Ex-chief inspector of schools Sir Chris Woodhead dies

[weltweit]

According to the internet, he had motor neurone disease.

Ex-chief inspector of schools Sir Chris Woodhead dies
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-06-23/ex-chief-inspector-of-schools-sir-chris-woodwood-dies/

Former chief inspector of schools Sir Chris Woodhead, who had motor neurone disease, has died, friends said.

The 68-year-old, who was the top schools watchdog for six years until 2000 and had some fierce clashes with teaching unions, was diagnosed with the disease in 2006.

He resigned as chief schools inspector after a series of rows with then-education secretary David Blunkett.

Sir Chris said in 2009 that he would rather kill himself than die in agony from the disease.
....

 

[SpookyFrank]

I met him once. I was about 13 and he was visiting my school. I gave him my honest assesment of the place: I hate it, but realistically it could be a lot worse.

Seemed a decent enough bloke. Said what he meant, meant what he said.

 

[Pickman's model]

I met him once. I was about 13 and he was visiting my school. I gave him my honest assesment of the place: I hate it, but realistically it could be a lot worse.

Seemed a decent enough bloke. Said what he meant, meant what he said.

what did he say to you?

 

[SpookyFrank]

He intimated that 'not great, could be worse' was pretty much his assesment of the school as well.

He got in trouble with the teachers' unions for saying that some teachers weren't fit to be teachers. Obviously that's true, as it's true of any profession you care to name, but it took guts to say it IMO.

 

[weltweit]

I think in his time he was hated by teachers and school management alike but it is hard to see how someone could do such a job without being hated.

Still I wouldn't wish Motor Neurone Disease on anyone, I believe it is what Stephen Hawking has but in Hawking's case it has not caused such quick deterioration.

 

[Idris2002]

Is this the one who had an inappropriate relationship with a female student?

 

[Orang Utan]

Is this the one who had an inappropriate relationship with a female student?

Aye.
Still, a horrible disease took him. Poor fella.

 

[Buckaroo]

Is this the one who had an inappropriate relationship with a female student?

Suppose it depends on the meaning of 'timing of the affair', they'd both left the school or they hadn't, it was inappropriate or it wasn't.

 

[equationgirl]

I think in his time he was hated by teachers and school management alike but it is hard to see how someone could do such a job without being hated.

Still I wouldn't wish Motor Neurone Disease on anyone, I believe it is what Stephen Hawking has but in Hawking's case it has not caused such quick deterioration.

There's all sorts of different variants of mnd. Some are fast acting, some are slow and tortuous.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is this the one who had an inappropriate relationship with a female student?

Yep. He also had the likes of mad Mel Philips come out to bat for him about how it was all in the past, and anyway the girl was 17 and consented.
Obviously, breach of professional trust doesn't matter to mad Mel if it's a friend of hers doing the breaching.

Me, I've just put on the Green Day track "Haha you're dead", because Woodhead was a divisive, power-hungry cuntbag. Fuck him, fuck his rotten corpse too.

 

[chilango]

He really was not one of the good guys.

The agenda, and philosophy, that he took a great deal of personal responsibility in pushing into education is still wreaking huge, huge damage in schools today.

His death, and the manner of his death, alters this not one jot.

 

[StoneRoad]

My OH is a teacher, and regards Chris Woodhead and Ofsted as highly damaging to both the education system as a whole and especially to the children whose futures have been affected.

 

[J Ed]

He really was not one of the good guys.

The agenda, and philosophy, that he took a great deal of personal responsibility in pushing into education is still wreaking huge, huge damage in schools today.

His death, and the manner of his death, alters this not one jot.

You only need to look at the response to his death from the unions and from Cameron to know which side he was on, and it wasn't the right one.

 

[Steel Icarus]

As y'all know Mrs S☼I is right-leaning as a voter, and yet as a teacher she had no time whatsoever for Woodhead.
Me, I despised the cunt and will not mourn his passing.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Founder of Cognitas, a for-profit group of private schools, fees upwards of 10k a year. Company registered in... Jersey. Number of Cognitas schools in Jersey... Zero.

So a tax-dodging educator of the rich, for profit.

 

[editor]

This is what I like urban for. I wasn't sure what to think about the bloke. Now I do

 

[Wilf]

MN is a really fucking horrible way to go.

He was an utter cunt though. He was the perfect agent to put the education reforms into practice, abrasive with no regard for working conditions and levels of self management teachers had operated with in the past. In fact he was so abrasive he sometimes went over the top and embarrassed his political masters. And with regard to the affair, I believed the woman that it had started before she left school (not just because I detested him).

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'd happily believe that Woodhead was a cunt, but lets not spend too long singing the praises of a profession that had, at the time of Woodhead's tenure, only recently been forced to stop beating children.

 

[Gingerman]

Mad Mel Philips championed and praised him.....nuff said,awful way to go though....

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'd happily believe that Woodhead was a cunt, but lets not spend too long singing the praises of a profession that had, at the time of Woodhead's tenure, only recently been forced to stop beating children.

Let's not forget what his company Cognita stands for. Separation of children by class and test scores, a minority permitted success at school at the expense of the majority. He was not an educationalist, he was a capitalist intent on commodifying education at all levels.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Let's not forget what his company Cognita stands for. Separation of children by class and test scores, a minority permitted success at school at the expense of the majority. He was not an educationalist, he was a capitalist intent on commodifying education at all levels.

Again, not saying that he wasn't a cunt. But he didn't invent streaming according to test scores. Nor did he invent the commodification of education.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Again, not saying that he wasn't a cunt. But he didn't invent streaming according to test scores. Nor did he invent the commodification of education.

I didn't invent the gallows, said the hangman as he pulled the lever.

 

[Wilf]

I'd happily believe that Woodhead was a cunt, but lets not spend too long singing the praises of a profession that had, at the time of Woodhead's tenure, only recently been forced to stop beating children.

Well, maybe, but woodhead's attack on the profession, along with all the league tables and interventions, was hardly in the name of popular control of education.

 

[Wilf]

Again, not saying that he wasn't a cunt. But he didn't invent streaming according to test scores. Nor did he invent the commodification of education.

He was an absolutely key figure in terms of commodification and structuring education along class lines.

 

[SpookyFrank]

He was an absolutely key figure in terms of commodification and structuring education along class lines.

Well he's dead now, so maybe it's time to let it go.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I didn't invent the gallows, said the hangman as he pulled the lever.

If you don't like it blame that guy, said the hanging judge of the hangman.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well he's dead now, so maybe it's time to let it go.

His legacy lives on, and he's in the news for his death, so the time to speak out against the vile things he helped to put in place is precisely now.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If you don't like it blame that guy, said the hanging judge of the hangman.

Really? You're persisting with this idiocy? He didn't invent the idea of the thing, so that somehow excuses him for doing the thing?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Really? You're persisting with this idiocy? He didn't invent the idea of the thing, so that somehow excuses him for doing the thing?

Meh. I said I'd happily believe he was a cunt, at which point you interjected with, 'ah, but he was a cunt though, on a account of this tired old straw man I'm dragging out of retirement'. I didn't see the point of that, so I thought I'd waste some of your time in return with a stupid straw man of my own.

 

[Wilf]

Well he's dead now, so maybe it's time to let it go.

When it came to repositioning the schools system, he wasn't a mere functionary he was the key agent of change. What went before wasn't a paradise, the old local authority comp system failed working class kids. However woodhead was at the very heart of the new managerialism, commodification and narrowing of education.