bromleygirl

Thank you so much LOTL for that web site address. My daughter is 4 1/2 and next month will start 5 mornings a week at nursery school. Her birthday is in November so if we were in the UK now she would be starting the first year of primary school. Due to budget cut backs the school district where I live have done away with early entrance into Kindergarten exams even though when my daughter had her early childhood screening last year at age 3 1/2 she tested at the level of a 6 year old.

I think that this web site will be great to get her up to speed for Sept '04 heading into year 2 with her UK peers.

What do you think of the web site? I think that I will sign her up for the whole year.

This has been a good day for me - I just found out that my health insurance has approved my sons speech therapy Health insurance We may moan about the NHS but at least it available to everyone and is not linked to your job.

Taffyles

It isn't evidence, but when you look at some of the subjects these kids are taking and passing- I'm in awe. The evidence lies in the longitudinal study of 15 yr olds in all industrialised nations.

I never thought the old O levels were hard- but I agree that the new GCSE's seem even easier - at least the subjects you can take at GCSE are easy- couldn't take O level PE when I was in school LOL. But the new proposals might get rid of GCSEs anyway. Bright kids are coming out with 11 and 12 GCSEs and there are 11 year olds passing some in Wales- but A levels still seem to sort them out. What I like about the new system is that kids who are capable can take and do take some GCSEs early.

Taffyles

Hey less of that please- YOU do too much of that, if you don't mind me saying, judging and leaping to conclusions about people from what they write on message boards. You have no idea of mine or anyone else's motives, or my politics, thoughts, unless I tell you what they are.
It depends on the subjects taken at A level as to the difficulty- nowadays you can take so many more subjects than we ever could.
None of my friends claim to be better teachers and they all moan like hell about bureaucracy etc etc but they maintain that the A level difficulty is still the same in the core academic subjects- there are far more soft, or easier, subjects these days though.

Pulaski

Right, but .....
Could you give me any other possible explantion for this other than you are not a supporter of George W Bush?

Taffyles

Sure, and of course agree, that's common sense isn't it. But you can't do anything about the school curriculum and system.
My kids were reading at three. The things you do naturally at home with your preschool kids in UK puts them way ahead when they start school here.
I home schooled my daughter, and I thoroughly reccommend home schooling in USA. It's well organised and doesn't cost much. It's harder to do it with teenagers but with young kids its no problem.

Taffyles

Well you could safely assume that I don't like what GW is doing and has done- not that I could support him even if I wanted to- I don't have a vote. But I do have the right to comment on what I see happening and I- like many others- am very concerned about the effect of some of this Administrations actions, the spinning, the loss of freedoms, the budget deficit, unemployment, and so on.

But how you deduced this:-

"You, from your other posts, clearly have a political axe to grind and therefore your friends in the teaching profession are going to be "pro-Tony". "

From what I said...beats me.

fried_emu

Just to clue you in on the New UK.

My son is going in to Year 3 and he is the only one who can spell using the names of the letters. All the other children spell phonically --- they sound like they are mentally disabled!!! I have even seen 20 year olds at work spelling phonically ( after 3 years of UNI)

My other son (age 4)is also in need of speech therapy due to a year of temperary deafness that took the NHS 1 year to Diagnose. This was after they miss diagnosed him with a virus and he ended up on life support for 2 weeks at a NHS hospital 200 miles away because not one of the hospitals closer could deal with it or had space.

Now he is having a hard time learning to spell because it is all done phonically - and the sounds are not clear enough to be distinguistable!!!!!

Your child will be miles ahead of any UK child. Here it all comes down to ££££ that the schools and the Doctors can get out of the Government.

There are 2 kinds of GP practises in the UK. One is Directly funded by the NHS and the Doctors get an NHS wage. The other is given an NHS buget and can keep any unused buget and put it back into the practise. Needless to say all my doctors and their wives have nice cars with personalized plates.
Taken out of the GP buget are:
Refererals to specialist
Prescriptions
Blood work
any Testing or Xrays

In the 3 years my family has been here, we have not once had a throat swab taken dispite numerous infections.


My son who is 7 years old has scored the highest in his SSAT test out of the whole class dispite UK schooling. At home we use Canadian online educational resourses. And a completely different mentallity. No PHONIC spelling.

Pulaski

Sorry, that was a jump on my part - I assumed that if you are anti George Bush and believe the government spin-propaganda on the state of the British education system then you would also be anti the British Conservative party.

I'll withdraw my assumption, ...... pending further evidence!

bromleygirl

It's just the same here in the US Emu - I am in Minnesota and there is a state budget crisis and cutbacks have been made across the board including education - it's a fact of life. What really ticks me off about US school fundraising is that they turn children into sales people. I have had gift catalouges, Avon you name it and of course the child who sells the most gets the biggest and best prize. I do not agree with this practice and much prefer the UK school system of fundraising i.e. sponsored run, sponsored silence etc.. but they that is the difference in cultures.

As for doctors - I work in a medical establishment and know how much they get paid which is a staggering amount. Medical costs are extremely expensive here in the States thats why there are millions of uninsured including children who have no health insurance whatsoever. Given the choice I know which system I would choose - the NHS anyday.

Pulaski

I guess that you're talking gross fees, as there is the frighteningly large insurance premia to be paid these can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum for a hospital surgeon.

I hope that sooner, rather than later, the plans to cap the amount that can be sued for gets through congress. I know that it failed (ran out of time) this summer, but it is one of Bush's key pieces of legislation. I think that the plan was to cap the "suable amount" at actual losses, plus $250,000 for "pain and suffering". The plan is to finally put a stop to the absurd idea that private citizens can sue for "punitive damages", in the area of medical malpractice, at least.

If only people could see that perhaps more than half of the cost of running the US medical system is the cost of malpractice insurance.

Taffyles

They've just voted on this in Florida...at last..they've been deadlocked for bloody months, during which time more and more doctors were leaving the State. Anyhooo Gov Jeb signed this cap of $250,000 in last week...and the latest is .....Insurance companies are not going to bring their premiums down regardless.... Apparently a doctor's premium for malpractice insurance amounts to $70,000 a year.

Taffyles

Okay but just for the record I don't believe either government's spin-propaganda.

chicagobrit