C.E. Jottings

O brave new world! That has such people in it! Jim Knight's ideas for schools & governors

I'm just going to quote this. I first found it via twitter on the excellent Clerk to Governors blog, where there is a link to the original Times Educational Supplement article by former Schools Minister Lord Jim Knight from which it is taken. I went to school and began teaching in a world in which the vast majority of schools were maintained by the local education authority. The Director of Education was king (usually, rather than queen) of the local... Read more →

Hanif Kureishi can't skip .... but he is an artist of his own life #CondEd

Here's an article I think most of us in Conductive Education will understand. Unfortunately, it's in yesterday's Sunday Times Magazine section, behind Rupert's paywall: Think and You'll Miss It by writer Hanif Kureishi. He begins with an amusing admission that, having recently tried, he cannot skip with a rope; his 13-year old son, on the other hand, to whom he handed the rope, "did the whole thing backwards, singing a Beatles song". Which leads him shortly to: "My son who... Read more →

What is the purpose of schools? asked Anthony Seddon

What is the purpose of schools? Writing in the Sunday Times (£pay site) a couple of weeks ago (“Think Tank: New Ideas for the 21st Century”), Anthony Seddon, Master of Wellington College, approved much that Michael Gove has done as Education Secretary, whilst suggesting “If he has a blind spot, however, it is his lack of a vision for the purpose of schools”. “Gove has let exam passes become the all-important validator of the worth of a school .... Exams,... Read more →