Devastated. Beyond words.

Devastated.

Too much?  Too strong?  An over-reaction?

Actually, nowhere near strong enough.  And I couldn't find the words to describe how I felt at 6am this morning.

I haven't been able to find the words all day.  I've even surprised myself by how upset I've been, and I've been trying to work out why that is.

I think of myself as positive and optimistic and I don't think I've ever felt less optimistic.

And I've always been proud to be British.  Now, I don't understand what Britain stands for and I really don't like some of what I think it might stand for.  Suddenly and unexpectedly, I'm disappointed by Britain and I'm ashamed to be British.

All this in twenty-four hours!  It feels like I've been dispossessed of my country and I'm afraid I shall feel this way for the rest of my life.

It's made me incredibly sad.

Why I voted 'Remain'

My vote is cast - winging its way in two sealed envelopes to the local authority offices.  From Wednesday this week, I have the joy of a three-day jaunt to London with forty-odd ten year olds as part of our school Activities Week, so it was a postal vote for me.  Now it's something of a relief to know that my vote is cast and I can turn a deaf ear to the referendum hysteria of the next few days.  Not that I ever actually paid it much attention; instinct told me to vote 'Remain' from day one and the campaigns of the past few weeks have had little impact on me, other than to make me very frustrated and, at times, angry at the way they were conducted.

I recall in the first few days of the campaigns, a commentator saying that when it finally came to it, most people would probably go with their gut feeling.  At first, that didn't seem right; surely, we should ascertain the facts and make an informed decision, I thought.  What quickly became apparent, however, was that there are few hard'n'fast facts.  So-called facts were interpreted differently and spun in different ways and both sides inevitably speculated differently about what would come of the vote, whichever way it went.  Whilst this may have wound up others into a confused, frustrated, desperate hunt for truth, it seemed perfectly understandable to me; whoever thought that those on either side of the argument, with all their passions and deeply entrenched views, would ever agree on an interpretation of the facts?!  There were lies as well of course (£350 million per week going from the UK to Brussels, was it?) but don't get me started on those!  I largely gave up on fact and went with my gut.

I believe in a small world of peoples that work together in our common interest.  Even in my lifetime, our world has shrunk drastically and wonderfully.  For many people, we can travel with ease from country to country and to the other side of the world; technology enables us to know in an instant about events from almost anywhere and to communicate with just about anyone; we empathise with the victims of natural disaster, man-made calamity and war and we demand action on their behalf of our own government and others; trade on a scale someone like me can not comprehend defies borders; and a decision made in an office in another far-flung land can have consequences for us all.  How then can we shrink away from our neighbours, back to the shores of Blighty? 

I've heard others speak of being self-sufficient again and 'proudly standing on our own two feet once more', but that 'once more' is once upon a time - a fabled time of greatness and empire that is long past.  In the twenty-first century, the world moves to a different beat and an off-beat Britain striving for greater self-sufficiency would be a ruined Britain.  One thing I think Britain can be proud of is our fierce independence of spirit and opinion.  Neither membership of the EU nor any other affiliation or alliance dims that, and it's through that determined, resilient, bulldog spirit that we can still take pride in standing on our own two feet.

That shrunken global community to which we belong brings its challenges too: climate change, migration, extremism and terrorism among many.  Our best hope of dealing with each of them is through worldwide collaboration.  I know leaving the EU does not mean that Britain would cease collaboration with our European neighbours but it is what we have, it's a Nobel Peace Prize winning organisation, it promotes cooperation over conflict and I believe it helps assure peace on our continent.  We're not isolationists in Britain and we want to play our part on the global stage so it seems probable to me that we would, in time, seek once more some sort of mechanism for cooperation with our neighbours, so why not stick with the EU, as imperfect as it is, and even enhance it for the benefit of all Europe, simply by being there?  I fear for the agenda of some of those who would have us leave and I fear isolationism in Britain would give fodder to nationalists and the already-simmering far-right across Europe.  My vote is one of optimism and hope for a better Europe.

I believe the free movement of people is a fundamental human right.  I think our economy is strengthened by immigration and our society is enhanced by those who join it from abroad - by the skills, language, food, fashion and culture they bring.  Listening to the intermingling languages on the streets of Bournemouth makes me smile because, for all the challenges immigration might bring, I think those voices represent a coming future of multi-culturalism, greater integration, understanding, respect, harmony and opportunity and that is a future I want for my little niece and nephew and for the children I teach.  The alternative is a future of division, suspicion and fear and I want that for no-one.  Immigration on the scale we see it today does present challenges but the answer isn't to restrict human rights and back away from that brighter future; we should rise to those challenges; be proud that ours is a country to which people want to come, contribute and work in; accept that there is much, much more we can provide to the desperate in the world; promote the opportunities that free movement brings all of us; work with countries across the world to improve migration routes; and invest in building a better society for everyone that wants to be part of it.

