54% of the top 100 newspaper editors, columnists, broadcasters and executives were educated privately, despite fee-paying schools catering for 7% of the school population
Source: MediaGuardian
I don’t know about you, Nic, but I’d take that as a challenge 
There’s a whole raft of interesting education-related stories out at the moment, as a matter of fact. Demands to cut the National Curriculum, always a thorny issue, although I usually come down in favour of retaining it. It’s all very well to say you want a curriculum that is not ‘carved up into subjects’ – but they have the focus to actually deliver a planned programme of learning. It’s true that you don’t learn Macbeth because of any actual practical application from that specific text, it’s the skills and broad understanding which it gives, but that doesn’t mean you don’t teach Macbeth in an English lesson as part of a national curriculem.
Meanwhile, the Tories are asking for more history lessons. It’s interesting, because at Eton (summer school, I’m not part of that elite ) our history teacher told us to watch out for the almost-yearly demand for more British History from the Conservative Party – so it appears to be one of the few things left unscathed by Cameron’s regime. Of course, I’d like to have done ‘more history’ but that reflects my bias, since I’d also like to have done ‘less PE’, ‘less RE’ and ‘less pointless assemblies’ which would hardly be championed by any politican. To be fair, however, it does seem that at the moment there’s an over-reliance on teaching a few periods (WW2, American Civil Rights, ur, WW2…) in great detail but relative isolation, and that should change.
Finally! Do young children learn homophobia? Yes, yes they do. And schools should show absolutely no mercy in cracking down on it with compulsory sex-education (not the silly ones that parents can opt their children out of because it might hurt their poor ickle ears) which explicitly endorses homosexuality as a positive orientation, with gay role models and couples from an early age. It’s utterly unacceptable that “schools had asked homosexual pupils to leave as they were unable to cope with homophobic bullying” – clearly, the bullies should have been the ones to leave. Any complaints? Bring it on 
For many months, I have taken particular issue with people using the phrase ‘over exaggerate’. It seems to have crept up on the vocabulary and now appears in almost every single lesson, to which I have occasionally snapped back with “you can’t over-exaggerate, it’s meaningless!”
However, after a tense phone conversation with Joshua and Fabio where I remained defiant – and then scuttled online to do some research – I have retreated. Because I have discovered that whilst over-exaggerate is still a stupid phrase, it’s actually no worse than many others I myself (I myself? What is that??) use on an almost-daily basis. Rise up? Totally unnecessary? Absolutely essential? The toxin required to cleanse my language of these poisons would no doubt do far greater harm to many innocent by-standing phrases, and so I have decided to let it rest. Over-exaggerate away.
In other news, it has been very hot and now it’s slightly less hot but still rather hot.
The good news: AS exams are now over and I have a week off 
The better news: Unit 2 of Physics went well! Reasonably confident about that paper, and was quite lucky in the questions they set. There were quite a few electricity calculations which I can generally do, so I’m happy about that.
The bad news: the final paper was a complete and utter unmitigated disaster. And in case you think I’m over-reacting, consider that even Hiten complained of a lack of time, and Robert decided 10 minutes in to junk Solid Materials and do Astrophysics instead! When someone does a module we haven’t been taught at all, you know things are bad. I’m sure he’ll do better than I did too. Annnnd I made exactly the same mistake I did waaay back in Unit 1 in January. Ouch.
Physics is broken down thusly:
Unit 1 – 30% – I’ve got a B in that (might retake)
Unit 2 – 30% – Reasonably confident about that paper?
Unit 3 – [20% – Practical exam which went OK &
20% – Solid Materials disaster]
So judging on that… I have absolutely no idea how I’ll do. Oh well. Happy end-of-AS to all.
History exam… tragic or triumphant?
The first paper was the sources-based questions on Russia in Revolution. Unnervingly, our paper was entirely about 1905 – and we’d spent countless hours learning about 1917 in painstakingly detail 
however I did know about 1905 so it wasn’t terrible. I’m just not sure my answers were quite as tight or insightful or un-rushed as I’d had liked them to be, so I’m a bit unsure about that paper. We’ll see, I guess!
As it happens I was more confident about Russia last night so this morning I spent my time revising the second paper, on Civil Rights in America. I drew up an A4 sheet with a time-line of dates and about five random statistics which I managed to memorise, hurrah! Given this, the exam question was a gift to me – concentrating on exactly the period I revised. It did mean I picked the other option from, ur, everyone else I spoke to afterwards… but never mind. I feel good about that paper.
Sorry for all the exam-themed posts. Tomorrow I will learn everything there is to know about Physics for the exam on Friday morning, then I’m free! (Well, for a week. Then A2s start.) You should see normal blog service resumed then.
Just finished a Mechanics exam which (barring any retakes) wraps up Maths AS. I have to say, without tempting fate, I found this paper pretty straigtforward – far more so than the practice exams. There’s one question I know I lost a mark or two, and a few I’m a bit unsure about, but on the whole I finished with plenty of time to spare. Yay! Mechanics is easier in Maths than Physics. Fancy that.
Now time to dive right into History because that’s tomorrow. Fairly confident about Russia in Revolution assuming I manage the time well and my hand doesn’t explode, Civil Rights will require more work. Tonight. To memorise things. Lots of things. Descriptive today aren’t I?
Enjoy the sun! 
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
