An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Teaching methods today are no longer appropriate. The reasons are twofold. First, schools do not teach children how to think, they teach them how to parrot back the right answers. Second, exams define children’s futures. They tell them who they are, what jobs they can get and what their prospects in life will be. With
Music is far older than language. The FOXP2 gene associated with speech has been recovered from Neanderthal fossils, yet rhythm and melody have been around for millions of years before that, as attested by the fossils of chirping crickets and singing birds. Sapiens evolved on the ape line, and our songs evolved from the vocalisations
In September 2018, I made the decision to ban mobile phones during the academic day at the school where I am head teacher in Scotland. I’m pretty sure we were the first British school to make this leap of faith. It made headlines across the country. How would everyone react? I knew that I needed
Last term I invigilated a reading examination at a fee-paying prep school where I work as a supply teacher. About five minutes in, a little girl called Maisie raised her hand. She looked downcast. ‘Yes Maisie?’ She pointed, unspeaking, at the first question. ‘Shall I read it to you?’ She nodded. I read it. ‘Does
Oxford and Cambridge have released figures showing how many offers they gave to pupils from schools in the 2020 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 roughly doubled the proportion of pupils
Simon Singh, founder of the Good Thinking Society and author of The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, believes that parents should ferociously ‘lobby their children’s schools’ if they still don’t run the annual Maths Challenge. For those not familiar with it, the Maths Challenge is a phenomenally well-organised competition run by the United Kingdom Mathematics
Westminster School is being kept on its toes by its partner sixth-form college round the corner, Harris Westminster. There’s no imminent threat yet, in the ‘How many did you get into Oxbridge?’ stakes: last year, Westminster (private, £10,497 per term for day sixth-formers) got 71 of its pupils into Oxbridge, and Harris Westminster (state, £0
‘Why not be a teacher?’ asks Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s great play A Man for All Seasons. ‘You’d be a fine teacher, perhaps a great one.’ ‘If I was, who would know it?’ says Richard Rich, the young man who betrays him. ‘You, your pupils, your friends — God,’ says More. ‘Not a bad
I was working in my study at Brighton College one summer term afternoon when my PA banged on the door: someone at The Spectator wanted to speak to me urgently. An animated editor burst on the line, audibly back from a very good lunch, barking: ‘What’s all this you’re saying about exams and tests squeezing
Brampton manor academy This co-educational state school in Newham, east London, is setting the standard for the academies programme. With hundreds of high-achieving pupils, its selective sixth-form, which opened in 2012, has attracted attention for its stand-out Oxbridge achievements. This summer, 55 pupils secured Oxbridge places, beating Eton for the first time. The sixth-form receives
Some lucky parents have already solved their school and university problems. They have managed to insert their young into state grammar schools. If all goes according to plan, they will need to pay no gigantic fees, their sons and daughters will be educated to what at least looks like a high standard, in orderly classrooms
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While Labour are shuffling people round yet again.. ‘There needs to be a change in messaging from the leader’s office, because otherwise it just looks like he’s rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.’ – Isabel Hardman And the DUP are getting ready to welcome in their third leader in less than a month… ‘Donaldson is actually in
The Tory party has turned sharply against the idea of ever larger numbers going to university. The reasons for this are both economic and political, I say in the Times today. On the economic front, the taxpayer is bearing more of the cost of the expansion of higher education than expected — the government estimates that
I’d always wanted to work in the media but had no idea how to get there. I would spend hours during sixth form trawling the pages of impressive journalists on Wikipedia, desperately trying to get some sense of what was required. My conclusion? An Oxbridge education tied most of them together. Inspired, I applied to
The first thing that Dr Tim Hands, headmaster of Winchester College, would like to clear up is his school’s world-famous motto, ‘Manners maketh man’. Whenever a Wykehamist makes the papers, this ancient phrase is wheeled out, referring to his (in)decent manners. But this isn’t quite right, says Hands. Two pieces of stained glass — one
Last summer, we joined the sharp-elbowed ‘exodus’ that saw demand for places at independent schools increase by up to 30 per cent. We were guilty, according to the Observer, of creating ‘an even larger divide between affluent and disadvantaged pupils’. Not to be out (middle) classed, we went one better, enrolling our 15-year-old daughter as
Oxford and Cambridge have released figures showing how many offers they gave to pupils from various schools last year. We have combined the figures in this table below. It shows how well state grammars and sixth-form colleges now compete with Britain’s finest independent schools. Over the years, both universities have roughly doubled the proportion of
I’m teaching a boy named Drayton. He’s from a typical Coventry family. I should know. I went to school in ‘Cov’. It seems like only the day before yesterday I was hopping the fence with Drayton’s older brother to go to KFC. But that was ten years ago. These days, Drayton orders an Uber Eats
Rod Liddle If you leave a Bunsen burner on for about ten minutes, then quickly put the rubber pipe over a water tap and turn it on full, you get a small explosion and a scalding stream of water to be directed at a boy called Harris. Similarly, if you attach crocodile clips to Harris’s
You might have seen ‘Asian dad’ memes on the internet, poking fun at the famously high expectations of fathers from my part of the world. ‘You Asian, not B-sian,’ he says in one version. Or: ‘After homework, you can play… the piano.’ My personal favourite is a picture of a crying Chinese girl saying: ‘I
One of the great advantages private schools offer is an ability to change with the times. While some hold on to traditional notions, many are adapting nimbly to the new woke world — expunging their problematic historical figures and educating pupils in the new equivalent of U and Non-U. But how do parents ensure their
If you were starting with a blank screen to design an education system today, it seems unlikely that you would think of creating single-sex schools, any more than you would single-sex professions or single-sex restaurants. Education for life is something we do together, like working or eating. Their existence is explained by the fact that
Thinking about taking up a musical instrument, but unsure where to start? Whether you have amazing musical abilities or not one iota, try our handy quiz to find out what’s right for you, from tissue paper and comb to saxophone.
What I remember in most vivid detail about my school trips are the coach journeys. This may be testimony to the fact that the schools I went to never took me anywhere glamorous, not because they didn’t have the money (our parents were paying enough) but because it wasn’t really thought decent or necessary to
I had a Post-it note beside my laptop during the online lessons I taught during lockdown. It simply said ‘shut up’. I have spent 20 years teaching maths in urban comprehensives, reflecting and refining my methods and trying to train others. I thought I was doing a pretty decent job, but the pandemic and the
St Edward’s School, Oxford St Edward’s School has featured in these pages before, because of its North Wall performing arts centre which attracts (in ‘normal’ times) more than 20,000 public visitors a year to its exhibitions and performances. St Edward’s sets great store by being part of Oxford as a whole. ‘Beyond Teddies’ is the
Is the Auschwitz museum suitable for children? I pondered that question on a visit accompanied by a plane load of secondary school teachers, organised by The Holocaust Educational Trust. The Holocaust was first included on the UK’s National Curriculum in 1991 and the Trust charters aeroplanes for a professional development course for UK teachers, taking them to Auschwitz and
All you carefree millennials sans famille – spare a thought for parents currently in lockdown. While twenty-somethings may be secretly rubbing their hands with glee at the chance to catch up on their books bucket list or work their way through Netflix over the next three months, there is no such joy for parents. The
Oxford and Cambridge have gone to great lengths over the last few years to increase the number of admissions of state-school educated students at undergraduate level – to varying degrees of success. As Robin Harman reported in Spectator Life recently, there’s still a worrying disparity between the number of offers made to disadvantaged pupils and
