The truimph of the bullshit generation

Bit slow on this piece of lunacy I found via Jamie K.:

"Britain’s most expensive state school is being built without a playground because those running it believe that pupils should be treated like company employees and do not need unstructured play time."

How stupid do you have to be to come away with an idea like this? Pretty damn stupid, I'd have thought. Consider the Headteacher's reasoning, for example:

"We are not intending to have any play time," said Alan McMurdo, the head teacher. "Pupils won’t need to let off steam because they will not be bored."

Surely this must stir some doubt in the minds of even the most ardent enthusiast for the private-public partnership, or whatever it's called, in education? The system is already full of people who have only had children described to them; do we really need to enlist any more from the private sector?

Anyway, there's a couple of delicious examples of the low-grade management-speak that dominates our educational discourse today:

"McMurdo said refreshments, often taken in break periods at other schools, could be drunk during the school day. "[Pupils] will be able to hydrate during the learning experience," he said."

Translation: they can have a drink during lessons.

Or, in response to the fairly obvious criticism that locking a whole load of hormonally-crazed adolescents in an enclosed-space for the whole day without a break is a shit idea:

"Delap, who has run the academy project on behalf of its sponsor, Perkins Engines, and the Deacon school trust, said that playgrounds did not fit into the concept."

Translation: we haven't a fucking clue what we're doing.