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Response to The Review of Secondary Schools made by BANES
The Review of Secondary Schools made by BANES can easily remind the reader of the proverbial Irishman who, having been asked how to get to a particular location replied “Ah, if that’s where you want to get to, then I wouldn’t start from here!”
No Comments »Dare to be Wise?
Being back in Manchester for the Iran Reunion stimulated many thoughts especially as I had been invited to address the Sixth Form of Withington Girls’ School. Withington has consistently achieved the best A-Level results for girls in this country…
No Comments »Running too Fast
It’s not simply on bad days that we feel we are running too fast; even when things are going well we just don’t have enough time to think.
2 Comments »Magnanimity
“The biggest shake-up of education since the 1944 Education Act” proclaims the media while Mr Gove loses no opportunity to explain that this will revitalise the economy and strengthen individuals to accept greater responsibility for themselves. We live, he and the Prime Minister tell us in most difficult times.
No Comments »The Apprentice
Apprenticeship is back in the news. What England needs, Vince Cable the new Business Secretary said on The Today Programme, is many more apprentices… men and women whose studies combine the theoretical with the applied.
No Comments »Eradicating Underperformance
It is a month since the Election, and the new coalition government is beginning to shake itself out. Last summer the Initiative issued a Briefing Paper for Parliamentarians on the Design Faults at the Heart of English Education. Each MP had a copy and so shortly will all recently-elected Members.
No Comments »View from the Classroom
The Initiative receives many fascinating emails, but few are as thought-provoking as the one from a seventeen-year-old English girl who had been at a discussion about Overschooled but Undereducated at the Mahindra United World College in India.
No Comments »Competitive or Collaborative?
It is an ages-old question; are humans predominantly competitive or collaborative? If we can be both what conditions how we behave from moment to moment?
No Comments »The Urgent and the Important
It is nearly forty years ago that, as a newly appointed Head, an older colleague gave me a piece of priceless advice. “Divide the morning’s mail into two piles, the urgent and the important. Immediately deal with the important and leave the urgent until later in the day when you will probably find that somebody else has sorted it out.”
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