Sep 03
The last few weeks in August in the UK – and, indeed, in British international schools across the world – are a hive of activity (and emotion). These are the weeks when the results of A Levels and then GCSEs are published, and with them, university destinations for students are confirmed, and teachers reflect on …
Aug 22
What a great Saturday morning last week! Quite apart from the fact that we had lovely friends staying, and I was able to meet some of their equally lovely friends too (great educators all, it must be said!), it was a real treat to spend an hour with my 16 year old daughter watching and …
Aug 13
I know that I am by far not the only person to have enjoyed reading ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ this summer, given the rave reviews that the book has received – although I offer a particular thank you to the friend who recommended it to me. She is also on the Board of the Edinburgh International …
Jul 28
It may have been a while since I posted on this blogsite, but this does not mean that I haven’t been busy writing, so I thought I would include a few links here, to point to some of the articles I have produced over the past few months … First, this was an article I …
Jul 13
I was delighted to be invited to the inaugural Future Fwd conference in Warwick at the beginning of July – 2 days of in-depth reflection on what is really needed in education, with strands led by innovative thinkers in tech and gaming, business, the creative arts, curriculum and entrepreneurship. The conference – a collaboration between …
Apr 03
I have had a number of surprising conversations this past week with a number of people, all of which have made me reflect on the impact we have in our life through the actions we take. These conversations have been about the late Duke of Edinburgh, who died last year, and whose Memorial Service took …
Sep 14
Einstein once wrote: “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’ – a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.” Einstein then went on to say: “This delusion is a kind …
Dec 04
I am indebted to Richard Ovenden, the University of Oxford’s Bodley’s Librarian, for the title of this blog; speaking last week at a City of London Livery Company Event in Vintners’ Hall, he used the phrase during the course of his fascinating (and passionate) insight into the work that librarians now do to educate their …
Jun 07
In a recent conversation with a young female relative, I asked her about her experiences of online gaming, as I know that she is a devotee. She explained why she enjoyed it so much – the challenge, the camaraderie, and so on – but she went on to explain how difficult it was for girls …
Jun 02
Writing in an opinion piece on 1 June in Today’s Zaman, the English language version of one of Turkey’s most widely circulated newspapers, Ricardo Hausmann questions government policies around the world that point towards education as a growth strategy. Education, he says, has had mixed success in raising worker productivity, and it is worker productivity …