Look no further to understand why FE is in such a sorry state

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/jan/24/further-education-parenting

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Sean Bean (“I despair at the state of FE”) has good reason to despair, especially in England. Since the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 heralded the end of the kind of colleges Mr Bean recalls in Sheffield and Rotherham, further education has been adrift on a sterile sea of neo-liberal management-speak and a determination to reduce teachers to the status of mechanistic technicians, with students little more than passive screen watchers. 

Incorporation in the 1990s meant FE colleges were untied from local authorities and so set off on a voyage of mis-navigation. In Wales in 2010, the Welsh government decided to de-incorporate and focus on what the “old techs” had always been: centres for training, for adult and communication education (now distant memories in England) for GCSE and A-level provision, and for apprenticeships, day release and much else, with a primary focus on identifiable local communities.

Vince Cable recalls that early in his time at the coalition’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills he was advised to scrap FE colleges because “no one would notice”, advice Cable rejected while allowing college degradation to continue unchecked.

The monetisation of further education over the past two decades has led to principals becoming self-defining overpaid CEOs with grandiose dreams of huge education business empires, global in range, with discrete local colleges and their downtrodden and poorly remunerated staff lost in the doldrums of “group” corporatism. Name and address supplied

Fast route to better parenting

I support David Cameron’s initiative to make evidence-based and supportive parenting groups available to everyone (“Bossy? Easygoing? Tigerish? What sort of parent should you try to be?”, In Focus). Your parenting feature references Baumrind’s typology in which “authoritative” is the best of four types of parenting, combining authority and warmth. Based on this Baumrind typology, I developed a parent-child relationship self-assessment scale with questions on authority and warmth to produce an overall score.

This scale is a key component of evaluating Families and Schools Together (Fast), which is a social capital programme bringing parents, children, teachers and the wider community together to make sure children get the parenting support they need to fulfil their potential at school.

Fast expresses the traditional notion that it takes a village to raise a child. The activities are led by parents and focus on strengthening the parent-child relationship, the family as a unit, the parents’ social networks and the parent-school relationship.

Fast is having a positive effect. As well as showing a significant impact on education performance, parents reported having a stronger bond with their children, having reduced family conflict, increased social support for parents, and a higher parent involvement in school and community.

Professor Lynn McDonaldMiddlesex University

Marrying acoustics and design

Rowan Moore (“But is it based on sound principles?”, New Review) wrote a very perceptive piece on the acoustic and architectural requirements of the proposed new London concert hall. He recalls that in the mid-20th century architects felt emboldened to experiment with auditorium shapes, which was followed by a reaction where acousticians ruled and architecture was relegated.

In the 21st century, we must aim to find a design team where the architect and acoustician share a strong joint vision. This is the key principle on which the new hall should be based.Raf OrlowskiCambridge

US witch-hunt helped the BBC

The Hollywood witch-hunt had a serendipitous benefit for the BBC in the 1950s (“Hollywood blacklisted my father: now I’m proud they’ve put him on screen”, News. A refugee from McCarthyism, though not one of the Hollywood 10, was Hannah Weinstein, who joined the BBC and produced popular TV series such as Robin Hood and The Buccaneers. Blacklisted screenwriters in the US were commissioned to provide material for these series, which enabled some of Hollywood’s finest talent to keep the wolf from the door. Hannah employed them using pseudonyms to ensure their identities were not revealed.

The British TV viewer benefited from well-crafted scripts and dialogue. When the McCarthyite hysteria subsided, Hannah returned to the US, where two of her daughters became successful movie producers: Lisa Weinstein (Ghost) and Paula Weinstein (Blood Diamond, The Perfect Storm, The Fabulous Baker Boys).  During their time in the UK, her daughters attended the St Mary’s Town & Country School in Swiss Cottage, London. I was their classmate during those years.

Craig SamsHastings

Odds are the bookie is right

Andrew Rawnsley asks “If not polling, what?” (“Now if only I had followed my own advice about opinion polls …”, Comment). Elementary, he just needs to pop into his nearest bookmaker and check out the odds. I don’t know how they do this but, as I have found out to my occasional cost, they hardly ever get it wrong, including the last election.

Verne SandersonChatham