RE: Lol I'm so touched that you talk about me in your spare time, I've butterflies in my tummy just thinking about it.
How do you explain this Conko. Willowgarth school the 29th best in the country for improvement http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/schools/Pupils-in-former-mining-village.3658239.jp
RE: Lol For what it's worth, my sister is a (seems to me) concsiencious teacher. I am a school governor. There are good teachers and there are crap teachers. We all remember this from school. There is no system that roots out the good from the bad. The N.U.T. sees to that. Generally the teachers that are good want to do the best for the kids. There are lots of these. Quite a few have just dropped into it as an easy option. Others are disillusioned. Others are now after their pension. Few have an understanding of value- for-money. Vast majority however have no comprehension of life in the real world. they have never experienced it. Straight out of school and (if you can land one) into a job. No life experience. The recent pay awards have been generous. They are not hard done by.
the teachers are not the only problem my year group at Foulstone got 40 odd percent five a to c grades, but only 20 odd percent got 5 including English and maths. people were swapped from French to performing arts in their final year to guarantee passes, that seemed to be the greatest problem in my opinion. They did not sort people out properly to improve the figures but just manipulated them like this. These decisions were not made by the subject teachers, I don't think at least.