{"id":6138,"date":"2014-11-04T08:15:33","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T08:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6138"},"modified":"2014-11-04T08:15:33","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T08:15:33","slug":"bravely-gazing-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/11\/04\/bravely-gazing-backwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Bravely gazing backwards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've been reading the NUT's new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachers.org.uk\/files\/manifesto-16pp-a5--9623-_0.pdf\">manifesto<\/a> for education (schools) in England. \u00a0It does not take long. \u00a0It has also produced one for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachers.org.uk\/files\/manifesto-24pp-wales--9638w-.pdf\">Wales<\/a> which I could not bring myself to look at. \u00a0The NUT seems to have\u00a0turned itself into the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.express.co.uk\">Daily Express<\/a> \u2013 a newspaper for those who want the clock turned back to the last\u00a0golden age \u2013 probably the 1950s, just after rationing ended, but before Suez. \u00a0The NUT does not go that far back. \u00a0 It harks back to before the present (and Blair) government made life so tricky for it by embarking on school reform. \u00a0So, if you're against tests, Ofsted, academies, free schools, teacher accountability, and a role for national politicians in national education policy \u2013 and you really miss the loose, but warm, embrace of local educational authorities \u2013 this could be just the document for you.<\/p>\n<p>If implemented (unlikely, of couse) all this would likely bring England's schools level with (that is, down to) those in Wales \u2013 something no one would vote for \u2013 not even in Wales. \u00a0If you're minded to read the manifesto, and want a bit of balance, you might do worse than this piece in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/britain\/21623766-academies-programme-has-transformed-englands-educational-landscape-new-school-rules\">Economist<\/a>; <em>The new school rules<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, it may\u00a0help you understand the manifesto, and why the NUT is so worried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've been reading the NUT's new manifesto for education (schools) in England. \u00a0It does not take long. \u00a0It has also produced one for Wales which I could not bring myself to look at. \u00a0The NUT seems to have\u00a0turned itself into...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}