Propagandinar

 It’s a new word. A portmanteau, like Brexit, and it’s a new thing government departments are doing.

The propigandinar is a Teams meeting where a couple of Civil Servants (Graham and Tom) are hosted by an overly smiling Minister to ‘explain’ the unexplainable. While they are talking people can write their questions on the chat device and they will ignore them or answer them at the end.

Tonight, I logged into the one called ‘The school funding cycle and teacher’s pay.’

(I have, in the past, written made up conversations, however this is recorded verbatim, or as near as I could manage)

I know I’m sad but I thought it would be interesting. 

It started with the Education Secretary pretending not to know how to use a computer and then being uncharacteristically nice. It was almost like she was a different woman to the one who had been on the TV last week saying that she couldn’t speak to teachers directly. This time, speaking directly to teachers and head teachers she thanked them for everything they do seven times. Then handed over to Graham. 

I’m not sure why Graham was there, except that he was a master at talking without actually saying anything. He did thank us all for everything we are doing (again) and said that the whole department agrees and wants to thank us. He said that questions would be answered by relevance and popularity, as there was limited time. He explained that schools should have had a letter today to explain exactly how much money was going to be in their budget and handed over to Tom, who had the details. 

It was quite interesting. Complicated but enlightening. If you are wondering why teachers are going to be on strike tomorrow then some of this information might help.

Tom explained that annual funding cycle starts early. The NFF 2023/4 was announced July 2022. Presumably, it was calculated long before that. Before fuel rises, before Ukraine, before Liz Whateverhernameis crashed the economy. The NFF is the national funding formula that the government uses to calculate the basic allocation for every school. This doesn't include money for SEN (Special educational needs), PPG (Pupil Premium Grant - poor kids to you and I) or an uplift for London schools. He explained that every school gets minimum amount per pupil. For Maintained schools the Local Authority can redistribute using a local formula although many use National Formula and are going to be forced to use the National Formula in future. He refused to talk about SEN funding because 'it's complicated.' 

Yes, I did snort my tea through my nose at that point.  Any school will tell you that for every child who needs extra help the government only funds part of that extra help, so a school with a good reputation for working with special needs children will be poorer than those who actively make their lives miserable.

Tom went on to explain that Maintained schools are funded April – March while Academies are Sept – August and that individual schools receive their budgets for the following year in March.

This year there is also  the MSAG – distribution of the additional money announced in the Autumn statement, which isn't enough to cover the fuel rises and the pay award granted last year to support staff but hey ho, it is extra money so stop moaning.  He said that  Pupil Premium going to go up by 5%, which is great when inflation is currently at about 9%.

He did acknowledge that because MSAG came late they weren’t able to send it out in time for funding the support staff pay rise and he knew that was a problem. 'Thank you again, for everything you do.'

 He explained that the MSAG will continue to be paid to schools but it will be rolled into NFF for 24/25.  I think this means that schools won't recognise it as extra help.

Then Tom said, 'Teacher’s pay,' and paused for an extraordinary length of time.

He explained that these annual budgets are all the funding that is given to cover everything and that includes the costs from the pay awards that will be applied. 

'This year', he said, 'There is increase of £2.8bn to schools.  We have not held back some of the money we will hand out until later in the year. So keep a close eye on teacher pay awards.'

'We calculate that stating from £2.8 bn there is enough in that total budget to pay for a teacher’s pay award for an average school. It is not a calculation that says every school will cope easily with a 4% award.  Schools have to approach budget setting with care because we don’t know what award might be made.'

He then decided to pre-empt that question of what will happen when the pay award comes in above 4% and then said that he couldn't pre-empt, whether there will be any extra to cover.  He said that there was a bit in the last offer but it wasn't accepted.  All he could say was that as it stand they believe there is enough to cover a 4% pay increase for an average school. 

Graham came back on to say, 'Let us turn to questions.'

The questions they chose to answer were interesting.

1. What happens if schools run out of money?  Can they go bankrupt. 

Smaller schools this might be the position. Make use of school management resources look for good deals. Every year there are schools that face real financial difficulties – maintained schools should approach local authority for additional support in extreme cases.

2. Why aren’t you talking about SEN funding?

In not referring to it we are only giving a partial view of the situation. It would be worthy of a seminar in its own right. Please let us know if you would like that. In last four years a 50% increase in funding for special needs. We know  it’s not enough and fully  take the point about the additional pressures that we are cognisant of.

 3. The other pay awards (I’m not sure what the question was but that is what he said)

I skirted over that quite quickly. When we make our calculations in terms of support staff that is based on pay awards for support staff. The pay award for support staff is 8% on average and more generous for those at the bottom and we have worked those into all our calculations.  We’ve also sought to take account the energy costs that schools will be facing.

