Readers react to this week's news from inflation-busting rail fare rises to record lottery wins
GCSE results
Thanks to all the teachers, parents and school staff who joined the discussion around this year's GCSE results. There was strong reaction from many to claims that certain subjects had been downgraded to curb grade inflation:
stanleybalds posts:
I taught a bottom set this year-worked my arse off so that they were in with a chance of Cs, they worked their arses off even though they found neither school or English easy, and I now go into work this morning expecting both them and me to have been liberally rogered by Gove due to his educational experiments. The sad thing is these 13 mean a lot to me-but all my colleagues have worked hard, colleagues around the country have worked hard, and thousands and thousands of kids have worked just in order that they are sacrificed on Gove's sword of revolution. I hope there is an uprising. I also hope that it is not as bad as these articles seem to imply it might be.
Bob Sydes says:
As a chair of governors at a secondary school with children in the system I see things from two sides. I see how hard the senior leadership team work to enhance the teaching and learning experience of everyone, how hard the teachers work and how hard students work. This in a school that has moved from satisfactory to good, recruited a new headteacher to take the school on to outstanding and now everything is increasingly stacked against us. Sad times indeed.
Goforthe2 responds to reports that English GCSEs have been marked down:
There are students at my school who achieved the marks for a C but had no realistic chance of gaining a B so focused their time on other subjects. They now have a D grade. The change in grade boundaries after exams/controlled assessments have been completed is immoral.
Gove and the coalition are playing with the lives of young people to further a political agenda for which they have no popular mandate.
Writing on Wednesday night, warriorlatic adds:
Tomorrow I have the horrid task of trying to explain to some very disappointed pupils that they will struggle to be accepted for that college place they applied for (and were offered) as they have not achieved a Grade C in Englsih as the exam board have increased the boundary since the last exam series by 10pts (appoximately full marks on 1.5 additional questions).
Not only does this undermine teachers and the constant tracking and feedback process that has taken place between them and their pupils all year, it undervalues pupils and opens the door for the government to enforce academies where they have struggled to do so in the last 18months, as I am sure that many scoools have fallen just short of the governments 'floor target' of 40% 5A-C grades including English & Maths.
Meanwhile Literature boundaries have dropped! Is this part of the wider curriculum having a positive effect or has Mr Gove ensured that this is a clear signpost of where he sees pupils achieving?
Someone on the TES commented that "the goalposts have not only been moved they've been moved to another planet!" I would think that actually the goalposts have been taken down and the playing fields are about to be sold off when the schools are closed.
MsBritney says:
Brilliant. Fills me with complete confidence about picking up my students' grades tomorrow. We only have re-take students at our college, so basically 100 students with a D working their socks off to get up to a C. It's nice to know that a year of hard work, for students and colleagues, can be destroyed utterly by Michael sodding Guff (official name) with one fell swoop.
And about 80% of our students were in a fairly solid position to get the C, after completing assessment portfolios - which AREN'T modular; each piece of work is completed in exam conditions and can be completed only once, so there isn't any 'grade inflation' going on there - before anyone starts... Their improvements on previous GCSE work were based on hard graft and intensive literacy intervention - i.e. teaching and learning, which is sort of the point of students being there in the first place.
At least if the results are lower, we'll have less of the gubbins about exams being easier. (Though we'll have more beewatcher-watcher OFSTED inspections to look forward to - joy.) Perhaps this is the Guff Ultimatum - either we bring back O Levels or he'll arbitrarily slash GCSE results.
(I'm not allowed to see the results until tomorrow - only heads and exams officers are - so will sleep with fingers crossed, but to be honest, I'm not holding out much hope.)
Intergenerational report
Research by Aviva into the benefits and causes of intergenerational living prompted a lively debate amongst readers about the realities of grown-up children going back to live with their parents.
KingARK writes:
I graduated a year ago and have had to move back home as I am unable to afford rent and the high cost of living. I think it's a shame that financial constraints forces young people like me backwards (I do feel like I've reverted back to a teenager - 'are you home for dinner?' 'Where are you going tonight, who with?' 'What time will you be home' 'What time did you get in last night?' 'What time do you call this'.)
