Knowsley Council in Merseyside, has abolished the use of the word school to describe secondary education in the borough. It is taking the dramatic step of closing all of its eleven existing secondary schools by 2009. As part of a £150m government-backed rebuilding programme, they will reopen as seven state-of-the-art, round-the-clock, learning centres.
Originally in the British newspaper, the Independent, I found it on the Wales-Wide Web.
Go read Graham Attwell’s blog entry, especially the comments and the links in them.
Here’s one:
When you read the material supporting the ‘Knowsley Experiment’, it really is the proverbial Curate’s Egg. There’s some progressive educational theories, spin, Blairite ‘newspeak’, consultants’ verbal diarrhoea, paying homage to Microsoft and the downright dangerous.
and it’s downhill from there, and well-argued (and not very complimentary to American education, either).
Of course, if the testing and “benchmarks” (there, that shows how with-it I am, doesn’t it?) are all still in place and unquestioned, then…
If you watch the beginning of this 45-minute video I blogged about previously, you’ll hear Cambridge University lecturer, Dominic Wyse, tell how
since 1988 and the National Curriculum, politicians have exerted greater and greater control.
Will this tendency suddenly change or lessen? What do you think, boys and girls?
Marco,
I’m writing to all the ESL-related blogs that are on my blogroll. I think you’ve seen the invitation on my blog, and I’d like to also directly invite you to consider sending in a post from your blog that has appeared within the past few months, or that you will be writing in September, for inclusion in an ESL “Carnival” that I’m hosting.
A Carnival is basically a collection of posts from various blogs on a selected topic. All you have to do is pick a post you’ve written sometime over the past few months or one that you will write in September that you think is particularly insightul or helpful and that’s related to teaching English Language Learners. Send the link to me by Sept. 30th and I’ll post the collection shortly thereafter.
If there’s interest, it could continue monthly or quarterly, each time hosted by a different blog.
Here’s a post I’ve written announcing it:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2007/09/06/lets-start-an-esl-carnival/
And here’s a link to a recent “Carnival of Education” to give you an idea of what a Carnival might look like:
http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/2007/09/carnival-of-education-week-135.html
Larry Ferlazzo