on BBC Views Online yesterday – a fawning and uncritical analysis of Labour’s school building program – a nice companion piece to last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News that featured Gordon Brown visiting the very same school on the same day – what a happy coincidence.
Gordon Brown: “This school’s great!”, BBC: “It really is a school of the future!”
Biased BBC reader Ayayay commented:
The story basically says, aren’t Labour’s school building plans wonderful.
No analysis of whether it is necessary to rebuild or refurbish every single secondary school in England. No analysis of whether the PFI involved is good value [or] that the schools will still [be] being paid for long after Labour has gone. No analysis of whether the money would be better spent elsewhere (e.g. teacher training, teacher pay, better equipment, school vouchers etc.). No analysis of whether school buildings truly affect teaching quality (as opposed to good teaching).
As ever an underlying BBC assumption that public expenditure is always justified. The only note of controversy touched on in the article is whether the money is being spent fast enough.
Reader 1327 saw the story on BBC Breakfast:
It really was breathtaking… I suspect the “reporter” simply took a Government or PFI contractors PR handout and then read it out over the air. There was nothing about how it would all be paid for in the years to come or anything about the improvement (or not) in similar schools to judge if all that spending is worth it. Even worse was the way children were used in parts of the report saying just how wonderful the new school was in obviously pre-rehearsed statement.
Whilst an anonymous reader summed up the BBC’s reporting most succinctly:
Is tractor production up?
I particularly liked the second paragraph:
There is a real “wow” factor when you walk through doors of the £24m Bristol Brunel Academy, the school’s new principal Armando di Finizio says.
By paraphrasing the Head’s words and quoting just the word ‘wow’ it makes it read as if it’s the reporters opinion, with extra emphasis on ‘wow’, rather than the Head speaking. Why not just tell us what he said, and put his name up front too?
“It’s incredible really – it’s a cross between a shopping mall and Hogwarts because there are all these stairs criss-crossing.”
The whole school is a wi-fi zone. It features independent learning areas and uses biomass boilers to provide about 80% of its energy. It really is a school of the future.
“When you first walk in there is this ‘wishing wall’ which has a whole load of wishes from staff and pupils carved into stones,” Mr Di Finizio says.
Ah, I see why the Head needed help with his words. “When you first walk in there is this wishing wall”. Is the Head a victim of comprehensive education himself? I’m sure there is a wishing wall every time, whether you walk in or arrive on a Nimbus 2000 broomstick.
And is that second paragraph the reporters own words, or is it another quote, without quotation marks?
And didn’t Hannah say this was the first time the pupils saw their new school? Getting those quotes etched in stone and up on the wall must have been done a bit sharpish – especially allowing for the inevitable time to correct their spelling and grammar.
One reads: “I wish more children could enjoy having a school like this.”
Poor child. When you’re a bit older you’ll understand that the quality of your education is mostly to do with the dedication of your teachers, your parents and yourself, rather than wonderful school buildings. Unless you want to get a job with the BBC that is.
With the BBC banging the NuLabour drum like this the Tories might as well give up now.
its like Romania all over again. all hail the dear leader!
I’m not averse to improved school buildings or PFI projects but the BBC should question, sometimes, whether all this money is spent in the most efficient way.
Excellent. Everyone will learn much better now that their classrooms are made of plate glass rather than dirty old bricks. Who needs a full complement of teachers or smaller class sizes or enough textbooks to go round when you have a true 21st century glass-based education policy.
My classroom has not been painted for 14 years. I used polyfilla a few weeks ago one Saturday to get rid of the huge holes. Meanwhile the local authority departmental HQ is a model of new furniture, up to date PCs (regularly changed as is the interior decoration). Labour can scream all they want but the money they keep boasting about sure as hell ain’t reaching the schools!
The school looks like a classic case of style over substance.
Now that Labour have taken over the BBC they should be forced to include the licence fee income as part of their campaign expenditure at he next election.
There was a very brief shot of the “wishing wall” on the Breakfast report and one of the comments on there was something like “I wish rich countries wouldn’t steal from poor countries”. No doubt some poor child came up with that all on their own without any prompting what so ever from the PC powers that be.
The article says the school ‘features independent learning areas’.
Do they mean classrooms?
My second grade class at my Catholic school had fifty kids in it. I am not kidding — fifty kids in one class!
The whole class was controlled by a 23-year-old Nun FOB from Ireland — no teachers’ aides except a “room mom” who occasionally brought cookies. In terms of educational development, we were at least a grade-and-a-half ahead of the public school kids in the same grade.
One really does tend to wonder what all this fancy stuff will do for kids, that my FOB-from-Ireland-23-year-old second grade teacher couldn’t do.
Also, is it good to teach kids to concentrate on things like “wishing wells”? Am I alone in thinking they would be better off being taught how to get the things they want through work, application, cooperation and learning, rather than through “wishing?”
This school just sounds like it was designed by an adult with a bad case of arrested development.
According to The Grauniad:
On a “wishing wall” at the school entrance, messages ranged from “I wish I could eat toenails” to “I wish to become a successful accountant”.
How encouraging!
“I wish to become a successful accountant”.
Melanie Phillips’ nephew.