I don't understand all the ins and outs of international trade and economics but I do worry that the effect of Brexit would be immensely damaging and I don't think it's worth risking recession in the UK while the economies of our competitors forge ahead.  On this, the pro-Remain views of so many respected traders, economists, industrialists and trade unionists are pretty compelling.  Of course, trade won't dry up as a result of a vote to leave the EU but I doubt it will be easier as Leave campaigners would have us believe.  I suspect too that the trade deals that will be required will take many years to negotiate and I think it is naive to believe that deals with the EU wouldn't be very largely on the terms of its member-countries; collectively, they are formidable and they will not compromise on principles like free movement to which they have dedicated themselves for half a century.

Democracy in the EU is the problem I have spent longest wrangling with; there ought to be more of it.  But I don't think there is enough democracy in the UK either!  It infuriates me that many of the same politicians who decry democracy in the EU campaigned against proportional representation in the UK, that their referendum campaigns have been so unrepresentative of women and young people and that time and again they have patronised voters and treated us with contempt.  I wonder too if they would have us leave all the other similarly undemocratic institutions of which we have membership - the IMF and the United Nations, perhaps.  And does it feel to you that your day-to-day life is hindered and constrained by all the undemocratic decisions that are apparently made by bureaucrats in Brussels, and that your life would suddenly be so much better without all those rules?  That's what many politicians, commentators, broadcasters and sensationalist newspaper editors would have us believe, but I just don't buy it.  It may feel and look that way for them as they pursue and analyse new legislation but they are as much a part of that establishment as are those bureaucrats in Brussels, and it seems to me that our membership of the EU is mainly a political distraction for them.  Our principles and its principles - democracy among them - should concern us, but we shouldn't be side-tracked by its political manoeuvrings and machinations.  Let them have their games!

Democracy ought to build from grassroots in local communities across the country, but our politicians show little interest in promoting and enhancing that.  Too often, their answer is just to have another vote; meanwhile, voter registration remains too low, apathy grows, turnout shrinks and our model of democracy, for which Britain is famous around the world, is diminished.  It's ironic, I think, that some of the momentum behind the Brexit campaign probably comes from an anti-establishment spirit, yet removing the checks and balances of the EU would only give greater power to the distrusted establishment of the UK.  Yes, there ought to be more democracy in our society but abandoning cooperation with our European neighbours and risking the rise of profoundly undemocratic extremism across the continent is not the answer.  We should start with recreating a model of British democracy that really works, that we can proud of once more and that can be a model for the rest of the world.

I've asked myself why I've written all this.  I'd like to think someone might read it and be persuaded to vote 'Remain', but it's probably too late for that, I haven't written anything that hasn't already been said and I doubt it's really that powerful!  I've written it for my niece and nephew and all the children I teach so that in years to come, they will know of the hope I have for the world in which they will grow up and that in casting my vote for 'Remain', I did what I could to bring that bright future closer for them.

Gran

I've been thinking a lot about the things I'll remember about Gran: her flapjack and bread and butter pudding; how – as a child – I loved to help her preparing dinner on our regular Wednesday evening visits; the armies of Father Christmas' and snowmen she knitted for the Women’s Institute; her pride in her garden and the way she'd occasionally come out with a little gem of a fact that she'd picked up somewhere (on the radio or in Readers’ Digest probably) - I'll always remember where I was at lunchtime on 7 August 1990 because she and Grampy had taken me and my brother for a picnic at Meldon Reservoir and as we ate lunch, Gran announced that it was 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 - 12.34 and 56 seconds on 7/8/90 - a once-in-a-century moment!

Fifteen years ago, I interviewed Gran for one of my University assignments.  We talked quite a lot about her childhood, family and about school in Chudleigh Knighton and Mamhead.  She recalled living in a farm cottage where she had to go out to the well to get water and how it was the children's job to chop up the kindling for the fire.  It was important, she remembered, because you couldn't have a cup of tea until you'd got the fire going.  At school, she remembered being good at needlework and enjoying oral arithmetic.

She told me about her time in domestic service, firstly at the Manor House in Torquay for Sir Francis Layland-Barrett.  She remembered her first Christmas there when there was a big Christmas party attended by the Emperor Haille Selassi, which must have been when he was in exile after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia.  Gran missed the party though - she was sent home with Housemaid's Knee!  She also remembered the arrival of refugees from Austria.  From there, she went to be a cooks-mate in a house at Haytor, before being called up during the Second World War to work in a factory in Salisbury making piston-rings for aircraft.  

