Aug 24
I recently read – in one intensive, all-encompassing go – We Need to Talk About Kevin. I know that Lionel Shriver wrote it in 2003, and we are now almost a decade on, in 2012; I know too that it was made into a film last year, so I am well aware that I am …
Aug 22
Figures for this year’s A Levels, released last week, show that there has been another increase this year (on average, 3%) in the number of students taking A Level Science and Maths subjects. Physics has seen an especially positive rise: the total number of taking Physics A Level this year increased by 5%, up from …
Aug 20
Janice Turner has written a fantastic piece in Saturday’s Times magazine, and if you have access to the Times online, then do read it. Over six pages of glorious photos of women Olympic athletes, she took us through the triumphs of these Games, which really did place women on the front pages for their achievements, …
Aug 18
This week has brought another excellent crop of A Level results, and I send a special congratulations to the leavers of St Mary’s Calne, who are now headed for leading universities across the UK and the world, including seven (of the year group of fifty) to Oxbridge, and three to North America. They are raring …
Aug 15
On Monday this week I was a guest on BBC Breakfast TV, hosted by Bill Turnbull and Susannah Reid at Lund Point, a block of residential flats overlooking the Olympic Park. What a view! The studio itself was actually on the roof, and I and Liz Nicholl of UK Sport, who was also speaking in …
Aug 12
The motto of London 2012 has been “Inspire a Generation”, and now that the Olympics are over, the work to make this happen must begin in earnest. And although we want all boys and girls to be inspired, there is a particular case to be made for working to inspire the next generation of girls. …
Aug 10
I came across a fantastic website recently, and I thoroughly recommend that you visit it. In fact, it is a subsection of the magazine Marie Claire’s website, and it is entitled ‘Inspirational Women‘. The introduction on the site says it all: “There’s no doubt about it – the women of the world are truly inspirational. …
Aug 07
A couple of months ago, I had a preview of elements of the St Mary’s Calne Venus Flytrap production of ‘Macbeth Unsexed’, which opened today at the Edinburgh Fringe and is showing at C Eca, Venue 50, at 3pm for the next week. The immensely talented actors, most aged 17, took their A Level Theatre …
Aug 04
Before the Olympic Games even started, the omens were good, with the news that for the first time, every country represented had both male and female athletes. Then, the first GB medals came from women, and the tally at this point still looks fairly female heavy. Commentators have been delighting in the performance of the …
Aug 02
‘A changing world’: how often do we hear these words?! More frequently than not, they are accompanied by a frisson of anxiety, of an age gone by and lost forever, of an attempt in vain to halt the progress of time, in search of a better, more stable past. Undeniably we live in – and, …