While some people dream of mum's home cooking and laundry, it does grow tiresome. I feel like I'm in limbo - desperately wanting to be independent and an 'adult' (which my age should suggest I should be) but unable to do so. Flying the nest is an important and essential part of life, a way of establishing your identity and what you want in life away from parental pressures. No wonder we are a generation who struggle to grow up.
CheckPointCharlie says:
Why is this news? This has always happened, it is nothing new. I'm 57. I left home first at 18 in the 70's, I returned to live at my parents home for the first time at 21, for 3 months, after I got seriously ill while traveling around India and the far east. Then for the second time in my mid twenties for a further 3 months, when I returned from working in Europe and didn't have anywhere to live. The third time after a relationship breakup when I found myself suddenly homeless at 32 in the 80's, after which I finally managed to get a mortgage and buy a small 1 bedroom flat.
It has always been hard to leave your parents home and find your own space in the world, this is not a new phenomenon, it is something every generation has to go through. Assuming you have a good relationship with your family then most people will have parents or family that they can fall back on and to help them out when things go pear shaped. You may feel that it involves a little loss of dignity to return to your parents house, but that feeling is only temporary and probably good for the soul, and it sure beats sleeping on a park bench.
loser2010 posts:
I am shocked. i know many people in their thirties and forties having to live with their parents and not just due to unemployment and illness. low wages also mean that is too expensive to have even a small flat of your own. In my own case at the age of 56 and at this moment being removed from the sick list as a scrounger to the "jobseekers" list where I stand little chance of getting any job and probably no chance of getting one that will cover my bedsit carless life style without shrinking benefit help (tax credits are also harder to get at my age too) I actually fear destitution. Not all of us have families to "return" to. This is a good thing? Give your head a shake!
dianab says:
My parents had 2 out of 4 adult children return to parental home after university, one was saving for house deposit and other was unemployed immed after graduation. They did fly family nest but I wouldsay they regarded themselves as grown up some time before doing so.
We may well have our offspring living back home for same reasons and I don't expect to see it as a reflection that they have failed to grow up.
If some/ all move back in, I can see me asking "home for tea?" and "away this weekend?" as that affects the dog walking, shopping and cooking chores - a 2 way thing as I would wish to know will they be here to cook/ shop/ walk dog as much as wanting to know would they like meal on table/ have stuff they like in cupboards. I currently ask the hopefully all grown up mr dianab similar questions!
Widening class divide in health
Research from King's Fund thinktank revealed an increasing social class divide in health, as the study suggested that warnings of the perils of smoking and an unhealthy diet were failing to affect behaviour of those on lower incomes.
salfordexile66 writes:
So many comments, so little time... it's interesting to see how issues like this polarise people's opinions.
One of the issues that I think could make a real difference is if we looked at ways of controlling what is actually sold as 'food' in this country. Hydrogenated fats continued to be a 'hidden killer' in foods for many years without successive governments or the food producers batting an eyelid - it's only recently, when the weight of evidence has started to tell, that anything's been done. This is a small move in the right direction.
As a kid the only 'ready meals' we saw were Vesta curries and the execrable 'Smash' instant potato (which did a passable impersonation of lime mortar). Nowadays whole aisles of supermarkets are taken up by stuff that has a host of ingredients that we can't spell, never mind understand the effect they have on our health.
I'm guessing that most people would prefer home-prepared food over 'junk'. However, if we look at the way many people live now, the temptation of unhealthy food is all too often the easy option.
Some of us were really lucky to have both parents at home, one of whom had sufficient time to cook (and shop) every day. We had good healthy food on the table both at home and at school (let's not forget how what passes for school meals influences our kids eating habits). For too many youngsters - and this is when our eating habits are formed - a healthy lifestyle is unavailable, even if they are educated enough to know what one is.
