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Consultation is not lip service
MOUNTING suspicion over city academies in Sheffield, which bring fundamental changes to their relationship with local education authorities, has led to the city's two leading teachers' unions forming a pressure group.
While not forgetting a union’s key brief is to look after members’ interests, and their opposition must be interpreted at least partially in those terms, serious questions are still raised about the disquiet being voiced over this issue.
And not least is to question the sincerity of town hall consultation processes. The experience at Wisewood School has thrown this whole matter into serious doubt after protesters came away with the impression that their worries had simply been ignored.
If there is to be a meaningful debate over the creation of more city academies in Sheffield, then that consultation has to show it is more than lip service designed to suit conclusions already reached by officers.
Banning words is a sinister suggestion
IT is easy to see how people can be offended by the term McJob, which has described in a dictionary as a word meaning an ‘unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects.’ Hardly a recommendation for anyone fancying a career in catering.
But the politically correct battalion should march carefully into this particular conflict. It’s always dangerous when politicians begin to tell us what words should be allowed.
Like it or not, the word exists and its removal from a dictionary, as suggested by some MPs, is a sinister thin edge to the social engineering wedge.
Age of digi-kids
ARE you ahead in the world of technological advances... or are you 42? According to experts, that’s the age at which most of us become techno dunces, finding things like computers, i-pods, digital cameras and mobile phones completely baffling. Presumably that’s why most have taken the plunge and had children by then. It’s a good idea to have somebody in the house who knows how to operate the digi-box!
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 23 C
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