What happened on 6th June 2023 - with your comments in the Web

On Tuesday, we were surprised to know that there is a loophole allowing vaping companies to give free samples to children in England. And that fact is much more flagrant than a BBC article about children's doctors call for ban on disposable vapes itself.

"On the news they said there's a loophole where you can't SELL nicotine vapes to kids, but you can give them away to kids. ROFL, what?? Does the tobacco lobby write the laws in the UK?"

"Laws on sale of goods and services seem out of date (I use the phrase analogue in a digital world), that I doubt it is other than a loophole. Law probably says cigarettes or tobacco products."

"Anyone who gives enough money to the Tories writes the laws in the UK..."

"That is generally how it works with everything. The lobby makes the laws, the people suffer."

Also on Tuesday, Barclays research found that consumers increasingly claim that manufacturers are reducing the size of products.

Hard-pressed consumers feel they are becoming the victims of food industry “shrinkflation” amid signs the UK’s persistent cost of living crisis is making households more alert to the need to get value for money.

With food prices up by almost 20% in the past year, the latest snapshot of consumer activity from Barclays found households were concentrating spending on essentials and increasingly concerned that manufacturers were reducing the size of products such as chocolate bars and packets of crisps.

Two-thirds of shoppers had noticed products shrinking in size while the price had remained the same or even increased. In response, 20% of consumers said they were switching from products that had been downsized by manufacturers to instead buy in bulk.

 

The Redditors noticed this trend, either:

"This is anecdotal, but I occasionally treat myself to a 4 pack of Pear Kopparberg cider. £5 for 4 440ml cans. Well recently these disappeared off the shelves and were nowhere to be seen for months. This weekend during my shop I see Pear Kopparberg, hurrah my favourite treat is back! But wait... it's still £5... but the cans are now 330ml. So for the same price I get 110ml less in my can. Bunch of robbing bastards!"

"I was pissed when the cost of Pepsi max went up, I used to able to get 24 for £7.50 and now they’re charging £10.50 for the same amount, and the “discounts” in places like Iceland only bring it down to what it was originally"

"I came here to say this!!

On a personal note, I've noticed that a ready made meal that I liked to buy from M&S occasionally, the Gastropub Shepherd's Pie. Used to be £5, now is £6.50. So an increase of 25%. Hard not to see it as price gouging on their part."

"The short answer is yes. In the last few years dairy milk has gone from £1.50 for a 200g bar, to £2 for a 200g bar. And then more recently to £2 for a 180g bar

Tesco chicken went up noticeably in price. But recently the 650g pack changed to a 580g one. Etc"

 Another shocking Tuesday news is about aggressive pupils ‘push tens of thousands of teachers to quit’.

Badly behaved pupils are forcing teachers out of the profession as a report finds three quarters would quit if they could find a new job with a better work-life balance.

A “crisis in staff room morale” has been fuelled by soaring apathy and aggression among students, helping to push tens of thousands of teachers prematurely out of their careers, according to the Commission on Teacher Retention, conducted by Public First, a think tank.

 This is an opinion of teachers among the Reddit users.

"As a secondary school teacher myself (of eleven years), I’d agree that behaviour has significantly worsened since Covid.

At my school, we’ve had tons of staff leave and it’s been incredibly disruptive.

I’d argue though that an under appreciated factor in this is working from home.

Teachers are graduates and expectations of graduate workplaces have changed.

Many teachers have partners, or friends or family, who now can work remotely some of the time, who perhaps have increasing flexibility with their hours, who have an extra hour in bed, can do some chores in the week, save a bit on the commute.

Meanwhile teaching has gone the other way, particularly post-academisation, and has become almost a parody of 90s corporate work culture. Of course there’s no wfh, but it’s not just that, it’s the infantilisation. In my last school, for example, I was told off because I wore - on a freezing cold day - a navy sweater that covered the top of my tie.

Sure, behaviour is a problem, but the profession is going to have to find a way to respond to changing expectations of work. If it can’t do this, if it continues to insist on the - often - excessive professional demands on teachers then we’re just going to lose more and more staff. And behaviour will then get worse and worse and worse."

"A push for schools to be all-inclusive and not punish behaviour. Just a few days ago, our deputy head went on a tirade about how we do not exclude students as it has no benefit to that student's prospects, without once stopping to consider the prospects of the other 29 students in their classes and their teachers.

Exactly.

I have friends and family who work in schools and behaviour has plummeted over the past few years.

There was an incident at a school earlier on this year where a male student repeatedly pulled a hijab from a young girl and made racist remarks to her.

He was expelled by the principle.

His parents appealed to the governors and he was allowed back in. The principle was fuming.

I've heard from several teachers that a large contributing factor to the down fall in behaviour is social media. Kids see other people on sites like TikTok vandalising their school and they don't see anyone being punished for it, so they do the same.

And when they do catch the pupils who are damaging property they can't force them to pay for it, or expel them. A couple of the students who are doing the most damage at my friend's school have protection orders from the local council due to issues at home, so they are very difficult to expel.

Several of the teachers there have said the same, in that some schools only seem to care about the kids causing the issues and completely ignoring the fact that they are disrupting the education of every other student."

"And once again we see how Victorian values are so prized with the Tories. First the pawn shops re-open then the food banks next kids up chimneys and they don't need education for that. Education for the rich only again and we come full circle.

To be honest, we've got zero manufacturing industry or basic goods factories, kids aren't encourage to go to Technical college for a trade, it's all get thee to University and get in debt, only now the cost of Uni is going to go up more together with interest rates on the loans and of course only those at the top will be able to afford to go, which is how it should be...Jacob Reece Mogg told me that :)"

"I think one of the solutions would be in cutting teaching hours. Most teachers get 2 free periods a week, and often then get pulled in for cover. If teachers had less teaching time, that would not only help workload (and lessen stress - and super stressed teachers often inflame behaviour issues, not to mention how poorly planned lessons can contribute to poor behaviour), but it would also add more flexibility in to teachers’ lives.

Of course that would also require hiring more teachers so it’s unlikely to happen."