My family and me.
One of the more regrettable aspects of having children - other than the entire lack of a life - is interaction with the school inspectors. And the insanity reaches its peak in the inspection of after-school clubs. Its all such an utter waste of time that I'd rather ignore it than bother mock it, but since my wife was reading "Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage" and found this, I had to share it:
From the "Numbers as Labels and for Counting" section, under 40-60+ months:
* Use rhymes, songs and stories involving counting on and counting back in ones, twos, fives and tens.
* Emphasise the empty set and introduce the concept of nothing or zero.
* Understand the limitation of Riemann integration and the need for Lesbegue integration.
OK, I made that last one up. But hands up all those who have failed to emphasise the empty set to their three year olds.
Comments
Dare I ask. What the HELL is a school inspector????
sounds like something positively Orwellian.
This whole business sounds bizarre. When I was young, many years ago, parents helped out. Now, according to my wife's niece (who has several kids in school) you need to get fingerprinted by the fukkin FBI before you can help. (And you get to pay for it) like you're a damned criminal suspect.
That is enough to keep me from ever getting involved in my granddaughter's school when she starts to attend.
Posted by: jayh | October 23, 2008 7:16 PM
As in you bunnies are not going to get any toys for Christmas? Oh yeah, the Ms. and I frequently make the point.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | October 23, 2008 8:45 PM
I can't imagine any 3-year-old who could fail to understand the empty set after learning "Nothing"
http://fugs-nothing-mp3-download.kohit.net/_/98935
And of course this cheerful bouncy song will gladden any childlike heart
http://the-fugs-boobsalot-mp3-download.kohit.net/_/364889
You probably don't want the volume turned up loud at work, of course.
Posted by: Hank Roberts | October 23, 2008 9:23 PM
Re: fingerprinting and criminal records check: OTH, you would not be exactly delighted were you to find out your granddaughter's school allowed a paedophile to participate in running such things...
[Indeed. Here we don't have fingerprints, we have long tedious forms to fill out. The concern I have is that this dissuades help, whilst being not very difficult for genuine evil-doers to circumvent -W]
Posted by: Babakathy | October 24, 2008 2:49 AM
, you would not be exactly delighted were you to find out your granddaughter's school allowed a paedophile to participate in running such things...
....The concern I have is that this dissuades help, whilst being not very difficult for genuine evil-doers to circumvent -W]
There are a couple of problems. The concerns about disuading help has been documented in studies. One study in Britain concerned model airplane clubs, many of which simply closed access to young people.
This whole thing turns presumed innocence on its head. You are treated like a criminal (historically one was fingerpritned when arrested, that was the only reason for most fingerprints to be in the government's posession) until you prove yourself otherwise. you're expected to give up a core privacy to satisfy someone's squeamishness.
What is happening here is essentially people are being coerced into accepting what amounts to an unconstitutional search.
Posted by: jayh | October 24, 2008 7:01 AM
Posted by: Richard Simons | October 24, 2008 9:32 AM
So I have 5 months to teach the concept of 'All Gone..'
Posted by: Andrew Dodds | October 24, 2008 10:50 AM
State education eh? We'd be lost without it.
[To be fair, its not the education system thats at fault - its the inspection thereof -W]
Posted by: Bishop Hill | October 24, 2008 12:18 PM
Ah, The Fugs.
Anyway... tell us again what a "school inspector" is? One would think it's a person who inspects schools, but that's probably too logical.
[They are... the bottom inspectors -W]
Posted by: Raymond Arritt | October 25, 2008 12:55 AM
As I recall, England has a system where schools are locally controlled (down to the level of individual schools at least sometimes) but with a national set of standards and examinations enforced by the school inspectors. On the whole a good thing but there is obviously a push-pull potential.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | October 25, 2008 8:09 AM
What's an Empty Set?
Is that like our economy here in 'Merka?
I guess we don't really need to know what an Empty Set is, otherwise our dEucation President would have told us.
yuk yuk yuk
Posted by: Sam-Hec | October 25, 2008 11:17 AM
"Emphasise the empty set and introduce the concept of nothing or zero."
You can do this by withholding the child's allowance.
Posted by: bigcitylib | October 26, 2008 8:53 AM