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  • Class warfare

    I actually clapped my hands in agreement and sympathy as I finished watching this documentary. I had been expecting an over-sensationalised picture of classroom violence and mayhem, but instead, I watched an incisive, analytical programme which was all the more shocking because it was so rational. It was not Big Brother meets The Blackboard Jungle, […]

  • Kelly gives Labour its best day this term

    Far from being the worst day in Labour’s second term – the New Statesman’s Richard Reeves described it as “the biggest domestic policy failure” of this parliament – the Education Secretary’s rejection of the Tomlinson Report makes it their best. The educational establishment’s howl of fury at Ruth Kelly’s education White Paper, published on Thursday, […]

  • One rogue pupil held up my class for a year

    The way that Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, has attempted to discipline the wayward Prince Charles makes me wonder how he would have dealt with Lancel Hendricks – one of the most difficult pupils I have ever taught. Mr Clarke is fuming because he believes that the Prince’s views about education are "old-fashioned and out […]

  • Well done, Mum – you got an A

    Many parents will have barely raised an eyebrow at Prince Harry’s alleged assertion that he wrote only a "tiny, tiny bit" of his art coursework. "Helping" their children with coursework is something many parents take for granted. Look, their argument goes, I don’t want to cheat, but if everyone else has spent weeks on a […]

  • Up to no good

    The lesson had been going very well until Philip Prentice, the school curriculum adviser, stalked into the room. I was in mid-flow, putting on my most impassioned American voice as I boomed out Willy Loman’s immortal words in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman: "Biff is a lazy bum!" Prentice twitched, and stared at me […]

  • Don’t blame Harry!

    The suggestion that Prince Harry cheated at his A-level coursework did not surprise me. According to a tape recording produced by Sarah Forsyth, Prince Harry’s art teacher at Eton, Harry says that he only wrote a “tiny, tiny bit” of his Art coursework: the rest was apparently written by Miss Forsyth. Any experienced teacher knows […]

  • The select few

    Tony Blair has laid out a five-year plan for schools that will mean the “best schools” will be able to abandon the shackles of local-authority control, and pay teachers according to the market. The Conservative party has similar proposals to allow all schools freedom from LEAs. Both parties are promising parents the chance to choose […]

  • Now I know selection works

    Selection is a taboo word in the Labour Party. So much so that, in his five-year plan for schools unveiled last week, the Prime Minister explicitly forbade schools to select their pupils. But he wants to free the best schools from local authority control, allowing them to set their own wages and curricula and giving […]

  • I’m a Teacher, Get Me Out of Here!

    The book that tells you the unvarnished truth about teaching. By turns hilarious, sobering and downright horrifying, this contains the information you won’t find in any school prospectus.

  • I’ve learnt my lesson

    Joan ushered me into her office. She grabbed me by the arms and told me to stand still. I looked at her in astonishment. Who was this woman? Why was she touching me in such a mumsy fashion? ‘So they’ve picked you, have they?’ she said, narrowing her eyes at me. I guessed she was […]

  • The truth about audiobooks

    Blandness and apathy prevail in the world of audio books, but there is a little rebellious corner fighting for the imagination: Naxos AudioBooks. As part of the budget classical CD company Naxos, Nicolas Soames, the managing director, is able to draw upon an amazing back catalogue to provide music for each audio book. ‘ Sometimes,’ […]

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