Saturday 13 October 2012

LA BS Bingo

Several years as a manager for a large leisure chain gave me two things:

1. The ability to model an awful lot of things out of balloons.
2. A game, which for the sake of keeping this blog PG, we'll call Bovine Stool Bingo.

I'm sure most of you know the game, especially if you've ever had to sit through protracted meetings where your boss spouts same old same old, or your boss's boss chunters forth with an impenetrable stream of buzzwords. You have a (well hidden) bingo card on which you cross off each word or phrase as it comes up, and the first one to clear their card wins. Or you have a graded list, and for each allocated word or phrase that is uttered, you take one or two sips of your drink, or down the lot.

The reason this sprang back to mind today, was that this Wednesday we have councils giving oral evidence to the Select Committee regarding support for Home Education. Now, call me a cynic but I'm fairly sure of the things they're going to say (Despite the statement "The Committee’s inquiry will not be examining wider issues of home education, such as safeguarding and curriculum issues, or the impact of home education"), and I'm anticipating it to be an aggravating watch. So I'm lightening it up with a little game of BS Bingo! Won't you join me?

One sip (Coffee, tea, juice, vodka, whatever gets you through the live stream)
Safeguarding
Welfare
Curriculum
Law
Financial
Officer
Inspector
Monitoring
Register
Access
Duties
Powers
Tension

Two sips
Broad and balanced
Exams
Duty to monitor
Accountable
Statutory Guidance
Voluntary
Compulsory
Success
Vulnerable
Resources
Section 7
Teaching
Evidence
Progress
Evaluate
Unable to access the child

Three sips
Hub
Two tier system
Dependent upon
Reciprocal
Balancing the right of the parents to home educate with the rights of the child
Child's voice
Service resistant

Down it!
Definition of suitability
Floodgates
Flexischooling
Engaging with local authorities
We have a duty to ensure that all children receive a suitable education
We do not know exactly how many children are being home educated
Vociferous minority

Bonus choccy biccy if...
Someone questions why Elaine Grant's job title is 'Monitoring and Support Teacher for Elective Home Education' when THERE IS NO BLOODY DUTY TO MONITOR!!!

If I've missed any give me a shout and I'll add them in :)

Good luck, and don't burn your mouth on your coffee!

4 comments:

  1. Brilliant! If we take sips of vodka at the appropriate points I predict we'll all be drunk 5 minutes in.

    Another one: Balancing the right of the parent to home educate with the rights of the child.

    I just LOVE how they really think that, given the choice, children would opt for school! Bless ...

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    1. Haha I know! Would loooove to see them survey the entire school population with the choice home ed or school (with no biased lead up) and see what the results were. Don't think they'd come out of it looking great! If the tables were turned that way they'd just then write it off as, "Oh they're just children, they don't know what's best for them." *sigh*

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  2. I can't imagine we'll scrape through without a "we have a duty to ensure all children receive a suitable education" (quite a biggie but possibly the most often quoted bit of BS). Or "unable to access the child". Or "child's voice", we've been getting a load of that lately (obviously closely related to the point made by shepherdlass). I wonder how far off tangent it will go. I'm sort of looking forward to it now.

    I might throw a marshmallow at my own head for each one ;)

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    Replies
    1. LOL yes I might also invest in a bag of marshmallows, just to top off the crazy :D

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