Opinion

Here I comment on a wide range of issues from education to politics, the arts and more. I welcome lively and opinionated debate, so please leave your comments.

  • Local schools should be at the heart of the ‘The Big Society’

    The boy smashed a bottle right in front of me and then snarled. I thought for a moment whether I should confront him. Then I recognised him; he attended the local school — the one my son will go to soon — and so I decided that for once I was going to say that […]

  • What secondary school should I choose for my son? The comprehensive, the Academy or the Federated School?

    My son is in Year 6 of primary school in Tower Hamlets; there’s real anxiety amongst the parents at his school about choosing a secondary school. The local comprehensive, within LA control, despite being radically improved, has a “bad” reputation. All sorts of rumours are floating around about it; students being stabbed there, rampant bullying, […]

  • Are too few incompetent teachers being sacked?

    Some commentators have felt that there are as many as 17,000 incompetent teachers in our schools, and yet only a handful of them have been sacked officially. A recent Panorama programme suggested that these teachers are passed from school to school because headteachers are too frightened to sack them. It’s basically easier for a head […]

  • It’s The Parents, Stupid — Re-thinking the issues surrounding private and state education

    There was a good turn out at the Wellington Festival of Education, making me think there’s a real value in running something like this in an environment which is less loaded with privilege and dripping with elitism. Wellington College’s grounds are stunning: it has huge grounds, hundreds of acres of playing fields and lots of […]

  • The National Scandal! Teaching Reading — my correspondence with Susan Godsland at the RRF

     Speaking at the Reading Reform Foundation conference has really crystallised my thoughts on the teaching on reading. I found it both positive and depressing. Positive in that the RRF is offering concrete solutions that appear to work, but depressing but they’ve been ignored for too long. Here is my correspondence so far with Susan Godsland. […]

  • Have government policies failed to teach our nation to read?

    I spoke at WAVES — the Reading Reform Foundation Conference — today, giving my views on twenty years of teaching — and sometimes failing — to teach reading. I spoke about the changing times: how when I first taught there was no internet, no mobile phones, no social networking sites, and how the class reader was […]

  • Is it harder than ever to be a teacher?

    There’s a crisis of identity at the heart of the teaching profession. We don’t know exactly who we are or what our roles should entail. Are we the founts of all knowledge who pour it like milk into the empty vessels of our pupils? Or are we merely facilitators of learning, guiding our pupils through […]

  • Exciting developments in the E Book world

    There are lots of new opportunities in the world of E-Books, which I’m just getting my head around. Here are some interesting sites: Follow these links for a flavour of what’s happening in the world of digital texts: www.futureofthebook.org.uk www.bookfutures.com www.fictional-stimulus.ning.com www.ifsoflo.ning.com www.insearchoflosttim.net www.songsofimaginationanddigitisation.net www.thegoldennotebook.org

  • Should teachers use force to break up pupils who are fighting?

    The question is a tricky one. As a young teacher, I got into trouble for pulling two pupils apart while they were scrapping on the floor. One of the pupils claimed I’d manhandled him and complained to a senior member of staff. Luckily, my manager knew what the child was like and didn’t believe his […]

  • Should we get rid of exams?

    There’s a lot of evidence that exams actually help children learn if they are properly designed and executed. The problem at the moment is that there are far too many exams and what’s being tested is far too narrow. I think we should set more real tests in our exams, using ‘real-life’ facilities. For example, […]

  • Are truants overwhelmingly from poor backgrounds?

    Recent research completed by the Tories suggests what we’ve known for a long time that kids from socially deprived backgrounds are much more likely to bunk off school than their middle class peers. I appeared on BBC Breakfast talking about the issue. I categorised children who bunk off into three categories: the arrogant, the alienated […]

  • One of the most important books of the Noughties

    It’s getting to that point when we’re all looking back at the decade and thinking about what are the really important books. My vote goes to Sathnam Sanghera’s The Boy With A Top Knot, a brilliant memoir about Sathnam’s quest to find the truth about his father’s madness. Satnam grew up in Wolverhampton in the […]

  • Abu Dhabi — The only city thriving in this recession

    Abu Dhabi is not suffering like Dubai because this Emirate has cash reserves of billions, built up over the years by storing the profits from its oil. Now it’s beginning to spend it, building Dubai-style malls and hotels. I’m here visiting a friend who is the Business Editor of the National, a new newspaper set […]

  • Why have we gone so wrong with the way we educate our children?

    The Cambridge Review of Primary Education is speaking sense to me. We have constructed a curriculum that fundamentally alienates our children with its emphasis upon attainment and its lack of thought on how we intrinsically motivate our children. Document 1 Document 2

  • Should parents take their children out of school during school time?

    I argued on BBC Breakfast that they should not. I cited the example of ‘Katie’ (not the pupils’ real name) who had missed weeks of school because her parents were taking her out regularly of school during term time, going on cheap holidays. They lied to the school and said that she was ill. There […]

  • Should parents pay for solicitors to help them get the school of their choice?

    Emphatically not! You’re far better off reading a school’s admission criteria very carefully and reading books like my Working The System. A BBC investigation has revealed that parents are paying lawyers thousands of pounds to get into the school of their choice. I appeared on BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio 5 Live and explained that […]

  • Are Blair’s children better educated than previous generations?

    So the first set of GCSE results have come through of children entirely educated under New Labour. Has Blair’s mantra of ‘education, education, education’ worked? I think not. The GCSE results are just now trust-worthy; they are effectively rigged. Proper analyses, such as the OECD rankings, where countries are compared for their pupils’ attainment in […]

  • The uses and abuses of jargon

    Have we gone mad with the way we use jargon? A sentence used by the police in this article suggests so. I appeared on the Steve Nolan show, talking about this, partly defending jargon. In some cases, it can be helpful. For example, the label “Special Educational Needs” is jargony, but it’s far better than […]

  • Should parents be banned from sports’s days?

    This is a tricky one. Sports’ days are about children doing their best on track and field and not about parents soaking up reflected glory. One headteacher has done exactly this though: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197284/Schools-bar-parents-sports-day–paedophiles.html?ITO=1490 I appeared on BBC Breakfast explaining why the head had good reasons to do this, given the horrific climate that the internet […]

  • Should schools ban short skirts?

    I think they should. At the moment, there’s a bit of an epidemic of short skirts sweeping through the land far faster than the swine-flu virus. Some of this attire doesn’t actually deserve the name of ‘skirt’, ‘belt’ would be more appropriate! Quite frankly, I don’t think that the girls wearing them are aware of the negative […]