It is important to look at the grand total increase. We do recognise that the situation of each individual school will be facing is different. To make it fair we would have to reduce autonomy.  We don’t want to do that and you wouldn’t want us to.

Question 4 was genius.

4. If 92% of heads say pay offer is unaffordable then it is unaffordable. Are you saying headteachers are wrong? 

We are saying that on average using the methodology that we use year on year then the funding is correct.  We are clearly not saying that we know better than every individual headteacher as to what they are facing in their school.

I can’t help feeling that the word ‘average’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Most schools have been working very hard to be above average. In fact Ofsted will fail any school that isn’t above average. 

The questions that weren’t answered were also interesting, especially the one asking why the rise per pupil is capped at 1.56%? If the premise of the question is true then that tells you everything you need to know about why teachers are on strike. 

Many people didn’t ask questions but just explained their situation and it was heartbreaking to read. 

.

Anonymous 4:40 PM

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Our allocation of 2.4 billion is £30k. Energy bills next year are estimated to be £28k of this. As a shire school we are already poorly funded. How will the extra £2000 pay for teacher pay rises and support staff pay rises and costs such as paper that have gone up 66%?

As propigandinars go it wasn’t exactly convincing anyone. Schools are underfunded  so teachers are fed up. Teachers are on strike today because they are not able to give children the educational experience they deserve and they won’t accept any pay rise that isn’t funded for all schools, rather than just those who aren’t above average. 

The perfect time to become the Pope

 My daughter has lost her blue tick on Twitter and I’m worried. How will I know it’s genuinely her that’s tweeting? 

Twitter has always been a strange and random place but Elon Musk, accidentally purchasing it and then being unable to back out has made it even stranger. He made his dog CEO, which tells you everything you need to know.

Over the last few weeks he has been saying that people will have to pay to keep their blue tick. It’s almost as though he thinks the blue tick is a badge of honour and maybe, for people like him: fame hungry weirdos, it was. However, it was designed to protect us mere mortals. Protection for the people who read, rather than produce the content. It doesn’t matter whether people know it’s genuinely me that tweeting a moving picture in support of the Ambridge Eurovision Appreciation Committee but it might be important to know it is genuinely a journalist, government organisation, the Pope, or even Harry Styles.

I have a long standing joke with a friend about him being the next Pope and so maybe this is his time. 

At the end of a very random teaching day (cats, willies, virginias, horn bippers and coronations) I logged onto Twitter to see a very odd tweet from Stephen King (genuine writing god) where he was telling everyone that he hadn’t paid for a blue tick or given Elon Musk his telephone number. Musk replied, saying that he had paid for King’s blue tick himself and that he loved Stephen and please could he have his number (I made the last bit up). He also loves Ice T, Lebron James and William Shatner. It’s not like the man’s a cliché at all. 

Pam Ayers also had something to say on the subject.

Then there was some confusion over the official government sites and the fake scammers.

So, that’s going well. It would be a good day to become the Pope.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

*Since writing this (and before publishing) there has been another strange policy change and all sorts of coloured ticks are appearing. Official governments have grey (interestingly, the one in the picture above that thought was the fake got the tick). Then there are gold ticks, which seem to have been given to the NewYorkTimes crossword page, Essex Cricket and every unwanted ad that pops up on my feed.

By the way, I’m the Pope!

32nd Wedding Anniversary

 It’s not until May but the Long Suffering Husband is never knowingly under thoughtful, so he has already got me a wedding anniversary gift.

Thirty two is a lot of years to be married, although rarely celebrated,  not like 40 (Ruby) or 50 (Gold)  but if you need an excuse to buy something then it’s perfect. The traditional gift would be something in lapis lazuli. Maybe a piece of blue jewellery. If that doesn’t appeal then you could go for the modern gift.

The 32nd anniversary theme is conveyance and many magazine articles start by suggestions the husband buys his wife a car and ends by being more realistic on price, settling for a GPS system.

The LSH hit upon the perfect gift. A SatNav for golf courses. I’m very excited to report that the package has arrived, which does mean I won’t be able to say, “Go and get lost on the golf course,” in future. 

Comms Disaster

 Is it wrong that I feel sorry for them?

Gillian Keegan’s performance on daytime TV was a disaster but she thinks it went well. 

More maths.

That’s the answer.

Yes. Definitely. More maths. That will solve the problem.

Picture the scene: 

Gilly is having breakfast in her £2million cottage in Petworth with her husband. She only has half a grapefruit and a cup of strong black coffee from the fancy machine that Mike insisted they buy after his company miraculously won that £24 million government contract. She has to watch her weight because she has some TV to do.

M: Looking good, Gilly my little filly.

G: Thanks Mike. It’s my day to go on telly.

M: Super. They’ll love you. What are you going to talk about.

G: I’m going to talk to the teachers. 

M: You’ve been doing that a lot recently.

G: Well, I am education secretary

M: What? Wait, since when? Oh dear, maybe I could supply chalk?

