More study aids and generous grade boundaries for 2021's exams will be welcomed by many teachers and students. But doesn't address a fundamental problem of the next exam season: equity. Because there's great variation in how different schools have been affected by self-isolation.

Let's take the most recent attendance stats which I still don't think have really registered.

Most recent data- attendance rate across England of 83%

In secondary schools it's 78% (!)

So more than 1 in 5 secondary pupils are off school, largely for Covid related reasons.
But that’s just an average. Some schools’ attendance are at levels where they can’t really function, or certainly provide the quality of education they normally do.

Teachers’ are split between trying to run online lessons and those in schools.

Whole year groups are off.
Some students are in isolation, return to school and within days are in isolation again.

As I’ve reported before, IT provision is still patchy. Lots of reports of kids not doing work at home either because they get of the swing of it or they don’t have the IT resources.
And that’s before we get on to staff isolation, which is also proving a nightmare in many places.

In other words, you have to have everything go right for your education not to be impacted by Covid right now. And that’s affecting some places more than others.
So question is, is it far for a student in Cornwall say, who has had little to no disruption to their education since September to be given the same dispensations as one in Hull whose school may have been closed for a period?
There is no easy answer to this- Gavin Williamson has said that the the DfE is looking for ways to address the equity issue. But it’s a profound challenge. As I’ve said, I’m not sure it’s really registered the extent to which many schools are really, really struggling.
NB bear in mind this is also a cohort who missed months of their education in the first half of 2020. Many are still reporting behavioural issues and teachers tell me some are still far, far behind where we would expect. That’s the context they’re dealing with.
For example, Beacon Hill Academy in Dudley where Ive been filming today: the whole of Y7 and Y8 are in self isolation and will have been for two weeks. At one point much of the senior staff were off too. Some kids having to have repeated bouts of isolation.

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Some quick thoughts on what we just saw

Firstly hardly a unique insight but hard to overstimate the difference between the two last inaugurals. America has meandered sharply along its political arc.

Biden's rhetoric reached high. Every sentence seemed purposefully...


...constructed to negate every political and personal characteristic of his predecessor.

And insofar as he's not Trump, that he does accept, cherish and understand democratic norms, institutions and conventions in a way that Trump never could, Biden will make a real difference.

He will change the tone and tenor of politics, not only in America but across the West. As I've said before, just replacing Trump is a substantial victory for him and will earn him praise from historians.

But that aura will disappear quickly. A governing project it will not make

But how much praise he receives and stature conferred by posterity will depend on what happens next.

Because the big overarching question for me, watching this, is which of those two inaugurals, Trump or Biden's, is going to seem unusual in the future.

The relief that many are feeling is predicated on a type of politics ending. But it is at least as possible that it is Biden ..not Trump who is the last gasp of something. Is it Trump who is the dying embers of a dying, increasingly powerless old white America...

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
शमशान में जब महर्षि दधीचि के मांसपिंड का दाह संस्कार हो रहा था तो उनकी पत्नी अपने पति का वियोग सहन नहीं कर पायी और पास में ही स्थित विशाल पीपल वृक्ष के कोटर में अपने तीन वर्ष के बालक को रख के स्वयं चिता पे बैठ कर सती हो गयी ।इस प्रकार ऋषी दधीचि और उनकी पत्नी की मुक्ति हो गयी।


परन्तु पीपल के कोटर में रखा बालक भूख प्यास से तड़पने लगा। जब कुछ नहीं मिला तो वो कोटर में पड़े पीपल के गोदों (फल) को खाकर बड़ा होने लगा। कालान्तर में पीपल के फलों और पत्तों को खाकर बालक का जीवन किसी प्रकार सुरक्षित रहा।

एक दिन देवर्षि नारद वहां से गुजर रहे थे ।नारद ने पीपल के कोटर में बालक को देख कर उसका परिचय मांगा -
नारद बोले - बालक तुम कौन हो?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चहता हूँ ।
नारद - तुम्हारे जनक कौन हैं?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चाहता हूँ ।

तब नारद ने आँखें बन्द कर ध्यान लगाया ।


तत्पश्चात आश्चर्यचकित हो कर बालक को बताया कि 'हे बालक! तुम महान दानी महर्षि दधीचि के पुत्र हो । तुम्हारे पिता की अस्थियों का वज्रास्त्र बनाकर ही देवताओं ने असुरों पर विजय पायी थी।तुम्हारे पिता की मृत्यु मात्र 31 वर्ष की वय में ही हो गयी थी'।

बालक - मेरे पिता की अकाल मृत्यु का क्या कारण था?
नारद - तुम्हारे पिता पर शनिदेव की महादशा थी।
बालक - मेरे उपर आयी विपत्ति का कारण क्या था?
नारद - शनिदेव की महादशा।
इतना बताकर देवर्षि नारद ने पीपल के पत्तों और गोदों को खाकर बड़े हुए उस बालक का नाम पिप्पलाद रखा और उसे दीक्षित किया।