Reflectin on exam results and entry requirements for post-16 progress.

 It’s GCSE results day. Last Thursday was A Level results day. I’ve never found out why Thursday is a good day for results. It’s also the day of the week when we get to vote. I wonder what’s special about Thursday?

Anyway, it’s GCSE results day. Back when I was a sixth form tutor it was the day when we started enrolling students for the coming year, getting into the desperate competition to get the most and the best students in our college.

Here are a couple of today’s headlines that caught my eye:

“Overall results slightly better than last year, with share receiving grades 7, 8 and 9 rising by 0.1 of a percentage point to 23.1%”

Every year someone will say the results are better than ever. How can that be? Is this evidence that young people are getting more and more clever year on year? Is that possible?

Then there’s this one:

“GCSE results: almost one in four boys in England get top grades in maths”.

Now, yesterday I read an article which explained that we should stop making young people re-sit GCSE examinations, by which, of course they mean Maths and English. I’ve never heard of anyone being obliged to re-sit GCSE Geography, for example. Apparently, the stress of re-sitting Maths and English GCSE is detrimental to the mental health of our young people. It’s one of the factors that contributes to their dropping out  becoming NEETs - Not in Education Employment or Training. Girls get more stressed about re-sitting Maths,’ it seems, while boys are more stressed about re-sitting English.

I must say that I have come across a fairly large number of students who re-sat Maths three or even times before achieving a pass - taking the exam in the autumn term and the summer term of their lower sixth uear and again their upper sixth year.

What the writer of the article I saw failed to say was that universities usually ask for pass grades in those subjects as an entry requirement. Go back far enough and  pass in Latin was required for some courses, eventually replaced by a pass in a Modern Foreign Language. And I remember a top university getting rather sniffy about one of our students taking a GCSE course in Spanish rather than French or German, somehow considered more rigorously academic!  (The student in question had not been deemed suitable for a Modern Foreign Languages course in high school, and so we helped him out when his GCSE results proved him to be an above average student.)

Maybe here needs to be a review of entry requirements for all kinds of post-GCSE activity for our young people.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Social media, influencers and tourism.

 There’s a place in the Italian Dolomites called the Friedrich August refuge. 

There they bake and sell krapfen a kind of traditional German pastry rather like a doughnut.

Food bloggers have posted videos of themselves eating krapfen high up in the Dolmites. Consequently lots of other people have been going up the mountains to sample the pastries. Some of them set off really early in the morning, aware that supplies were limited. Then the posted videos of the queues and even more people went up there seeking to share the moment of fame.

 

A person who works at the refuge but who wanted to remain anonymous said it had been making the pastries for 30 years without any fuss, and blamed influencers for creating a “chaotic” situation. “We don’t like it,” they said.

This is what they call social-media-driven-tourism. I’ve heard before of people driving across the UK in search of a particular delicacy sold in some out of the way place. A delicacy posted on social media. I had never yet heard of an international version! The world is full of crazy people.

It’s strange how things trend, activities and interests. On of the latest it seems is fossil hunting. Beaches in Dorset are the place to go apparently. Again it’s social media that’s a driving force. The sub-headline to this article reads: 

Social media and soaring prices are fuelling a fossil-hunting boom, with rare discoveries worth thousands of pounds.

Some people will always have been doing it, walking along the beach with eyes fixed to the ground in search of something interesting. Just for the joy of finding something. Our Grandson Number Two would happily spend an hour or so doing just that. And then he’d draw us a picture and explain what the various creatures were like when they were alive. That’s the enthusiasm of an obsessed xix year old.

But some are doing it because they hope to make a fortune, or at least quite a bit of money, by selling what they find. People who have been fossil hunting all their lives are concerned that the beaches are being overworked . Here’s a link to an article about a fossil collection being sold abroad as our museums can’t afford to buy it.

I suppose it all comes down to money in the end.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Storks and herons. And odd reactions to the heatwave.

 Some time last week white storks raised in captivity were released into the wild in Cornwall, in the hope that they will settle down and breed. What a good idea!

Storks are amazing birds. On visits to Spain and Portugal I have spent huge amounts of time watching them, spotting their untidy nests in unusual places and taking photos of them.

We don’t have storks in our region … yet … but we do have herons. Here’s a photo of our local heron who has grown used to being fed by the people whose balcony he perches on. They believe, probably mistakenly, that this will prevent him from disembowelling ducklings and the like. As for me, I suspect he’s just taking advantage of their generosity. But so far he doesn’t seem to be biting the hand that feeds him.

As the heatwave seems to have abated, at least in the North West of England, I read that Reform UK’s Richard Tice has said that we should embrace the heatwaves and climate change as all of this will improve British wine.

