Eames

Pupil premium will remain...its not just about breakfast clubs and lunches.

That makes sense. I guess from working in a good school all the things that are needed to maintain it just happen automatically. I was in an RI school not long ago. OFSTED in next week. Will be interesting. its why its so hard recruiting heads to Outstanding schools. Only one way to go. RI or inadequate schools is where the challenge is and surprisingly easy to get SLT for.

Basically they are funded by the government, a basic rate for pupils dependent on age...with top ups for children with SEN. There is also a pupil premium which means extra £ for children with various socio-economic disadvantages thatbhas to be spent on narrowing the gap to "normal",kids.

See all the things you've described don't happen in inadequate schools. Mostly it's terrible leadership...be it a failure to create a positive ethos or just a wild over exaggeration of the quality of teaching or pupils behaviour. Some heads get so obsessed with tiny details the forget the bigger picture. The inadequate schools I've dealt with recently have failed to make recommended changes and mostly underplay the issues they have. Some of the sefs I've seen recently have been hilarious.

The current preferred measure is "Persistent Absence" ie those kids that miss 15% or more in a term or across an academic year. All absence is counted in this calculation. Unauthorised absence just means the LA is more likely to target you for fines/prosecution etc. Bizarrely schools are judged on whether or not they are above the national average for attendance. Which means that 49.9% of schools automatically fail the attendance measure.

It actually is av1. I'm a total knob with technology and even I made it work. CyanogenMod is a revelation. It has made me rethink an upgrage for my s3.

That's what she said.

Top post Stefan. A like doesn't seem to cut it here. Attendance is key to everything. Ofsted, improving attainment, aspiration, positive outcomes literally everything. A 2 week holiday once a year doesn't seem that bad...without any other absence a child will get about 94% attendance across the year. But across a child's entire compulsory education that's 24 weeks or as near as dammit 6 months out of school. Holidays in term time is not the major issue preventing children from achieving....and the situation is far too nuanced for me to go into detail on my phone....but it is a very quick win for both schools and the government.

The trouble with the fines for holidays is that they target the wrong people disproportionately. A family who can only look forward to a £9.50 Sun trip to Butlins once a year with very limited incomces will get crippled by a £120 fine per parent per child. It has a huge impact. Whereas the family that are taking Tarquin away for his 3rd Ski Trip of the season can look on it like an additional tax, and cough up as they do Air Passenger Duty. Im not going to go into massive details on the forum, but this is an area of er.... "Professional Interest" for me. If anyone wants advice please feel free to DM.

EDIT. 2nd thoughts

Not necessairily. Depends on your LEA. My LA operates a very different scheme 5 days holiday will pretty much guarantee a fine. This by far the most sensible post on this subject.

Because you were at the Olympics and you prat about in the cold on an ironing board for a living.

Jenny then < Jenny Now. Just saying.

**** me thats a horrible team. I know the results on the pitch this season haven't been great but we are better than that one surely?!

Because the douchebag with the good PR doesn't win already?

Where was the deal that that came with. Have developed a need to get a gear. (yes... contracts are more expensive go giff gaff and buy the stuff up front yadda yadda yadda.)

Totally agree. Mandatory voting with a "none of the above" option on the ballot papers.

Roux mauling the door guy again.

I haven't seen it disputed that the plane turned in a direction which was taking it towards Diego Garcia. As you say, it turned west. The official account is that it then made a further change of direction. As for the eye witness accounts, what I haven't seen is any account of which plane they saw, if not this one. Unless you think they're just making it up, of course, and didn't see any plane at all. Regarding malfunctions, we are told that the change in direction was deliberately programmed in, and was not done in response to an emergency. Do you think that is untrue? Yes, malfunctions happen. But we are presented with an account which means that this change of direction was deliberate, which does rather undermine the case that a series of malfunctions was the issue here. Don't you find it a little hard to believe that the country with the best capability for observing what is happening has no information on strange and unusual movements of a plane in a sensitive area? Do you think that although they can apparently gather vast amounts of all sorts of other data, they can't spot a plane flying in an unapproved direction in an area where they have a spying base? Does it really sound in the slightest bit credible? I would suggest it's pretty obvious the US has information which they aren't sharing. Which is why people are exploring ideas about what that might be, and wh It is certainly possible that the plane was picked up by the base at DG, and if it failed to response to requests for contact for whatever reason, I would imagine eventually the USAF could have taken the decision to shoot it down. I wouldn't imagine that terrorists generally jump on the radio and say "yes we've captured a plane full of Chinese nationals and are going to land it on top of your control tower you yankee pigs!" If the above theory is true, you can certainly understand the US silence, because they are no way going to own up to shooting down a plane full of Chinese intentionally or otherwise.

They buy dogs instead and take it out on poor mr fox There is nothing "poor" about Mr Fox. He's an arsehole with good PR. (Not advocating hunting with dogs btw)

It really does though. As someone else mentioned previously, either you keep annoying people on there, or you remove them and get annoying questions from them about why you removed them. I just keep Facebook and never use it. That way I don't really have it, but it keeps people happy. Even people I like spending time with can be annoying on Facebook as well to be honest. Or you keep them as a friend and "ignore" them. Yep. Best thing they ever did was include that on FB.

Yes Is it ?? **dreamy look** Oh Rachel. You little tease.

I would argue that is more to do with your "friends" on FB than FB itself.

This is a monumentally shit idea.

FB hasn't ended or ruined any relationships. What does is people doing something blatantly wrong eg. facilitating cheating or acting in a way their partner would disapprove of. In either case if you're thick enough to do that on a public internet forum you are asking for what you get. FB is the delivery mechanism. Not the cause of the behaviour.