The start of school is thundering towards us and for Year 13 that will mean having to come to grips with the writing standard. One of the first tasks you will undertake is writing a column. To help you with that, I will add links to examples of columns so that you begin to understand the form. First up is Jeremy Clarkson and he is discussing education in a column entitled ‘First, fairy cakes-then welding, kids’. If you are a fan of his writing and his television show ‘Top Gear’ you will know what to expect. Here is an extract –
“Since it came to power, the Labour government has introduced 2,685 pieces of legislation every year. And each has been either ill-conceived, draconian, bonkers, bitter, dangerous, counter-productive, childish, wrong, thoughtless, selfish, or designed primarily to make life a bit more miserable for everyone except six people in the BBC, 14 on The Guardian and Al Gore. Still, with such a torrent of new rules and regulations pouring onto the statute books every day, it was statistically inevitable that one day they’d accidentally do something sensible. And last week that day arrived. They decided that everyone who’s capable of reaching the takeaway shop without being shot in the face is eating far too much Trex and that the way to get them eating fair-trade lettuce and organic tofu instead is to make cooking a part of the school curriculum for children aged 11-14. Immediately head teachers came up with all sorts of objections. They didn’t have the space for normal lessons so where would they find the room for cookery classes? Had they considered, perhaps, using the school’s kitchen? Then the health and safety nutters woke up. “Aha,” they said, “PE has to be taken by someone with a degree in sports paramedicry and similarly qualified people would be necessary for cooking classes or children would be going home with knives sticking out of their eyes and pans of boiling water on their heads.”Read the rest at Timesonline.
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