Page 36 - Comprehensive School News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Are terrified to walk down the corridors. not only that, but it means you lose enormous amount of lesson time because it takes so long to get them into the lessons. and when you're trying to catch children up, at 11 years old who have a reading age of a six—year—old, you need as much time in the lessons as possible. so it's about loving them, you see, and high expectations. in your school, do you see yourself as imposing a sort of order, a safe environment that doesn't exist the second they leave that school gate? yeah, that's exactly right. the children, especially if you come from a chao...

But that work stopped. i mean, you were suspended from your school. you decided to resign. now, what's so interesting about this, when you read a little bit about your background, you're not from the right at all. despite the fact that you are labelled as being on the right. some people even say you're on the on the far right. yourfather, still alive, is an academic. yeah. living in canada, frank. i mean, he was not a tory, was he? no, he's very much a man of the left, as is my mother. i grew up in a very leftist household. my father grew up without any shoes, very poorfamily in guyana, britis...

They feel they've bought their vote and they ought that we owe them. so i've been accused of betraying the left over and over again because how dare i not support the leftist cause? and the thing is, is that my views are quite complex. i mean, some views you might you might call lefty. small c conservatism is the thing that allows for so many to make the most of their lives to live lives that have depth, that have real meaning to them, where you're notjust blaming the outside world all the time. as i always say to the children at school, there may very well be racism and sexism and so on. but ...

Well, but the only solution is to ban really high quality stuff. so ban shakespeare ban latin band, really complicated maths, because what we're doing is we're accepting that children who come from poorer families can't access that. you don't think i suggested that you should ban any of those things? what you might say is that there are certain things that are assumed amongst people of a particular background to go to a particular type of school, usually private schools, that if they're a barrier to people reaching the top, particularly as it's not necessarily evident that all civil service is...

Yes. and if so, why is that important? well, especially in the inner city, i understand that not every school needs that. but in the inner city, the alternative is children getting into fights in the corridors, screaming and shouting and running and shoving places where the shy children are terrified to walk down the corridors. not only that, but it means you lose enormous amount of lesson time because it takes so long to get them into the lessons. and when you're trying to catch children up for at 11 years old who have a reading age of a six—year—old, you need as much time in the lessons ...