I am sickened by the News (7.1.21): gripped by shock. A child has been murdered by three other children. Yes – children! When a thirteen year old boy (Olly Stephens) has been stabbed by others around his own age, it should make us all DO something. But what? What has gone wrong to make three…

My last blog discussed why teaching needs to be a caring profession and outlined how I began – teaching maths to secondary school kids in bottom sets. So my question (that I have never considered until now) is: why was it assumed (by that Head) that a least experienced teacher could work successfully with pupils…

As a retired teacher I want to extol the virtues of my profession. There has been much hype in the media about the role of teachers – and the difficulties of keeping children in school safely during this pandemic. This week I have been so heartened by a message sent by my granddaughter’s (Year 9)…

Last week I had a rant about Amazon and its attempts to control markets. This week I want to say a bit more about capitalism as an ideology. Capitalism is not all bad. In fact, an article in the Times (Matthew Syed, 6.12.20) argues that capitalism has civilised humanity – rather than corrupted it. Syed…

What a shock to discover that one of my favourite children’s authors, Roald Dahl, who died in 1990, aged 74, was openly Anti-Semitic. His family have recently issued an apology for the author’s self-confessed views. Well, they would: after all, his estate earns them millions annually. In the notorious New Statesman interview in 1983, recently…