Thank you for all your comments. Let me take this chance to help clarify what I said. I have not criticised teachers just the opposite until today I have spent the last 30 years respecting them and defending them against others who did so. I fully accept there will be schools who need to close however government health and safety legislation leaves little for headteachers to make their own judgment and that is wrong. Also next time we have headlines about “sick days” costing the country millions I will remind …

Ed Balls wants healthy eating to extend beyond the school gates. He says he supports “stay-on site” policies, in which pupils are not allowed to leave school premises during the day - stopping them from eating in local fast-food shops. Is this practical who will supervise the pupils, let’s remember we are talking up to and over 12 hundred young people. Can schools afford supervisors remember whilst pupils are on site their safety is the school responsibility and supervision is costly. How many schools have a canteen that can feed …

Parents and pupils will welcome the announcement to abolish Key Stage 3 SATs tests if only the Secretary of State was a big enough man to admit the true story SATs are and always have been a disaster. Made to furbish League Tables for Government propaganda they have cause damage to the curriculum stress to parents and children and of course teachers. We have to trust our teachers who assess on a daily basis and more so termly how can they teach if they do not. Ed Balls ..

More than 20 years after corporal punishment was banned in state schools, many teachers said it was acceptable to hit children “in extreme cases”. The Times Educational Supplement surveyed 6,162 teachers. Support for a return to corporal punishment was strongest among secondary teachers, with 22 per cent backing the idea compared with 16 per cent of those in primary schools. The cane was abolished in state schools in 1987 and 1998 in the fee-paying sector.
So how do you feel?
What message does this send to children, there is …

Well surprise, surprise after removing all the school home economics departments (cookery classrooms) and decimating the trained staff who pleaded with Government and Opposition to save cookery from extinction in the curriculum we have an announcement cooking is back. It is criminal that politicians can continue to ruin our schools in this way, ignoring the professionals and parents who fought hard with teachers to retain cookery lessons. I feel bad that yet again I need to complain about government past and present but having been in education for …

It would seem the Secretary of State for Education has disappeared whilst understanding he needs a holiday with his children perhaps it would have appeased parents somewhat had he stayed around until all the SATs result were published and even apologised for the mess. We understand he thinks the SATs are not his department and he will just wait for any glory there may be ( no chance) but looking back it was May when we, parents and teachers, were telling him that the markers were disappearing not wanting …

As the holidays begin it is hard to believe we end the school year with more confusion and distress for our children. We do not expect perfection from Ed Balls but a degree of competence is not only expected but essential if he is to continue to run the education system. In May I and others given the information schools were providing suggest to him and his Minister Jim Knight there were problems with the company marking SATs. Parents and teachers were assured there was no problem, all was on …

Lock in for school lunches I tire of the continual stream of “experts” who tell us with great authority what our school and children should and should not be allow to do on an almost daily basis. First we are told by Jamie Oliver with a flood of bad language how to feed our children, we then have legislation on what we can and cannot provide in children’s school lunch boxes. School lunch menus have been so structured that many older pupils have vote with their feet and no longer …

After 30 years in education as a parent and later working for 13,000 parent teacher associations over England and Wales I am frightened by the changes successive governments have made to the testing of our children. I make no apologies for the quote attributed to me some time ago “we will be testing children as they leave the labour ward very soon”. Parents do need teachers to test children’s knowledge and use that to plan their future learning, this has always been so and will continue to be. What we …

Today’s release by government to change children’s diet through school meals and in particular packed lunches may be welcomed by some but will equally cause many family real problems. Parents through time have struggles to provide a balance packed school lunch not an easy task especially if the child is only 4/5 years old. One of the suggestions is an avocado salad I would argue that anyone with a 4 year old would not have the expectations of them managing to cope with this in a school dining hall without …