That’s all for this rather late posting. I’ve spent part of the day in Manchester and then we were invaded by our daughter and her offspring. Nice to see them after their holiday in Cyprus.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Weekends. Wakes Weeks and other such holidays. Wondering about AI.

We’ve not always had weekends. Of course not. The really wealthy didn”t need weekends: they could do leisure activities whenever they chose. Most workers had Sunday off: a day of rest and a day to go to church. They were lucky to get that in some people’s eyes. Girls who went into ‘service’ - ie working as maids, cleaners, cooks - in the houses of the wealthy were lucky to get a day off to go and visit their parents.

In 1926, or so I read, Henry Ford decided to reduce the working week to Monday to Friday, five eight-hour days instead of six, with no cut in pay. Trade unions and other groups had been pushing the idea but it needed a big industrialist to make it work. Philanthropist? No! Not really! “People who have more leisure require more transportation in vehicles,” he said. And the new fashion for day trips was an effective marketing device to sell cars. In the end it’s all about money. 

Here’s another example: John Boot, of Boots the Chemist, found that his factory in Nottingham was so efficient that they were producing too much stock. Possibly a bit a a philanthropist, he didn’t want to lay staff off at a time of high unemployment [1930s) and so he ended the Saturday morning shift, reducing hours for his workers without cutting wages. It worked. Productivity reamined good and absenteeism was reduced.

And now some people are agitating for a four-day working week and a three-day weekend. And with so many people working from home for at least part of the week, and with employers emailing employees outside of working hours (really not a nice thing!) the idea of the working week is very fluid. Of course, for shop assistants and catering staff the whole concept of the weekend is rather academic. So it goes!

Holidays are something else. Italy is in full ‘Ferragosto’, summer holidays starting on August 15th. Children have been on holiday from school for considerably longer but that’s a different matter. Here’s a link to an article about  the Italian ‘month off’. Interestingly the writer compares this to the Wakes Weeks that once existed here when mills and collieries shut down for maintenance work and all the workers had a couple of weeks holiday, usually in a seaside town. Hotel and boarding house owners knew when to expect groups from different industrial towns - the same  two weeks each year! This was, of course, before everyone wanted to head for the sun in some more exotic place than Blackpool.

AI pops up everywhere. It’s hard to tell what is AQ and what is not. Hee’s something that popped up on social media, supposedly posted by The National Geographic:

“Camel saves 50+ cats in the last two weeks.

During a brutal heat wave, a camel that regularly walks to a watering hole began doing something no one expected. Locals noticed stray cats struggling in the extreme heat, with some dying before they could reach water. Then the camel started stopping for them. One by one, the cats began climbing onto its back, and the camel would carry them across the scorching desert to the watering hole before continuing on its way.

Researchers observing the area believe the camel may have already helped more than 50 cats reach water in just two weeks. Even stranger, many of the cats now seem to recognize it and wait along its usual route. What started as one animal simply trying to survive the heat has turned into an unlikely rescue mission for dozens of others.”

It’s a lovely story. Animals are so much kinder than humans!  And so on! But a good 50% of comments protested that it must be AI generated! Who knows?

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

One fine day in Manchester … 200 years ago and more.

 On this day in 1819 people walked onto the centre of Manchester from towns and villages for miles around.  They made their way to St. Peter’s Field, on the edge of town (where the Free Trade Hall was later built). High unemployment, rising food prices, poverty made people feel frustrated with politicians and the political system. Only the rich and privileged had the vote and some 60,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field to call for democracy. They were peaceful, orderly and cheerful. There were lots of women and children. Many people wore their Sunday-best clothes. There was music and hymn-singing. Some carried banners which called for the reform of parliament, the right to vote and fairer taxes. Some banners had just one word: ‘Love’.

When the speeches started, magistrates called for the speakers to be arrested.  Special constables pushed the crowd back so that cavalrymen could reach the speakers. The horses got trapped on the crowd. Cavalrymen panicked and struck out at the crowd. More cavalrymen were sent in to quell the chaos. Shooting and bayoneting followed. 

At least 15 people were killed and over 600 injured. An unknown number of injured died at home later of their wounds as they could not afford medical treatment.

The speakers and organisers were all imprisoned. The government ordered the arrest of anyone who called for reform or anyone who tried to hold a public meeting. The newspapers were all strictly censored. The official story that was put out was that a “mob” had attacked the soldiers and started a “riot”. The Prince Regent sent his thanks to the Manchester magistrates for their "preservation of the public peace".

This was the Peterloo Massacre.

It’s not been forgotten … and yet people are being arrested nowadays protesting peacefully. Protest movements are being proscribed as terrorist organisations. 200+ years after Peterloo, you would think we might have learnt to do better.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Government Alerts! Banning barbecues and bonfires! The Great Stink. Hormuz. Women in Afghanistan.

