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The Times has published a searchable list of schools by GCSE results.
Checked the two most kids from my work area attend. The rate of 7-9 grades is just 11% for both, half the national average. 5-9 was 39% and 40%, national average 55%.
Live in the right area and it's 90-100%
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Step 1: Target private school kids for money
Step 2: Target private school SEND kids for money
Step 3: Target state SEND kids for money
So when will the rest of the 93% be ready to pay their £3 a month extra for their own kids instead of taking off the disabled?
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Blaming well educated children for poorly educated children being poorly educated is a couple of tiers above my level of understanding.
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It's bleak out there for young people.
And it's almost entirely due to the actions of government.
By @NeilDotObrien.
neilobrien.co.uk/p/youth-une…
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The fact that our latest and most ambitious Unbaffled video yet, on quantum chromodynamics and discovery of quarks and gluons, has had 0.5M views in its first 4 days confirms that there’s a real appetite for this stuff: youtu.be/fRa8gDCBTLE
Thanks for so many +ve comments too
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You have to be a special kind of stupid to enact policies like this without realising it ends up as a rental crisis worse than the one you thought you were fixing.
This Labour government’s transformative Renters’ Rights Act empowers private renters to challenge unreasonable rent increases.
If a tenant believes a proposed rent increase is above the open-market rent, they can refer the matter to the First-tier Tribunal.
In a recent case in Manchester where the Landlord proposed an increase in rent from £1,650 per calendar month to £1,700, the Tribunal determined the open market rent was actually £1,450 per calendar month.
We’re standing up for renters and our reforms are working.
gov.uk/residential-property-…
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If you instigate a wealth tax at 9.01am tomorrow, you won’t collect a penny in revenue before 2030.
The revenues are fragile, it’s anti-growth, and would take years to implement.
.#loyaltypenalty SKY. Feel like a mug as have been paying £100 plus for ages and now see this. Mind you new customers only @MartinSLewis any suggestions?
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'I draw upon my experiences as a secondary school teacher, university lecturer, educational researcher and mother to argue that, over the course of many decades, education has stopped being primarily concerned with the transmission of knowledge and culture and, instead, has become focused on shaping children’s political outlook and moral values'
New book: The Breaking of the Education Contract - by Joanna Williams
@jowilliams293
cieo.substack.com/p/the-brea…
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Don’t worry - your own freedom of expression includes the freedom to get things completely wrong.
The issue isn’t Sally Rooney’s political views, or even her books. It’s her stated intention to use the proceeds to fund a proscribed organisation.
A rather important distinction.
in my original post about the Sally Rooney affair I have been accused of oversimplifying what has happened. And that's fair - I did. But after going into this in more depth I realise that we end up in much the same place - books not on sale to the UK public because of the entirely unrelated activities of their author. After all who is to know whether the proceeds from books that would have been sold would actually be the money to be be donated to Palestine Action as opposed to money that Rooney has already made or is making elsewhere? Rooney btw, with scant regard for her readers, seems not to be unhappy for this to happen.
I don't imagine that the government anticipated this outcome when it produced the ban and I'm not at all sure that Faber shouldn't have taken the risk of a prosecution that probably would never have happened. The result is the same - books not available for political reasons.
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Do the people protesting the Faber decision on Sally Rooney realise they’re basically arguing to legalise funding of proscribed terrorist groups in the UK? One thing to disagree about proscription of Palestine Action, quite another to argue people should be free to fund terrorism. In my view the issue is how the state makes decisions to proscribe certain organisations, not whether or not people should be free to undertake commercial activity in order to fund terrorist organisations.
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🎯🎯🎯 And of course the same is true of the Labour Party and private school children. Yes that's right... 'children'. Phillipson, Reeves etc never even bothered to hide their spite and loathing.
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The Labour Government's tax on education is a policy failure that is disrupting children’s schooling. In its response to me, the Government expects 35,000 pupils to move into state schools because of VAT on fees - putting further pressure on families and school places.
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“I hope that I have clarified the rationale behind this policy decision.” — @paulwaugh
Unfortunately, Minister, you haven't. You've simply repeated the same tired stock answers we've rebutted time and again.
State-school transfers? The Government forecast 14,000 by this stage and 35,000 in the long term. Our estimate is already around 40,800, using Govt's own assumptions.
“More schools have opened than closed”? Only by combining mainstream independent schools with the growth in specialist provision, where local-authority-funded places are treated differently under VAT.
Meanwhile, 161 mainstream independent schools have closed or partially closed, and in total 242 schools have undergone major structural change. That is 14% of the mainstream sector.
The evidence is there. Stop repeating misleading comparisons and start answering the questions.
Review the policy. Scrap VAT on education.
#EducationNotTax #FindABetterWay
educationnottaxation.org/vat… educationnottaxation.org/reb… educationnottaxation.org/sch…
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This is why we should talk more about boys and men:
New suicide figures have been published by @ONS: 5,738 suicides were registered for England in 2025.
75% were in men. 1 in 65 men die by suicide.
And in the details: a politically sensitive concern, a small encouragement & an important point no media have mentioned.
Short 🧵
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I've wanted to post this for a while as an example of what is happening in the Country. I believe in the welfare state, I want a system that catches people & supports them when they need it when unemployment strikes. I want disabled people to live with dignity. However something has gone wrong a perfect storm almost. My sister has a friend she's my age & hasn't worked for many years after she had a car accident because she was drink driving harmed herself & another car. Since she claims everything, disability, PIP, housing benefit & motability car. She can work but the problem is no job can give her the equivalent life she has now, a new 2 bed council house, a SUV vehicle new every 3 years apparently she has that car because she has a support dog for anxiety. She has aesthetic treatments done at my sisters aesthetics business & her life is far more secure & stable than mine. She has more disposable cash than me, a better car & a safe home for life. I work 2 jobs and I work in a profession that I was educated for 10 years. I am 2 rent rises away before I have to leave my private rented 2 bed terrace. And my situation leaves me poorer, and less secure than a woman claiming benefits. I hate having to say this but it is true & this situation is everywhere. Benefits can give you a much better & secure life than working. And that isnt right.
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Such a pity this story has not had the national coverage it needs. Other cities will make these same appalling errors if they don’t learn from the mess in Oxford. @BBCr4today @TimesRadio (Sadly, Oxfordshire County Council don’t engage with X so they won’t see these complaints.)
Traffic filters scheme sees city centre gridlock bbc.in/3TSmQ1E