The move on her own to Salisbury was hard after living in close-knit communities, whether at home on the farm and in small villages or in the households in which she worked.  Somewhat remarkably, she described her good fortune in being protected from the worst of the war at the same time as recalling an air-raid in Salisbury and returning from the shelters to find shrapnel that had fallen through the factory roof on to the bench beside where she had been sitting and German aircraft machine-gunning the seafront in Torquay as she and her sister met for a drink on one of the occasions she returned to Devon.

I've reflected many times over the years on my interview with Gran.  During the course of the interview, she referred to one thing or another as being good preparation or good training - domestic service, for example - so toward the end of the interview I asked her what it had been preparation and training for.  She answered that it was good training for housekeeping and running your own home, looking after yourself and looking after other people.

Growing up in a different era when the role of women in society had changed utterly, it was hard to understand - as a child - the role that someone like Gran had played.  Moreover, she was always a small, frail, reserved lady and it was too easy to see her as quite insignificant.  Interviewing her as I did shone a whole new light on the real significance of her life.  It was all about family.  She had grown up in a close-knit family and without doubt, her own mother was a role model for her.  She viewed domestic servitude as training for her own future as a mother and grandmother and eventually, things went full-circle and her life was completed with her own family.  She really had just one job in life, which was to care for all of us in her family.  As she said in her own words, 'That is most important: family - more important than anything, I think, is family togetherness.'  Her devotion to all of us was very deliberate.  It was a selfless job and one in which, I know, she took great joy.  I feel very blessed to have had such a remarkable woman as a grandmother.

Gran's legacy is easy to see: it's in all of us in her family, whether in the pride her own children take in their gardens or in my love of cooking, which I'm sure is largely thanks to helping Gran on Wednesday evenings.  For her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it's in our own wonderful mothers.  Above all, it's in our family-togetherness, which was so valuable to her and, for someone like me who daily sees the consequences of fractured families, its value is beyond measure.

We – her family – are all so fortunate to have been so well loved by Gran.  She took great pride in us and I, for one, am very proud of her.

In vague memory of Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

   

Dancing in supposed celebration of the death of Baroness Thatcher is in bad taste but to watch young people doing so or to read their online posts either lamenting her time in power or remembering it with apparent fondness is, in many cases, also remarkable; they are obviously considerably younger than me, yet I myself was only thirteen years of age when she left office in 1990 and, despite being something of a geek, I remember almost nothing of her eleven years as Prime Minister.

Personally, I have no opinion of Lady Thatcher’s time in office; it did not affect me directly and I do not know enough about it – I don’t suppose I should opine only on the basis of having seen the film The Iron Lady!   The most I can acknowledge is that she was a towering political figure who had a massive impact in her time, that she obviously continues to have an impact and that she rightly has a place in history as Britain’s first female Prime Minister.  To me, she is historically interesting and that is all.

As a teacher, the reaction of the past few days to Lady Thatcher’s death – particularly from those younger people than me - emphasises one of the greatest long-term failings of our education system: it does not empower people to think for themselves.  Instead, far too many people too easily believe the limited amount they read in newspapers or on online social networks, see and hear on television or the radio or absorb from their parents, relatives and friends and they blindly follow one crowd or another.  They do not distinguish fact from opinion, they do not question and they do not analyse.   This is not only true of young people; it is tragically true of many of my parents’ generation too.  I have had discussions with both eleven year old children and fifty-odd year old grown-ups on issues ranging from immigration to welfare to school nativities in which they have vehemently espoused an argument, which – it has emerged – is based on nothing more than a newspaper headline.

This is especially relevant in the week in which consultation on the new National Curriculum draws to a close.  The proposed curriculum for History is of particular concern.  If adopted, children in key stage two (aged between seven and eleven) will learn some Roman, Greek and local history, as they always have, together with fourteen aspects of British history in sequence from the stone, bronze and iron ages to the Glorious Revolution (handily broken into over fifty bullet-points for teachers).  It is widely believed that this represents a particular agenda of the Secretary of State’s: his anachronistic and irrelevant belief that people do not know enough about the specific dates and basic facts of supposedly key events in British History (the Heptarchy and the plantation of Ireland among them).  Such a curriculum would do little more than prepare young people to win a pub quiz.

Moreover, it disregards the capacity of children to delve far more deeply into History.  History provides opportunities for children to explore decision-making and responsibility (you would think Mr Gove would like that!) and - more than in any other subject - to develop the skills to question and analyse and ultimately to think for themselves that too many people lack - which leads to their misguided reactions to current affairs.  Gove might claim his curriculum does not rule out that possibility, but the reality of such a content-heavy History curriculum alongside the other ten subjects of the National Curriculum is that there would be little time for children to learn any more than basic facts and dates.

