You couldn't make it up.

Brown is pondering “compulsory volunteers” – do you think we ought to buy him a dictionary? Does anyone in politics actually think things through before they spout them at the rest of the world?

And if your children were in school and their teacher was off sick, would you be happy for them to be supervised by a bouncer? There’s at least one school in London doing precisely that, and I loved the agency advert for “hard core cover supervisors“. I’ve always said that one of the reasons I didn’t go into mainstream teaching was that it was too much like crowd control – and I should know, I used to supervise a team of bouncers at university.


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Comments

5 responses to “You couldn't make it up.”

  1. I appreciate the idea of what they are trying to achieve with the bouncers – I remember some horrific lessons in secondary school when we had a substitute and the disruptive kids took full advantage and created merry hell. However I really don’t think thats the way to do it and I would be very concerned about the backgrounds of “bouncers” who have no previous experience of working with kids. As for compulsory community service.. well in a way I support the idea but again, forcing kids to do 50 hours before they are 18 isn’t the way to go. Getting otherwise unemployed adults yes. Loading even more on to the generally stressed kids no. I know a lot of kids who do so many after school clubs, music lessons etc that they wouldn’t have time for any volunteering. Cynically I’m thinking that its another way to have older kids (too old for after school clubs) occupied whilst their parents are at work.

  2. the whole thing seems to be getting more and more farcical by the day!

  3. ?! Yes, I would agree that Mr Brown appears to need a dictionary.

  4. I think he borrowed to idea from the US. Someone there said something similar about 2 weeks ago.

  5. Borrowing from the US? Our government? Surely not.

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