Dave,
As you seem to be well into deck building, pop over to - alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking - and have a look at the thread "Friday deck progress" and see what the yanks are up to with this 1200 square foot one.
Tanner-'op
"Ping the Medway Handyman" sounds like a song.
Puff the Magic Dragon, anyone?
Played by the sea and frolicked in the autumn mists in the...
Who sung that song in the sixties then - there were many artists who sung it but which group had the 'hit'?
Tanner-'op
Peter, Paul and Mary
not to mention Uncle Mac
Full marks - if that was done without searching the internet :-)
Many people have the false impression that it was the Seekers.
Tanner-'op
Same as "Leavin' On A Jet Plane", `EVERYBODY'S first answer would be The Seekers or most probably The New Seekers. My son (5 years old) was doing a project on travel and his teacher wanted a copy of "Leaving On A Jet Plane" by the New Seekers to play to his class. I presented her with a copy by Peter, Paul & Mary and also a version by John Denver to which she replied "It's not the one I wanted but as nobody has got it, it will do!!" Later I showed her my copy of the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles which showed no record of the song by the (New) Seekers to be told "that is wrong as I KNOW they sang it". To which I replied "Elvis probably sang Happy Birthday To You, but not as a hit single!!"
Those who can, work, those that can't teach! My children are now in private education, not just because of that episode by the way ;-)
Cheers
John
FWIW, I've seen the same scenario, except that with mine the state school had created classes covering two age years and was using the more able and older children to effectively provide teaching assistance for the younger and less able ones and deliberately holding them back. The low quality of teaching staff was already showing at that time which was almost 20 years ago now. With our son, some three years younger, there was never an attempt at using the state system - it was clear that it's too badly broken.
One thing that I can tell you is that a private education for your children is the best investment that you will ever make. Even if you decide to return to the state system at age 11 or 13, you will have made an enormous difference during the primary years where it matters even more. The galling thing is having to pay twice, both payments out of taxed income, but even with that I think it was still well worth it.
IME bright kids will sail through their A levels, whatever system they're in.
Yep same happened with ours. It meant that the kids did pretty well in the class during the first year - arguably better than if they'd all been a single-year age group - but they just coasted during the second year.
The reason for it happening, at least in our case, was the fact that the school was growing overall, but not at a rate which would, on financial grounds, justify changing the number of classes per year from
2 to 3; therefore they implemented the split-year system effectively making it 2.5 classes per year. Not that I'm defending the practice, but you can see how it happened.David
may be more on-topic...
I thought all kids sailed through their A levels nowadays?
No point in private education on academic grounds then.
Despite, but not because of the state system. This is chalk and cheese.
Depends on how many A levels and also the impact with university entrance grades (they adjust accordngly), plus of course choice of universities and the possibility of scholarships and bursaries.
Secondly, education is not about imparting information in order to pass exams. That's training and is for monkeys. Education is about discovering how to go about learning - finding, sifting and assimilating appropriate information for the tasks at hand. By virtue of the different ethic and much better teacher pupil ratio, this most important aspect of education can be facilitated in the independent sector. The state is unable to do this because it wants to treat everybody in the same way regardless of suitability.
Separating children at primary school age is truly wicked, and is more about their ambitious parents than the welfare of the child.
Puff the Magic Dragon Lived on the shelf But nobody would play with him So he played with hims*^%
Sorry, there appears to have been a break in transmission there.
They aren't separated. In fact, when my children moved to private school, they ended up with a far wider circle of friends in terms of different cultures, abilities and geographies than ever they had at the local state school. The latter was very inward looking to the "local community" with its limited vision of the world.
They're separated from the kids round the corner who don't happen to have as much money. I suppose "local community" smacks of society, or some other deviant notion.
Actually there were numerous children whose parents were not well off and who received part or full bursaries at the school attended by my children. Secondly, there were parents who impoverished themselves in various ways because they put the welfare of their children and payment of fees as a higher priority than spending money on themselves or their house. I think that it's spectacularly wicked that they should have to do this out of taxed income in addition to paying for a state system that has failed their children.
My children had and still have a number of friends locally as well as those from farther afield who they met in school. The local friends had no issue with their going to a different school since there are several state and independent schools in the area anyway. None of the children, regardless of school, had the hang ups that you seem to imply. So rather than having a circle that was limited to the narrowness of friends around the corner, they had and have that plus others with parents ranging from artists to farmers, transport workers to university professors and diplomats to well known pop stars. Interestingly, they still communicate with them by email and meeting several years later. The separation comes from the notion of limiting the scope and having the limited horizons of the local environment.
The deviant notion is that of the public sector organisers of education who would seek to limit the scope to grow of the children and that of those who believe that this is the right thing to do for the benefit of "society". None of this.
Curiously, some people still seem to be unable to differentiate between situation A being different to situation B vs. situation A being perceived to be better than situation B. Sadly, this muddled thinking permeates all through the state education system to the point where it is dumbed down in an attempt to make A = B in all respects. The National Curriculum is one of the worst examples of that. A=B will never be achieved and should never be achieved and is highly deleterious to the children themselves and in the medium to long term the ability of our country to compete on the world stage.
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