Doing stuff in the basement kitchen early yesterday evening we were suddenly disturbed by a shrill, fierce noise. It couldn’t be the smoke alarm because we would have recognised that piercing noise at once. The only electronic gadget we had down there was Phil’s iPad which was playing something different. So I went to check my phone and iPad which were one floor higher up. My phone told me that I had received a Government Alert (capital letters for importance!), warning me about Heatwave Number Five, telling me not to light fires outdoors and informing me that portable barbecues were temporarily banned. Not that I was planning to have bonfires or barbecues. 

As far as I am concerned the sale of those portable barbecue kits should be permanently banned, dangerous objects that they are. I’m not a great consumer of meat - in fact I haven’t eaten red meat in a long time - so I fail to understand the attraction of eating charred meat outdoors. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned picnic with egg sandwiches and a bottle of pop?

Ironically enough, having been warned about the heatwave, today we woke up to cool and cloudy weather, much better suited for a hike than the extreme heat!

Louise Haigh, deputy Prime Minister said!

“This is the most extensive use of the UK’s emergency alert system in response to an active incident, and reflects the seriousness with which the government is acting to safeguard people and property.”

I can’t remember the emergency alert system being used before but it’s good to know it works.

Here’s a cartoon from 1859. The UK’s drainage system is still based on the work of the Victorian civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette, who designed London’s sewers in response to the 1858 Great Stink. 

Wikipedia tells me this:

The Great Stink was an event in Central London during July and August 1858 in which the hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human waste and industrial effluent that was present on the banks of the River Thames. The problem had been mounting for some years, with an ageing and inadequate sewer system that emptied directly into the Thames. The miasma from the effluent was thought to transmit contagious diseases, and three outbreaks of cholera before the Great Stink were blamed on the ongoing problems with the river.

The civil engine Joseph Bazalguette was given the task of sorting it out. The historian Peter Ackroyd argues that Bazalgette should be considered a hero of London.

Elsewhere in the world, it seems that Donald Trump is threatening to declare the strait of Hormuz ‘territory of the United States’. Now, I wonder how that is going to pan out!

And then there is this report:

“The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched a diplomatic effort to end their isolation as major regional and international powers show a readiness to engage more closely with the repressive regime despite its systematic human rights abuses.

Five years after the Taliban took power, an increasing number of countries are renewing ties or scaling up diplomatic contacts with the hardline Islamists, who seized power in Kabul in 2021 after 20 years of brutal insurgent warfare.”

It’s almost as though if something bad keeps on going for long enough it will be accepted as normal. the countries making diplomatic contact should remember the kind of life the women of Afghanistan are living. As this article tells us, families are “marrying off” their daughters of marriageable age (mid-teens) so that the dowry they receive can be used to buy food for the rest of the family. They are effectively selling their daughters! 

We must not forget the women of Afghanistan.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Random facts about eclipses. Interesting words. Denmark. Transfers. Fires and the environment.

 Well, we didn’t get to see the eclipse from our house, which is what usually happens with celestial phenomena. I have since learnt that the three way alignment where the moon passes directly between the sun and the earth is known as  a syzygy. There you go!

In ancient times the Chinese reportedly believed that the cosmic order was being threatened by dragons, while in India the disruption was blamed on a demon’s disembodied head. We know better than that now but still we flock to places where we can stare in wonder. It was a Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras, who first suggested a scientific explanation, after he witnessed an eclipse in 478 BC. So we’ve known about it really for quite some time. And good old Columbus is said to have used his knowledge of an approaching eclipse o frighten Jamaica’s Indigenous people into giving him food after they had refused.

Here’s a picture os a spectroscope designed to look at the sun, the sort of machine used by the astronomers Pierre Janssen of France and Norman Lockyer of Britain when they discovered the element helium during the 1868 solar eclipse over India.

So syzygy is my latest new word. And here’s something about Scandinavian vocabulary from the letters page of the Guardian:

‘Confusion over the names of mealtimes also reigns in Scandinavia. Breakfast in Norway/Sweden is frokost/frukost, but morgenmad(morning food) in Denmark. Lunch in Norway/Sweden is lunsj/lunch, but frokost in Denmark. At least they can all agree on the main meal of the day, which is middag(midday/noon) but served in the early evening.

If attending a wedding party or function in Denmark, don’t be surprised to be served natmad (night food) around midnight. It is used as a friendly indication that the event has come to an end, hence its colloquial name of skrub af mad (fuck-off food).
Gary Calder
Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire”

Apparently Denmark is the place to go to for international marriages, post brexit rules having made such marriages more difficult to arrange in the UK. Here’s link to an article about one couple’s experience.

Here are a couple more cartoons of POTUS  being transferred secretly from plane to plane:

And as wildfires still keep going, the latest grassfire having destroyed houses in the Midlands, here’s an environmentally-based  cartoon:

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!