Dealing with gang culture

This approach impresses me.

Like most things that work it demands commitment over a long period.

It also requires a lot of hard work from the police and supporting services. How can this be done if staffing is cut?

With a government that appears to want quick fixes and with a fickle media that follows the topic of the moment, do we have people of character who will take an issue and pursue it long after it is out of the headlines?

This is my main criticism of most politicians: they don't appear to stick at a task and see it through.

Too often we see headline grabbing people who are good at impressing the mass superficial readership of the media.

Perhaps this is where blogs may offer an alternative though I would prefer in depth reporting that is found in papers like the Independent where a few issues are worked on regularly and persistently:

An attitude of patient chipping away at a problem and praise for every single action that improves a situation in the long term.

Mark, what we have seen happen in our schools is the eroding of good teaching. Far too many good teachers resigned during the last fifteen years because they were being thwarted from teaching well by artificial aims that produced quick results.

League tables became the criteria of measurement - fine as long it stayed as a measurement but when it became a goal then the system of good teaching needing patient steady perseverance became eroded.

People with experience and initiative threw in the towel and found more satisfying work elsewhere and were replaced with keen but pliant people who went through the motions, lacking experience and support from more mature colleagues.

Teaching is a hard profession - the most difficult years are the first. The system is so overstretched there are few experienced colleagues available to support.

Of the local schools, Dowdales in Dalton impresses me but a lot of teachers there may carry a very heavy work load.

I need more hard facts from statistics to continue otherwise I'm writing about impressions and not reality. My quick search of Google failed though I now know that the answer will be buried in the UK National Statistics web site .