Apologies - I'm about to "go off on one"

Some of you will remember a blip in June where I previously had a small and quite restrained rant about Mr Brown and Mr Balls - both of whom are prone to plucking "Arbitary Random Statistics Every So-often" from the air (Use the first letter of each word).

In my previous rant, I complained of the much publicised LIST OF FAILING SCHOOLS - the Balls 638 List (as there were 638 schools on the list) - failing because we did not meet a blanket target of 30% Ato C including English and Maths. I won't bore you all with the statistical models and such like that schools are measured by, but lets just say that Ed's List was a load of old Balls. The LIST meant that all the schools became National Challenge schools with a specific target to meet the arbitary floor by 2011, or be closed (or merged with 'more successful' schools). This meant too that yet another 'Consultant' paid ridiculous amounts of money was assigned to the schools, under the misguided assumption that the schools were all poorly led and managed. Don't even get me started on that one!!!

Anyway, according to the educational press and national media this weekend there was

1. Never any list

BUT

2. 38 schools have now come off the non existent list (ourselves included)

AND

3. Schools who have fallen below 30% this year will be added to the self same 'non-list'

AND

4. If the schools that came off the fake list fall next year, below the threshold, they will go back on it.

Ironically, coming off the non list means nothing- because we were on it in the first place, we now have the pleasure of an expensive consultant coming in to see us on a regular basis for the next 3 years. Imagine our joy. How thrilled we are.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

To add insult to injury, despite the LIST being published AFTER the senior students had left, and 7 days before the final GCSE exam of the season (i.e when it was too late for the Government to have had any direct impact on the kids, cos lets face it, they are the ones who make the difference in the classroom! Nothing to do with teachers and the poor teenagers who have to sit the exams, which apparently are getting easier every year) the Government were proclaiming their success at having managed to reduce the number of schools to 600 on the non existent list.

Truly, this is either a magnificent government with magical and mystical powers, or it is a Load of Old Balls.

I'm voting for Monster Raving Loony at the next election.

(13 hour day today - 2 and a half hours of which was spent in a meeting with the bloody consultant, and another 2 hours preparing for the meeting, and she's back again tomorrow - I think I may turn to drink.)