Has the SLC finally got their act together?

The height of incompetence that is the Student Loan Company, appear to have finally realised that, although they wrote 5 years ago, saying they were going to start taking repayments, they have so far failed to do so.

I guess this might mean they might actually start taxing me for some of it back. *is still shocked at how incompetent they can actually be*

Given past experience with them, I think I'd best keep a photocopy of this form with my employers details on and then send it recorded delivery, just to be prepared for them to lose it and try and fine me for ignoring it.

hmmm_tea gets annoyed with the British Education system once a

Model school where a third of pupils can't get a place at a state secondary

Found a copy of the observer on the tube yesterday and was interested by this article. Seems strange that the education system has come to this.

Given that the tripartite system proved only to strengthen class divides, why are we taking so many steps back towards selective schooling? Ok, the postcode lottery wasn't a good thing, but in some ways its so much better to this.

Children need to intermingle regardless of their academic abilities. Learning is a social process and their is so much more to learn through discussing and explaining things to each other across the ability range than could ever be portrayed by a teacher alone.

Given that most of the research I've seen finds against setting within schools, why are we pushing towards a system where your not just set or streamed within your school, but you are being set on a per-school basis?

By labelling children as being suitable for the "best" or "worst" schools we are only setting expectations of what we think they should grow into and then we're somehow surprised that some of those from the so called worst schools meet our stereotypes.

All children have massive levels of potential no matter what their ability level is. They can understand immensely complex concepts as long as you explain them in terms that they understand and the best people to do this are their peers. A process that is beneficial to both participants, after all, a good way of understanding something is to explain it to someone else. Why, in that case, do we go to so much lengths to stop this from happening?

Not Being Human

Having finally caught up with episodes 4 and 5 of Being Human, I thought I'd watch the last episode this evening.

Turns out I forgot to download it and it's no longer available (not surprising as it finished a while ago now).

Oh well, guess I don't get to find out what happened in the end then.

Bother!