PaulRogan: The Ridings, an excuse for an Academy?

Paul | 30 August 2007 | 12:45

The Ridings, an excuse for an Academy?

Another special Council meeting, this time to hear members' views about closing the troubled Ridings school in North Halifax.

Members' views? Do they count?... I doubt it. The views of parents don't seem to either.

Should the Ridings be closed? .....More like asking when the undertaker should close the coffin lid rather than "should we let the body inside live or die?" Certainly it is already a cadaver and I don't think there are any Tory Cabinet members able to raise the dead. Even if they could, and whilst many feel they can walk on water, I doubt they would want to.

The whole debate cannot be seen in isolation. The closure of this school will affect every other in the Borough. My fear is, adversely too.

As a means of getting one of these ‘new' idea Academies.... Dangerous to experiment with children's lives and schooling. Experimental mixtures often go wrong and may become highly explosive.

As a means of supporting excellence.... What is wrong with supporting the two Grammar Schools we already have? Nothing except it seems to go against local Tory thinking. Supporting a Blair idea instead seems to be much the safer bet. Especially when the Tories reply upon New Labour to keep their Cabinet jobs! It will be interesting to hear the views of those New Labour members, as their constituents will be directly affected first of all.

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Geoff

on 30 August 2007 at 13:09

The whole problem with schools these days is not the teachers or the children it is Discipline or as the Dictionary states :- obedience and orderliness and self control, training or a system of rules that produce such conduct.Subject to strict rules of conduct. Train. Punish. Even the Bible states spare the rod spoil the child,a parent who fails to discipline his child hates that child,but one who loves him keeps him in order. Look it up Proverbs,chapter 13 verse 24. Its time our system went back to basics and Parents should be accountable for their childrens behaviour and Teachers should be in Loco Parentis that is to say the childs Parent when they are at school and given the right to discipline them as if they were in effect their Parent whilst the child is in their care.