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Recent Posts
- EYFS Reforms Consultation Response
- Learning: Not At School
- Simply Put
- Wagging the Dog
- Growing Weather
- Coping with Critique
- Humble
- A Child Called It
- The Medium and the Message
- Joining the Dots
- In Partnership
- Navigate the World
- The Power
- Advice for NQTs
- The Wrong Sort of Child
- Expected Standard
- The Trouble with Knowledge
- The Firmest Foundations
- If You Build It
- A Bad Idea
Category Archives: Schools
The Wrong Sort of Child
Do not apply to come to our school If you cannot comply with every rule And if your child has SEND We’re not the place for them to be. There’s another school just up the road And we don’t plan … Continue reading
Posted in Compliance, Education, Expectations, Schools, Selection
9 Comments
Working with the Enemy
I have a confession to make. I have taken my children out of school for educational reasons. Personally I’d never do it just ‘to go on a holiday’, especially not to Disneyland (which they’d hate anyway). Even though we have … Continue reading
Posted in Parents, Schools, Teachers
2 Comments
Eyes of a Child
“A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.” Groucho Marx You are drifting along the canals of Amsterdam, gazing out of the windows at the houseboats that line the banks. Outside the windows … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Parenting, Schools
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Tear Down the Wall
I was thirteen years old in 1979, when Pink Floyd’s double album “The Wall” came out. When my friends and I first heard “Another Brick in the Wall”, we didn’t need to ask what Pink Floyd meant by “no dark … Continue reading
Posted in Behaviour, Children, Schools
2 Comments
Shame on You
This week there was a story in the news about a school where the head teacher wrote a letter to parents, politely asking them to stop dropping off their children in the mornings while still wearing their pyjamas. Only a … Continue reading
Posted in Parents, Schools
13 Comments
Hate Will Tear Us Apart
I guess it was inevitable that an Election defeat would be followed by a period of brow-beating, on the part of the politically minded. I’m not a member of the Labour Party, but their philosophy is just about the closest … Continue reading
Posted in Government, Schools
1 Comment
Knowledge: The First Five Years
When I was born I didn’t know much I knew how to scream And I knew how to touch. I didn’t know who All the big people were My eyes didn’t focus My world was a blur. But now five … Continue reading
Not Enough Kittens
Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels as though the language, attitudes and rhetoric around education are going through a peculiarly masculine phase. Grit, resilience, DIRT, rigour: there’s definitely a lack of fluffy kitten type words such as empathy, kindness, … Continue reading
Posted in Schools
4 Comments
Ask Sam
Yesterday, the new Childcare Minister Sam Gymiah gave a speech to Policy Exchange about how he sees the future of childcare, and why he wants more schools to offer childcare provision for two-year-olds. At the moment, the school sector makes … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Early Years, Schools
8 Comments
Sledgehammer
At first glance it is hard to question. A policy that all children should be in school during all of term time. Very well done, Mr Gove. Back up your policy with a fine, have a focus on attendance in … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Flexibility, Government, Schools
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