As a country, we have long held the correct belief that education empowers individuals and communities and has the power to change society and the world.  This revision of the National Curriculum is an opportunity either to equip young people with the knowledge they need to win a pub quiz or with the skills and power they need to rationally and reasonably react to the events of their time and even to change the world.  Perhaps Mr Gove should reflect on what the late Baroness Thatcher would want for the young people of Great Britain.

Here's to the end of SATs ... for this year at least (aka part two)

You might well ask: Are tests such a bad thing?  It's true that some children quite like an occasional test and a test can give some a great opportunity to show off what they know and what they can do.  Be careful though with the 'Tests never did me any harm!' line.  Bear in mind those other children in your class who dreaded them, under-performed in them, never did as well as their friends in a test and for whom the test only served to emphasise their difficulties.  There was probably someone in your class like the girl in mine whose dyslexia and dyscalculia literally turn tests like this week's into a nightmare, through which she can not sleep, which reduces her to tears and which has required her parents to seek help for her from a mental health worker.

If SATs were just a one-off test administered by teachers at a convenient juncture with the purpose of giving children that chance some of them like to show off the range of their knowledge, skills and understanding, there would be much, much less problem with them; even children like the girl I described above don't mind an occasional test that is balanced with their teacher's understanding of what they can do and isn't the be-all-and-end-all.

The emphasis on SATs in year six though is far too high.  Because the success and therefore a perception of the quality of a school is judged by the results of the SATs and schools are compared by them, headteachers and schools' governing bodies are anxious to ensure their results are at least comparable year-on-year and with other similar schools - ideally improving and better.  Their anxiety can border on paranoia.  Consequently, they can insist on such secondary school sounding things as revision and mocks.  Two or three months prior to the actual tests can be spent re-visiting aspects of English and Maths that might just come up in the tests and doing practice-tests from previous years so that children have a sense of what to expect.  As if the official tests weren't enough, year six children can end up doing several versions of them in each subject.  It's sometimes said that children from England are among the most tested in the world; I doubt that even takes account of these other hidden tests.

I don't think it was ever intended that SATs would be the monster they have become.  The Government Ministers who originally dreamt them up can't have wanted the months of preparation for them that can take place now.  I wonder if today's Secretary of State and his advisers even know what the tests bring about for children.  I suspect they would be careful to emphasise that their only expectation is that the tests be done in May; anything else schools choose to do is down to teachers' professional judgement.  Nonetheless, schools do what they do because of the way the outcomes of the tests are used by Government and its agencies.  Change that - trust teachers more - and the need for all the test-prep to guarantee all-important good results would be eliminated.

Teachers have at least as much to answer for as Government.  When SATs first came along, I wish teachers and headteachers (with the backing of their governing bodies) had administered them as a quick snapshot of what children could do on a given day in May at the end of year six without ever instituting months of preparation.  When the inspectors and the local authority bureaucrats came knocking, I wish they'd sworn by the validity of their longer term, thorough assessments for providing a clear, accurate and full picture of children's attainment and progress and insisted that they be the basis of any judgement of their school.  Instead, sadly, they allowed themselves to be convinced that the results of the tests were more reliable and they created the culture of the test that prevails today.  Frustratingly, it seems they never looked back.  Now we must be careful that this culture does not lead to dependence on tests.  We have a generation of young teachers and young headteachers who have known nothing different to assessment by test and question their own confidence to do assessment in another way.  The tests risk de-skilling teachers and undermining their confidence.

Teachers know children - talk to us and the depth of our knowledge about a child's abilities and the things he or she still needs to do and learn will impress you.  We, the children we teach and parents might like a test to affirm our knowledge, but we don't need it.  Children do not need a number assigned to them at eleven - be it level three, four or five, it makes no difference to them or their prospects.  We know the test results are often not an accurate reflection of a child's abilities - and so do secondary schools; they test children again early in year seven.

Society should trust teachers.  Government should take the lead in showing that trust.  Teachers must work hard to retain that trust.  And we should have the confidence to demand it.

SATs: The Argument Against (Part One)

This week, children the length and breadth of England have taken their SATs - the national tests in English and Maths for eleven year olds (and those who are not quite eleven).

For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know: these tests have all the feel of a GCSE or A' Level exam. Children are isolated at a desk, passers-by are banned, the room is silent, test papers are distributed and must not be opened until the word is given, teachers patrol with footsteps muffled, no help is given. Another teacher once told me that there is nothing more unnatural than a silent classroom in a primary school; the feel of the exam hall in SATs week certainly makes me uncomfortable.

