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Karam Bales Profile picture
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7 Apr, 16 tweets, 5 min read
1/ 🧵Crackdown on behaviour, banning mobile phones, where have I heard this before?

Leaked DfE policy discussion document August 2019.

The one that talked of backing "reasonable force" to improve discipline, and measures likely to see an increase in exclusion
2/ Thread here with more details on the leak.

Those in the room recognised that the policies would have a disproportionate impact on students from certain backgrounds, particularly Black Caribbean.

3/ Even the language is telling "the SEND lobby" are treated as a nuisance, interesting that UsForThem got meetings with ministers while SEND parents campaigning for their children to get back into school were repeatedly fobbed off.
4/ Besides fudging funding figures, the GE19 Tory Manifesto was pretty light on education,there was as much about students and schools in the Law and Order section of manifesto as education

Realising their policies may lead to more exclusions, they have an answer

Secure Schools
5/ Did some digging into Secure Schools just before Covid, I believe several contracts were up for tender to begin setting them up,is a loose thread I haven't had time to check up on yet

Few other policies I picked out the Tory Manifesto on day of release
6/This looks like using covid as an excuse to push through policy they already wanted.

Lengthening to school day for catch up? Was floated during early Coalition days.

Tutoring programme? Lobbying for expanding the market started before covid
7/ I bet they will say the 4 year catch up plan will require reinvigorating academisation with MATs being the preferred model.
They will support their preferred MATs to expand, its why they need Ofsted back up and running, its the main mechanism for forcing schools into MATS
8/ One to look out for is Covid inspired austerity opening up the route to introducing large profit incentives in education.
"We need investment but we have no money"
The solution, something that looks a lot like PFI?

Suggested in 2019
9/ Backdoor cuts for provision of the most disadvantaged pupils are already in motion.
They really didn't want to give those extra students FSMs, so they've found another way to cut away support for struggling families.

Andy is doing great work on this⬇️
10/ So much of this rancid corruption feathering the nests of favoured friends, lobbyists basically write most the policies and the media fail to report.

CHILDRENS SERVICES ARE BEING PRIVATISED!

Initial work underway Feb2020⬇️
11/ Covid catch up will be used to push through policies that benefit the favoured faces, and they will play culture wars to shut down opposing voices.
Expect new iterations of "The Blob" "Enemies of progress" "soft bigotry of low expectations"
12/ Improving discipline is already being used as an excuse for £10m investment in behaviour hubs, a policy that had already been proposed before students returned, this will go alongside the new Learning Hubs.

Centralisation of policy via outsourcing
13/ Exactly the same as has happened with NHS, cutting funding for frontlime services whilst centralising services into Hubs, control of which can then be handed over to vested interests.
14/ For a decade DfE has all been about handing control of education over to vested interests, mainly from outside education. Ofsted, RSC,Childrens commissioner, peers turned ministers, teacher training, now behaviour, MATs taking charge of it all.
15/15 For a perfect example of how they've created a fast track system to insert their ideology into positions of authority, look at the head currently in the news over hair cuts and flags.

16/ Update:
And this is the consequence, its shocking.
#edutwitter

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More from @karamballes

Karam Bales Profile picture
2 Apr
1/🧵What a term! March Recap

Announcement made in Feb, leaked to papers first.
No rotas, no blended, its the "big bang" for England as Johnson ignores SAGE advice.

LFD testing and masks in secondary classrooms the only improved measures.

DfE Guidence⬇️
2/ Moment announcement was made, even before the 8th, the PR campaign to undermine these safety measures began.

Anti-maskers given plenty of media space to make false claims that go unchallenged
3/DfE uses our money to pay its friends to run a Back to School propoganda campaign.

Includeds several misleading and some entirely false statements including some about good ventilation.

Read 24 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
30 Mar
1/🧵Blood on their hands!

So schools drove b117 growth in the south-east, late government response saw many thousands die, billions lost from an extended lockdown, strain now spreading around the world

And now UsForThem are trying to remove masks from classrooms!
#edutwitter
2/ How many grassroots organisations have multiple government links, multiple articles in RW papers every week, get coms support from Conservative PR gurus and can enlist one of the most expensive multi-billion law firms to threaten the UK government?

How is this funded?🤷‍♂️
3/ Consider how hard @SafeEdForAll_UK @Parents_Utd have fought to get a bit of airtime, how hard the still ongoing struggle to stop CEV/CV parents being fined. The inability so many groups have had in having their voices heard by this government.
Read 17 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
25 Mar
1/ 🧵Culture wars in education, indoctrination, and baiting.

Despite what the media says, not all educators are hard left Marxists intent on indoctrination, some aren't even left.

I'm worried alt-right in education are going to engage in deliberate baiting.
2/ Don't know what this teacher was thinking, might have been an error of judgement trying to spark a difficult debate, however we are going to get cases or deliberately provoking an angry response, so they can play victim against the "hard left"
3/ Here we go, man's now a free speech martyr, by Timothy who has been quite positive about the discriminatory policies of Orban in Hungary.

These will be the same people who questioned if BLM should be discussed in schools.
Read 23 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
25 Mar
1/ Short 🧵 I wonder how much damage has been done due to the gaslighting by UK government, client journalists and suspect experts on transmission in schools?
Their stance and selective use of data and studies has impacted policy in other countries.
2/ Europed now discovering B117 is more infectious in children,also Merkel said more dangerous in children, similar data in other countries

This was raised in UK around New year, and pediatrics stepped in,the media closed circle and the story disappeared
3/ They should have been warned, been prepared to put increased safety measures into schools, but this information was stifled for ideological/political purposes, UK told them not to worry.

Then we exported B117 to those countries.

Read 4 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
24 Mar
Remember few months ago the bbc 5 live phone call from a woman who said she had a hospital ward of children with covid

Certain high profile pediatrics called it fake news, bbc rushed out an apology

Well...
#edutwitter
reuters.com/article/uk-hea…
We were seeing increased hospitalisation at the time, but the statement from pediatrics completely shut down that conversation
The same pediatrics who don't feel long covid is enough of a major issue to have been more cautious around school safety. The same ones who downplay transmission and don't worry about education workers safety
Read 4 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
24 Mar
1/🧵I wonder how many people who contracted covid but didn't get a positive case due to lack of testing in first wave or being asymptomatic will suffer long covid.

It has employment and education implications.
2/ Long covid is varied, there will be workers and children struggling with long covid who don't even know they had covid.

Without knowing long covid is the cause workers could find themselves in capability issues, students could be labelled as school refusers.
3/ We have had our department isolating multiple times due to outbreaks, I tried recebtly to get us antibody tests as these could confirm who had covid even if they didn't get a PCR test,this would allow me the ability to negotiate adjustments if they started suffering long covid
Read 5 tweets

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