G: (laughs) Oh Mike, even I know they don’t use chalk anymore. It’s all computers that don’t work….(Thinks)…. Actually…

M: Sorry, you were saying. Talk to the teachers.

G: Yes. I have a brilliant plan for solving the pay dispute and I need to tell them.

M: Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?

G: Oh no. That was with the unions. They’re not teachers. 

M: Are they not?

G: No Mike. We’ve talked about this before. Unions are a monster. I grew up in Liverpool so I know all about how militant unions stopped my average middle class parents getting rich like us.

M: Oh silly me. I always forget they didn’t inherit anything.

G: Precisely. That’s the fault of the unions.

M: So, you are going to do the daytime TV rounds?

G: Yes. I’m starting on BBC breakfast at 8.30.

M: To talk directly to the teachers?

G: Yes. Keep up.

M: Won’t they all be in school.

G: (Spurting coffee through her nose) Don’t be silly. They work 9-3. That’s why it’s ridiculous for them to think they deserve more.

M: Sorry. So, you are going to talk to them directly?

G: Yes. And even if they aren’t watching at the time then there will be clips on Twitter. Just like that lovely Rosie Holt….

M: Ooh. I like her, she really gets my dander up.

G: (sniffs) Yes, well. I keep meaning to check what constituency she represents. I’d love to get some media tips from her. I’ve never seen her in the commons but you know it’s always so crowded and noisy. It’s easy for us women to get drowned out.

M: So the teachers will watch before school or later on Twitter? What are you going to say?

G: You see, it’s genius. I was talking to my special advisor about how the unions - monsters! - weren’t accepting my offer because they say it’s not fully funded. I say it is. My advisor rolled his eyes. I know it was in sympathy. He said, ‘You see Gillian, it’s not just about whether you say it’s fully funded. It’s all about the maths.’ And, do you know? He’s so right. That’s the problem. 

M: (looking confused) It is?

G: Yes. Don’t you see? Rishi and I are always talking about it. How can children be allowed to stop doing maths at 16? There’s maths in everything. 

M: That’s true. 

G: So, I’m going to tell them to do more maths.

M: I thought you said there weren’t enough maths teachers.

G: There aren’t. Don’t you see? That’s the problem. We need more maths.

M: (kisses her on the cheek). Go get ‘em, Stalion. You’re a genius. Just remember, though, when you say, ‘I say it’s fully funded,’ try not to smirk.

It’s fully funded because I say it is.

It is wrong that I feel sorry for them. I should be angry. If this is the solution then we are in for a very bumpy ride.

The trouble with renting

 The news is confusing me.

Junior doctors are being paid about £25-£26k a year after five years at medical school and stay on that salary until they complete further training to become a registrar, when they can earn between £33k to £44k per year.  They are still called 'junior' doctors because only consultants get to say that they are grown ups. After 19 years of training a consultant could be earning £119k.  That means that the person removing your appendix could be being paid less than the person filling your Tesco order.

What?

How is that possible?

I asked the Long Suffering Husband. He shrugged his shoulders.  He didn't know. He thought they should be paid more but he had seen the News too and he didn't think they should get a 35% pay rise. 

'Where is the money going to come from?' he asked earnestly.

I don't know but I think public finance is different from our bank accounts. I wonder what have they spend money on, though, because all public services have been underfunded to the point of collapse. I understand that how a government spends its money is a political choice and that conservatives like to think they are good at business and apply a business model to public services. Free healthcare, education, security are not things that sit well with their philosophy.

What confuses me, though, is that I thought the conservatives were all about meritocracy.  The brightest, the most hard working deserved the biggest rewards.

 Hello. 

Doctors.  

The best A levels, voluntary work, play an instrument, run marathons. Have you ever seen a bunch of smarter more dedicated people? Yes, I know they are all weirdos with no social skills but if its about grit and brains then there's no one to top them.   Then there's 5 years at Uni and more exams that they have to pay for.  

MPs, by contrast, just have to win a popularity contest and get a minimum of £84,144 a year.

'The problem,' I explained, patronisingly, to the LSH, 'Is that they haven't done any of the maintenance and now its all falling about around their ears.'

I got him onto a favourite subject of how young people don't know how to care for their homes. I'm sure this view has rubbed off from the golf club retirees but I indulge it every now and again, for the sake of scoring a political point.  

We talked about sweeping paths, emptying gutters, clearing drains and painting woodwork and then we moved onto cars. Service, MOT, checking the oil. He was very happy. I don't often listen to these conversations with my full attention.

'You see!' I said, triumphantly. 'If you do all those things then you don't have a big bill when the car stops working!'

He agreed.  

'So, now the government have a choice. Pay up or scrap it and get a new one.'