Some people argue that children need to learn about how it feels to sit an exam, strategies for passing a test and to deal with the pressure of an exam-type situation.

At ten years old? Really?! What relevance do those things have to such young children? Can they not wait until secondary school? The counter-argument goes: need they wait? On that basis though, why not bring much more of what happens at secondary school forward to children's formative years at primary school?

At ten years old, every minute of school should be spent finding things out, developing new skills, discovering and honing strengths and having fun in learning. Children love school when they're ten. Any time not spent doing those things that matter most at that age is an opportunity lost.

I'm all for having high expectations of the children I teach; I am always amazed by their capacity to learn and by their achievements. Those expectations, however, have to be balanced with the simple value of childhood and the preservation of it. SATs, I am afraid, run counter to that.

AV? Yes ... please.

Tomorrow I shall vote for AV.

The problems with first-past-the-post are clear to me.  A system that elects Members of Parliament who actually carry the support of less than half of their electorate and permits government on the same basis is not as democratic as it should be.  The complacency of MPs who are elected on that basis is staggering.  It angers me that my vote counts for less than one cast in a more marginal seat elsewhere.  Bournemouth East is a safe seat for our MP, Tobias Ellwood.  Because another party would have to achieve such a massive swing against Mr Ellwood, his is one of those seats that is so unlikely to change hands that it barely features on television coverage at a General Election - unlike those marginal seats that formed the BBC's Downing Street paving-slabs.  It was in those marginals that the election was really fought.  A vote there stood a far better chance of achieving the required swing to unseat its incumbent; effectively it was worth more than mine.  For my vote to fully count toward the outcome of an election, I therefore must move to live in a marginal constituency.  Obviously, a democratic system that requires me to do that is seriously flawed.  Moreover, although Mr Ellwood claims he did fight to hold his seat, he did not really need to.  It was so hard for one of the other major parties to unseat him that they sensibly directed their resources elsewhere - to the battle for more marginal seats - and were barely heard of in Bournemouth.  I felt cheated.  AV will not spell the end of safe seats, but it will at least ensure that an MP like Mr Ellwood has to fight for everyone's vote - even their second and third preferences - rather than being able to simply depend on his substantial core vote.

It might not be AV that is used in elections in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and for our elections to the European Parliament, but there is a proportional element to those elections that helps ensure that the parliaments and assemblies in those places are more representative of the electorate than the UK Parliament is.  I have never understood why proportionality is appropriate for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish electorate and for elections to Europe, but not for Westminster.  Again, I feel cheated.

The 'No!' campaign for tomorrow's referendum has made much of the cost of changing our electoral system.  That argument is infuriating!  As a country, we supposedly value democracy so highly that we promote it around the world, condemn countries that flaunt it and send our own soldiers to fight for it in other oppressed lands.  We should be proud of that, of course, but we should also make sure our own house is in order.  In Libya and Syria people value democracy so highly they are paying for it with their lives.  Millions of pounds might seem like a lot, especially in a time of financial difficulty, but it is far less than the cost others are footing for democracy.

It is true that AV is not perfect - there are better systems for achieving proportional representation - but it does have the advantage of allowing us to keep our constituency representation at Westminster, and it is the best on offer.  It has the potential to reconnect politicians to their electorate as they would have to take more of an interest in all voters, not only those for whom they might be the first preference.  The problems with our democracy run deeper than that though.  Turnout tends to be shockingly low and has been for too long, especially among certain groups of voters, like the young.  Obviously, there are many reasons - children aren't properly educated in citizenship, some politicians' conduct has been outrageous, often political systems seem complex and unaccessible - but above all, I think, people feel the issues that matter most to them aren't properly addressed by our politics.  Engaging people in our democracy has to begin at the grassroots - in their own neighbourhoods - and feed up from there.  We need to feel that there is a way for us to take control of our own streets and schools and parks and youth centres, without referring to the sprawling bureaucracies local councils have become.  Local democracy needs a shake-up - and not just by having elections for new authorities like for the Tories' planned Police Chiefs; I'm afraid there is such a thing as election-fatigue!  For democracy to work, we need to find simple ways for people to become properly involved beyond just writing numbers next to the names of candidates they have vaguely heard of and never seen, and show them that it is worth it.

To be honest, I'm not overly optimistic for the outcome of tomorrow's poll.  I shall vote nonetheless because doing so is a tribute to those who have gone before and fought and died for the right to do so and is small way for me to stand shoulder to shoulder with those brave souls who still fight and die for their same right.