[senco-forum] Re: Accessability for Exams

Our man 'Blunk' -- yet to hit the front pages of the tabloids and gossip columns -- famously vowed to "resign" (when first made SoS for Ed.) if the literacy targets he set (when introducing the 'literacy hour') were not met within (if I remember correctly) the first 2/3 yrs of his tenure. I immediately thought -- "this man has higher ambitions than head of Education and will be gone before the meeting the targets date arrives". I'm not a person with the greatest of natural insights, but in this forcast I was entirely correct. Just a few months before the date when it was announced that the unrealstic targets were not met -- he was promoted to Home Secretary -- and went on to spectacularly destroy his settled life and (seemingly) upwardly moving career. Politicians (particularly those leading education) are the 'ships that speedily pass in the night'. SENCo's are the ones who will usually spend a lifetime dealing with the realities that belie the false claims of freewheeling politicians. Brendan

-----Original Message-----
From: maizie2004 at yahoo.co.uk
To: jeanhutchins2000 at yahoo.co.uk; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Sent: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 5.19PM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: Accessability for Exams

Jean Hutchins <jeanhutchins2000 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: 

600 words that David Blunkett, then Minister of Education, believed children 
should be able to spell by year 7, age 12 years.

He was having a laugh, wasn't he?  

Our top set Y11s (age 15/16) couldn't spell half of those.

Maggie

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