I think if we're going to talk about Middle England like that (as a homogenous blob of unpleasant narcissists), it's not surprising if they don't have much time for us.

Everyone *says* they want to support vocational routes into employment (but they want someone else to do it and someone else to pay for it).
Can see this with the apprenticeship levy. Big companies frittering it away on MBAs, etc. and then complaining school leavers don't have the right skills.

More importantly, we've gone all in on the academic route. You can see it in PISA et al. and the status of some of our universities, services exports, and the UK research output, so it's not all bad, but vocational always ends up unloved and poorly funded.

I think de-industrialisation hit particularly hard and fast here and in great swathes of the country it took out most other sectors as well. There wasn't the time or political will to rebuild a more service-oriented replacement. But it was a long time ago and I'm no expert.

I reckon in school I hear 10 references to retrieval practice and working memory capacity for every 1 to curriculum sequencing; I don't think that's the right balance.

The compression challenge is partly about deciding which simplifications are generative and which become misconceptions. A maths-first system will tend to over-atomise science into labelled chunks and under-represent the multi-scale relations, deep explanatory themes, and role of productive simplification that make science knowledge cohere.

@profbeckyallen.bsky.social is writing some remarkably good stuff about curriculum.
profbeckyallen.substack.com/p/the-curric...

This bit definitely captures a problem we've got in science at the moment.

Not my area of expertise but I suspect a lot of the problem is de-industrialisation (there was a time we were a world leader on this) coupled with the permanent British problem of wanting something but not being prepared to pay for it.

Yes, for a long time every government has said they want to improve vocational education and give it the same importance as academic education. Mostly it's been tinkering, or policies that sound good but fail to deliver.

The key thing to remember for any data on schooling and ethnicity is that there is a strong correlation between SES and outcome on standardised tests, and SES is not distributed uniformly across ethnic groups.
FSM6 isn't perfect, but it does control somewhat for SES.

The educational outcomes of disadvantaged White pupils - FFT Education Datalab We look at how attainment at KS4, persistent absence, suspensions and permanent exclusions for disadvantaged White pupils compare to those of other groups.

I didn't see this from @fftedudatalab.bsky.social when it came out, but it's the most detailed analysis I've seen on the relative outcomes at KS4 / GCSE for young people from different ethnic backgrounds.
ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2025/07/the-...

b) GCSE results dictate post-16 choices; A-Level results dictate university choices. So grades matter a lot to young people (particularly those wanting to go to university).
c) Milburn was right at the heart of public service reform that involved increasing accountability against things like GCSEs.

More things like work experience, and less focus on exams, particularly in KS3, would be good to see, but:
a) Employers have been complaining about lack of work readiness "forever" and will continue to do so, regardless.
b)...

The cultural sickness I get sad about isn't convenience it's... completism I suppose, the constant urge to revisit, the idea that gaps in a story exist to be filled in, or that albums are better with 2 CDs of outtakes, or that you know a thing most truthfully when you have all its production context

Those kids had it coming.

... onto people too young to have much agency.

That sounds great, and yes they certainly do.

I think what's tough is that, as they go through secondary into adulthood, they have some hard choices about how they square the global picture with the decisions society is making and their own personal choices. Danger is that gets pushed down...

... there's the other 90%, plus all the off-shored emissions.

UK emissions from electricity generation are our great success story but even there we're going to hit restrictions without significant technological breakthroughs and major infrastructure investment.
Bu then...

... prepared to do the life-changing things that are required to get anywhere near net-zero.

I'd be surprised if many children get through Primary without encountering this idea, but what they encounter will certainly be pretty patchy.
OTOH need to be careful to avoid children acquiring (yet) another thing to worry about when the overwhelming majority of adults (including me) aren't...

It's just this thread was about the triple lock and I'm guessing out-of-work (and in-work) benefits for working age people are lower to start with, and increasing more slowly. But I'm not familiar with the figures.

I'm clear you're not going to have a high standard of living if your only income is the state pension. I was just wondering how it compares to someone in very similar circumstances but under state pension age.

You asked, "is this guy actually threatening to nuke London?"
And the answer to that question is, "No".

I'm not trying to defend his reasoning.

Yes, sorry, unclear.
I'm asking about if they are not working before or after retirement.

No. He's drawing a comparison and suggesting that the economic impact of the current war should be seen as a small price to pay to ensure there's no possibility of a nuclear strike on London by Iran in the future.

It's b****x ofc, but it's not totally deranged.

If a single person, or working age couple, without children hit state pension age, how does their income from the government change? Does it stay about the same, or go up or down?

... he's actually just finally back to the sort of work he did regularly at primary.
I continue to think KS2-KS3 transition is the biggest weakness in our education system.

My Y11 son is working hard at the kitchen table. He is quietly concentrating, his handwriting is neat and legible, the writing is in sustained paragraphs...
I suspect any teachers that saw his work through from KS3 would think this is the result of 5 years of development through secondary, but...

Hi all,
Just a reminder about The Academy Dress Code. Yesterday, Mr Johnson Head of PE, came to an SLT interview dressed in just a T-shirt and very short shorts. This is not really acceptable for an Assistant Headship in The Academy, although we did admire his balls.
Thanks x

This looks remarkably like 52% in favour. That is, I have heard, an overwhelming majority, and the will of the people.

Presumably the thinking is that since the last one worked out so well...?