Bradford Council in bid to tackle education gap (From Ilkley Gazette)

Well, poverty has to be a factor in low educational achievement, and it might also help if Bradford had any public Libraries.

We should be looking at National Government too - 8/10 of the bottom LAs are in the north. It seems London's quite happy to let the north rot.

Bradford remains 8th worst in the country and there needs to be a revolution in educating young Bradfordians because more of the same's just not working.

I wonder if the report will address how Bradford failed its young people so much it had responsibility for educating them forcibly removed, whether lessons have be learnt from that time, and how one of the Council's first actions after the return of control was confirmed was to make redundant many people from the education service, including ending the team which was specifically dedicated to narrowing the gaps in Bradford - exactly what is not happening and why this report is felt to be needed.

I wonder if the recent surge in the number of free schools will make a difference?
There was plenty of publicity regarding one failing to open, but several others have opened or are expanding into bigger premises.

It must be hard to apply yourself to studying if you have not slept through cold and hunger, and your family cannot afford books and computers. How will abolishing Council Tax Benefit help?

We need to change people attitudes where they think that everything should be done for them. Parents who can't be bothered to teach children right from wrong, or who don't read to them and help them, or don't even teach them English and expect the teachers and schools to sort out the mess they have created.
When you have children you have a duty to them, but it seems a lot of parents couldn't give a toss.

If you took a little from all of the above comments you would probably have the reason that our kids are failing. It's not one single factor but a combination of many.

Limit families to a maximum of 2 per family, any more than that and the whole financial burden of bringing a child up lies solely with the family who think we should pay to bring up their children.

The above would have multi-impact upon multi-services. Class size would decrease over the next few years, savings on benefits could be used to prop up other 'social' needs.

Period Drama wrote:
Limit families to a maximum of 2 per family, any more than that and the whole financial burden of bringing a child up lies solely with the family who think we should pay to bring up their children.

The above would have multi-impact upon multi-services. Class size would decrease over the next few years, savings on benefits could be used to prop up other 'social' needs.

And what if they can't/won't pay for the child's education?
You can't persecute the child by denying them education.
A fair number of children are from single parents and don't actually have a family.

Albion. wrote:

Period Drama wrote:
Limit families to a maximum of 2 per family, any more than that and the whole financial burden of bringing a child up lies solely with the family who think we should pay to bring up their children.

The above would have multi-impact upon multi-services. Class size would decrease over the next few years, savings on benefits could be used to prop up other 'social' needs.

And what if they can't/won't pay for the child's education?
You can't persecute the child by denying them education.
A fair number of children are from single parents and don't actually have a family.

Sterilisation.

Sell the kids into cheap labour farms.

Remove children born out of wedlock/two parent families.

None of the above can be done but if it were that way the massive positive impact across the board would make us the richest and most prosperous country in the world.

China, whilst not going to those above extremes are not far off becoming the world No1 super power and they do/did have state control of birth rates. And I am not so sure that Kylie and little Logan, Morgan and Organ would have been allowed to happen there, especially if there wasn't a Jason about to go chopping communal wood or laying communal bricks. If they can't look after their own the state removes them.

Period Drama wrote:

Albion. wrote:

Period Drama wrote:
Limit families to a maximum of 2 per family, any more than that and the whole financial burden of bringing a child up lies solely with the family who think we should pay to bring up their children.

The above would have multi-impact upon multi-services. Class size would decrease over the next few years, savings on benefits could be used to prop up other 'social' needs.

And what if they can't/won't pay for the child's education?
You can't persecute the child by denying them education.
A fair number of children are from single parents and don't actually have a family.

Sterilisation.

Sell the kids into cheap labour farms.

Remove children born out of wedlock/two parent families.

None of the above can be done but if it were that way the massive positive impact across the board would make us the richest and most prosperous country in the world.

China, whilst not going to those above extremes are not far off becoming the world No1 super power and they do/did have state control of birth rates. And I am not so sure that Kylie and little Logan, Morgan and Organ would have been allowed to happen there, especially if there wasn't a Jason about to go chopping communal wood or laying communal bricks. If they can't look after their own the state removes them.

In China they held the population at the point of a gun, compulsion by force! Things are starting to change as more liberty is gradually brought in as they change to something like a capitalist but still undemocratic society.
Imagine the problems in a neighbourhood with feral and totally uneducated children roaming about? Their only means of survival being crime. It might seem a little like that already, but it could be a whole lot worse.

Ban children altogether? All the above is tongue in cheek, although I sort of do like the idea of a period of low birth rate to give the children of the future and the country as a whole a chance to grow into something useful, we are on an ever increasing decline and as immigration will never be stopped we have to look at other ways.

A Casual Observer says...
11:52am Mon 8 Oct 12
It must be hard to apply yourself to studying if you have not slept through cold and hunger, and your family cannot afford books and computers. How will abolishing Council Tax Benefit help?

