Check your facts before opening your mouth.

Dear education minister,
Check your facts before opening your mouth.
From me.

Why? I hear you ask.
One of today's lead news stories is reporting that the education minister wants schools to put filters in place on pupil internet access to prevent them becoming "radicalised".
If he bothered to check first, he would have found that schools have very stringent filters on their internet.....that's point one.   The computers in many schools are getting old, and subsequently are slow, pages can take up to 15 minutes to load....point two.  You average teenager likes to have access to information quickly....so is frustrated by my point two, and moves on.......point three.  Large swathes of printed information seems to lose the attention of any but the very intelligent, or very determined, teenager......point four.  Most teenagers have home internet access, which is faster than school connections, with more up to date equipment......parents can put filters in place,  but pc savvy teenagers could easily get around them.  In many cases the teenager is the one who has set up the home system.......point five.
So, Mr education minister, get your facts right, and look at problems from ALL sides. I have listed five reasons why schools are probably not responsible for "radicalisation" of teenagers.
I will point out that I do think things should be done to help prevent it, however, his idea is like offering a person with a broken leg a sticking plaster and a paracetamol, telling them to go away, everything will be OK.
Here's a "radical" idea!  How about stop making this country a more difficult place to live in, unless you have plenty of money.  Start treating the bulk of the people with the respect they deserve, and perhaps people will stop looking for a better life.
I know that I have gone off at a tangent a little here, but things are never as clear cut as politicians would like us to believe.

Visit To Mum and Dad's

Yesterday I went straight from work to Mum and Dad's.
On Sunday, as well as being Mother's Day here in the UK, tiz my Dad's birthday,.
Weekends are crazy for me...so I visited yesterday.
In 1974 we moved from Tintwistle to Catterall. In 1980, Mum and Dad bought their first ever house..of their own...before that we had lived in rented accommodation.
Where Mum and Dad bought their house, has now changed so much. Recent building around has almost doubled the family accommodation, but....the local school has only had one classroom extra built on!
The upshot is..that children from families who have lived in the area for a generation, or more, are being told that their child has to go to another primary school. Why do the county council allow this building without the appropriate facilities?
If you drive from Preston to Lancaster, by way of the A6, there is a school in Bilsborrow, and then the one at Kirkland [aka Churchtown] , the next is in Forton. If you go along the B road into Garstang, yes there are three schools there, but the potential housing is way and above the places available.
Why keep building family homes in an area where the school places are lacking? Garstang High will only have so many places, due to it's location...there is only limited scope for expansion. When will the planners wake up?