Margaret Newcombe

mum of three, grandma (best job) and recently retired head teacher

[Matthew Stadlen @MatthewStadlen]

The media feeding frenzy today - in particular - has been a disgrace. Egging on Labour MPs in some sort of bid for chaos/excitement/column inches/podcast stats. This isn’t a game or a spectator sport. It’s the running of our country. Shameful.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Victoria Derbyshire spend 8 minutes taking apart Nigel Farage's £5,000,000 gift

"As you'd expect we asked Reform UK for an interview tonight. One Reform UK press officer asked: with who and to discuss what"

"We said we'd like to talk about the local elections, the detention centres in Green areas, and £5m gift from Christopher Harborne"

"We didn't receive another reply"

[Simon Smith @smithsmm]

We all know there are some schools that have by hook or by crook gamed their intake

We also all know the system has celebrated and often rewarded them for their success whilst others have picked up the pieces.

This isn’t new.

[Simon Smith @smithsmm]

This has absolutely been a tool used by some schools. The head of Ofsted might know about this.

[Tom Sherrington @teacherhead]

The whole nonsense of inspection needs ripping down. Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s all horseshit - reaching valid/reliable high stakes judgements about a school based on a short visit by strangers who couldn’t do a better job but presume to judge. What a job .. demoralise a community of professionals with zero responsibility for the fallout and then leave, spouting crap about being champions of disadvantaged children. The delusion of it. 😡

[Edmund Barnett-Ward @Edmund_B_W]

I’ve been away for a bit. We haven’t been having the best time, to be honest. I’ve noticed a few things happening with Ofsted and their supporters recently, and I’ve written about it.

Ofsted, of course, are driving on regardless.

https://t.co/5P1HYCbbCT

[Geoff and Margaret @RetirementTales]

Geoff and Margaret's White Paper for Thriving

1. Invest in all children, like their life depends on it.
(It does.)

2. Abolish Ofsted.
(It's time.)

3. Bring back school nurse teams
(Health really matters).

4. Bring back Sure Start centres
(A good start really matters.)

End.

[Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher]

Forty-three percent of children in Scotland are now identified as having some sort of additional learning need – the Scottish term for what is called special educational needs (SEN) in England.

If 43% of children have needs which are not met in the mainstream education system, I think it’s time to think about whether that mainstream system is fit for purpose.

We’ve created a system that does not consider the developmental needs of children, and which has an increasingly rigid focus on academics from an early age. We expect young children to sit when their bodies want to move, we expect them to focus on reading and writing when they are primed to learn through exploration and play. We send our teens to huge impersonal schools, where they move through the day without any connection with an adult who knows anything about them. We focus on test results at all costs, telling our children that if they don’t do well, a bleak future is all they can expect.

Then when our children show us that this doesn’t work for them, we say that the problem is them. We send them for assessments and get reports written on how they aren’t performing as we expect. We tell them that they are ‘badly behaved’ or ‘disruptive’. We identify them as ‘having ALN’ or ‘having SEND’. We behave as if the problem isn’t the system we’ve created, it’s the children who don’t fit it.

Unsurprisingly, the harder we look, the more children we identify who don’t fit the system. The more rigid the system becomes, the more children there will be who can't meet expectations. Children need flexibility, and our system doesn't provide it for them.

At what point will we realise that the problem isn’t our children, it’s that the system wasn’t built with their needs in mind?

[Simon Smith @smithsmm]

Maybe creating a cultures driven by test and testing has driven children away from the sheer joy of Reading.

Also the increasing use of excerpts rather than whole books. No money in school budgets to update library stock in schools . Not enough teachers who know about books…

[Daniel Kebede @DanielKebedeNEU]

Academy Trust CEO pay is out of control.

💷 Some are earning over £500,000 a year - in publicly funded education.
This cannot be justified while schools struggle for resources.

It’s time for a CEO pay spine and a pay cap.

We need money spent on classrooms not boardrooms.

[Dr James Shea @englishspecial]

Government calls for 90% of children to be born in September.
🫣

[Simon Smith @smithsmm]

Well done Ofsted for that utter pigs-ear of a new framework.

The Big Listen was obviously a Big Ignore.

It takes some doing to take something bad and make it worse.

[Alastair Morgan @AlastairMorgan]

One of my biggest disappointments with @KeirStarmer and this government is it's total timidity in dealing with press ownership in this country. In my view, this single factor is the greatest threat to our country's future.

[Caroline Lucas @CarolineLucas]

Right wing media has had it in for @AngelaRayner from the start - they couldn’t bear a working class woman being so powerful & dynamic. She made a mistake & has paid heavily for it. Hope she’ll return at some point in the future - our politics needs more voices like hers

[Jennifer 💙💚🇺🇦 🌈Stand up for what is right. @Jennyfurfuls]

👇👇👇 I'm going to keep posting this. The BBC should be screening this!!!!!!

[Ruth Swailes @SwailesRuth]

On your watch the system was instrumental in the death of a much loved head, according to the coroner. We haven’t forgotten, and we haven’t forgotten your hubris in the aftermath, even if you would like to re write history.

[Blake Burge @blakeaburge]

Underrated life skill: Listening without waiting to talk. You’ll be shocked how much people tell you—if you actually let them finish. What folks want isn’t advice. It’s your attention. You don’t win people over with your story. You win them over by letting them finish theirs.

[Edmund Barnett-Ward @Edmund_B_W]

If you lead a party and align with someone who led an institution blind to the harm it caused, deaf to every warning, and unmoved by a preventable death, what does that say of your fitness to lead? What do you value, if not accountability? Who won’t you step on, along the way?

[John Dabell @John_Dabell]

My jaw breaking down is frightening as I lost another tooth yesterday. I have just 2 teeth left on my left mandible and they are also loose. I cannot let jaw necrosis rob me of my smile! Please consider sharing my GoFundMe and thank you so much to all those that have done so and generously donated already! https://t.co/iXFHSDulwA