The answer to this problem lies not just in berating people about their lifestyles (although they have a share in responsibility for this), it's also about lining up other factors - such as the big food producers - so that healthier lifestyles are encouraged. It's been said before, but allowing fast food chains a monopoly at the Olympics is not exactly a step in the right direction. Remember, these people would sell us radioactive material to eat if they could a. do it legally and b. make a profit from it.
Until we realise this isn't purely about the individual (or the nanny state for that matter) but is actually about a multitude of alterable factors (and we have the will to change them) we will make little progress.
salamandertome says:
But if we look at the 'big picture' - living into your 80s and a long retirement, is a lot more appealing if you own a house with plenty of equity in it, so you can downsize, have a pot of savings, a final salary pension that will increase with inflation and either private health insurance, or the ability to pay for private care.
If you have none of these things, the incentives for giving up all the stuff you enjoy, but will make you less healthy, is surely reduced?
So I think if we had a society that genuinely valued the elderly, and took care of them, regardless of how economically successfully or lucky they had been in their work lives - then that would be a better place to start from when convincing people to drop their unhealthy habits. As it is, we are going in the opposite direction, middle income workers that used to get a decent final salary pension, no longer will. Combined with enforced longer working lives, more of these people will become more fatalistic and less bothered about increasing their longevity.
mancuniangeek says:
Have you ever tried shopping for healthy food without a car? You might be able to feed the world on vegetables but please don't make me carry them home from the Spar when I've got a pram and 3 kids in tow. Convenience stores don't stock the range of fruit and veg/fresh meat etc and what they do have is poor quality and over priced. They do however have a wide range of very filling energy dense foods in attractive wrappers that is much lighter and easier to get home. McDonalds are only part of the problem. The supermarkets have closed most greengroccers/butchers on the high street so even those inclined to eat healthily - such as my grandma - now have a journey involving 2 buses to get to a supermarket. Factor in the taxi home (have you tried getting on a bus with 6 carrier bags?) and you are better of eating take away.
We are now 2 generations into this problem and lots of the teenagers I meet are as disgusted by a blackberry or rhubarb as I would have been by snails - they have literally never seen or tasted most fresh fruit/veg or unprocessed meat.
MondoBongo adds:
Anyone who has ever been poor knows that the very fact of being poor is such hard work. All your energy is spent on trying to make ends meet. Juggling what to pay and what to put off paying. You are constantly tired because stress is very bad for sleep. It becomes harder and harder to try to snap out of the "poor trance" into which you fall. Every decision becomes a struggle. Deciding what to eat, then buying ingredients, then cooking a meal can seem like just one more daunting task every day. But it is perhaps the most important task. A proper meal is one of the most important things for almost any aspect of being human. For physical, mental and spiritual health it's just so important.
Junk food is destructive individually and societally and environmentally and economically. It is a sedative and an anchor.
If you don't agree then go and look at the beaten adults sitting in your local junk food restaurant.
StuartGH writes:
While food is widely available in this country (thankfully we don't have a hunger problem), the quality of food is very poor. McDonald's is the example most cited here but I think the problem is mainly due to the prevalence of packaged, processed foods people buy in supermarkets eg. Anything pre-cooked or prepared, frozen foods, microwave meals etc.
I think of a good example of a family I know that used to live in Zimbabwe - back home they used to eat whatever they wanted and were relatively healthy with no weight issues. Having since moved to the UK, they still eat whatever they want - however they are now all overweight. While back in Zim they ate whatever foods were available eg. potatoes, rice, meat and veg that were not pre-prepared and had nothing added to them. Following the same habit in the UK brings a different result as the cheapest, most widely available foods are all processed.
Processed foods are BAD for you and should be taxed in the same way that cigarettes and alcohol are. This would encourage people to eat the healthier foods that are available in the supermarkets.
Housebuilding
Ministers are considering a new wave of publicly funded housebuilding, with a relaxation of planning regulations among a range of measures being considered by the housing minster Grant Schnapps.
