Sporting Chance? Not thanks to Mr Gove

The legacy of the Olympics is all we hear about when it comes to sport these days yet today that legacy seems to have hit a brick wall due the cutting of funding for sport in state schools.

Sport was my life at school, college and university. It gave me freedom. In my teenage years it took me away from the prospect of seeing my father take another round with Mr Grant or Mr Walker and it made me feel happy in a world that was dominated by whisky. It was you might say the thing that saved my life.

So why now would you take sport away from schools? Sport helps us learn in a different way. It can be as inclusive as you want it to be. In fact if you have a serious commitment to sport it can be the most inclusive way of teaching. It doesn't have to be competitive but it can be. Assessing children in the context of a sporting environment can give a more holistic picture of how a child is developing.

Sure you will say what about the fat overweight kid who hated running and was always the last to be picked for a team. I would say back to you stop and stop now. I can assure you everyone can be included in sport and if someone is seriously obese as a child then it is important to encourage participation purely for the sake of the health of the child if nothing else.

In future if we are serious as a nation for the development of our children then we have to show a commitment to their health and social skills as well as their academic skills. Sport enables us to do this and Mr Gove you need to realise that sport is as important in education as academic subjects.

But there again when have you ever cared about inclusivity and education. For you Mr Gove it's all about elitism

Snow, snow , snow!

For the first time in fifteen years I have had a course cancelled due to weather. It feels really strange. Not least because it's Saturday and I don't quite know what to do with myself as I am habitually working, lecturing, on a Saturday.

So I thought I would blog about the snow.

Snow is something I grew up with. Being born in Yorkshire and living in the hills as so to speak winters were always full of snow. I remember being that cheeky chappy earning 50p a time for digging out cars when I was a mere child, I remember watching drivers with rear wheel drive cars trying to hill climb up what was effectively an ice sheet outside my childhood home and I remember walking miles in the snow to school because in those days we didn't shut schools at the first fall of a flake!

Then as I grew older and was involved in hill walking and mountaineering snow became more testing, more of a challenge. It was fun building igloos to sleep in to see off the worst of the mountain blizzards. I have to say igloos can be quite cosy and homely if you approach them with the right attitude.

Learning to ski in the Jura Mountains of France was fun and I loved the time I would spend in Davos, especially just before Christmas. Watching my children learn to ski in St Sorlin d'Arves was pretty special too. However riding husky sleds in the Arctic certainly tops it all off. If you've never been inside the Arctic circle folks I can highly recommend it as the air is so fresh and for a guy with only 30% lung function I felt I could actually breathe for the first time in a long time up there.

So what about today. Well living now in the South of the UK I find it a real laugh when snow falls. It's like people are living in an alien world. I went out to the supermarket yesterday and it looked like people had been panic buying. It's 10cm not the Day after Tomorrow!

Anyway just be careful out there and remember Have Fun

 

The End of Civilisation

A strong title you may say. Yet isn't that what is happening in Great Britain today. In 2013 the year after our diamond 2012 a new order has dawned. Not one from inspiration though, no one of desperation and desolation.

This so called Government of the Big Society is no more a Government of inspiration than Hitler's was a Government for peace.

In the 1980's I watched the dismantling of the coal industry in the UK that led to millions being unemployed with no real hope of a job. I thought that after that we could not get worse. It was bad enough that communities were split apart needlessly. Now we are seeing far worse, we are seeing a great nation, a great civilisation split apart in a similar fashion.

Both the Tories and the Lib Dems have been so hungry for power in this country that they will do almost anything to prevent a loss of that power. Firstly a move to fixed term Government something that in it's essence goes against the whole life-force of democracy. Secondly an attempt to redraw the political battlegrounds that will ultimately favour this type of Government for years to come. Thirdly a complete reversal on the welfare state that sees hard working people needing help from food-banks whilst at the same time we waste half of our food in the world. Fourthly a complete destruction of the National Health Service and the Royal Navy, the two greatest institutions that Britain has given to the world. And fifthly a return to education of the Victorians where propaganda not learning matters.

For Cameron, Osborne, Duncan-Smith and Gove read Hilter, Goering, Himmler and Goebbels only these have an Oxbridge background and are British so they can't possibly be that bad can they? And Clegg? well he has to be Hess, the great apologist.

This Government lives in a cyber world where all that matters are the pounds in the banks and the shares in the city. We do not create jobs in this country we just service the world with our cybertalk. We don't build things anymore here. We import lots of our food, and we subcontract out to emerging nations like India and old giants like China.

