The Glam choir performing at the Muni, Pontypridd
and
Writer and broadcaster Owen Sheers was on BBC Wales last week complaining that English Literature was being made optional at GCSE and pupils would suffer greatly as a result.
I was on Radio Wales about a year ago making the same point.
The response of the Welsh Government - Labour, but with a LibDem Education Minister in Kirsty Williams - was typically evasive and disingenuous.
They deflected it be saying they'd look into the teaching of literature in schools!
When GCSE results were seen to be deteriorating the week before they responded similarly , by pushing all responsibility onto schools and claiming that too many pupils were being entered in Year 10.
Yet in both instances it is their policies to blame, just as the austerity-driven agenda of authorities like Labour-controlled RCT have failed music services in the poorest parts of this country.
Firstly, WAG have decreed that English Literature will be optional ; it's not a matter for schools to contest.
It will no longer be a core subject, at the heart of Labour's highly flawed scheme of traffic-lighting schools, which amounts to league tables.
The consequences will be horrendous.
At present, many pupils only opportunity to read drama, poetry and fiction in their lives will be at school.
Texts such as 'Blood Brothers', 'Of Mice and Men' and a whole range of poetry ( including some by Sheers no doubt) open up young lives to worlds they wouldn't otherwise encounter, not to mention key books in world literature by the likes of Maya Angelou and Arthur Miller.
In addition to that, it's certain that fewer students will go on to study Literature at 'A' Level and university.
Though the present course is unimaginative and limited, there are still important opportunities to engage with a variety of work.
My life was changed irrevocably by studying several books for 'O' Level, many of them non-fiction such as Laurie Lee's 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' , Graves's 'Goodbye to all that' and ,amazingly, the account of a south Pacific island by a colonialist Arthur Grimble , 'A Pattern of Islands'.
The English Language course will pay lip-service to literature, tackling it merely through extracts and I doubt poetry will have any place whatsoever.
Cutting this from the core means extracting the very seeds of future growth; seeds cast aside onto concrete to wither.
As to the decline in standards at GCSE, to blame this on early entries is absurd.
Taking English and Welsh as examples : in most cases texts can't be taken into exams, meaning that everything is down to memory and little else. Understanding and creativity have all but been destroyed.
The demise of coursework is also counter-productive.
Simply because the former system encouraged plagiarism ( which it undeniably did), coursework has been generally scrapped.
The obvious solution would be to get pupils to research at home, yet do all the coursework in class.
At university, students are actively encouraged to carry out their own, original research on a topic of their choice.
In schools, this is actively discouraged because of the Labour/LibDem administration's policies.
As to music, I heard a disturbing story at the weekend of a former peripatetic teacher, now self-employed, who has to try and get individual schools to employ him on an ad hoc basis. His job and therefore the teaching of his instrument, is under threat.
Many excellent peris ,with great expertise, now ply their trade as music teachers in Comps and the future of our orchestras looks very bleak.
The WAG's intention to set up feasibility studies is far too late.
The way music fights back and sings out loud and proud has been brought home because of my younger daughter's involvement in the Glam Choir and Orchestra this weekend.
I had the great pleasure of attending their musical at the Muni in Pontypridd, which told the story of the Glam through songs, film and narration ; a story which ended in hope and defiance.
Then, at St.Elvan's in Aberdare there was an orchestral and choral concert involving many former Glam members and those from the present.
Performing there - and at their own concert in St. David's, Ponty the next day - were a group of young cellists from southern Germany, Cellikatessen.
It was a breathtaking and unique performance by 13 cellists and one double bassist together with their director , Roman Guggenberger.
Palying with no sheet-music and in an astonishing variety of styles from jazz to baroque to Catalan folk music made famous by Pablo Casals (a song of freedom for his nation), they are a symbol of what could be achieved in Cymru given the right commitment and investment.
Sadly, the utilitarian and narrow-minded policies of our Welsh Assembly Government make me feel despondent.
Every Labour or LibDem voter in 'gwlad beirdd a chantorion' must bear responsiblity for this, not to mention anyone who opted for austerity-obsessed Tories.
EDUCATING FOR RESULTS
Of course, the libraries had long ago
been taken over by computers ;
in some schools they'd even
made a pyre of the old books
including ones on the rise of Hitler.
The writing of poetry was replaced
by comprehensions which could easily
be assessed, moderated ; pupils trained
in class to pass examinations :
Plato's 'Republic' realised at last.
Music was a fringe pastime
for those with enough money
to buy instruments, pay for lessons ;
orchestras dwindled to Chambers
and then were merely bands.
Pupils opted out of literature,
no longer at the core
it was more like a stump
thrown through the window of a car,
left to rot by the roadside.
Drama was for big productions only,
with Mayor and politicians invited,
believing their money well-spent
they returned to Councils and the Bay
to analyse results like business trends.
