What a stimulating day! It was a pleasure to discuss wide-ranging educational issues at the Wellington College Festival of Education; I sat on a panel debating the question: What sort of schools do we need? For me, the answer is simple – we need great schools. There are, I believe, three main elements to this …
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Jun 18
Founders’ Day and the importance of valuing our history
At the end of this week – on Saturday 23rd June – we celebrate our annual Founders’ Day at St Mary’s Calne. For me – for us all – it is arguably the most important day in the school;s calendar: a day when we remember the Founders of the school, and value their legacy. We …
Jun 04
A marvellous day – and a tremendous cause
What historic times we are living in! Yesterday – the day of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee on the Thames – may have dawned grey and cold, and the rain may have caught up with us all before the afternoon was out, but there was no denying the fact that everyone who was present on the …
May 31
Our young people need YOU. The importance of mentors.
Earlier this week, at an excellent Footdown Leadership Forum, I came across a super organisation which mentors young people to prepare them for the world of work: SATRO. Based in Surrey and the South East, it reaches out to 15,000 young people each year (5,000 primary pupils and 10,000 secondary pupils), through a combination of programmes, …
Apr 23
Body Confidence winners! ‘Body Image in the Primary School’: clear, practical and straight to the point
Congratulations to Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland, speakers at the last November’s GSA conference, who won the award for Education at last week’s Body Confidence Awards for their book, ‘Body Image in the Primary School’. It is a great book, aimed at teachers in primary schools who have responsibility for personal and social development, and …
Apr 16
Mary Poppins and the power of dreams
I wonder if PL Travers could have imagined, when she wrote her first Mary Poppins novel in 1934, that her work would have had such an impact on generations of children to come. This impact is not limited to children, in fact; I can testify, having spent a joyous 2 hours watching the stage musical …
Apr 13
Miss Wallis and a passion for girls’ education
I have just been reading ‘The Search for Marie Wallis’ by Gerri Nicholas; Miss Marie Wallis was the founding principal of Ascham School, Sydney, Australia, and I shall be following in her footsteps in January 2013, when I become Ascham’s 10th Head in its history. Miss Wallis founded the school in Darling Point in Sydney …
Apr 05
Trayvon Martin and America’s conscience
Last week – and this week, still – America has been transfixed by the Trayvon Martin case. It has been the topic of news debate after news debate, and has been addressed by politicians, the President, church leaders and ordinary citizens, many thousands of whom have attended rallies and vigils. Why? Because this case has …
Mar 23
Let teachers be teachers
I offer my thanks to a former Headmistress of Ascham School in Sydney who pointed me in the direction of The New York Review of Books and a recent review by Diane Ravitch of a book by Pasi Sahlberg, ‘Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?’. Finland, of course, which …
Mar 20
Learning at the heart of every school … but what to learn? That is the question.
The OECD published a report last week about leadership in schools across the world; entitled ‘Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century’, it had as its core intention an exploration of how headteachers and principals of schools are developed into effective leaders, and how, by sharing good practice, we can all learn …