Month: May 2013

With the war moving into its final year, Clarion, along with the rest of the residents of Birmingham, were reflecting on the damage done to their beloved city. An area in the heart of the shopping centre had been particularly badly hit, and a circus and fairground were erected on the bombed site. This provided some well-needed relief from the trauma of war, and provided an accessible venue for the many emerging talents in the city.

 

In 1944, the Choir were proud to present a performance of Professor Edward Dent’s new score of John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera” at the Big Top in New Street, Birmingham, as part of the Brighter Birmingham programme, produced by Tom Harrison, with accompaniment on harpsichord by Katharine Thomson.

Read more about

Birmingham’s Big Top here.

Gove’s claims of teenagers’ ignorance harpooned by retired teacher | Politics | guardian.co.uk.

The man is an absolute disaster.  One might be tempted to advise him to pay less attention to the UK’s relationship with the European Union and more time focussed on his brief.  The danger of that is he might actually do more damage given the opportunity.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, has come under fire for citing PR-commissioned opinion polls as evidence of teenagers’ ignorance of important historical events.

Gove’s department has admitted he cited polls originating from Premier Inn and UKTV Gold press releases, prompting the Labour MP and historian Tristram Hunt to label him “Mr Sloppy”.

In a Mail on Sunday article published in March, Gove said: “Survey after survey has revealed disturbing historical ignorance, with one teenager in five believing Winston Churchill was a fictional character while 58% think Sherlock Holmes…

Michael Rosen has written an open letter to Michael Gove this week (http://bit.ly/wOR2vl). Rosen is critical of Gove’s policy and approaches, I think it’s fair to say he’s not Gove’s biggest fan.  Rosen’s classic children’s book casts the bear in the role of the scary monster, but what if we were to face our modern day demons and go on a Gove hunt….

Mr Gove was extraordinarily arrogant.

Painfully arrogant.

He believed that he knew how everything should be done. He believed that everyone else in the world was stupid and ignorant.

The problem was, Mr Gove himself was the one who was ignorant.

He got most of his information from his own, misty, memory.

He thought he remembered what it had been like when he had been at school – and assumed that everyone else’s school should be the same.

He remembered the good things about his own school days, and thought that everyone should have the same.

He remembered the bad things about his own school days, and thought that it hadn’t done him any harm – and that other children should suffer the way that he had.

He got other information by reading newspapers.

The problem was, he read the wrong newspapers.

He read the ones that told stories that…

Three halls in the ICC were required to accommodate the joint NUT/NASUWT regional rally today. The best part of one thousand teachers came to hear defiant speeches from Kevin Courtney (NUT), Chris Keates (NASUWT) and other teachers, parents, governors and students, denouncing the damage that is being done to education and teachers by Gove’s “reforms”.  The rally was preceded by a lively march of 130 teachers, from the bottom of Corporation Street up to the Convention Centre.

Kevin Courtney set the scene by describing how public influence over education was being replaced by private. He reminded us that academies have been shown not to raise standards, unlike other initiatives such as City Challenge. The ending of the latter programme and the bringing in of unqualified teachers will not only reduce standards, but also drive down pay. This has been shown graphically by the failure of the Swedish “Free (privatised – run for…

(satire – barely)

In a fresh attempt to curb expected mass immigration into the United Kingdom Independence Party, the government has announced a crackdown on short-term migrants from the Tory Party.

The new ‘UKIP Immigration Bill‘ is the centre piece of the government’s planned new laws to prevent an expected mass migration of right-wing voters into the UKIP this summer, set out by the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament.

Announcing the crackdown as part of the Queen’s Speech, the government said that new arrivals into UKIP will have to pay more for NHS care, landlords will be forced to check their tenants voting status to ensure they were not fruitcakes and UKIP supporters will not get driving licences.

David Cameron said the package would boost recovery, particularly of his personal poll ratings – and that the new UKIP Immigration Bill will make it easier to…