Quick post!

Parliament goes back to work tomorrow. There is a second reading for voting and parliamentary reform bill better known as the referendum bill.

I wanted to blog so you didn't think i was dead. I have a few blog ideas, i'm going to post about in coming days. First there is Blair's memoirs, why i'm a Liberal Democrat and a review of a Lib Dem members ebook entitled "Make Democracy Work" published on scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/34419223/A-MDW-July-2010

I have just read Michael Gove's new plans for an English Baccalaureate of a minimum 5 GCSE subjects so that English students have a broad knowledge. The problem isn't what subjects the English are taking, it is the exams and the teachers themselves. In England, there is a parliament that thinks the best way to educate students is to test, test, test. That is not the way you get the best results with kids, you need to inspire the kids to learn and you don't do that with a test every few weeks.

In Scotland, we take 7 or 8 Standard Grades or Intermediate 1 or 2s and then progress to take 5 Highers, we do have to take English, Maths, a language and a social science at Standard Grade and we had to take English at Higher, yet, we do not have tests every few weeks.

The problem with education in the whole of the UK is our teachers, teachers need to inspire kids, whilst i may not be seen as the best person to talk about the problem with state school education as i had the fortune or unfortunate ability to go to private school but even at private school, there were an awful lot of awful teachers.

My second year Maths teacher was awful but my 3rd/4th year teacher was brilliant. My 1st year history teacher was again awful, i could see that the subject was interesting but it was being taught by someone with a monotone subject and who was obviously bored with the content after having taught it for 20+ years. We need a good standard of teachers in place as well as a good testing and examinations of the students themselves.