for the fun of it. 
Yeah, i know, shocking. 
It's because eating and finishing homework and spending a couple of hours climbing down from the mountain of stress that a ten hour day would create in order to be able to sleep for a few measly moments takes up most of an evening.
You'll understand when your daughter starts her GCSEs. (Or whatever strange, new-fangled, pseudo-germanic assessment you've come up with by then.) 
Yeah, that combined with the fact that most students are exhausted anyway from working our fingers down to the bone to try and keep up with your new linear exam system and the new qualifications you keep on springing on us- a spoken word half-GCSE? separate from english language? Half way through the course? are you fucking kidding me?!

sorry.  

NOT TO MENTION the poor teachers:
Will their hourly rate be increasing now that they will be required to add 3 or 4 hours onto their already extensive days? 
No. I thought not. 
SO, where are you going to find all of these eager teachers who don't mind being incapacitated by tiredness on a daily basis, more so than ever and still earn very little?
Oh yes. I forgot. You'll be hiring ill-equipped, under-prepped graduates with little to no training and no experience whatsoever.
Yes, throwing them in the deep end, clothes and all, is the best way to teach them to swim and all that. 
Got to say i don't quite see the logic.

And how were you planning on maintaining, and improving, attendance in school when all the students are suffering from fatigue? 
Or had that not occurred to you?
ah. I see.
You haven't really thought it through have you?

I mean, i'm sure your daughter won't mind spending 10 hours in school every day plus travelling time and the odd detention and/or after school commitment.
I just hope she doesn't take art what with all the coursework...
OH YES! Art is a soft subject in your eyes, so she won't even have the option. Particularly if her school decides to divert the arts funding to maths.
So, let me rephrase, when will she fit in her 3 hours of kumon?
I mean, when exactly are students supposed to do all these plays and debates and orchestra rehearsals you've been such an advocate of?
And when am I supposed to be developing my independent study skills if i'm being confined to a room for structured homework each day?
Oh i'm not. 
right.
silly me.
free thinking is just... liberal bollocks, of course.

And what about those poor underprivileged children you are so charitably considering?
Because the main thing, in those situations (which you so cheerfully degrade), is to ensure they focus on their 'hard study'.
Oh i completely agree.
Pastoral care is... superfluous. 
Why have a happy population when you can drive it to its knees with exhaustion, instead?
excellent plan.

And even if you sorted all of that out, the question still remains,  just what were you planning to do about holidays?
Because, i hate to point it out, but you want holidays to be shorter AND you want to replicate the private school system?
BUT private schools have famously long holidays?
right. So we are not going to be like private schools then?
oh..?
More like.... prisons? or... borstals?
well.
that's lovely.

i'm sure parents are going to love you for making their little angels into exhausted, frustrated, embittered, hypoglycaemic devils with a complete loathing for authority?
yeah...?
Oh. but of course parents aren't going to have to deal with that because they simply won't be seeing their children.
ever.
well, maybe i'm exaggerating a little.
half an hour to quickly munch some dinner before going back to the millstone?

Well, little blessings eh?