I found this piece, in which Fiona and Jane explain how great private schools are at helping home educators. particularly nice picture of Fiona:
http://www.isc.co.uk/Resources/Independent%20Schools%20Council/Research%20Archive/Bulletin%20Articles/2009_05_Bulletin_WhyOptForHomeEducation_JL_FN.pdf
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I was just searching the internet for some interesting facts about nature when I come across this article about a couple of old spiders. How interesting.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness they do! My kids could sit their exams at an independent school for a fraction of the cost the local comp was going to charge us. What's the problem with that?
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense to me too. Private schools need to be useful to the community to keep charitable status, we're part of the community and need reasonably priced exam centres, as you know better than most, Simon, because I seem to remember you saying how much you had to pay.
ReplyDeletePrivate schools may also be happier to be flexible. The one I'm planning to use certainly is.
Anne
Precisely. Often they are more able to accommodate candidates with various special needs which state schools (often the ones that failed the child in the first place) simply see as a nuisance. I'm very glad such centres have been encouraged to assist home educated candidates.
Delete'The one I'm planning to use certainly is.'
ReplyDelete'I'm very glad such centres have been encouraged to assist home educated candidates.'
I too used an independent school; David Game College in Kensington. I wasn't hinting that there was something suspect or disreputable about the practice! It was just the earliest example that I could find of Jane Lowe and Fiona Nicholson working in tandem.
". I wasn't hinting that there was something suspect or disreputable about the practice! It was just the earliest example that I could find of Jane Lowe and Fiona Nicholson working in tandem."
DeleteI understood your point Simon. (whispers) I think these ladies like to find a reason to talk about all they've done so best let them get on with it on here.
That article ( which is 4 years old) was part of the then campaign to encourage private schools to allow external candidates. The point was that ( back then, Labour Govt) there was pressure to remove the charitable status from such schools for political reasons. So the Independent Schools Association came up with the PPP campaign - which stood for Physics, Playing fields and private candidates. The idea being that such schools needed to show public benefit, so by sharing skills ( the physics teaching) or facilities( playing fields/exams) with either state schools or us, they would fend off the Charity commissioners.
ReplyDeleteI know all this, because the main school we currently use for exams is a private one which was chosen as an example to use at some ISA conference etc. In the end politics intervened - general election and all that and now nobody cares again about what the private schools are up to, so the whole campaign lost its impetus.
We currently enter about 50 candidates a year for a few hundred exams at a private school, so I too am grateful for the facilities, although as it is a small school the impact of the extra candidates is considerable. A recent fiasco about the issue of league tables has caused issues - as I said in one of the conversations below about the last APPG - that was one of my primary purposes at the last meeting!
' A recent fiasco about the issue of league tables has caused issues -'
DeleteThis of course cuts both ways! The school we used was delighted to claim my daughter's results as their own, which we found slightly irritating.
Ah, but they shouldn't have been able to, although the system has changed in the last 2 years... our lot did GCSE maths ( and all did well) but it is the IGCSEs they do which make it appear all failed GCSE English/sciences ( which they didn't take). There is a mechanism to remove the results from the schools but it is cumbersome and you don't get any confirmation the D of E accepting they should be removed - so come last Jan, they were still on the league table - which for a small school was statistically significant!
ReplyDelete'which for a small school was statistically significant!'
DeleteAnd no doubt left them cursing the day that they had become mixed up with home educators...
"And no doubt left them cursing the day that they had become mixed up with home educators..."
DeleteWhereas instead, they should be cursing their idiotic political masters' inability to perform elementary statistical inference.
Dont rely of the Dept of Education as it is run by Govece who is a fool. See this from the guardian below..
DeleteOur education editor Jeevan Vasagar has just pointed me towards this exchange in the Commons education select committee, this time exposing the education secretary Michael Gove's problems with understanding averages.
Chair: Secretary of State, we are moving to a novel, new section: quick fire questions and answers, inspired by the Twitter feed #askgove-5,000-plus wanting to interact with you. So we are going to go round each of us in fairly strict timing. If you could give us quick answers, that would be great.
Michael Gove: I will try my best.
Chair: One is: if "good" requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible?
Michael Gove: By getting better all the time.
Chair: So it is possible, is it?
Michael Gove: It is possible to get better all the time.
Chair: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State?
Michael Gove: I cannot remember.
A* idiot