Where has this poster been? This is 2012 not 1912.
He/She wants to spend sometime in the Post Offices on benefits day.

another story here on the keighley news website is it just becoming t&a lite?oh well whilst i'm here this just is another reason why keighley must pull out of bradford asap lets go in with calder,skipton,ilkle
y in fact anyone but bradford.

And what happens if some of the kids do get higher grades and qualifications? They then hit the racism ceiling and end up in long term unemployment only to then get a menial job.

So why spend all that time learning, when the opportunities and so scarce?

Then not forgetting the government cannot see past the M25, giving all foreign and even our own businesses incentives and tax breaks to situate themselves in London; is it any wonder why so much of the rest of the country is on it's last legs, or with the case of Bradford, it already has it's own grave dug thanks to Westfield.

But yet again, here we have a scheme which deals with only one of the problems, which only delays the inevitable. No point cutting one head off a hydra when it'll come back stronger and harder to get rid of later.


There is a BBC article titled Is this the golden age of engineering in britain. how can it be when most of the workforce is shipped in from mainland Europe!! I wouldnt be surprised if they start shipping in slave labour from China in the next decade, all to prepare us to work for the same. And that has already begun with the government and businesses providing more apprenticeships. It's nothing but cheap labour with no guarantee of a job at the end of it, assuming there was a job in the first place!
We have companies taking on apprentices, having them work for a couple of months, claim the job they were trying to get is no longer available or they are not suited for it, and then get in another apprentice. It's rotten to it's core and the government is letting it happen to help increase production whilst reducing cost in order to help the economy (corporations).

A Casual Observer wrote:
It must be hard to apply yourself to studying if you have not slept through cold and hunger, and your family cannot afford books and computers. How will abolishing Council Tax Benefit help?

UTTER RUBBISH

Theres food banks so nobody should go hungry , theres numerous heating and energy grants for those claiming benefits, theres a free central library in the city centre and mobile librarys so everyone can get a book, and for numerous years the government were offering home access grants to families on benefits for free computers and internet access. so i suggest you keep quiet about things you know nothing about and get on ya bike and find work !

Ha, you should see Keighley library, 70% or more of the books have gone! Replaced with small shelves with a few books on them, computers and a dining area in the corner!

Not forgetting that they tried to throw away hundreds of books into a skip, many of them being first editions.

The library is a joke now, not even a shadow of what it once was.

10bn from socail cuts or 70bn from tax avoidance. Thoughts on what should be the first point of attack?

If you are a tory then it is obviously the poor and vulnerable, they haven't the strength and in most cases, brains to fight back.

If you are a socialist then it is obviously the rich and upper classes as they have the means to withstand the payment of tax but just don't.

Morally bereft government will attack the poor and vulnerable as their mates fall into the other category.

Academies bill will enable a radical overhaul of England's schools, giving every school the chance to convert to an academy and giving parents the right to create free schools outside the control of LAs.The new schools will drive up standards and the education would be in accordance with the needs and demands of the parents. It will help native Brits, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities to set up their own schools for the education of their children. It is nothing to do with integration or segregation. Segregation already exists in British schoolings, it is not going to widen. President Obama supports free schools in America because they have benefitted the least well off the most. Educating children is the priority.

It is wrong to assert that a small unrepresentative group of Muslim activists tried to islamicise a state primary school in Woking. The silent majority of Muslim parents would like to send their children to state funded Muslim schools. They are not extremists who want to change of ethos of those schools where Muslim children are in majority. It is the democratic right of every Muslim parent to see that their children receive balanced education, so that when their children grow up, they do not find themselves cut off from their cultural roots and linguistic skills. It is a question of common sense, humanity and reason that bilingual Muslim children must be educated in state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. The whole world believes that people who speak more than one language is a vital economic asset. Pupils who speak more than one language do not cause difficulties. It is the politicians and monolingual teachers who are the problems for bilingual pupils. Muslim school will help to cultivate the child into a healthy, fully flourishing individual with a passion for learning. There are hundreds of state and church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be opted out as Muslim Academies.

Muslim schools are not only faith schools; they are more or less bilingual schools. Bilingual Muslim children need to learn and be well versed in Standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. State schools with monolingual teachers do not teach Standard English to Migrant children. Bilingual Muslim children learn English in the playgrounds and in the streets. They speak street language with its own grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The teachers let them speak the same accent in the classroom. They have no courage to stop them or correct them. This is one of the main reasons why one third of children have difficulties with reading when they leave primary schools. Majority of such children are Muslims. In other European countries and in the sub-continent argot and slang are not allowed into the classroom. In Britain primary school teachers do not feel that it’s their role to interfere with self-expression in any shape or form. They encourage children to read poems and stories written in ethnic dialects.

Muslim faith schools are more or less bilingual schools. Priority will be given to the teaching of Standard English, Arabic, Urdu and other community languages. All Muslim children will learn and be well versed in Standard English and Quranic Arabic and at the same time they will learn and be well versed in one of the community language to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry. Majority of children will learn Urdu language because it is a lingua franca of the migrants from the sub-continent. And majority of British Muslims are from Pakistan and their national language is Urdu.
Iftikhar Ahmad