Writer and broadcaster Owen Sheers was on BBC Wales last week complaining that English Literature was being made optional at GCSE and pupils would suffer greatly as a result.
I was on Radio Wales about a year ago making the same point.
The response of the Welsh Government - Labour, but with a LibDem Education Minister in Kirsty Williams - was typically evasive and disingenuous.
They deflected it be saying they'd look into the teaching of literature in schools!
When GCSE results were seen to be deteriorating the week before they responded similarly , by pushing all responsibility onto schools and claiming that too many pupils were being entered in Year 10.
Yet in both instances it is their policies to blame, just as the austerity-driven agenda of authorities like Labour-controlled RCT have failed music services in the poorest parts of this country.
Firstly, WAG have decreed that English Literature will be optional ; it's not a matter for schools to contest.
It will no longer be a core subject, at the heart of Labour's highly flawed scheme of traffic-lighting schools, which amounts to league tables.
The consequences will be horrendous.
At present, many pupils only opportunity to read drama, poetry and fiction in their lives will be at school.
Texts such as 'Blood Brothers', 'Of Mice and Men' and a whole range of poetry ( including some by Sheers no doubt) open up young lives to worlds they wouldn't otherwise encounter, not to mention key books in world literature by the likes of Maya Angelou and Arthur Miller.
In addition to that, it's certain that fewer students will go on to study Literature at 'A' Level and university.
Though the present course is unimaginative and limited, there are still important opportunities to engage with a variety of work.
My life was changed irrevocably by studying several books for 'O' Level, many of them non-fiction such as Laurie Lee's 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' , Graves's 'Goodbye to all that' and ,amazingly, the account of a south Pacific island by a colonialist Arthur Grimble , 'A Pattern of Islands'.
The English Language course will pay lip-service to literature, tackling it merely through extracts and I doubt poetry will have any place whatsoever.
Cutting this from the core means extracting the very seeds of future growth; seeds cast aside onto concrete to wither.
As to the decline in standards at GCSE, to blame this on early entries is absurd.
Taking English and Welsh as examples : in most cases texts can't be taken into exams, meaning that everything is down to memory and little else. Understanding and creativity have all but been destroyed.
The demise of coursework is also counter-productive.
Simply because the former system encouraged plagiarism ( which it undeniably did), coursework has been generally scrapped.
The obvious solution would be to get pupils to research at home, yet do all the coursework in class.
At university, students are actively encouraged to carry out their own, original research on a topic of their choice.
In schools, this is actively discouraged because of the Labour/LibDem administration's policies.
As to music, I heard a disturbing story at the weekend of a former peripatetic teacher, now self-employed, who has to try and get individual schools to employ him on an ad hoc basis. His job and therefore the teaching of his instrument, is under threat.
Many excellent peris ,with great expertise, now ply their trade as music teachers in Comps and the future of our orchestras looks very bleak.
The WAG's intention to set up feasibility studies is far too late.
The way music fights back and sings out loud and proud has been brought home because of my younger daughter's involvement in the Glam Choir and Orchestra this weekend.
I had the great pleasure of attending their musical at the Muni in Pontypridd, which told the story of the Glam through songs, film and narration ; a story which ended in hope and defiance.
Then, at St.Elvan's in Aberdare there was an orchestral and choral concert involving many former Glam members and those from the present.
Performing there - and at their own concert in St. David's, Ponty the next day - were a group of young cellists from southern Germany, Cellikatessen.
It was a breathtaking and unique performance by 13 cellists and one double bassist together with their director , Roman Guggenberger.
Palying with no sheet-music and in an astonishing variety of styles from jazz to baroque to Catalan folk music made famous by Pablo Casals (a song of freedom for his nation), they are a symbol of what could be achieved in Cymru given the right commitment and investment.
Sadly, the utilitarian and narrow-minded policies of our Welsh Assembly Government make me feel despondent.
Every Labour or LibDem voter in 'gwlad beirdd a chantorion' must bear responsiblity for this, not to mention anyone who opted for austerity-obsessed Tories.
EDUCATING FOR RESULTS
Of course, the libraries had long ago
been taken over by computers ;
in some schools they'd even
made a pyre of the old books
including ones on the rise of Hitler.
The writing of poetry was replaced
by comprehensions which could easily
be assessed, moderated ; pupils trained
in class to pass examinations :
Plato's 'Republic' realised at last.
Music was a fringe pastime
for those with enough money
to buy instruments, pay for lessons ;
orchestras dwindled to Chambers
and then were merely bands.
Pupils opted out of literature,
no longer at the core
it was more like a stump
thrown through the window of a car,
left to rot by the roadside.
Drama was for big productions only,
with Mayor and politicians invited,
believing their money well-spent
they returned to Councils and the Bay
to analyse results like business trends.
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