C.E. Jottings

No city for old parents

Andrew Sutton begins his latest posting, "No country for old carers" as follows: In this morning’s issue of The Australian, Sue Corrigan (2009) publishes an extensive statement of the dreadful plight of so many Australian families bringing up young children with disabilities, and then caring for them as adults. Sue Corrigan's article "The Struggle for Care" is a powerful read and I highly recommend it. Andrew, who has known Sue for very many years, observes, towards the end of his... Read more →

Cerebral palsy and menopause

One of the delights of Glenda Watson-Hyatt's blog is that Glenda goes places where no-one else does. Her latest posting is all about the lack of information - even on Google - on cerebral palsy and menopause. Can anyone help? Best read Glenda's blog first. Something that I've reckoned would be really helpful, ever since I came across (a) Partners in Policymaking many years ago and their practice of bringing together parents and adults with a learning disability, and (b)... Read more →

A new building fit for conductive schooling?

Education Guardian today has a supplement on the 'building schools for the future programme'. Much of interest to read. My eye was caught by an article headlined "Replace hard hats with thinking caps" and below that "The building of a new school enables a head to rethink the entire way a school is run from the use of class time, to the pastoral structure." What goes for heads, goes for CEOs and Trustees too of course. The actual article begins... Read more →

Paces School secures NMSS status

1992 is a long time ago. That’s when a few of us in Sheffield set out to do something different for the education of our children with cerebral palsy. We went with our children – like countless other families from all over the UK – to the Peto Institute in Budapest, Hungary. There we learned about conductive education. 1997. That’s nearly 12 years ago. In that year we set up Paces Campus as a community centre and opened Paces School... Read more →

Mother's courage

Under the headline "Mother's Courage: How a Mum won the battle for her disabled son's schooling", The Independent reporter Hilary Wilce tells a remarkable tale, that is perhaps more remarkable than even she realised. One notable feature that will resonate with most readers familiar with CE in the UK is the role played by the Pace Centre at Aylesbury. How I wanted to know more of their side of the story. What a tale it would have made had it... Read more →

A business model for CE collaboration

We can continue to struggle in our silos, or we can find new ways to collaborate. I would be pleased to hear from any CE organisation interested in exploring collaborations. Here's an interesting model. The area of interest - financial inclusion - doesn't matter. It's the business model - how they collaborate - that's interesting. You can visit the website but the gist of it is copied below. Note especially the last sentence. The 3 partners work in close co-operation.... Read more →

Business models - embracing 'alien' concepts

The following I wrote "off the top of my head" one morning in response to the posting New Business Models by Andrew Sutton. I had intended to revise it for publication but Life - and perhaps especially blog-life - is not like that. So here it is, unedited. Dear Andrew I do not know if what follows makes any sense. It is not a response to your piece in any meaningful sense of the word ‘response’. Neither is it complete... Read more →

Remembering we came to clear the swamp

I set out to start this posting with a round-up of headlines from UK newspapers. It was too depressing. You must check them for yourself if you are strong enough. Once more I am reminded: When you are up to your neck in crocodiles, it can be difficult to remember that you came to clear the swamp. The temptation is to retreat into the silo; to ignore the vital broader questions such as new business models; to focus on sauve... Read more →