A festive wish

16 December, 2013 (18:53) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

We are correct, of course, as a nation, to dismiss with the utmost contempt every utterance offered to us by ‘Sir’ Michael Wilshaw, the leader of the education-wrecking school-closing Gove-grovelling career-ending disgrace to what used to be the national education system that is Ofsted.

That contempt stems from the knowledge that ‘Sir’ Michael’s tight-lipped finger-wagging shrivel-souled Dickensian hectoring of pupils and teachers to strive harder, work longer, do more, more, more to compete in the international marketplace has added nothing but stress and unhappiness to the lives of children and adults – all of whom are told regularly what failures they are – and done nothing to improve education in our country.

I only mention it as ‘Sir’ Michael has been vomiting his usual hate-filled drivel onto the pages of the nation’s newspapers once again this week. It doesn’t seem to occur to him to make a link between his policies, and the failure he seems to so enjoy telling us about. If everything’s so awful, hasn’t it become so awful on your watch, ‘Sir’ Michael? Or do you ignore your judgment of success and failure just as the rest of the country does? Anyway. I do hope he’s around next week, on Christmas morning, and that my request to Santa will be answered. I believe holly can chafe quite considerably.

Lest you think me unreasonable in my judgement of ‘Sir’ Michael’s contribution to our nation, can I just point out to you that this afternoon I’ve been trying, uselessly, to get information from a school website where these are some of the job titles: Director of Curriculum Development and Innovation, Director of College Improvement and Self Evaluation, Director of Wider Skills and Enrichment, Director of Finance and Business Management, Director of Achievement, Inclusion and Student Support.

All those job titles, and yet they don’t know between them where to put an apostrophe:

“Homework with regular feedback to students has been shown to have a positive impact on students (sic)  learning and progress … provide structured development as student’s (sic) progress through the College.”

Needless to say, the school in question is an academy, and, needless to say, it is rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

And there you have it, brothers and sisters: everything that is wrong with education in this country today in a few brief paragraphs. Too much ‘Sir’ Michael, too much jargon, too much posturing, and too few apostrophe’s.

Bad sports

I’ve always really liked sport, but honestly, isn’t it all getting a little bit silly now? There seems no sense in it – and certainly no sense of proportion.

I abandoned BBC TV’s impossibly big budget Sports Personality of the Year – a sort of Lidl’s version of the Oscars, minus the taste, restraint and dignity – when they presented surly Scotsman Sir Alex Ferguson with a lifetime achievement award as some middle-of-the-road crooner sang “to dream the impossible dream” to him. Without irony. I am not making this up.

Later, I gather another surly Scotsman, Andy Murray, was named the personality of the year. Again, no apparent irony.

Over the weekend, two soccer managers were sacked: Steve Clarke, of West Bromwich Albion, and Andre Villas-Boas, of Tottenham Hotspur. Both teams are in the Premier League, Spurs in the top ten. Neither manager had served much more than 18 months. West Brom finished eighth last season under Clarke, Spurs are in the latter stages of two cup competitions this season. But people with more money than sense believe somebody else can do something different with a few spoiled, overpaid players, a patch of lawn and a ball. It really does beggar belief how people who’ve made millions – or been gifted millions through immense good fortune – seemingly leave what passes for their brain at the turnstiles of the expensive soccer ground toys they buy. The aggression on the faces of the supporters of soccer matches contributes to this lunacy. It is fearsome. But why are they watching if they are so pent-up and unhappy? Why don’t they spend money on something that brings them joy instead?

Over in Australia, the England cricket team are to play the fourth test wearing nothing but their vests; this is the only thing that can make their humiliation any worse. But anybody involved in following the Ashes could have seen this coming, surely – it was plain for all to see that the team was very lucky indeed to win last year. But no. The strategy was to forge blindly on, hope for the best and disregard the bleedin’ obvious. So, for one example, the Boycott-esque Nick Compton, who was discarded for scoring too slowly and absolutely refusing to throw his wicket away, watches the series on the telly.

On Test Match Special, before the third test has even finished (England’s abject defeat will be completed tomorrow, Tuesday 17th), commentators were discussing what was wrong with… Australia. I am not making this up. The players are apparently too old, and who will be the next opening batsmen and bowlers?

I know that sport is now beyond any shadow of doubt an industry, rather than what it used to be and should be – a game, a diversion, an entertainment, something done to make people fit and happy, something to watch with a smile on your face. Does it have to stay that way?

There could be a wonderful thing done with sport: those at the top, with the multi-millions, could be assisted to regain their childlike sense of enjoyment together with an adult-like sense of proportion by having to accept less than half the money they currently take.

The rest of the money? The owners, sponsors, shareholders, superstars, agents, advertisers, kit manufacturers, TV producers and the rest of the Satanic band who suck the pleasure out of our games could be forced to plough the rest of the money into making decent facilities freely available right across the country – yes, even buying back school playing fields from developers and demolishing their identikit estates – so that every kid can have free access to the best, so that there are so many able sportsman that we no longer idolise the very gifted, so that everybody can be reminded what sport is: a game, a diversion, an entertainment, something to make you fit and happy, something to watch with a smile on your face.

No sport

Instead of which, back to me trying to contact a school – I wanted to find out about hiring sports facilities from this community college over the Christmas holidays, when the children are off and will welcome a chance to run around.

The facilities are closed from December 21st to January 2nd.

Merry Christmas!

Good sport

Old Father Cullingham is off games at the moment, I regret to report. Recently, the skies over Cornwall have been thick with pensioners plummeting to Earth after misguidedly ascending ladders in the wind, and the old duffer is waving a walking stick around and muttering “oooh me bruises” on a regular basis. We all hope he is back in the skies soon.

Comments

Comment from Old Fiddle
Time December 16, 2013 at 7:06 pm

A+ for “tight-lipped finger-wagging shrivel-souled Dickensian hectoring of pupils and teachers to strive harder, work longer, do more, more, more…” but D- for “gifted”.

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