Takingnotesfears for the quality of the proposed new housing:
Out of curiosity, I viewed a new build near where a friend lives. You walked into the front where no provision was available to hang coats, or place shoes, the width of the hall barely allowed for a pushchair and no storage was available for one. The front room was furnished, as a show home, there was a television fixed to the wall and a sofa directly opposite along the wall, the knee room between wall and sofa was limited and there certainly was no space for a coffee table or such like, the other end of the room had patio doors leading to a small patch of grass but in the way was the dining table, which pretended to seat four. The kitchen was an absolute nightmare of cupboards and doors bumping each other and no real working room for cooking. I think they presumed that ready meals were the order of the day.
Upstairs immediately in front was a space that may once have been called a walk in wardrobe where only a cot and no additional furniture (could have fitted) was displayed, described as the third bedroom of course. the second bedroom boasted a fitted wardrobe and bed and no room for anything else but the real treat was the master bedroom. Here was the obligatory walk-in shower and another fitted wardrobe, barely any room either side of the double bed and no space for a bedside cabinet or other furniture. The so called bathroom was pint sized with extra small fittings. Attached to the house was a small garage so do not buy anything bigger than a mini type car and don't dream of a people carrier or posh motor, it would not fit. If a house were to get any smaller than this I dread to think how they expect people to live in them. Asking price a snitch at £138,000 for the privelege.
gardenmonkey says:
The poor standards of construction in the UK only apply to the bulk of low- mid priced private housing constructed by the big builders - Barratts, Taylor Wimpey etc... They can get away with their poor design and construction standards because they have a strangle-hold monopoly on the market. The problem is the UK's planning regime, which suppresses small developments and self-build projects.
The specification of social housing in the UK is much higher than most private buyers can afford. A few years ago - while Brown was still pm - some bright spark suggested kick-starting the housing market by selling off the Big Builders unsold stock to the housing associations, and thus killing two birds with one stone. The housing associations wouldn't have anything to do with the idea, because it would be uneconomic to bring the stock of big builder new-builds up to their existing specifications.
If you look at the standards of private housing in Europe - design, space, materials specification, detailing etc... you will find the UK standards are very much lower. The reason is very simple - in the sane world beyond our shores if you can't find a house you like, or you can't afford a home you like, it is much easier and affordable to build your own. In the rest of the developed world, from Finland to Canada and New Zealand it is the self-build industry that sets the standard that the big builders have to compete with. So much so that they take self-build as much for granted as you in the UK find it peculiar and unusual. For goodness sakes, if you don't like the accomodation on offer why don't you build your own? What's stopping you?
Put it another way - if you're not prepared to build your own house what right have you to complain about the houses other people build?
Planning regulations are the root of our housing crisis. Not building regs, mind you - just the process of finding affordable land and securing permission to build on it.
Nothing will change in the UK's housing market until the state - (small 's') - has much, much less control than it does now.
inquisitormedina writes:
I'd like to see some real innovation in the house building sector. There is a real opportunity here for the UK to ditch some of its old fashioned NIMBYism and backwardness and really engage on a mass building project for the future.
The govt should sweep away a lot of the restrictions on planning permission and set out clear, sustainable, measured goals for a new kind of housing revolution. I'd like to see fewer detached/semi detached houses with garages and gardens. I'd like to see a mass building of medium density, architecturally valuable home complexes (not just concrete boxes). I'd like each of these to be built from modern green materials with Aeorogel insulation, nanosprayed solar panelled windows and roof top wind turbines, combine with a micro generator and a below ground heat gathering system so that each block is essentially its own self powering grid with lots of smart metres. I'd like each block to have its own shared fleet of electric vehicles and a roof top garden and balconies. A communal 3D printer and shop space at the base would be good too. The old dream of suburbs needs to be replaced (and in some cases demolished). The properties should be part private/public and given on long term protected tenancy basis. Each should have a fibre optic connection as well as being nearby to a vertical farm system.
Serviced by underground road nets works, mag lav trains and bike routes with a near zero waste target.
