C.E. Jottings

Life long learning. Life long play (with thanks to @MaxMckeown) #CondEd

I especially liked the opening of this blog posting "Life long learning. Life long play" from Max Mckeown (@MaxMckeown on Twitter). The whole post is worth a read. There’s an entrepreneurial art, the ability to see, and the guts to grab opportunities. Like all art, people have different aptitudes, like all art, people can learn. Learning the entrepreneurial art, requires the confidence to bet on yourself. And that confidence can be learned through practice and praise. If society wants more... Read more →

Committee to hold oral evidence session on the Special Educational Needs Green Paper #sengp http://bit.ly/leh3ct Read more →

Gove on Academies in response to Wolf Report

I regard the number of mainstream schools converting to Academies as a key statistical indicator in the environment in which we have concluded that proposing Paces Special Free School is the correct strategy for Paces School and for (part of) the future of Conductive Education in the UK. Responding to the Wolf Report in Parliament, Michael Gove had this to say on Academies: We have also created more than 400 new academies, tripling the number we inherited, creating more academies... Read more →

Excellent Yorkshire Post feature on Paces' Special Free School bid

I am very pleased to be able to share with you a link to yesterday's excellent Yorkshire Post article on Paces' ambition to become a Special Free School. Click on ... Pace Setter in parent-run school schools looking to secure state funding or go to http://bit.ly/iuHfNL There's a great photo, too. Read more →

WCMT open for 2012 Travel Fellowship applications

In 2007 I was delighted and honoured to be awarded a Travel Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. A fully-funded 4 weeks enabled me to visit people and projects associated with cerebral palsy in Canada, America - and the CE World Congress in Sweden. Applications have now opened for Travel Fellowships for 2012. Check out the WCMT website. Jamie Balfour, Director General of the WCMT, writes: Would experience overseas enhance your effectiveness in your career or field of interest?... Read more →

One reaction to recent NSN Special Free Schools event

I was unable to attend the recent event for proposers of Special Free Schools though our Vice-Chair of Trustees did. My sense of the SEN Green Paper, the application guidelines for Special Free Schools and much of the content of this event are of piece, raising interesting (and as yet unresolved) policy issues. Something of this might be behind the anger that Eithne Leming of Suffolk Special Free Schools reports on her blog post about the event: "SEN and AP... Read more →

Motivation and IQ

Motivation a factor in intelligence and success in life? Well, would you believe it? ""I hope that social scientists, educators, and policy-makers turn a more critical eye to any kind of measure, intelligence or otherwise as how hard people try could be as important to success in life as intellectual ability itself." IQ is as much a measure of motivation as intelligence, study finds What was it Dr Haris said? Something like conductive education being about enhancing the motivation to... Read more →