My Parliamentary Letter: An Update

Well, as promised, long ago, in my post entitled 'Miscellaneous', I'm now going to update you on the result of my letter to Roger Berry MP. If you can't remember what motivated me to write my local Parliamentarian, check out my post entitled: 'Knowledge is no longer its own reward... at least in school'

Anyway, I got his letter back last week. Unfortunately, the internet address for the BBC News item I wanted Dr. Berry to read apparently had been removed. This seemed strange as it was there when I checked after reading his claim, and indeed all he needed to do was paste it in from my letter. Sadly, Berry's inability to view the article made the rest of his letter pointless. He politely explained to me that any school's Governing Body has the power to allocate funds from their core budget towards a reward fund. He also informed me that the City Academy - the school that dispensed the copious rewards - is funded on a per capita basis just like any other school in the Local Authority area. Therefore, his message clearly was: calm down and stop complaining - you were just unlucky in that your school chose not to waste their normal funds by handing them out as a reward for GCSE results.

This made me wish to scream. If indeed the honourable member for Kingswood has been able to use his fucking computer, he would have seen - in black and white - that the rewards were indeed paid for by the Government's 'New Deal for Communities' project. The point being that extra monies were given to the City Academy, from taxpayer's money, for the dispersal amongst the great unwashed. Anyway, with Roger Berry totally missing my point that it is ludicrous to dole out great sums - of taxpayer's money - for the pathetic results gained at the school, whilst simultaneously those at Downend get nothing, it seemed only fair that I write back to him and clarify my views; this time including a printed copy of the article.

Yet again, I'll tell you how he replies.