Imagine building for the future instead of lamely reproducing the past. The old 1930's-1980's housing models can't go on into the mid-late C21st. We need to accept it is time to remodel the country just as the country was remodelled (often unpleasantly and unevenly but mainly for the better) by the industrial revolutions. We are now living in the information age revolution and trying to lumber on with Victorian/Edwardian city models. We could do this, and if the private sector isn't stimulated and can't make money out of these schemes then frankly we might as well give up on everything now.
boondoggle adds:
Unfortunately, paving the countryside and slashing planning and building control regulation to allow unconstrained development isn't going to get us to some imagined condition in which everyone who fancies themselves middle class gets a detached single family home in the countryside or a leafy suburb. This is the carrot that the pro-developer lobby dangles, but I have yet to see any proof that unconstrained development will do anything more than exacerbate our transport and environmental problems.
According to the government's 2010 English housing survey, in 2010, there were 22.4 million dwellings in England, of which 34% were rental properties (about half public and half private rentals). Fully 21% were built since 1980, and the most common council tax band is band A, at 24%. Only 20% of dwellings were flats, despite the fact that in 2009, the ONS reports that over 81% of us live in urban areas, the vast majority of those being high-density urban areas.
This presents some very obvious questions about the housing market and what the Tory-dominated coalition has proposed to do with planning policy.
Firstly, there is apparently a theory that if we just gut those pesky planning regulations and let developers build what they like where they like, house prices will fall to an affordable level. But how much housing will we have to build, and where? And what is affordable?
If the problem is that Rupert and Fiona want house prices to drop a couple thou' in suburban Cornwall so they can go on a mung bean tasting holiday in Kashmir, we can probably achieve it. But if we want a retail employee and family on £30,000 a year to be able to afford a four-bed detached house in the GLA, the amount of supply-side pump-priming we would have to do - and the resultant impact on sustainability, quality of life, food production and knock-on costs to government - would be astronomical.
Equally obviously, we have an unbalanced economy with a massive primate city. We have lots of cheap homes on Skye but no jobs, and lots of jobs in the south-east but no cheap homes. If we can provide a living wage in Caithness and Sutherland, people can afford housing. But on the flip side, no matter how many rickety shitpiles we allow to be thrown up on the outskirts of London, people will still not be able to buy a house there for £50,000.
Secondly, is there a house building crisis? 21% of dwellings have been constructed in the last 30 years or so, and obviously an even larger percentage have been constructed since the Town and Country Planning Act was introduced in 1947. Over the same time, the UK population in total has increased from just over 56 million to just over 62, an increase of only 10%. To me, these basic statistics suggest an extreme degree of scepticism needs to be applied to claims that we can't build enough houses - especially coming from developers or politicians who take money from/socialise with them. Note how this also relates to the first question above - if over 4 million dwellings have been built since 1980 and prices have still increased, how many do we need to build to dramatically reduce prices?)
As we all know, there are many other reasons why house prices have increased. Among these are declining real wages, changes in family structure, a house-price bubble caused by a mania for property owership and speculation, the related banking crisis and unavailability of credit for a large number of prospective buyers, an increasingly unbalanced economy characterised by wages in rural areas and the north declining against wages in the south-east and the cost of transport (only likely to increase - particularly if we permit uncontrolled sprawl).
There is a massive and obvious gap between the resources of first time buyers who don't have family financial assistance and property prices in areas where work is to be found - nothing statistically seems to suggest that this has been produced by a failure to provide enough dwellings.
It can be easily seen why politicians, especially Tory politicians, don't want to address any of the factors above. They're either problems too hard or too controversial for them to attempt to solve, or problems created by their own parties. It's much easier to blame environmental standards, planning bodies and pro-planning groups that try to protect our collective quality of life than to admit that the problem is either largely one's own fault or beyond one's control.
What do we do to provide affordable homes for all? Well-designed, high-density urban mixed-use developments owned by the public and rented at an affordable price geared to actual incomes. Ideologically, it's obvious why the Tories prefer to gut regulation and funnel profits to their developer pals.
James Walsh
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