Half Term Halitosis

"So where have you been, Shark Fisherman? we've been so worried about you, you haven't been posting!" said nobody ever, not even my followers. Well I'm back to the blog after doing my usual Aber-Cardiff and back again but this time by train. The guy in the ticket office in Aber said I sounded like Frank Hennessy and I said "Do you know why Scousers and Cardiffians speak out of the side of their mouths? Because of the Irish influence. The Irish accent has melded and moulded with the indigenous Lancashire and Glamorgan and that's why they sound so bloody conspiratorial even when asking for a cup of tea. No offence but offence taken I'm sure.
This week was half term and all the school children in all the land were pulled like magnets to the shops, Cardiff and Aber the same. Whilst not meeting up with old friends, I was avoiding the 'critical mass'. I think I must now be allergic to young people, having been a teacher, and whilst the Welsh and English were holidaying inside and outside shops, a 16 year old from Aberdeen was lying dead on the floor of an Academy school. A good school in a good area? What are good schools and what are good areas? They have shut the school out of respect until next Monday. Did they do this in Leeds for the Teacher Anne Maguire? I don't think they did. Business as usual. That is what education in Britain has become a bums on seats, results business. "We don't care about your self worth, amongst your peers" "We don't care about Anorexia and Mental Health" "We don't care about Bullying, because we have a piece of paper, well lots of them actually that tell the world that we have an Anti-Bullying policy" 

WE CARE ABOUT OUR GCSE RESULTS AND OUR STANDING IN THE LEAGUE TABLES.   

Like a football team, a school is only as good as its results but unlike a football team, these institutions don't have the time to 'man manage'. There are caring individuals in every school. There are amazing teachers and pastoral care staff in every school but if the ethos of the school is 'Results First' then they are pissing in the proverbial wind. Why Results First? So that they can get into University to get into a good job or career? and whilst this has been going on, young minds have become angry, alienated, resentful. Minds that have not been nurtured but have been square bashed and moulded into passing exams. Your worth as a human being is how well you do in your exams. This is an appalling phenomenon but one which is internalised and one which is played out every day amongst adults. "I could have been a contender but instead I am driving this bus or van" but "We all need bus and van drivers" said the CEO of the large company who had been privately educated in classes of no more than 13. Mixed ability with classes of 28 on to 1 Teacher and this Teacher might as well be wearing a Superman costume. Education is failing children and that is why there is always half term halitosis.