Apr 25
Yesterday I attended the annual conference of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools (SCIS) in Edinburgh, and as usual at such events, was given great food for thought. SCIS represents over 70 independent member schools in Scotland, and the debate ranged across various topics, including the publication on that same day of a report demonstrating …
Apr 17
My latest communication from Indigenous Community Volunteers in Australia, whose website can be found here, prompted me to reflect again, very positively, on the power of connecting and sharing experience, and the immensely encouraging effect on individuals and on communities when people reach out and collaborate with one another. The vision of ICV is of …
Apr 07
I marvel frequently at how amazing human beings can be. It is a helpful – and true – contrast to the multiple messages we receive every day from different directions about how human beings can have a dark side of cruelty and violence; it is also an incredibly useful discipline to inspire to action – …
Mar 08
The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911, and then – as now – it was (and is) an opportunity to highlight and celebrate the achievements of women, and to focus attention on the work that still needed (and needs) to be done to ensure that women have equal rights, in whatever context they …
Feb 25
I had a very good experience recently when I phoned a Government department to sort out a claim: the (pleasantly reassuring) computer voice asked me to say in a few words what it was I was calling about, repeated back to me a very accurate summary of my issue, and then took me through a …
Feb 20
Friday of this week marks International Mother Tongue Day, which has been celebrated since February 2000, with a clear mandate from the UN to promote tolerance through recognising the diversity of linguistic communication in the world. This statement on the UN’s page devoted to the Day is striking: “Languages are the most powerful instruments of …
May 05
I have just returned from the annual UK Boarding Schools Association Heads’ Conference in Bristol – conveniently close to home, although it was a delight to meet two of my new Australian fellow Heads, for whom it was not particularly close, but who had made the effort to come and connect. The opening speaker was …
May 01
I have just been re-reading Susie Orbach’s article in the Guardian, published on 20th April, and I feel rather buoyed up by the experience. Writing about the Body Confidence Awards which took place in the House of Commons earlier that week, she drew attention, of course, to the grip which the ‘beauty’ industry has on …
Apr 28
If you read today’s Times or Telegraph, you will see headlines that suggest that girls’ schools are a dying breed: ‘Pull your socks up or you’ll die out, peer tells girls’ schools’; ‘Girls’ schools ‘going out of fashion’, expert warns’ – although the print edition of The Times has the rather more accurate headline “Girls’ …
Apr 25
Morning assemblies at St Mary’s Calne are often taken entirely by the girls, from seating the school to the notices at the end, with words of wisdom in the middle, and I experienced a particularly great and moving assembly on Saturday last week. The subject was Christy Brown, the celebrated author who was born with …