Yes we put on a good party like we did last year, but after every great party comes the greater hangover and  when in the depths of that hangover we allow things to happen without watching.

We no longer live in a civilised country, we live in a third world country. Sure we have all that technology can give us,

           but without food in our bellies and shelter over our heads we are no closer to 
           Maslow's self actualisation than stone age man.

Of Rivals and of Family

Well today is the day of the Liverpool versus Manchester United football match. One of the great sporting rivalries continues and in my family it is no different.

I thought I might pop round son number 1's house as he and his partner are both massive Manchester United   fans. I thought I would take with me for my beautiful baby grand daughter a Liverpool shirt. And I thought I would take also son number 4 (the young one ) with me too. Mainly because he's a massive Chelsea fan. Oh how the psychologist in me loves such days. The wickedness of teasing within the family.

But surely that is how it should be. Families who love each other should be able to do their own thing and at the same time know that the love that binds them will overcome the silly rivalries of sport.

Now I know before you say it that "Football is not a matter of life and death, it's more important than that" but I have to say that you should love the game, the challenge, the sport and the participation. I've read far too much over the years about the hostile nature of opposing fans. I've seen far too much nasty horrible behaviour by so called fans of football who are in reality no more than disorganised thugs. I've seen families who won't talk to each other on the day of the match because they support the opposite view. That is a reality in both Liverpool and Manchester where fans of Liverpool and Everton, and City and United are brothers, sisters, parents and children within the same family. Yet at the end of the day they will still love each other for that is what families do.

So I say to you all who watch the match today whatever red team you support remember that it is a game and in a while there will be a repeat of the game and then another and another. Sometimes you will be up and sometimes you will be down but that is just a reflection on life.

Enjoy the match, enjoy the sport, enjoy the beer at the end of the game but please remember it is just 22 people kicking a little ball around for 90 minutes. When it's all over and you go to sleep tonight it is the people around us that matter the most. The ones we love, even if they are far away.

And love comes in all shades of red, blue, black, white, green, yellow or even orange. 

Farewell 2012 hello the future

So we all survived, I think.

The hedonism of the summer of sport tempered by the lunacy of the winter of destruction. Ah yes a rabid planet rampaging through the solar system did not wipe us out a mere 10 days ago (or if it did I'm either on acid, dead or in a parallel universe)

Those cheeky Mayans eh? Thought it would be great to scare the bejesus out of a few believers. (I am a bit worried though because my son's friend is called Maya and she can be a mini tornado!) Well who knows if they were right or not and it wouldn't be so funny if someone had messed up on their maths after all abacus can be notoriously tricky for calculating advanced calculus! (Well my nuclear fall ouit shelter is still built!)

Ah but let me take you back to a balmy day on the Champs de Elysee where one man in a yellow jersey came storming in on a bike and a sideburn, sideboard more like. Oh yes Le Wiggo had arrived to do what no Englishman had ever done in a hundred years. Yes that's right ride a few thousand miles around France on a pushbike without getting knocked off. (Well I guess it's better than Lance Armstrong who used to fly round!)

And so shortly after he was then speeding round the lanes and roads in Surrey for a gold medal (and 84 speeding tickets as someone hadn't turned off the speed cameras! recession what recession I hear you say)

Soon to be followed up by a dour Scot who had cried at Wimbledon lifting his first major title (apparently gold clashed with Roger Federer's red shirt. Silver was better bling!) But hey all bow to Andy Murray we salute you for looking like the guy of Holby City!

But what on the water Britannia rules the waves, arise Sir Ben (did someone say I'm just gonna kick this Dane in the bowls- oh sorry wrong part of England! ) A finer achievement you will not see and his tiny little boat has just been purchased by the Cameron - What's his name? government as our new aircraft carrier!

Go Mo! Go Mo! you know I never new Laila Rouass could move that quick. Mind you these Eastenders know how to shift when they're being chased.


But to the real world I still feel like I'm living in Germany in 1933, We're not in this all together Dave we never were and we never will be unless of course you mean poo! Then I'm sure you and your mates would be trying to act like Boris on the high wire!


However I am a GRANDAD (ok I know most of you thought I was that old anyway) but I'm not and she is simply the most beautiful little thing.

So my reflections on 2012 as I say farewell to it:

It was a good year for inspiration

It was a bad year for society in terms of inclusivity and equality/

Will 2013 be better?

