Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. And I want to begin with a question. How would you define ‘education’? Think about it for a moment, and jot down some stuff. Done that? Good. Next question. What would you therefore define as ‘educational’? I’m thinking activities, projects, participatory things, events
I think it would be fair to say that January has not, so far, been exactly characterised by balmy breezes and long, sunny days here in the UK. Not to put too fine a point on it, it has mostly been grey, cold, damp and depressing. Yesterday morning I peeled
In the early 1990s, as I finished primary school and got ready to take on a new uniform and a new place to start my senior education, I spent several years learning Latin. I was already speaking French, and had been learning it since I was pretty young; but in
It’s taken me a while to write this piece. Don’t think, from my radio silence on the subject, that I haven’t been thinking a lot about the various debates, campaigns and speeches that have emerged for and against the so-called EBacc (English Baccalaureate). But there’s a lot to read, a
Almost a year ago, I featured a post on this blog called ‘Amateur bravery’. In it, I described the joy and then intense upset and frustration of feeling useless in the face of a tap-dancing teacher who did not know how to empathise with his class, and who, in the
Last night, I went to see the musical Made in Dagenham at the Adelphi Theatre. I remembered the film very fondly, and if the songs turned out to be not all that memorable, the comic timing was superb (it’s worth it for Harold Wilson’s dance routine alone). Since I knew
This week, I was looking forward to picking from a host of possible topics for discussion. I had lovely suggestions from the folk at Opera Talk, pressing issues from papers and discussion boards, and a range of subjects in my ever-expanding ‘list of things to blog about’. But instead, I
