Anseo.net #18 Newsletter

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The 2nd part of Access Undone: The Collapse of Special Education, is called Soft Barriers, which is named after what the NCSE accused schools of erecting after the 15% cut to resource hours in 2013. 

Episode 3 will drop on 15th October so keep an eye out for that. However, episode 4 is going to depend on feedback from you. 

If you know someone that worked in the NCSE and is willing to share their story, I’m hoping to get inside the doors of the NCSE and where, as one ex-SENO put it, the rot began. 

In this newsletter:

🎙 Latest episode of the podcast

💭 Education Stories over the last few weeks

𝕏 Interesting Posts on X

Don’t forget, you can read all of my previous newsletters on Anseo.net. Please pass on this newsletter to your friends and please encourage them to subscribe so it comes to their inbox every 2 weeks.

Latest Podcast Episode

Episode 2 is called Soft Barriers and it charts how the recession never ended for children with additional needs. In fact, as well as welcoming the cuts, the NCSE decided to turn on schools when they found themselves unable to support children with fewer resources.

The Swedish government has decided to add an extra year to primary education, moving away from play-based learning. The education minister, Johan Pehrson, said “school must go back to the basics.” Whenever you hear a Minister for Education say “back to basics” you just know they’re wearing rose-tinted glasses of a bygone era thinking children learned better when they weren’t having fun.

Italy are also resurrecting a law first brought in by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini where students will now receive a grade for behaviour in school.

Back home, I’d be giving a poor grade for behaviour to Alan Hynes and David Quinn for trying to convince people that schools aren’t divesting from Catholic control for all sorts of reasons. Hynes believes Catholic schools are being discriminated against so here’s my response to that. Quinn thinks parents really love Catholic schools due to their ethos so I responded to that too.

Thankfully, there was one bit of education news that isn’t going back to basics or grading behaviour. It’s simply an appreciation day for SNAs.

Here are some posts on X that caught my eye:

• With the end of Education Posts Forum, we got talking about Jürgen (via merrybeau1)
• Shock on X – 2 people have a respectful discussion (via PaulHen08404530)
• I’ll never understand how people make videos saying how great they are (via fiannafailparty)

Dame Maggie Smith passed away last week and it got me thinking about tribute videos. I used ChatGPT and Canva to make a video.

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