I don't know I'm not a bloody Mayan!!!!


Peace and Happiness to you all! Happy New Year!




        well except to Harvey's Furnishing because you still have my sofa and table 
       a quote

                  Fran Chapman our Head of Customer Services will be calling you on your mobile        shortly to discuss.

 good job I didn't hold my breath !

How to comfort your children

Mortality is something that we all think about from time to time, especially as we get older. I'm fairly philosophical about it all now. Having gone through the initial fears of my condition and having had a couple of very close calls I've decided that the best course of action is to accept that if the worst happens at least I won't know too much about it. I've lived day to day and grown in strength and confidence about what is happening to me yet there is one area where I am struggling with and it came to the fore this week.

That is what will happen to my children when I'm gone?

My children range in age, the eldest is 27 the youngest is 11 and they all have their own identities and strengths and that is a great thing however I also know their frailties and that is where a parent takes ultimate responsibility.

On Tuesday I went to my Grandfather's funeral. I went because of duty, because of respect for my Father and my Uncle. I didn't go because of love. He wasn't a person who matched in any way the Grandfather I lost in 1976 but he was also not the person who had been described by my father. The reality is that I didn't really know him, This is not surprising as he never really wanted to know me.

When I left the funeral I headed over the Pennines to Liverpool to where my son is following in my footsteps in studying at the University. We met in the Guild of Students and we lunched there and I am so glad that we did.

Put simply he had just attended the funeral of his best friend's dad who had died as a result of an aneurysm. Put simply knowing my medical issues he was worried that he would lose me.

As I sat in the place where I had found the meaning of the word love I realised that he was scared and for a good reason even if he didn't know it.

I am obdurate they will have to nail me into my coffin yet my life and ultimately death impacts heavily on the lives of my children.And I worry. I worry that I have not done enough to help them get on in this shark infested world that we live in.

The motto of this story is simple,

When you go to sleep at night, if you have children, make sure that you have talked to them and that they are fully aware of the world in which we live. Make sure that they understand how duplicitous people can be and how they can protect themselves and their family. Make sure that they understand the difficulties that the will face should they decide to ride things out ,

Make sure that you have given them the tools for life and that they know without doubt that you love them.

I dare you to make the difference 

The man that hath no music in himself

I wonder if like Jessica, Shylock's daughter,  Michael Gove's children think this of him after today's announcement over the GCSE's.

You see with the announcement of a return to a single examination at the end of a course he has clearly signaled that he does not care about education. Or rather that he cares about some children but certainly not all.

One swallow does not a summer make yet one result may a child's life break

Education should be inclusive and Gove's attempt to bring about an English Baccalaureate is another example of how he has no understanding of diversity in our society.

http://www.mydaughter.co.uk/educating-your-daughter/11-16/education-choices/english-baccalaureate/

It is reprehensible to this commentator that a man, who owes his good start in life to a State Education system,  is trying to take us back to a time of elitism. From a psychological perspective alone the idea of a system that ends in a single exam is horrendous. Even my son who is studying at my University, Liverpool, is no longer saddled with a series of all consuming examinations at the end of a year. Now they undergo module examinations throughout the year, a system which rewards consistent application not a one off hit. For true educational prowess there needs to be a clear combination of formative and summative assessment so that a true picture of a learner's ability can be built up. Relying on one exam in summer can have devastating results.

For example a child suffering from hayfever, asthma or allergic rhinitis can find themselves in a terrible position during the pollen season and that can ultimately lead to bad examination marks. I remember doing one paper at sixth form so doused up on drugs to combat my allergies that I could hardly keep awake.

The ongoing assessment that formative methods bring to the table means that a child has a fairer chance of reaching a better standard. That means a child has a better chance of a better future. 

I urge every parent of a child entering secondary school this year, like my son has, to oppose the plans of a return to sleepless nights and high pressure. For if a child thinks they cannot achieve then they are likely to look for other outlets in their life to get ahead. That could mean many things including the horrific spectacle of the gang colours. We have spent years attempting to include all children in learning and with this decision we may end up with an even more unfair society.

I regularly come across middle aged adults who can neither read nor write properly and when I work with them the common theme running through their life has been one of a feeling of not being good enough. Are we going to destroy more children by this?

We don't need to dumb down we need to work smarter. Use divergent thinking to solve the problems of poor assessment don't return to the depths of despair of an outdated system.

Make sure that our children have the best chance and that we can all grow together. Make sure that all children have the music inside them.