Whether it is true or not is open to interpretation, like so much nowadays, but I like the story of the Chinese proverb that turns out to be a curse: ‘May you live in interesting times.’  One of the reasons I have stayed in the teaching profession for so many years is that no two da...

Our Academic Enrichment Programme (AEP) event this week was a well-attended and well-received round table debate about climate change.  I have always advocated attendance at any talks or presentations by visiting speakers, and I try my best to encourage colleagues to take pupils to events outsi...

In my experience of school leadership, the best Secretaries of State for Education are the ones who don’t actually do very much, simply because too much change causes too many problems. If I were to ask you to name the last ten people to hold the office, how many could you remember? Charles Cl...

The more complicated the world seems to become – even if in reality it is no worse today than it has been for hundreds of years – the simpler I find myself trying to make things. For example, I think I have made genuine progress with my educational philosophy in recent months, reducing a...

In a couple of weeks, the world will mark the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, when Neil Armstrong stepped from the lunar module and uttered the immortal words, ‘This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Immortal, yes, and also non-sensical, because man and...

Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ was one of the set works I studied nearly forty years ago for my O Level English Literature exam, when one of the first things we were taught was that the correct line is ‘nor any drop to drink’ rather than ‘and not a drop...