Today 50 peers, including me, made personal visits to Schools on the outreach programme designed to spread the word about what we do in the House of Lords. It was great fun for me; I hope the students enjoyed it too. My visit was to the East Norfolk Sixth Form College in Gorleston near Great Yarmouth, the largest in Norfolk, offering over 60 courses at AS, A and International Baccalaureate. The great advantage of having large numbers of sixth form students concentrated in one place is the size of the teaching departments and the wide range of topics that can be covered at A level. This justifies investment in expensive science teaching facilities, a sports environment that has produced Regional Sports School of the Year, options that are open to a wide range of abilities and an atmosphere that is more like an adult college than a school. The point about this socially very inclusive school in a relatively deprived area of Norfolk (where the fishing, freezing and other industries have more of less disappeared), is that they add enormous value to their students’ potential as they progress through the school. The teachers’ optimism and commitment clearly showed in the 60-70 politics students at our session. They all wanted to discuss tuition fees, (hardly surprising as university looms so soon for them), welfare reform, the local NHS hospital and not much about the Chamber or the work we do. I didn’t detect much of an interest in Lords Reform but perhaps we were just too busy talking about everything else.
Arriving too early I went to look at Gorleston Beach where I hadn’t been for 55 years at least. I remember riding on a donkey one holiday there. They tell me the donkeys came back this year, so maybe things are looking up for this too-long-sad seaside town.
It’s nice to see government officials taking the time to visit schools and connect with some of the country’s youngest citizens. I wish the government officials in America took more time to go on school visits and discuss the issues with children and teenagers.
I also love the whole idea of this blog 🙂
We need to know details, exhaustively, of the “enormous value” being added to students’ potential as they pass through school; please.
e.g. Future “decent jobs”, “worthwhile careers”, “decent incomes”, “decent lifestyles”, “more responsible citizenships ” ?
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Possibly it’s a good sign that the students Baroness Murphy faced up to already appear to be turning to other powers for Life than to the long-lost ‘people-powers’ that have long been practically mandatorially abrogated to the Commons and the Lords, by a dumb, deaf and blind erasable pencil cross on a ballot-paper once every four or five years on Parliaments and Politicians; for us to remain majorly “gagged” between elections.
Students beware! Britain is far from being ahead of the Australian Parliamentary Issue, wherein parties still unashamedly add to the vote-greedy “We will listen to the People” the little sub-voce rider “but we don’t have to do anything about what they say”.
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1849Sn17Oct10
BM: Well done! But has it left you with a subliminal fear of sitting on your ass or did you ever consider the beast may have been called O’Tay?
During our summer hols this year we often frequented a Spanish owned restaurant that had a huge poster with the knight-errant ‘Alonso Quixano’ on the one side proudly sat upon his scraggy horse ‘Rocinante’, a windmill in the centre and on the other side the squire ‘Sancho Panza’.
Having mentioned the poster, the patron also the waiter said that its metaphor was important to Spanish culture. I think it was his subtle way of telling his customers that life’s pursuits should not be taken too seriously. It reminded me for a fleeting moment of the giants in Parliament and the unsung heroes of the civil service.
Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills
It is great to hear of the Lords & Ladies doing this type of work, I hope the youngsters take much interest.
It is no suprise to hear the teens only wish to discuss matters that directly concern them after all is this not the case in the HoL when members are often absent if not interested !
Senex, plenty of tilting at windmills round here, which according to your website means “attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting unwinnable or futile battles” .
Ari, as a matter of fact I remember meeting a senator in Wisconsin who quite regularly visited schools, perhaps they don’t talk about it much. And MPs here do a great deal of it. always a photo opportunity!
meeting a senator in Wisconsin who quite regularly visited schools
That would have been a Wisconsin state senator then; a powerful man.
meeting a senator in Wisconsin who quite regularly visited schools
That would have been a Wisconsin state senator then; a powerful man.
meeting a senator in Wisconsin who quite regularly visited schools
That would have been a Wisconsin state senator then; a powerful man.
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senhome.htm
So good he said it thrice ! 😉
Quite the finest development in sixth form in recent years has been the introduction of the Internationale Baccalaureat.
The French are proud of it; the Brits are proud of it; the children are proud of it. Everybody seems to think highly of it, as a different way of doing things. As a Former A Level master in the humanities and sciences, I was thrilled to bits with the introduction.