What is David Cameron on about? Schools teach phonics anyway. It is government policy.
Or so we are assured by those who are themselves either public school plain and simple, or else, not least in comments here, products of those private schools which have the effrontery to send their bills to the taxpayer, and thus to pretend to be part of the state sector. Such products even affect what they think are working-class accents, although, never having had a conversation with a working-class person, they always sound false, for so they are. “Not least in comments here”...
Phonics is, of course, taught in the schools to which they send their own children, at vast expense either in fees or in house prices. That is why they do not want it taught to anyone else’s children, government policy or no government policy. Expect Cameron to announce that he has found this method in use in the school that he has chosen for his own offspring, set as it is among million pound houses, and so his work here is done.
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David (patiently)
ReplyDeleteIf the government was so keen to avoid 'other' children from learning phonics, why have they *just* changed the curriculum to put it on there? After all, when the Tories (and others) were calling for phonics to be taught a couple of years ago, the govt response was that they disagreed, and that it wouldn't be taught. Why, if they actually wanted this to be the case, have they changed their policy? Wouldn't it have been an easier thing to accomplish by just, you know, continuing to tell teachers not to teach it?
"If the government was so keen to avoid 'other' children from learning phonics, why have they *just* changed the curriculum to put it on there?"
ReplyDeleteBecause they know that it will just be ignored in centres of resistance, such as have commented on here when I have raised this matter. As it would be if Cameron and that ridiculous Gove creature tried to implement it, as well. We need new politicians, with backbones.
If this is happening already, as you and the Government would have us believe, then why is Cameron's call a story? And since when did you (like, of course, Ed Balls, David Cameron or Michael Gove) know anything about the state education system, anyway?
Seriously David, just think through the logic. Let's asume for the purposes of arguments that the government really doesn't want phonics to be taught. By changing the curriculum to have phonics taught, they are *simultaneously* :
ReplyDelete- raising the expectations of what we are now calling 'other' children's parents, which will ultimately by definition have to be dashed; AND
- angering the children of the parents who pay for the type of schools that teach phonics now, by threatening to remove their advantage.
So they are angering both groups of people in this argument, with no clear benefit. Why would they do it? What gain do they make?
They know that it won't happen, because they know that they themselves haven't the will to make it happen.
ReplyDeletePhonics is widely taught, but disproportionately not to the children of the poor, who are therefore far more likely to be poor readers.
This baleful state of affairs will not change until we change the politicians.
Hang on - now I'm confused. Are you saying that
ReplyDeletea) the government doesn't want to introduce phonics, because that would undermine the privilieged few who get it now anyway
or
b) the government does want to introduce phonics, but can't because teachers etc will resist it, and we need new politicians who will introduce it?
Because those are two quite different statements.
The Government doesn't want to, for the reason that you give, and that's why it isn't actually doing so, but merely saying that it is. It knows that what you state about resistance will be enough to stop it from actually happening, whatever might merely be said.
ReplyDeleteDavid, why are you publishing this Mockney public school tw*t looking to be parachuted into a safe Labour seat? It says it all that he feels it necessary to visit this blog, though. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDelete