Choccy's blog

Some interesting scenes in this documentary. Effectively charting the campaign against something that was clearly a done-deal long before parents or school workers were told anything about it.

Warren Comprehensive in Chadwell Heath, east London, has dropped plans to become an academy. This week school governors voted against the plans to convert to academy status. NUT members and local councillors had been opposed to the proposed change.

Local NUT in Barking & Dagenham said:

The National Union of Teachers Executive Committee today voted 22-20 against strike action in March. An initial date of 13 March had been expected.

For any MMA fans interested, Jeff Monson defeated Alexander Emelianenko tonight in St.Petersburg, Russia. Alexander is the brother of Fedor, who defeated Monson this time last year.

The fight video is available at this page.

Today the two largest teaching unions, NUT and NASUWT, who represent the majority (90%) of school teachers in England, announced plans to begin action short of a strike on 26th September.

Monson starts by talking about his last fight in Russia, criticises Bolsheviks and Stalin,simplistic but definitely not yer average MMA show content!

A few days ago it was announced that UFC 151 would be cancelled, eight days before it was due to take place. Former Strikeforce and Pride champion Dan Henderson was forced to pull out of the headline fight due to cruciate ligament injury. Henderson was due to face current light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones on Saturday 1st September.

A few people had expressed interest in discussing Stephen Jay Gould's book, Ever Since Darwin, as part of a science discussion/reading group. The book was Gould's first collection of essays from his monthly Natural History column.
A few general points first, then some specific ones about the first four essays that comprise the first chapter/section.

Gould's writing style

A few libcommers popped down to the protest yesterday in support of the three-day strike by Unison members who work for NSL. A mate of ours did a short video.

Qualified teachers wanted.
While the eyes of most people, both critical and uncritical, are drawn to the Olympics, secretary of state for Education, Michael Gove, has introduced possibly his most significant and destructive piece of reform.

Bournville School Strike

ACADEMY SUPER-LONG DAYS

"The devil will make work for idle hands to do."

Monson secured his 46th MMA win at Russian promotion M1's event in St Petersburg last week with a first round submission win over Denis Komkin (video). To form, Monson finished Komkin with his trademark 'north-south choke'.

Back after a break for job-hunting, and the things that I complain about in the blog, being the things that mean I didn't have time to write the blog! But this was important enough for me to bother my arse

NUT workload strike ballot

NUT and NASUWT, the two largest teaching unions, are issuing the strike ballot to members in an attempt to halt the expansion of the academies program through conversions. Academies are publicly funded, but run independent of local authorities and amount to the creeping privatisation of state schools.

First off, my knowledge of midlands hiphop is non-existent, so I wasn't sure what to expect at the May Day event organised by Brum Trades Council - film showing about Greece (Reel News) followed by local hip hop Red Beard and Broken Dialect.

Chomsky displays his Enlightenment sympathies in his conception of education and his criticism of currently-existing educational systems:

An act of solidarity
I hadn't come across this little bit of anarcho history before, but it's in Kropotkin's Memoirs Of A Revolutionist and Dugatkin's The Prince of Evolution. It refers to a small act of solidarity from a journal editor in England in the 1870s, and a not-so supportive act from a leading English biologist a few years later.

When Downhills Primary was described as 'failing' it was forced to become an academy, despite massive community and worker opposition, even the headteacher and governors opposed the forced conversion. But Gove et al ignored the workers and parents, the head resigned, the governors were sacked, and Harris Federation, an academy chain took over.

Stand-alone academies aren't enough - profit-making chains could be the norm