We agreed that the public probably weren't going to go for the scrapping it option. The beloved NHS, schools as free childcare and decent literacy/numeracy levels, and not living in a version of the Wild West were all freedoms people wouldn't want to give up. 

Then it hit me.

'Its not their house.  They are just renting. I know they are meant to do the maintenance but they can just leave it for the next poor tenant to do.'

Maybe that explains the horrible adverts Labour are doing at the moment. There are just some properties you wouldn't want to take on.

Age to length of words ratio

 We went to see the film Air, set in 1984, about the deal that Nike made with Michael Jordan for their most famous shoe.

“Oh my, that looks so old,” I whispered in the Long Suffering Husband’s ear. 

“We are old,” he mouthed back.

I have begun to be aware that, even if I do see myself as a little girl in pigtails, whose legs don’t quite reach the floor, I am now an old lady. Children at school now compare me to their grandmother. However, when movies that are set in the years when you became an adult are made with faded grainy film and highlight the oddities of the age, such as pagers, green font on computer screens and phone boxes, you know that you are suddenly history.

I remember my mum’s indignation when my son had a Primary school history topic of the Sixties. ‘I’m not history!’ she said.

You know that you have become history when you are unable to use clipped words.

When I was in the 3rd year juniors, my teacher, had reached this age.

“John, did your mother have the baby? I thought so. I saw her with the perambulator this morning.”

We all nudged each other and giggled at the use of such an arcane word. Why she couldn’t say pram like everyone else we just couldn’t fathom. 

A famous author wrote on Twitter that she had become the subject of ridicule among her young nieces and nephews and so had been desperately trying to say human, rather than human being but to no avail.

Recently, my daughter has picked up on one of my linguistic quirks. 

“Why do you say telephone? No one says telephone. Everyone says phone. Have you always said telephone?”

Since then I have been trying but I just can’t say phone and that is proof that I am old.

I have decided to make a list of commonly clipped words to see if I’m old or guilty of  sesquipedalianism in general.

Television, refrigerator, omnibus, taxicab, motorbike, hamburger, aeroplane, gymnasium, public house, examination, vegetarian, influenza, veterinary surgeon, memorandum, convict, referee, statistics, teenager, submarine, dormitory, graduate, limousine, mathematics, preparatory school, fabulous, submarine, automobile, laboratory, photograph, luncheon, spectacles, pianoforte….

Oh dear. Time for my bath chair….I bet you’ve never heard of one of those either.

Pen Pals

 I’ve neglected my blog recently. I have been preoccupied with other writing and I feel a little as though I have been cheating on you. I’m sorry. 

Writing a blog is like screaming into the void - you never really know if anyone is listening. I am probably an unusual writer, in that I’m not bothered about whether you are reading this or not. I have a picture of you in my mind but if you’re too busy to read or the title doesn’t grab your attention that’s ok, I understand. I didn’t write it for you anyway. I wrote to get it out of my head.

In the last month, however, what was in my head felt too important. It was too big to just scream into the void. So I sent an e-mail, explaining that I would be writing on a weekly basis. Unexpectedly, I got a reply and so I got myself a pen pal.

Wiki has a helpful guide on pen pal letter writing

Letter writing has always been a favourite pastime for me. As a child I had pen pals, wrote to the radio (under aliases) and large companies (it was a bonus to discover that you’d get sent two packs of Smarties if you wrote of your disappointment at not getting any orange ones - because orange smarties are obviously the best, even though you can make lipstick with the red ones.) 

I think it started with my dad, who would write a letter a day when he went on training courses. I remember writing my first letters back when I was about 3 and I’m certain they were no more than squiggles.  There was something special about writing to someone who was far away. I went on the school German exchange trip and managed to write enough letters before to feel we really knew each other. We continued to write for a few years, long enough so that I can still recite her address including postcode.  When I went to University you had to queue for the phone box and so I remained an avid letter writer.  Now, I only write an occasional e-mail, which is faster and probably easier to read as my handwriting has always been appalling but I do miss the actual stationary. Every Christmas Santa brought me a large pad of Basildon Bond and some envelopes and then in 1988, when my letter writing went into overdrive the first Paperchase store appeared in London and I would buy beautiful coloured writing paper and matching but lighter  or darker ink for my fountain pen. 

What I really like about letter writing is the distance it creates. You can pretend to be friendly without having to get too close. You can just not say things that you don’t want to say and no one can see you roll your eyes. 

Unfortunately, my latest pen pal decided that they’d like to meet. It wasn’t what I’d planned. I knew that there would be too many opportunities for eye rolling. If you ever find yourself in this position then I recommend meeting your pen pal with a brilliant person who can do the talking, while you smile and give yourself a headache trying to keep your eyes fixed in position. 

I would like to think that having this pen pal has helped a little and that the brilliant person didn’t mind but I’m thinking that I’m going to go back to screaming into the void, which means that you’ve got me back. Sorry.