An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Outside a visit to the dentist, there are few things in life as unappealing as a school reunion. That’s particularly the case when it marks an anniversary with a big number attached. In our case, 30 years. On the face of it, it’s a micro-disaster in the making. The plan is to take a hundred
My daughter is in Year 1 at our local C of E school and my son will start Reception this autumn. I grew up in America, so my children’s introduction to the British primary education system is mine too. I was pleased to learn that my daughter spent her first term studying the Battle of
Queen Ethelburga’s, York Set in 220 acres of beautiful countryside between Harrogate and York, Queen Ethelburga’s College is an award-winning day and boarding school that welcomes girls and boys aged from three months to 19 years and boarders from Year 3. It is known for its high-ranking academic performance. College, one of its two senior
My kids, at our local comprehensive, go on school trips to Leigh-on-Sea. I went to a much fancier school, so I went on school trips to Leningrad and Moscow. The first time must have been in 1990. We were all going through dramatic changes; and so was Russia – not that as cossetted, self-absorbed 16-year-olds
In the end, it was the sports kit that persuaded us to pull the plug: two technical training tops at a cost of £90. A directive had come down from the senior school that all pupils must be in new gear from Kukri (official supplier to county cricket clubs and Commonwealth Games England) by the
In 1979, I was 11 years old, and I had a quite remarkable teacher. Don’t worry, though – this isn’t going to be one of those anodyne paeans to an inspirational educator that the Department for Education use in their ads to lure people into teaching. In fact, if the lady I’ll refer to here
If you want a handy metaphor for contemporary childrearing, it’s a colourful plastic box with big red buttons on it. Yoto is the name, and before long, you’ll be seeing it where you already see children using screens – so pretty much everywhere. One in 50 British homes with a child under 12 is said
It was gratifying to see the recent Unesco report recommending moderation on the topic of tech in the classroom. I do hope the Department for Education, Ofsted and every school head in the country has read it. Britain seems to have submitted to the tidal wave of digital learning without so much as a minnow
The latest headmaster of Eton has been recruited from a major private equity firm to help drive the brand’s growth in China. The consortium of hedge funds that own Winchester has been involved in a bitter takeover battle with Rugby, centred mainly on the redevelopment value of its playing fields. Westminster has been acquired by
Oxford and Cambridge have released figures showing how many offers they gave to pupils from schools in the 2022 Ucas application cycle. We have combined the figures in this table. It shows how well state grammars and sixth-form colleges compete with independent schools. Over the years, both universities have increased the proportion of acceptances from
Are you totting up the cost of school fees? Are you turning your piggy bank upside down, white-faced? Yes, the cost of private education is the ultimate first-world problem. But even among the ‘haves’, some are luckier than others. The global super-rich pay school fees from lavish earnings or trust funds. The rest of us,
This summer an independent panel of experts assembled by the Department for Education will assess the state of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE). And what a state it is. Another lesson plan asks children to consider whether ‘virginity is made up by society’ Now compulsory for all secondary-school pupils, RSE is authorised by recklessly loose
‘Have you met Sperm?’ a friend from Westminster School asked me at a teenage party once. Sperm was a charming, pretty, confident girl but, still, I didn’t feel quite ready to use her startling nickname on our first meeting. My own nickname – Mons, Latin for Mountain or Mount – seemed unadventurously fogeyish by comparison.
There’s worrying news for all who care about the incomparable cultural phenomenon that is the singing of choral evensong in British cathedrals every day of the week. Canterbury cathedral announced in March that it’s cutting ties with its local independent choir school, St Edmund’s, ending a happy relationship that has lasted for 50 years. St
The British are, on the whole, rather rubbish at languages. We all know people who live up to P.G. Wodehouse’s description of the ‘shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French’. As more of the world speaks English, our monolingualism is getting worse. According to the British Council, only one in
A friend from Lewisham, south London, reports occasionally on her children’s state school, which has a reputation for being strife- and strike-prone. However, the children themselves – nursery and reception – are engaged in more calming activities. They are doing mindfulness. ‘My son loves it,’ she says. They sit down cross-legged at least once a
It is no surprise that a speechwriter and a barrister-turned-politician would think the art of speech-making should be taught in schools. It’s like pig farmers at a barbecue eulogising the nutritional value and superior flavour of pork. The speechwriter in question is Peter Hyman and the former barrister is Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s presumptive next
Hurstpierpoint College, West Sussex Hurstpierpoint College – or ‘Hurst’ – aims to provide an ‘excellent all-round education’ that enables every child to ‘achieve their own personal bests’. The school is located in the West Sussex countryside, is co-educational and for pupils aged four to 18 years. Its 140-acre campus is impressive and, having abandoned full
‘We need 800 words on a memorial school trip by next Friday. And Taki’s already written one.’ As soon as I agreed to this commission, I started to worry. What if Taki’s childhood involved countless trips to Penscynor Wildlife Park, St Fagans Museum of Welsh Things or Wookey Hole? There would be a risk of
‘D’you know what the acronym MBA stands for?’ The 27 -year-old who asked me this had a deep tan and fluorescent teeth. He may have winked, but the eye twitch was more likely a nervous tic from looking at himself in the mirror so much. I responded with a look of indifference tinged with fear.
First Charterhouse, then Winchester – now Westminster. In the past two years alone, three of Britain’s most famous schools have recently turned, or are planning to turn, fully co-educational. How many more boys’ schools will follow? One popular argument for the change is, as ever, that girls will be a ‘civilising influence’ upon teenage boys
Exams start on Monday. Thousands of A-level and GCSE pupils will be swotting hard for them right now. Some will do well; others won’t. Knowledge and ability are the two obvious keys to success. But there’s another factor that’s often overlooked: exam technique. Having taught thousands of students of all abilities at several leading schools, I
Every so often, one stumbles across some long-forgotten text that could have been written yesterday. It’s a reminder that often the answers to today’s problems lie in the past. I had one of those moments when I read Lord Baden-Powell’s Rovering to Success. Recently I had another such moment reading about Kurt Hahn’s Six Declines
It is one of those ancient mysteries: why has no Labour government been able to abolish private schools? Harold Wilson didn’t spare grammar schools (and nor did Edward Heath’s government, which followed). New Labour, too, for all its reforming zeal, never dared disembowel the independent sector. When the party did promise to do so –
Someone once said that the two greatest moments you enjoy when owning a yacht are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. You could make a similar case for school fees: nothing feels quite as good as the day you finally stop paying them. Much as we are impressed by the
Angela McAuslan-Kelly is a normal sixth-former at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen. Her dad is a bus driver and her mum works in a coffee shop. ‘They are not very wealthy,’ explains Holly Cram, a former captain of the Scottish national women’s hockey team. Angela, though, is off to Princeton in September. ‘I completely get
If the success of a new technology can be measured by the speed of uptake, there is no denying the epochal impact of ChatGPT. Within five days of its launch in late November, the artificial intelligence chatbot, which can provide clear, detailed answers to human questions, was being used by a million people. Now it’s
As half-term approaches, the kids at the school gate visibly slow down. They start dragging their feet and purple smudges appear under their eyes. I feel sorry for them. Then I think of my home country, America. No half-terms. Children in the US went back to school on 3 January and they won’t have a
Destroying private schools isn’t just a preoccupation of left-wing activists. The former education secretary Michael Gove said in 2019 that he wanted state schools to be so good that paying fees would be seen as an ‘eccentric choice’. Labour has explained that if it wins power, the party will scrap charitable status for private schools